button to main menu  Description of Sixty Studies, pp.38-39
button title page
button previous page button next page
page 38:-
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
page 39:-
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
button next page
button to main menu Lakes Guides menu.