2260. The greatest danger in imitating cascades and waterfalls consisting in attempting too much, a very few blocks, disposed with a painter's eye, will effect all that can be in good taste in most garden-scenes; and in forming or improving them in natural rivers, there will generally be found indications both as to situation and style, especially if the country be uneven, or stony, or rocky. Nothing can be in worse taste than piles of stones and rocks across a river, either natural or artificial, in a tame alluvial meadow; they may be well chosen fragments from suitable materials, and arranged so as to form a cascade or waterfall very beautiful of itself, but whose beauty is really deformity or monstrosity, relatively to the surrounding scenery, or to that whole of which it should form an accordant part.
