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page 57
incursions of the Scottish borderers; and they not
unfrequently retain their towers and battlements. To these
houses, parks are sometimes attached, and to their
successive proprietors we chiefly owe whatever ornament is
still left to the country of majestic timber. Through the
open parts of the vales are scattered, also, houses of a
middle rank between the pastoral cottage and the old hall
residence of the knight or esquire. Such houses differ much
from the rugged cottages before described, and are generally
graced with a little court or garden in front, where may yet
be seen specimens of those fantastic and quaint figures
which our ancestors were fond of shaping out in yew-tree,
holly, or box-wood. The passenger will sometimes smile at
such elaborate display of petty art, while the house does
not deign to look upon the natural beauty or the sublimity
which its situation almost unavoidably commands.
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Thus has been given a faithful description, the minuteness
of which the reader will pardon, of the face of this country
as it was, and had been through centuries, till within the
last sixty years. Towards the head of these Dales was found
a perfect Republic of Shepherds and Agriculturalists, among
whom the plough of each man was confined to the maintenance
of his own family, or to the occasional accommodation of his
neighbour.* Two or three
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