228 AN ANGLER'S RAMBLES 



IV. 



Is the cuckoo come ? Is the cuckoo come ? 



Haste to thy loved resort, 



Haste to thy pleasant sport, 

 Shake the brown palmer o'er streamlet and lake ! 



Hark ! on the wind, 



Before thee behind 

 Plaintively calleth the bird of the brake ! 



AT ELLEEAY. 



As far back it was as September and October 1831, that I 

 visited the English Lakes, and spent a happy fortnight at Elleray, 

 the villa or cottage ornee which formed the country residence 

 of the late Professor Wilson. It is situated on a richly-wooded 

 slope or hill-face overlooking Windemiere, at the distance of 

 a mile and a half from the village of Bowness. Great changes 

 have taken place since then in that locality. These cannot be 

 said to have affected, to any material extent, the general features 

 of the Lake country, as far as its scenery is concerned, but they 

 have certainly interfered with many objects of interest which 

 gave character to the district. The genius of utility is every- 

 where trenching upon the poetical, and from a mere confusion of 

 rock and water, woodland and pasture ground, is working out, 

 with hammer and wheel, with saw and lever, with plough and 

 spade, with fire, forge, and steam, by squares and parallels, silently 

 but surely, a new order of things. No longer tenanted are the 

 homes of the bards, who, a quarter of a century ago, fed the ear 

 of England with sweet song, and drew from the banks of the 

 Isis and the Cam, from musty books and college ceremony, 



