vir. 



ROCKS. 



IT is not necessary that an object should be intrinsi 

 cally beautiful, like a collection of water, to add a pleas 

 ing feature to the landscape. Though rocks, consid 

 ered apart from nature, are unsightly objecls, yet no 

 scenery can be complete without them. To a prospect, 

 they afford a variety which it would be difficult to ob 

 tain from any other objects.* Without them there is a 

 want of those sudden transitions from the smooth to 

 the rough, from the level to the precipitous, from the 

 beautiful to the wild, and from the tame to the expres 

 sive, which are essential to a perfect landscape. It is 

 only among rocks that the evergreen ferns those beau 

 tiful accompaniments of a rustic retreat are found 

 growing abundantly. There is no more beautiful sight 

 than a series of almost perpendicular rocks, covered on 

 all sides by ferns, with their peculiarly graceful foliage, 

 and here and there a rill trickling down their sides, and 

 forming channels through the evergreen mosses. The 

 solitary glens formed by these rocks could not be imi 

 tated by any thing else; and their jutting precipices 

 afford prospects unequalled by the gentle elevations in 

 a rolling landscape. In a country where rocks are 



