was founded. It is also designed by Jones and Lee. It is, as you see, a graceful and airy structure, peculiarly suited to its objects. According to the wishes of its founder, it is open for the reception of the sick, irrespective of creed or country. The building is Italian, flanked with towers and arranged with noble piazzas, which afford an admirable promenade under shelter for the convalescents. The comforts of the interior suitably correspond to the external beauty of the structure. The household is provided, like the Orphan House, with a regular physician, with nurses and attendants; and though of only recent erection, it has already, during the last yellow-fever season, done admirable service, being crowded with destitute sufferers from the epidemic, all of whom experienced the blessings of that noble charity which was contemplated by the generous founder of the institution. In the distance, in the same picture, you have a view of the Medical College of South Carolina, a CHARLESTON. building which, badly planned in the first in- ST. MICHAEL'S CHUROIL. The college building would show well in a picture, but our daguerreotypist has omitted it from his survey. Talking of schools and colleges brings us to the admirable military academies of South Carolina, one of which is established in this city. This is a highly flourishing institution, which usually numbers from 150 to 200 students, onehalf of whom are élèves of the State-beneficiary pupils. The graduates of this institution have mostly been working-men; have almost in every instance, on leaving the school, passed at once into useful public employments; showing the superior discipline and training of the academy over all the other schools of the country, especially in producing the solid results of a practical and scientific education. No graduates of any other institution in the State have ever so instantly borne testimony to the virtues and excellences of their Alma Mater. It supplies by its military organization what is the great deficiency in Southern training-discipThe Southern boys are of ardent, impetline. uous temper, strong of will, and impatient of authority; and it is only by a military training, which makes discipline a point of honor as well without as duty-which coerces the respect of the student through a certain esprit du corps, irritating his self-esteem-that you can exercise | one of the most airy and attractive in the Pala proper control in their government. Judging metto City. by the results thus far, the State of South Carolina could not do more wisely than to turn all her public schools and colleges into so many military academies. The Citadel Academy building occupies a large space, and opens upon the largest of all the public squares of the city. Indeed, this is the only public square in Charleston that merits the title. The original design of this structure was by Wesner; the wings have been added, and other improvements made, after the designs of Colonel White, another of the architects of the Palmetto City, who takes high rank in his profession. You see that such a building implies ample room and verge enough. It fronts south, on the great square or parade which spreads away to, and borders on, Calhoun Street. With this square, that of the Orphan House, on the west, but a few hundred yards off; that of the Charleston College, on the southwest, a few hundred yards further; and a square on the east, which fronts the Second Presbyterian Church; all this precinct is well ventilated, and sprinkled with churches, large dwellings, fine, spacious grounds, and pleasant gardens. This section of the city is altogether ST. PHILIP'S CIECH. Here, too, fronting west on the same square, is a new and beautiful church of the Baptists. Our artist includes it among his collection, and we give it as a very pretty specimen of the Norman style of architecture, the only specimen, we believe, south of the Potomac. The spire of this church is 224 feet high. The interior is finished with an open timber roof of bold, free design. The Norman details and decorations have been carried out in every portion of the structure, which adds, in no moderate degree, to the architectural pretensions of the city. Its extreme dimensions are 80 feet (front) on Meeting Street, and 155 on Henrietta. The side walls are 40 feet high, and the west, or front, is 70 feet to the point of the gable. The audience-room, which is elevated 54 feet above the pavement, is 55 feet wide by 110 feet long, and, with the galleries, will accommodate 1200 persons. The east end of the building is of two stories, the first being provided with a study for the pastor, and other apartments; the second, for a Sunday-school and lecture-room, with library attached. But we can not venture upon any detailed account of the plan and structure. The design is by Jones and Lee. The Baptists have four churches in Charleston, and have lately received a new impulse which daily increases their numbers. The square above is occupied by the Second Presbyterian Church; but as this fabric did not commend itself to the taste of our artist, he has foreborne its portrait. It belongs to what we have called the medieval period in the Palmetto City; in which, while taste was beginning to assert its desires for improvement, there was no corresponding capacity, on the part of the local arts, to serve properly its desires. It seems to have been the plan of a mere