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Plate XXIII.— HFttfll Of tf)f principal JfttUtt. —The exterior cha-racter of this Design appertains to the reign of Elizabeth, when arches nolonger crowned the mullioned divisions of windows, and Roman mould-ings and ornaments were not only blended with, but had nearly super-seded, those of our ancient architecture. After this period we findnothing like purity: the builders seem to-have indulged their distem-pered imaginations without restraint; and if English buildings bearingtraces of the pointed style, at any time remote from our own period,deserved to be stigmatised as “ Gothic ,” those erected during the reignsof James the First and his immediate descendants have the strongestclaim to that distinction.*

With the date first mentioned the illustrations of this Volume termi-nate ; for, anxious as an architect ought to be to preserve every structurehaving the least pretension to antiquity, and jealously as innovation ofall kinds should be regarded, the taste of that man must be at leastquestionable who would begin anew to perpetuate a style loaded withabsurdities and monstrosities. By innovation is meant that practice socommon with professors of the present day, when employed to makeadditions to old mansions, of applying any manner of architecture whichhappens to suit their own notions, however discordant it may be withthe original pile.

Notwithstanding the foregoing remarks, the writer is not insensibleto the beauties of Longleat, Hatfield, Holland House, and others ofthe same period; yet he will venture to assert, with reference to the

* Inigo Jones ’s splendid buildings in the Roman style are not, of course, contemplated inthese observations. Such models may even now be studied with advantage; and are monu-ments of an original and vigorous mind.