JULY. 



307 



its gentle murmurings, but also by leading one to trace the 

 little streams in their winding course through the groves and 

 among the rocks. Hence they should be used by the im- 

 prover to give intricacy and variety to the scenery, and to 

 excite the curiosity of the visitor. The author laments the 

 custom which was prevalent in his time of reducing the 

 courses of streams to the formalities of art, and of destroying 

 the original charms of nature for the display of wealth. The 

 custom is not yet abolished, we would add, for, to one propri- 

 etor of a domain who is possessed of true artistic or poetic 

 sensibility, there are ten who are possessed of nothing but 

 vanity. Hence the display of wealth must always, in the 

 majority of cases, be more apparent than the tasteful develop- 

 ment of the native and simple beauties of the landscape. 



" The mill that nourished contemplation's dream, 

 Harsh to nice ears, is banished from the stream. 

 No more the river winds in wanton play : 

 Its formal banks the tedious line obey: 

 With blushing flowers the shore's no longer crowned, 

 Nor winds a verdant belt the stream around ; 

 But marble proud usurps the green domain, 

 And of their stony bonds the waves complain ; 

 The drooping willows quit their watery bed ; 

 A shorn and captive family succeed." 



Although three quarters of a century have elapsed since 

 this poem was written, the same taste for artificial smooth- 

 ness, geometrical figures, and clipped hedges, still prevails ; 

 and so universal is this taste for baldness, that even the plain 

 farmer in the country will not allow the wild shrubbery to 

 grace his rude stone walls, though it occupies a space which 

 cannot be reached by the plough, and which must necessarily 

 lie fallow. All stone walls ought to be completely enveloped 

 in this wild shrubbery, which would hide their baldness, 

 secure them from dilapidation, and convert objects which, 

 without such an accompaniment, are a deformity to the land- 

 scape, into ornaments surpassing in beauty the finest clipped 

 hedge on the face of the earth, as much as the natural curls 

 on the head of a beautiful child surpass the nicely trimmed 

 moustaches of a modern dandy. 



