Beautiful England

The English Lakes

The luxuriance of Windermere is of course its dominant note, a quality infinitely enhanced by that noble array of mountains which from Kirkstone to Scafell trail across the northern sky beyond the broad shimmer of its waters. The upward view from various points in the neighbourhood of Bowness, for obvious reasons of railroad transportation, has been the first glimpse of the Lake District for a majority of two or three generations of visitors, and this alone gives some further significance to a scene in any case so beautiful. Orrest Head, a few hundred feet above the village of Windermere, is the point to which the pilgrim upon the first opportunity usually betakes himself; for from this modest altitude the entire lake with [Pg 6] its abounding beauty of detail, and half the mountain kingdom of Lakeland, are spread out before him. On the slopes of Orrest, too, is the house of Elleray, successor to that older one in which Professor Wilson, by no means the least one of the Wordsworthian band, led his breezy, strenuous life. Son of a wealthy Glasgow merchant, winner of the Newdigate and a first classman at Oxford, and scarcely less conspicuous for his athletic feats and sporting wagers, young Wilson bought the land at Elleray while an undergraduate and built a house on it later, after the passing of an unsatisfactory love affair. As "Christopher North" every lover of the rod with any sense of its literature knows him yet. Nor would all this be worthy of record were it not that the brilliant little band who did none of these things held Wilson of Elleray as one of themselves. Losing his fortune ten years later through a defaulting trustee, he became the brilliant supporter of Blackwood and Professor of Moral Philosophy in Edinburgh University, though always retaining his connection with Windermere. In fact, when Scott made his memorable visit to the Lake District, and with Lockhart and Canning stayed with the then owner of Storrs Hall, now a hotel on the lake shore, we find Wilson doing the honours of Windermere as commodore of its large fleet of yachts. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 42139
Author: Bradley, A. G. (Arthur Granville)
Release Date: Feb 20, 2013
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Illustrator: Haslehust, E. W., 1866-1949