u 



interesting objects, where an improver 

 passes on with indifference, if not with 

 disgust. 



Perjiaps what is most immediately strik- 

 ing in a lane of this kind is its intricacy. 

 Any winding road, indeed, especially where 

 there are banks, must necessarily have some 

 degree of intricacy; but in a dressed lane 

 every effort of art seems directed against 

 that disposition of the ground: the sides 

 are so regularly sloped, so regularly plant- 

 ed, and the space, when there is any, 

 between them and the road, so uniformly 

 levelled; the sweeps of the road so plainly 

 artificial, the verges of grass that bound it 

 so nicely edged; the whole, in short, has 

 such an appearance of having been made 

 by a receipt, that curiosity, that most 

 active principle of pleasure, is almost extin- 

 guished. 



But in hollow lanes and bye roads, all 

 the leading features, and a thousand cir- 

 cumstances of detail, promote the natural 

 intricacy of the ground : the turns are sud^ 



