Ashwood Dale. 59 



Weaver; the Goyt we are already acquainted with; the 

 Dove goes southwards through Dovedale, the old haunt 

 of Izaac Walton, and of Jean Jacques Rousseau, when 

 he resided at Woolton Hall, where a part of the " Con- 

 fessions" was written; lastly, there is the Wye, which 

 first creeping through Ashwood Dale, then bathing the 

 foot of Chee Tor, and visiting Haddon, finally enters the 

 Derwent, not far from Rowsley. What crowds of pleas- 

 ing images rise up at the bare mention of the names ! 



" Diamond editions " of famous authors present all 

 the ideas that in great libraries are embedded in folios ; 

 what, upon a great scale, St Vincent's Rocks and the 

 Avon are at Clifton, the precipitous and wooded defile we 

 have now entered is, in little, to Buxton ; only that the 

 latter loses itself among hills, whereas the former lead 

 to the estuary of the Severn. Sadly has the Matlock 

 railway interfered with the ancient aspect of the Dale ; 

 the woods and cliffs on either side of the Avon have 

 been subjected to a similar visitation : never mind; in a 

 few years, those sprightly fingers which trail ivy over the 

 ruin, and spread moss upon the trunk of the aged tree, 

 will no doubt repair the havoc ; and where now there 

 are uncouth heaps of tumbled stones, and " banks and 

 braes" all torn and soiled, we shall have ferns, and 

 flowers, and interlacing branches. Nature is never at a 

 loss how to restore, only give her time. Those must be 

 terrible wounds indeed which cannot be healed by the 

 skilful old surgeon who carries the scythe. 



