If, then, the improver will recur to the most beautiful small natural lake within his reach, he will have a subject to study and an example to copy well worthy of imitation. If he examine minutely and carefully such a body of water, with all its accompaniments, he will find that it is not only delightfully wooded and overshadowed by a variety of vegetation of all heights, from the low sedge that grows on its margin, to the tall tree that bends its branches over its limpid wave; but he will also perceive a striking peculiarity in its irregular outline. This, he will observe, is neither round, square, oblong, nor any modification of these regular figures, but full of bays and projections, sinuosities, and recesses of various forms and sizes, sometimes bold, and reaching a considerable way out into the body of the lake, at others, smaller and more varied in shape and connexion. In the heights of the banks, too, he will probably observe considerable variety. At some places, the shore will steal gently and gradually away from the level of the water, while at others it will rise suddenly and abruptly, in banks more or less steep, irregular, and rugged. Rocks and stones covered with mosses, will here and there jut out from the banks, or lie along the margin of the water, and the whole scene will be full of interest from the variety, intricacy, and beauty of the various parts. If he will accurately note in his mind all these varied forms-their separate outlines, the way in which they blend into one another, and connect themselves together, and the effect which, surrounding the water, they produce as a whole, he will have some tolerably correct ideas of the way in which an artificial lake ought to be formed.
