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Page 142:-
"[lim]pid water of the Lake they so beautifully skirt; there
waving in glorious slopes of cultivated inclosures, adorned
in the sweetest manner with every object that variety to
art, or elegance to nature, trees, woods, villages, houses,
farms scattered with picturesque confusion, and waving to
the eye in the most romantic landscapes that nature can
exhibit.
"This valley, so beautifully inclosed, is floated by the
Lake, which spreads forth to the right and left, in one
vast, but irregular expanse of transparent water: its
immediate shore is traced in every variety of line that
fancy can imagine; sometime contracting the Lake into the
appearance of a noble, winding river; at others, retiring
from it, and opening into large bays, as if for navies to
anchor in: promontories spread with woods, or scattered with
trees and inclosures, projecting into the water in the most
picturesque stile imaginable; rocky points breaking the
shore, and rearing their bold heads above the water: in a
word, a variety that amazes the beholder. But what finishes
the scene with an elegance too delicious to be imagined, is,
this beautiful sheet of water being dotted with no less than
ten islands, distinctly comprehended by the eye; all of the
most bewitching beauty. The large one presents a waving
various line, which rises from the water in the most
picturesque inequalities of surface; high land in one place,
low in another; clumps of trees in this spot, scattered ones
in that; adorned by a farm-house on the water's edge, and
backed with a little wood, vying in simple elegance with
Baromean palaces: some of the small isles rising from the
Lake, like little hills of wood; some only scattered with
trees, and others of grass of the finest verdure: a more
beautiful variety is no where to be seen.
"Strain your imagination to command the idea of so noble an
expanse of water, thus gloriously environed, spotted with
islands more beautiful than would have issued from the
happiest painter. Picture the mountains rearing their
majestic heads with native sublimity; the vast rocks boldly
projecting their terrible craggy points; and in the path of
beauty, the variegated inclosures of the most charming
verdure hanging to the eye in every picturesque form that
can grace landscape, with the most exquisite touches of
la belle nature. If you raise your fancy to something
in infinitely beyond this assemblage of rural elegancies,
you may have a faint notion of the unexampled beauties of
this ravishing landscape."
This extract may likewise shew us what stile has been
adopted by our modern authors, and called by them, Bold,
Picturesque, and Figurative: I shall only remark in it, that
the loads of epithets here introduced are generally useless,
and often tautological; that the easy unaffected stile of Mr
Gray is at once both more pleasing and more intelligible,
and that whoever would wish his readers to comprehend his
subject, ought by no means to perplex them with obscurity of
diction.
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There is, a place called Slape-Cragg, (see plate X.)
a much better view than that which Mr Young has so pompously
described; every object which he mentions is there seen with
greater distinctness, on account of the smaller distance,
and in an evening the effects of light and shade are
wonderful. We stand upon an eminence raised about 20 yards
above the surface of the Lake, and have the most distinct
and beautiful view of all the islands; Mr Christian's house,
the sloping village of Bowness, Rayrigg, the
front of the chapel underMiller-ground,
Cawgarth, and many other places too tedious to
enumerate; the most beautiful part of the view, (as I once
saw it,) is seen when the sun is just setting; the mountain
behind me obscured half the Lake in a dark shade; the other
half distinctly reflected every object in the most lively
colours; whilst the fields and trees on the opposite side,
illuminated, not only with the direct rays of the sun, but
with the light reflected from the Lake, exhibited such a
profusion of the richest, golden tints as I never saw
before. It happens, fortunately enough for travellers, that
if they dine at Bowness, and then observe the views near it,
they will reach Slape-Cragg about the proper time for
viewing this beautiful scene.
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