Concerning gates, it may not be improper to mention my opinion, with reasons for it. 1st. As an entrance near a town, I prefer close wooden gates, for the sake of privacy, except where the view is only into a wood, and not into the open lawn. 2nd. The gates should be of iron, or close boards, if hanging to piers of stone or brick-work; otherwise an open or common field-gate of wood appears mean, or as if only a temporary expedient. 3rd. If the gates are of iron, the posts or piers ought to be conspicuous, because an iron gate hanging to an iron pier of the same colour, is almost invisible; and the principal entrance to a park should be so marked that no one may mistake it. 4th. If the entrance-gate be wood, it should, for the same reason, be painted white, and its form should rather tend to shew its construction, than aim at fanciful ornament of Chinese, or Gothic,* for reasons to be explained, in speaking of decorations.
*[That I may not appear too severe in my comments upon those fanciful forms called Gothic, I am not ashamed to acknowledge, that, when I first retired into the country, I began the improvements to my own residence in Norfolk, by putting a sharp-pointed window in a cottage seen from my house; and in my former work a design was inserted for a wooden-gate, which I then deemed applicable to the Gothic character, before I became better acquainted with subjects of antiquity.]
