eaches are therefore characteristic of a river, and they conduce much to its beauty; each is a considerable piece of water, and variety of beautiful forms may be given to their outlines.

A river requires a number of accompaniments. The changes in its course furnish a variety of situations; while the fertility, convenience, and amenity, which attend it, account for all appearances of inhabitants and improvement. Profusion of ornament on a fictitious river, is a just imitation of cultivated nature. Every species of building, every style of plantation, may abound on the banks; and whatever be their characters, their proximity to the water is commonly the happiest circumstance in their situation. A lure is from thence diffused on all around; each derives an importance from its relation to this capital feature: those which are near enough to be reflected, immediately belong to it; those at a greater distance still share in the animation of the scene; and objects totally detached from each other, being all attracted towards the same interesting connexion, are united into one composition.

In the front of Blenheim was a deep broad valley, which abruptly separated the castle from the lawn and the plantations before it; even a direct approach could not be made without building a monstrous bridge over the vast hollow; but this forced communication was only a subject of raillery; and the scene continued broken into two parts, absolutely distinct from each other. This valley has been lately flooded: it is not filled; the bottom only is covered with water; the sides are still very high; but they are no longer the cops of a chasm, they are the bold shores of a noble river. The same bridge is standing without alteration: but no extravagance remains; the water gives it propriety. Above it the river first appears, winding from behind a small thick wood in the valley; and soon taking a determined course, it is then broad enough to admit an island filled with the finest trees; others corresponding to them in growth and disposition, stand in groups on the banks, intermixed with younger plantations. Immediately below the bridge, the river spreads into a large expanse; the sides are open lawn. On that further from the house formerly stood the palace of Henry II., celebrated in many an ancient ditty by the name of Fair Rosamond's Bower. A little clear spring, which rises there, is by the country people still called Fair Rosamond's Well. The spot is now marked by a single willow. Near it is a fine collateral stream, of a beautiful form, retaining its breadth as far as it is seen, and retiring at last behind a hill from the view. The main river, having received this accession, makes a gentle bend: then continues for a considerable length in one wide direct reach; and, just as it disappears, throws itself down a high cascade, which is the present termination. On one of the banks of this reach is the garden: the steep is there diversified with thickets and with glades; but the covert prevails, and the top is crowned with lofty trees. On the other side is a noble hanging wood in the park: it was depreciated when it sunk into a hollow, and was poorly lost in the bottom; but it is now a rich appendage to the river, falling down an easy slope quite to the water's edge, where, with overshadowing, it is reflected on the surface. Another face of the same wood borders the collateral stream, with an outline more indented and various; while a very large irregular clump adorns the opposite declivity. This clump is at a considerable distance from the principal river: but the stream it belongs to brings it down to connect with the rest; and the other objects, which were before dispersed, are now, by the interest of each in a relation, which is common to all, collected into one illustrious scene. The castle itself is a prodigious pile of building; which, with all the faults in its architecture, will never seem less than a truly princely habitation; and the confined spot where it was placed, on the edge of an abyss, is converted into a proud situation, commanding a beautiful prospect of water, and open to an extensive lawn, adequate to the mansion, and an emblem of its domain. In the midst of this lawn stands a column, a stately trophy, recording the exploits of the duke of Marlborough and the gratitude of Britain. Between this pillar and the castle is the bridge, which now, applied to a subject worthy of it, is established in all the importance due to its greatness. The middle arch is wider than the Rialto, but not too wide for the occasion; and yet that is the narrowest part of the river; but the length of the reaches is everywhere proportioned to their breadth. Each of them is alone a noble piece of water; and the last, the finest of all, loses itself gradually in a wood, which on that side is also the boundary of the lawn, and rises into the horizon. All is great in the front of Blenheim: but in that vast space no void appears; so important are the parts, so magnificent the object. The plain is extensive, the valley is broad, the wood is deep. Though the intervals between the buildings are large, they are filled with the grandeur which buildings of such dimensions and so much pomp diffuse all around them; and the river in its long varied course, approaching to every object, and touching upon every part, spreads its influence over the whole.

