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PEAK-SCENERY.

Extracts from a work just published, entitled "Peak-Scenery; or, Excursions in Derbyshire, made chiefly for the purpose of Picturesque Observations. By E.Rhodes."

DERBYSHIRE was new to my companion; and, feeling ourselves now completely within the boundaries of the Peak, we paused awhile to contemplate the country around us.

Strangely insensible to the beauties of nature must that man be who can approach these hoary hills with indifference; who can, unmoved by deep and undefined emotions, trace the varying, and sometimes graceful outline of form which they exhibit; mark the subtle admixture of light and tint that play upon their surfaces when near, and the soft blue misty colouring which pervades them in distance. Yet the mountains of Derbyshire, remotely seen, are not always distinguished by this pleasing and shadowy hue. When the black clouds that crown the summits portend a storm, they occasionally wear a darker colour, and display a more awful aspect. Even at sunset, I have sometimes beheld them invested with a dark purple tint, so firm and deeply toned, that, with the exception of the great landscape painter, Turner, who delights in the strong opposition of light and shadow, and in those sublime effects which gloom and storm produce, but few artists could be found hardy enough to transmit to canvas so striking and singular an appearance, unless they hesitated not to incur the imputation of having

"O'erstept the modesty of Nature."

Every turn in the road now varied the picture, and every object that pre sented itself attracted attention, and charmed by its novelty. The abrupt knoll, the rocky projection, and the broken foreground, are not often defective in picturesque beauty; and, when combined with the heathy hills of Derbyshire, they sometimes produce a landscape in which the parts have a dependance on each other, where the same general character prevails, and where nothing glaringly incongruous intervenes to disturb the harmony of the composition.

On a flat plot of ground, contiguous to the situation we now occupied, several piles of stones formerly stood, which were rudely built in a conical form, without lime or cement: they were removed about fifty years ago, and used for the purpose of repairing the road, when it was discovered that they contained urns, or vessels of earthern ware, in which some human bones were deposited: they were placed at regular distances, and, in connection with each other, they described nearly a circle: they were the cemeteries of the ashes of the dead; and one cannot but regret that their hallowed character, and their antiquity, have not preserved them from violation. I recollect once observing some uncouth heaps of stones of a similar construction, in a wild and very singular dell in the neighbourhood of Bretton, about half way between Highlow and Eyam: they greatly excited my curiosity; but, at that time, I had neither the means nor the opportunity to ascertain their contents, and information is extremely difficult of attainment in the Peak of Derbyshire.

The Lows and Barrows, that so frequently occur in this now cheerless and denuded district, may probably justify the supposition, that it was once inhabited by a more numerous population, and that these naked hills and barren moors have heretofore been fertile places, a conjecture which may require more particular attention, when traversing those parts of Derbyshire, where these burial places of the earliest ages are more frequently found.

. The road from the summit of the East-Moor is carried with a gentle descent along the brow of the hill to a steep rocky knoll, which may be regarded as the commencement of that lofty ridge of mountains denominated Froggat Edge: thence it proceeds to Stoney Middleton, after first crossing the Derwent, near the village of Calver.

The view from this rocky elevation, in grandeur and sublimity, is unsurpassed in Derbyshire: indeed it would be difficult to find in one short mile of road, in any other part of the kingdom, a succession of scenery more richly and beautifully varied than is here presented. The hills, which form the ca. pacious dale of the Derwent, even when individually considered, are noble objects; they are beautiful in outline, and, in connexion with each other, they exhibit all the grace and majesty which rock, and wood, and heath, and verdure, can possibly possess, when spread over a long chain of hills, sometimes rising boldly and abruptly into lofty and magnificent masses, at others declining into easy dales. The banks of the Derwent, from Stoke upwards, and throughont the whole of its windings, as far as the eye can trace its course, is every where luxuriantly wooded. On one side of the river the highest eminences are turreted with broken craggs of rock, which is the grand marking feature of every lofty projection from Froggat to Mill-stone Edge, and from thence to the vicinity of Hathersage, beyond which the blue misty hills of the Peak present a succession of faint and, shadowy outline, scarcely distinguishable from the clouds of heaven, of which they appear to form a part.

