and those of Hardwick once veiled a form as lovely as the ideal graces of the Poet, and conspired to a fate more tragical than that, which Harewood witnessed.

In front of the great gates of the castle court, the ground, adorned by old oaks, suddenly sinks to a darkly shadowed glade, and the view opens over the vale of Scarsdale, bounded by the wild mountains of the Peak. Immediately to the left of the present residence, some ruined features of the antient one, enwreathed with the rich drapery of ivy, give an interest to the scene, which the later, but more historical structure heightens and prolongs. We followed, not without emotion, the walk, which Mary had so often trodden, to the folding doors of the great hall, whose lofty grandeur, aided by silence and seen under the influence of a lowering sky, suited the temper of the whole scene. The tall windows, which half subdue the light they admit, just allowed us to distinguish the large figures in the tapestry, above the oak wainscoting, and shewed a colonnade of oak supporting a gallery along the bottom of the hall, with a pair of gigantic elk's horns flourishing between the windows opposite to the entrance. The scene of Mary's arrival and her feelings upon entering this solemn shade came involuntarily to the mind; the noise of horses' feet and many voices from the court; her proud yet gentle and melancholy look, as, led by my Lord Keeper, she passed slowly up the hall; his somewhat obsequious, yet jealous and vigilant air, while, awed by her dignity and beauty, he remembers the terrors of his own Queen; the silence and anxiety of her maids, and the bustle of the surrounding attendants.

From the hall a stair-case ascends to the gallery of a small chapel, in which the chairs and cushions, used by Mary, still remain, and proceeds to the first story, where only one apartment bears memorials of her imprisonment, the bed, tapestry and chairs having been worked by herself. This tapestry is richly embossed with emblematic figures, each with its title worked above it, and, having been scrupulously preserved, is still entire and fresh.

Over the chimney of an adjoining dining-room, to which, as well as to other apartments on this floor, some modern furniture has been added, is this motto carved in oak:

"There is only this: To fear God and keep his Commandments."

So much less valuable was timber than workmanship, when this mansion was constructed, that, where the stair-cases are not of stone, they are formed of solid oaken steps, instead of planks; such is that from the second, or state story to the roof, whence, on clear days, York and Lincoln Cathedrals are said to be included in the extensive prospect. This second floor is that, which gives its chief interest to the edifice. Nearly all the apartments of it were allotted to Mary; some of them for state purposes; and the furniture is known by other proofs, than its appearance, to remain as she left it. The chief room, or that of audience, is of uncommon loftiness, and strikes by its grandeur, before the veneration and tenderness arise, which its antiquities, and the plainly told tale of the sufferings they witnessed, excite.

The walls, which are covered to a considerable height with tapestry, are painted above with historical groups. The chairs are of black velvet, nearly concealed by a raised needle-work of gold, silver and colours, that mingle with surprising richness, and remain in fresh preservation. The upper end of the room is distinguished by a lofty canopy of the same materials, and by steps which support two chairs; so that the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury probably enjoyed their own stateliness here, as well as assisted in the ceremonies practised before Mary. A carpeted table, in front of the canopy, was, perhaps, the desk of Commissioners, or Secretaries, who here recorded some of the proceedings concerning her; below which, the room breaks into a spacious recess, where a few articles of furniture are deposited, not originally placed in it; a bed of state, used by Mary, the curtains of gold tissue, but in so tattered a condition, that its original texture can scarcely be perceived. This and the chairs, which accompany it, are supposed to have been much earlier than Mary's time.

A short passage leads from the state apartment to her own chamber, a small room, overlooked from the passage by a window, which enabled her attendants to know, that she was contriving no means of escape through the others into the court. The bed and chairs of this room are of black velvet, embroidered by herself; the toilet of gold tissue; all more decayed than worn, and probably used only towards the conclusion of her imprisonment here, when she was removed from some better apartment, in which the antient bed, now in the state-room, had been placed. The date 1599 is once or twice inscribed in this chamber; for no reason, that could relate to Mary, who was removed hence in 1584, and fell, by the often-blooded hands of Elizabeth, in 1587.

These are the apartments, distinguished by having been the residence of so unhappy a personage. On the other side of the mansion, a grand gallery occupies the length of the whole front, which is 165 feet, and contains many portraits, now placed carelessly on chairs, or the floor; amongst them an head of Sir Thomas More, apparently very fine; heads of Henries the Fourth, Seventh and Eighth; a portrait of Lady Jane Gray, meek and fair, before a harpsichord, on which a psalm-book is opened; at the bottom of the gallery, Elizabeth, slyly proud and meanly violent; and, at the top, Mary, in black, taken a short time before her death, her countenance much faded, deeply marked by indignation and grief, and reduced as if to the spectre of herself, frowning with suspicion upon all who approached it; the black eyes looking out from their corners, thin lips, somewhat aquiline nose and beautiful chin.

What remains of the more antient building is a ruin, which, standing nearly on the brink of the glade, is a fine object from this. A few apartments, though approached with difficulty through the fragments of others, are still almost entire, and the dimensions of that called the Giant's Chamber are remarkable for the beauty of their proportion.

From Hardwick to within a few miles of Middleton, the beauty of the country declines, while the sublimity is not perfected; but, from the north-west brow of Brampton Moor, the vast hills of Derbyshire appear, in wild and ghastly succession. Middleton, hewn out of the grey rocks, that impend over it, and scarcely distinguishable from them, is worth notice for its very small and neat octagon church, built partly by brief and partly by a donation from the Duke of Devonshire. The valley, or rather chasm, at the entrance of which it stands, is called Middleton Dale, and runs, for two miles, between perpendicular walls of rock, which have more the appearance of having been torn asunder by some convulsive rent of the earth, than any we have elsewhere seen. The strata are horizontal, and the edges of each are often distinct and rounded; one of the characteristics of granite. Three grey rocks, resembling castles, project from these solid walls, and, now and then, a lime-kiln, round like a bastion, half involves in smoke a figure, who, standing on the summit, looks the Witch of the Dale, on an edge of her cauldron, watching the workings of incantation.

The chasm opened, at length, to a hill, whence wild moorish mountains were seen on all sides, some entirely covered with the dull purple of heath, others green, but without enclosures, except sometimes a stone wall, and the dark sides of others marked only by the blue smoke of weeds, driven in circles near the ground.

