Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated) (327 page)

4.14. WINDERMERE,

WHICH appeared at some distance below, in gentle yet stately beauty; but its boundaries shewed nothing of the sublimity and little of the romantic wildness, that charms, or elevates in the scenery of the other lakes. The shores, and the hills, which gradually ascend from them, are in general richly cultivated, or wooded, and correctly elegant; and when we descended upon the bank the road seemed leading through the artificial shades of pleasure-grounds. It undulates for two miles over low promontories and along spacious bays, full to their fringed margin with the abundance of this expansive lake; then, quitting the bank, it ascends gradual eminences, that look upon the vast plain of water, and rise amidst the richest landscapes of its shores. The manners of the people would have sufficiently informed us that Windermere is the lake most frequented; and with the great sublimity of the more sequestered scenes, we had to regret the interesting simplicity of their inhabitants, a simplicity which accorded so beautifully with the dignified character of the country. The next day, we visited several of the neighbouring heights, whence the lake is seen to great advantage; and, on the following, skirted the eastern shore for six miles to the Ferry.

Windermere, above twelve miles long and generally above a mile broad, but sometimes two, sweeps like a majestic river with an easy bend between low points of land and eminences that, shaded with wood and often embellished with villas, swell into hills cultivated to their summits; except that, for about six miles along the middle of the western shore, a range of rocky fells rise over the water. But these have nothing either picturesque or fantastic in their shape; they are heavy, not broken into parts, and their rudeness softens into insignificance, when they are seen over the wide channel of the lake; they are neither large enough to be grand, or wooded enough to be beautiful. To the north, or head of Windermere, however, the tameness of its general character disappears, and the scene soars into grandeur. Here, over a ridge of rough brown hills above a woody shore, rise, at the distance of a mile and half, or two miles, a multitude of finely alpine mountains, retiring obliquely in the perspective, among which Langdale-pikes, Hardknot and Wry-nose, bearing their bold, pointed promontories aloft, are preeminent. The colouring of these mountains, which are some of the grandest of Cumberland and Westmoreland, was this day remarkably fine. The weather was showery, with gleams of sunshine; sometimes their tops were entirely concealed in gray vapours, which, drawing upwards, would seem to ascend in volumes of smoke from their summits; at others, a few scattered clouds wandered along their sides, leaving their heads unveiled and effulgent with light. These clouds disappearing before the strength of the sun, a fine downy hue of light blue overspread the peeping points of the most distant fells, while the nearer ones were tinged with deep purple, which was opposed to the brown heath and crag of the lower hills, the olive green of two wooded slopes that, just tinted by autumn, seemed to descend to the margin, and the silver transparency of the expanding water at their feet. This view of Windermere appears with great majesty from a height above Culgarth, a seat of the Bishop of Landaff; while, to the south, the lake after sweeping about four miles gradually narrows and disappears behind the great island, which stretches across the perspective.

At the distance of two or three miles beyond Culgarth, from a hill advancing towards the water, the whole of Windermere is seen; to the right, is the white mansion at Culgarth, among wood, on a gentle eminence of the shore, with the lake spreading wide beyond, crowned by the fells half obscured in clouds. To the south, the hills of the eastern shore, sloping gradually, run out in elegant and often well wooded points into the water, and are spotted with villas and varied above with enclosures. The opposite shore is for about a mile southward a continuation of the line of rock before noticed, from which Rawlinson’s-nab pushes a bold headland over the lake; the perspective then sinks away in low hills, and is crossed by a remote ridge, that closes the scene.

The villages of Rayrig and Bowness, which are passed in the way to the Ferry, both stand delightfully; one on an eminence commanding the whole lake, and the other within a recess of the shore, nearly opposite the large island. The winding banks of Windermere continually open new landscapes as you move along them, and the mountains, which crown its head, are as frequently changing their attitudes; but Langdale-pikes, the boldest features in the scene, are soon lost to the eye behind the nearer fells of the western shore.

The ferry is considerably below Christian’s island, and at the narrowest span of the lake, where two points of the shore extend to meet each other. This island, said to contain thirty acres, intermingled with wood, lawn and shrubberies, embellishes, without decreasing the dignity of the scene; it is surrounded by attendant islets, some rocky, but others, beautifully covered with [...], seem to coronet the flood.

In crossing the water the illusions of vision give force to the northern mountains, which viewed from hence appear to ascend from its margin and to spread round it in a magnificent amphitheatre. This was to us the most interesting view on Windermere.

