PART III. ARCHITECTURE. 117 



to Gothic topped windows ; and Venetian windows have been 

 terminated and finished by mouldings and labels, in the Gothic 

 manner. All distinction between the mouldings of each have 

 been confounded ; and in the roof, domes, towers, and pedi- 

 ments, terminated by monkish crosses or gilded balls, and sur- 

 rounded by battlements or ballustrades, have been crowded 

 together, to the entire destruction of that principle which con- 

 stitutes the essential excellence of architecture — harmony. 

 Some of the best situations and finest scenery in Scotland were 

 some years ago disgraced by buildings of this kind ; and the 

 irrational admiration paid to the eminent artist who introduced 

 them has rendered this style so much the fashion in that coun- 

 try, as to exclude almost every other. Sooner or later, how- 

 ever, those gentlemen who erect these productions will discover 

 their mistake ; though it will not be until so many have been 

 erected, as will make posterity regret the taste of their an- 

 cestors. 



The artist who introduced this mode of architecture enjoyed 

 all the advantages of education, fortune, travel, and friends ; 

 and it is truly humbling to human nature, to think that he 

 should have so far deviated from good taste. Some errors of 

 architects are pardonable, as having been copied from those 

 productions of antiquity which ought always to be examined 

 with care, and which every one reveres. But this error pro- 



