The country here had quite a different appearance from that at Windsor and Richmond.  Instead of green meadows and pleasant hills, I now saw barren mountains and lofty rocks; instead of fine living hedges, the fields and pasture lands here were fenced with a wall of grey stone; and of this very same stone, which is here everywhere to be found in plenty, all the houses are built in a very uniform and patriarchal manner, inasmuch as the rough stones are almost without any preparation placed one upon another, and compose four walls, so that in case of necessity, a man might here without much trouble build himself a house.  At Derby the houses seem to be built of the same stone.

The situation of Matlock itself surpassed every idea I had formed of it.  On the right were some elegant houses for the bathing company, and lesser cottages suspended like birds’ nests in a high rock; to the left, deep in the bottom, there was a fine bold river, which was almost hid from the eye by a majestic arch formed by high trees, which hung over it.  A prodigious stone wall extended itself above a mile along its border, and all along there is a singularly romantic and beautiful secret walk, sheltered and adorned by many beautiful shrubs.

The steep rock was covered at the top with green bushes, and now and then a sheep, or a cow, separated from the grazing flock, came to the edge of the precipice, and peeped over it.

I have got, in Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” which I am reading thoroughly through, just to the part where he describes Paradise, when I arrived here and the following passage, which I read at the brink of the river, had a most striking and pleasing effect on me.  The landscape here described was as exactly similar to that I saw before me, as if the poet had taken it from hence

“—­delicious Paradise,
Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green,
As with a rural mound, the champion head
Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides
With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild,
Access denied.”—­Book IV. v. 132.

From Matlock Baths you go over Matlock Bridge, to the little town of Matlock itself, which, in reality, scarcely deserves the name of a village, as it consists of but a few and miserable houses.  There is here, on account of the baths, a number of horses and carriages, and a great thoroughfare.  From hence I came through some villages to a small town of the name of Bakewell.  The whole country in this part is hilly and romantic.  Often my way led me, by small passes, over astonishing eminences, where, in the deep below me, I saw a few huts or cottages lying.  The fencing of the fields with grey stone gave the whole a wild and not very promising appearance.  The hills were in general not wooded, but naked and barren; and you saw the flocks at a distance grazing on their summit.

As I was coming through one of the villages, I heard a great farmer’s boy eagerly ask another if he did not think I was a Frenchman.  It seemed as if he had been waiting some time to see the wonder; for, he spoke as though his wish was now accomplished.