f swift-gushing rills,
Forth issuing from the mountain's distant steep,
(Unheard till now, and now scarce heard) proclaim'd
All things at rest, and imag'd the still voice
Of quiet, whispering in the ear of Night.[55]

[55] Dr. Brown, the author of this fragment, was from his infancy
brought up in Cumberland, and should have remembered that the practice
of folding sheep by night is unknown among these mountains, and that the
image of the Shepherd upon the watch is out of its place, and belongs
only to countries, with a warmer climate, that are subject to ravages
from beasts of prey. It is pleasing to notice a dawn of imaginative
feeling in these verses. Tickel, a man of no common genius, chose, for
the subject of a Poem, Kensington Gardens, in preference to the Banks of
the Derwent, within a mile or two of which he was born. But this was in
the reign of Queen Anne, or George the first. Progress must have been
made in the interval; though the traces of it, except in the works of
Thomson and Dyer, are not very obvious.

* * * * *

SECTION SECOND.

ASPECT OF THE COUNTRY, AS AFFECTED BY ITS INHABITANTS.

Hitherto I have chiefly spoken of the features by which Nature has
discriminated this country from others. I will now describe, in general
terms, in what manner it is indebted to the hand of man. What I have to
notice on this subject will emanate most easily and perspicuously from a
description of the ancient and present inhabitants, their occupations,
their condition of life, the distribution of landed property among them,
and the tenure by which it is holden.

The reader will suffer me here to recall to his mind the shapes of the
vallies, and their position with respect to each other, and the forms
and substance of the intervening mountains. He will people the vallies
with lakes and rivers: the coves and sides of the mountains with pools
and torrents; and will bound half of the circle which we have
contemplated by the sands of the sea, or by the sea itself. He will
conceive that, from the point upon which he stood, he looks down upon
this scene before the country had been penetrated by any
inhabitants:---to vary his sensations, and to break in upon their
stillness, he will form to himself an image of the tides visiting and
re-visiting the friths, the main sea dashing against the bolder shore,
the rivers pursuing their course to be lost in the mighty mass of
water