BELLEISLAND. 331 



beauties of the lake and its sports : proof, is it 

 not, that solitude and seclusion are not at- 

 tractive to social man? We are now near the 

 island and our fishing ground, and let us be 

 prepared. 



AMICUS. Keally these wooded islands are 

 charming. Here Windermere, I think, rivals 

 Killarney ! What an intricacy of channels ! 

 What an admixture of headlands and islands ! 

 Did you not assure me that there is a greater 

 extent of lake below, I should have supposed 

 that here is its termination, the view beyond is 

 so entirely intercepted. 



PISCATOR. This is the island region of the lake, 

 the islands its Cyclades, if I may so call them ; 

 they and their grouping suggest the name ; they 

 are twelve or thirteen in number. All of them 

 are uninhabited, excepting the largest Belle- 

 island, on which a modern house has been built 

 after the manner of the Pantheon at Eome, on 

 the site of an ancient mansion that belonged to 

 the fighting race of the Philipsons, which in the 

 time of the Great Eebellion, when surrounded 

 by a Parliamentary force, stood a siege under the 

 most daring of the family, " Kobin the Devil," 



