o convert the steeper and more stony of the enclosures,
sprinkled over with remains of the native forest, into close woods,
which, when cattle and sheep were excluded, rapidly sowed and thickened
themselves. The reader's attention has been directed to the cause by
which tufts of wood, pasturage, meadow, and arable land, with its
various produce, are intricately intermingled in the same field; and he
will now see, in like manner, how enclosures entirely of wood, and
those of cultivated ground, are blended all over the country under a law
of similar wildness.

An historic detail has thus been given of the manner in which the hand
of man has acted upon the surface of the inner regions of this
mountainous country, as incorporated with and subservient to the powers
and processes of Nature. We will now take a view of the same
agency--acting, within narrower bounds, for the production of the few
works of art and accommodations of life which, in so simple a state of
society, could be necessary. These are merely habitations of man and
coverts for beasts, roads and bridges, and places of worship.

And to begin with the COTTAGES. They are scattered over the vallies, and
under the hill sides, and on the rocks; and, even to this day, in the
more retired dales, without any intrusion of more assuming buildings;

Cluster'd like stars some few, but single most,
And lurking dimly in their shy retreats,
Or glancing on each other cheerful looks,
Like separated stars with clouds between.--MS.

The dwelling-houses, and contiguous outhouses, are, in many instances,
of the colour of the native rock, out of which they have been built;
but, frequently the Dwelling or Fire-house, as it is ordinarily called,
has been distinguished from the barn or byer by rough-cast and white
wash, which, as the inhabitants are not hasty in renewing it, in a few
years acquires, by the influence of weather, a tint at once sober and
variegated. As these houses have been, from father to son, inhabited by
persons engaged in the same occupations, yet necessarily with changes in
their circumstances, they have received without incongruity additions
and accommodations adapted to the needs of each successive occupant,
who, being for the most part proprietor, was at liberty to follow his
own fancy: so that these humble dwellings remind the contemplative
spectator of a production of Nature, and may (using a strong expression)
rather be said to have grown