we were wishing to say is this--that whatever may be the truth
with regard to human female beauty--Windermere, seen by sunset from the
spot where we now stand, Elleray, is at this moment the most beautiful
scene on this earth. The reasons why it must be so are multitudinous.
Not only can the eye take in, but the imagination, in its awakened
power, can master all the component elements of the spectacle--and while
it adequately discerns and sufficiently feels the influence of each, is
alive throughout all its essence to the divine agency of the whole. The
charm lies in its entirety--its unity, which is so perfect--so seemeth
it to our eyes--that 'tis in itself a complete world--of which not a
line could be altered without disturbing the spirit of beauty that lies
recumbent there, wherever the earth meets the sky. There is nothing here
fragmentary; and had a poet been born, and bred here all his days, nor
known aught of fair or grand beyond this liquid vale, yet had he sung
truly and profoundly of the shows of nature. No rude and shapeless
masses of mountains--such as too often in our own dear Scotland encumber
the earth with dreary desolation--with gloom without grandeur--and
magnitude without magnificence. But almost in orderly array, and
irregular just up to the point of the picturesque, where poetry is not
needed for the fancy's pleasure, stand the Race of Giants--mist-veiled
transparently--or crowned with clouds slowly settling of their own
accord into all the forms that Beauty loves, when with her sister-spirit
Peace she descends at eve from highest heaven to sleep among the shades
of earth.

Sweet would be the hush of lake, woods, and skies, were it not so
solemn! The silence is that of a temple, and, as we face the west,
irresistibly are we led to adore. The mighty sun occupies with his
flaming retinue all the region. Mighty yet mild--for from his disc,
awhile insufferably bright, is effused now a gentle crimson light, that
dyes all the west in one uniform glory, save where yet round the cloud
edges lingers the purple, the green, and the yellow lustre, unwilling to
forsake the violet beds of the sky, changing, while we gaze, into
heavenly roses; till that prevailing crimson colour at last gains entire
possession of the heavens, and all the previous splendour gives way to
one, whose paramount purity, lustrous as fire, is in its steadfast
beauty sublime. And, lo! the lake has received that sunset into its
bosom. It,