Towards sun-set, from a hill in Cheshire, we had a vast view over part of that county and nearly all Lancashire, a scene of fertile plains and gentle heights, till some broad and towering mountains, at an immense distance, were but uncertainly distinguished from the clouds. Soon after, the cheerful populousness of the rich towns and villages in Lancashire supplied objects for attention of a different character; Stockport first, crowded with buildings and people, as much so as some of the busiest quarters in London, with large blazing fires in every house, by the light of which women were frequently spinning, and manufacturers issuing from their workshops and filling the steep streets, which the chaise rolled down with; dangerous rapidity; then an almost continued street of villages to Manchester, some miles before which the road was busy with passengers and carriages, as well as bordered by handsome country houses; and, finally for this day, Manchester itself; a second London; enormous to those, who have not seen the first, almost tumultuous with business, and yet well proved to afford the necessary peacefulness to science, letters and taste. And not only for itself may Manchester be an object of admiration, but for the contrast of its useful profits to the wealth of a neighbouring place, immersed in the dreadful guilt of the Slave Trade, with the continuance of which to believe national prosperity compatible, is to hope, that the actions of nations pass unseen before the Almighty, or to suppose extenuation of crimes by increase of criminality, and that the eternal laws of right and truth, which smite the wickedness of individuals, are too weak to struggle with the accumulated and comprehensive guilt of a national participation in robbery, cruelty and murder.

From Manchester to Lancaster the road leads through a pleasant and populous country, which rises gradually as it approaches the huge hills we had noticed in the distance from the brow of Cheshire, and whose attitudes now resembled those of the Rheingau as seen from Mentz. From some moors on this side of Lancaster the prospects open very extensively over a rich tract fading into blue ridges; while, on the left, long lines of distant sea appear, every now and then, over the dark woods of the shore, with vessels sailing as if on their summits. But the view from a hill descending to Lancaster is pre-eminent for grandeur, and comprehends an extent of sea and land, and a union of the sublime in both, which we have never seen equalled. In the green vale of the Lune below lies the town, spreading up the side of a round hill overtopped by the old towers of the castle and the church. Beyond, over a ridge of gentle heights, which bind the west side of the vale, the noble inlet of the sea, that flows upon the Ulverston and Lancaster sands, is seen at the feet of an amphitheatre formed by nearly all the mountains of the Lakes; an exhibition of alpine grandeur, both in form and colouring, which, with the extent of water below, compose a scenery perhaps faintly rivalling that of the Lake of Geneva. To the south and west, the Irish Channel finishes the view.

The antient town and castle of Lancaster have been so often and so well described, that little remains to be said of them. To the latter considerable additions are building in the Gothic style, which, when time shall have shaded the stone, will harmonize well wish the venerable towers and gatehouse of the old structure. From a turret rising over the leads of the castle, called John o' Gaunt's Chair, the prospect is still finer than from the terrace of the church-yard below. Overlooking the Lune and its green slopes, the eye ranges to the bay of the sea beyond, and to the Cumberland and Lancashire mountains. On an island near the extremity of the peninsula of Low Furness, the double point of Peel Castle starts up from the sea, but is so distant that it resembles a forked rock. This peninsula, which separates the bay of Ulverston from the Irish Channel, swells gradually into a pointed mountain called Blackcomb, thirty miles from Lancaster, the first in the amphitheatre, that binds the bay. Hence a range of lower, but more broken and forked summits, extends northward to the fells of High Furness, rolled behind each other, huge, towering and dark; then, higher still, Langdale Pikes, with a confusion of other fells, that crown the head of Windermere and retire towards Keswick, whose gigantic mountains, Helvellyn and Saddleback, are, however, sunk in distance below the horizon of the nearer ones. The top of Skiddaw may be discerned when the air is clear, but it is too far off to appear with dignity. From Windermere-Fells the heights soften towards the Vale of Lonsdale, on the east side of which Ingleborough, a mountain in Craven, rears his rugged front, the loftiest and most majestic in the scene. The nearer country, from this point of the landscape, is intersected with cultivated hills, between which the Lune winds its bright but shallow stream, falling over a weir and passing under a very handsome stone bridge at the entrance of the town, in its progress towards the sea. A ridge of rocky eminences shelters Lancaster on the east, whence they decline into the low and uninteresting country, that stretches to the Channel.

The appearance of the northern Fells is ever changing with the weather and shifting lights. Sometimes they resemble those evening clouds on the horizon, that catch the last gleams of the sun; at others, wrapt in dark mist, they are only faintly traced, and seem like stormy vapours rising from the sea. But in a bright day their appearance is beautiful; then, their grand outlines are distinctly drawn upon the sky, a vision of Alps; the rugged sides are faintly marked with light and shadow, with wood and rock, and here and there a cluster of white cottages, or farms and hamlets, gleam at their feet along the water's edge. Over the whole landscape is then drawn a softening azure, or sometimes a purple hue, exquisitely lovely, while the sea below reflects a brighter tint of blue.

FROM LANCASTER TO KENDAL.

Leaving Lancaster, we wound along the southern brow of the vale of the Lune, which there serpentizes among meadows, and is soon after shut up between steep shrubby banks. From the heights we had some fine retrospects of Lancaster and the distant sea; but, about three miles from the town, the hills open forward to a view as much distinguished by the notice of Mr. Gray, as by its own charms. We here looked down over a woody and finely broken fore-ground upon the Lune and the vale of Lonsdale, undulating in richly cultivated slopes, with Ingleborough, for the back-ground, bearing its bold promontory on high, the very crown and paragon of the landscape. To the west, the vale winds from sight among smoother hills; and the gracefully falling line of a mountain, on the left, forms, with the wooded heights, on the right, a kind of frame for the distant picture.

The road now turned into the sweetly retired vale of Caton, and by the village church-yard, in which there is not a single gravestone, to Hornby, a small straggling town, delightfully seated near the entrance of the vale of Lonsdale. Its thin toppling castle is seen among wood, at a considerable distance, with a dark hill rising over it. What remains of the old edifice is a square grey building, with a slender watch-tower, rising in one corner, like a feather in a hat, which joins the modern mansion of white stone, and gives it a singular appearance, by seeming to start from the centre of its roof.

In front, a steep lawn descends between avenues of old wood, and the park extends along the skirts of the craggy hill, that towers above. At its foot, is a good stone bridge over the Wenning, now shrunk in its pebbly bed, and, further on, near the castle, the church, shewing a handsome octagonal tower, crowned with battlements. The road then becomes extremely interesting, and, at Melling, a village on a brow some miles further, the view opens over the whole vale of Lonsdale. The eye now passes, beneath the arching foliage of some trees in the fore-ground, to the sweeping valley, where meadows of the most vivid green and dark woods, with white cottages and villages peeping from among them, mingle with surprising richness, and undulate from either bank of the Lune to the feet of hills. Ingleborough, rising from elegantly swelling ground, overlooked this enchanting vale, on the right, clouds rolling along its broken top, like smoke from a cauldron, and its hoary tint forming a boundary to the soft verdure and rich woodlands of the slopes, at its feet. The perspective was terminated by the tall peeping heads of the Westmoreland fells, the nearer ones tinged with faintest purple, the more distant with light azure; and this is the general boundary to a scene, in the midst of which, enclosed between nearer and lower hills, lies the vale of Lonsdale, of a character mild, delicate and reposing, like the countenance of a Madona.

