, is alone great; but to this the addition of a constant roar
of falling water, either quite hid, or so far below as to be seen but
obscurely, united to make those impressions stronger. No contradictory
emotions are raised; no ill-judged temples appear to enliven a scene that
is gloomy rather than gay. Falling or moving water is a lively object;
but this being obscure the noise operates differently. Following the
road a little further, there is another bold rocky projection from which
also there is a double view to the right and left. In front so immense a
sweep of hanging wood, that a nobler scene can hardly be imagined; the
river as before, at the bottom of the precipice, which is so steep and
the depth so great as to be quite fearful to look down. This horrid
precipice, the pointed bleak mountains in view, with the roar of the
water, all conspire to raise one great emotion of the sublime. You
advance scarcely twenty yards before a pretty scene opens to the left--a
distant landscape of inclosures, with a river winding between the hills
to the sea. Passing to the right, fresh scenes of wood appear; half-way
to the bottom, one different from the preceding is seen; you are almost
inclosed in wood, and look to the right through some low oaks on the
opposite bank of wood, with an edging of trees through which the sky is
seen, which, added to an uncommon elegance in the outline of the hill,
has a most pleasing effect. Winding down to a thatched bench on a rocky
point, you look upon an uncommon scene. Immediately beneath is a vast
chasm in the rock, which seems torn asunder to let the torrent through
that comes tumbling over a rocky bed far sunk into a channel embosomed in
wood. Above is a range of gloomy obscure woods, which half overshadow
it, and rising to a vast height, exclude every object. To the left the
water rolls away over broken rocks--a scene duly romantic. Followed the
path: it led me to the water's edge, at the bottom of the glen, where is
a new scene, in which not a single circumstance hurts the principal
character. In a hollow formed of rock and wood (every object excluded
but those and water) the torrent breaks forth from fragments of rock, and
tumbles through the chasm, rocks bulging over it as if ready to fall into
the channel and stop the impetuous water. The shade is so thick as to
exclude the heavens; all is retired and gloomy, a brown horror breathing
over the whole. It is a spot for melanc