In the composition of this scene, the river, both as a part itself, and as uniting the other parts, has a principal share. But water is not lost though it be in so confined or so concealed a spot as to enter into no view; it may render that spot delightful. It is capable of the most exquisite beauty in its form; and though not in space, may yet in disposition have pretensions to greatness; for it may be divided into several branches, which will form a clutter of islands all connected together, make the whole place irriguous, and, in the stead of extent, supply a quantity of water. Such a sequestered scene usually owes its retirement to the trees and the thickets with which it abounds; but, in the disposition of them, one distinction should be constantly attended to. A river flowing through a wood which overspreads one continued surface of ground, and a river between two woods, are in very different circumstances. In the latter case, the woods are separate; they may be contralated in their forms and their characters, and the outline of each should be forcibly marked. In the former no outline ought to be discernible; for the river passes between trees, not between boundaries; and though in the progress of its course, the style of the plantations may be often changed, yet on the opposite banks a similarity should constantly prevail, that the identity of the wood may never be doubtful. A river between two woods may enter into a view; and then it must be governed by the principles which regulate the conduct and the accompaniments of a river in an open exposure. But when it runs through a wood, it is never to be seen in a prospect; the place is naturally full of obstructions; and a continued opening, large enough to receive a long reach, would seem an artificial cut. The river must therefore necessarily wind more than in crossing a lawn, where the passage is entirely free. But its influence will never extend so far on the sides: the buildings must be near the banks; and, if numerous, will seem crowded, being all in one track, and in situations nearly alike. The scene, however, does not want variety: on the contrary, none is capable of more. The objects are not indeed so different from each other as in an open view; but they are very different, and in much greater abundance; for this is the interior of a wood, where every tree is an object, every combination of trees a variety, and no large intervals are requisite to distinguish the several dilpositions; the grove, the thicket or the groups, may prevail, and their forms and their relations may be constantly changed without restraint of fancy, or limitation of number.

Water is so universally and so deservedly admired in a prospect, that the most obvious thought in the management of it, is to lay it as open as possible; and purposely to conceal it would generally seem a severe self-denial: yet so many beauties may attend its passage through a wood, that larger portions of it might be allowed to such retired scenes than are commonly spared from the view, and the different parts in different styles would be fine contrasts to each other. If the water at Wotton* were all exposed, a walk of near two miles along the banks would be of a tedious length, from the want of those changes of the scene which now supply through the whole extent a succession of perpetual variety. The extent is so large as to admit of a division into four principal parts, all of them great in style and in dimensions, and differing from each other both in character and situation. The two first are the least. The one is a reach of a river, about the third of a mile in length, and of a competent breadth, flowing through a lovely mead, open in some places to views of beautiful hills in the country, and adorned in others with clumps of trees, so large, that their branches stretch quite across, and form a high arch over the water. The next seems to have been once a formal basin encompassed with plantations, and the appendages on either side still retain some traces of regularity; but the shape of the water is free from them; the size is about 14 acres; and out of it issue two broad collateral streams, winding towards a large river, which they are seen to approach, and supposed to join. A real junction is however impossible, from the difference of the levels; but the terminations are so artfully concealed, that the deception is never suspected, and when known is not easily explained. The river is the third great division of the water; a lake into which it falls, is the fourth. These two do actually join; but their characters are directly opposite; the scenes they belong to are totally distinct; and the transition from the one to the other is very gradual; for an island near the conflux, dividing the breadth, and concealing the end of the lake, moderates for some way the space; and permitting it to expand but by degrees, raises an idea of greatness, from uncertainty accompanied with increase. The reality does not disappoint the expectation; and the island, which is the point of view, is itself equal to the scene: it is large, and high above the lake; the ground is irregularly broken; thickets hang on the sides; and towards the top is placed an Ionic portico, which commands a noble extent of water, not less than a mile in circumference, bounded on one side with wood, and open on the other to two sloping lawns, the least of an hundred acres, diversified with clumps, and bordered by plantations. Yet this lake, when full in view, and with all the importance which space, form, and situation can give, is not more interesting than the sequestered river, which has been mentioned as the third great division of the water. It is just within the verge of a wood, three quarters of a mile long, everywhere broad, and its course is such as to admit of infinite variety without any confusion. The banks are cleared of underwood; but a few thickets still remain, and on one side an impenetrable covert soon begins: the interval is a beautiful grove of oaks, scattered over a green sward of extraordinary verdure. Between these trees and these thickets the river seems to glide gently along, constantly winding, without one short turn or one extended reach in the whole length of the way. This even temper in the stream suits the scenes through which it passes; they are in general of a very sober cast, not melancholy, but grave; never exposed to a glare; never darkened with gloom; nor, by strong contrasts of light and shade, exhibiting the excesses of either. Undisturbed by an extent of prospect without, or a multiplicity of objects within, they retain at all times a mildness of character; which is still more forcibly felt when the shadows grow faint as they lengthen, when a little rustling of birds in the spray, the leaping of the fish, and the fragrance of the woodbine, denote the approach of evening; while the setting sun shoots its last gleams on a Tuscan portico, which is close to the great basin, but which from a seat near this river is seen at a distance, through all the obscurity of the wood, glowing on the banks, and reflected on the surface of the water. In another still more distinguished spot is built an elegant bridge, with a colonnade upon it, which not only adorns the place where it stands, but is also a picturesque object to an octagon building near the lake, where it is thrown in a singular situation, overarched, encompassed, and backed with wood, without any appearance of the water beneath. This building in return is also an object from the bridge; and a Chinese room, in a little island just by, is another: neither of them are considerable, and the others which are visible are at a distance; but more or greater adventitious ornaments are not required in a spot so rich as this in beauties peculiar to its character. A profusion of water pours in from all sides round upon the view; the opening of the lake appears; a glimpse is caught of the large basin: one of the collateral streams is full in sight, and the bridge itself is in the midst of the finest part of the river: all seem to communicate the one with the other. Though thickets often intercept, and groups perplex the view, yet they never break the connexion between the several pieces of water; each may still be traced along along large branches or little catches; which in some places are overshadowed and dim; in others glister through a glade, or glimmer between the boles of trees in a distant perspective; and in one, where they are quite lost to the view, some arches of the stone bridge, but partially seen among the wood, preserve their connexion.

