When trees from a steep and broken bank form an arch over the water, and dip their foliage in the stream; when the clear mirror beneath reflects their branching roots, the coves under them, the jutting rocks upon which they have fastened, and seem to hold in their embrace, and the bright and mellow tints of large moss-crowned stones that have their foundation below the water, and rising out of it support and form a part of the bank-would the poet sigh for grass only, and wish to destroy, level, and cover with turf these and a thousand other beautiful and picturesque circumstances? Would he object to the river, because it was not every where brimful to the top of all its banks, and did not every where kiss the grass? And are we to conclude, that when poets mention one beauty, they mean to exclude all the rest? It may possibly be said, that there are natural rivers, the banks of which like those of Mr. Brown's, keep for a long time together the same level above the water: there certainly are such rivers, but I never heard of their being admired, or frequented for their beauty. It is possible also, that there may be found some lake or meer, with a uniform grassy edge all round it: I can only say, that such an instance of complete natural monotony, though it may be admired for its rarity, cannot be a proper object of imitation. But if an improver happens to be placed in a level country, should he not even there consult the genius loci? without doubt, and therefore he will not attempt hanging rocks and precipices; but he may surely be allowed to steal from the better genius of some other scene, a few circumstances of beauty and variety that will not be incompatible with his own. By such methods, many pleasing effects may be given to an arti ficial river even in a dead flat; but where there is any natural variety in the ground, with a tendency to wood and other vegetation, nothing but art systematically absurd, and diligently employed in counter acting the efforts of nature, can create and preserve perfect monotony in the banks of water. An imitation of the most striking varieties of nature, so skilfully arranged as to pass for nature herself, would certainly be acknowledged as the higliest attainment of art; for however fond of art, and even of the appearance of it some improvers seem to be, if a stranger were to mistake one of their pieces of made water for the Thames, such an error I imagine would not only be forgiven, but, notwithstanding Mr. Brown's modest apostrophe to that river,* considered as the highest compliment. Yet, strange as it must appear, no one seems to have thought of copying those circumstances which might occasion so flattering a deception: if it were proposed to any of these professors to make an artificial river without re * "Thames! Thames! Thou wilt never forgive me." -A well known exclamation of Mr. Brown, when he was looking with rapture and exultation at one of his own canals. gular curves*, slopes, and levelled banks, but with those characteristic beauties and negligencies, which so plainly distinguish natural rivers from all that has hitherto been done in the pretended imitations. of them by art, they would, in Briggs's language, stare like stuck pigs-do no such thing." Their talent lies another way; and if you have a real river, and will let them improve it, you will be surprised to find how soon they will make it like an artificial one; so much so, that the most critical eye could scarcely discover that its banks had not been planned by Mr. Brown, and formed by the spade and the wheel-barrow. The lines in natural rivers, in bye roads, in the skirtings of glades of forests, have sometimes the appearance of regular curves, and seem to justify the use of them in artificial scenery; but something always saves them from such a crude degree of it. If, on a subject so very unmathematical, I might venture to use any allusion to that science, or any term drawn from it, such lines might be called picturesque asymptotes; however they may approach to regular curves, they never fall into them. I am persuaded that a very great improvement might be made in the banks of artificial water merely by a different mode of practice, without expecting from every professor the eye, or the invention of a Poussin. Mr. Brown and his followers have indeed shewn very little invention, if it even deserve that name, and of that little they have been great œconomists; with them, walks, roads, brooks, rivers are, as it were, convertible terms: dry one of their rivers, it is a large walk or road; flood a walk or a road, it is a brook or a river, and the accompaniments, like the drone of a bagpipe, always remain the same. They do not indeed, always dam up a brook; it sometimes, though rarely, is allowed its liberty; but like animals that are suffered by the owner to run loose, it is marked as private property, by being mutilated*. If instead of having their banks regularly * No operation in what is called improvement has such an appearance of barbarity, as that of destroying the modest retired character of a brook. I remember some burlesque lines on the treatment of Regulus by the Car |