THE MIRROR
OF
LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.
| Vol. XIII, No. 358. | SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1829. | [PRICE 2d. |
YORK TERRACE, REGENT'S PARK.YORK TERRACE,
REGENT'S PARK.
If the reader is anxious to illustrate anypolitical position with the "signs of thetimes," he has only to start from Waterloo-place,(thus commencing with a gloriousreminiscence,) through Regent-streetand Portland-place, and make the architecturaltour of the Regent's Park. Enteringthe park from the New Road byYork Gate, one of the first objects for hisadmiration will be York Terrace, a splendidrange of private residences, which hasthe appearance of an unique palace. Thisstriking effect is produced by all the entrancesbeing in the rear, where the vestibulesare protected by large porches. Allthe doors and windows in the principalfront represented in the engraving areuniform, and appear like a suite of princelyapartments, somewhat in the style of alittle Versailles. This idea is assisted bythe gardens having no divisions.
The architecture of the building isGræco-Italian. It consists of an entranceor ground story, with semicircular headedwindows and rusticated piers. A continuedpedestal above the arches of thesewindows runs through the composition, dividedbetween the columns into balustrades,in front of the windows of the principalstory, to which they form handsome balconies.The elegant windows of this and theprincipal chamber story are of the IlissusIonic, and are decorated with a colonnade,completed with a well-proportioned entablaturefrom the same beautiful order.Mr. Elmes, in his critical observationson this terrace, thinks the attic story "tooirregular to accompany so chaste a compositionas the Ionic, to which it forms acrown;" he likewise objects to the corniceand blocking-course, as being "also toosmall in proportion for the majesty of thelower order."
York Terrace is from the design of Mr.Nash, whose genius not unfrequentlystrays into such errors as our architecturalcritic has pointed out.
VALENTINE CUSTOMS.
(To the Editor of the Mirror.)
As some of the customs described by yourcorrespondent W.H.H.1 are left unaccountedfor, I suppose any one is atliberty to sport a few conjectures on thesubject. May not, for instance, the practiceof burning the "holly boy" have itsorigin in some of those rustic incantationsdescribed by Theocritus as the meansof recalling a truant lover, or of warminga cold one; and thus translated:—
"First Delphid injured me, he raised my flame,
And now I burn this bough in Delphid's name."
Virgil, too, in his 8th Eclogue, alludesto the same charm:—
"Sparge molam, et fragiles incende bitumine lauros;
Daphnis me malus urit, ego hanc in Daphnide laurum."
"Next in the fire the bays with b