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fill views of the county. There is a singular 

 character of wild simplicity about it, which 

 makes a deep impression on the feelings, and 

 brings up to the surface the contemplative and 

 reflective powers, those vague and shadowy 

 abstractions which most men have of vacuity 

 and chaos. We stand and gaze, almost without 

 the faculty of either utterance or active thought. 

 After, however, the first sensation is past, we 

 begin to scan the landscape, as if it were, by 

 piece -meal, and to detect and define the indivi- 

 dual beauties of which the whole is composed. 

 The eye fixes itself upon patches of furze and 

 aged thorns, scattered over the edges of the 

 Dale, and then traces out the glassy stream as 

 it meanders through the naked and desolate- 

 looking scene. As we move forward, the 

 Dale assumes a deeper and more concentrated 

 aspect, and appears completely hemmed in 

 near a locality called Sharplow, which rises 

 very abruptly from the edge of the waters. 

 Here the stream becomes extremely imposing. 

 On the left of the river, groups of naked and 

 pinnacled-shaped rocks, shivered as it were into 

 a thousand blocks by the lightings of heaven, lie 

 scattered about in every direction, and in every 

 fantastical and conceivable position. Here and 

 there their naked and cold surfaces are clad with 



