Which appeared at some distance below, in gentle yet stately beauty;
but its boundaries shewed nothing of the sublimity and little of the
romantic wildness, that charms, or elevates in the scenery of the other
lakes. The shores, and the hills, which gradually ascend from them, are
in general richly cultivated, or wooded, and correctly elegant; and
when we descended upon the bank the road seemed leading through the
artificial shades of pleasure-grounds. It undulates for two miles over
low promontories and along spacious bays, full to their fringed margin
with the abundance of this expansive lake; then, quitting the bank, it
ascends gradual eminences, that look upon the vast plain of water,
and rise amidst the richest landscapes of its shores. The manners of
the people would have sufficiently informed us that Windermere is
the lake most frequented; and with the great sublimity of the more
sequestered scenes, we had to regret the interesting simplicity of
their inhabitants, a simplicity which accorded so beautifully with the
dignified character of the country. The next day, we visited several of
the neighbouring heights, whence the lake is seen to great advantage;
and, on the following, skirted the eastern shore for six miles to the
Ferry.
Windermere, above twelve miles long and generally above a mile broad,
but sometimes two, sweeps like a majestic river with an easy bend
between low points of land and eminences that, shaded with wood and
often embellished with villas, swell into hills cultivated to their
summits; except that, for about six miles along the middle of the
western shore, a range of rocky fells rise over the water. But these
have nothing either picturesque or fantastic in their shape; they
are heavy, not broken into parts, and their rudeness softens into
insignificance, when they are seen over the wide channel of the lake;
they are neither large enough to be grand, or wooded enough to be
beautiful. To the north, or head of Windermere, however, the tameness
of its general character disappears, and the scene soars into grandeur.
Here, over a ridge of rough brown hills above a woody shore, rise, at
the distance of a mile and half, or two miles, a multitude of finely
alpine mountains, retiring obliquely in the perspective, among which
Langdale-pikes, Hardknot and Wry-nose, bearing their bold, pointed
promontories aloft, are pre-eminent. The colouring of these mountains,
which are some of the grandest of Cumberland and Westmoreland, was this
day remarkably fine. The weather was showery, with gleams of sunshine;
sometimes their tops were entirely concealed in gray vapours, which,
drawing upwards, would seem to ascend in volumes of smoke from their
summits; at others, a few scattered clouds wandered along their sides
leaving their heads unveiled and effulgent with light. These clouds
disappearing before the strength of the sun, a fine downy hue of light
blue overspread the peeping points of the most distant fells, while
the nearer ones were tinged with deep purple, which was opposed to the
brown heath and crag of the lower hills, the olive green of two wooded
slopes that, just tinted by autumn, seemed to descend to the margin,
and the silver transparency of the expanding water at their feet.
This view of Windermere appears with great majesty from a height above
Culgarth, a seat of the Bishop of Landaff; while, to the south, the
lake after sweeping about four miles gradually narrows and disappears
behind the great island, which stretches across the perspective.
At the distance of two or three miles beyond Culgarth, from a hill
advancing towards the water, the whole of Windermere is seen; to the
right, is the white mansion at Culgarth, among wood, on a gentle
eminence of the shore, with the lake spreading wide beyond, crowned
by the fells half obscured in clouds. To the south, the hills of the
eastern shore, sloping gradually, run out in elegant and often well
wooded points into the water, and are spotted with villas and varied
above with enclosures. The opposite shore is for about a mile southward
a continuation of the line of rock before noticed, from which
Rawlinson's-nab pushes a bold headland over the lake; the perspective
then sinks away in low hills, and is crossed by a remote ridge, that
closes the scene.
The villages of Rayrig and Bowness, which are passed in the way to the
Ferry, both stand delightfully; one on an eminence commanding the whole
lake, and the other within a recess of the shore, nearly opposite the
large island. The winding banks of Windermere continually open new
landscapes as you move along them, and the mountains, which crown its
head, are as frequently changing their attitudes; but Langdale-pikes,
the boldest features in the scene, are soon lost to the eye behind the
nearer fells of the western shore.
The ferry is considerably below Christian's island, and at the
narrowest span of the lake, where two points of the shore extend
to meet each other. This island, said to contain thirty acres,
intermingled with wood, lawn and shrubberies, embellishes, without
decreasing the dignity of the scene; it is surrounded by attendant
islets, some rocky, but others, beautifully covered with wood, seem to
coronet the flood.
In crossing the water the illusions of vision give force to the
northern mountains, which viewed from hence appear to ascend from its
margin and to spread round it in a magnificent amphitheatre. This was
to us the most interesting view on Windermere.
On our approaching the western shore, the range of rocks that form it,
discovered their cliffs, and gradually assumed a consequence, which
the breadth of the channel had denied them; and their darkness was
well opposed by the bright verdure and variegated autumnal tints of
the isles at their base. On the bank, under shelter of these rocks, a
white house was seen beyond the tall boles of a most luxuriant grove
of plane-trees, which threw their shadows over it, and on the margin
of the silver lake spreading in front. From hence the road ascends the
steep and craggy side of Furness-fell, on the brow of which we had a
last view of Windermere, in its whole course; to the south, its tame
but elegant landscapes gliding away into low and long perspective,
and the lake gradually narrowing; to the north, its more impressive
scenery; but the finest features of it were now concealed by a
continuation of the rocks we were upon.
Windermere is distinguished from all the other lakes of this country by
its superior length and breadth, by the gentle hills, cultivated and
enclosed nearly to their summits, that generally bind its shores, by
the gradual distance and fine disposition of the northern mountains,
by the bold sweeps of its numerous bays, by the villas that speckle and
rich plantations, that wind them, and by one large island, surrounded
by many islets, which adds dignity to its bosom. On the other lakes
the islands are prettinesses, that do not accord with the character
of the scene; they break also the surface of the water where vast
continuity is required; and the mind cannot endure to descend suddenly
from the gigantic sublimity of nature to her fairy sports. Yet, on the
whole, Windermere was to us the least impressive of all the lakes.
Except to the north, where the retiring mountains are disposed with
uncommon grandeur of outline and magnificence of colouring, its scenery
is tame, having little of the wild and nothing of the astonishing
energy that appears on the features of the more sequestered districts.
The characters of the three great lakes may, perhaps, be thus
distinguished:
Windermere: Diffusiveness, stately beauty, and, at the upper end,
magnificence.
Ullswater: Severe grandeur and sublimity; all that may give ideas of
vast power and astonishing majesty. The effect of Ullswater is, that,
awful as its scenery appears, it awakens the mind to expectation still
more awful, and, touching all the powers of imagination, inspires that
"fine phrensy" descriptive of the poet's eye, which not only bodies
forth unreal forms, but imparts to substantial objects a character
higher than their own.
Derwentwater: Fantastic wildness and romantic beauty, but inferior to
Ullswater in greatness, both of water and rocks; for, though it charms
and elevates, it does not display such features and circumstances of
the sublime, or call up such expectation of unimaged and uncertain
wonder. A principal defect, if we may venture to call it so, of
Derwentwater is, that the water is too small in proportion for the
amphitheatre of the valley in which it lies, and therefore loses much
of the dignity, that in other circumstances it would exhibit. The fault
of Windermere is, perhaps, exactly the reverse; where the shores,
not generally grand, are rendered tamer by the ample expanse of the
lake. The proportions of Ullswater are more just, and, though its
winding form gives it in some parts the air of a river, the abrupt and
tremendous height of its rocks, the dark and crowding summits of the
fells above, the manner in which they enclose it, together with the
dignity of its breadth, empower it constantly to affect the mind with
emotions of astonishment and lofty expectation.