SCENERY OF THE SOUTH HAMS. 
9 
sides are more especially clothed with woods ;— 
these of course constitute a peculiar embellishment 
in the Devon scenery. 
“ Gay spreads the prospect. From the stream-fed hanks 
Loose floats the willow-foliage ; alders bend 
4 
Their leafy locks, and pliant poplars wave. 
From the brown steep, the graceful ash o’erhangs 
In quivering, light luxuriance. Wide the lime 
A massy shade expands. With silvery trunks 
Thin airy birch, and swelling maples rise. 
Coy aspers shiver all their twinkling leaves 
To every frolic wind. Fantastic oaks 
Immense, their knotty boughs entwisting, throw 
Solidity of deep, incumbent gloom.” 
Howard’s Bicicleigh Vale. p. 8. 
Such especial endowments in this highly favoured 
district, could hardly be devoid of those very neces¬ 
sary concomitants of all scenery, an attractive 
Botany and Ornithology,—and such indeed are we 
in the actual possession of;—in these two respects 
the neighbourhoods of Kingsbridge and Yealmpton 
are peculiarly rich, though, the county altogether 
enjoys celebrity for all that is beautiful and inter¬ 
esting in Nature, and our native Poet celebrates 
this fact in his opening line 
“ Lovely Devonia ! land of flowers and songs !” 
But the pastoral and soft scenery of SouthDevon, 
involves one more important qualification, namely 
cultivation, so that nature may receive embellish¬ 
ment from art. Exclusively natural scenery is one 
thing, nature and art interwoven, constitute another, 
the one we found in the granitic tract of Dartmoor, 
here, in the South Hams we have the other. Here, 
the beauties of Nature are thrown into relief, and 
receive aid in their pleasing effects upon the mind, 
c 
