The taste, by which a cascade in the pleasure-grounds, pouring under the arch of a rude bridge, amidst the green tint of woods, is shewn through a darkened garden-house, and, therefore, with all the effect, which the opposition of light and shade can give, is even not too artificial; so admirably is the intent accomplished of making all the light, that is admitted, fall upon the objects, which are chiefly meant to be observed.
The road to Ambleside runs through the valley in front of Rydal-hall, and for some distance among the grounds that belong to it, where again the taste of the owner is conspicuous in the disposition of plantations among pastures of extraordinary richness, and where pure rivulets are suffered to wind without restraint over their dark rocky channels. Woods mantle up the cliffs on either side of this sweet valley, and, higher still, the craggy summits of the fells crowd over the scene. Two miles among its pleasant shades, near the banks of the murmuring Rotha, brought us to Ambleside, a black and very antient little town, hanging on the lower steeps of a mountain, where the vale opens to the head of
[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 pre-eminent. 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 wood, 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.