314 THE MAGAZINE OF HORTICULTURE. 



every care, and every feverish excitement. Then do we feel 

 that nature only has power to administer that solace which is 

 balm to the soul, when one is vexed with care and weary of 

 men. 



One of the sentiments often awakened by a water prospect, 

 is that of sublimity. But this can only arise from an exten- 

 sive view of the ocean or of a cataract. Ordinarily, there- 

 fore, except by the seashore, we seldom behold a sufficient 

 expanse of water to affect us with a sentiment of grandeur. 

 This influence is greater when a wide sea-view comes sud- 

 denly upon the eye, after one has passed through a succession 

 of beautiful, quiet and rather confined scenes. Small lakes 

 and rivers greatly enhance the picturesque effects of a pastoral 

 landscape, because they aflord the best evidence of good pas- 

 turage as well as of a plentiful supply of water to the flocks and 

 grazing herds. Painters, taking advantage of this expression, 

 often represent in one of their side views, the cattle standing 

 up to their knees in a little pond of water, while the green 

 rushes and undefaced shrubbery growing about them make 

 manifest its clearness and purity. Ocean scenery is not favor- 

 able to pastoral expression : but it enhances the beauty of 

 sunrise, and adds grandeur to the sublimity of a tempest. 



Many writers have eulogized an ocean prospect as beheld 

 from a point where we can see no land. The views present- 

 ed by the ocean, from different points on the shore, which is 

 broken and intersected by frequent inlets of water, we can 

 never cease to admire : but I have little sympathy with these 

 admirers of boundless space. The eye soon tires in gazing 

 upon a scene that awakens no other emotion but that of in- 

 finity, and presents no point as a resting place for the imag- 

 ination. To the sublimity of an ocean voyage, with its 

 mountainous waves and its interminable azure, I prefer a boat 

 excursion on a narrow stream, where the trees on the oppo- 

 site banks frequently interlace their branches over the middle 

 of the cruTent, and the plashing of the oar oftens startles the 

 little twittering sandpiper that is feeding upon the edge of the 

 stream. The sight of a small lake surrounded by woods, 

 and dotted all round its borders with full-blown water lilies, 



