To the general reader of those times the
descriptive poems of Wordsworth were probably unmeaning rhapsodies. Our
ancestors, however, were very fond of "prospects." An old atlas of the
counties of England, published about 1800, came into the writer's hands
recently. The whole of the gentler hills, including every possible
vantage point in the Downs, had been most carefully and neatly marked
with the panorama visible from the summit; but even Kinder Scout and
the Malverns came in for the same fate as the Welsh and Cumberland
mountains, all of which had been left severely alone, though the
intrepid traveller had braved the terrors of the Wrekin, while such
heights as Barton Hill in Leicestershire and Leith Hill in Surrey were
heavily scored with names of places seen, the latter including that
oft-told tale--a legend, so far as the present writer is aware--of St.
Paul's dome and the sea being visible with a turn of the head. Though
our idea of proportion in relation to scenery has suffered a change,
Gilbert White's phrase must not be sneered at; and most comparisons are
stupidly unfair. The outline of Mount Caburn is a rounded edition of
the most perfect of all forms.
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