Throughout the Back Bay district there are numberless vestibule and hall floors in fine residences, many of which are gems in color and design.
We have mentioned only a few examples, but almost every New England architect can, by writing to the Murdock Parlor Grate Company, be referred to examples of their work in his neighborhood, and we think he will find their estimates as low as it is safe to accept, and their responsibility is beyond all question.
Books.
A Handbook of Architectural Styles: Translated from the German of A. Rosengarten by W. Collett-Sandars. New edition, 639 illustrations. New York: C. Scribner's Sons. 1895. For sale by Bates & Guild, Boston. $2.50.
A review of the contents of this work is scarcely necessary, as it is already recognized as a standard by all who are at all familiar with architectural literature. As compared with other books upon the history of architecture, the point of view from which the subject has been looked at furnishes the main distinction. This cannot be better stated than in the words of the editor of the present edition, Professor T. Roger Smith. He says: "It is essentially that of an academic and classical professor, and one brought up not only in familiarity with the best examples of ancient art, but with the habit of mind which recurs to classic and especially to Greek originals, both as a standard of taste and as models for treatment of modern works. This feeling, which held sway in England in the day of Chambers, of Soane, and of Cockerell, has now almost died out from our practice and our literature. The works of the contemporary English and French writers on architecture, which are now widely known and read, proceed avowedly and unmistakably on a different basis. Such writings as those of Street or Scott, Viollet-le-Duc, and Ruskin breathe a totally different inspiration; while even the valuable series of architectural writings which we owe to the pen of Mr. Fergusson are too cosmopolitan in range and too impartial in tone for such a peculiarity as is here traceable to be visible in them."
The illustrations show some of the wear and tear of former editions, but are still of great value.