Whether our judgment was influenced by the authority of a Druid's choice, or that the place itself commanded the opinion, we thought this situation the most severely grand of any hitherto passed. There is, perhaps, not a single object in the scene, that interrupts the solemn tone of feeling, impressed by its general characters of profound solitude, greatness and awful wildness. Castle Rigg is the central point of three vallies, that dart immediately under it from the eye, and whose mountains form part of an amphitheatre, which is completed by those of Derwentwater, in the west, and by the precipices of Skiddaw and Saddleback, close on the north. The hue, which pervades all these mountains, is that of dark heath, or rock; they are thrown into every form and direction, that Fancy would suggest, and are at that distance, which allows all their grandeur to prevail; nearer than the high lands, that surround Hutton Moor, and further removed than the fells in the scenery of Ullswater.

To the south open the rocks, that disclose the vale of St. John, whose verdant beauty bears no proportion to its sublimity; to the west, are piled the shattered and fantastic points of Derwentwater; to the north, Skiddaw, with its double top, resembling a volcano, the cloudy vapours ascending from its highest point, like smoke, and sometimes rolling in wreaths down its sides; and to the east, the vale of Threlkeld, spreading green round the base of Saddleback, its vast side-skreen, opened to the moorlands, beyond which the ridge of Cross-fell appeared; its dignity now diminished by distance. This point then is surrounded by the three grand rivals of Cumberland; huge Helvellyn, spreading Saddleback and spiry Skiddaw.

Such seclusion and sublimity were, indeed, well suited to the deep and wild mysteries of the Druids. Here, at moon-light, every Druid, summoned by that terrible horn, never awakened but upon high occasions, and descending from his mountain, or secret cave, might assemble without intrusion from one sacrilegious footstep, and celebrate a midnight festival by a savage sacrifice—

——"rites of such strange potency
As, done in open day, would dim the sun,
Tho' thron'd in noontide brightness."

Caractacus.

Here, too, the Bards,

"Rob'd in their flowing vests of innocent white,
Descend, with harps, that glitter to the moon,
Hymning immortal strains. The spirits of air,
Of earth, of water, nay of heav'n itself,
Do listen to their lay; and oft, 'tis said,
In visible shapes, dance they a magic round
To the high minstrelsy."

As we descended the steep mountain to Keswick, the romantic fells round the lake opened finely, but the lake itself was concealed, deep in its rocky cauldron. We saw them under the last glow of sun-set, the upward rays producing a misty purple glory between the dark tops of Cawsey-pikes and the bending peaks of Thornthwaite fells. Soon after, the sun having set to the vale of Keswick, there appeared, beyond breaks in its western mountains, the rocks of other vallies, still lighted up by a purple gleam, and receiving strong rays on shaggy points, to which their recesses gave soft and shadowy contrast. But the magical effect of these sunshine rocks, opposed to the darkness of the nearer valley, can scarcely be imagined.

Still as we descended, the lake of Derwentwater was screened from our view; but the rich level of three miles wide, that spreads between it and Bassenthwaite-water in the same vale, lay, like a map, beneath us, chequered with groves and cottages, with enclosures of corn and meadows, and adorned by the pretty village of Crossthwaite, its neat white church conspicuous among trees. The fantastic fells of Derwentwater bordered this reposing landscape, on the west, and the mighty Skiddaw rose over it, on the east, concealing the lake of Bassenthwaite.

The hollow dashings of the Greta, in its rocky channel, at the foot of Skiddaw, and in one of the most wizard little glens that nature ever fancied, were heard long before we looked down its steep woody bank, and saw it winding away, from close inaccessible chasms, to the vale of Keswick, corn and meadows spread at the top of the left bank, and the crags of Skiddaw scowling over it, on the right.