Gents Mag 1800 p.20

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	Gentleman's Magazine 1800 p.20 ago I first came this road, a recruit from Whitehaven - I thought this sight at the bottom of the hill very beautiful, I have passed it several times since, and have been all over the world; it is sixteen years since I last saw it, and I have never seen any thing so pretty." The unadulterated taste of an uneducated veteran is my excuse for the digression; and the truest compliment Grasmere ever received. I was entertained with many anecdotes, by the clergyman, of particular people, in different valleys we crossed; and his information would have been very useful, had I ever thought of publishing this. On my expressing a wish to avoid the town of Keswick, he led me by the head of Derwentwater, by that part which had been so cruelly dispoiled of its venerable oaks by the Greenwich-hospital commissioners, and which robbed that beautiful lake of a grand and irreparable feature; the boughs were wont to be so thick and entwined, boys could pass from one branch to another, through an immense wood. My companion went with me to the bridge, purposely to point out a path to the parsonage-house; that common station of lake-fanciers, and by which I was to proceed. We had passed the foor of gigantic HELVELLYN, and I was now beneath "the giant Skeddaw." The base was much decorated with furze-like bushes, in summer-like bloom. The frost occasioned this part of the road to be uneven, and disagreeable. I passed Little Crosthwaite, and was directed to the border of Bassenthwaite-water, at this time seen to greater disadvantage than any other lake, having been lately so overflowed: many trees were torn from their beds, and it was very swampy; I had consequently a most uncomfortable walk to the inn at Ouse bridge, near the outlet of the lake; where I closed the day in a good room, over a Christmas goose-pye, and by a blazing fire. In the morning I hugged my bed, thinking, from the roaring of the lake, there was a storm; and was astonished, when I drew myself out, to find the day as calm as the preceding: this effect was occasioned by a "bottom wind," of which so much has been said, and whose turbulent powers require to be seen to form an idea of, and cannot be contemplated upon without emphatic admiration towards the invisible Creator of wonders. The land here is much better than about Ambleside, or Hawkeshead, but not so rich in wood: the hills and the mountains were in such new shapes, and varied cloathing, I was gratified; and many houses about the lake must in summer have some sumptuous views, that are now in disorder; and pleasing ones, which are now swampy, and defiled with coarse reeds. The dirt on the highway is deep, but the bottom sound. In short, there is nothing to induce us to pay Bassenthwaite-water a second winter visit. On starting I hurried on to Cockermouth, and walked up to the castle to admire the view from it; thence, towards Lorton, and went through a beautiful summer valley, which the river Cocker waters in his passage from Crummock-lake. I had passed Lowes Chapel, and had many formidable strides to take, over rugged and unbeaten ground, before I could be within a certain compass of my first object, Scale Force Water-fall. Not that I supposed the effect could be so enchanting as the state I had described it in: for motion is the very life of cascades: but I conceived its then Gothic style would be a new kind of beauty to me. I sat some time upon a stone, very much pleased with my solitary situation, and the manly thoughts which crowded upon me. The time of the day would not allow me to rest long. I made very many efforts to overcome the glassy hill; and although I had sharp nails in the balls of my shoes, and large stubbs to
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