tinctively halt. On the
foreground, a little below the most favourable station, a rude
foot-bridge is thrown over the bed of the noisy brook foaming by the
wayside. Russet and craggy hills, of bold and varied outline, surround
the level valley, which is besprinkled with grey rocks plumed with birch
trees. A few homesteads are interspersed, in some places peeping out
from among the rocks like hermitages, whose site has been chosen for the
benefit of sunshine as well as shelter; in other instances, the
dwelling-house, barn, and byre compose together a cruciform structure,
which, with its embowering trees, and the ivy clothing part of the walls
and roof like a fleece, call to mind the remains of an ancient abbey.
Time, in most cases, and Nature everywhere, have given a sanctity to the
humble works of man that are scattered over this peaceful retirement.
Hence a harmony of tone and colour, a consummation and perfection of
beauty, which would have been marred had aim or purpose interfered with
the course of convenience, utility, or necessity. This unvitiated region
stands in no need of the veil of twilight to soften or disguise its
features. As it glistens in the morning sunshine, it would fill the
spectator's heart with gladsomeness. Looking from our chosen station, he
would feel an impatience to rove among its pathways, to be greeted by
the milkmaid, to wander from house to house, exchanging 'good-morrows'
as he passed the open doors; but, at evening, when the sun is set, and a
pearly light gleams from the western quarter of the sky, with an
answering light from the smooth surface of the meadows; when the trees
are dusky, but each kind still distinguishable; when the cool air has
condensed the blue smoke rising from the cottage chimneys; when the dark
mossy stones seem to sleep in the bed of the foaming brook; _then_, he
would be unwilling to move forward, not less from a reluctance to
relinquish what he beholds, than from an apprehension of disturbing, by
his approach, the quietness beneath him. Issuing from the plain of this
valley, the brook descends in a rapid torrent passing by the churchyard
of Seathwaite. The traveller is thus conducted at once into the midst of
the wild and beautiful scenery which gave occasion to the Sonnets from
the 14th to the 20th inclusive. From the point where the Seathwaite
brook joins the Duddon, is a view upwards, into the pass through which
the river makes its way into the plain of Donnerda