shot of the ignorant and rash fowler, who takes aim at everything he sees. The miners about Coniston, and other workmen in the region, go out on holidays, to bring down everything they see on the wing; and the rarest birds have no more chance with them than so many crows. The eagle is gone; the buzzards are disappearing; and the raven has become very rare.

The traveller should see the copper-works at Coniston, (if he can obtain leave,) both for their own sake, and for the opportunity it gives him of observing the people engaged there, and because they lie in his way to the tarns on Coniston Old Man, and to the summit of the mountain itself. The Tarns are very interesting; Low Water, Goat's Water, Blind Tarn, and, some considerable way along the ridge, Lever's Water under Wetherlam. Some think the views from the top of the Old Man finer than from any mountain summit in the country, except Scawfell-not even excepting Helvel lyn: and this may very well be, from the country being here open to the southern peninsulas and the sea, instead of bristling with mountain peaks all round. One of the productions of this neighbourhood is the celebrated potted char, known all over the country. There is char in Windermere, and several of the other lakes; but Coniston Lake produces by far the finest fish. As the traveller is now about to enter upon a comparatively low country, well peopled, and with good roads, he will probably be disposed to give up his pedestrian mode of travelling, and proceed either on horseback or in a car. He can do this from Coniston, if he so pleases. He had better go down the lake on its eastern side, for various reasons; and chiefly, that he may obtain the best views of the exquisite head of the lake. Passing round Waterhead, he will presently ascend to a considerable height at the north-eastern end of the fine sheet of Coniston Water; and there he will assuredly pause, and hope that he may never forget what he now sees. He has probably never beheld a scene which conveyed a stronger impression of joyful charm; of fertility, prosperity, comfort, nestling in the bosom of the rarest beauty. It is too true that there is wrong and misery here, as elsewhere: but this does not lie open to the notice in a bird's-eye view. It is true that here, as elsewhere, there are responsible persons who are negligent; some of the working class who are ignorant and profligate; dwellings which are unwholesome; and lives which are embittered by sickness and mourning. But these things are not visible from the point whence the traveller feasts his eyes with the scattered dwellings under their sheltering wood, the cheerful town, the rich slopes, and the dark gorge and summits of Yewdale behind; while the broad water lies as still as heaven, between shore and shore. In these waters it was that Elizabeth Smith used to dip her oar, on those summer days when she left her studies to show the beauty of Coniston to her mother's guests and it was near the place where the traveller now stands that she died. Tent Lodge is erected on the spot where the tent was pitched in which she spent some of her feeblest and latest days.

--

It is sixteen miles from Coniston Water Head to the cheerful little town of Ulverston; from whence it is only seven miles to Furness Abbey.

This Abbey was first peopled from Normandy; a sufficient number of Benedictine monks coming over from the monastery of Savigny, to establish this house in honour of St. Marye of Furnesse. In a few years their profession changed,-they followed St. Bernard, and wore the white cassock, caul, and scapulary, instead of the dress of the gray monks. It is strange now to see the railway traversing those woods where these grayrobed foreigners used to pass hither and thither, on their saint's errands to the depressed and angry Saxons dwelling round about. The situation of the Abbey, as is usual with religious houses, is fine. It stands in the depth of a glen, with a stream flowing by; the sides of the glen being clothed with wood. A beacon once belonged to it; a watch-tower on an eminence accessible from the Abbey, whose signal-fire was visible all over Low Furness, when assistance was required, or foes were expected. The building is of the pale red stone of the district. It must formerly have almost filled the glen: and the ruins give an impression, to this day, of the establishment having been worthy of the zeal of its founder, King Stephen, and the extent of its endowments, which were princely. The boundary-wall of the precincts enclosed a space of sixty-five acres, over which are scattered remains which have, within our own time, been interpreted to be those of the mill, the granary, the fish-ponds, the ovens and kilns, and other offices. As for the architecture, the heavy shaft is here, as at Calder Abbey, found alternating with the clustered pillar, and the round Saxon with the pointed Gothic arch. The masonry is so good that the remains are even now firm and massive; and the winding-staircases within the walls are still in good condition, in many places. The nobleness of the edifice consisted in its extent and proportions; for the stone would not bear the execution of any very elaborate ornament. The crowned heads of Stephen and his queen, Maude, are seen outside the window of the Abbey, and are among the most interesting of the remains. It is all very triste and silent now. The Chapter-house, where so many grave councils were held, is open to the babbling winds. Where the abbot and his train swept past in religious procession, over inscribed pavements echoing to the tread, the stranger now wades among tall ferns and knotted grasses, stumbling over stones fallen from their place of honour. No swelling anthems are heard there now, or penitential psalms; but only the voice of birds, winds, and waters. But this blank is what the stranger comes for. He has seen something of the territory over which the Abbots of Furness held a rule like that of royalty: and he now comes to take one more warning of how Time shatters thrones, dominations, and powers, and causes the glories of this world to pass away.

