obliquely catching a diversity of views among the hills over the lake and islands, and changing prospect at every ten paces. Leaving Castle Hill behind me, I drew near the foot of Walla Crag, whose bare and rocky brow, cut perpendicularly down above 400 feet (as I guess, though the people call it much more), awfully overlooks the way. Our path here tends to the left, and the ground gently rising and covered with a glade of scattering trees and bushes on the very margin of the water, opens both ways the most delicious view that my eyes ever beheld. Opposite are the thick woods of Lord Egremont and Newland Valley, with green and smiling fields embosomed in the dark cliffs; to the left the jaws of Borrowdale, with that turbulent chaos of mountain behind mountain, rolled in confusion; beneath you, and stretching far away to the right, the shining purity of the lake reflecting rocks, woods, fields, and inverted tops of hills, just ruffled by the breeze, enough to show it is alive, with the white buildings of Keswick, Crosthwaite Church, and Skiddaw for a background at a distance; behind you are the magnificent heights of Walla Crag. This scene continues to Barrow Gate; and a little farther, passing a brook called Barrow Beck, we entered Borrowdale. The crags named Lodore Banks begin now to impend terribly over your way, and more terribly when you hear that three years since an immense mass of rock tumbled at once from the brow, and barred all access to the dale (for this is the only road) till they could work their way through it. Luckily no one was passing at the time of this fall; but down the side of the mountain, and far into the lake, lie dispersed the huge fragments of this ruin in all shapes and in all directions. Something farther we turned aside into a coppice, ascending a little in front of Lodore waterfall. The height appeared to be about 200 feet, the quantity of water not great, though (these three days excepted) it had rained daily in the hills for near two months before; but then the stream was nobly broken, leaping from rock to rock, and foaming with fury. On one side was a towering crag that spired up to equal, if not overtop, the neighbouring cliffs (this lay all in shade and darkness); on the other hand a rounder, broader projecting hill shagged with wood, and illuminated by the sun, which glanced sideways on the upper part of the cataract. The force of the water, wearing a deep channel in the ground, hurries away to join the lake. We descended again and passed the stream over a rude bridge. Soon after we came under Gowdar Crag, a hill more formidable to the eye, and to the apprehension, than that of Lodore; the rocks at top, deep-cloven perpendicularly by the rains, hanging loose and nodding forward, seem just starting from their base in shivers. The whole way down and the road on both sides is strewed with piles of the fragments strangely thrown across each other, and of a dreadful bulk; the place reminds me of those passes in the Alps where the guides tell you to move on with speed, and say nothing, lest the agitation of the air should loosen the snows above, and bring down a mass that would overwhelm a caravan. I took their counsel here and hastened on in silence. The hills here are clothed all up their steep sides with oak, ash, birch, holly, etc. Some of it has been cut forty years ago, some within these eight years; yet all is sprung again, green, flourishing, and tall for its age in a place where no soil appears but the staring rocks, and where a man could scarce stand upright. Here we met a civil young farmer overseeing his reapers (for it is now out-harvest), who conducted us to a neat white house in the village of Grange, which is built on a rising-ground in the midst of a valley; round it the mountains form an awful amphitheatre, and through it obliquely runs the Derwent, clear as glass, and showing under its bridge every trout that passes. Beside the village rises a round eminence of rock covered entirely with old trees, and over that more proudly towers Castle Crag, invested also with wood on its sides, and bearing on its naked top some traces of a fort said to be Roman. By the side of this hill, which almost blocks up the way, the valley turns to the left, and contracts its dimensions till there is hardly any road but the rocky bed of the river. The wood of the mountains increases, and their summits grow loftier to the eye, and of more fantastic forms; among them appear Eagle's Cliff, Dove's Nest, Whitedale Pike, etc., celebrated names in the annals of Keswick. The dale opens about four miles higher till you come to Seathwaite (where lies the way mounting the hills to the right that leads to the Wadd mines); all further access is here barred to prying mortals, only there is a little path winding over the fells, and for some weeks in the year passable to the dalesmen; but the mountains know well that these innocent people will not reveal the mysteries of their ancient kingdom, 'the reign of Chaos and Old Night.' T. GRAY. THE SOLITARY REAPER. BEHOLD her, single in the field, Yon solitary Highland lass ! No nightingale did ever chant So sweetly to reposing bands A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard Will no one tell me what she sings? Or is it some more humble lay, Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang And o'er the sickle bending ;-- Long after it was heard no more. W. WORDSWORTH. FROM KESWICK TO WINDERMERE. OCT. 8, 1769.—I left Keswick and took the Ambleside road in a gloomy morning; and about two miles from the town mounted an eminence called Castle Rigg, and the sun breaking out, discovered the most enchanting view I have yet seen of the whole valley behind me, the two lakes, the river, the mountains all in their glory; so that I had almost a mind to have gone back again. The road in some few parts is not completed, yet good country road, through sound but narrow and stony lanes, very safe in broad daylight. The vale you go in has little breadth; the mountains are vast and rocky, the fields little and poor, and the inhabitants are now making hay, and see not the sun by two hours in a day so long as at Keswick. I soon came to the foot of Helvellyn, along which runs an excellent road, looking down from a little height on Thirlmere, and soon descending on its margin. The lake looks black from its depth and from the gloom of the vast crags that scowl over it, though really clear as glass; it is narrow, and about three miles long, resembling a river in its course; little shining torrents hurry down the rocks to join it, but there is not a bush to overshadow them or cover their march : all is rock and loose stones up to the very brow, which lies so near your way, that not above half the height of Helvellyn can be seen. Next I passed by the little chapel at Wythburn, out of which the Sunday congregation were then issuing; soon after a beck near Dunmail Raise, where I entered Westmoreland a second time; and now began to see Holm Crag, distinguished from its rugged neighbours, not so much by its height as by the strange broken outlines of its top, like some gigantic building demolished, and the stones that composed it flung across each other in wild confusion. Just beyond it opens one of the sweetest landscapes that art ever attempted to imitate. The bosom of the mountains spreading here into a broad basin, discovers in the midst Grasmere Water; its margin is hollowed into small bays, with bold eminences, some of rock, some of soft turf, that half conceal and vary the figure of the little lake they command; from the shore a low promontory pushes itself far into the water, and on it stands a white village with the parish church rising in the midst of it; hanging enclosures, cornfields, and meadows green as an emerald, with their trees, and hedges, and cattle, fill up the whole space from the edge of the water; and just opposite to you is a large farm-house at the bottom of a steep smooth lawn, embosomed in old woods, which climb half-way up the mountain's side, and discover above them a broken line of crags that crown the scene. Not a single red tile, no staring gentleman's house, or gardenwall, breaks in upon the repose of this little unsuspected paradise; but all is peace, rusticity, and happy poverty in its neatest and most becoming attire. The road winds here over Grasmere Hill, whose rocks soon |