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Brunton-brow, into a cheerful valley (though thin of trees) to Giggleswick, a village with a small piece of water by its side, covered over with coots. Near it a church which belongs also to Settle, and half a mile further, having passed the Ribble over a bridge, arrived at Settle. It is a small market-town standing directly under a rocky fell, there are not a dozen good-looking houses, the rest are all old and low, with little wooden porticoes in front. My inn pleased me much (though small) for`the neatness and civility of the good woman that kept it, so I lay there two nights, and went

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Wind N.E. day gloomy

October 13, to visit Gordale-scar. and cold. It lay but six miles from Settle, but that way was directly over a fell, and it might rain, so I went round in a chaise the only way one could get near it in a carriage, which made it full thirteen miles; and half of it such a road! but I got safe over it so there's an end, and came to Mallhem (pronounce it Maum) a village in the bosom of the mountains seated in a wild and dreary valley from thence I was to walk a mile over very rough ground. A torrent rattling along on the left hand. On the cliffs above hung a few goats; one of them danced and scratched an ear with its hind foot in a place where I would not have stood stock still for all beneath the moon. As I advanced the crags seemed to close in, but discovered a narrow entrance turning to the left between them. I followed my guide a few paces, and lo, the hills opened again into no large space, and then all farther away is barred by a stream, that at the height of above 50 feet gushes from a hole in the rock, and, spreading in large sheets over its broken front, dashes from steep to steep and then rattles away in a torrent down the valley. The rock on the left rises perpendicular with stubbed yew-trees and shrubs staring from its side to the height of at least 300 feet; but those are not the things: it is that to the right under which you stand to see the fall that forms the principal horror of the place. From its very base it begins to slope forwards over you in one block and solid mass without any crevice in its surface, and overshadows half the area below with its dreadful canopy. When I stood at (I believe) full four yards distance from its foot, the drops which perpetually distil from its brow, fell on my head, and in one part of the top more exposed to the weather there are loose stones that hang in the air and threaten visibly some idle spectator with instant destruction. It is safer to shelter yourself

close to its bottom, and trust to the mercy of that enormous mass which nothing but an earthquake can stir. The gloomy uncomfortable day well suited the savage aspect of the place, and made it still more formidable.

I stayed there (not without shuddering) a quarter of an hour, and thought my trouble richly paid, for the impression will last for life. At the alehouse where I dined in Maum, Vivares the landscape painter had lodged for a week or more; Smith and Bellers had also been there; and two prints of Gordale have been engraved by them.

(From the Same.)

NETLEY ABBEY

To the Rev. N. Nichols.

Monday, 19th November 1764.

SIR-1 received your letter at Southampton, and as I would wish to treat everybody according to their own rule and measure of good-breeding, have against my inclination waited till now before I answered it, purely out of fear and respect and an ingenuous diffidence of my own abilities. If you will not take this as an excuse, accept it at least as a well-turned period, which is always my principal concern.

So I proceed to tell you, that my health is much improved by the sea; not that I drank it, or bathed in it, as the common people do. No! I only walked by it and looked upon it. The climate is remarkably mild, even in October and November. No snow has been seen to lie there for these thirty years past, the myrtles grow in the ground against the houses, and Guernsey lilies bloom in every window. The town, clean and well built, surrounded by its old stone walls, with their towers and gateways, stands at the point of a peninsula, and opens full south to an arm of the sea, which having formed two beautiful bays on each hand of it, stretches away in direct view till it joins the British Channel. It is skirted on either side with gently rising grounds, clothed with thick wood; and directly across its mouth rise the high lands of the Isle of Wight, at distance, but distinctly seen. In the bosom of the woods (concealed from profane eyes) lie hid the ruins of Netley Abbey. There may be richer and greater houses of religion, but the abbot is content with his situation. See there, at the top of that hanging meadow under the shade of

those old trees that bend into half a circle about it, he is walking slowly (good man!) and bidding his beads for the souls of his benefactors interred in that venerable pile that lies beneath him. Beyond it (the meadow still descending) nods a thicket of oaks, that mask the building and have excluded a view too garish and too luxuriant for a holy eye: only, on either hand, they leave an opening to the blue glittering sea. Did not you observe how, as that white sail shot by and was lost, he turned and crossed himself to drive the tempter from him that had thrown distraction in his way. I should tell you, that the ferryman who rowed me, a lusty young fellow, told me that he would not, for all the world, pass a night at the Abbey (there were such things seen near it), though there was a power of money hid there. From thence I went to Salisbury, Wilton, and Stonehenge; but of these things I say no more, they will be published at the University press.

(From the Letters.)

A SUNRISE

I MUST not close my letter without giving you one principal event of my history, which was, that (in the course of my late tour) I set out one morning before five o'clock, the moon shining through a dark and misty autumnal air, and got to the sea-coast time enough to be at the sun's levee.

I saw the clouds and dark vapours open gradually to right and left, rolling over one another in great smoky wreaths, and the tide (as it flowed gently in upon the sands) first whitening, then slightly tinged with gold and blue; and all at once a little line of insufferable brightness that (before I can write these five words) was grown to half an orb, and now to a whole one, too glorious to be distinctly seen. It is very odd it makes no figure on paper, yet I shall remember it as long as the sun, or at least as long as I endure. I wonder whether anybody ever saw it before, I hardly believe it.

(From the Same.)

HORACE WALPOLE

[The works of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford (1717-1797), edited by Miss Berry, were published in 5 vols. 4to. in 1798. In the author's lifetime were printed Ædes Walpolianæ, 1747, 1752, papers in the World, 1753; Letter from Xo Ho, a Chinese Philosopher, 1757; Catalogue of the Royal and Noble Authors of England, 1758; Fugitive Pieces in Prose and Verse, 1758; Anecdotes of Painting in England, 1762-1771; Catalogue of Engravers, and The Castle of Otranto, 1765; Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third, 1768; The Mysterious Mother, A Tragedy, 1768; Hieroglyphic Tales, 1785; Essay on Modern Gardening, 1785. The Memoirs of the Last Ten Years of George II. (begun 1751) were published 1822; the Memoirs of the following reign, begun in 1766, finished in 1772, came out in 1845 and 1859. The Reminiscences, written in 1788 for Miss Berry and her sister, were published among the collected works in 1798. The fifth volume of this edition contains letters to various persons: others were published in 1818 (to George Montagu and others), in 1825 (to Lord Hereford), and in 1833 (to Sir Horace Mann). A collected edition was issued in 1840. The publication of further correspondence with Sir Horace Mann in 1843, and of Letters to the Countess of Ossory in 1848, and the Rev. W. Mason in 1851, led to a fuller collection by Mr. Peter Cunningham in 1857, which has not yet been superseded.]

"UNHEALTHY and disorganised mind," "a bundle of whims and affectations," "mask within mask"; these are the phrases that go to make up the popular estimate of a writer who was distinguished by the sincerity of his taste and judgment, and by the quickness and truth of his response to all impressions. Horace Walpole wrote and thought exactly as he pleased; his letters are the expression, direct and clear, of a mind that could not condescend to dull its reflections by any compromise about the values of things, or any concession to opinion. He never tampered with his instinctive appreciation of anything. Whether his judgments are sound in themselves is a question of small importance in comparison with his virtue of self-respect and self-restraint. It is because he had a mind of his own and would not pretend to like

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