As an example of a place in a mountainous country, the following extract from the Red Book of RUG, in North Wales, is subjoined: "At a period when the ancient family honours of a neighbouring country are rooted out with savage barbarity, I rejoice in an opportunity of contributing my assistance to preserve in this, every vestige of ancient or hereditary dignity; and I should feel it a kind of sacrilege in taste to destroy an atom of that old, ruinous, and almost uninhabitable mansion at RUG, if it were to be replaced by one of those gaudy scarlet houses, which we see spring up, like mushrooms, in the neighbourhood of large manufacturing towns. I am, however, restrained from indulging, to its full extent, my veneration for antiquity, by reflecting that modern comfort and convenience are the first objects to be consulted in the improvement of a modern residence; and, therefore, I trust I shall neither incur the censure of those who know and feel the comforts of the age we live in, nor offend the genius of the place, by 'calling from the vasty deep the angry spirits' of Owen Glendwr of Burgontum, who formerly inhabited this domain. In a country like that of North Wales, abounding in magnificent scenery, the views from the house should rather aim at comfort and appropriation of landscape, than extensive prospect; because the latter may be had from every field or public-road on the mountains; and the attempt to make a large park or domain would be fruitless, where a lawn of a thousand acres would appear but a small spot, compared with the wide expanse of country seen from the neighbouring hills. I should therefore advise the lawn to be confined within the compass of forty or fifty acres; yet, from the variety of its surface, and the diversity of objects it contains, there will be more real beauty, and even magnificence, within this small enclosure, than in other parks of many hundred acres."
