very bad way; stony and wet, and some stiff pieces of road: but the bottoms brought us at last into a large and spacious plain, that was surrounded with hills, whose tops and sides were covered with antient trees and lofty groves, and some mountains whose heads were above the clouds. Flowers and clover, and other herbs, adorned the ground, and it was watered with many never-drying streams. The plain seemed a vast amphitheatre, by nature formed; and variety and disposition refreshed the eyes whatever way they turned.

In the very centre of this ground, I found a house and gardens that charmed me very much. The mansion had a rusticity and wildness in its aspect, beyond any thing I had seen, and looked like a mass of materials jumbled together without order or design. There was no appearance of rule in any part, and where a kind of proportion was to be seen, it seemed as a start into truth, by the inadvertent head of blind chance. It was the most Gothic, whimsical, four-fronted thing, without, that ever my eyes beheld; and within, the most convenient, comfortable dwelling I have seen.

This edifice, which looks more like a small Gothic cathedral, than a house, stands in the middle of large gardens, which are not only very fine, but uncommon, and different from all the gardens I have been

in. There is no more rule observed in them, than in the house; but the plantations of trees, and plots of flowers, the raised hills, the artificial vallies, the streams that water these vales, and the large pieces of water, and lakes, they have brought in, and formed, are inexpressibly charming and fine. Wild and natural they seem, and are a beautiful imitation of the most beautiful scenes of nature. The wilderness, the openings, the parterres, the gardens, the streams, the lakes, the cascades, the valleys, and the rising grounds, in the most various disposition, and as if art had little, or no hand in the designs, have an admirable effect upon the eye.

The passages from valley to valley, between the hills they have made, are not by formal straight walks, but by windings in various ways, which are decorated with little grotto's, and diversified in the manner of laying out the ground: the streams and canals sometimes serpent, and sometimes spread away. Rocks artfully placed, seem to push the waters off, and on the banks are seeming wild productions of flowers. As the hills and risings are sprinkled with flowery trees, so are these banks with all the sweets that grow. Small boats are on the running streams, and over them in many places, are winding bridges of wood, most ingeniously and finely made. These streams which they have from

the mountains, supply the larger pieces of water; and in the largest of those lakes they had raised a rock, in the most natural manner. On this is a summer-house of great beauty. It is the reverse of the mansion, and has every charm that pure architecture could give it. It is large enough for a small family.

When I came up to this seat, which the owners of it call Ulubræ, some gentlemen, who were in the gardens, saw me, and saved me the trouble of asking admission, by inviting me in with the greatest civility; but they seemed under a vast surprise at my arrival; and much more so, when I gave them an account of the way I had travelled. It appeared almost incredible. They had not a notion of such a journey. They told me I was in Yorkshire now, and had been so, when I ascended the high mountains that are some miles behind the hills that surround their house; but they did not imagine there was any travelling over those mountains, and the alps upon alps beyond them, to Brugh under StaneThe way, they said, was very bad from their house to Eggleston, or Bowes, on account of hills, waters, and wet bottoms; it was worse to travel northward to Bishoprick; and scarce passable to the north-east to Cumberland. What then must it be to journey as I had done over the northern fells

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of Westmorland, and the bad part of YorkshireStanemore I had passed.

:

It was a terrible way, I replied, and what I often despaired of coming through, even at the hazard of my life. Frequently we were locked in by chains of precipices, and thought we should never find a pass: some of the mountains were so steep, that it was with the greatest difficulty we could lead the horses up and down them and many rivers were so rapid, and rocky at bottom, that we were often in danger of being lost; beside, if fortune had not conducted us to the habitations of people we little expected to find, we might have perished for want of food, as my servant could not bring from Brugh provisions sufficient for so long and uncertain a way. All these difficulties I saw very soon; in less than a day's ride to the north from the Bell-inn on the southernedge of Stanemore; a little lone public-house, that lies half-way the turnpike-road, on the left hand, as the traveller goes from Bowes to Brugh, Penrith, and Carlisle; but friendship and curiosity were too many for all the obstacles in the way, and in hopes of finding a beloved friend, who lives somewhere towards the northern edge of Yorkshire or Westmorland, or on the neighbouring confines of Bishoprick, or Cumberland; and that I might see a part of England, which even the borderers on it are

strangers to, and of which Camden had not an idea; I went on, and have had success thus far. The journey has been worth my pains. I have beheld the most delightful scenes, and met with very extraordinary things: and should I find my friend at last, my labours will be highly rewarded indeed. The gentlemen I was talking to, seemed to won

der

very much at me and my discourse; and as the rest of the society by this time came into the parlour, they introduced me to them, and then related what I had said. They all allowed it was very ex

* I have already observed [vol. i. p. 284], that Camden, and every other describer of England, had not the least notion of Stanemore, that is, the north fells of Westmorland, and the northern mountains of Richmondshire: and as to the people who live on the borders of Stanemore, I could not find so much as one man in Richmond, Greta-bridge, Bowes, and Brugh, that had been any length of way up the mountains. When I asked RAILTON, the quaker, a very knowing man, who keeps the George at Bowes, what sort of a country Stanemore was? He answered, It is, after a few miles riding more wild and mountainy than the highlands of Scotland, and impassable: nay, my landlord at Eggleston, some miles within Stanemore, knew nothing of the mountains upon mountains that are far beyond his house.