Chambers, William: A Dissertation On Oriental Gardening (London: Griffin [u.a.], 1773)

PREFACE. vii
ones: more green sields, more shrubberies, more
serpentine walks, and more temples ; like the honefl:
batchelor’s feast, which consisted in nothing but a
multiplication of his own dinner; three legs of mutton
and turneps, three roasted geese, and three buttered
apple-pies.

Sometimes, indeed, by way of regale, where siich
dainties are attainable, you are treated with a serpentine
river; that is, a stripe os stagnant water, waving, in
semicircles, as far as it will reach, and finifliing in a
pretty little orderly step cascade, that never runs but when
it rains. The banks of these curious rivers are every where
uniform, parallel, level, smooth and green, as a billiard-
table ; and the whole composition bears a great resem-
blance to the barge-canals of Holland: the only difference
being, that the Dutch ditches are regularly straight, whilfl:
ours are regularly crooked. Of the two, ours are certainly
the most formal and affected: they are by no means the
most picturesque.
It