304 



acknowledgment is quite sufficient, and the? 

 objections, which are easily foreseen, are 

 easily answered; for there are various ways 

 in which rudeness may be corrected and 

 disguised, as well as blended with what is 

 smooth and polished, without destroying 

 the marked character of nature on the one 

 hand, or a dressed appearance on the other: 

 of this I have already given some few in- 

 stances*. But as artificial lakes and rivers 

 are usually made, the water appears in every 

 part so nearly on the same level with the 

 land, and so totally without banks, that 

 were it not for the regularity of the curves, 

 a stranger might often suppose that when 

 dry weather came the flood would go off, 

 and the meadow be restored to its natural 

 state. Sometimes, however, it happens, 

 that the bottoms of meadows and pas- 

 tures subject to floods, are in parts bound- 

 ed by natural banks against which the 

 water lies, where it takes a very natural 

 and varied form, and might easily from 

 jnany points, and those not distant, b$ 



* Vide my Letter to Mr. ftepton, page 142. 