mechanic. It is one of the many heavy brick and stucco deformities of Charleston. A far better style of church architecture is another house of the Presbyterians, called The Central Church, a quarter of a mile below in the same street. This is a recent structure of temple (Grecian) form, approached by a spacious flight of steps, leading to a fine portico of the Roman Corinthian order. The proportions of the exterior are admirable-decidedly the finest specimen of this class that Charleston possesses - very chaste and elegant, both within and without, and as nearly faultless, in respect to symmetry, as we can conceive such a work to be. There is an 'objection, however, to the style, but only as it regards locality. To be altogether satisfied with the Grecian temple style, we must first satisfy the mind and eye in respect to place. Now, there is no getting over the absurdity of a Greek temple on a dead city level-taking a model from a mountain, designed expressly for a great elevation, and letting it down upon the plain, where it is overlooked on every side by meaner, but taller, structures. This Central Church, placed upon the Sunian Steep, would be perfect of its kind. The American rage for Gre cian models, some few years back, made its way in this matter of architecture, though they still to the Palmetto City, and several were raised of expend large sums upon ambitious monstrosithis class, which consumed a great deal of mon- ties, public and private. The Municipal Watchey, without any adequate result in beauty. The house is one of these atrocities of taste. It is Hibernian Hall, The Jewish Synagogue, The modern. The City Hall is in frivolous taste, Baptist Church (Wentworth Street), are all but belongs to a comparatively early period, and specimens of this sort, none of them so admir- was designed for other uses. The State House able as the Central Church, and all of them building, meant for public offices and the keepout of place, for proper effects, where they ing of archives, is a dull, square mass of brick stand. The Grecian style is wholly inappro- and stucco, which has but the single merit of priate to such a dead level as that of Charles-looking solid, and perhaps of being so. It ton. The skies, climate, and plain surface of was designed by Robert Mills, a native archithe city considered, and the light Moorish, Sar-tect, who has distinguished himself more reacen, Italian even the Gothic-are all in bet-cently, and most deplorably, according to our ter propriety. But about the time when these notion, by his design for the Washington Monfabrics were conceived, the Greek was some- ument of the Federal City, the conception of thing of a frenzy North and South, though rare- which seems to be due to a very vivid recolly a proper style for either region. But men lection of one of the little old three-cornered built their dwellings, offices, and outhouses aft- cocked hats of the Revolutionary period, with a er Grecian temples; as if the Greeks them- great rapier of the Middle Ages thrust upward selves had ever assigned such fabrics as abodes through its crown. for any but their gods, or had ever built such structures, whether for gods or men, any where but on noble eminences, looking grandly forth upon plain or sea! But we have survived these absurdities of thought and taste. The people of the Palmetto City, especially, are improving We are not sure that the good citizens of Charleston now differ in any respect from us in regard to the buildings we have indicated. They could wish, most of them, that the fine sites which they disfigure were occupied by more proper fabrics. They have other build ings, however, which commend themselves as in 1761. Its tower is supposed to be one of antiques, where they might not do so as architectural models; such, for example, as the old State House building, now used by the courts of justice; a colonial structure, of good proportions, and simple correct style, without pretension, and of that British period, "when George the First was king," when the tastes of Britain, in palace, grounds, and garden, were all trimly Dutchified, after the royal model. The saving feature in the style of this building is to be found in its wholly ambitionless aspect. It is content to be big, solid, square, and lofty, serving its purposes, and making no fuss, and challenging no man's admiration. And this is no small recommendation in the case of plain fabrics, as of plain people. But on the opposite corner of the street, southeast of Broad and Meeting, is another antique of the old colonial period, the sight of which always rouses the pride of the Palmetto citizen. This is St. Michael's Church (Episcopalian), a fine old fabric, and one of the best specimens of the British architectural talent of its day, at least as this was exhibited in its American production. the noblest ornaments of the city. The proportions are good; the effect is graceful and imposing. The extreme elevation is 168 feet; no great elevation, perhaps, except in a city so little above the sea as Charleston. It is here even now overtopped by others. But it is not a mere spire. It is a series of ornamented chambers, gradually rising from each other; and involves dimensions of greater bulk and weight than any other of the city towers, St. Philip's alone excepted. The church of St. Michael seems to be deficient in relation with the tower, and the effect is not good. It is too squat