There is no need of that foolish state of feeling called enthusiasm. You have but to be happy; and by and by your happiness will grow into delight. The blue mountains already set your imaginations at work; among those clouds and mists, you fancy many a magnificent precipice and in the valleys that sleep below, you image to yourselves the scenery of rivers and lakes. The landscape immediately around gradually grows more and more picturesque and romantic; and you feel that you are on the very borders of Fairy-Land. The first smile of Windermere salutes your impatient eyes, and sinks silently into your heart. You know not how beautiful it may be-nor yet in what the beauty consists; but your finest sensibilities to nature are touched-and a tinge of poetry, as from a rainbow, overspreads that cluster of islands that seems to woo you to their still retreats. And now "Wooded Winandermere, the river-lake," with all its bays and promontories, lies in the morning light serene as a Sabbath, and cheerful as a Holiday; and you feel that there is loveliness on this earth more exquisite and perfect than ever visited your slumbers even in the glimpses of a dream, The first sight of such a scene will be unforgotten to your dying day-for such passive impressions are deeper than we can explain our whole spiritual being is suddenly awakened to receive them-and associations, swift as light, are gathered into one Emotion of Beauty which shall be imperishable, and which, often as memory recalls that moment, grows into genius, and vents itself in appropriate expressions, each in itself a picture. Thus may one moment minister to years; and the life-wearied heart of old age, by one delightful remembrance, be restored to primal joy-the glory of the past brought beamingly upon the faded present-and the world that is ob scurely passing away from our eyes, re-illumined with the visions of its early morn. The shows of nature are indeed evanescent, but their spiritual influences are immortal; and from that grove now glowing in the sunlight, may your heart derive a delight that shall utterly perish but in the grave! But now you are in the White "Not raised in nice proportions was the pile, about Windermere. Shame on hu- aye over those golden waves! A hermit-cell on sweet Lady-Holm! A silvan shieling on Loughrig side! A nest in that nameless dell, which sees but one small slip of heaven, and longs at night for the reascending visit of its few loving stars! A dwelling open to all the skiey influence on the mountain-brow, the darling of the rising or the setting sun, and often seen by eyes in the lower world glittering through the rainbow! All this seems a very imperfect picture indeed, or panorama of Windermere, from the hill behind the schoolhouse 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. 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 man nature were Paradise uninhabited! Here, in amicable neighborhood, are halls and huts-here rises through groves the dome of the rich man's palace,-and there the low roof of the poor man's cottage beneath its one single sycamore! Here are hundreds of small properties hereditary in the same families for many hundred yearsand never, never, O Westmoreland! may thy race of statesmen be extinct --nor the virtues that ennoble their humble households! See, suddenly brought forth by sunshine from among the old woods-and then sinking away into her usual unobtrusive serenity-the lake-loving Rayrig, almost level, so it seems, with the water, yet smiling over her own quiet bay from the grove-shelter of her pastoral mound! With in her walls may peace ever dwell with piety-and the light of science long blend with the lustre of the domestic hearth. Thence to Calgarth is all one forest-yet gladebroken, and enlivened by open uplands, so that the roamer, while he expects a night of umbrage, often finds himself in the open day, be- row, vassals, row! for the pride neath the bright blue bow of hea- of the Lowlands," is the choral ven haply without a cloud. The song that accompanies the Naiad eye travels delighted over the mul- out of the bay, and round the north titudinous tree-tops-often dense as end of the Isle called Beautiful, one single tree-till it rests, in sub- under the wave-darkening umbrage lime satisfaction, on the far-off of that ancient oak. And now we mountains, that lose not a woody are in the lovely straits between character, till the tree-sprinkled that Island and the mainland of pastures roughen into rocks-and Furness Fells. The village has rocks tower into precipices, where disappeared, but not melted away; the falcons breed. But the lake for, hark! the church-tower tolls will not suffer the eye long to wan- ten-and see the sun is high in der among the distant glooms. heaven. High, but not hot-for She wins us wholly to herself-and the first September frosts chilled restlessly and passionately for a while-but calmly and affectionately at last the heart embraces all her beauty, and wishes that the vision might endure forever, and that here our tent were pitched-to be struck no more during our earthly pilgrimage! Imagination lapses into a thousand moods. O for a fairy pinnace to glide and float for the rosy fingers of the morn as she 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 Fairy-Land. 