I suspect you have been misinformed as to the possibility of making the lake as you propose, and next the expense to execute this perfectly and so as to ensure that it should always be filled with fresh and transparent water, would be very considerable, and indeed at times it would be impossible to accomplish this at any cost. But our climate I think is an insuperable objection to have a house actually bordering on still water; recollect how few months in the year the notion of the coolness of water would add pleasure to the prospect from the library or drawing-room window, and how often one should shudder at the very notion of it; moreover that according to our apportionment of the seasons for town and country those very months will be passed in London,--April, May, June, and generally July, being the time when "every body is in town." Although I believe the neighbourhood of water may not always be unwholesome, still there is much prejudice to overcome on this subject; not a toothache, cold, or rheumatic twinge would be felt by a person in the family, from the stable to the drawing-room, but would be attributed to the _pond_, for when angry, nobody would call it the LAKE; malignant malaria would be discussed in every variety of tone and phrase, and Dr. Chambers would think it his duty to enter his protest against any patient of his ever venturing to make a visit of twenty-four hours to the proscribed spot. I am, however, not sorry that you had conceived the notion of the lake, because it has given an opportunity of shewing what a beautiful accessory water becomes to a house, applied as you have suggested, and because I believe you will have no difficulty in substituting some broad expanse either of turf or gravel, which, though it will not give you the reflections of the buildings and the play of light you require, will still afford a flat surface for the receiving the shadows, and will not interrupt the harmony and simplicity of the general lines of your building. The loggia though it may not look out upon the water as you propose, will always be delightful as affording shelter in the winter, and shade in the summer; and the portico is, I think, a valuable addition. Our unhappy rage for adaptation or rather perversion of the Grecian portico; hitherto the portico has increased rather than diminished, the distance which has to be traversed in cold and rainy weather, from the door to the carriage. The perfection of this maladaptation is to be seen in our unfortunate National Gallery, where is annually erected a tarpaulin lean-to in order to prevent people being drenched in rainy weather in their progress to the entrance door, the access to which is opposed by an inaccessible portico. I quite agree with you that there being no historical associations connected with the site, it is right that the tower should have no battlements, and should not show any angry front where no defence against invading