boring hills; opens a pleafwg front, fmooth and verdant, fmil-
ing over the country like a gentle generous lord, while xhe, fells
o f Borrowdale frown on it like a hardened tyrant.
Each boundary of the lake fee ms to take part with the extremities,
and emulates their appearance: the fouthern varies in
rocks of different forms, from the tremendous precipices of
the Lady's-Leap, the broken front o f the Falcon’s-Neft, to the
more diftant concave curvature of Lowdore, an extent o f precipitous
rock, with trees vegetating from the numerous fiffures,
and the foam o f a cataraft precipitating amidft.
The .entrance into Borrowdale divides the fcene, and the northern
fjde alters into milder forms; a fait fpring, once the property of
the monks of Furnefs, trickles along the fhore; hills (the fefort
of fhepherds) with downy fronts, and lofty fummits, fucceedj
•with woods cloathing their bafes, even to the water’s edge.
Not far from hence the environs appear to the navigator o f
the lake to the greateft advantage, for on every fide mountains
.clofe the profpect, and form an amphi-theatre almoft matchlefs.
Loch-Lomond in Scotland, and Lough-Lene in Ireland, are powerful
rivals to the lake in queftion : was a native o f either o f thofe
kingdoms to demand my opinion of their refpe&iye beauties, I
muft anfwer as the fubtile Melvil did the vain Elizabeth: That Jhe
was the faireft perfon in E n g l a n d ; and mine the faireft in S c o t l
a n d .
The ifles that decorate this water are few, but finely difpofed, and
very diftindt; rife with gentle and regular curvatures above the
furface, confift o f verdant turf, or are planted with various trees.
The principal is the Lord’s ifland, about five acres, where the Rat