Robert Southey

Queen MaryI.—Lake of Winandermere.—Ambleside.—Lake of Coniston.—Kirkstone Mountain.—Lake of Brotherwater.—Paterdale.—Lake of Ulswater.—Penrith.

Kendal, though less populous and less busy than the noisy manufacturing towns which we have left behind us, is yet a place of thriving industry, and has been so during some centuries. The most interesting fact connected with its history is this; after the death of HenryVIII. his daughter, the pious Mary, being deeply concerned for the state of his unhappy soul, would fain have set apart the revenues of this parochial church as a fund for masses in his behalf. She consulted proper persons upon this matter, who assured her that the pope would never consent to it; and she then, still endeavouring to hope that he was not utterly out of the reach of intercession, gave the advowson to a college which he had founded in Cambridge, thinking that, as the foundation of this college was the best thing he had done for himself, the best thing she could do for him would be to augment its revenues for his sake.

The morning threatened rain, luckily, as it induced us to provide ourselves with umbrellas, a precaution which we might otherwise have neglected. They make these things in England to serve also as walking-sticks, by which means they are admirably adapted for foot travellers. Much rain has fallen lately in this neighbourhood; and the influx of such visitors as ourselves is so great, that the person of whom we purchased these umbrellas told us, he had sold forty in the course of the week.

After breakfast we began our march. You would have smiled to see me with the knapsack buckled over my breast, and a staff in hand, which, if not so picturesque as the pilgrim's, is certainly more convenient in so showery a land as this. Our way was up and down steep hills, by a good road. The carts of this country are drawn by a single horse; and this is conceived to be so much the best mode of draught, that the Board of Agriculture is endeavouring to make it general throughout the kingdom. In about two hours we came in sight of Winandermere, mere being another word for lake. We had now travelled over two leagues of uninteresting ground, where the hills were so high as to excite expectation of something to be seen from the summit which we were toiling up, and when we had reached the summit, not high enough to realize the expectation they had excited. The morning had been over-cast; twice we had been obliged to our portable penthouses for saving us from a wetting; the sun had oftentimes struggled to show himself, and as often was overclouded again after ineffectual gleams: but now, when we had reached the height from which our promised land was indeed visible, the weather ceased to be doubtful, the sun came fairly forth, the clouds dispersed, and we sat down upon a little rock by the road side to overlook the scene, perhaps with greater pleasure, because we had at one time so little hope of beholding it in such perfection.

The lake which lay below us is about three leagues in length: but a long narrow island stretches athwart it in the middle, and divides it into two parts. The lower half resembles a broad river, contracting its breadth towards the extremity of the view, where the hills on both sides seem to die away. The upper end is of a more complicated, but far nobler character. Here the lake is considerably wider; it is studded with many little islands, and surrounded with mountains, whose varieties of form and outline it would be hopeless to attempt describing. They have not that wavy and ocean-like appearance, which you have seen round you among some of our sierras; each has its individual form and character; and the whole have a grandeur, an awfulness, to which till now I had been a stranger. Two or three boats were gliding with white sails upon this calm and lovely water. The large island in the middle is planted with ornamental trees, and in the midst of it is a house, for the architecture of which no other excuse can be offered, than that, being round, and other houses usually square, something unusual may be conceived to suit so singular a situation. We were eager for a nearer view, and proceeded cheerfully to Bowness, a little town upon its shore; and from thence to the end of a long tongue of land, whence we crossed to an inn called the Ferry, on the opposite bank,—a single house, overshadowed by some fine sycamore trees, which grow close to the water-side.

We were directed to a castellated building above the inn, standing upon a craggy point, but in a style so foolish, that, if any thing could mar the beauty of so beautiful a scene, it would be this ridiculous edifice. This absurdity is not remembered when you are within, and the spot is well chosen for a banqueting-house. The room was hung with prints, representing the finest similar landscapes in Great Britain and other countries, none of the representations exceeding in beauty the real prospect before us. The windows were bordered with coloured glass, by which you might either throw a yellow sunshine over the scene, or frost it, or fantastically tinge it with purple.—Several boats were anchored off the island; the neighbouring islets appeared more beautiful than this inhabited one, because their trees and shrubs had not the same trim, plantation-appearance, and their shores were left with their natural inequalities and fringe of weeds, whereas the other was built up like a mound against the water.

