VALE OF TEMPE.
Dr. Clarke says, “The boasted Vale of Tempe, is a defile; it is something like Matlock, but wilder; more savage than Salvator Rosa, and with nothing of Claude. I cannot tell why the ancients made such a fuss about it; perhaps because half of them never saw it, and took its character from hearsay; the other half, like mankind every where, stupidly admiring what is said to be admirable. It is like a crack in a great wall, at the bottom of which is a river, sometimes inundated, sometimes dry; the passage narrow, the sides craggy, bare, lofty and perpendicular; its whole length not above a mile.”