The stranger will vary his return by taking the road above Bardsea to Ulverston; and if he can, he should enjoy the glorious view from Birkrigg. From all the rising grounds, wide views over the Lancaster sands

WE need not spend much time in any introductory remarks on "the little isle that checks the westering tide," as Collins somewhere styles the Isle of Wight. If nearly two centuries ago Michael Drayton could sing that

"Of all the southern isles it holds the highest place,

And evermore hath been the great'st in Britain's grace;" how much more truly could it be so said, or sung now! It is almost too well known. Everybody has seen it or read about it. Almost every part of it is as common as the Regent's Park or Kensington Gardens. It is the ordinary sauntering-place for invalids, and idlers, and honey-moon spenders. Whether however it is as truly known as it is generally known, or has been as adequately described as it has been often described, is a more questionable matter. For some resident White it once offered a theme of exceeding value, ready to be wrought into a history of wider scope and more various interest than that of Selborne: instead of which it has fallen into the hands of a host of prolix and puerile Guides, and vapid describers.* It is too late now to look for amendment: it has paid the penalty of its popularity; it has been petted and praised, and lionized, till nearly all its original charm is worn off; its artlessness is gone. One after another every lonely and lovely spot catches the fancy of tourist or builder: groves of venerable foliage are felled to make way for groves of white-fronted houses; the wooded slopes are pared, and trimmed, and converted into 'Terraces;' on the solitary hill-side bristles the many fantastic peaks of some flaring new villa, or lodge, or cottage, or castle, or whatever other name the lively imagination of its constructor suggests as most applicable to the curious edifice. Everywhere, in fact

"The lonely mountains o'er, and the resounding shore, The voice of woe is heard, and loud lament; From haunted spring and dale, edged with the poplar pale The parting Genius is with sighing sent."-(Milton.) Under these circumstance neither writer nor reader can hope for novelty; and all we shall aim at will be to present a plain view of the general impression which the island is calculated to make on one who rambles * Of course we do not mean to include under this censure the eminently splendid work of Sir Henry Englefield, or Worsley's very valuable history: but only to remark that from the narrow limits and compact form of the island, the singular variety of its physical features, and the uncommon range of its fauna, as well as the distinct character which its

human inhabitants formerly possessed, there were ample and perhaps unrivalled materials for a popular and readable monograph of the order of which White has furnished so delightful an example:-we need hardly add that no such book has been, or now can be written of the Isle of Wight. XIV.-VOL. II.

over it, and forms his own notions of it, without regard to the laudation or the silence of guide-books. To these books, of which there is a goodly number, we refer the visitor for lists of the villas and like important details and he may accept our account as a supplement to them.

It is little to be wondered at that the island is so favourite a resort of the summer tourist, or the holidaymaker, the newly wedded, or the solitary rambler, or any other bird of passage:

"Every island is a prison,

Strongly guarded by the sea,"

as Dr. Johnson used to say; and though little of that feeling is experienced here, there is just enough of isolation to give a slight tinge to the fancy. The narrow strait which separates it from the mainland, separates it also sufficiently from the ordinary working world. This strait may at any time be crossed in half an-hour, and you are in altogether a new region. Then the size of the place-scarcely 24 miles in its greatest length, and 13 in its greatest breadth-and its formwhich the old topographers likened to a turbot, but which our more prim-speaking moderns, who have no relish for such dainty similitudes, describe as an irregular rhomboid or heraldic lozenge-bring every part of it within easy reach from one or two centres, and permit its examination without any risk of fatigue. While, however, it can be so easily seen, it can only be thoroughly explored by the pedestrian; and he alone has any chance of observing to advantage the two or three nooks that yet remain unencroached on by gentility, and unprofaned by Vandalic ornament. The guide-books all appear to take for granted that the tourist will hire a fly; and consequently give directions where "the travelling carriage is to stay," in order that a particular spot may be visited. This is of course proper enough for invalids and young brides, but they who are neither sick nor wed will do well to trust to their feet. The island flys are a great annoyance: and he who is troubled with them will find it necessary after he has got quit of them to go again over the ground, if he wishes to see it properly,-a practice wasteful alike of time, and cash, and temper-three things the traveller in Vectis will need to husband.

The scenery of the Isle of Wight may be classed under the Coast, the Downs, and the Valleys; and each has its varieties. The coast ranging as it does from the flat sandy bank to chalk cliffs of loftier and bolder elevation than in any other part of England; and including the wild Undercliff, and the singular Chines, is naturally the most attractive and celebrated part of the island. The Downs in themselves are not to be compared with the broader ranges of Sussex and Wiltshire, but they afford prospects at least as varied and

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