SCENERY OF LAKE DISTRICT 125 



The mountainous tract of the Lakes, though it 

 measures only some thirty-two miles from west to 

 east by twenty-three from north to south, rises to 

 heights of more than 3,000 feet, and as it springs 

 almost directly from the margin of the Irish Sea, it 

 loses none of the full effect of its elevation. Its fells 

 present a thoroughly highland type of scenery, and 

 have much of the dignity of far loftier mountains. 

 Their sky-line often displays notched crests and rocky 

 peaks, while their craggy sides have been carved into 

 dark cliff-girt recesses, often filled with tarns, and into 

 precipitous scars, which send long trails of purple 

 scree down the grassy slopes. 



Moreover, a mild climate and copious rainfall have 

 tempered this natural asperity of surface by spreading 

 over the lower parts of the fells and the bottoms of the 

 dales a greener mantle than is to be seen among the 

 mountains further north. Though the naked rock 

 abundantly shows itself, it has been so widely draped 

 with herbage and woodland as to combine the luxuri- 

 ance of the lowlands with the near neighbourhood of 

 bare cliff and craggy scar. 



Such was the scenery amidst which William Words- 

 worth was born and spent most of his long life. 

 Thence he drew the inspiration which did so much to 

 quicken the English poetry of the nineteenth century, 

 and which has given to his dales and hills so cherished 

 a place in our literature. The scenes familiar to him 

 from infancy were loved by him to the end with an 

 ardent and grateful affection which he never wearied 

 of publishing to the world. No mountain-landscapes 

 had ever before been drawn so fully, so accurately, and 



