394 PICTURESQUE IMPROVEMENT. BOOK I. 



Other buildings, designed for the purpose of ornamenting 

 water, have seldom either picturesque effect or use; such as 

 aquatic temples, statues, river gods, and similar absurdities or 

 false decorations. Boat-houses, however, of simple construc- 

 tion, and in general all useful buildings, may frequently be in- 

 troduced with good effect and propriety. The Persian wheel 

 at Blair Drummond, the forcing wheel at Heythorpe, the corn- 

 mill at Downton and Warwick, and a small building which 

 may be perceived on the margin of the water in Plate VIII., 

 are excellent proofs of this. The water-wheel and corn-mill at 

 Warwick Castle is perhaps the grandest appendage to that 

 noble building; whether in respect to the train of ideas which 

 it awakens in the mind respecting its former, compared with 

 its present use, &c. or its effect in connexion with the cas- 

 cade, for which it forms an excellent apology. And though 

 cascades of this kind be formal of themselves, yet the idea of 

 their utility compensates in a considerable degree for the want 

 of picturesque grandeur; and still the roar meets the ear 

 through woods or distance with the same force as in those 

 which are natural. 



4. Cascades and waterfalls. — These epithets denote different 

 characters : — those where the water falls over a ridge of rock 

 in one or more sheets, and which are properly called waterfalls; 

 and those where it is broken and interrupted by the irregula- 

 rity of the ridge, and by other fragments of rock, and stones, 



