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Ἢ ζητῶ ἀνθρώποις ἀρέσκειν ;—GALATIANS, I. 10. Ωστε ἐχθρὸς ὑμῶν γέγονα ἀληθεύων ὑμῖν;—GALATIANS, IV. 16.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY C. ROWORTH, BELL YARD,

TEMPLE BAR.

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Derwentwater, Bassanthwaite-water, and Skiddaw, from Walla Crag.. 122

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PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS

OF

SOCIETY.

COLLOQUY X.

CROSTHWAITE CHURCH.—ST. KENTIGERN.

THOUGH the vale of Keswick owes little of its beauty to any work of man, the position of its Church is singularly fortunate. It stands alone,* about half a mile from the town, and somewhat farther from the foot of Skiddaw; and though not to be compared with the beautiful village churches of Lincolnshire and the West of Eng

* Some of the oldest and finest yew trees in the country stood formerly in this churchyard. The vicar cut them down, thinking the wood might serve to make a pew for the singers, ..for which purpose it was found unserviceable, when too late. One of them grew beside the school-house, and was so large, that an old man, more than fifty years ago, told my excellent friend, whose name I now write with regret as the late Sir George Beaumont, he had seen all the boys, some forty in number, perched at one time upon its boughs.

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land, there are few in these northern counties which equal it, and none perhaps in any part of the kingdom which forms a finer object from the surrounding country.

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Scarcely a quarter of a mile distant there stood, some few years ago, a little grove of firs, the loss of which is one of the many injuries that the vale has suffered since I became one of its inhabitants. They stood by the road side just at an elbow of the river Greta, covering a mean and deserted building, which had formerly been a Quakers' Meeting House, and is now converted to the better purpose of a National School for girls. It is seldom that any common plantation adds a grace to the country, though to the ease with which it may deform it, some of these mountains bear lamentable witness; but these fir trees, planted as they were merely because the nook of ground whereon they stood between the road and the river was not worth cultivating, could not have been more happily placed by the most judicious hand. From whatever side you looked over the landscape they were conspicuous; in summer by their darker hue, in winter by their only verdure. Standing about midway between the town and the church, they were a spot on which the eye rested, and many a sketch book

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