The following expedient occurred to me very recently, on considering the view from the windows at Dagenham, in Essex, a seat of Sir Thomas Neave, Bart. The landscape consists of a park, wooded sufficiently, and the distance presents a pleasing offskip; but the most conspicuous feature is a large circular pond, or pool, with naked banks, from which the cattle are excluded by a hurdle, to prevent their poaching the clay shores. The sight of this hurdle is very offensive; but it is rendered doubly so, by being reflected in the water, where it becomes still more conspicuous by its opposition to the sky. It has long been matter of doubt and difference of opinion, whether it would not be advisable to drain off the water, and make a dry valley, or dell, of this unsightly pool, which, from its situation, reflects nothing but the sky. Yet, there is something so cheerful in the glitter of water, that we must always give it up with reluctance, however ill-placed, or badly shaped; it was, therefore, decided to preserve this pool, and to make it an ornamental part of the dressed ground near the house.
