Leaving the hamlet of Watermillock at some distance on the left, and passing the seat of Mr. Robinson, sequestered in the gloom of beech and sycamores, there are fine views over the second reach, as the road descends the common towards Gowbarrow. Among the boldest fells, that breast the lake on the left shore, are Holling-fell and Swarth-fell, now no longer boasting any part of the forest of Martindale, but shewing huge walls of naked rock, and scars, which many torrents have inflicted. One channel only in this dry season retained its shining stream; the chasm was dreadful, parting the mountain from the summit to the base; and its waters in winter, leaping in foam from precipice to precipice, must be infinitely sublime; not, however, even then from their mass, but from the length and precipitancy of their descent.
The perspective as the road descends into Gowbarrow-park is perhaps the very finest on the lake. The scenery of the first reach is almost tame when compared with this, and it is difficult to say where it can be equalled for Alpine sublimity, and so effecting wonder and awful elevation. The lake, after expanding at a distance to great breadth, once more loses itself beyond the enormous pile of rock called Place-fell, opposite to which the shore, seeming to close upon all further progress, is bounded by two promontories covered with woods, that shoot their luxuriant foliage to the water's edge. The shattered mass of gray rock, called Yew-crag, rises immediately over these, and, beyond, a glen opens to a chaos of mountains more solemn in their aspect, and singular in their shapes, than any which have appeared, point crowding over point in lofty succession. Among these is Stone-cross-pike and huge Helvellyn, scowling over all; but, though this retains its pre-eminence, its dignity is lost in the mass of alps around and below it. A fearful gloom involved them; the shadows of a stormy sky upon mountains of dark rock and heath. All this is seen over the woody fore-ground of the park, which, soon shrouding us in its bowery lanes, allowed the eye and the fancy to repose, while venturing towards new forms and assemblages of sublimity.
Meantime, the green shade, under which we passed, where the sultry low of cattle, and the sound of streams hurrying from the heights through the copses of Gowbarrow to the lake below, were all that broke the stillness; these, with gleamings of the water, close on the left, between the foliage, and which was ever changing its hue, sometimes assuming the soft purple of a pigeon's neck, at others the silvery tint of sunshine—these circumstances of imagery were in soothing and beautiful variety with the gigantic visions we had lost.
The road still pursuing this border of the lake, the copses opened to partial views of the bold rocks, that form the opposite shore, and many a wild recess and solemn glen appeared and vanished among them, some shewing only broken fells, the sides of others shaggy with forests, and nearly all lined, at their bases, with narrow pastures of the most exquisite verdure. Thus descending upon a succession of sweeping bays, where the shades parted, and admitted the lake, that flowed even with us, and again retreating from it over gentle eminences, where it glittered only between the leaves; crossing the rude bridges of several becks, rapid, clear and foaming among dark stones, and receiving a green tint from the closely shadowing trees, but neither precipitous enough in their descent, nor ample enough in their course, to increase the dignity of the scene, we came, after passing nearly three miles through the park, to Lyulph's Tower. This mansion, a square, gray edifice, with turreted corners, battlements and windows in the Gothic style, has been built by the present Duke of Norfolk in one of the finest situations of a park, abounding with views of the grand and the sublime. It stands on a green eminence, a little removed from the water, backed with wood and with pastures rising abruptly beyond, to the cliffs and crags that crown them. In front, the ground falls finely to the lake's edge, broken, yet gentle, and scattered over with old trees, and darkened with copses, which mingle in fine variety of tints with the light verdure of the turf beneath. Herds of deer, wandering over the knolls, and cattle, reposing in the shade, completed this sweet landscape.
The lake is hence seen to make one of its boldest expanses, as it sweeps round Place-fell, and flows into the third and last bend of this wonderful vale. Lyulph's Tower looks up this reach to the south, and to the east traces all the fells and curving banks of Gowbarrow, that bind the second; while, to the west, a dark glen opens to a glimpse of the solemn alps round Helvellyn; and all these objects are seen over the mild beauty of the park.
