BRENT BEACON. 383 



drops, and the lark singing overhead, recalling Shak- 

 speare's beautiful fancy : 



" Hark ! hark ! the lark at heaven's gate sings, 



And Phoebus 'gins arise, 

 His steeds to water at those springs 



On chaliced flowers that lies ; 

 And winking Marybuds begins 



To ope their golden eyes." 



As soon as we are well clear of the houses, as if 

 the curtain of a stage had risen, we open in an in- 

 stant a magnificent panorama. The country to the 

 south and west stretches up in lovely slopes, mapped 

 out in parti-coloured fields to the sky-hounded sum- 

 mits of the hills, divided by hedgerows and hedgerow 

 elms, with cottages nestling in the bottom, whence 

 the brawling of the little Yeo comes to the ear, as it 

 hastens on to join the Dart. We trace the receding 

 valley on towards Buckfast Leigh ; and far beyond in 

 the same direction Brent Beacon, a fine purple cone, 

 towers above the general level. The voices of hay- 

 makers taking advantage of the promising day, and 

 the sweet odour of the turned hay, tell what is going 

 on behind these impervious hedges of hazel and beech. 

 Before us the dim gray tableland of the moor, or at 

 least the south-west tail of it, lies under the softening 

 haze of the morning. 



On the right the rugged rock shuts out the prospect, 

 for the road has been scarped out of the living shale, 

 but the ever growing shrubs and their gnarled roots, 

 with creeping and trailing plants, conceal the rough 