3. If a large river may sometimes, a smaller current undoubtedly may often, be conducted through a wood: it seldom adorns, it frequently disfigures, a prospect, where its course is marked, not by any appearance of water, but by a confused line of clotted grass, which disagrees with the general verdure. A Rivulet may, indeed, have consideration enough for a house scene, though it be open; but a Rill is always most agreeable when most retired from public view. Its characteristic excellencies are vivacity and variety, which require attention, leisure, and silence, that the eye may pore upon the little beauties, and the ear listen to the low murmurs of the stream without interruption. To such indulgence a confined spot only is favourable; a close copse is therefore often more acceptable than a high wood, and a sequestered valley at all times preferable to any open exposure: a single rill at a very little distance is a mere water course; it loses all its charms; it has no importance in itself, and bears no proportion to the scene. A number of little streams have indeed an effect in any situation, but not as objects; they are interesting only on account of the character they express, the irriguous appearance which they give to the whole.

The full tide of a large river has more force than activity, and seems too unwieldy to allow of very quick transitions. But in a rill, the agility of its motion accounts for every caprice; frequent windings disguise its insignificance; short turnings show its vivacity; sudden changes in the breadth are a species of its variety; and however fantastically the channel may be wreathed, contracted, and widened, it still appears to be natural. We find an amusement in tracing the little stream through all the intricacies of its course, and in feeling it force a passage through a narrow strait, expatiate on every opportunity, struggle with obstructions, and puzzle out its way. A rivulet, which is the mean betwixt a river and a rill, partakes of the character of both: it is not licensed to the extravagance of the one, nor under the same restraints as the other: it may have more frequent bends than the river, longer reaches than a rill: the breadth of a stream determines whether the principal beauty results from extent or from variety.

The murmurs of a rill are amongst the most pleasing circumstances which attend it. If the bed of the stream be rough, mere declivity will occasion a constant rippling noise: when the current drops down a descent, though but of a few inches, or forcibly bubbles up from a little hollow, it has a deep gurgling tone, not uniformly continued, but incessantly repeated, and therefore, more engaging than any. The flattest of all, is that found rather of the splashing than the fall of water, which an even gentle slope, or a tame obstruction, will produce: this is less pleasing than the others; but none should be entirely excluded: all in their turns are agreeable; and the choice of them is much in our power. By observing their causes, we may often find the means to strengthen, to weaken, or to change them; and the addition or removal of a single stone, or a few pebbles, will sometimes be sufficient for the purpose.

