green island and its winding shores; the multitude of little rocky
hills." Wordsworth was not the first poet to feel its fascination.
Gray visited the Lakes in the autumn of 1769, and coming into the vale
of Grasmere from the north-west, declared it to be one of the sweetest
landscapes that art ever attempted to imitate, an unsuspected paradise
of peace and rusticity. We cannot indeed compare the little crystal
mere, set like a gem in the verdant circle of the hills, with the
grandeur and glory of Lucerne, or the radiant gladness and expanse of
Como: yet it has an inspiration of its own, to delight, to soothe, to
fortify, and to refresh.

"What want we? have we not perpetual streams,
Warm woods, and sunny hills, and fresh green fields,
And mountains not less green, and flocks and herds,
And thickets full of songsters, and the voice
Of lordly birds, an unexpected sound
Heard now and then from morn to latest eve,
Admonishing the man who walks below
Of solitude and silence in the sky.
These have we, and a thousand nooks of earth
Have also these, but nowhere else is found,
Nowhere (or is it fancy?) can be found
The one sensation that is here;...'tis the sense
Of majesty, and beauty, and repose,
A blended holiness of earth and sky,
Something that makes this individual spot,
This small abiding-place of many men,
A termination, and a last retreat,
A centre, come from wheresoe'er you will,
A whole without dependence or defect,