Like Gray, Pliny took a keen pleasure in exploring the
more romantic districts of his country; his description of
the lake in the letter just mentioned is curiously like
passages from the journal in which Gray records his
discovery — for it was little less — of Thirlmere and Der-
wentwater. He views the Clitumnus with the eye of an
accomplished landscape-gardener; he notes the cypresses
on the hill, the ash and poplar groves by the water's edge j



228 Latin Literature. [IH.
he counts the shining pebbles under the clear ice-cold
water, and watches the green reflections of the overhanging
trees ; and finally, as Thomson or Cowper might have
done, mentions the abundance of comfortable villas as the
last charm of the landscape.