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He who undertakes, in passing through a country, to describe the scenes he admires, and who hopes to excite a correspondent picture in the minds of his readers, will often have to lament the inefficiency of the means he is under the necessity of employing. The pencil, by an accurate delineation of forms, may speak to the eye, and the canvas may glow with the vivid tints of nature; but it is not through the medium of words, with whatever felicity they may be selected and combined, that an adequate idea of the finest features of a landscape can be communicated. The language of description is likewise so very confined, and it phrases so extremely few, that similar ap pearances will often suggest a similarity of expression; hence the choicest terms become tireseme from repetition, and the impression they produce faint and imperfect.

Geology of Derbyshire.

No part of the kingdom is better calculated to facilitate the study of mineralogy, and geology, than the Peak of Derbyshire: it is here that nature, in a peculiar way, lays bare her operations. The various strata here exhi bited, in some places highly elevated, in others greatly depressed and broken into rents and chasms, by frequent dislocations, unfold the interior formation of the earth we inhabit, and carry the mind back to that era of time

when it was shaken and tumbled together, and the hills and dales assumed their present form and positions.

Whitehurst, in his theory of the formation of the earth, has deduced his most powerful arguments from the strata of Derbyshire, which he contends, exhibit irrefragable testimony of their volcanic origin. St. Fond, who entertained a different opinion, professes his astonishment that a man so gifted as Whitehurst should discover any proofs in support of his peculiar theory, in a country where, as he remarks, "every thing is evidently of an aqueous origin."

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Thus it is that the disciples of Werner and Hutton, the Neptunists and the Volcanists of the present Geological school, support their different theories from appearances strikingly similar, if not essentially the same. The basaltic stratum which, in various places alternates with calcareous rock, and which is provincially called toadstone, has furnished Whitehurst with his most triumphant arguments: that it is obviously and indisputably lava, he maintains, cannot be denied. Wherever it occurs it occupies and fills up the space that intervenes between the different limestone strata; and the manner in which it cuts off or intercepts the metallic veins is, in his opinion, conclusive on the subject.

It may be here remarked that though the toadstone of Derbyshire differs materially in its external appearance, it has one general prevailing character by which all its varieties are decidedly marked. So indeed has lava. It breaks with an equal fracture in all directions: so does volcanic lava. It is likewise of various colours: so are the lavas of Etna and Vesuvius. There is certainly a striking similarity in their internal structure and appearance, and both are said to resist equally the action of acids.

I have attentively examined more than a hundred specimens of lava, now in my possession, and have repeatedly compared them with the toadstones of Derbyshire, without being able to detect any thing like a characteristic difference; and I have now by me a tablet composed of nine varieties of each, which forcibly illustrates their general affinity."

The lavas of Etna exhibit every degree of compactness and hardness, from the close texture of granite and marble to the most porous. The interior of the molten mass, being generally in a more fluid state, when hot and flowing, differs in appearance from that which floated on the surface, and the part which appears to have been in immediate contact with the earth is, in many instances, but little more compact than half burnt clay. I have indeed observed only one specimen of lava that does not closely correspond with some one or other of the toadstones of Derbyshire: it is of a dark bluish-green colour, intermixed with streaks of a dirty earthy yellow, and it contains a great number of quartz crystals of various sizes, sometimes closely imbedded in the surrounding matter, and sometimes congregated together in small caverns.

Stoke Hall.

The following morning we visited Stoke: the sun that set so gloriously the preceding evening, and seemed to give

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was partially obscured with clouds when he arose. A brisk wind prevailed, which we did not regret, as it imparted to the scenery around us a pleasing variety, and impressed upon the mind a new train of images. At intervals the sun shone brightly in the heavens; the clouds were driven rapidly along by the violence of the gale; every object was at one moment strongly illuminated, then instantaneously dark with shadow. The quickness of the change, the freshness of the breeze, the elastic motion of the branches of the trees as they strained and struggled with the blast, the rustling of the leaves, all conspired to produce a very interesting, and occasionally a sublime effect.

Motion, amidst the eternal repose of fixed objects in nature, is always pleasing to the eye, and frequently exhilarating to the mind. The course of clouds, changing place, and shape, and colour continually; the flight of birds, whether suddenly startled from the bushes, sailing loftily and slowly in the air, or darting to and fro near the earth; the visible lapse of waters in the variable bed of a river: the fluttering of the foliage of hedge-row trees, or the verdant undulations of a sea of wood tossing in the gale and shifting its lights and shadows in the sun; the revolutions of a water-wheel or a wind mill; the alternate glimpse and disappearance of carriages on an interrupted line of road; the progress of solitary passengers seen here and there in contrary directions; the rambling of animals, herds on the mountains, sheep on their walks ;-all these various forms of motion, if such they may be called, either present life, or resemble it, and excite peculiar feelings of sympathy, euriosity, and pleasure.

