ress, often supported by some tree near the
door; a cluster of embowering sycamores for summer shade; with a tall
fir, through which the winds sing when other trees are leafless; the
little rill or household spout murmuring in all seasons;--combine these
incidents and images together, and you have the representative idea of a
mountain-cottage in this country so beautifully formed in itself, and
so richly adorned by the hand of Nature.

Till within the last sixty years there was no communication between any
of these vales by carriage-roads; all bulky articles were transported on
pack-horses. Owing, however, to the population not being concentrated in
villages, but scattered, the vallies themselves were intersected as now
by innumerable lanes and pathways leading from house to house and from
field to field. These lanes, where they are fenced by stone walls, are
mostly bordered with ashes, hazels, wild roses, and beds of tall fern,
at their base; while the walls themselves, if old, are overspread with
mosses, small ferns, wild strawberries, the geranium, and lichens: and,
if the wall happen to rest against a bank of earth, it is sometimes
almost wholly concealed by a rich facing of stone-fern. It is a great
advantage to a traveller or resident, that these numerous lanes and
paths, if he be a zealous admirer of Nature, will lead him on into all
the recesses of the country, so that the hidden treasures of its
landscapes may, by an ever-ready guide, be laid open to his eyes.

Likewise to the smallness of the several properties is owing the great
number of bridges over the brooks and torrents, and the daring and
graceful neglect of danger or accommodation with which so many of them
are constructed, the rudeness of the forms of some, and their endless
variety. But, when I speak of this rudeness, I must at the same time
add, that many of these structures are in themselves models of elegance,
as if they had been formed upon principles of the most thoughtful
architecture. It is to be regretted that these monuments of the skill of
our ancestors, and of that happy instinct by which consummate beauty was
produced, are disappearing fast; but sufficient specimens remain[57] to
give a high gratification to the man of genuine taste.

[57] Written some time ago. The injury done since, is more than could
have been calculated upon.

_Singula de nobis anni praedantur euntes_. This is in the course of
things; but why should the genius that