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 permanences 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 66 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 Ferryhouse, or one better adapted for a honey-moon. You can hand your bride into a boat almost out of the parlor 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 Fortlooking 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 with out number, numberless," and all its sable pines and sycamores-on the farther side, that most silvan of all silvan mountains, where lately the Hemans warbled her native wood-notes wild in her poetic bower, fitly called Dovenest, 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 cre ate the beauty which in good truth is floating there forever on the bosom of nature. That description, perhaps, is not so very much amiss; but should you think otherwise, be so good as to 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 it 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 for a fine front view of the Grecian edifice. It does honor to the genius of Gandy-and say what people choose of a classic clime, the light of a Westmoreland sky falls beautifully on that marblelike 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 honor 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 boos. The woods are all running down the lake-and at this rate, by two post meridiem will be in the sea. Commend us-on a Tour-to lunch and dinner in one. 'Tis a saving both of time and moneyand of all the dinner-lunches that ever were set upon a sublunary table, the facile principes are the dinner-lunches you may devour in the White Lion, Bowness. Take a walk-and a seat on the green that overlooks the village, almost on a level with the lead-roof of the venerable church-while Hebe is laying the cloth for a repast fit for Jove, Juno, and the other heathen gods and goddesses-and if you must have politics-why, call for the Standard or Sun, and devote a few hurried and hungry moments to the new French Revolution. Why, the Green of all Greens-often traced by us of yore beneath the midnight moonlight-till a path was worn along the edge of the low wall, still called "North's Walk" -is absolutely converted into a reading-room, and our laking party into a political club. There is Louisa with the Leeds Intelligencer, and Matilda with the Morning Herald-and Harriet with that York paper worth them all put together for it tells of Priam, and the Cardinal, and St. Nicholas,-but, hark! a soft footstep! And then a soft voice-no dialect or accent pleasanter than the Westmorelandwhispers that the dinner-lunch is on the table-and no leading article like a cold round of beef-or a veal pie! Let the Parisians settle their Constitution as they will-meanwhile let us strengthen ours-and after a single glass of Madeira and a horn of home-brewed-let us off on foot-on horseback-in gig -car-and chariot-to Troutbeck. It is about a couple of miles, we should think, from Bowness to Cook's House-along the turnpike road-half the distance lying embowered in the Rayrig woods-and half open to lake, cloud, and sky. It is pleasant to lose sight now and then of the lake along whose banks you are traveling, especially if during separation you become a Druid. The water woos you at your return with her bluest smile, and her whitest murmur. Some of the finest trees in all the Rayrig woods have had the good sense to grow by the roadside, where they can see all that is passing, and make their own observations on us deciduous plants. Few of them seem to be very old-and they wear well, trunk sound to the core, arms with a long sweep, and head in fine proportions of cerebral development, fortified against all storms-perfect pictures of oaks in their prime. You may see one-without looking for it-near a farm-house called Miller-ground-himself a grove. His trunk is clothed in a tunic of moss, which shows the ancient Silvan to great advantage-and it would be no easy matter to give him a fall. Should you wish to see Windermere in all her glory, you have but to enter a gate a few yards on this side of his shade, and ascend an eminence called by us Green-bank-but you had as well leave your red mantle in the carriage, for an enormous white, longhorned Lancashire bull has for some years established his headquarters there, and you would not wish your wife to become a widow, with six fatherless children. But the royal road of poetry is often the most splendid-and by keeping the turnpike, you soon find yourself on a terrace to which there was nothing to compare in the hanging gardens of Babylon. There is the widest breadth of water—the richest foreground of wood-and the most magnificent back-ground of mountains-not only in Westmoreland, but-believe us-in all the world. That blue roof is Calgarth and no traveller ever pauses on this brow without giving it a blessing-for the sake of the Illustrious Dead-for there long dwelt in the body Bishop Watson, the Defender of the Faith, and there within the |