of the country where goats are now found;[66] but this morning, before we had seen these, I was reminded of that picturesque animal by two rams of mountain breed, both with Ammonian horns, and with beards majestic as that which Michael Angelo has given to his statue of Moses.—­But to return; when our path had brought us to that part of the naked common which overlooks the woods and bush-besprinkled fields of Blowick, the lake, clouds, and mists were all in motion to the sound of sweeping winds;—­the church and cottages of Patterdale scarcely visible, or seen only by fits between the shifting vapours.  To the northward the scene was less visionary;—­Place Fell steady and bold;—­the whole lake driving onward like a great river—­waves dancing round the small islands.  The house at Blowick was the boundary of our walk; and we returned, lamenting to see a decaying and uncomfortable dwelling in a place where sublimity and beauty seemed to contend with each other.  But these regrets were dispelled by a glance on the woods that clothe the opposite steeps of the lake.  How exquisite was the mixture of sober and splendid hues!  The general colouring of the trees was brown—­rather that of ripe hazel nuts; but towards the water, there were yet beds of green, and in the highest parts of the wood, was abundance of yellow foliage, which, gleaming through a vapoury lustre, reminded us of masses of clouds, as you see them gathered together in the west, and touched with the golden light of the setting sun.

[66] A.D. 1835.  These also have disappeared.

After dinner we walked up the Vale; I had never had an idea of its extent and width in passing along the public road on the other side.  We followed the path that leads from house to house; two or three times it took us through some of those copses or groves that cover the little hillocks in the middle of the vale, making an intricate and pleasing intermixture of lawn and wood.  Our fancies could not resist the temptation; and we fixed upon a spot for a cottage, which we began to build:  and finished as easily as castles are raised in the air.—­Visited the same spot in the evening.  I shall say nothing of the moonlight aspect of the situation which had charmed us so much in the afternoon; but I wish you had been with us when, in returning to our friend’s house, we espied his lady’s large white dog, lying in the moonshine upon the round knoll under the old yew-tree in the garden, a romantic image—­the dark tree and its dark shadow—­and the elegant creature, as fair as a spirit!  The torrents murmured softly:  the mountains down which they were falling did not, to my sight, furnish a back-ground for this Ossianic picture; but I had a consciousness of the depth of the seclusion, and that mountains were embracing us on all sides; ’I saw not, but I felt that they were there.’