The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and
Instruction, by Various

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Title: The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction
Volume 19, No. 533, Saturday, February 11, 1832.

Author: Various

Release Date: March 14, 2004 [EBook #11566]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.

VOL. XIX. NO. 533.] SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1832. [PRICE 2d.

* * * * *

[Illustration: Cascade at Virginia Water.]

CASCADE AT VIRGINIA WATER.

This has been described as "perhaps the most striking imitation we have of
the great works of nature:" at all events, it has less of the mimicry of
art than similar works on a smaller scale.

Virginia Water will be recollected as the largest sheet of artificial
water in the kingdom, with the exception of that at Blenheim. Near the
high Southampton road it forms the above cascade, descending into a glen
romantically shaded with plantations of birch, willow, and acacia:

Hollowly here the gushing water sounds
With a mysterious voice; one might pause
Upon its echoes till it seemeth a noise
Of fathomless wilds where man had never walked.

Or it may be described in the graphic words of Thomson:

With woods o'erhung, and shagg'd with mossy rocks,
Whence on each side the gushing waters play,
And down the rough cascade white dashing fall,
Or gleam in lengthened vista through the trees.

Beside the cascade is a stone cave, "moss-o'ergrown," constructed with
fragments of immense size and curious shape that were originally dug up at
Bagshot Heath, and are supposed to be the remains of a Saxon cromlech. At
the base of this fall, it becomes a running stream, and after winding
through part of Surrey, falls into the Thames at Chertsey.

The reader will remember Virginia Water as the favourite retreat of the
late King; and this embellishment, (if so artificial a term can be applied
to a cascade,) was made at the bidd