Ill THE LAKE DISTRICT 103 



A few weeks later I visited Lake Sorell (see p. 36), 

 the most accessible of all the lakes. It was here 

 that the exiled leaders of the Young Ireland move- 

 ment in 1846 used to meet, and the most eloquent 

 and not the least fanatical of them, John Mitchel, 

 has celebrated the lake with the fervour of rhetoric 

 or inspiration.^ 



Why should not Lake Sorell also be famous ? 

 Where gleams and ripples purer, glassier water, 

 mirroring a brighter sky ? Where does the wild 

 duck find a securer nest than under thy tea-tree 

 fringe, Lake of the South ! And the snow- 

 white swan that ' on St. Mary's Lake floats double, 

 swan and shadow ' — does he float more placidly 

 or fling on the waters a more stately reflection 

 from his stately neck, than thou, jet black, proud- 

 crested swan of the Antarctic forest waters ? 

 Some sweet singer shall berhyme thee yet, beauti- 

 ful Lake of the Woods. Tu quoque fontium eris 

 nohilium. Haunted art thou now by native 

 devils only ; and pass-holding shepherds whistle 

 nigger melodies in thy balmy air. But spirits of 

 the great and good, who are yet to be born in this 

 southern hemisphere, shall hover over thy wooded 

 promontories in the years to come ; every bay 

 will have its romance (for the blood of man is still 

 red, and pride and passion will yet make it burn 

 and tingle until Time shall be no more), and the 

 glancing of thy sunlit moon-beloved ripples shall 

 flash through the dreams of poets yet unborn. 



^ See Fenton's History of Tasmania. Smith O'Brien, 

 Meagher, and Mitchel, with other leaders of the movement, 

 were transported to Tasmania. The two latter, after seven 

 years, effected their escape to America, while the former 

 received a pardon and returned to Ireland. Mitchel has left 

 us an account of his wanderings in his Jail JournaL 



