56 



unequal heights are an ornament to land* 

 scape, especially when they are partially 

 concealed by thickets; while a neat post 

 and rail, regularly continued round a field, 

 and seen without any interruption, is one 

 of the most unpicturesque, as being one 

 of the most uniform of all boundaries. 



But among all the objects of nature, 

 there is none in which roughness and 

 smoothness more strongly mark the dis- 

 tinction between the two characters, than 

 in water. A calm, clear lake, with the re- 

 flections of all that surrounds it, viewed 

 under the influence of a setting sun, at the 

 close of an evening clear and serene as its 

 own surface, is perhaps, of all scenes, the 

 most congenial to our ideas of beauty in its 

 strictest, and in its most general acceptation. 



Nay though the scenery around should 

 be the most wild and picturesque (I might 

 almost say the most savage) every thing is 

 so so^ened and melted together by the re- 

 flection of such a mirror, that the prevail- 

 ingidea, even then, might possibly be that 