Descending Melling brow, and winding among the perpetually-changing scenery of the valley, we approached Ingleborough; and it was interesting to observe the lines of its bolder features gradually strengthening, and the shadowy markings of its minuter ones becoming more distinct, as we advanced. Rock and grey crags looked out from the heath, on every side; but its form on each was very different. Towards Lonsdale, the mountain is bold and majestic, rising in abrupt and broken precipices, and, often impending, till, at the summit, it suddenly becomes flat, and is level for nearly a mile, whence it descends, in along gradual ridge, to Craven in Yorkshire. In summer, some festivities are annually celebrated on this top, and the country people, as they "drink the freshness of the mountain breeze ¹," look over the wild moorlands of Yorkshire, the rich vales of Lancashire, and to the sublime mountains of Westmoreland.

FROM KENDAL TO BAMPTON AND HAWSWATER.

Of two roads from Kendal to Bampton one is through Long Sleddale, the other over Shap-fell, the king of the Westmoreland mountains; of which routes the last is the most interesting for simple sublimity, leading through the heart of the wildest tracts and opening to such vast highland scenery as even Derbyshire cannot shew. We left Kendal by this road, and from a very old, ruinous bridge had a full view of the castle, stretching its dark walls and broken towers round the head of a green hill, to the southward of the town. These reliques are, however, too far separated by the decay of large masses of the original edifice, and contain little that is individually picturesque.

The road now lay through shady lanes and over undulating, but gradually ascending ground, from whence were pleasant views of the valley, with now and then a break in the hills, on the left, opening to a glimpse of the distant fells towards Windermere, gray and of more pointed form than any we had yet seen; for hitherto the mountains, though of huge outline, were not so broken, or alpine in their summits as to strike the fancy with surprise. After about three miles, a very steep hill shuts up the vale to the North, and from a gray rock, near the summit, called Stone-cragg, the prospect opens over the vale of Kendal with great dignity and beauty. Its form from hence seems nearly circular; the hills spread round it, and sweep with easy lines into the bottom, green nearly to their summits, where no fantastic points bend over it, though rock frequently mingles with the heath. The castle, or its low green hill, looked well, nearly in the centre of the landscape, with Kendal and its mountain, on the right. Far to the south, were the groves of Leven's park, almost the only wood in the scene, and, over the heights beyond, blue hills bounded the horizon. On the west, an opening in the near steeps discovered clusters of huge and broken fells, while other breaks, on the east, shewed long ridges stretching towards the south. Nearer us and to the northward, the hills rose dark and awful, crowding over and intersecting each other in long and abrupt lines, heath and crag their only furniture.

The rough knolls around us and the dark mountain above gave force to the verdant beauty and tranquillity of the vale below, and seemed especially to shelter from the storms of the north some white farms and cottages, scattered among enclosures in the hollows. Soon after reaching the summit of the mountain itself

and we looked down on the left into Long Sleddale, a little scene of exquisite beauty, surrounded with images of greatness. This narrow vale, or glen, shewed a level of the brightest verdure, with a few cottages scattered among groves, enclosed by dark fells, that rose steeply, yet gracefully, and, at their summits, bent forward in masses of shattered rock. An hugely pointed mountain, called Keintmoor-head, shuts up this sweet scene to the north, rising in a sudden precipice from the vale, and heightening, by barren and gloomy steeps, the miniature beauty, that glowed at its feet. Two mountains, called Whiteside and Potter's-fell, screen the perspective; Stone-crag is at the southern end, fronting Keintmoor-head. The vale, seen beyond the broken ground we were upon, formed a landscape of, perhaps, unexampled variety and grace of colouring; the tender green of the lowland, the darker verdure of the woods ascending the mountains, the brown rough heath above them, and the impending crags over all, exhibit their numerous shades, within a space not more than two miles long, or half a mile in breadth.

From the right of our road another valley extended, whose character is that of simple sublimity, unmixed with any tint of beauty. The vast, yet narrow perspective sweeps in ridges of mountains, huge, barren and brown, point beyond point, the highest of which, Howgill-fell, gives its name to the whole district, in which not a wood, a village, or a farm appeared to cheer the long vista. A shepherd boy told us the names of almost all the heights within the horizon, and we are sorry not to have written them, for the names of mountains are seldom compounded of modern, or trivial denominations, and frequently are somewhat descriptive of their prototypes. He informed us also, that we should go over eight miles of Shap-fell, without seeing a house; and soon after, at Haw's-foot, we took leave of the last on the road, entering then a close valley, surrounded by stupendous mountains of heath and rock, more towering and abrupt than those, that had appeared in moorlands on the other side of Kendal. A stream, rolling in its rocky channel, and crossing the road under a rude bridge, was all that broke the solitary silence, or gave animation to the view, except the flocks, that hung upon the precipices, and which, at that height, were scarcely distinguishable from the gray round stones, thickly starting from out the heathy steeps. The Highlands of Scotland could scarcely have offered to Ossian more images of simple greatness, or more circumstances for melancholy inspiration. Dark glens and fells, the mossy stone, the lonely blast, descending on the valley, the roar of distant torrents every where occurred; and to the bard the "song of spirits" would have swelled with these sounds, and their fleeting forms have appeared in the clouds, that frequently floated along the mountain tops.

The road, now ascending Shap-fell, alternately climbed the steeps and sunk among the hollows of this sovereign mountain, which gives its name to all the surrounding hills; and, during an ascent of four miles, we watched every form and attitude of the features, which composed this vast scenery. Sometimes we looked from a precipice into deep vallies, varied only with shades of heath, with the rude summer hut of the shepherd, or by streams accumulating into torrents; and, at others, caught long prospects over high lands as huge and wild as the nearer ones, which partially intercepted them.

The flocks in this high region are so seldom disturbed by the footsteps of man, that they have not learned to fear him; they continued to graze within a few feet of the carriage, or looked quietly at it, seeming to consider these mountains as their own.

Near the summit of the road, though not of the hill, a retrospective glance gave us a long view over the fells, and of a rich distance towards Lancaster, rising into blue hills, which admitted glimpses of sparkling sea in the bay beyond. This gay perspective, lighted up by a gleam of sunshine, and viewed between the brown lines of the nearer mountains, shewed like the miniature painting of a landscape, illuminated beyond a darkened fore-ground.

At the point of every steep, as we ascended, the air seemed to become thinner, and, at the northern summit of Shap-fell, which we reached after nearly two hours' toil, the wind blew with piercing intenseness, making it difficult to remain as long as was due to our admiration of the prospect. The scene of mountains, which burst upon us, can be compared only to the multitudinous waves of the sea. On the northern, western and eastern scope of the horizon rose vast ridges of heights, their broken lines sometimes appearing in seven or eight successive ranges, though shewing nothing either fantastic or peaked in their forms. The autumnal lights, gleaming on their sides, or shadows sweeping in dark lines along them, produced a very sublime effect; while summits more remote were often misty with the streaming shower, and others glittered in the partial rays, or were coloured with the mild azure of distance. The greater tract of the intervening hills and Shap-fell itself were, at this time, darkened with clouds, while Fancy, awed by the gloom, imaged the genius of Westmoreland brooding over it and directing the scowling storm.

