One of Disraeli’s favorite ideas was that London ought to be made the
most magnificent city in the world—a real _Kaiserstadt_, or imperial
town, a model to all other cities in the character of its public
buildings, the sanitary perfection and outer picturesqueness of its
private houses, the width of its streets, etc. When Napoleon III.
commenced the re-edification of Paris he used to say: “Is it not pitiful
that the emperor should be doing by force what we could do so much better
of our own free will, if we had a proper pride, to say nothing of good
sense in the matter?” Once when he was staying at Knole, he launched out
into a parody of Macaulay’s idea of the New Zealander meditating over
the ruins of London Bridge. He imagined this personage reconstructing in
fancy a row of villas at Brixton: “What picture he would make of it! he
would naturally suppose that knowing how to build, and having just awoken
to a knowledge of sanitation, we had built according to the best ideas
in our heads.” Then he took his New Zealander among the ruins of the
stately commercial palaces crowded in narrow lanes all round the Bank,
and the Exchange: “He would conclude that there must after all have been
some tyrannical laws which prevented our merchants from combining their
resources to make their streets spacious and effective, for it would seem
absurd to him that intelligent men should, at a great cost, have built
palaces for themselves in holes and corners where nobody could admire
them properly, when by acting in concert, they might at much less expense
have set much finer palaces in noble avenues, courts and squares.” Then
Disraeli broke out into an animated description of his regenerate London
with Wren’s four grand approaches to St. Paul’s, boulevards transecting
the metropolis in all directions; and the palace of Whitehall rebuilt
after Inigo Jones’s designs to make new government offices. He would have
covered the embankment pedestals with statues of admirals set in colossal
groups recalling great naval achievements, and he thought Stepney ought
to have its cathedral of St. Peter, and containing memorials to all the
humble heroes, sailors or fishermen who lost their lives performing acts
of courage on the water. When he had finished speaking somebody observed
that his plan would cost £200,000,000, and convert every ratepayer into
a porcupine. “We may have to pay £500,000,000 in the end for doing
things in the present way,” he answered; “and as to the porcupine, he is
manageable enough if you handle him in the right way.”—_Temple Bar._