2271. The ruins of objects adapted by their natures or constructions to brave time, have always excited veneration; and this sentiment, forming a contrast with those emotions raised by mere verdant scenes, has ever been esteemed very desirable in gardens. Hence the attempt to produce them by forming artificial ruins, which, being absolute deceptions, cannot admit of justification. If any thing is admissible in this way, it is the heightening the expression of ruins which already exist, by the addition of some parts, which may be supposed to have existed there when the edifice was more entire. Thus, the remains of a castle-wall, not otherwise recognisable from that of a common house or enclosure, may be pierced with a window or a loop-hole, in the style appropriate to its date, or it may be heightened or extended in some degree. In other cases, turrets, or pinnacles, or battlements, or chimney-pots, may be added according to circumstances, and as a judicious and experienced taste and antiquarian architect may direct. Unless the style of the age of the ruins be adopted, the additions become worse than useless to all such as are conversant in the history of architecture, of which an example may be given in the modern Gothic turrets, formerly in the grounds of White Knights, and which were intended to represent the abbey of that name, founded soon after the Norman conquest.
