Hither parties are frequently formed for the purpose of eating lobsters, where they are to be had in the same perfection as at Cromer. A small share of that variety is also furnished for which human nature pants so eagerly.
The beach spreads before its wanderers the same inviting surface and the sea as noble an expanse as at Cromer. Here, too, they may either invoke the Nereides or admire the sublime and splendid beauties of a summer’s sun, setting in the ocean, a circumstance which Thompson has noticed with exquisite accuracy and equal elegance.
“Low walks the sun, and broadens by degrees
Just o’er the verge of day; the shifting clouds
Assembled gay, a richly gorgeous train,
In all their pomp attend his setting throne.
Air, earth, and ocean, smile immense. And now,
As if his weary chariot fought the bowers
Of Amphitrite and her tending nymphs;
(So Grecian fable sung) he dips his orbs;
Now half immersed; and now a golden curve
Gives one bright glance, then total disappears.”
ERRATA. [82]
| Page 8 | For the autumnal equinox, read in the autumnal, &c. |
| — 14 | For water, read waters. |
| — 29 | For obsurity read obscurity. |
| — 37 | For massed with age, read mossed. |
| — 38 | For in is read in his. |
| — 42 | For composes, read compares. |
| — 54 | For distance, read distant. |
| — 68 | For set of, read set off. |
| — 76 | For wildest, largest growth, read of wildest, &c. |
PRINTED BY JOHN PARSLEE, HOLT.
FOOTNOTES.
[9] I wish it was in my power to say, that scenes of this nature always terminated so favourably; but a most fatal instance happened to the contrary at Cromer, in the afternoon of the 2nd of February, 1799. About three o’clock a boat with a number of men was seen making toward the shore—the surf on the beach was dreadful, and it was the general opinion that the boat could not live through it—and it was but too just!—for it no sooner came amongst the breakers than the first sea half filled it, and another quickly following before it could right, it carried the boat, in an instant, with its unfortunate crew, to the bottom. A boat from the shore had before been launched to give them assistance if possible—but it was in vain; the hazard was so imminent that the trial was ineffectual; only two out of twelve souls escaped; the captain and a poor boy—the latter was taken up to all appearance dead and was with great difficulty recovered. These unfortunate men were Danes, their vessel laden with timber had struck upon a sand the night before this melancholy catastrophe, and they had taken to their boat as a desperate resource to save their lives, which were almost exhausted for want of sustenance, not having been able to come at any food from the state of the ship for the two preceding days.
[33] Ruinated structures (says Shenstone) appear to derive their power of pleasing from the irregularity of surface, which is variety, and the latitude they afford the imagination to conceive an enlargement of their dimensions or to recollect any events or circumstances appertaining to their pristine grandeur.