THE LIFE OF JOHN BUNCLE, ESQ. Nec Vixit Male, qui Natus Moriensque fefellit. THUS was my head employed, while I smoked a pipe after supper, and I determined to return to ORTON'S mansion, after I had found a way out of Stanemore; but the previous question was, how I should get out of the place I was in, without going back, as there appeared no passage onwards. I tried every angle the next morning, to no purpose, and in vain attempted some hills that were too steep for the horses. Down then I went again to the bottom of the black and narrow glen afore-mentioned, and with lights observed the rumbling deep river. It appeared more frightful than the first time I saw it, and there was no venturing into it. This troubled me not a little, as the water was not above eight yards broad, and there was an ascending glen 5 VOL. II. B on the other side of it, that appeared to rise into a fine woody country. It was not half the length of that we had descended, nor near so steep; it began to widen at the distance of a hundred yards from the water, so as to shew, at the summit, a fine plain encompassed with a sweep of forest. We could see the sun shining there. The view in contrast was quite charming. For some time I stood in this perplexed condition by the water side, and could not tell what to do, when one of the lads came running to me, to let me know, that as he carefully examined the sides of the glen we came down, he discovered to the left, about fourscore yards above the river, a pass wide enough for one horse to go through, and he believed it was a way out. This was reviving news, and upon going into it, I found that it went straight on among the mountains, like a rent, or open crack, for three hundred yards, and then turned to the left for about fifty more, when it winded a little, and began to extend wider and wider every yard, till it brought us by several turnings to the beginning of a fine valley, where we again found the river we had seen in the bottom of the deep glen, and perceived that it ended in a great water, and went off in some subterranean way. The mountains were almost close to this fine water, on either hand, for near half a mile, and We could see the made a delightful rural scene. river, as we looked up it, come tumbling on for a great way between the steep rocky precipices; and the broad bright lake it formed between vast frowning mountains, with wood and lawns in it, at the end of the vale, were altogether a view most charming. This made me more highly value Orton-Lodge. There is a cave there likewise, that adds great beauty to the place, and in charms and wonders, exceeds the grot of Tunis, a few miles east of Carthage, directly under Cape-Bonn, formerly called the promontory of Mercury, where Æneas sheltered after the storm *; and St. Donat's Cave+ in Gla * Dr. Shaw, in his Travels, shews that the cave near Cape Bonn was the grot which Virgil describes in the following manner: "Defessi Æneadæ, quæ proxima, litora cursu ↑ See Note page 6. morganshire, which is much more beautiful than the African grot described in the first Æneid. The weary Trojans ply their shatter'd oars The Trojans, weary'd with the storms, explore D. P. Within a long recess there lies a bay, D. Far in a deep recess, her jutting sides P. Betwixt two rows of rocks, a sylvan scene D. On either side, sublime in air, arise Two tow'ring rocks, whose summits brave the skies; Low at their feet the sleeping ocean lies: Crown'd with a gloomy shade of waving woods, Their awful brows hang nodding o'er the floods. P. A grot is form❜d beneath, with mossy seats D. |