2i6 The Art of Landscape Gardening 



deemed essential to comfort and magnificence: perhaps, 

 in future ages, new rooms for new purposes will be 

 deemed equally necessary. But to a house of perfect 

 symmetry these can never be added: yet it is principally 

 to these additions, during a long succession of years, 

 that we are indebted for the magnificent irregularity 

 and splendid intricacy observable in the neighbouring 

 palaces of Knowle and Penshurst. Under these circum- 

 stances that plan cannot be good which will admit of 

 no alteration. 



♦' Malum consilium est, quod non mutari potest." 

 [It is a bad counsel which cannot be changed.] 



But in a house of this irregular character, every sub- 

 sequent addition will increase the importance: and if 

 I have endeavoured to adopt some of the cumbrous 

 magnificence of former times, I trust that no modern 

 conveniences or elegances will be unprovided for. 



It has been doubted how far a house, externally 

 Gothic,'*^ should internally preserve the same character; 

 and the most ridiculous fancies have been occasionally 

 introduced in libraries and eating-rooms, to make them 

 appear of the same date with the towers and battlements 

 of a castle, without considering that such rooms are of 

 modern invention, and, consequently, the attempt 

 becomes an anachronism: perhaps the only rooms of 

 a house which can, with propriety, be Gothic, are the 

 hall, the chapel, and those long passages which lead 

 to the several apartments; and in these the most 

 correct detail should be observed. 



