So far, therefore, from regretting the brevity of this work, it may be feared that I have said too much on a subject which few can understand, and in which my own knowledge must have been derived from the representations and drawings of others, and not from an actual view of the existing models. This naturally leads to the third objection, viz. That there are no certain data for the style recommended; that in our knowledge of Grecian forms, we have the most minute admeasurements of the detail of ancient buildings; that in the Gothic forms, we can have recourse to a thousand examples in the remains of various dates; but in that of Hindustan we have few or no details, and those from drawings made by artists who considered the subject as painters, and not as architects.* This objection I shall answer, by observing, that, although the Grecian proportions are nearly reduced to fixed rules, yet such occasional deviations may be discovered in every fragment remaining, that no two writers on the subject exactly agree; therefore, in the application of Grecian forms, both in modern Italy and in this country, the correct eye is continually offended by false proportions to suit modern purposes of habitation; but in India, the same forms are applied to buildings of very different sizes; and, therefore, in adapting the Hindu architecture to the purposes of European houses, we have only to satisfy the eye of the painter with pleasing forms of beauty, and the eye of the mathematician with the safety of its construction; while that infinite variety of proportions, which this new style admits, may be adapted to every possible purpose, and every kind of material, unfettered by the restraint which so painfully operates in the Grecian or Gothic proportions**.
*[Although the works of Mr. Thomas Daniell, hitherto published, relate to the general forms and picturesque effect of Hindu buildings, yet he has measured many of them with such accuracy on the spot, and has collected such ample materials for the detail of this style, that the architects who have access to them can be at no loss for the minuti�. These he means to lay before the public; and after the unreserved manner in which he has permitted me to avail myself of his sketches, it would be unpardonable in me to do anything which might interfere with his future views respecting the detail of Hindu architecture, of which my knowledge is chiefly derived from his liberal communications.]
**[A very trifling departure from the relative proportions in any of the Grecian orders will be detected immediately by a correct and classic observer; but the laboured littleness with which some of our artists have imitated in stone, or wood, or plaster, what they found in marble, without any consideration of the difference in the materials, is a melancholy proof of the distinction between genius and science: the one will occasionally dare "to snatch a grace beyond the reach of art," while the other will only attend to the feet and inches; and, after having studied amidst the finest remains of the ancient world, is as contracted in his ideas as the most ignorant "Ripley with a rule."]
