602 



Where these serpentine canals are made, 

 if there happen to be any sudden breaks 

 or inequalities in the ground ; any thickets 

 or bushes ; any thing, in short, that might 

 cover the rawness and formality of new 

 work — instead of taking advantage of such 

 accidents, all must be made level and bare ; 

 and, by a strange perversion of terms, 

 stripping nature stark-naked 3 is called 

 dressing her. 



A piece of stagnant water, with that thiri, 

 uniform, grassy edge which always remains 

 after the operation of levelling, is much more 

 like a temporary overflowing in a meadow 

 or pasture, than what it professes to imi- 

 tate-— a lake 6r a river : for the principal 

 distinction between the outline of such an 



been made since his time : I consider him as the Hercules 

 to whom the labours of the lesser heroes are to be attributed, 

 and they have had no difficulty in copying his model exactly. 

 Natural rivers, indeed, can only be imitated by the eye 

 either in painting or reality; but his may be surveyed, and 

 an exact pl'jfn taken of them by admeasurement; and 

 though such a representation would not accord with a 

 Cfeude or a Gaspar, it might with great propriety be hung 

 i# filiSx a a&p of the- demesne* 



