hood of which, were the scenes of these interesting events, is, on its own account, one of the most impressive solitudes amongst the mountains of the Lake district; and I must pause to describe it. Easedale is impressive as a solitude; for the depth of the seclusion is brought out and forced more pointedly upon the feelings by the thin scattering of houses over its sides, and over the surface of what may be called its floor. These are not above six at the most; and one, the remotest of the whole, was untenanted for all the thirty years of my acquaintance with the place. Secondly, it is impressive from the excessive loveliness which adorns its little area. This is broken up into small fields and miniature meadows, separated, not-as too often happens, with sad injury to the beauty of the Lake country -by stone walls, but sometimes by little hedgerows, sometimes by little sparkling, pebbly "becks," lustrous to the very bottom, and not too broad for a child's flying leap; and sometimes by wild self-sown woodlands of birch, alder, holly, mountain ash, and hazel, that meander through the valley, intervening the different estates with natural sylvan marches, and giving cheerfulness in winter, by the bright scarlet of their berries. It is the character of all the northern English valleys, as I have already remarked—and it is a character first noticed by Wordsworth-that they assume, in their bottom areas, the level, floor-like shape, making everywhere a direct angle with the surrounding hills, and definitely marking out the margin of their outlines; whereas the Welsh valleys have too often the glaring imperfection of the basin shape, which allows no sense of any flat area, or valley surface: the hills are already commencing at the very centre of what is called the level area. The little valley of Easedale is, in this respect, as highly finished as in every other; and in the Westmoreland spring, which

may be considered May and the earlier half of June, whilst the grass in the meadows is yet short from the habit of keeping the sheep on it until a much later period than elsewhere (viz., until the mountains are so far cleared of snow and the probability of storms, as to make it safe to send them out on their summer migration), it follows naturally that the little fields in Easedale have the most lawny appearance, and, from the humidity of the Westmoreland* climate, the most verdant that it is possible to imagine. But there is a third advantage possessed by this Easedale, above other rival valleys, in the sublimity of its mountain barriers. In one of its many rocky recesses is seen a "force" (such is the local name for a cataract), white with foam, descending at all seasons with considerable strength, and, after the melting of snows, with an Alpine violence. Follow the leading of this "force" for three quarters of a mile, and you come to a little mountain lake, locally termed a "tarn,"† the very finest and most gloomily sublime of its class. From this

* It is pretty generally known, perhaps, that Westmoreland and Devonshire are the two rainiest counties in England. At Kirkby Lonsdale, lying just on the outer margin of the Lake district, onefifth more rain is computed to fall than in the adjacent counties on the same western side of England. But it is also notorious, that the western side of the island universally is more rainy than the east. Collins called it the Showery West.

A tarn is a lake, generally (perhaps always) a small one: and always, as I think (but this I have heard disputed), lying above the level of the inhabited valleys and the large lakes; and subject to this farther restriction, first noticed by Wordsworth, that it has no main feeder. Now, this latter accident of the thing at once explains and authenticates my account of the word, viz., that it is the Danish word taaren (a trickling of tears), a deposit of waters from the weeping of rain down the smooth faces of the rocks.

tarn it was, I doubt not, though applying it to another, that Wordsworth drew the circumstances of his general description. And far beyond this "enormous barrier," that thus imprisons the very winds, tower upwards the aspiring heads (usually enveloped in cloud and mist) of Glaramara, Bow Fell, and the other fells of Langdale Head and Borrowdale. Easedale, in its relation to Grasmere, is a chamber within a chamher, or rather a closet within a chamber-a chapel within a cathedral—a little private oratory within a chapel. The sole approach, as I have mentioned, is from Grasmere; and some one outlet there must inevitably be in every vale that can be interesting to a human occupant, since without water it would not be habitable; and running water must force an egress for itself, and, consequently, an ingress for the reader and myself: but, properly speaking, there is no other. For, when you explore the remoter end of the vale, at which you suspect some communication with the world outside, you find before you a most formidable amount of climbing, the extent of which can hardly be measured where there is no solitary object of human workmanship or vestige of animal life, not a sheep-track, not a shepherd's hovel, but rock and heath, heath and rock, tossed about in monotonous confusion. And, after the ascent is mastered, you descend into a second vale--long, narrow, sterile-known by the name of "Far Easedale:" from which point, if you could drive a tunnel under the everlasting hills, perhaps six or seven miles might bring you to the nearest habitation of man, in Borrowdale; but, going over the mountains, the road cannot be less than twelve or fourteen, and, in point of fatigue, at the least twenty. This long valley, which is really terrific at noonday, from its utter loneliness and desolation, completes the defences of little sylvan

Easedale. There is one door into it from the Grasmere side: but that door is obscure; and on every other quarter there is no door at all; not any, the roughest, access, but such as would demand a day's walking.

Such is the solitude-so deep, and so rich in miniature beauty of Easedale; and in this solitude it was that George and Sarah Green, two poor and hard-working peasants, dwelt, with a numerous family of small children. Poor as they were, they had won the general respect of the neighbourhood, from the uncomplaining firmness with which they bore the hardships of their lot, and from the decent attire in which the good mother of the family contrived to send out her children to the Grasmere parish-school. It is a custom, and a very ancient one, in Westmorelandthe same custom (resting on the same causes) I have witnessed also in southern Scotland-that any sale by auction of household furniture (and seldom a month passes without something of the sort) forms an excuse for the good women, throughout the whole circumference of perhaps four or five valleys, to assemble at the place of sale, with the nominal purpose of buying something they may happen to want. A sale, except it were of the sort exclusively interesting to farming men, is a kind of general intimation to the country, from the owner of the property, that he will, on that afternoon, be "at home" to all comers, and hopes to see as large an attendance as possible. Accordingly, it was the almost invariable custom-and often, too, when the parties were far too poor for such an effort of hospitality -to make ample provision, not of eatables, but of liquor, for all who came. Even a gentleman, who should happen to present himself on such a festal occasion, by way of seeing the "humours" of the scene, was certain of meeting the most cordial welcome. The good woman of the house

more particularly testified her sense of the honour done to her, and was sure to seek out some cherished and solitary article of china—a wreck from a century back-in order that he, being a porcelain man amongst so many delf men and women, might have a porcelain cup to drink from.

The main secret of attraction at these sales-many of which I have attended-was the social rendezvous thus effected between parties so remote from each other (either by real distance, or by virtual distance, resulting from the separation effected by mountains 3000 feet high), that, in fact, without some such common object, they would not be likely to hear of each other for months, or actually to meet for years. This principal charm of the "gathering," seasoned, doubtless, to many by the certain anticipation that the whole budget of rural gossip would then and there be opened, was not assuredly diminished to the men by the anticipation of excellent ale (usually brewed six or seven weeks before, in preparation for the event), and possibly of still more excellent pow-sowdy (a combination of ale, spirits, and spices); nor to the women by some prospect, not so inevitably fulfilled, but pretty certain in a liberal house, of communicating their news over excellent tea. the auctioneer was always a character in the drama: he was always a rustic old humorist, and a jovial drunkard, privileged in certain good-humoured liberties and jokes with all bidders, gentle or simple, and furnished with an ancient inheritance of jests appropriate to the articles offered for sale-jests that had, doubtless, done their office from Elizabeth's golden days; but no more, on that account, failing of their expected effect, with either man or woman of this nineteenth century, than the sun fails to gladden the heart, because it is that same old superannuated sun that has gladdened it for thousands of years.

Even