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.