On our approaching the western shore, the range of rocks that form it, discovered their cliffs, and gradually assumed a consequence, which the breadth of the channel had denied them; and their darkness was well opposed by the bright verdure and variegated autumnal tints of the isles at their base. On the bank, under shelter of these rocks, a white house was seen beyond the tall boles of a most luxuriant grove of plane-trees, which threw their shadows over it, and on the margin of the silver lake spreading in front. From hence the road ascends the steep and craggy side of Furness-fell, on the brow of which we had a last view of Windermere, in its whole course; to the south, its tame but elegant landscapes gliding away into low and long perspective, and the lake gradually narrowing; to the north, its more impressive scenery; but the finest features of it were now concealed by a continuation of the rocks we were upon.

Windermere is distinguished from all the other lakes of this country by its superior length and breath, by the gentle hills, cultivated and enclosed nearly to their summits, that generally bind its shores, by the gradual distance and fine disposition of the northern mountains, by the bold sweeps of its numerous bays, by the villas that speckle and rich plantations that wind them, and by one large island, surrounded by many islets, which adds dignity to its bosom. On the other lakes the islands are prettinesses, that do not accord with the character of the scene; they break also the surface of the water where vast continuity is required; and the mind cannot endure to descend suddenly from the gigantic sublimity of nature to her fairy sports. Yet, on the whole, Windermere was to us the least impressive of all the lakes. Except to the north, where the retiring mountains are disposed with uncommon grandeur of outline and magnificence of colouring, its scenery is tame, having little of the wild and nothing of the astonishing energy that appears on the features of the more sequestered districts. The characters of the three great lakes may, perhaps, be thus distinguished:

Windermere: Diffusiveness, stately beauty, and, at the upper end, magnificence.

Ullswater: Severe grandeur and sublimity; all that may give ideas of vast power and astonishing majesty. The effect of Ullswater is, that, awful as its scenery appears, it awakens the mind to expectation still more awful, and, touching all the powers of imagination, inspires that ‘“fine phrensy”’ descriptive of the poet’s eye, which not only bodies forth unreal forms, but imparts to substantial objects a character higher than their own.

Derwentwater: Fantastic wildness and romantic beauty, but inferior to Ullswater in greatness, both of water and rocks; for, though it charms and elevates, it does not display such features and circumstances of the sublime, or call up such expectation of unimaged and uncertain wonder. A principal defect, if we may venture to call it so, of Derwentwater is, that the water is too small in proportion for the amphitheatre of the valley in which it lies, and therefore loses much of the dignity, that in other circumstances it would exhibit. The fault of Windermere is, perhaps, exactly the reverse; where the shores, not generally grand, are rendered tamer by the ample expanse of the lake. The proportions of Ullswater are more just, and, though its winding form gives it in some parts the air of a river, the abrupt and tremendous height of its rocks, the dark and crowding summits of the fells above, the manner in which they enclose it, together with the dignity of its breadth, empower it constantly to affect the mind with emotions of astonishment and lofty expectation.

4.15. FROM WINDERMERE TO HAWKSHEAD, THURSTON-LAKE AND ULVERSTON
.

AFTER ascending the laborious crags and precipices of Furness-fell, enlivened, however, by frequent views of the southern end of Windermere, the road immediately descends the opposite side of the mountain, which shuts out the beautiful scenery of the lake; but the prospect soon after opens to other mountains of Furness, in the distance, which revive the expectation of such sublimity as we had lately regretted, and to Esthwait-water in the valley below. This is a narrow, pleasant lake, about half a mile broad and two miles long, with gradual hills, green to their tops, rising round the margin; with plantations and pastures alternately spreading along the easy shores and white farms scattered sparingly upon the slopes above. The water seems to glide through the quiet privacy of pleasure-grounds; so sine is the turf on its banks, so elegant its copses, and such an air of peace and retirement prevails over it. A neat white village lies at the feet of the hills near the head of the lake; beyond it is the gray town of Hawkshead, with its church and parsonage on an eminence commanding the whole valley. Steep hills rise over them, and, more distant, the tall heads of the Conistonfells, dark and awful, with a confusion of other mountains.

Hawkshead, thus delightfully placed, is an antient, but small town, with a few good houses, and a neat townhouse, lately built by subscriptions, of which the chief part was gratefully supplied by London merchants, who had been educated at the free school here; and this school itself is a memorial of gratitude, having been founded by Archbishop Sandys for the advantage of the town, which gave him birth. Near Hawkshead are the remains of the house, where the Abbot of Furness ‘“kept residence by one or more monks, who performed divine service and other parochial duties in the neighbourhood.”’ There is still a court-room over the gateway, ‘“where the bailiff of Hawkshead held court, and distributed justice, in the name of the aboot.”’

