In a gray autumnal morning, we rode out along the western bank of
Bassenthwaite to Ouse Bridge, under which the river Derwent, after
passing through the lake, takes its course towards the Sea. The road
on this side, being impassable by carriages, is seldom visited, but
it is interesting for being opposed to Skiddaw, which rises in new
attitudes over the opposite bank. Beyond the land, that separates the
two lakes, the road runs high along the sides of hills and sometimes at
the feet of tremendous fells, one of which rises almost spirally over
it, shewing a surface of slates, shivered from top to bottom. Further
on, the heights gradually soften from horror into mild and graceful
beauty, opening distantly to the cheerful country that spreads towards
Whitehaven; but the road soon immerges among woods, which allow only
partial views of the opposite shore, inimitably beautiful with copses,
green lawns and pastures, with gently sweeping promontories and bays,
that receive the lake to their full brims.
From the house at Ouse Bridge the prospect is exquisite up the
lake, which now losing the air of a wide river, re-assumes its true
character, and even appears to flow into the chasm of rocks, that
really inclose Derwentwater. Skiddaw, with all the mountains round
Borrowdale, form a magnificent amphitheatrical perspective for this
noble sheet of water; the vallies of the two lakes extending to one
view, which is, therefore, superior to any exhibited from Derwentwater
alone. The prospect terminates in the dark fells of Borrowdale,
which by their sublimity enhance the beauty and elegance, united to a
surprising degree in the nearer landscape.
Beyond Ouse Bridge, but still at the bottom of the lake, the road
passes before Armithwaite-house, whose copsy lawns slope to the margin
of the water from a mansion more finely situated than any we had
seen. It then recedes somewhat from the bank, and ascends the skirt
of Skiddaw, which it scarcely leaves on this side of Keswick. On the
opposite shore, the most elegant features are the swelling hills,
called Wythop-brows, flourishing with wood from the water's edge; and,
below the meadows of the eastern bank, by which we were returning, two
peninsulæ, the one pastoral, yet well wooded and embellished by a white
hamlet, the other narrow and bearing only a line of trees, issuing
far into the lake. But the shores of Bassenthwaite, though elegant
and often beautiful, are too little varied to be long dwelt upon; and
attention is sometimes unpleasantly engaged by a precipice, from which
the road is not sufficiently secured; so that the effect of the whole
upon the imagination is much less than might be expected from its
situation at the foot of Skiddaw, and its shape, which is more extended
than that of Derwentwater.