A great fight is going on between the architects and
the Board of Works, in which the Board has the worst of it. Mr. Ayrton says Mr. Barry, the Architect of the House of Commons, is expensive, and dismisses him ; in which Mr. Ayrton is probably in the right. Every architect wishes to be expensive ; first, because expense means to him artistic pleasure, as he cannot realize his ideas so well if he has to work cheaply ; and secondly, because he is paid, by the custom of the profession, by a per-centage ; that is, in pro- portion to his extravagance. But then Mr. Ayrton demanded that Mr. Barry's drawings of the courses of the flues, &c., in the Westminster Palace should be given up to the Board. Mr. Barry offered copies but refused the originals, and clearly he was quite in the right. In the first place, they are his by law, the custom
of centuries, as the Builder observes, having settled that point ; and in the second place, they are needful as witnesses should he ever be held responsible for defects of construction. Mr. Ayrton is always on the aide of the public, but he is always too hard and despotic, and contrives to irritate even those who perceive that he is really fighting against an association which will not be convinced that if it would sanction cheapness it would have twice the work and be muchbetter paid.
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