A rill cannot pretend to any sound beyond that of a little water fall: the roar of a cascade belongs only to a larger stream; but it may be produced by a rivulet to a considerable degree, and attempts to do more have generally been unsuccessful. A vain ambition to imitate nature in her great extravagancies betrays the weakness of art. Though a noble river, throwing itself headlong down a precipice, be an object truly magnificent, it must however be confessed, that in a single sheet of water there is a formality which its vastness alone can cure. But the height, not the breadth, is the wonder: when it falls no more than a few feet, the regularity prevails; and its extent only serves to expose the vanity of affecting the style of a cataract in an artificial cascade. It is less exceptionable if divided into several parts: for then each separate part may be wide enough for its depth; and in the whole, variety, not greatness, will be the predominant character. But a structure of rough, large, detached stones, cannot easily be contrived of strength sufficient to support a great weight of water: it is sometimes from necessity almost smooth and uniform, and then it loses much of its effects. Several little falls in succession are preferable to one great cascade which in figure or in motion approaches to regularity.

When greatness is thus reduced to number, and length becomes of more importance than breadth, a rivulet vies with a river: and it more frequently runs in a continued declivity, which is very favourable to such a succession of falls. Half the expense and labour which are sometimes bestowed on a river, to give it at the best a forced precipitancy in one spot only, would animate a rivulet through the whole of its course. And, after all, the most interesting circumstance in falling waters is their animation. A great cascade fills us with surprize: but all surprize must cease; and the motion, the agitation, the rage, the froth, and the variety of the water, are finally the objects which engage the attention: for these a rivulet is sufficient; and they may there be produced without that appearance of effort which raises a suspicion of art.

To obviate such a suspicion, it may be sometimes expedient to begin the descent out of sight; for the beginning is the difficulty: if that be concealed, the subsequent falls seem but a consequence of the agitation which characterizes the water at his first appearance; and the imagination is, at the same time, let loose to give ideal extent to the cascades. When a stream issues from a wood, such management will have a great effect: the bends of its course in an open exposure may afford frequent opportunities for it; and sometimes a low broad bridge may furnish the occasion: a little fall hid under the arch will create a disorder; in consequence of which, a greater cascade below will appear very natural.

IV. ROCKS. Rocks are themselves too vast and too stubborn to submit to our control; by the addition or removal of appendages which we can command, parts may be shown or concealed, and the characters with their impressions may be weakened, or enforced: Rocks forced: to adapt the accompaniments accordingly, is the utmost ambition of art when rocks are the subject.

Their most distinguished characters are, dignity, terror, and fancy: the expressions of all are constantly wild: and sometimes a rocky scene is only wild, without pretensions to any particular character.

Rills, rivulets, and cascades, abound among rocks: they are natural to the scene; and such scenes commonly require every accompaniment which can be procured for them. Mere rocks, unless they are particularly adapted to certain impressions, though they may surprise, cannot be long engaging, if the rigour of their character be not softened by circumstances which may belong either to these or to more cultivated spots: and when the dreariness is extreme, little streams and waterfalls are of themselves insufficient for the purpose; an intermixture of vegetation is also necessary, and on some occasions even marks of inhabitants are proper.

Large clefts, sloping or precipitous, with a dale at bottom, furnish scenes of the wildest nature. In such spots, verdure alone will give some relief to the dreariness of the scene; and shrubs or bushes, without trees, are a sufficiency of wood: the thickets may also be extended by the creeping plants, such as pyracantha, vines, and ivy, to wind up the sides or cluster on the tops of the rocks. And to this vegetation may be added some symptoms of inhabitants, but they must be slight and few; the use of them is only to cheer, not to destroy, the solitude of the place; and such therefore should be chosen as are sometimes found in situations retired from public resort; a cottage may be lonely, but it must not here seem ruinous and neglected; it should be tight and warm, with every mark of comfort about it, to which its position in some sheltered recesses may greatly contribute. A cavity also in the rocks, rendered easy of access, improved to a degree of convenience, and maintained in a certain state of preservation, will suggest similar ideas of protection from the bitterest inclemencies of the sky, and even of occasional refreshment and repose. But we may venture still further; a mill is of necessity often built at some distance from the town which it supplies; and here it would at the same time apply the water to a use, and increase its agitation. The dale may besides be made the haunt of those animals, such as goats, which are sometimes wild, and sometimes domestic; and which accidentally appearing, will divert the mind from the sensations natural to the scene, but not agreeable if continued long without interruption. These and such other expedients will approximate the severest retreat to the habitations of men, and convert the appearance of a perpetual banishment into that of a temporary retirement from society.

