ménage and contrasting the dignity of the man with this honourable poverty, and this courageous avowal of it, his utter absence of all effort to disguise the simple truth of the case, I felt my admiration increased. This, thought I to myself, is, indeed, in his own words,

This, is, indeed, to reserve the humility and the parsimonies of life for its bodily enjoyments, and to apply its lavishness and its luxury to its enjoyments of the intellect. So might Milton have lived; so Marvel. Throughout the daywhich was rainy-the same style of modest hospitality prevailed. Wordsworth and his sister-myself being of the party-walked out in spite of the rain, and made the circuit of the two lakes, Grasmere and its dependency Rydal a walk of about six miles. On the third day, Mrs. Coleridge having now pursued her journey northward to Keswick, and having, at her departure, invited me, in her own name as well as Southey's, to come and see them, Wordsworth proposed that we should go thither in company, but not by the direct route-a distance of only thirteen miles that route we were to take in our road homeward; our outward-bound journey was to be by way of Ulleswater- -a circuit of forty-three miles.

On the third morning after my arrival in Grasmere, I found the whole family, except the two children, prepared for the expedition across the mountains. I had heard of no horses, and took it for granted that we were to walk; however, at the moment of starting, a cart-the common farmer's cart of the country-made its appearance; and the driver was a bonnie young woman of the vale. Accordingly, we were all carted along to the little town or large village, of Ambleside-three and a half miles distant. Our style of travelling occasioned no astonishment ; on the contrary, we met a smiling salutation wherever we

appeared-Miss Wordsworth being, as I observed, the person most familiarly known of our party, and the one who took upon herself the whole expenses of the flying colloquies exchanged with stragglers on the road. What struck me with most astonishment, however, was the liberal manner of our fair driver, who made no scruple of taking a leap, with the reins in her hand, and seating herself dexterously upon the shafts of the cart. From Ambleside -and without one foot of intervening flat ground-begins to rise the famous ascent of Kirkstone; after which, for three long miles, all riding in a cart drawn by one horse becomes impossible. The ascent is computed at three miles, but is probably a little more. In some parts it is almost frightfully steep; for the road being only the original mountain track of shepherds, gradually widened and improved from age to age (especially since the era of tourists began), is carried over ground which no engineer, even in Alpine countries, would have viewed as practicable. In ascending, this is felt chiefly as an obstruction, and not as a peril, unless where there is a risk of the horses backing ; but, in the reverse order, some of these precipitous descents are terrific and yet, once, in utter darkness, after midnight, and the darkness irradiated only by continual streams of lightning, I was driven down this whole descent, at a full gallop, by a young woman—the carriage being a light one, the horses frightened, and the descents, at some critical parts of the road, so literally like the sides of a house, that it was difficult to keep the fore-wheels from pressing upon the hind-legs of the horses. The innkeepers of Ambleside, or Lowwood, will not mount this formidable hill without four horses. The leaders you are not required to take beyond the first three miles; but, of course, they are glad if you will take them on through the whole stage to Patterdale; and in that case, there is a

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real luxury at hand for those who enjoy velocity of motion. The descent into Patterdale is above two miles; but such is the propensity for flying down hills in Westmoreland, that I have found the descent accomplished in about six minutes, which is at the rate of eighteen miles an hour; the various turnings of the road making the speed much more sensible to the traveller. The pass, at the summit of this ascent, is nothing to be compared in sublimity with the pass under Great Gavel from Wastdalehead; but it is solemn, and profoundly impressive. At a height so awful as this, it may be easily supposed that all human dwellings have been long left behind: no sound of human life, no bells of churches or chapels, ever ascend so far. And, as is noticed in Wordsworth's fine verses upon this memorable pass, the only sound that, even at noonday, disturbs the sleep of the weary pedestrian, is that of the bee murmuring amongst the mountain flowers—a sound as ancient

"As man's imperial front, and woman's roseate bloom."

This way, and (which, to the sentiment of the case, is an important point) this way of necessity, and not simply in obedience to a motive of convenience, passed the Roman legions; for it is a mathematic impossibility that any other route could be found for an army nearer to the eastward of this pass than by way of Kendal and Shap; nearer to the westward, than by way of Legberthwaite and St. John's Vale (and so by Threlkeld to Penrith). Now, these two roads are twenty-five miles apart; and, since a Roman cohort was stationed at Ambleside (Amboglana), it is pretty evident that this cohort would not correspond with the more northerly stations by either of these remote routeshaving immediately before it this direct though difficult

pass of Kirkstone. On the solitary area of table-land which you find at the summit, there are only two objects to remind you of man and his workmanship. One is a guide-post-always a picturesque and interesting object, because it expresses a wild country and a labyrinth of roads, and often made much more interesting (as in this case) by the lichens which cover it, and which record the generations of men to whom it has done its office; as also by the crucifix form, which inevitably recalls, in all mountainous regions, the crosses of Catholic lands, raised to the memory of wayfaring men who have perished by the hand of the assassin.

The other memorial of man is even more interesting Amongst the fragments of rock which lie in the confusion of a ruin on each side of the road, one there is which exceeds the rest in height, and which, in shape, presents a very close resemblance to a miniature church. This lies to the left of the road as you are going from Ambleside ; and from its name, Churchstone (Kirkstone), is derived the name of the pass, and from the pass the name of the mountain. This church, which is but a playful mimicry from the hand of nature of man's handiwork, might, however, really be mistaken for such, were it not that the rude and almost inaccessible state of the adjacent ground proclaims the truth. As to size, that is remarkably difficult to estimate upon wild heaths or mountain solitudes, where there are no leadings through gradations of distance, nor any artificial standards, from which height or breadth can be properly produced. This mimic church, however, has a peculiarly fine effect in this wild situation, which leaves so far below the tumults of this world: the phantom church, by suggesting the phantom and evanescent image of a congregation, where never congregation met; of the pealing