First impressions of England and its people / By Hugh Miller.

  • Miller, Hugh, 1802-1856.
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: First impressions of England and its people / By Hugh Miller. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    finest of tlie landscapes designed by Martin, in illustration of Milton’s ‘‘ Paradise Lost.” The day was warm, calm, cloud¬ less ; the lights and shadows lay clear and transparent on lake and stream, dell and dingle, green swelling lawn and tall forest- tree ; and the hanging wood, and the mossy escarpment over which it hangs, were as musical in the bright sunshine, with the murmur of bees, as when, exactly a hundred and two years before, Shenstone was penning his pastoral ballad. Quitting the hanging wood, I struck athwart the declivity, direct on the uppermost lake in the chain which I have de¬ scribed as Ijdng like a string of birds’ eggs along the bottom of the valley. I found it of small extent,—a pond or lochan, rather than a lake,—darkly coloured,—its still, black surface partially embroidered by floats of aquatic plants, among which I could detect the broad leaves of the water lily, though the flowers were gone,—and overhung on all sides by careless groupes of trees, that here and there dip their branches in the water. In one striking feature of the place we may still detect the skill of the artist. There is a little island in the upper part of the lake, by much too small and too near the shore to have any particular interest as such; or, indeed, viewed from below, to seem an island at all. It is covered by a thick clump of alders of low growth, just tall enough and thick enough to conceal, screen-like, the steep bank of the lake be¬ hind. The top of the bank is occupied by several lofty oaks ; and as the screen of alders hides the elevation on which they stand, they seem to rise direct from the level of the w'ater to the giant stature of a hundred feet. The giants of the theatre are made by setting one man on the shoulders of an¬ other, and then throwing over both a large cloak;—the giant trees here are made by setting them upon the shoulders of a