A descent of nearly four miles brought us to Shap, a straggling village, lying on the side of a bleak hill, feebly sheltered by clumps of trees. Here, leaving the moorlands, we were glad to find ourselves again where "bells have knolled to church," and in the midst of civilized, though simple life. After a short rest, at a cleanly little inn, we proceeded towards Bampton, a village five miles further in a vale, to which it gives its name, and one mile from Hawswater, the lake, that invited us to it. As the road advanced, the fells of this lake fronted it, and, closing over the southern end of Bampton vale, were the most interesting objects in the view. They were of a character very different from any yet seen; tall, rocky, and of more broken and pointed form. Among them was the high blue peak, called Kidstow-pike; the broader ridge of Wallow-crag; a round and still loftier mountain—Ickolm-moor, beyond, and, further yet, other ranges of peaked summits, that overlook Ullswater.

In a hollow on the left of the road, called the Vale of Magdalene, are the ruins of Shap-abbey, built in the reign of John, of which little now appears except a tower with pointed windows. The situation is deeply secluded, and the gloom of the surrounding mountains may have accorded well with monastic melancholy.

Proceeding towards Bampton we had a momentary peep into Hawswater, sunk deep among black and haggard rocks, and overtopped by the towering fells before named, whose summits were involved in tempest, till the sun, suddenly breaking out from under clouds, threw a watery gleam aslant the broken top of Kidstow-pike; and his rays, struggling with the shower, produced a fine effect of light, opposed to the gloom, that wrapt Ickolm-moor and other huge mountains.

We soon after looked down from the heights of Bampton upon its open vale, checquered with corn and meadows, among which the slender Lowther wound its way from Hawswater to the vale of Eden, crossing that of Bampton to the north. The hills, enriched here and there with hanging woods and seats, were cultivated nearly to their summits, except where in the south the rude heights of Hawswater almost excluded the lake and shut up the valley. Immediately below us Bampton grange lay along the skirt of the hill, and crossed the Lowther, a gray, rambling and antient village, to which we descended among rough common, darkened by plantations of fir, and between corn enclosures.

The interruption, which enclosed waters and pathless mountains give to the intercourse and business of ordinary life, renders the district, that contains the lakes of Lancashire, Westmoreland and Cumberland, more thinly inhabited than is due to the healthiness of the climate and, perhaps, to the richness of the vallies. The roads are always difficult from their steepness, and in winter are greatly obstructed by snow. That over Shap-fell to Kendal was, some years since, entirely impassable, till the inhabitants of a few scattered towns subscribed thirty pounds, and a way was cut wide enough for one horse, but so deep, that the snow was, on each side, above the rider's head. It is not in this age of communication and intelligence, that any person will be credulously eager to suppose the inhabitants of one part of the island considerably or generally distinguished in their characters from those of another; yet, perhaps, none can immerge themselves in this country of the lakes, without being struck by the superior simplicity and modesty of the people. Secluded from great towns and from examples of selfish splendour, their minds seem to act freely in the sphere of their own affairs, without interruption from envy or triumph, as to those of others. They are obliging, without servility, and plain but not rude, so that, when, in accosting you, they omit the customary appellations, you perceive it to be the familiarity of kindness, not of disrespect; and they do not bend with meanness, or hypocrisy, but shew an independent well meaning, without obtrusiveness and without the hope of more than ordinary gain.

Their views of profit from strangers are, indeed, more limited than we could have believed, before witnessing it. The servants at the little inns confess themselves, by their manner of receiving what you give, to be almost as much surprised as pleased. A boy, who had opened four or five gates for us between Shap and Bampton, blushed when we called to him to have some halfpence; and it frequently happened, that persons, who had looked at the harness, or rendered some little services of that sort on the road, passed on, before any thing could be offered them. The confusion of others, on being paid, induced us to suppose, at first, that enough had not been given; but we were soon informed, that nothing was expected.

The inns, as here at Bampton, are frequently humble; and those, who are disposed to clamour for luxuries, as if there was a crime in not being able to supply them, may confound a simple people, and be themselves greatly discontented, before they go. But those, who will be satisfied with comforts, and think the experience of integrity, carefulness and goodwill is itself a luxury, will be glad to have stopped at Bampton and at several other little villages, where there is some sort of preparation for travellers.

Nor is this secluded spot without provision for the mind. A beneficed grammar school receives the children of the inhabitants, and sends, we believe, some to an University. Bishop Gibson received his education at it. Bishop Law, who was born at Bampton, went daily across one, or two of the rudest fells on the lake to another school, at Martindale; an exercise of no trifling fatigue, or resolution; for among the things to be gained by seeing the lakes is a conception of the extreme wildness of their boundaries. You arrive with a notion, that you can and dare rove any where amongst the mountains; and have only to see three to have the utmost terror of losing your way.

The danger of wandering in theses regions without a guide is increased by an uncertainty, as to the titles of heights; for the people of each village have a name for the part of a mountain nearest to themselves, and they sometimes call the whole by that name. The circumference of such heights is also too vast, and the flexures too numerous to admit of great accuracy. Skiddaw, Saddleback and Helvellyn, may, however be certainly distinguished. There are others, a passage over which would save, perhaps, eight or ten miles out of twenty, but which are so little known, except to the shepherds, that they are very rarely crossed by travellers. We could not trust to any person's knowledge of Harter-fell, beyond the head of Hawswater.

HAWSWATER.

This is a lake, of which little has been mentioned, perhaps because it is inferior in size to the others, but which is distinguished by the solemn grandeur of its rocks and mountains, that rise in very bold and awful characters. The water, about three miles long, and at the widest only half a mile over, nearly describes the figure 8, being narrowed in the centre by the projecting shores; and, at this spot, it is said to be fifty fathom deep.

Crossing the meadows of Bampton vale and ascending the opposite heights, we approached the fells of Hawswater, and, having proceeded for a mile along the side of hills, the views over the vale and of the southern mountains changing with almost every step, the lake began to open between a very lofty ridge, covered with forest, and abrupt fells of heath, or naked rock. Soon after, we looked upon the first expanse of the lake. Its eastern shore, rising in a tremendous ridge of rocks, darkened with wood to the summit, appears to terminate in Wallow-crag, a promontory of towering height, beyond which the lake winds from view. The finely broken mountains on the west are covered with heath, and the tops impend in crags and precipices; but their ascent from the water is less sudden than that of the opposite rocks, and they are skirted by a narrow margin of vivid green, where cattle were feeding, and tufted shrubs and little groves overhung the lake and were reflected on its dark surface. Above, a very few white cottages among wood broke in upon the solitude; higher still, the mountain-flocks were browsing, and above all, the narrow perspective was closed by dark and monstrous summits.

