CASTLERIGG. 101 



The narrow vale is full of character and charm, 

 from end to end ; and at its northern extremity it 

 comes out upon a spot of strong historical interest. 

 The village of Threlkeld will, by its name, remind 

 the traveller of the good Lord Clifford, the story 

 of whose boyhood is familiar to all readers of 

 Wordsworth. That place is, indeed, the refuge 

 where there is a local tradition that, though he 

 never learned to read or write, during the twenty- 

 four years that he spent in keeping sheep, his 

 astronomical knowledge was considerable, and so 

 interesting to him that he improved it by study 

 after he came to his estates. The road through 

 Threlkeld will, however, be followed by the tra- 

 veller on another occasion, if not now : but to-day 

 he must not miss that view from Castle- 

 rigg, which made the poet Gray long 

 to go back again to Keswick; and he will not 

 therefore, now pass through the vale. Within five 

 miles from the peep into it, the view opens, which 

 presently comprehends the whole extent from Bas- 

 senthwaite Lake to the entrance to Borrowdale, — 

 the plain between the two lakes of Bassenthwaite 

 and Derwent Water presenting one of the richest 

 scenes in England, — with the town of Keswick, 

 and many a hamlet and farmstead besides ; and 

 the two churches, — the long, white, old-fashioned 

 Crosthwaite Church, in which Southey is buried, 

 and the new red-stone church of St. John, with its 

 spire, and the schoolhouse and pretty parsonage at 

 hand. These were built by the late John Marshall, 

 of Hallsteads, — a name which is more spoiled than 

 dignified by any conventional addition. The church 

 and parson a«-e were occupied by the husband of one 



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