In answer to the second objection, I shall observe, that this work was not intended as a detailed treatise on Hindustan architecture, but as an essay describing the reasons for recommending that particular style for a particular spot, where the confinement of the place, the character of the garden, and other circumstances, justify its adoption; and it is now before the public to judge how far the beauties and advantages of the same style may deserve to be extended to other places. I may also observe, that, as there was no occasion to discuss more at length the inapplicability of Grecian or Gothic forms, when both had been previously rejected, it became my duty to compress the subject into the narrowest possible compass.
It has frequently been remarked, that a spirit of party and prejudice is so natural to man, that it extends from religion and politics to the arts and sciences of a country. Thus, in philosophy, in poetry, and in all the liberal arts, a difference of opinion is supported or condemned with all the zeal of party bigotry. The admirers of Grecian architecture, and those who have studied the ruins of ancient Italy, from the time of INIGO JONES and Sir CHRISTOPHER WREN to the artists of the present day, speak with contempt of all other styles, and reproachfully call them GOTHIC; while those who have directed their attention to the variety and beauty of forms among the old English remains, glory in changing the term GOTHIC, to ANCIENT ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE, as a style doing honour to their country. Whatever is written in praise of one style, will be condemned by the partisans of the other. What, then, must an author expect, who dares to become an advocate of a style totally different from either, especially where his opinions appear under the high sanction with which the following pages have been honoured?
