288 



On Water in Ornamental Scenery. 



to avoid those formal and regular curves which so frequently 

 mark works of art with a decision ever offensive to the ad- 



mirer of nature. The regularly formed canal, with its equal 

 breadth and sloping banks, betrays the work of art in a very 

 slight degree more than the regularly formed winding stream, 

 with its sweeps in geometrical exactitude, its banks in uni- 

 form declivity, and its width corresponding throughout ; these 

 formalities can never be admired by the painter. Where " pic- 

 turesqueness " is required, these monotonous forms must be 

 avoided. 



A rivulet winding through the wood is as well calculated 

 to charm the ear as the eye. The modest and musical notes 

 of the purling stream, enlivened by the gentle flickering of 

 the almost noiseless trees, among whose stems and half-ex- 

 posed roots the lucid element is occasionally viewed trickling 

 its serpentine course, is a scene better conceived than de- 

 scribed. It is in such sequestered spots, that the mind feels 

 delighted in being alone ; removed from the noise and bustle 

 of the world, it is enabled uninterruptedly to enjoy and con- 

 template Nature's works, and to give scope to those reflections 

 which such a spot is calculated to produce. To such retreats 

 man is instinctively led ; he returns again and again to the 

 delightful situation, still finding some new object, some fresh 

 beauty to admire, till the enjoyment he expresses while wit- 

 nessing such scenes would appear to the casual observer to 

 border on enthusiasm. 



Water presented to the eye in the form of a cataract {fig. 78.) 

 impresses the mind with an idea of grandeur ; in no form in 

 which water is viewed, either in nature or in art, does it so 

 truly present the picturesque as in a cataract, where it is 

 made to dash with bold irregularity over the rugged precipice, 



