There were various compartments, the connexion of which was well managed, and although the whole ground did not exceed five or six acres, it was so much varied as to seem four times larger.

The space contained close alleys and open walks; a very pretty artificial waterfall; a fountain also, consisting of a considerable jet-d'eau, whose streams glittered in the sunbeams and exhibited a continual rainbow.

There was a cabinet of verdure, as the French call it, to cool the summer heat, and there was a terrace sheltered from the north-east by a noble holly hedge, with all its glittering spears where you might have the full advantage of the sun in the clear frosty days of winter.
I know that you, Alan, will condemn all this as bad and antiquated; for, ever since Dodsley has described the Leasowes, and talked of Brown's imitations of nature and Horace Walpole's late Essay on Gardening, you are all for simple nature--condemn walking up and down stairs in the open air and declare for wood and wilderness.

But NE QUID NIMIS.

I would not deface a scene of natural grandeur or beauty, by the introduction of crowded artificial decorations; yet such may, I think, be very interesting, where the situation, in its natural state, otherwise has no particular charms.
So that when I have a country-house (who can say how soon ?) you may look for grottoes, and cascades, and fountains; nay if you vex me by contradiction, perhaps I may go the length of a temple--so provoke me not, for you see of what enormities I am capable.
At any rate, Alan, had you condemned as artificial the rest of Friend Geddes's grounds, there is a willow walk by the very verge of the stream, so sad, so solemn, and so silent, that it must have commanded your admiration.