To pass over the effect produced by that general symmetry and proportion, by which the eye is delighted, as the ear is with music, Architecture certainly possesses many principles in common with Poetry and Painting. Among those which may be reckoned as the first, is, that of affecting the imagination by means of association of ideas. Thus, for instance, as we have naturally a veneration for antiquity, whatever building brings to our remembrance ancient customs and manners, such as the castles of the Barons of ancient Chivalry, is sure to give this delight. Hence it is that _towers and battlements_[16] are so often selected by the Painter and the Poet to make a part of the composition of their ideal Landscape; and it is from hence, in a great degree, that, in the buildings of Vanbrugh, who was a Poet as well as an Architect, there is a greater display of imagination than we shall find, perhaps, in any other, and this is the ground of the effect we feel in many of his works, notwithstanding the faults with which many of them are justly charged. For this purpose, Vanbrugh appears to have had recourse to some of the principles of the Gothic Architecture; which, though not so ancient as the Grecian, is more so to our imagination, with which the Artist is more concerned than with absolute truth. The Barbaric splendour of those Asiatic Buildings, which are now publishing by a member of this Academy,[17] may possibly, in the same manner, furnish an Architect, not with models to copy, but with hints of composition and general effect, which would not otherwise have occurred. It is, I know, a delicate and hazardous thing (and, as such, I have already pointed it out) to carry the principles of one art to another, or even to reconcile in one object the various modes of the same art, when they proceed on different principles. The sound rules of the Grecian Architecture are not to be lightly sacrificed. A deviation from them, or even an addition to them, is like a deviation or addition to, or from, the rules of other Arts--fit only for a great master, who is thoroughly conversant in the nature of man, as well as all combinations in his own Art. It may not be amiss for the Architect to take advantage _sometimes_ of that to which I am sure the Painter ought always to have his eyes open--I mean the use of accidents: to follow when they lead, and to improve them, rather than always to trust to a regular plan. It often happens that additions have been made to houses, at various times, for use or pleasure. As such buildings depart from regularity, they now and then acquire something of scenery by this accident, which I should think might not unsuccessfully be adopted by an Architect, in an original plan, if it does not too much interfere with convenience. Variety and intricacy is a beauty and excellence in every other of the arts which address the imagination: and why not in Architecture?