After dinner we landed on the island, a liberty which is liberally allowed to strangers: having perambulated its winding walks, we rowed about among the other islets, enjoying the delightful scene till sun-set. Kingdoms, it is said, are never so happy as during those years when they furnish nothing for historians to record: I think of this now, when feeling how happy I have been to-day, and how little able I am to describe this happiness. Had we been robbed on the road, or overtaken by storms and upset in the lake, here would have been adventures for a letter:—do not however suppose that I am ambitious of affording you entertainment at any such price.

*****

We slept at the Ferry House, and the next morning recrossed the water, and proceeded along a road above the lake, but parallel with it, to the little village of Ambleside, which is one of the regular stations on the tour. The upper end of Winandermere became more majestic as we advanced, mountains of greater height and finer forms opened upon us. The borders of the lake were spotted with what the English, in opposition to our application of the word, call villas, for which it would be difficult to find a term,—single houses of the gentry, the casarias of the rich, which distinguish England so much from other countries, not only in its appearance, but in the very name of its society. A stronger contrast cannot well be imagined than that of a shore thus ornamented, and the wild mountains beyond;—yet wooded hills and crags rising one above the other, harmonized the whole into one accordant and lovely scene. Grand and awful I called these mountains yesterday: they are so, and yet the feeling which the whole scene produces is less that of awe than of delight. The lake and its green shores seem so made for summer and sunshine joyousness, that no fitter theatre could be devised for Venetian pageantry, with the Bucentaur and all its train of gondolas. I wished for Cleopatra's galley, or for the silken-sailed ships of the days of chivalry, with their blazonry, their crimson awnings, their serpent-shaped hulks, music at the prow, and masquers dancing on the deck.

Several carriages passed us, and when we reached Ambleside the inn was full, and they were obliged to lodge us in the village, so great is the concourse of visitors to these Lakes. Some of the old houses here, with their open balconies, resemble our cottages and posadas; but these vestiges of former times will not exist much longer. New houses are building, old ones modernized, and marks of the influx of money to be seen every where.

It was noon when we arrived, for the distance was not quite two leagues. Two smaller lakes were to be seen within a league of Ambleside, called Ryedale and Grasmere, and two waterfalls on the way. This was our afternoon's walk, and a more beautiful one perhaps is not to be found in the wide world. My own recollections are so inadequately represented by any form of words, that it is best to give up the attempt as hopeless. One of the waterfalls, however, is of so singular a character that it may be imagined from description. We were admitted into a little hut, and then beheld it from the window of a rude room, falling under a bridge, into a bason between rocks which were overhung with trees. Every thing is upon so small a scale, that the trick of surprise is not offensive, and the sort of frame through which it was seen, not dissuitable to the picture. On our way back we took shelter from a shower in a cottage, where the mistress was making oaten cakes, the bread of this province. The dough being laid on a round board, which was a little hollowed, she clapped it out with her hands till it covered the board; then slipt it off upon a round iron plate of the same size, which was placed over a wood fire; and when the cake was crisp on the one side, as it soon became, being very thin, she turned it. We tasted of this bread: it was dry, but not unpleasant. They who are accustomed to it like it well, and think it nutritious; but it is said to produce or aggravate cutaneous diseases.

*****

The English are not quite so mad in their own country as they are abroad; and yet follies enough are committed at home to show that travelling Englishmen are no unfaithful representatives of their countrymen. We had as singular an instance of their characteristic folly this morning as could be wished. D. and I were on our way to visit Coniston Lake, when, as we were ascending a hill, we saw an open carriage drawn by two horses coming down: the body of the carriage was placed upon the wheels with the back part forwards, and a gentleman was driving with his back to the horses, and never looking round. The hill was steep, and the road winding; he was going at no very safe pace; and if the horses had not been more cautious than their master, we might very probably have had an opportunity of seeing what it was in the inside of his head, which supplied the place of brains. Some wager must have been the occasion of this prank.

It was but a dreary road to Coniston, of two leagues,—neither were we well repaid when we got there by the sight of a lake extending into a tame country. Had we approached from the other end it would not perhaps have disappointed us, but we came from the mountains at its head, instead of advancing towards them. Slates of remarkable size are used for fences and in building about this neighbourhood. They are so high that I saw one row forming the whole front of a cottage, and in another place a house-porch was constructed of four, one on each side, and two leaning against each other for the roof. The quarry is among the mountains.

The language of the people here is almost unintelligible to me; it resembles Scotch more than English. D. is frequently at a loss to understand their meaning, though they seem to have no difficulty in understanding him.