As we wound along the bank, the rocks unfolded and disclosed the second expanse, with scenery yet more towering and sublime than the first. This perspective seemed to be terminated by the huge mountain called Castle-street; but, as we advanced, Harter-fell reared his awful front, impending over the water, and shut in the scene, where, amidst rocks, and at the entrance of a glen almost choked by fragments from the heights, stands the chapel of Martindale, spoken by the country people Mardale. Among the fells of this dark prospect are Lathale, Wilter-crag, Castle-crag and Riggindale, their bold lines appearing beyond each other as they fell into the upper part of the lake, and some of them shewing only masses of shattered rock. Kidstow-pike is pre-eminent among the crowding summits beyond the eastern shore, and the clouds frequently spread their gloom over its point, or fall in showers into the cup within; on the west High-street, which overlooks the head of Ullswater, is the most dignified of the mountains.

Leaving the green margin of the lake, we ascended to the Parsonage, a low, white building on a knoll, sheltered by the mountain and a grove of sycamores, with a small garden in front, falling towards the water. From the door we had a view of the whole lake and the surrounding fells, which the eminence we were upon was just raised enough to shew to advantage. Nearly opposite to it the bold promontory of Wallow-crag pushed its base into the lake, where a peninsula advanced to meet it, spread with bright verdure, on which the hamlet of Martindale lay half concealed among a grove of oak, beech and sycamore, whose tints contrasted with the darker one of the spiry spruce, or more clumped English fir, and accorded sweetly with the pastoral green beneath. The ridge of precipices, that swept from Wallow-crag southward, and formed a bay for the upper part of the lake, was despoiled of its forest; but that, which curved northward, was dark with dwarf-wood to the water's brim, and, opening distantly to Bampton vale, let in a gay miniature landscape, bright in sunshine. Below, the lake reflected the gloom of the woods, and was sometimes marked with long white lines, which, we were told, indicated bad weather; but, except when a sudden gust swept the surface, it gave back every image on the shore, as in a dark mirror.

The interior of the Parsonage was as comfortable as the situation was interesting. A neat parlour opened from the passage, but it was newly painted, and we were shewn into the family room, having a large old-fashioned chimney corner, with benches to receive a social party, and forming a most enviable retreat from the storms of the mountains. Here, in the winter evening, a family circle, gathering round a blazing pile of wood on the hearth, might defy the weather and the world. It was delightful to picture such a party, happy in their home, in the sweet affections of kindred and in honest independence, conversing, working and reading occasionally, while the blast was struggling against the casement and the snow pelting on the roof.

The seat of a long window, overlooking the lake, offered the delights of other seasons; hence the luxuriance of summer and the colouring of autumn successively spread their enchantments over the opposite woods, and the meadows that margined the water below; and a little garden of sweets sent up its fragrance to that of the honeysuckles, that twined round the window. Here, too, lay a store of books, and, to instance that an inhabitant of this remote nook could not exclude an interest concerning the distant world among them was a history of passing events. Alas! to what scenes, to what display of human passions and human suffering did it open! How opposite to the simplicity, the innocence and the peace of these!

The venerable father of the mansion was engaged in his duty at his chapel of Martindale, but we were hospitably received within, and heard the next day how gladly he would have rendered any civilities to strangers.

On leaving this enviable little residence, we pursued the steeps of the mountain behind it, and were soon amidst the flocks and the crags, whence the look-down, upon the lake and among the fells was solemn and surprising. About a quarter of a mile from the Parsonage, a torrent of some dignity rushed past us, foaming down a rocky chasm in its way to the lake. Every where, little streams of crystal clearness wandered silently among the moss and turf, which half concealed their progress, or dashed over the rocks; and, across the largest, sheep-bridges of flat stone were thrown, to prevent the flocks from being carried away in attempting to pass them in winter. The gray stones, that grew among the heath, were spotted with mosses of so fine a texture, that it was difficult to ascertain whether they were vegetable; their tints were a delicate pea-green and primrose, with a variety of colours, which it was not necessary to be a botanist to admire.

An hour, passed in ascending, brought us to the brow of Bampton vale, which sloped gently downward to the north, where it opened to lines of distant mountains, that extended far into the east. The woods of Lowther-park capped two remote hills, and spread luxuriantly down their sides into the valley; and nearer, Bampton-grange lay at the base of a mountain, crowned with fir plantations, over which, in a distant vale, we discovered the village of Shap and long ridges of the highland, passed on the preceding day.

One of the fells we had just crossed is called Blanarasa, at the summit of which two gray stones, each about four feet high, and placed upright, at the distance of nine feet from each other, remain of four, which are remembered to have been formerly there. The place is still called Four Stones; but tradition does not relate the design of the monument; whether to limit adjoining districts, or to commemorate a battle, or a hero.

We descended gradually into the vale, among thickets of rough oaks, on the bank of a rivulet, which foamed in a deep channel beneath their foliage, and came to a glade so sequestered and gloomily overshadowed, that one almost expected see the venerable arch of a ruin, peeping between the branches. It was the very spot, which the founder of a monastery might have chosen for his retirement, where the chantings of a choir might have mingled with the soothing murmur of the stream, and monks have glided beneath the solemn trees in garments scarcely distinguishable from the shades themselves.

This glade, sloping from the eye, opened under spreadings oaks to a remote glimpse of the vale, with blue hills in the distance; and on the grassy hillocks of the fore-ground cattle were every where reposing.

We returned, about sun-set, to Bampton, after a walk of little more than four miles, which had exhibited a great variety of scenery, beautiful, romantic and sublime. At the entrance of the village, the Lowther and a nameless rivulet, that runs from Hawswater, join their waters; both streams were now sunk in their beds; but in winter they sometimes contend for the conquest and ravage of the neighbouring plains. The waters have then risen to the height of five or six feet in a meadow forty yards from their summer channels. In an enclosure of this vale was fought the last battle, or skirmish, with the Scots in Westmoreland; and it is within the telling of the sons of great-grandfathers, that the contest continued, till the Scots were discovered to fire only pebbles; the villagers had then the folly to close with them and the success to drive them away; but such was the simplicity of the times, that it was called a victory to have made one prisoner. Stories of this sort are not yet entirely forgotten in the deeply inclosed vales of Westmoreland and Cumberland, where the greater part of the present inhabitants can refer to an ancestry of several centuries, on the same spot.

We thought Bampton, though a very ill-built village, an enviable spot; having a clergyman, as we heard, of exemplary manners, and, as one of us witnessed, of a most faithful earnestness in addressing his congregation in the church; being but slightly removed from one of the lakes, that accumulates in a small space many of the varieties and attractions of the others; and having the adjoining lands distributed, for the most part, into small farms, so that, as it is not thought low to be without wealth, the poor do not acquire the offensive and disreputable habits, by which they are too often tempted to revenge, or resist the ostentation of the rich.

