The Government offices in Whitehall were to be rebuilt; Mr. Scott competed, and his designs were successful.  Naturally, they were in the Gothic style, combining “a certain squareness and horizontality of outline” with pillar-mullions, gables, high-pitched roofs, and dormers; and the drawings, as Mr. Scott himself observed, “were, perhaps, the best ever sent in to a competition, or nearly so.”  After the usual difficulties and delays the work was at last to be put in hand, when there was a change of Government and Lord Palmerston became Prime Minister.  Lord Palmerston at once sent for Mr. Scott.  “Well, Mr. Scott,” he said, in his jaunty way, “I can’t have anything to do with this Gothic style.  I must insist on your making a design in the Italian manner, which I am sure you can do very cleverly.”  Mr. Scott was appalled; the style of the Italian renaissance was not only unsightly, it was positively immoral, and he sternly refused to have anything to do with it.  Thereupon Lord Palmerston assumed a fatherly tone.  “Quite true; a Gothic architect can’t be expected to put up a Classical building; I must find someone else.”  This was intolerable, and Mr. Scott, on his return home, addressed to the Prime Minister a strongly-worded letter, in which he dwelt upon his position as an architect, upon his having won two European competitions, his being an A.R.A., a gold medallist of the Institute, and a lecturer on architecture at the Royal Academy; but it was useless—­Lord Palmerston did not even reply.  It then occurred to Mr. Scott that, by a judicious mixture, he might, while preserving the essential character of the Gothic, produce a design which would give a superficial impression of the Classical style.  He did so, but no effect was produced upon Lord Palmerston.  The new design, he said, was “neither one thing nor ’tother—­a regular mongrel affair—­and he would have nothing to do with it either.”  After that Mr. Scott found it necessary to recruit for two months at Scarborough, “with a course of quinine.”  He recovered his tone at last, but only at the cost of his convictions.  For the sake of his family he felt that it was his unfortunate duty to obey the Prime Minister; and, shuddering with horror, he constructed the Government offices in a strictly Renaissance style.

Shortly afterwards Mr. Scott found some consolation in building the St. Pancras Hotel in a style of his own.

And now another and yet more satisfactory task was his.  “My idea in designing the Memorial,” he wrote, “was to erect a kind of ciborium to protect a statue of the Prince; and its special characteristic was that the ciborium was designed in some degree on the principles of the ancient shrines.  These shrines were models of imaginary buildings, such as had never in reality been erected; and my idea was to realise one of these imaginary structures with its precious materials, its inlaying, its enamels, etc. etc.”  His idea was particularly