276 A Walk from 



by sheer accident as picturesquely as Turner himself 

 could have arranged them. The elevation of the ridge 

 on which I sat softened down all these distant hills, 

 so that they looked only like little undulating risings 

 by which the valley gently ascended to the blue rim 

 of the horizon on the north. 



It was an excellent standpoint on which to balance 

 Nature and Human Industry ; to estimate their separate 

 and joint work upon that vast landscape. A few cen- 

 turies ago, perhaps about the time that the Mayflower 

 sighted Plymouth Rock, this valley, now so inde- 

 scribably beautiful, was almost in the state of nature. 

 Wolves and wild boars may have been prowling about 

 in the woods and tangled thickets that covered this 

 ridge back for several leagues. Bushes, bogs and 

 briers, and coarse prairie grass roughened the bottom 

 of this valley ; matted heather, furze, broom and 

 clumps of shrubby trees, all those hills and uplands 

 arising in the background to the northward horizon. 

 This declining sun, and the moon and stars that will 

 soon follow in the pathway of its chariot, like a liveried 

 cortege, shone upon that scene with all the light they 

 will give this day and night. The rain and dew, 

 and all the genial ministries of the seasons, did their 

 unaided best to make it lovely and beautiful. The 

 sweetest singing-birds of England came and tried 



