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SECTION THIRD.

CHANGES, AND BULKS OF TASTE FOR PREVENTING THEIR BAD EFFECTS.

Such, as hath been said, was the appearance of things till within the last sixty years.  A practice, denominated Ornamental Gardening, was at that time becoming prevalent over England.  In union with an admiration of this art, and in some instances in opposition to it, had been generated a relish for select parts of natural scenery:  and Travellers, instead of confining their observations to Towns, Manufactories, or Mines, began (a thing till then unheard of) to wander over the island in search of sequestered spots, distinguished as they might accidentally have learned, for the sublimity or beauty of the forms of Nature there to be seen.—­Dr. Brown, the celebrated Author of the Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times, published a letter to a friend, in which the attractions of the Vale of Keswick were delineated with a powerful pencil, and the feeling of a genuine Enthusiast.  Gray, the Poet, followed:  he died soon after his forlorn and melancholy pilgrimage to the Vale of Keswick, and the record left behind him of what he had seen and felt in this journey, excited that pensive interest with which the human mind is ever disposed to listen to the farewell words of a man of genius.  The journal of Gray feelingly showed how the gloom of ill health and low spirits had been irradiated by objects, which the Author’s powers of mind enabled him to describe with distinctness and unaffected simplicity.  Every reader of this journal must have been impressed with the words which conclude his notice of the Vale of Grasmere:—­’Not a single red tile, no flaring gentleman’s house or garden-wall, breaks in upon the repose of this little unsuspected paradise; but all is peace, rusticity, and happy poverty, in its neatest and most becoming attire.’

What is here so justly said of Grasmere applied almost equally to all its sister Vales.  It was well for the undisturbed pleasure of the Poet that he had no forebodings of the change which was soon to take place; and it might have been hoped that these words, indicating how much the charm of what was, depended upon what was not, would of themselves have preserved the ancient franchises of this and other kindred mountain retirements from trespass; or (shall I dare to say?) would have secured scenes so consecrated from profanation.  The lakes had now become celebrated; visitors flocked hither from all parts of England; the fancies of some were smitten so deeply, that they became settlers; and the Islands of Derwent-water and Winandermere, as they offered the strongest temptation, were the first places seized upon, and were instantly defaced by the intrusion.