for the steeple. The extreme length of the body of the church is 130 feet, its width 60. As a whole, the structure is in good taste, simple and proper; while this steeple, from its proportions, and an air of grace and lightness, which lessens greatly your idea of its bulk and weight, is in the highest degree pleasing and impressive. This tower constituted, until a comparatively recent period, the great landmark of the city from the sea. It was the chief, or only beacon, in the period of the Revolution, and was painted This fine church was first opened for worship black, when the assailing British fleet was an UNITARIAN CHURCH. ticipated, in order to prevent their use of it as a guide to the harbor. But this was a mistake. Black against a light-blue sky was a more certain landmark than white. It has a very musical chime of eight bells, none sweeter in the country. In the humid climate of Charleston the bells acquire a rare sweetness of tone, and those of St. Michael's are especially musical. Of these bells there is a curious history. They were taken down and sent, as a portion of the spolia opima of the captured city, to London for sale. They were bought by London merchants, and restored by them to the church, whether as a gift or by purchase we are not able to say. If the former, then due credit must be given to the Mammon worshipers, who were thus willing, upon occasion, to pay tribute to Jehovah! Next to St. Michael's, the veneration of old Charleston is accorded to St. Philip's, another Anglican church. This building, as you will perceive, was of statelier cast and character than St. Michael's, though, until a A recent period, it was sur mounted by a belfry instead of a tower. In one of the great fires by which this city has been so often devastated, old St. Philip's perished. It was subsequently rebuilt, nearly upon the former plan, and the tower was added from an architectural design of Colonel White. This tower is about 200 feet in height, and its proportions are very much admired; by some, indeed, preferred to those of St. Michael. St. Philip's was founded in 1711, though not used till 1723. Its form is that of a cross, the foot of which, constituting the nave, is 74 feet long, 62 wide. The arms form the vestibule, tower, and porticoes, at each end, projecting 12 feet beyond the sides, and surmounted by a pediment. The interior decorations of this church are rich and impressive, much more so than St. Michael's. The church, as a place of worship, seems to have been greatly preferred by the early and more aristocratic settlers. Its monuments are so many trophies of the past, and of many of the remarkable men by whom the rising character of the Palmetto City was first established. For the history of both of these establishments, the curious reader is referred to Dalcho's Church Histo ry of South Carolina; a very useful and in- pattern. The windows are of richly stained structive chronicle. glass, the effect of which, as described by a line of Spenser, One Next to these, from its size, beauty, and the height of its steeple, is the Roman Catholic "A little glooming light, most like a shade," cathedral of St. John and St. Finbar. This admirably answers for that dim religious light structure occupies a fine situation at the west which properly belongs to such a structure. end of Broad Street. It is of recent erection, The church is not large, but its finish is more of brown freestone, from a design by Keely, of costly, perhaps, than that of any other religious Brooklyn. Its style is graceful and imposing. structure in the city. The old fabric, by-theThe spire is said to be some 220 feet in height. way, had quite an antique experience of its Of its details we have nothing to deliver, and own, which made it one of the local monuno space if we had. Of the general effect our ments of the place. In the Revolution, occupyportrait will convey a sufficient idea. In the ing its present site, it stood on the very confines same quarter of the city, and at no great dis- of the city, on the west. There were few dwelltance from this cathedral of the Catholics, ings near it; some public structures only. though in another street (Archdale), is the of these was a "pest-house," another "a prisChurch of the Unitarians, the only one which on" and "house for the insane and poor," and, that sect maintains in the Palmetto City. This lastly, "an arsenal" and "place of arms." Not building has quite recently undergone renova- far off was one of the city bastions or batteries, tion, having been converted from a mere oblong and, close by, a powder magazine, one of the square, with an unsightly tower, into the neat largest in the place: there were also barracks Gothic temple which you now behold. The for soldiers. On the surrender of the city, the remodeling of this church was effected under citizens were ordered to bring all the arms and a plan of Jones and Lee. The old walls still munitions of war in their several houses, and remain, but so changed that the work seems deposit them at this arsenal and place of guard. almost magical. The building, as it now ap- They did so, very sullenly, and with the natural pears, is of the perpendicular Gothic. The in- feelings of ill-suppressed pride, mortification, terior is most elaborately finished, with fan- and that rage which "does not dare to speak, tracery of an extremely rich and complicated but shows its teeth," they threw down their |