144 Beeston Castle. 



of the most delicious of natural lawns for rest and pic- 

 nic; and from the ruins, one of the most magnificent 

 views in England. Nantwich, Chester, Wrexham, the 

 Welsh mountains, the Frodsham hills, the estuaries of the 

 Mersey and of the Dee, are all before us in an instant ; 

 and from the base of the rock, a smiling and richly- 

 cultivated country stretches to the rim of the landscape. 

 All, too, is seen so distinctly, and everywhere it is so 

 full Scattered over this spacious map are villages, 

 homesteads, orchards innumerable ; the vast breadth of 

 bright emerald and sunny pasture laced with hedgerows 

 that in spring are blossom-dappled, and streams, of which, 

 although so far away, we get twinkling glimpses among 

 the leafage ; if it be autumn, the scene is chequered 

 with the warm tints of harvest, every field plainly dis- 

 tinguishable ; later stiH, we may watch October wind- 

 ing its tinted way amid the green summer of the 

 reluctant trees. If it be evening, and the great plain 

 lies steeped in sunset, waiting awhile, glorious is it again, 

 from this tall rock, to mark the wind-sculptured clouds, 

 that an hour before were shining alabaster, slowly turn 

 to purple mountains, while the molten gold boils up 

 above their brows ; and by and by there shall be left 

 only bars of delicate rose, or a veil of lovely daffodil, 

 and some sweet planet peers forth in its beautiful lustre, 

 and at last we are with old Homer and the camp before 

 Troy, " when the stars are seen round the bright moon, 

 and the air is breathless, and all beacons, and lofty 



