rounds extended so
far, and this thought gave a melancholy interest to the smoky walls. It
was as pretty a room as a thoroughly dirty one could be--a square parlour
painted green, but so covered over with smoke and dirt that it looked not
unlike green seen through black gauze. There were three windows, looking
three ways, a buffet ornamented with tea-cups, a superfine largeish
looking-glass with gilt ornaments spreading far and wide, the glass
spotted with dirt, some ordinary alehouse pictures, and above the
chimney-piece a print in a much better style--as William guessed, taken
from a painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds--of some lady of quality, in the
character of Euphrosyne. 'Ay,' said the servant girl, seeing that we
looked at it, 'there's many travellers would give a deal for that, it's
more admired than any in the house.' We could not but smile; for the
rest were such as may be found in the basket of any Italian image and
picture hawker.

William and I walked out after dinner; Coleridge was not well, and slept
upon the carriage cushions. We made our way to the cottages among the
little hills and knots of wood, and then saw what a delightful country
this part of Scotland might be made by planting forest trees. The ground
all over heaves and swells like a sea; but for miles there are neither
trees nor hedgerows, only 'mound' fences and tracts; or slips of corn,
potatoes, clover--with hay between, and barren land; but near the
cottages many hills and hillocks covered with wood. We passed some fine
trees, and paused under the shade of one close by an old mansion that
seemed from its neglected state to be inhabited by farmers. But I must
say that many of the 'gentlemen's' houses which we have passed in
Scotland have an air of neglect, and even of desolation. It was a beech,
in the full glory of complete and perfect growth, very tall, with one
thick stem mounting to a considerable height, which was split into four
'thighs,' as Coleridge afterwards called them, each in size a fine tree.
Passed another mansion, now tenanted by a schoolmaster; many boys playing
upon the lawn. I cannot take leave of the country which we passed
through to-day, without mentioning that we saw the Cumberland mountains
within half a mile of Ellisland, Burns's house, the last view we had of
them. Drayton has prettily described the connexion which this
neighbourhood has with ours when he makes Skiddaw say--

'Scurfell {9a}