ainlands, and enclosing bays that in themselves are
lakes--they too magnify the empire of water; for long as they are, they
seem so only as our eye attends them with their cliffs and woods from
the retiring shores, and far distant are their shadows from the central
light. Then what shores! On one side, where the lake is widest,
low-lying they seem, and therefore lovelier--undulating with fields and
groves, where many a pleasant dwelling is embowered, into lines of hills
that gradually soften away into another land. On the other side, sloping
back, or overhanging, mounts beautiful in their bareness, for they are
green as emerald; others, scarcely more beautiful, studded with fair
trees--some altogether woods. They soon form into mountains--and the
mountains become more and more majestical, yet beauty never deserts
them, and her spirit continues to tame that of the frowning cliffs. Far
off as they are, Benlomond and Benvorlich are seen to be giants;
magnificent is their retinue, but they two are supreme, each in his own
dominion; and clear as the day is here, they are diadem'd with clouds.

It cannot be that the "proportion of diffused water is here too great;"
and is it then true that no one "ever travelled along the banks of Loch
Lomond, variegated as the lower part is by islands, without feeling that
a speedier termination to the long vista of blank water would be
acceptable, and without wishing for an interposition of green meadows,
trees, and cottages, and a sparkling stream to run by his side?" We have
travelled along them in all weathers and never felt such a wish. For
there they all are--all but the "sparkling stream to run by our side,"
and we see not how that well could be in nature. "Streams that sparkle
as they run," cross our path on their own; and brighter never issued
from the woods. Along the margin of the water, as far as Luss--ay, and
much farther--the variations of the foreground are incessant; "had it no
other beauties," it has been truly said, "but those of its shores, it
would still be an object of prime attraction; whether from the
bright-green meadows sprinkled with luxuriant ash-trees, that sometimes
skirt its margin, or its white pebbled shores on which its gentle
billows murmur, like a miniature ocean, or its bold rocky promontories
rising from the dark water, rich in wildflowers and ferns, and tangled
with wild roses and honeysuckles, or its retired bays where the waves
dash, reflecting, like a