"[16] The word "Gothic" in the early eighteenth
century was used as a term of reproach. To Addison, Siena
Cathedral was but a "barbarous" building, which might have been a
miracle of architecture, had our forefathers "only been
instructed in the right way."[17] Pope in his _Preface to
Shakespeare_ admits the strength and majesty of the Gothic, but
deplores its irregularity. In _Letters on Chivalry and Romance_,
published two years before _The Castle of Otranto_, Hurd pleads
that Spenser's _Faerie Queene_ should be read and criticised as a
Gothic, not a classical, poem. He clearly recognises the right of
the Gothic to be judged by laws of its own. When the nineteenth
century is reached the epithet has lost all tinge of blame, and
has become entirely one of praise. From the time when he began to
build his castle, in 1750, Walpole's letters abound in references
to the Gothic, and he confesses once: "In the heretical corner of
my heart I adore the Gothic building."[18] At Strawberry Hill the
hall and staircase were his special delight and they probably
formed the background of that dream in which he saw a gigantic
hand in armour on the staircase of an ancient castle. When Dr.
Burney visited Walpole's home in 1786 he remarked on the striking
recollections of _The Castle of Otranto_, brought to mind by "the
deep shade in which some of his antique portraits were placed and
the lone sort of look of the unusually shaped apartments in which
they were hung.
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