Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/949

 VILLAS IN VARIOUS STYLES. 925 161- as a composition, will perhaps be most effectually promoted by the introduction in this l)lace of some observations upon Pointed Architecture in general (for, on the ground of correctness and significancy, the term « Pointed," is far preferable to the nickname of " Gothic "), and more especially as applicable to the principal subjects of which this work professes to treat. 1872. The claims which Pointed Architecture has upon the favour of an Englishman are indeed of a supreme and unrivalled order. It was in England that that style, the last and finest of the great general systems of human taste, found a congenial home, and dis- played its most luxuriant beauties, as well as much of its most impressive grandeur. It was here that, in its progressive gi'owth and developement, it exhibited its happy adapt- ation to the wants of the people, the exigencies of the climate, and the diversities of circumstances ; and it was on this land that it threw the last lingering beams of its effulgence, which still struggled amidst the gathering darkness, until overpowered by the night of blind affectation and lawless extravagance. Happily, however, for the interests of sound taste, our country, after having given trial, for nearly three centuries, to the merits of what was called Classic Architecture, both the true and the false, has begun to discern that the native style, so long neglected, has claims to admiration which the pretensions of foreign art can never eclipse or invalidate. Accordingly, our o-rni nation has been the most forward to compensate for its past indifference, by exhibiting, of late years,^ the efforts of a laudable zeal in the preservation and restoration of some of the most interesting remains of antiquity ; and, if we cannot profess any admiration for the great mass of what are called « Modern Gothic" compositions, we must, at the same time, confess, that the fact of their existence demonstrates, at least, a favourable direction of the public mind, and affords a hope that future attempts will assume a far more successful character. Indeed the daily increased extension of general knowledge involves the over- throw of false principles and unreasonable prejudices in art; and, when to the removal of these is added a comprehensive acquaintance with the resources and characteristic spirit of a system of such richness and amplitude as that of Pointed Architecture, we shall be relieved from all fear lest that style should be undervalued, and shall suffer no appre- hension for the purity of the new specimens therein, or the security of the old. We are not sanguine enough to expect that Pointed Architecture should again become as fashion- able among us as it formerly was, when it imparted a character even to the hovels of the poor; nor, indeed, are we disposed, upon the whole, to wish that it should be so; for, in these times of increased population, of extended building, and of freedom of opinion in matters of taste, we should fear that, under the best practicable state of public culture, the propagation of deformity, and of the gingerbread style of art, would be far more rapid than that of the chaste and the beautiful. At the same time, it is our