[1855]

§ 1. Since the publication of the First Edition of this work, the pursuit of the inquiries I then proposed to myself has enabled me to speak with certainty upon some subjects, which at the time when the following pages were first arranged, I was obliged to approach with hesitation.

I have not, however, except in unimportant particulars, altered the body of the text or added to it. I would only request the reader not to regard it as a complete exponent of the views I am at present engaged in advocating, but rather as an introduction to the more considered and careful statements of those views given in the Stones of Venice, and in my Lectures delivered at Edinburgh.

§ 2. I cannot, however, allow this work to pass a second time through the press, without stating in its preface the most important of all the ultimate principles which I have been able subsequently to ascertain.

I found, after carefully investigating the character of the emotions which were generally felt by well-educated people respecting various forms of good architecture, that these emotions might be separated into four general heads:—

(1.) Sentimental Admiration.—The kind of feeling which most travellers experience on first entering a cathedral by torchlight, and hearing a chant from concealed choristers; or in visiting a ruined abbey by moonlight, or any building with which interesting associations are connected, at any time when they can hardly see it.