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produce riches to the proprietors, and a splendour of beauty
to the place few would calculate upon. In offering these
opinions, he is influenced by two motives, the first,
gratitude for the liberty allowed him of studying in the
park, where he has alone, and in company with other
privileged individuals, spent many happy days in
contemplation of scenes, which, in their kind, he has never
seen equaled; the second, that of gratifying public taste by
the proposed improvements.
The writer will here confine himself to the lower grounds in
that part of Rydal which lie to the east of the Rothay, and
the little river proceeding from the water-falls.
Scandale bridge is a quarter of a mile from Ambleside on the
Keswick road, and the feelings of many are oppressed with
gloom, till they are relieved, half a mile beyond that
bridge, by a sight of Rydal hall, the first view
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of which is fine; but the traveller not having considered
the subject, is seldom able to discover why he dislikes this
half mile.
In viewing the external surface of nature, man is generally
more pleased with her spontaneous productions than with the
works of art upon that surface, and well he may be, when art
so frequently tends to disfigure the fair face of nature -
but it is not meant that in the district here spoken of,
art, as intending to mould nature into beauty, was ever
thought of.
Utility has been the main designer here, and has divided an
extensive district into various large inclosures, some of
which have been uniformly covered with wood, and it has
exclusively appropriated the rest to the purposes of
agriculture, save where here and there clumps of firs have
been planted, but generally so near together
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