Gents Mag 1805 p.1122

Gents Mag 1805 p.1122




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	list, 1st qtr 19th century


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	Gentleman's Magazine 1805 p.1122 not here distributed her favours with an equal hand, scattering those ornaments with a fastidious frugality, around which she wantons in the most luxuriant profusion. When I first beheld the Lakes of Derwent and Bassenthwaite, I could not easily divest my mind of a persuasion that thay had once been united, and that the intervening plain had originally formed the bed of the water. Such an alteration, taken as a whole, might powerfully contribute to the scenic consistency of the valley; but perhaps an expanse so equally extensive would rather degenerate into tameness, than raise the landscape in the scale of grandeur. The character of the Mountain scenery is here happily diversified; we have the undulating velvet slope, the mouldering earth crag, the sullen grey cliff, and the rock of silvery whiteness, sparkling like agate in the interstices of the shrubby mantle with which it is overspread. The water of Derwent, which is of the clearest crystal, is sometimes curled into little eddies, and presents a surface as much agitated as that of boiling water,owing to what is technically denominated a bottom wind, the infallible omen of an approaching tempest. This ruffled face of the Lake, from whatever cause, is by no means unfrequent, and gives an interesting vivacity to the scene; it is moreover an appearance which has not escaped observation in the glownig (sic) catalogue of Virgil's beauties: Speluncae, vivique lacus, - mugitisque boum, Non absunt. Towards the Southern extremity of the Lake is occasionally seen what the guides call a floating island. This phaenomenon, which is peculiar to stormy weather, the Keswick philosophers explain by saying, that a torrent is discharged at this point beneath a turf bank, which swells from greater or less upward pressure, to different degrees of convexity. Artificial islets, we are told, float upon the Lakes of Mexico and China; and, however Philosophy may solve the problem in Nature, Poetry, less scrupulous ofher authority, has lately wrought the artificial image with peculiar felicity to the hands of the voyager: We reach'd the shore, A Floating Islet waited for me there, The beautiful work of man; I sat my foot Upon green growing herbs and flowers, and sate Embower'd in odorous shrubs; four long light boats Yoked to the garden; with accordant song, And dip and dash of oars in harmony, Bore me across the Lake. SOUTHEY'S Madoc. In the evening of the 22d we sauntered through a delicious grove of oak and fir, crowning an eminence which overhangs the West border of the Lake; in our way, we learned with regret, that the Dryads of Crow Park were no more; the greater part of the land here is annexed to the estates of public charities or private manors; and it is indeed a subject of deep and universal regret to the lovers of Lake scenery, that the coppice wood and forestries should be so often and so barbarously mutilated, and the shores denuded of their fine foliage trimmings, by the avarice or caprice of their tasteless owners: Sed non omnes arbusta juvant. From the brow of Cockshut-hill we caught the grand outline of the vale, under the mellowing rays of a majestic sunset: behind us stretched the frightfully stupendous wall of Barrow and Wallow Crags; and from these was extended a chain of cliff bounding the vale of Watendlath: next rose the grandly-wooded rocks of the Lodore, forming a magnificent circus for its fall: still farther yawned the terrific jaws of Borradaile, closed on either side by the huge precipices of Grange Fell and Gate Crags. In the midst of this dreary chasm, an isolated spire of rock, invested on all sides with foliage of the liveliest verdure, stood like a tower. This is Castle Crags which the Antiquaries dignify with the honours of a Roman Fort. Of this, if it ever existed, Time has long sapped the foundations, and dispersed the ruins; but its muffled pediment has not denied a refuge to the later posterity of the Roman Eagle. Descending to join the road, we climbed Castlehead, a pretty tufted hill about half a mile distant from Cockshut. This is a most commanding eminence. Had Mr. Grey, seated on its summit, consented for once to loosen the bandage from his eyes, and contemplate magnificence without terror, we could but faintly conceive the glowing touches of his animated pencil. Directly beneath us lay the town of Keswick, in as much obscurity as we could wish.
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	gazetteer links
	-- Bassenthwaite Lake
	-- "Castle Crags" -- Castle Crag
	-- Crow Park
	-- Derwent Water
	-- (floating island, Derwent Water)
	-- (station, Castle Head)
	-- (station, Cockshot Wood)

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