A general idea prevails, that, in most cases, it is better to rebuild than repair a very old house; and the architect often finds less difficulty in making an entire new plan, than in adapting judicious alterations: but if a single fragment remains of the grandeur of former times, whether of a castle, an abbey, or even a house, of the date of Queen Elizabeth, I cannot too strongly enforce the propriety of preserving the original character of such antiquity, lest every hereditary mansion in the kingdom should dwindle into the insignificance of a modern villa *.
*[There is not more false taste in adding pointed arches and wooden battlements to a modern building, than in cutting off the projections, filling up the recesses, and mutilating the picturesque appendages of a true Gothic structure.]
