114 Country Rambles. 



any case, it is the best to take for the extremely beautiful 

 adjacent neighbourhood, which for its little metropolis 

 has the village of Pott Shrigley. Before the opening 

 of the line in question, the station for this part was 

 Adlington, on the London and North-Western. Grand 

 as the prospects have already been, above Pott Shrigley, 

 excepting only the "castled crag" at Beeston, all are 

 surpassed. No lover of the illimitable need go to 

 Cumberland or Carnarvonshire for a sight more glorious. 

 Alderley Edge, rising out of the plain below, seems 

 only a mound. The plain itself stretches away far 

 more remotely than the eye can cover, no eminence of 

 magnitude occurring nearer than the Overton hills. The 

 towers and spires of Bowdon and Dunham are plainly 

 distinguishable ; and close by, in comparison, is the fine 

 western extremity of the Kerridge range, with "White 

 Nancy," the hill itself on which we stand, or rather 

 seat ourselves, remembering the picture in Milton, 



See how the bee, 



Sitting assiduous on the honeyed bloom, 

 Sucks liquid sweet, 



just such a one as suggested that other immortal portrait, 



Green, and of mild declivity, the last, 

 As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such, 

 Save that there is no sea to lave its base, 

 But a most living landscape. 



The time to go to this glad pinnacle is at the end of 

 May or the beginning of June, mounting the hill in the 

 first instance, by the immediate route from the station. 