But too strong a force on the nature of the place always fails. A winding path, which appears to be worn, not cut, has more effect than a high road, all artificial and level, which is too weak to overbear, and yet contradicts, the general idea. The objects therefore to be introduced must be those which hold a mean between solitude and population; and the inclination of that choice towards either extreme, should be directed by the degree of wildness which prevails; for though that runs sometimes to an excess which requires correction, at other times it wants encouragement, and at all times it ought to be preserved: it is the predominant character of rocks, which mixes with every other, and to which all the appendages must be accommodated; and they may be applied so as greatly to increase it: a licentious irregularity of wood and of ground, and a fantastic conduct of the streams, neither of which would be tolerated in the midst of cultivation, become and improve romantic rocky spots; even buildings, partly by their style, but still more by their position, in strange, difficult, or dangerous situations, distinguish and aggravate the native extravagancies of the scene.

Greatness is a chief ingredient in the character of dignity, with less of wildness than in any other. The effect here depends more upon amplitude of surface, than variety of forms. The parts, therefore, must be large: if the rocks are only high, they are but stupendous, not majestic: breadth is equally essential to their greatness; and every slender, every grotesque shape, is excluded. Art may interpose to show these large parts to the eye, and magnify them to the imagination, by taking away thickets which stretch quite across the rocks, so as to disguise their dimensions; or by filling with wood the small intervals between them, and thus, by concealing the want, preserving the appearance of continuation. When rocks retire from the eye down a gradual declivity, we can, by raising the upper ground, deepen the fall, lengthen the perspective, and give both height and extent to those at a distance: this effect may be still increased by covering that upper ground with a thicket, which shall cease, or be lowered, as it descends. A thicket, on other occasions, makes the rocks which rise out of it seem larger than they are. If they stand upon a bank overspread with shrubs, their beginning is at the least uncertain; and the presumption is, that they start from the bottom. Another use of this brushy underwood is to conceal the fragments and rubbish which have fallen from the sides and the brow, and which are often unightly. Rocks are seldom remarkable for the elegance of their forms; they are too vast, and too rude, to pretend to delicacy: but their shapes are often agreeable: and we can affect those shapes to a certain degree, at least we can cover many blemishes in them, by conducting the growth of shrubby and creeping plants about them.

For all these purposes mere underwood suffices: but for greater effects larger trees are requisite: they are worthy of the scene; and not only improvements, but accretions to its grandeur: we are used to rank them among the noblest objects of nature; and when we see that they cannot aspire to the midway of the heights around them, the rocks are raised by the comparison. A single tree is, therefore, often preferable to a clump: the size, though really less, is more remarkable: and clumps are besides generally exceptionable in a very wild spot, from the suspicion of art which attends them; but a wood is free from that suspicion, and its own character of greatness recommends it to every scene of magnificence.

On the same principle all possible consideration should be given to the streams. No number of little rills are equal to one broad river; and in the principal current, some varieties may be sacrificed to importance: but a degree of strength should always be preserved: the water, though it needs not be furious, should not be dull; This character does not exclude marks of inhabitants, though it never requires them to tame its wilderness; and without inviting, it occasionally admits an intermixture of vegetation. It even allows of buildings intended only to decorate the scene; but they must be adequate to it, both in size and in character. And if cultivation is introduced, that too should be conformable to the rest; not a single narrow patch cribbed out of the waste; but the confines of a country shelving into the vale, and suggesting the idea of extent: nothing trivial ought to find admittance. But, on the other hand, no extravagance is required to support it; strange shapes in extraordinary positions, enormous weights unaccountably sustained, trees rooted in the sides, and torrents raging at the foot of the rocks, are at the best needless excesses. There is a temperance in dignity, which is rather hurt by a wanton violence on the common order of nature.

The terrors of a scene in nature are like those of a dramatic representation: they give an alarm; but the sensations are agreeable, so long as they are kept to such as are allied only to terror, unmixed with any that are horrible and disgusting. Art may therefore be used to heighten them, to display the objects which are distinguished by greatness, to improve the circumstances which denote force, to mark those which intimate danger, and to blend withal here and there a cast of melancholy.

