_Burnham, September, 1737._ I have at the distance of half a mile
through a green lane a forest all my own, for I spy no human thing in it
but myself. It is a little chaos of mountains and precipices; mountains,
it is true, that do not ascend much above the clouds, nor are the
declivities quite so amazing as Dover cliff; but just such hills as
people who love their necks as well as I do may venture to climb, and
crags that give the eye as much pleasure as if they were more dangerous.
Both vale and hill are covered with most venerable beeches, and other
very reverend vegetables, that, like most other ancient people, are
always dreaming out their old stories to the winds. At the foot of one
of these squat I, "_Il penseroso_," and there grow to the trunk for a
whole morning. The timorous hare and sportive squirrel gambol around me
like Adam in Paradise, before he had an Eve; but I do not think he read
Virgil, as I commonly do there.
_II.--Travels with Horace Walpole_