sloped and shaven, or being turned into regular pieces of water, brooks were sometimes stopped partially and to different degrees of height, and every advantage were taken of the natural beauties of their banks, a number of pleasing and varied effects might be obtained. There are often parts, where by a small degree of digging so as to lower the bottom, or of obstruction by mere earth and stones, the water would lie, as in a natural bed, under banks enriched with vegetation; by such means there would be a succession of still, and of running water; of clear reflection, and of lively motion.

These beauties are so great, and so easily obtained, that before a running stream is forced into a piece of stagnant water, the

thaginians, which perfectly describe the effect of that operation;

His eyelids they pared;

Good God how he stared!

Just so do those improvers torture a brook, by widening it, cutting away its natural fringe, and exposing it to "day's garish eye."

advantages of such an alteration ought to be very apparent: if it be determined, nothing that may compensate for such a loss should be neglected; and as the water itself can have but one uniform surface, every variety of which banks are capable, should be studied both from nature and painting, and those selected, which will best accord with the general scenery. Objects of reflection are peculiarly required, for besides their distinct beauty, they soften the cold white glare, of what is usually called a fine sheet of water; an expression which contains a very just criticism on what it seems to commend: for certainly water is far from being in its most beautiful state, when it is most like the object to which it is thus compared. Collins indeed in his Ode to Evening, has used this kind of expression with great propriety:

Where some sheety lake

Cheers the lone heath;

For water on a heath, where there are scarcely any objects of reflection, has a sheety appear.

ance; yet in such a situation, and towards the close of day, a cheering one. There is however one kind of scenery by which the expression may be still more naturally suggested; and I can easily conceive that on seeing a piece of made water in its usual naked state, any person might be struck with the uniform whiteness of the water itself, and the uniform greenness, and exact level of its banks, or rather its border; the idea of linen spread upon grass might thence very naturally occur to him, which in civil language he would express by a fine sheet of water. This has always been meant and taken as a flattering expression, though nothing can more pointedly describe the defects of such a scene; for had there been any variety in the banks, with deep shades, brilliant lights, and reflections, the idea of a sheet would hardly have suggested itself, or if it had, he who made such a comparison would have made a very bad one,

"And liken'd things that are not like at all."

But in the other case, nothing can be more alike than a sheet of water, and a real sheet; and wherever there is a large bleaching ground, the most exact imitations of Mr. Brown's lakes and rivers might be made in linen: and they would be just as proper objects of jealousy to the Thames, as any of his performances*.

I am aware that Mr. Brown's admirers with one voice will quote the great piece of water at Blenheim, as a complete answer to all I have said against him on this subject. No one can admire more highly than I do that most princely of all places; but it would be doing great injustice to nature and Vanbrugh, not to distinguish their

happened to be at a gentleman's house, the architect of which (to use Colin Campbell's expression) "had not preserved the majesty of the front from the ill effect of crowded apertures." A neighbour of his, meaning to pay him a compliment on the number and closeness of his windows, exclaimed, "What a charming house you have! upon my word it is quite like a lanthorn." I must own 1 think the two compliments equally flattering; but a charming lanthorn has not yet had the success of a fine sheet.

merits in forming it, from those of Mr. Brown.

If there be an improvement more obvious than all others, it is that of damming up a stream which flows on a gentle level through a valley; and it required no effort of genius to place the head, as Mr. Brown has done, in the narrowest, and most concealed part. He has, indeed, the negative merit (and it is one to which he is not always entitled) of having left the opposite bank of wood in its natural state; and had he profited by so excellent a model, had he formed and planted the other more distant banks, so as to have continued something of the same style and character round the lake, though with those diversities which would naturally have occurred to a man of the least invention, he would, in my opinion, have had some claim to a title created since his time; a title of no small pretension, that of landscape gardener. But if the banks above and near the bridge, were formed, or even approved of by him, his taste had