site there are some shelves, or rather steps of herbage, and a few birch, more resembling bushes than trees in their size and growth; these, and the mountain rill, broken, flashing, and whitening in its fall where it comes rapidly down, but taking in the level part of its course a colour of delightful green from the rock over which it runs, are the only objects. But on looking back, you behold a scene of the most striking and peculiar character. The water, the rocky pavement, the craggy sides, and the ash tree, form the foreground and the frame of this singular picture. You have then the steep descent, open on one side to the lake, and on the other with the wood, half way down and reaching to the shore; the lower part of Derwentwater below, with its islands; the vale of Keswick, with Skiddaw for its huge boundary and bulwark, to the North; and where Bassenthwaite stretches into the open country, a distance of water, hills, and remote horizon, in which Claude would have found all he desired, and more than even he could have represented, had he beheld it in the glory of a midsummer sunset. This was to be our resting-place, for though the steepest ascent was immediately before us, the greater part of the toil was over. My young companions seated themselves on the fell side, upon some of the larger stones, and there in full enjoyment of air and sunshine opened their baskets and took their noon-day meal, a little before its due time, with appetites which, quickened by exercise, had outstript the hours. My place was on a bough of the ash tree at a little distance, the water flowing at my feet, and the fall just below me. Among all the sights and sounds of Nature there are none which affect me more pleasurably than these. I could sit for hours to watch the motion of a brook and when I call to mind the happy summer and autumn which I passed at Cintra, in the morning of life and hope, the perpetual gurgling of its tanks and fountains occurs among the vivid recollections of that earthly Paradise as one of its charms. When I had satisfied myself with the prospect, I took from my waistcoat pocket an Amsterdam edition of the Utopia, given me for its convenient portability by one of my oldest and most valued friends. It is of the year 1629, and is the smallest book in my possession, being not four inches long, and less than two in breadth:.. Mr. Dibdin would shudder to see how some nefarious binder has cut it to the quick. Brief as this little work is, it has intro duced into our language a word the meaning of which is understood by thousands and tens of thousands who have never read the fiction from whence it is derived; while volumes upon volumes of metaphysical politics have sunk into the dead pool of oblivion, without raising even a momentary bubble upon its surface. I read till it was time to proceed; and then putting up the book, as I raised my eyes,.. behold the Author was before me. Let the young ones go forward, said he; they will neither see nor hear me; and if your voice reaches them, they will only suppose that you are muttering verses to yourself. Come, children, I exclaimed, up the hill! and off at the word they set. Presently they were scaling the steepest part of the ascent, where a sheep from the flat countries would have feared to climb; and, before I had got half way up the screes, which gave way and rattled beneath me at every step, they were seated on the brow, looking at the two thin cascades where they fall into the ravine which they have made. God and good Angels bless them, said Sir Thomas. Of all sights which can soften and humanize the heart of man, there is none that ought so surely to reach it as that of innocent. |