ULLSWATER.

The ride from Bampton to Ullswater is very various and delightful. It winds for about three miles along the western heights of this green and open vale, among embowered lanes, that alternately admit and exclude the pastoral scenes below, and the fine landscapes on the opposite hills, formed by the plantations and antient woods of Lowther-park. These spread over a long tract, and mingle in sweet variety with the lively verdure of lawns and meadows, that slope into the valley, and sometimes appear in gleams among the dark thickets. The house, of white stone with red window-cases, embosomed among the woods, has nothing in its appearance answerable to the surrounding grounds. Its situation and that of the park are exquisitely happy, just where the vale of Bampton opens to that of Eden, and the long mountainous ridge and peak of Cross-fell, aspiring above them all, stretch before the eye; with the town of Penrith shelving along the side of a distant mountain, and its beacon on the summit; the ruins of its castle appearing distinctly at the same time, crowning a low round hill. The horizon to the north and the east is bounded by lines of mountains, range above range, not romantic and surprising, but multitudinous and vast. Of these, Cross-fell, said to be the highest mountain in Cumberland, gives its name to the whole northern ridge, which in its full extent, from the neighbourhood of Gillsland to that of Kirkby-Steven, is near fifty miles. This perspective of the extensive vale of Eden has grandeur and magnificence in as high a degree as that of Bampton has pastoral beauty, closing in the gloomy solitudes of Hawswater. The vale is finely wooded, and variegated with mansions, parks, meadow-land, corn, towns, villages, and all that make a distant landscape rich. Among the peculiarities of it, are little mountains of alpine shape, that start up like pyramids in the middle of the vale, some covered with wood, others barren and rocky. The scene perhaps only wants a river like the Rhine, or the Thames, to make it the very finest in England for union of grandeur, beauty and extent.

Opposite Lowther-hall, we gave a farewell look to the pleasant vale of Bampton and its southern fells, as the road, winding more to the west, led us over the high lands, that separate it from the vale of Emont. Then, ascending through shady lanes and among fields where the oat harvest was gathering, we had enchanting retrospects of the vale of Eden, spreading to the east, with all its chain of mountains chequered by the autumnal shadows.

Soon after, the road brought us to the brows of Emont, a narrow well-wooded vale, the river, from which it takes its name, meandering through it from Ullswater among pastures and pleasure-grounds, to meet the Lowther near Brougham Castle. Penrith and its castle and beacon look up the vale from the north, and the astonishing fells of Ullswater close upon it in the south; while Delemain, the house, and beautiful grounds of Mr. Hassel, Hutton St. John, a venerable old mansion, and the single tower called Dacre-castle adorn the valley. But who can pause to admire the elegancies of art, when surrounded by the wonders of nature? The approach to this sublime lake along the heights of Emont is exquisitely interesting; for the road, being shrouded by woods, allows the eye only partial glimpses of the gigantic shapes, that are assembled in the distance, and, awakening high expectation, leaves the imagination, thus elevated, to paint the "forms of things unseen." Thus it was, when we caught a first view of the dark broken tops of the fells, that rise round Ullswater, of size and shape most huge, bold, and awful; overspread with a blue mysterious tint, that seemed almost supernatural, though according in gloom and sublimity with the severe features it involved.

Further on, the mountains began to unfold themselves; their outlines, broken, abrupt and intersecting each other in innumerable directions, seemed, now and then, to fall back like a multitude at some supreme command, and permitted an oblique glimpse into the deep vales. A close lane then descended towards Pooly-bridge, where, at length, the lake itself appeared beyond the spreading branches, and, soon after, the first reach expanded before us, with all its mountains tumbled round it; rocky, ruinous and vast, impending, yet rising in wild confusion and multiplied points behind each other.

This view of the first reach from the foot of Dunmallet, a pointed woody hill, near Pooly-bridge, is one of the finest on the Jake, which here spreads in a noble sheet, near three miles long, and almost two miles broad, to the base of Thwaithill-nab, winding round which it disappears, and the whole is then believed to be seen. The character of this view is nearly that of simple grandeur; the mountains, that impend over the shore in front, are peculiarly awful in their forms and attitudes; on the left, the fells soften; woodlands, and their pastures, colour their lower declivities, and the water is margined with the tenderest verdure, opposed to the dark woods and crags above. On the right, a green conical hill slopes to the shore, where cattle were reposing on the grass, or sipping the clear wave; further, rise the bolder rocks of Thwaithill-nab, where the lake disappears, and, beyond, the dark precipices and summits of fells, that crown the second reach.

Winding the foot of Dunmallet, the almost pyramidal hill, that shuts up this end of Ullswater, and separates it from the vale of Emont, we crossed Barton bridge, where this little river, clear as crystal, issues from the lake, and through a close pass hurries over a rocky channel to the vale. Its woody steeps, the tufted island, that interrupts its stream, and the valley beyond, form altogether a picture in fine contrast with the majesty of Ullswater, expanding on the other side of the bridge.

We followed the skirts of a smooth green hill, the lake, on the other hand, flowing softly against the road and shewing every pebble on the beach beneath, and proceeded towards the second bend; but soon mounted from the shore among the broken knolls of Dacre-common, whence we had various views of the first reach, its scenery appearing in darkened majesty as the autumnal shadows swept over it. Sometimes, however, the rays, falling in gleams upon the water, gave it the finest silvery tone imaginable, sober though splendid. Dunmallet at the foot of the lake was a formal unpleasing object, not large enough to be grand, or wild enough to be romantic.

The ground of the common is finely broken, and is scattered sparingly with white cottages, each picturesquely shadowed by its dark grove; above, rise plantations and gray crags which lead the eye forward to the alpine forms, that crown the second reach, changing their attitudes every instant as they are approached.

Ullswater in all its windings, which give it the form of the letter S, is nearly nine miles long; the width is various, sometimes nearly two miles and seldom less than one; but Skelling-nab, a vast rock in the second reach, projects so as to reduce it to less than a quarter of a mile. These are chiefly the reputed measurements, but the eye loses its power of judging even of the breadth, confounded by the boldness of the shores and the grandeur of the fells, that rise beyond; the proportions however are grand, for the water retains its dignity, notwithstanding the vastness of its accompaniments; a circumstance, which Derwentwater can scarcely boast.

The second bend, assuming the form of a river, is very long, but generally broad, and brought strongly to remembrance some of the passes of the Rhine beyond Coblentz: though, here, the rocks, that rise over the water, are little wooded; and, there, their skirts are never margined by pasture, or open to such fairy summer scenes of vivid green mingling with shades of wood and gleams of corn, as sometimes appear within the recesses of these wintry mountains. These cliffs, however, do not shew the variety of hue, or marbled veins, that frequently surprise and delight on the Rhine, being generally dark and gray, and the varieties in their complexion, when there are any, purely aërial; but they are vast and broken; rise immediately from the stream, and often shoot their masses over it; while the expanse of water below accords with the dignity of that river in many of its reaches. Once too, there were other points of resemblance, in the ruins of monasteries and convents, which, though reason rejoices that they no longer exist, the eye may be allowed to regret. Of these, all which now remains on record is, that a society of Benedictine monks was founded on the summit of Dunmallet, and a nunnery of the same order on a point behind Sowlby-fell; traces of these ruins, it is said, may still be seen.

