Among the most attractive scenes of northern Yorkshire is Studley Park,
renowned for the richness of its sylvan scenery, which embosoms the noble
ruin of Fountains Abbey.
For the date of my visit to this _Arcadia_, I must refer the reader to
that season of life when the pure source of thought and feeling is
untainted by the world. It is eleven miles from my home to Studley Park,
five of which I walked in the twilight of a summer's evening, and slept
at a little cottage by the way. The day had been sultry, and the moon
rose slowly over the mounds of Maiden Bower, once the site of the noble
mansion of the Percys, now destroyed and desolate;[2] and fell in dreary
softness on tower and wood, illumining the sable firs of Newby Park, and
throwing another lustre on the gaudy "gowans" that decked the adjacent
meadow. Here was a scene for the poetic sympathy of youth:
"That time is past,
And all its giddy rapture;
Yet not for this faint I, nor mourn;
Other gifts have followed; for such loss
I would believe, abundant recompense."