Greatness is as essential to the character of terror as to that of dignity: vast efforts in little objects are but ridiculous; nor can force be supposed upon trifles incapable of resistance. On the other hand, it must be allowed, that exertion and violence supply some want of space. A rock wonderfully supported, or threatening to fall, acquires a greatness from its situation, which it has not in dimensions; so circumstanced, the size appears to be monstrous; a torrent has, a consequence which a placid river of equal breadth cannot pretend to; and a tree, which would be inconsiderable in the natural soil, becomes important when it bursts forth from a rock.

Such circumstances should be always industriously sought for. It may be worth while to cut down several trees, in order to exhibit one apparently rooted in the stone. By the removal perhaps of only a little brushwood, the alarming disposition of a rock, strangely undermined, riveted, or suspended, may be thrown; and if there be any soil above its brow, some trees planted there, and impending over it, will make the object still more extraordinary. As to the streams, great alterations may generally be made in them; and therefore it is of use to ascertain the species proper to each scene, because it is in our power to enlarge or contract their dimensions; to accelerate or retard their rapidity; to form, increase, or take away obstructions; and always to improve, often to change, their characters.

Inhabitants furnish frequent opportunities to strengthen the appearances of force, by giving intimations of danger. A house placed at the edge of a precipice, any building on the pinnacle of a crag, makes that situation seem formidable, which might otherwise have been unnoticed; a steep, in itself not very remarkable, becomes alarming, when a path is carried almost up the side: a rail on the brow of a perpendicular fall, shows that the height is frequented and dangerous; and a common foot bridge thrown over a cleft between rocks has a still stronger effect. In all these instances, the imagination immediately transports the spectator to the spot, and suggests the idea of looking down such a depth; in the last, that depth is a chasm, and the situation is directly over it.

In other instances, exertion and danger seem to attend the occupations of the inhabitants:

Half way down

Hangs one that gathers samphire; dreadful trade!

is a circumstance chosen by the great poet of nature, to aggravate the terrors of the scene he describes.

The different species of rocks often meet in the same place, and compose a noble scene, which is not distinguished by any particular character; it is only when one eminently prevails, that it deserves such a preference as to exclude every other. Sometimes a spot, remarkable for nothing but its wilderness, is highly romantic; and when this wilderness rises to fancy; when the mostingular, the most opposite forms and combinations are thrown together; then a mixture also of several characters adds to the number of instances which there concur to display the inexhaustible variety of nature.

So much variety, so much fancy, are seldom found within the same extent as in Dovedale*. It is about two miles in length, a deep, narrow, hollow valley; both the sides are of rock; and the Dove in its passage between them is perpetually changing its course, its motion, and appearance. It is never less than ten, nor so much as twenty, yards wide, and generally about four feet deep; but transparent to the bottom, except when it is covered with a foam of the purest white, under waterfalls, which are perfectly lucid. These are very numerous, but very different. In some places they stretch straight across, or adant the stream: in others, they are only partial; and the water either dashes against the stones, and leaps over them, or, pouring along a steep rebounds upon those below; sometimes it rushes through the several openings between them; sometimes it drops gently down; and at other times it is driven back by the obstruction, and turns into an eddy. In one particular spot, the valley almost clofing, leaves hardly a passage for the river, which, pent up and struggling for a vent, rages, and roars, and foams, till it has extricated itself from the confinement. In other parts, the stream, though never languid, is often gentle; flows round a little deserted island, glides between bits of bulrushes, disperses itself among tufts of grass or of moss, bubbles about a water dock, or plays with the slender threads of aquatic plants which float upon the surface. The rocks all along the dale vary as often in their structure as the stream in its motion. In one place, an extended surface gradually diminishes from a broad base almost to an edge: in another, a heavy top hanging forwards, overshadows all beneath: sometimes many different shapes are confusedly tumbled together; and sometimes they are broken into slender sharp pinnacles, which are upright, often two or three together, and often in more numerous clusters. On this side of the dale, Rocks, dale, they are universally bare; on the other, they are intermixed with wood; and the vast height of both the sides, with the narrowness of the interval between them, produces a further variety: for whenever the wind thines from behind the one, the form of it is distinctly and completely cast upon the other; the rugged surface on which it falls diversifies the tints; and a strong reflected light often glares on the edge of the deepest shadow. The rocks never continue long in the same figure or situation, and are very much separated from each other: sometimes they form the sides of the valley, in precipices, in steeples, or in stages; sometimes they seem to rise in the bottom, and lean back against the hill; and sometimes they stand out quite detached, heaving up in cumbrous piles, or flaring into conical shapes, like vast spars, 100 feet high; some are firm and solid throughout; some are cracked; and some, split and undermined, are wonderfully upheld by fragments apparently unequal to the weight they sustain. One is placed before, one over another, and one fills at some distance behind an interval between two. The changes in their disposition are infinite; every step produces some new combination; they are continually crossing, advancing, and retiring: the breadth of the valley is never the same 40 yards together: at the narrow pass which has been mentioned, the rocks almost meet at the top, and the sky is seen as through a chink between them: just by this gloomy abyss, is a wider opening, more light, more verdure, more cheerfulness than anywhere else in the dale. Nor are the forms and the situations of the rocks their only variety: many of them are perforated by large natural cavities, some of which open to the sky, some terminate in dark recesses, and through some are to be seen several more uncouth arches, and rude pillars, all detached, and retiring beyond each other, with the light shining in between them, till a rock far behind them closes the perspective: the noise of the cascades in the river echoes amongst them; the water may often be heard at the same time gurgling near, and roaring at a distance; but no other sound disturbs the silence of the spot: the only trace of men is a blind path, but lightly and but seldom trodden, by those whom curiosity leads to see the wonders they have been told of Dovedale. It seems indeed a fitter haunt for mere ideal beings: the whole has the air of enchantment. The perpetual shifting of the scenes; the quick transitions, the total changes, then the forms all around, grotesque as chance can cast, wild as nature can produce, and various as imagination can invent; the force which seems to have been exerted to place some of the rocks where they are now fixed immovable, the magic by which others appear still to be suspended; the dark caverns, the illuminated recesses, the fleeting shadows, and the gleams of light glancing on the sides, or trembling on the stream; and the loneliness and the stillness of the place, all crowding together on the mind, almost realize the ideas which naturally present themselves in this region of romance and of fancy.