*****

On Monday we left Ambleside, and toiled up Kirkstone Mountain, perhaps the longest and most laborious pass in England, a full league up, though the highest point of the road is considerably below the summit of the mountain. Immediately upon beginning to descend, a striking scene opened upon us; we were between two walls of rock, and on the left hand a brook, increased by innumerable streams from the heights on either side, rolled down a rocky channel. This opening soon spread into a vale, which continued to widen before us as we advanced. Here we saw scattered cottages built of loose stones and covered with slates, both roof and sides so rudely built, so tinged by weather, and clothed with ferns and mosses, as to blend with the colours of the natural scenery, almost as if they had been things of nature themselves, and not the work of man. They are the rudest cottages which I have seen in England, and indicate either great laziness in the inhabitants, or dismal poverty.

In this rude vale we met a travelling Jew pedlar, laden with barometers and thermometers. What an extraordinary land is this! In a place as wild and savage as the desert of Batuecas might we have purchased such weather-glasses, as certainly it would be hopeless to seek for in most of the cities in Spain.

The waters which accompanied our descent spread themselves into a little lake in the valley, called Brotherwater; small, but exquisitely beautiful. I have never seen a single spot more beautiful or more rememberable. The mountain behind,—it is one of the highest in the country,—forms a cove, in which a single old mansion stands in a green field among old trees. The most rigid Jeronymites could not wish for a place of more total seclusion. Out of this lake flowed a little river, clear, rapid, and melodious; we crossed it, and our path lay along its banks. How often did I stop and look back, and close my eyes to open them again, as if repetition could better impress the landscape upon remembrance than continuity; the delight I felt was mingled with sorrow by a sense of transitoriness;—it was even painful to behold scenes so beautiful, knowing that I should never behold them more.

We had started early, to have the day before us, so that we reached Paterdale to breakfast; the distance was two leagues and a half, enough to raise an appetite even had it been plain ground,—and the mountain air had made us almost ravenous. If the people of the inn had not been prepared for a succession of numerous visitors, our hunger might have looked for supplies in vain: and if many of their visitors were as hungry as ourselves, they would breed a famine in the land. No banquet, no wines could have exhilarated us more than food. We truly felt the joy of health and the reward of exercise.

The abundance of water in these vales is more delightful than can be imagined. Nothing languishes here for drought. It is the midst of summer, and the brooks are full. If the sound of a tank or a water-wheel is so agreeable, judge what the voice must be of these living streams, now breaking round rocks, which, in the process of ages, they have worn smooth, now leaping and foaming from crag to crag, now coursing over a bed of pebbles. How little do our Valverdes and Valparaisos bear comparison with these vales, which are kept always green by streams which never fail!

Here we took boat upon the lake of Ulswater. The beauties of Winandermere, highly as they had excited our admiration, seemed as nothing when we compared them with this grander country. Higher mountains rose here immediately from the Lake, and instead of villas and gardens there was a forest on the shore. On Winandermere I had wished for gondolas and mirth and music;—here I should have felt that they were incongruous with the scene, and with the feelings which it awakened.—The domestic architecture of the English is however so abominable that it will spoil whatever can be spoilt. There is a detestable house here belonging to a gentleman, who, for his great possessions in the vale, is called the King of Paterdale. Wherever it is seen it is as impertinent and offensive as the old Gracioso[10] in a scene of real passion.

Ulswater forms three reaches,—each three miles in length. The whole can never be seen at one view, nor indeed any two of the reaches except from their point. We landed near a singular building, which serves as a hunting-seat for the duke of Norfolk, and we were admitted to see a waterfall in his garden. Nature produces as endless varieties of scenery with the elements of wood, water, and rock, as she does of countenance with the features of the human face, and it is as hopeless to delineate by words the real character of one as of the other. Ara Force is the name of this waterfall. A chaise passed us as we were returning to the boat; there were three picturesque tourists in it, and one of them was fast asleep in the corner.

The lake and the mountains end together; a broad and rapid river called the Emont flows out of it. We landed, and proceeded a league and quarter through a cultivated country to Penrith, a town which, though we should have thought little of it in any other part of England, seems here, by comparison, like a metropolis. The flies have grievously tormented us upon our walk. I used to complain of our mosquitos, but they have at least the modesty to wait for night and darkness;—these English tormentors attack man to his face in broad day-light. Certainly they are of the same species as those which were chosen to be one of the plagues of Egypt.