Select prose of Robert Southey Author:Robert Southey Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SCENES FROM THE LAKE COUNTRY KESWICK LAKE The Lake of Keswick has this decided advantage over the others which we have seen, that it immediately appears to... more » be what it is. Winandermere and Ulswater might be mistaken for great rivers, nor indeed can the whole extent of either be seen at once; here you are on a land-locked bason of water, a league in length, and about half as broad, — you do not wish it to be larger, the mirror is in perfect proportion to its frame. Skiddaw, the highest and most famous of the English mountains, forms its northern boundary, and seems to rise almost immedately from its shore, though it is at the nearest point half a league distant, and the town intervenes. One long mountain, along which the road forms a fine terrace, reaches nearly along the whole of its western side; and through the space between this and the next mountain, which in many points of view appears like the lower segment of a prodigious circle, a lovely vale is seen which runs up among the hills. But the pride of the Lake of Keswick is the head, where the mountains of Borrodale bound the prospect, in a wilder and grander manner than words can adequately describe. The cataract of Lodore thunders down its eastern side through a chasm in the rocks, which are wooded with birch and ash trees. It is a little river, flowing from a small lake upon the mountains about a league distant. The water, though there had been heavy rains, was not adequate to the channel; — indeed it would require a river of considerable magnitude to fill it, — yet it is at once the finest work and instrument of rock and water that I have ever seen or heard. At a little public-house near, where the key of the entrance is kept, they have a cannon to display the echo; it was discharged for us, and we heard the sound rol...« less