A

GUIDE

TO

The Lakes,

INCLUDING

A DESCRIPTION OF SIXTY AQUATINTS

PUBLISHED

BY WILLIAM GREEN.

AMBLESIDE and Keswick are the principal places from which the English lakes, and the mountains and valleys around them, are visited.

Keswick is generally first seen by Tourists from Ireland, Scotland, and the north-east of England, and Ambleside by those from the south.

When the south country Tourist is at Lancaster, it becomes necessary that he should there decide whether he shall first go to Ulverston, or to Bowness or Ambleside by way of Kendal.

A great majority of travellers take the latter line; and it is the best for those who have not much time to spare, or who have not courage enough to cross the Sands. The ride across

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the Sands is, however, varied with many beau- . ties, and it will generally gratify those who apprehend no danger. This line of tour has likewise the advantage of being at Ulverston only seven miles from Furness Abbey.

Mr. Housman commences his Tour by conducting the traveller from Kendal through Long Sleddale to Haws Water; and Mr. West, after describing the ride across the Sands from Lancaster to Ulverston, leads his friends to Furness Abbey, and from Furness Abbey back through Ulverston to Coniston Water.

The writer of this Tour reluctantly enters on his task :-he has long hoped to see an account of these Lakes and Mountains undertaken by a person well acquainted with them, and who, while accurately describing, would possess the ability so to clothe his descriptions, as to make his book a pleasant companion either for the closet or the field.

He fears that a work thus doubly recommend. ing itself, will not soon appear; and as a useful guide has long been wanted, he has ventured to put together such observations as may tend to is relieve the traveller from the burthen of those tedious enquiries on the road or at the inns, which generally embarrass, and often mislead.”'

The writer's appeal is not to the ear, but to the eye, for he trusts that in his unpolished sentences he shall be able to lead his readers to such scenes, as will more abundantly gratify

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the visual sense than those heretofore described in the most pompous and flowery language.

Mr. West resided at Ulverston at the time he wrote his Guide :-Windermere and Coniston Water were each within a morning's ride, and by his beloved antiquities he was surrounded; he was well acquainted with the country, for he had examined and re-examined it with a nice attention, and his descriptions are generally accurate and well coloured, and do great credit to his feelings for the sublime and beautiful in nature.

But Mr. West, like the generality of those who have written concerning the Lakes, contented himself by speaking of the scenery of easy access from the public roads, for he has entirely omitted the vast and romantic wilds which lie between the sea and the chain of lofty mountains, beginning at Coniston and ending at Lows Water-who shall traverse Seathwaite, Eskdale, Wastdale, Ennerdale, and Ennerdaledale, and not be ready to acknowledge that the western side of his tour, though probably less beautiful, is infinitely more magnificent than the eastern side?

But some of the finest rambles adjacent even to the public roads, have scarcely been noticed by writers; the romantic vales of Langdale, and the western side of Wytheburn Water, with many other charming excursions, are left for the gratification of future tourists, not one in a hundred of the past having seen them.