From the tremendous steeps of the long fell, which towers over Hawkshead, astonishing views open to the distant vales and mountains of Cumberland; overlooking all the grotesque summits in the neighbourhood of Grasmere, the fells of Borrowdale in the furthest distance, Langdale-pikes, and several small lakes, seen gleaming in the bosom of the mountains. Before us, rose the whole multitude of Conistonfells, of immense height and threatening forms, their tops thinly darkened with thunder mists, and, on the left, Furness-fells sinking towards the bay, which Ulverston sands form for the sea.

As we advanced, Conistonfells seemed to multiply, and became still more impressive, till, having reached at length the summit of the mountain, we looked down upon Thurston-lake immediately below, and saw them rising abruptly round its northern end in somewhat of the sublime attitudes and dark majesty of Ullswater. A range of lower rocks, nearer to the eye, exhibited a very peculiar and grotesque appearance, coloured scars and deep channels marking their purple sides, as if they had been rifted by an earthquake.

The road descends the flinty steeps towards the eastern bank of the lake, that spreads a surface of six miles in length and generally three quarters of a mile in breadth, not winding in its course, yet much indented with bays, and presenting nearly its whole extent at once to the eye. The grandest features are the fells, that crown its northern end, not distantly and gradually, like those of Windermere, nor varied like them with magnificent colouring, but rising in haughty abruptness, dark, rugged and stupendous, within a quarter of a mile of the margin, and shutting out all prospect of other mountain-summits. At their feet, pastures spread a bright green to the brim of the lake. Nearly in the centre of these fells, which open in a semicircle to receive the lake, a cataract descends, but its shining line is not of a breadth proportioned to the vastness of its perpendicular fall. The village of Coniston is sweetly seated under shelter of the rocks; and, at a distance beyond, on the edge of the water, the antient hall, or priory, shews its turret and ivyed ruins among old woods. The whole picture is reflected in the liquid mirror below. The gay, convivial chorus, or solemn vesper, that once swelled along the lake from these consecrated walls, and awakened, perhaps, the enthusiasm of the voyager, while evening stole upon the scene, is now contrasted by desolation and profound repose, and, as he glides by, he hears only the dashing of his oars, or the surge beating on the shore.

This lake appeared to us one of the most charming we had seen. From the sublime mountains, which bend round its head, the heights, on either side, decline towards the south into waving hills, that form its shores, and often stretch in long sweeping points into the water, generally covered with tufted wood, but sometimes with the tender verdure of pasturage. The tops of these woods were just embrowned with autumn, and contrasted well with other slopes, rough and heathy, that rose above, or fell beside them to the water’s brink, and added force to the colouring, which the reddish tints of decaying fern, the purple bloom of heath, and the bright golden gleams of broom, spread over these elegant banks. Their hues, the graceful undulations of the marginal hills and bays, the richness of the woods, the solemnity of the northern fells and the deep repose, that pervades the scene, where only now and then a white cottage or a farm lurks among the trees, are circumstances, which render Thurston-lake one of the most interesting and, perhaps, the most beautiful of any in the country.

The road undulates over copsy hills, and dips into shallow vallies along the whole of the eastern bank, seldom greatly elevated above the water, or descending to a level with it, but frequently opening to extensive views of its beauties, and again shrouding itself in verdant gloom. The most impressive pictures were formed by the fells, that crowd over the upper end of the lake, and which, viewed from a low station, sometimes appeared nearly to enclose that part of it. The effect was then astonishingly grand, particularly about sun-set, when the clouds, drawing upwards, discovered the utmost summits of these fells, and a tint of dusky blue began to prevail over them, which gradually deepened into night. A line of lower rocks, that extend from these, are, independently of the atmosphere, of a dull purple, and their shaggy forms would appear gigantic in almost any other situation. Even here, they preserve a wild dignity, and their attitudes somewhat resemble those at the entrance of Borrowdale; but they are forgotten, when the eye is lifted to the solemn mountains immediately above. These are rich in slate quarries, and have some copper mines; but the latter were closed, during the civil wars of the last century, having been worked, as we are told in the descriptive language of the miners, from
the day to the evening end,
forty fathom, and to the
morning end
seven score fathom; a sigurative style of distinguishing the western and eastern directions of the mine. The lake, towards the lower end, narrows and is adorned by one small island; but here the hills of the eastern shore soar into fells, some barren, craggy and nearly perpendicular, others entirely covered with coppice-wood. Two of these, rising over the road, gave fine relief to each other, the one shewing only precipices of shelving rock, while its rival aspired with woods, that mantled from the base to the summit, consisting chiefly of oak, ash and holly. Not any lake, that we saw, is at present so much embellished with wood as Thurston. All the mountains of
High
and the vallies of
Low Furness
were, indeed, some centuries ago, covered with forests, part of which was called the Forest of Lancaster; and these were of such entangled luxuriance as to be nearly impenetrable in many tracts. Here, wolves, wild boars, and a remarkably large breed of deer, called Leghs, the heads of which have frequently been found buried at a considerable depth in the soil, abounded. So secure an asylum did these animals find in the woods of High Furness, that, even after the low lands were cleared and cultivated, shepherds were necessary to guard the flocks from the ravages of the wolves. Towards the end of the thirteenth century, the upper forests also were nearly destroyed.