The solitude of such a scene is agreeable, on account of the endless entertainment which its variety affords, and in the contemplation of which both the eye and the mind are delighted to indulge: marks of inhabitants and cultivation would disturb that solitude; and ornamental buildings are too artificial in a place Fence, &c., to absolutely free from restraint. The only accompaniments proper for it are wood and water; and by these sometimes improvements may be made. When two rocks similar in shape and position are near together, by skirting one of them with wood, while the other is left bare, a material distinction is established between them: if the streams be throughout of one character, it is in our power, and should be our aim, to introduce another. Variety is the peculiar property of the spot, and every accession to it is a valuable acquisition. On the same principle, endeavours should be used not only to multiply, but to aggravate differences, and to increase distinctions into contrasts: but the subject will impose a caution against attempting too much. Art must almost despair of improving a scene, where nature seems to have exerted her invention.

§ 2. Of Factitious Accompaniments.

These consist of Fences, Walks, Roads, Bridges, Seats, and Buildings.

"I. The FENCE, where the place is large, becomes necessary; yet the eye dislikes constraint. Our ideas &c., of liberty carry us beyond our own species: the imagination feels a dislike in seeing even the brute creation in a state of confinement. The birds wafting themselves from wood to grove are objects of delight; and the hare appears to enjoy a degree of happiness unknown to the barriered flock. Besides, a tall fence frequently hides from the sight objects the most pleasing; not only the flocks and herds themselves, but the surface they graze upon. These considerations have brought the unseen fence into general use.

This species of barrier it must be allowed incurs a degree of deception, which can scarcely be warranted upon any other occasion. In this instance, however, it is a species of fraud which we observe in nature's practice: how often have we seen two distinct herds feeding to appearance in the same extended meadow; until coming abruptly upon a deep funk rivulet, or an unfordable river, we discover the deception.

Besides the funk fence, another sort of unseen barrier may be made, though by no means equal to that, especially if near the eye. This is constructed of palings, painted of the invisible green. If the colour of the background were permanent, and that of the paint made exactly to correspond with it, the deception would at a distance be complete; but backgrounds in general changing with the season, this kind of fence is the least eligible.

Clumps and patches of woodiness scattered promiscuously on either side of an unseen winding fence, assist very much in doing away the idea of constraint. For by this means

The wander'ring flocks that browse between the shades, Seem oft to pass their bounds; the dubious eye Decides not if they crop the mead or lawn.