income, with prudent management, sufficed for the gratification
of his expensive tastes of building and collecting, to which his
long life was devoted.

With regard to the merits of Strawberry Hill, as a building, it
is perhaps unfair, in the present age, when the principles of
Gothic architecture have been so much studied, and so often put
in practice, to criticise it too severely. Walpole himself, who,
in the earlier part of his life, seems to have had an unbounded
admiration for the works of his own hands, appears in later times
to have been aware of the faults in style of which he had been
guilty; for, in a letter to Mr. Barrett, in 1788, he says, "If
Mr. Matthews was really entertained" (with seeing Strawberry
Hill), "I am glad. But Mr. Wyatt has made him too correct a Goth
not to have seen all the imperfections and bad execution of my
attempts; for neither Mr. Bentley nor my workmen had studied the
science, and I was always too desultory and impatient to consider
that I should please myself more by allowing time, than by
hurrying my plans into execution before they were ripe. My
house, therefore, is but a sketch for beginners; yours (34) is
finished by a great master; and if Mr. Matthews liked mine, it
was en virtuose, who loves the dawnings of an art, or the
glimmerings of its restoration." (35)

In fact, the building of Strawberry Hill was "the glimmering of
the restoration" of gothic architecture, which had previously,
for above a century, been so much neglected that its very
principles seemed lost. If we compare the Gothic of Strawberry
Hill with that of buildings about the same period, or a little
anterior to it, we shall see how vastly superior it is to them,