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imperfect jrrches •, both are awful, and imprefs 

 upon the mind a kind of religious melancholy ? 

 an eficct fo difficult to raife by art, that we fcarcely 

 ever find a modem ruirr that, in caufmg fuch^ 

 has the leall power. — Ruins generally appear bell: 

 at a diftancc •, if you approach them, the effect 

 h \reakened, unrlefs the accet is fomewhat diffi- 

 cult : And, as to penetrating every part by means 

 of artificial paths, it is a quellion wliecher the 

 more you fee by fach means does not propor- 

 li^nably leffcn the gegj^ral idea of the whole, 

 looking, as it were, by ftealth through pafTages 

 that cannot be palTed, heaps of rubbiih Hopping 

 you in one place, broken fteps preventing both 

 afcent and defcent in another ; in a word, fome 

 parts that cannot be feen at all, others that are 

 Kalf feen ; and thofe fully viewed, broken, rugged, 

 and terrible. — In fuch the imagination has a free 

 (^>ace to range in, and fketches ruins in idea 



beyond the boldeft limits of reality. Level 



thefe difficulties, and lay open the hidden receflcs 

 impervaded by the fun for fo many centuries, you 

 at once deftroy thefe great effects ; you leave the 

 fancy no room to magnify; and (if che building 

 be gothic) twenty to one whether a fingle part in 

 genuine beauty makes amends for fuch a lofs: — 

 you at beft viev/ but the ruins of diftortion, not 

 the remnants cf Grecian elegance. Thefe reafons 

 appear to me of fufficient force to juftify the 

 leaving a ruin in the wildeH: and moft melancholy 

 ftate the rava^ins hand of Time can have thrown 

 it into. As to Fcuntaine^s abbey, the prclent 

 pofTefTor has too much tafte to leflen the effe<ft of 

 one fo fpacious •, the circumftances I before hinted 

 v.'cre I then remarked temporary. 



The 



