When we look back a few centuries, and compare the habits of former times with those of the present, we shall be apt to wonder at the presumption of any person who shall propose to build a house that may suit the next generation. Who, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, would have planned a library, a music-room, a billiard-room, or a conservatory? Yet these are now deemed essential to comfort and magnificence: perhaps, in future ages, new rooms for new purposes will be deemed equally necessary. But to a house of perfect symmetry these can never be added: yet it is principally to these additions, during a long succession of years, that we are indebted for the magnificent irregularity, and splendid intricacy, observable in the neighbouring palaces of Knowle and Penshurst. Under these circumstances, that plan cannot be good which will admit of no alteration. 'Malum consilium est, quod non mutari potest.' [It is a bad counsel which cannot be changed.] But in a house of this irregular character, every subsequent addition will increase the importance: and if I have endeavoured to adopt some of the cumbrous magnificence of former times, I trust that no modern conveniences or elegances will be unprovided for.
