although it cannot boast the more majestic beauty-the magnificent wood-clothed shores, and stupendous precipices of the Cumbrian and Westmoreland lakes-still when slight breezes ruffle its surface, while the fleecy clouds sail along the sky, lights and shadows fall in beautiful succession on mountain, strand, and wave, constantly shifting and changing in effect, and affording to true lovers of the picturesque in nature, an infinite source of delight.

These shores are visited too by rare and curious birds, such as dip their wings in the ocean wave. The osprey may be seen soaring on high, and

The wild swan on the silver lake

Floats double, swan and shadow.

The common tern, the sea swallow, and several kinds of gulls frequent Semerwater, and fresh water wildfowl are plentiful. The lake contains an abundant supply of fish, and, at one period, the fishery was of some value, as in an old survey of the county of Richmond, it is rated at forty shillings. In the 15th Edward III., 1340, it is, however, entered as "nothing, because it cannot be let, nor any profit made of it."

This is the valley of the Roe (Raydale) which we have before mentioned. It is just the kind of haunt congenial to that graceful animal. Car End, and Thwaite End, are two houses on the lake. Car End received its name from its situation at or near the end of the "car," or "pole." At this house, in 1712, was born the eminent physician Dr. George Fothergill. He studied at Edinburgh and London, and after having travelled in many parts of the continent, settled in the British metropolis, where he obtained an extensive practice. He died in 1780. Fothergill, who was a Quaker, was distinguished for philanthropy. He was a member of the Royal Society, and was well versed in botany, and other branches of natural history. His collected works were edited by Dr. Lettsom. (1)

(1) Davenport's Dict. Biogh. p. 275.

Thwaite End, anciently a residence of the Metcalfes, though now reduced to the condition of a barn, yet bearing the evident impress of better days, was so called from its having formerly been, and indeed until a comparatively recent period, the termination of a large enclosure, or Thwaite in that place; and not, as might be supposed, from the ancient family of Thwaite or Thwaites, who were long its possessors.(1)

At Stallen Busk (Stalling Busk) there is a chapel, originally built in 1602, which having become ruinous, was rebuilt in 1722. There is a burial ground, and one of hoar antiquity. On leaving some of these dale cemetries the stranger may well say he has in his visit seen

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a spot where ruins moulder

A place for dead things set apart—

Where tombstones gray

Obstruct the way,

Where brambles crawl, and toadstools start.
The autumn wind, in hollow dirges,

Through the ruined cloisters sang,
Unearthly wild, like ocean surges,
Booming o'er the graves it rang;

And dead leaves sail

Upon the gale,

And on the grey walls flap and hang.”

ALBERT TAYLOR.

Few ideas are more beautifully appropriate, than that which formerly in England-continually on the Continent and now again in our own land, introduced the

(1) THWAITE, is a common termination to names of places and signifies a piece of land enclosed and cleared, ex. g. Rosthwaite, Longthwaite, in Borrowdale, locally pronounced long as "Rost-whaite"; Applethwaite, near Windermere in Cumberland, and Satterthwaite in Lancashire, are in like usage pronounced short, as "Apple-thet"; whilst Swinithwaite in Wensleydale is commonly called "Swinny-whit". Of the old family of Thwaite was Anthony of Countersett, who purchased lands there A. D. 1663, and was seised of others in right of his wife, daughter and coheir of James Taylor. These are now possessed by Mrs. Tomlinson, wife of the Rev. G. C. Tomlinson, of Carlton House, Coverdale (formerly Jane Thwaites), sixth in descent from the original purchaser. The family have been located in the immediate neighbourhood upwards of three centuries.

adorning burial grounds with flowers; twining them about the tombs, and teaching them to spring upon the graves of the loved who are gone from amongst us.

"The herbs, that have on them cold dew o'the night,

Are strewings fit'st for graves.

You were as flowers, now wither'd even so

These herblets shall, which we upon you strew."

SHAKSPERE.

Those sweet pure emblems may well suggest thoughts of the instability of man's glory and his life, and also an assurance of his immortality. Bursting into loveliness, amid morning sunshine, but broken, perhaps, and crushed before high noon-or otherwise lingering on until all beauty is withered away, and a brown old age has covered them as with a pall, preparing them to die; yet each possessing germs of a future life-another birth to spring out of decay. It was from the vegetable world St. Paul chose that most exquisite exemplification of the Resurrection" that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die first. And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not the body that shall be; but bare grain, as of wheat, or of some of the rest."(1)

A greater than St. Paul had continually alluded to herbs and flowers in his similitudes, and He chose for His burial place a sepulchre in a garden," so that as the passion of our Saviour began in a garden, it should likewise end in one; and that there should be made atonement for the crime which our first father committed in the garden of a terrestial paradise, and that this passion should finally conduct us to the garden of heaven, where the flowers fade not, the fruits dry not, and where there is an everlasting spring." (2)

There is a strange, wild story, connected with Lake Semerwater, so old,-so very old,-that we know not when it was first recorded, though that must have been many centuries ago. It is still a fireside tale rehearsed by (1) 1 Cor. xv. 36. 37. (2) Fr. Ribadinera.