smaller valley, or circular
recess. Of this class of miniature lakes, Loughrigg Tarn, near Grasmere,
is the most beautiful example. It has a margin of green firm meadows, of
rocks, and rocky woods, a few reeds here, a little company of
water-lilies there, with beds of gravel or stone beyond; a tiny stream
issuing neither briskly nor sluggishly out of it; but its feeding rills,
from the shortness of their course, so small as to be scarcely visible.
Five or six cottages are reflected in its peaceful bosom; rocky and
barren steeps rise up above the hanging enclosures; and the solemn Pikes
of Langdale overlook, from a distance, the low cultivated ridge of land
that forms the northern boundary of this small, quiet, and fertile
domain. The _mountain_ Tarns can only be recommended to the notice of
the inquisitive traveller who has time to spare. They are difficult of
access and naked; yet some of them are, in their permanent forms, very
grand; and there are accidents of things which would make the meanest of
them interesting. At all events, one of these pools is an acceptable
sight to the mountain wanderer; not merely as an incident that
diversifies the prospect, but as forming in his mind a centre or
conspicuous point to which objects, otherwise disconnected or
insubordinated, may be referred. Some few have a varied outline, with
bold heath-clad promontories; and, as they mostly lie at the foot of a
steep precipice, the water, where the sun is not shining upon it,
appears black and sullen; and, round the margin, huge stones and masses
of rock are scattered; some defying conjecture as to the means by which
they came thither; and others obviously fallen from on high--the
contribution of ages! A not unpleasing sadness is induced by this
perplexity, and these images of decay; while the prospect of a body of
pure water unattended with groves and other cheerful rural images, by
which fresh water is usually accompanied, and unable to give furtherance
to the meagre vegetation around it--excites a sense of some repulsive
power strongly put forth, and thus deepens the melancholy natural to
such scenes. Nor is the feeling of solitude often more forcibly or more
solemnly impressed than by the side of one of these mountain pools:
though desolate and forbidding, it seems a distinct place to repair to;
yet where the visitants must be rare, and there can be no disturbance.
Water-fowl flock hither; and the lonely angler may here be seen; but th