These, it is true, are but the adventitious adornments of a landscape; they are, nevertheless, some of its richest and most attractive appendages. Rocks, hills, and woods; dales, plains, and mountains; are fixed and permanent; their forms and their positions change not. Unvisited by life and motion, they repose in undisturbed tranquillity, and their stillness is often grand and awful; but their most picturesque effects are transient and incidental.

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The romantic beauties of Stoke have often excited the admiration of travellers. It is indisputably one of the most delightful mansions in the north of Derbyshire; and though not sufficiently capacious for the purposes of magnificence and splendour, it might yet be selected as a fit and happy home for the comforts and elegancies of life. Its exterior architecture is neat and simple-neither poor for want of ornament nor gaudy with profusion; and it stands on a graceful eminence near the brink of the river, finely embosomed in some of the most lovely wood-scenery in Derbyshire. The Derwent, as it passes the grounds of Stoke, is a noble stream; black with shadow, it moves majestically along, its dark surface occasionally relieved by the transparent reflection of the foliage which overhangs its banks.

This beautiful place was formerly the residence of Orlando Bridgman, Esq. now Lord Bradford, of Wheston Hall, in Staffordshire. It is at present occupied by Robert Arkwright, Esq. a grandson of the late Sir Richard Arkwright, a man who was the artificer of his own fortune, and who by his great mechanical talents and persevering industry, raised himself from an obscure and humble situation in life, and became the founder of a highly respectable family, and a benefactor to the commerce of his country.

ON THE ANTIQUITY OF THE MANSION AT NORTON-LEES. [Mentioned in the ninth number of the Northern Star.]

THE engraving from the accurate and elegant pencil of Mr. Blore, that decorated the Northern Star for February, 'could not fail of being very acceptable to the friends of that publication. I beg leave to offer you a few remarks, arising from the historical account by which it was accompanied. The architecture of the ancient mansion at Norton-Lees appears of a much earlier date than the sixteenth century; and though undoubtedly the residence of a Blythe at that period, must have been built anterior to that family's residence there, the carved initials in the old dining-room referring to them being most probably added in alterations and repairs of the original buildings. Our Saxon ancestors built their dwellings entirely of wood, not excepting their churches: in the immediately succeeding periods, plaister was intermixed with wood, the basement story being built of stone; such is this old house.

In the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, houses composed of stone, or of stone and brick, became general, and the style of their architecture is too well known to need any description. Few alterations took place in the reign of the first Charles; the improvement made by his two predecessors in domestic architecture were too evident to require that patronage and support he so liberally bestowed upon the other arts. A further proof of the more remote antiquity of the house at Norton-Lees, than the modern era of the restoration, is the peculiar construction of the large barns on its west side, their whole structure being of wood, excepting the basement of stone, and their principal support deep flat beams of massy oak, naturally curved, and of which each pair seems to have been sawed from one tree; they spring from the ground, and form a bold gothic arch over-head; such timber-frames present specimens of the architec ture of Edward I., a period when those spacious receptacles were destined to contain the fortunes of their owners, which principally consisted in the produce of their land, and in their cattle, when the portions of their daughters were paid in such produce. The wardrobe of a wife, that was then destined to last her life, was conveyed from the father's house to that of her husband in a richly carved oak-chest, drawn by the oxen that formed part of the dowry. I should therefore believe, that the old house at Norton-Lees bearing these evident demonstrations of a date anterior to that affixed in your magazine, was either built by a Parker, a person of good possessions in the reign of Richard II., after his marriage with Elizabeth de Gothem, only daughter and heir of Roger de Gothem, of Norton-Lees, son of Thomas de Gothem, son of Roger de Gothem, of the county of Derby, then bearing the name of Norton-Lees; or have come to him by that marriage, from a family who evidently had resided as above at Norton-Lees three generations, and must have been possessors of heritable landed property in the reign of Edward III. From that event (the marriage of Elizabeth de Gothem) the Parkers, with their lineal descendants, continued to reside there, to the reign of Henry VIII., from which we may conclude, it was a residence of more importance than their patrimonial home, which was at Bullwell, in Notts. John, the Parker, last-mentioned as a resident at Norton-Lees, was of full

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