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CHAPTER XVII.

THE TERMINATION.

WE have now traced the Avor steadir fror source almost to its termination: we have one look through the town of Tewkesbury, and tHEL we shall part company.

The approach to Tewkesbury is not very beattiful, yet it is pleasant in its way. The river ruus through wide flat meadows, that have on the set

some

well-wooded uplands and sumy siopes samaing them. The meadows are in summer covere with thick rich pasturage, and crowded witi cattles and the lofty tower of the abbey enurei rise up conspicuous in the distance-a scene that. wiel the long shadows on a summer evening streies. across the plain, and the sky is ful of 1⁄2 suvuust golden splendour which the smooth stream refects with a softened beauty, will remind the visitor of some of the wondrous landscapes of Comp. L winter these meadows are frequentiy and always moist. Just before so the bowl, the river is divided into two or three pravcute, aut an artificial channel carries off a portion of water a little farther on. The whole of this par an uncomfortable swampy look. A joug many-arched bridge is carried over these divisions of the stream, and the meadows John Lackland is said to have been the builder of it, or one that occupied its place.

has

on each side;

river here while he can make his way along it; every step brings out some new or quaint device of our fairy-like guide. Not far from the place above referred to is a chasm where the sublime and the fanciful seem striving for the mastery; a strange spot as ever was pitched upon: well might Wordsworth call it the "Faëry Chasm." Its steep rocky sides are of a bright blue-grey tint, deepening under the water almost into azure, and riven into such strange shapes as that "tricksy spirit' Ariel might have delighted to fashion. The scenery too about this spot is very fine: on one hand are Hardknot and its associate mountains; on the other various crags, backed by the majestic mass of Coniston Old Man. Directly in front are Wallabarrow crag and the Pen, with several mountains of moderate elevation and graceful form in the distance.

Here we must leave our stream awhile. We have now reached Seathwaite, where for the present we stay. Wordsworth, indeed, makes his poem a summer day's journey, but he admits this to be a poetic licence. It is quite impossible to explore the scenery of the Duddon in that time. `The hasty visitor may indeed see it all, at least as well as he usually sees anything, in two days; but the Iman who has learned to look on nature with a truer feeling will not, if he have leisure, think as many weeks too much to devote to this lovely region. Seathwaite is a good resting-place: it is in the midst of the finest portion of the scenery, and has connected with it some interesting associations, upon which we shall now touch. It contains too a little inn, in which the accommodation is rude, but the parties who keep it are civil and

desirous to oblige, and the genuine traveller will be content with these. He need not, however, fare amiss fell-mutton, and ham, and mutton-ham he may always obtain; and trout too, if he will, as Mrs. Glasse directs, "catch them first"-for Duddon is what "honest Izaak" calls " a trouty stream." With these, and the usual addenda procurable in a north-country farm, a moderate man may have, as Cowley says, "not so many choice dishes at every meal; but at several meals all of them, which makes them both the more healthy and the more pleasant."

Seathwaite is remarkable as the place in which "Wonderful Robert Walker" dwelt so many years. Wordsworth has given a very full and interesting account of him in his notes to "The Duddon," to which, or to the second volume of 'The Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties,' the reader may refer. It may here suffice to say that he was born in 1709, at Under-crag in Seathwaite, and was the youngest of twelve children. Being sickly in youth, he was 66 bred up a scholar," and after acting for some time as a schoolmaster, he was ordained, and about 1735 became curate of Seathwaite, in which he remained till his death, sixty-six years afterwards. The value of his curacy when he entered upon it was 51. per annum, with a cottage; about the same time he married, and his wife brought him, as he says, "to the value of 401. for her fortune." He had a family of twelve children, of whom however only eight lived; these he educated respectably-one at least became a clergymanwas even munificent in his hospitality as a parish priest, and generous to the needy, and yet, although the income of his curacy never exceeded 50l. per