10 NATUBE IN ENGLAND. 



n. 



I HAD come to Great Britain less to see the noted 

 sights and places, than to observe the general face of 

 nature. I wanted to steep myself long and well in 

 that mellow, benign landscape, and put to further 

 tests the impressions I had got of it during a hasty 

 visit one autumn, eleven years before. Hence I was 

 mainly intent on roaming about the country, it mat- 

 tered little where. Like an attic stored with relics 

 and heir-looms, there is no place in England where 

 you cannot instantly turn from nature to scenes and 

 places of deep historical or legendary or artistic in- 

 terest. 



My journal of travel is a brief one, and keeps to 

 a few of the main lines. After spending a couple of 

 days in Glasgow, we went down to Alloway, in 

 Burns's country, and had our first taste of the beauty 

 and sweetness of rural Britain, and of the privacy 

 and comfort of a little Scotch inn. The weather was 

 exceptionally fair, and the mellow Ayrshire land- 

 scape, threaded by the Doon, a perpetual delight. 

 Thence we went north on a short tour through the 

 Highlands, up Loch Lomond, down Loch Katrine, 

 and through the Trosachs to Callander, and thence 

 to Stirling and Edinburgh. After a few days in the 

 Scqtch capital we set out for Carlyle's country, where 

 we passed five delightful days. The next week found 

 us in Wordsworth's land, and the 10th of Jun<? 'in 



