button to main menu  Wordsworth's Guide 1810, edn 1835
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page 37

SECTION SECOND.


inhabitants
ASPECT OF THE COUNTRY, AS AFFECTED BY ITS INHABITANTS.

HITHERTO I have chiefly spoken of the features by which nature has discriminated this country from others. I will now describe, in general terms, in what manner it is indebted to the hand of man. What I have to notice on this subject will emanate most easily and perspicuously from a description of the ancient and present inhabitants, their occupations, their conditions of life, the distribution of landed property among them, and the tenure by which it is holden.
The reader will suffer me here to recall to his mind the shapes of the vallies, and their position with respect to each other, and the forms and substance of the intervening mountains. He will people the vallies with lakes and rivers: the coves and sides of the mountains with pools and torrents; and will bound half of the circle which we have contemplated by the sands of the sea, or by the sea itself. He will conceive that, from the point upon which he stood, he looks down upon this scene before the country had been penetrated by any inhabitants: - to vary his sensations, and to break in upon their stillness, he will form
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