through foregrounds of fine trees, of which there are many at the west end of the ground. Planting and weeding would presently render this place, from its being on the public road, a most desirable station, from which to explore the romantic regions by which it is surrounded.

From the first sight of the lake, upon the Keswick road to the house called Town End, there is not much to interest; but from a field at the back of that house there is an enchanting view of the valley. The lake is seen from the same place, but it is a separate composition, including the Island and Tail End, and the modern house called the Wyke, having the mountain Silver How crowning the whole.

One of the happiest features in the land view, is the church, here partly hid by trees, and relieved by others. On the left appears the vicarage, and on the right the school-house and the inn, the property of Mr. Robert Newton, so frequently mentioned by Captain Budworth in his rambles, and famous for having accommodated that son of Mars and his friend with an excellent dinner of fish, flesh, and fowl, at ten-pence each.

A swelling bank above the church and the vicarage presents Allan Bank; and on the left, Pavement End, the property and residence of Mr. John Green. These houses, with many others are sweetly embowered, and the inclosures, which are numerous, are in such diversity of form, and so agreeably wooded, that it

were scarcely possible to wish for either addi tion or reduction. The How and Butterlip How are peculiarly elegant, not only in their graceful lines, but in the happy assemblage of trees which dilate upon their surfaces. Helm Crag rises to a fine apex. The Carrs and Wythburn Head on the left of Helm Crag and Steel Fell, and Seat Sandal on the right, are the most distant mountains.

Between Seat Sandal and Steel Fell, in various pretty windings, is seen the Keswick road, down which, on their way from Keswick to Ambleside, Messrs. Gray, Hutchinson, and Housman passed. Mr. Gray's description of the vale of peace, from this road, is universally admired.

Mr. Hutchinson says, "we were charmed with the view of Grasmere, a retirement surrounded by hills on every hand."-Mr. Housman's animated description is characteristic; but he, like Mr. West, has copied Mr. Gray.

Messrs. Gilpin and West pursued the road from Ambleside to Keswick. Mr. West wrote with a wish to be useful-Mr. Gilpin to amuse. The work of the last mentioned gentlemen, is elegantly fanciful; but generally speaking, his descriptions are not very correct. Who would suppose that which is subjoined to be intended for a picture of Grasmere?

"Leaving these scenes, we ascended a very steep hill; from the summit of which was dis

played a prospect of desolation in a very dignified form. It was an amphitheatre of craggy mountains, which appeared to sweep round a circumference of at least thirty miles, though in fact perhaps it did not include half that space. But great objects naturally form a wide scale of mensuration. The soul involuntarily shuddered at the first aspect of so tremendous a view.

"At the distant part of it lay Grasmere lake, which being so far removed from the eye, seemed only a bright spot at the bottom of the mountains.

"To this lake the road directly led. A nearer approach presented us with some beautiful views on its banks; though in the whole its principal merit consisted in refreshing the eye with a smooth expanse of waer, in the midst of such a variety of rough mountain scenery. As we skirted its limits, it seemed larger than Rydal; and though it appeared like a spot at a distance, became now the principal feature of this vast vale."

"From hence the road led us into another amphitheatre, wild and immense like the former, but varied greatly in the shapes of the moun tains, which were here more broken and irregular, shooting in many places into craggy summits, and broken points."

Perhaps the last half dozen lines speak of the mountains seen from the fourth mile stone, but no notice is taken of the island, the church,

and the farm-house; nor of that lovely bottom of wooded inclosures which distinguishes the vale of Grasmere.

What follows is more correct.

"And yet these wild scenes, covered as they are with crags, and scarcely furnishing the least tint of vegetation, are subject to rights for which none but the hard inhabitants would contend. You see every where their bare and barren sides, marked with partition walls; stones without mortar laid upon each other, crossing at right angles; and running down steeps and along precipices, where the eye can scarce conceive they could have any foundation. All these partitions of desolation, as they may be called, have their inhabitants; each maintaining a few stunted sheep, which picking the meagre tufts of grass under the sheltered sides of crags and stones, earn, like their owners, a hard subsistence."

Some of the "stunted sheep," as Mr. Gilpin ealls them, will fatten even on "the meagre tufts of grass" which grow upon the mountains; but a much larger proportion require the finishing pastures of the vallies.

The

mountain fed mutton is delicious;-the high season of the other, is from September to Christ

mas.

Few who have written on Grasmere seem to have left the turnpike road. Hutchinson and Budworth describe the scenes about the church.

West has done much for strangers, by pointing out the road from Ambleside by Loughrigg Tarn to Grasmere: and Grasmere, though less so than from the terrace road on Loughrigg, is fine from West's Station all the way to the church; but the unrivalled beauties of Loughrigg Tarn, only three miles from Ambleside, seem to have been unknown even to West himself.

Had the view of Grasmere, from the field at Town End, been seen by the above writers, it had doubtless afforded sensations of delight. Few of Mr. Gilpin's partition walls are to be observed from that place, for the richly cultivated valley, in which there is scarcely a wall to be seen, fills the eye with pleasure. Well grown trees on the right make a good foreground; and the near hand straggling inclosures on the left, might be planted out, could the proprietor consider them as his own, when planted; but unfortunately, the field and the trees growing upon it, belong to different persons. But few of the Grasmere land-owners hold property by a tenure so uncomfortable.

The old road meets the new one at the first house at Town End, from which place it passes down hill to a hamlet of several houses likewise called Town End, one of which, a neat white cottage on the right, his inhabited by Mr. De Quincey.

A little beyond Town End, a road on the left leads to Grasmere Church and the Inn;