Thus grandeur and immensity are the characteristics of the left shore of the second reach; the right exhibits romantic wildness in the rough ground of Dacre-common and the craggy heights above, and, further on, the sweetest forms of reposing beauty, in the grassy hillocks and undulating copses of Gowbarrow-park, fringing the water, sometimes over little rocky eminences, that project into the stream, and, at others, in shelving bays, where the lake, transparent as crystal, breaks upon the pebbly bank, and laves the road, that winds there. Above these pastoral and sylvan landscapes, rise broken precipices, less tremendous than those of the opposite shore, with pastures pursuing the crags to a considerable height, speckled with cattle, which are exquisitely picturesque, as they graze upon the knolls and among the old trees, that adorn this finely declining park.

Leaving the hamlet of Watermillock at some distance on the left, and passing the seat of Mr. Robinson, sequestered in the gloom of beech and sycamores, there are fine views over the second reach, as the road descends the common towards Gowbarrow. Among the boldest fells, that breast the lake on the left shore, are Holling-fell and Swarth-fell, now no longer boasting any part of the forest of Martindale, but shewing huge walls of naked rock, and scars, which many torrents have inflicted. One channel only in this dry season retained its shining stream; the chasm was dreadful, parting the mountain from the summit to the base; and its waters in winter, leaping in foam from precipice to precipice, must be infinitely sublime; not, however, even then from their mass, but from the length and precipitancy of their descent.

The perspective as the road descends into Gowbarrow-park is perhaps the very finest on the lake. The scenery of the first reach is almost tame when compared with this, and it is difficult to say where it can be equalled for Alpine sublimity, and so effecting wonder and awful elevation. The lake, after expanding at a distance to great breadth, once more loses itself beyond the enormous pile of rock called Place-fell, opposite to which the shore, seeming to close upon all further progress, is bounded by two promontories covered with woods, that shoot their luxuriant foliage to the water's edge. The shattered mass of gray rock, called Yew-crag, rises immediately over these, and, beyond, a glen opens to a chaos of mountains more solemn in their aspect, and singular in their shapes, than any which have appeared, point crowding over point in lofty succession. Among these is Stone-cross-pike and huge Helvellyn, scowling over all; but, though this retains its pre-eminence, its dignity is lost in the mass of alps around and below it. A fearful gloom involved them; the shadows of a stormy sky upon mountains of dark rock and heath. All this is seen over the woody fore-ground of the park, which, soon shrouding us in its bowery lanes, allowed the eye and the fancy to repose, while venturing towards new forms and assemblages of sublimity.

Meantime, the green shade, under which we passed, where the sultry low of cattle, and the sound of streams hurrying from the heights through the copses of Gowbarrow to the lake below, were all that broke the stillness; these, with gleamings of the water, close on the left, between the foliage, and which was ever changing its hue, sometimes assuming the soft purple of a pigeon's neck, at others the silvery tint of sunshine—these circumstances of imagery were in soothing and beautiful variety with the gigantic visions we had lost.

The road still pursuing this border of the lake, the copses opened to partial views of the bold rocks, that form the opposite shore, and many a wild recess and solemn glen appeared and vanished among them, some shewing only broken fells, the sides of others shaggy with forests, and nearly all lined, at their bases, with narrow pastures of the most exquisite verdure. Thus descending upon a succession of sweeping bays, where the shades parted, and admitted the lake, that flowed even with us, and again retreating from it over gentle eminences, where it glittered only between the leaves; crossing the rude bridges of several becks, rapid, clear and foaming among dark stones, and receiving a green tint from the closely shadowing trees, but neither precipitous enough in their descent, nor ample enough in their course, to increase the dignity of the scene, we came, after passing nearly three miles through the park, to Lyulph's Tower. This mansion, a square, gray edifice, with turreted corners, battlements and windows in the Gothic style, has been built by the present Duke of Norfolk in one of the finest situations of a park, abounding with views of the grand and the sublime. It stands on a green eminence, a little removed from the water, backed with wood and with pastures rising abruptly beyond, to the cliffs and crags that crown them. In front, the ground falls finely to the lake's edge, broken, yet gentle, and scattered over with old trees, and darkened with copses, which mingle in fine variety of tints with the light verdure of the turf beneath. Herds of deer, wandering over the knolls, and cattle, reposing in the shade, completed this sweet landscape.

The lake is hence seen to make one of its boldest expanses, as it sweeps round Place-fell, and flows into the third and last bend of this wonderful vale. Lyulph's Tower looks up this reach to the south, and to the east traces all the fells and curving banks of Gowbarrow, that bind the second; while, to the west, a dark glen opens to a glimpse of the solemn alps round Helvellyn; and all these objects are seen over the mild beauty of the park.

Passing fine sweeps of the shore and over bold headlands, we came opposite to the vast promontory, called Place-fell, that pushes its craggy foot into the lake, like a lion's claw, round which the waters make a sudden turn, and enter Patterdale, their third and final expanse. In this reach, they lose the form of a river, and resume that of a lake, being closed, at three miles distance, by the ruinous rocks, that guard the gorge of Patterdale, backed by a multitude of fells. The water, in this scope, is of oval form, bounded on one side by the precipices of Place-fell, Martindale-fell, and several others, equally rude and awful that rise from its edge, and shew no lines of verdure, or masses of; wood, but retire in rocky bays, or projects in vast promontories athwart it. The opposite shore is less severe and more romantic; the rocks are lower and richly wooded, and, often receding from the water, leave room for a tract of pasture, meadow land and corn, to margin their ruggedness. At the upper end, the village of Patterdale and one of two white farms, peep out from among trees beneath the scowling mountains, that close the scene; pitched in a rocky nook, with corn and meadow land, sloping gently in front to the lake, and, here and there, a scattered grove. But this scene is viewed to more advantage from one of the two woody eminences, that overhang the lake, just at the point where it forms its last angle, and, like an opened compass, spreads its two arms before the eye. These heights are extremely beautiful, viewed from the opposite shore, and had long charmed us at a distance. Approaching them, we crossed another torrent, Glencoyn-beck, or Airey-force, which here divides not only the estates of the Duke of Norfolk and Mr. Hodgkinson, but the counties of Westmoreland and Cumberland; and all the fells beyond, that enclose the last bend of Ullswater, are in Patterdale. Here, on the right, at the feet of awful rocks, was spread a gay autumnal scene, in which the peasants were singing merrily as they gathered the oats into sheafs; woods, turfy hillocks, and, above all, tremendous crags, abruptly closing round the yellow harvest. The figures, together with the whole landscape, resembled one of those beautifully fantastic scenes, which fable calls up before the wand of the magician.

