ut a blade of grass or weed upon them, or anything that
bore traces of a human footstep; much indeed of human hands, but wear or
tear of foot was none. Thence I pass'd to our neighbour, Lord Lowther.
You know that his predecessor, greatly, without doubt, to the advantage
of the place, left it to take care of itself. The present lord seems
disposed to do something, but not much. He has a neighbour, a Quaker, an
amiable, inoffensive man[33], and a little of a poet too, who has amused
himself, upon his own small estate upon the Emont, in twining pathways
along the banks of the river, making little cells and bowers with
inscriptions of his own writing, all very pretty as not spreading far.
This man is at present Arbiter Elegantiarum, or master of the grounds,
at Lowther, and what he has done hitherto is very well, as it is little
more than making accessible what could not before be got at.

[33] Mr. Thomas Wilkinson. See poem, 'To his Spade.'

You know something of Lowther. I believe a more delightful spot is not under
the sun. Last summer I had a charming walk along the river, for which I was
indebted to this man, whose intention is to carry the walk along the
river-side till it joins the great road at Lowther Bridge, which you
will recollect, just under Brougham, about a mile from Penrith. This to
my great sorrow! for the manufactured walk, which was absolutely
necessary in many places, will in one place pass through a few hundred
yards of forest ground, and will there efface the most beautiful
specimen of a forest pathway ever seen by human eyes, and which I have
paced many an hour, when I was a youth, with some of those I best love.
This path winds on under the trees with the wantonness of a river or a
living creature; and even if I may say so with the subtlety of a spirit,
contracting or enlarging itself, visible or invisible as it likes. There
is a continued opening between the trees, a narrow slip of green turf
besprinkled with flowers, chiefly daisies, and here it is, if I may use
the same kind of language, that this pretty path plays its pranks,
wearing away the turf and flowers at its pleasure. When I took the walk
I was speaking of, last summer, it was Sunday. I met several of the
people of the country posting to and from church, in different parts;
and in a retired spot by the river-side were two musicians (belonging
probably to some corps of volunteers) playing upon the hautboy and
clarionet. You may guess I wa