In winter, the shepherds used to feed their flocks with the young sprouts of ash and holly, a custom said to be still observed; the sheep coming at the call of the shepherd and assembling round the hollytree to receive from his hand the young shoots cropped for them
^*
. Whenever the woods are felled, which is too frequently done, to supply fuel for the neighbouring furnaces, the holly is still held sacred to the flocks of these mountains.

Soon after passing the island, the road enters the village of Nibthwaite, rich only in situation; for the cottages are miserable. The people seemed to be as ignorant as poor; a young man knew not how far it was to Ulverston, or as he called it Ulson, though it was only five miles.

On the point of a promontory of the opposite shore, embosomed in ancient woods, the chimnies and pointed roof of a gray mansion look out most interestingly. The woods open partially to the north, and admit a view of the
Swiss
scenery at the head of the lake, in its finest position. On the other sides, the oaks so embower the house and spread down the rocks, as scarcely to allow it a glimpse of the water bickering between the dark foliage below.

At Nibthwaite, the lake becomes narrow and gradually decreases, till it terminates at Lowick-bridge, where it glides away in the little river Crake, which descends to Ulverston sands. We stopped upon the bridge to take a last view of the scene; the distant fells were disappearing in twilight, but the gray lake gleamed at their base. From the steeps of a lofty mountain, that rose near us on the right, cattle were slowly descending for the night, winding among the crags, sometimes stopping to crop the heath, or broom, and then disappearing for a moment behind the darker verdure of yews, that grew in knots upon the cliffs.

It was night before we reached Ulverston. The wind sounded mournfully among the hills and we perceived our approach to the sea only by the faint roaring of the tide, till from a brow, whence the hills open on either hand with a grand sweep, we could just discern the gray surface of the sea-bay, at a distance below, and then, by lights that glimmered in the bottom, the town of Ulverston, lying not far from the shore and screened on the north by the heights, from which we were to descend.

Ulverston is a neat but ancient town, the capital and chief port of Furness. The road from it to the majestic ruin of Furness Abbey lies through Low Furness, and loses the general wildness and interest of the country, except where now and then the distant retrospect of the mountains breaks over the tame hills and regular enclosures, that border it.

About a mile and a half on this side of the Abbey, the road passes through Dalton, a very antient little town, once the capital of Low Furness, and rendered so important by its neighbourhood to the Abbey, that Ulverston, the present capital, could not then support the weekly market, for which it had obtained a charter. Dalton, however, sunk with the suppression of its neighbouring patrons, and is now chiefly distinguished by the pleasantness of its situation, to which a church, built on a bold ascent, and the remains of a castle, advantageously placed for the command of the adjoining valley, still attach some degree of dignity. What now exists of the latter is one tower, in a chamber of whichthe Abbot of Furness held his secular Court; and the chamber was afterwards used as a gaol for debtors, till within these few years, when the dead ruin released the living one. The present church-yard and the scite of this castle are supposed to have been included within the limits of a
castellum,
built by Agricola, of the fosse of which there are still some faint vestiges.

Beneath the brow, on which the church and tower stand, a brook flows through a narrow valley, that winds about a mile and a half to the Abbey. In the way thither we passed the entrance of one of the very rich iron mines, with which the neighbourhood abounds; and the deep red tint of the soil, that overspreads almost the whole country between Ulverston and the monastery, sufficiently indicates the nature of the treasures beneath.

In a close glen, branching from this valley, shrouded by winding banks clumped with old groves of oak and chesnut, we found the magnificent remains of