At most of the railroad stations there are large boards, on which are painted regulations, or other information relative to matters connected with the railroad; and as these regulations may be supposed to be occasionally altered, we would still continue to have them painted on boards; but we would form panels on raised surfaces in which these boards should be fixed, in the same way as a picture is a frame. The panels should be made sufficiently large to admit of a larger board than might be wanted at the time the station house wns built, in order to provide room for the additional regulations that may be supposed to become necessary as the traffic on the railway increases; but the board, whether covered with lines or not, should always be sufficiently large to fill the whole of the panel. We would carry this principle of rendering writing architectural to turnpike houses and gates, and to the signs and names of inns, public-houses, and shops; to names on the gates of manufactories; to those on private doors; to the names of gentlemen's seats, which, we think, ought to be sculptured on sunk or raised panels or shields on their entrance lodges or gates; to the names of cottages and villages; and, in short, to every architectural structure where a name was required, or would be useful. Had the art of writing been coeval with that of architecture, there is little doubt that writing would have been introduced on buildings in an architectural manner, as ornaments of leaves and flowers have been; but since this could not be done by ancient architects, it is for the modern artist to supply the defect, and introduce writing on edifices artistically, and, in doing so, to produce something superior to the mode of putting the hieroglyphics on the Egyptian tombs or obelisks, or the letters on the jambs of the shop-doors in Pompeii, or over the doors and windows of shops in modern towns.