Passing fine sweeps of the shore and over bold headlands, we came opposite to the vast promontory, called Place-fell, that pushes its craggy foot into the lake, like a lion's claw, round which the waters make a sudden turn, and enter Patterdale, their third and final expanse. In this reach, they lose the form of a river, and resume that of a lake, being closed, at three miles distance, by the ruinous rocks, that guard the gorge of Patterdale, backed by a multitude of fells. The water, in this scope, is of oval form, bounded on one side by the precipices of Place-fell, Martindale-fell, and several others, equally rude and awful that rise from its edge, and shew no lines of verdure, or masses of; wood, but retire in rocky bays, or projects in vast promontories athwart it. The opposite shore is less severe and more romantic; the rocks are lower and richly wooded, and, often receding from the water, leave room for a tract of pasture, meadow land and corn, to margin their ruggedness. At the upper end, the village of Patterdale and one of two white farms, peep out from among trees beneath the scowling mountains, that close the scene; pitched in a rocky nook, with corn and meadow land, sloping gently in front to the lake, and, here and there, a scattered grove. But this scene is viewed to more advantage from one of the two woody eminences, that overhang the lake, just at the point where it forms its last angle, and, like an opened compass, spreads its two arms before the eye. These heights are extremely beautiful, viewed from the opposite shore, and had long charmed us at a distance. Approaching them, we crossed another torrent, Glencoyn-beck, or Airey-force, which here divides not only the estates of the Duke of Norfolk and Mr. Hodgkinson, but the counties of Westmoreland and Cumberland; and all the fells beyond, that enclose the last bend of Ullswater, are in Patterdale. Here, on the right, at the feet of awful rocks, was spread a gay autumnal scene, in which the peasants were singing merrily as they gathered the oats into sheafs; woods, turfy hillocks, and, above all, tremendous crags, abruptly closing round the yellow harvest. The figures, together with the whole landscape, resembled one of those beautifully fantastic scenes, which fable calls up before the wand of the magician.
Entering Glencoyn woods and sweeping the boldest bay of the lake, while the water dashed with a strong surge upon the shore, we at length mounted a road frightful from its steepness and its crags, and gained one of the wooded summits so long admired. From hence the view of Ullswater is the most extensive and various, that its shores exhibit, comprehending its two principal reaches, and though not the most picturesque, it is certainly the most grand. To the east, extends the middle sweep in long and equal perspective, walled with barren fells on the right, and margined on the left with the pastoral recesses and bowery projections of Gowbarrow park. The rude mountains above almost seemed to have fallen back from the shore to admit this landscape within their hollow bosom, and then, bending abruptly, appear, like Milton's Adam viewing the sleeping Eve, to hang over it enamoured.
Lyulph's Tower is the only object of art, except the hamlet of Watermillock, seen in the distant perspective, that appears in the second bend of Ullswater; and this loses much of its effect from the square uniformity of the structure, and the glaring green of its painted window-cases. This is the longest reach of the lake.
Place-fell, which divides the two last bends, and was immediately opposite to the point we were on, is of the boldest form. It projects into the water, an enormous mass of gray crag, scarred with dark hues; thence retiring a little it again bends forward in huge cliffs, and finally starts up into a vast perpendicular face of rock. As a single object, it is wonderfully grand; and, connected with the scene, its effect is sublime. The lower rocks are called Silver-rays, and not inaptly; for, when the sun shines upon them, their variegated sides somewhat resemble in brightness the rays streaming beneath a cloud.
The last reach of Ullswater, which is on the right of this point, expands into an oval, and its majestic surface is spotted with little rocky islets, that would adorn a less sacred scene; here they are prettinesses, that can scarcely be tolerated by the grandeur of its character. The tremendous mountains, which scowl over the gorge of Patterdale; the cliffs, massy, broken and overlooked by a multitude of dark summits, with the grey walls of Swarth and Martindale fells, that upheave themselves on the eastern shore, form altogether one of the most grand and awful pictures on the lake; yet, admirable and impressive as it is, as to solemnity and astonishment, its effect with us was not equal to that of the more alpine sketch, caught in distant perspective from the descent into Gowbarrow-park.