In these views of Ullswater, sublimity and greatness are the predominating characters, though beauty often glows upon the western bank. The mountains are all bold, gloomy and severe. When we saw them, the sky accorded well with the scene, being frequently darkened by autumnal clouds; and the equinoctial gale swept the surface of the lake, marking its blackness with long white lines, and beating its waves over the rocks to the foliage of the thickets above. The trees, that shade these eminences, give greater force to the scenes, which they either partially exclude, or wholly admit, and become themselves fine objects, enriched as they are with the darkest moss.
From hence the ride to the village of Patterdale, at the lake's head, is, for the first part, over precipices covered with wood, whence you look down, on the left, upon the water, or upon pastures stretching to it; on the right, the rocks rise abruptly, and often impend their masses over the road; or open to narrow dells, green, rocky and overlooked by endless mountains.
About half way to the village of Patterdale, a peninsula spreads from this shore into the lake, where a white house, peeping from a grove and surrounded with green enclosures, is beautifully placed. This is an inn, and, perhaps the principal one, as to accommodation; but, though its situation on a spot which on each side commands the lake, is very fine, it is not comparable, in point of wildness and sublimity, to that of the cottage, called the King's Arms, at Patterdale. In the way thither, are enchanting catches of the lake, between the trees on the left, and peeps into the glens, that wind among the alps towards Helvellyn, on the right. These multiply near the head of Ullswater, where they start off as from one point, like radii, and conclude in trackless solitudes.
It is difficult to spread varied pictures of such scenes before the imagination. A repetition of the same images of rock, wood and water, and the same epithets of grand, vast and sublime, which necessarily occur, must appear tautologous, on paper, though their archetypes in nature, ever varying in outline, or arrangement, exhibit new visions to the eye, and produce new shades of effect on the mind. It is difficult, also, where these delightful differences have been experienced, to forbear dwelling on the remembrance, and attempting to sketch the peculiarities, which occasioned them. The scenery at the head of Ullswater is especially productive of such difficulties, where a wish to present the picture, and a consciousness of the impossibility of doing so, except by the pencil, meet and oppose each other.
Patterdale itself is a name somewhat familiar to recollection, from the circumstance of the chief estate in it having given to its possessors, for several centuries, the title of Kings of Patterdale. The last person so distinguished was richer than his ancestors, having increased his income, by the most ludicrous parsimony, to a thousand pounds a year. His son and successor is an industrious country gentleman, who has improved the sort of farming mansion, annexed to the estate, and, not affecting to depart much from the simple manners of the other inhabitants, is respectable enough to be generally called by his own name of Mounsey, instead of the title, which was probably seldom given to his ancestors, but in some sort of mockery.
The village is very humble, as to the conditions and views of the inhabitants; and very respectable, as to their integrity and simplicity, and to the contentment, which is proved by the infrequency of emigrations to other districts. It straggles at the feet of fells, somewhat removed from the lake and near the entrance of the wild vale of Glenridding. Its white church is seen nearly from the commencement of the last reach, rising among trees, and in the church-yard are the ruins of an antient yew, of remarkable size and venerable beauty; its trunk, hollowed and silvered by age, resembles twisted roots; yet the branches, that remain above, are not of melancholy black, but flourish in rich verdure and flaky foliage.
The inn is beyond the village, securely sheltered under high crags, while enormous fells, close on the right, open to the gorge of Patterdale; and Coldrill-beck, issuing from it, descends among the corn and meadows, to join the lake at little distance. We had a happy evening at this cleanly cottage, where there was no want, without its recompense, from the civil offices of the people. Among the rocks, that rose over it, is a station, which has been more frequently selected than any other on the lake by the painter and the lover of the beau idée, as the French and Sir Joshua Reynolds expressively term what Mr. Burke explains in his definition of the word fine. Below the point, on which we stood, a tract of corn and meadow land fell gently to the lake, which expanded in great majesty beyond, bounded on the right by the precipices of many fells, and, on the left, by rocks finely wooded, and of more broken and spiry outline. The undulating pastures and copses of Gowbarrow closed the perspective. Round the whole of these shores, but particularly on the left, rose clusters of dark and pointed summits, assuming great variety of shape, amongst which Helvellyn was still pre-eminent. Immediately around us, all was vast and gloomy; the fells mount swiftly and to enormous heights, leaving at their bases only crags and hillocks, tufted with thickets of dwarf-oak and holly, where the beautiful cattle, that adorned them, and a few sheep, were picking a scanty supper among the heath.
From this spot glens open on either hand, that lead the eye only to a chaos of mountains. The profile of one near the fore-ground on the right is remarkably grand, shelving from the summit in one vast sweep of rock, with only some interruption of craggy points near its base, into the water. On one side, it unites with the fells in the gorge of Patterdale, and, on the other, winds into a bold bay for the lake. Among the highlands, seen over the left shore, is Common-fell, a large heathy mountain, which appeared to face us. Somewhat nearer, is a lower one, called Glenridding, and above it the Nab. Grassdale has Glenridding and the Nab on one side towards the water, and Birks-fell and St. Sunday's-crag over that, on the other. The points, that rise above the Nab, are Stridon-edge, then Cove's head, and, over all, the precipices of dark Helvellyn, now appearing only at intervals among the clouds.
Not only every fell of this wild region has a name, but almost every crag of every fell, so that shepherds sitting at the fire-side can direct each other to the exact spot among the mountains, where a stray sheep has been seen.
Among the rocks on the right shore, is Martindale-fell, once shaded with a forest, from which it received its name, and which spreading to a vast extent over the hills and vallies beyond, even as far as Hawswater, darkened the front of Swarth-fell and several others, that impend over the first and second reach of Ullswater. Of the mountains, which tower above the glen of Patterdale, the highest are Harter's fell, Kidstow-pike, and the ridge, called the High-street; a name, which reminded us of the German denomination, Berg-strasse.