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wild and lonely, and those sublime hills, broad and sweeping in 
outline, they stretch on and still on, till, to the imagination, they 
seem infinite. 
If we had to tell all our rambles in this county it would take 
several papers. We have walked over most of lakeland, been on 
the tops of our highest mountains, sailed on the bosom of most of 
our lakes, or viewed them from the surrounding heights. Only 
those who follow their hobby in the deep and still woods, by the 
banks of rivers, on the fell tops, on marsh and moorland, can 
enjoy nature in her various moods. They see her in every varied 
form, in blustering March, laughing April, bonnie May, rosy June, 
leafy July, mellow August, the change and fall of the leaf in 
September, October, and November, and the cold snap of winter 
in December, January, and February. 
There is a pleasure in the study of nature at all seasons of the 
year, and always something fresh to be noticed. Even in winter, 
when King Frost holds everything under his icy sway, how 
charming to take a walk in our woods, to see the snow hanging 
on the leafless branches of the trees, and shrouding them with 
their wintry mantle, the icicles drooping from the rocks like huge 
congealed tears, and the glitter of a thousand icy gems on the 
withered sedges ! : ; 
It has been a matter of some difficulty to me to select from the 
notes I have made for many years, that which I thought would be 
most likely to interest you. I have carefully kept from all scientific 
detail, but it has been a labour of love, and has brought the words 
of the poet before me:— 
O, youthful days, how brief you seem, 
When looking backward o’er the years ; 
How strangely like a pleasant dream 
Each recollected scene appears. 
4 
_ Or, as Byron says :— 
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, 
There is a rapture on the lonely shore, 
There is society where none intrudes, 
By the deep sea, and music in its roar, 
