-^79 2. Oft taste in architecture. yjf 



Taste in architecture, therefore, is the child of sen- 

 sibility, of nature, of experience, of the studj of the 

 antique, of good sense and propriety. 



It will languilh in a rude climate, where there is 

 not wealth to promote great undertakings ; it will be 

 debauched and enervated in any country where sud- 

 den wealth has checked its progrefsive improvement, 

 and prescribed plans to it, that are inconsistent with 

 clafsick examples ; and it will be finally destroyed by 

 the introduction of patch work ornament, and dimi- 

 nutive parts, even though every individual part may 

 be taken from the best models. 



As I write for no particular country, I ihall escape 

 the censure that I might incur by blaming artists ; 

 but these, in all countries, if not blinded by vanity 

 or corrupted by vicious.practices in architecture, will 

 read their chastisement in the luminous principles 

 that are drawn from the history of the art, and its 

 connection with the inexterminable principles of the 

 human understanding and the human heart. 



As the fine models of antiquity were, from the 

 '■wealth of individuals, and the general diffusion of 

 'that wealth in Britaia, more copied in the internal 

 decorations of apartments, than in the verification 

 of great models and in public edifices; so almost a!l 

 our artists have been faulty in the poverty of their 

 designs, in the want of noble columniation, Hiedowy 

 division of parts, and in what I would beg leave t» 

 call the perspective of architectuTe. 



Thus, have I compkted the fketch of my reflec* 

 tlons, on the sources of improvement in architec- 

 ture, and concerning that taste by which it must be 



VOL. xi. a + 