Entering Glencoyn woods and sweeping the boldest bay of the lake, while the water dashed with a strong surge upon the shore, we at length mounted a road frightful from its steepness and its crags, and gained one of the wooded summits so long admired. From hence the view of Ullswater is the most extensive and various, that its shores exhibit, comprehending its two principal reaches, and though not the most picturesque, it is certainly the most grand. To the east, extends the middle sweep in long and equal perspective, walled with barren fells on the right, and margined on the left with the pastoral recesses and bowery projections of Gowbarrow park. The rude mountains above almost seemed to have fallen back from the shore to admit this landscape within their hollow bosom, and then, bending abruptly, appear, like Milton's Adam viewing the sleeping Eve, to hang over it enamoured.

Lyulph's Tower is the only object of art, except the hamlet of Watermillock, seen in the distant perspective, that appears in the second bend of Ullswater; and this loses much of its effect from the square uniformity of the structure, and the glaring green of its painted window-cases. This is the longest reach of the lake.

Place-fell, which divides the two last bends, and was immediately opposite to the point we were on, is of the boldest form. It projects into the water, an enormous mass of gray crag, scarred with dark hues; thence retiring a little it again bends forward in huge cliffs, and finally starts up into a vast perpendicular face of rock. As a single object, it is wonderfully grand; and, connected with the scene, its effect is sublime. The lower rocks are called Silver-rays, and not inaptly; for, when the sun shines upon them, their variegated sides somewhat resemble in brightness the rays streaming beneath a cloud.

The last reach of Ullswater, which is on the right of this point, expands into an oval, and its majestic surface is spotted with little rocky islets, that would adorn a less sacred scene; here they are prettinesses, that can scarcely be tolerated by the grandeur of its character. The tremendous mountains, which scowl over the gorge of Patterdale; the cliffs, massy, broken and overlooked by a multitude of dark summits, with the grey walls of Swarth and Martindale fells, that upheave themselves on the eastern shore, form altogether one of the most grand and awful pictures on the lake; yet, admirable and impressive as it is, as to solemnity and astonishment, its effect with us was not equal to that of the more alpine sketch, caught in distant perspective from the descent into Gowbarrow-park.

In these views of Ullswater, sublimity and greatness are the predominating characters, though beauty often glows upon the western bank. The mountains are all bold, gloomy and severe. When we saw them, the sky accorded well with the scene, being frequently darkened by autumnal clouds; and the equinoctial gale swept the surface of the lake, marking its blackness with long white lines, and beating its waves over the rocks to the foliage of the thickets above. The trees, that shade these eminences, give greater force to the scenes, which they either partially exclude, or wholly admit, and become themselves fine objects, enriched as they are with the darkest moss.

From hence the ride to the village of Patterdale, at the lake's head, is, for the first part, over precipices covered with wood, whence you look down, on the left, upon the water, or upon pastures stretching to it; on the right, the rocks rise abruptly, and often impend their masses over the road; or open to narrow dells, green, rocky and overlooked by endless mountains.

About half way to the village of Patterdale, a peninsula spreads from this shore into the lake, where a white house, peeping from a grove and surrounded with green enclosures, is beautifully placed. This is an inn, and, perhaps the principal one, as to accommodation; but, though its situation on a spot which on each side commands the lake, is very fine, it is not comparable, in point of wildness and sublimity, to that of the cottage, called the King's Arms, at Patterdale. In the way thither, are enchanting catches of the lake, between the trees on the left, and peeps into the glens, that wind among the alps towards Helvellyn, on the right. These multiply near the head of Ullswater, where they start off as from one point, like radii, and conclude in trackless solitudes.

It is difficult to spread varied pictures of such scenes before the imagination. A repetition of the same images of rock, wood and water, and the same epithets of grand, vast and sublime, which necessarily occur, must appear tautologous, on paper, though their archetypes in nature, ever varying in outline, or arrangement, exhibit new visions to the eye, and produce new shades of effect on the mind. It is difficult, also, where these delightful differences have been experienced, to forbear dwelling on the remembrance, and attempting to sketch the peculiarities, which occasioned them. The scenery at the head of Ullswater is especially productive of such difficulties, where a wish to present the picture, and a consciousness of the impossibility of doing so, except by the pencil, meet and oppose each other.

Patterdale itself is a name somewhat familiar to recollection, from the circumstance of the chief estate in it having given to its possessors, for several centuries, the title of Kings of Patterdale. The last person so distinguished was richer than his ancestors, having increased his income, by the most ludicrous parsimony, to a thousand pounds a year. His son and successor is an industrious country gentleman, who has improved the sort of farming mansion, annexed to the estate, and, not affecting to depart much from the simple manners of the other inhabitants, is respectable enough to be generally called by his own name of Mounsey, instead of the title, which was probably seldom given to his ancestors, but in some sort of mockery.

The village is very humble, as to the conditions and views of the inhabitants; and very respectable, as to their integrity and simplicity, and to the contentment, which is proved by the infrequency of emigrations to other districts. It straggles at the feet of fells, somewhat removed from the lake and near the entrance of the wild vale of Glenridding. Its white church is seen nearly from the commencement of the last reach, rising among trees, and in the church-yard are the ruins of an antient yew, of remarkable size and venerable beauty; its trunk, hollowed and silvered by age, resembles twisted roots; yet the branches, that remain above, are not of melancholy black, but flourish in rich verdure and flaky foliage.

The inn is beyond the village, securely sheltered under high crags, while enormous fells, close on the right, open to the gorge of Patterdale; and Coldrill-beck, issuing from it, descends among the corn and meadows, to join the lake at little distance. We had a happy evening at this cleanly cottage, where there was no want, without its recompense, from the civil offices of the people. Among the rocks, that rose over it, is a station, which has been more frequently selected than any other on the lake by the painter and the lover of the beau idée, as the French and Sir Joshua Reynolds expressively term what Mr. Burke explains in his definition of the word fine. Below the point, on which we stood, a tract of corn and meadow land fell gently to the lake, which expanded in great majesty beyond, bounded on the right by the precipices of many fells, and, on the left, by rocks finely wooded, and of more broken and spiry outline. The undulating pastures and copses of Gowbarrow closed the perspective. Round the whole of these shores, but particularly on the left, rose clusters of dark and pointed summits, assuming great variety of shape, amongst which Helvellyn was still pre-eminent. Immediately around us, all was vast and gloomy; the fells mount swiftly and to enormous heights, leaving at their bases only crags and hillocks, tufted with thickets of dwarf-oak and holly, where the beautiful cattle, that adorned them, and a few sheep, were picking a scanty supper among the heath.