All this seems a very imperfect picture indeed, or panorama of Windermere, from the hill behind the school-house in the village of Bowness. So, to put a stop to such nonsense, let us descend to the White Lion—and inquire about Billy Balmer. Honest Billy has arrived from Waterhead—seems tolerably steady—Mr Ullock's boats may be trusted—so let us take a voyage of discovery on the lake. Let those who have reason to think that they have been born to die a different death from drowning, hoist a sail. We to-day shall feather an oar. Billy takes the stroke—Mr William Garnet's at the helm—and "row, vassals, row, for the pride of the Lowlands," is the choral song that accompanies the Naiad out of the bay, and round the north end of the Isle called Beautiful, under the wave-darkening umbrage of that ancient oak. And now we are in the lovely straits between that Island and the mainland of Furness Fells. The village has disappeared, but not melted away; for hark! the Church-tower tolls ten—and see the sun is high in heaven. High, but not hot—for the first September frosts chilled the rosy fingers of the morn as she bathed them in the dews, and the air is cool as a cucumber. Cool but bland—and as clear and transparent as a fine eye lighted up by a good conscience. There were breezes in Bowness Bay—but here there are none—or, if there be, they but whisper aloft in the tree-tops, and ruffle not the water, which is calm as Louisa's breast. The small isles here are but few in number—yet the best arithmetician of the party cannot count them—in confusion so rich and rare do they blend their shadows with those of the groves on the Isle called Beautiful, and on the Furness Fells. A tide imperceptible to the eye drifts us on among and above those beautiful reflections—that downward world of hanging dreams! and ever and anon we beckon unto Billy gently to dip his oar, that we may see a world destroyed and recreated in one moment of time. Yes, Billy! thou art a poet—and canst work more wonders with thine oar than could he with his pen who painted "heavenly Una with her milk-white lamb," wandering by herself in Fairyland. How is it, pray, that our souls are satiated with such beauty as this? Is it because 'tis unsubstantial all—senseless, though fair—and in its evanescence unsuited to the sympathies that yearn for the permanencies of breathing life? Dreams are delightful only as delusions within the delusion of this our mortal waking existence—one touch of what we call reality dissolves them all; blissful though they may have been, we care not when the bubble bursts—nay, we are glad again to return to our own natural world, care-haunted though in its happiest moods it be—glad as if we had escaped from glamoury; and, oh! beyond expression sweet it is once more to drink the light of living eyes—the music of living lips—after that preternatural hush that steeps the shadowy realms of the imagination, whether stretching along a sunset-heaven or the mystical imagery of earth and sky floating in the lustre of lake or sea.
Therefore "row, vassals, row, for the pride of the Lowlands;" and as rowing is a thirsty exercise, let us land at the Ferry, and each man refresh himself with a horn of ale.
There is not a prettier place on all Windermere than the Ferry-House, or one better adapted for a honey-moon. You can hand your bride into a boat almost out of the parlour window, and be off among the islands in a moment, or into nook or bay where no prying eye, even through telescope (a most unwarrantable instrument), can overlook your happiness; or you can secrete yourselves, like buck and doe, among the lady-fern on Furness Fells, where not a sunbeam can intrude on your sacred privacy, and where you may melt down hours to moments, in chaste connubial bliss, brightening futurity with plans of domestic enjoyment, like long lines of lustre streaming across the lake. But at present, let us visit the fort-looking building among the cliffs called The Station, and see how Windermere looks as we front the east. Why, you would not know it to be the same lake. The Isle called Beautiful, which heretofore had scarcely seemed an isle, appearing to belong to one or other shore of the mainland, from this point of view is an isle indeed, loading the lake with a weight of beauty, and giving it an ineffable character of richness which nowhere else does it possess; while the other lesser isles, dropt "in nature's careless haste" between it and the Furness Fells, connect it still with those lovely shores from which it floats a short way apart, without being disunited—one spirit blending the whole together within the compass of a fledgling's flight. Beyond these
"Sister isles, that smile
Together like a happy family
Of beauty and of love,"
the eye meets the Rayrig woods, with but a gleam of water between, only visible in sunshine, and is gently conducted by them up the hills of Applethwaite, diversified with cultivated enclosures, "all green as emerald" to their very summits, with all their pastoral and arable grounds besprinkled with stately single trees, copses, or groves. On the nearer side of these hills is seen, stretching far off to other lofty regions—Hill-bell and High-street conspicuous over the rest—the long vale of Troutbeck, with its picturesque cottages, in "numbers without number numberless," and all its sable pines and sycamores—on the further side, that most sylvan of all sylvan mountains, where lately the Hemans warbled her native wood-notes wild in her poetic bower, fitly called Dove-nest, and beyond, Kirkstone Fells and Rydal Head, magnificent giants looking westward to the Langdale Pikes (here unseen),
"The last that parley with the setting sun."
Immediately in front, the hills are low and lovely, sloping with gentle undulations down to the lake, here grove-girdled along all its shores. The elm-grove that overshadows the Parsonage is especially conspicuous—stately and solemn in a green old age—and though now silent, in spring and early summer clamorous with rooks in love or alarm, an ancient family, and not to be expelled from their hereditary seats. Following the line of shore to the right, and turning your eyes unwillingly away from the bright and breezy Belfield, they fall on the elegant architecture of Storr's Hall, gleaming from a glade in the thick woods, and still looking southward they see a serene series of the same forest scenery, along the heights of Gillhead and Gummer's-How, till Windermere is lost, apparently narrowed into a river, beyond Townhead and Fellfoot, where the prospect is closed by a beaconed eminence clothed with shadowy trees to the very base of the Tower. The points and promontories jutting into the lake from these and the opposite shores—which are of a humbler, though not tame character—are all placed most felicitously; and as the lights and shadows keep shifting on the water, assume endless varieties of relative position to the eye, so that often during one short hour you might think you had been gazing on Windermere with a kaleidoscopical eye, that had seemed to create the beauty which in good truth is floating there for ever on the bosom of nature.
That description, perhaps, is not so very much amiss; but should you think otherwise, be so good as give us a better: meanwhile let us descend from The Station—and its stained windows—stained into setting sunlight—frost and snow—the purpling autumn—and the first faint vernal green—and re-embark at the Ferry-House pier. Berkshire Island is fair—but we have always looked at it with an evil eye since unable to weather it in our old schooner, one day when the Victory, on the same tack, shot by us to windward like a salmon. But now we are half-way between Storr's Point and Rawlinson's Nab—so, my dear Garnet, down with the helm and let us put about (who is that catching crabs?) for a fine front view of the Grecian edifice. It does honour to the genius of Gandy—and say what people choose of a classic clime, the light of a Westmoreland sky falls beautifully on that marble-like stone, which, whether the heavens be in gloom or glory, "shines well where it stands," and flings across the lake a majestic shadow. Methought there passed along the lawn the image of one now in his tomb! The memory of that bright day returns, when Windermere glittered with all her sails in honour of the great Northern Minstrel, and of him the Eloquent, whose lips are now mute in the dust. Methinks we see his smile benign—that we hear his voice silver-sweet!
"But away with melancholy,
Nor doleful changes ring"—
as such thoughts came like shadows, like shadows let them depart—and spite of that which happeneth to all men—"this one day we give to merriment." Pull, Billy, pull—or we will turn you round—and in that case there is no refreshment nearer than Newby-bridge. The Naiad feels the invigorated impulse—and her cut-water murmurs to the tune of six knots through the tiny cataract foaming round her bows. The woods are all running down the lake,—and at that rate, by two post meridiem will be in the sea.