and green bracken beds or greener pasture-lands. Beyond these it is broken up into dark, craggy knolls, rising into hills of the same character, pre-eminent amongst which is one bold cone bearing the name of the Beacon Hill—a name suggestive of the times when, as Macaulay sings,

"Skiddaw saw the fire that burn'd on Gaunt's embattled pile, "And the red glare on Skiddaw roused the burghers of Carlisle."

There can be little doubt but these beacon fires were used at, as well as before and after the date of the event upon which the poet-historian made the fine ballad I have quoted from; but, without disputing his general accuracy, we must remark that the interposition of some of the highest ground in England between Skiddaw and Lancaster would necessitate the use of some intermediate stations like this of Blawith, from which the town and castle of John o' Gaunt are distinctly visible, though more than twenty miles away.

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The next prominent object is a bold rocky island which rises steeply from the water and is called Peel Island or Montague Island; but by the country people, following out their custom, already remarked upon, of bestowing on natural objects the names of some homely implement, utensil or garment, suggested by their form, this island is called "the Gridiron." It may be said to be the only island Coniston possesses, for that named "the Fir Island," about half-way up the lake, is so near the eastern strand as to be peninsular, except in wet weather; and a floating island which this water also boasts, is so apt to ground on the shore and remain there till an unusual rise of the lake concurs with a favourable wind to set it afloat again, that it can scarcely be called an island, floating or stationary. When it is afloat and drifting about the lake, however, it must be a pleasing object, being some twenty yards across and covered with young timber. But few have seen it under those circumstances.

Above the Gridiron, and on the western side, the lake receives a small stream called in old charters "the Black "Beck of Torver." It drains the primitive little chapelry from which it has its name. The most interesting circumstance connected with Torver is that the faculty for interments in the burial ground of its humble chapel bears the signature

twenty years ago, was, previous to that time, a good specimen of the old chapels in the dales. The deed referred to implies

that other church rites had been performed there long before its date. In the petition for this deed, "ob juga montium

interposita," is the reason assigned by the parishioners for asking to be allowed to bury at home, instead of carrying their dead to the mother-church at Ulverston. Near the embouchure of Torver Beck are seen a large bobbin mill, a very pretty farm and, up the hillside at some distance from the farm, a small lonely-looking building, which is a Baptist chapel-one of the many places of worship belonging to that body of dissenters that lie scattered over this district, generally in situations remote and secluded as this. It has been said of these meeting-houses that they were so located to avoid interruption of worship and to escape persecution.

For more than a mile here the lake on either shore possesses little scenic and no historic interest; but after passing the long height called Torver Common we find under its northern shoulder several farms in picturesque situations. One of these called Brackenbarrow occupies the place of the ancient seat of a family, long extinct, of the same name. The adjoining beautiful estate of Hawthwaite and other lands in "Torferghe," "with reasonable ingress and egress from Lid"chate of Brackenbergh, to the said land," were given to the monks of Conishead Priory by a Roger de Brakenberg. Sir Robert Brakenbury, who was Lieutenant of the Tower in the reigns of Edward IV and Richard III is said to have been a member of this family, but I have not been able to authenticate the fact.

On the opposite shore, embosomed in the close hanging wood from which it derives its name, nestles the pretty villa called Brantwood, the residence of the foremost and best of our engravers on wood-W. J. Linton, whose wife, Elizabeth Lynn Linton, is well known as one of the many popular

lady novelists of the present day. It was, some years ago, occupied by Gerald Massey, the peasant or artizan-poet; and before its purchase by Mr. Linton, it was for several years of his boyhood and youth the home of the Rev. Charles Hudson, who, as may be remembered, was one of the victims in the terrible accident that occurred on the Matterhorn in 1865. The Saturday Review, a periodical not much given to amiable comment, called this lamented gentleman, in an article on the catastrophe by which he perished, "the best and bravest "and stoutest of foot of all the Alpine brotherhood." He was one of the founders of the Alpine club, and one of the party of young Englishmen who first ascended Mont Blanc without guides. It is probable that his early rambles over the rugged and steep fells of Coniston created the taste for mountain adventure which his friends (amongst the earliest of whom I feel a sad pleasure in reckoning myself) have had such awful cause to deplore.

The glorious mountain range of Coniston opens here upon the voyager in all its grandeur and sublimity. These noble hills are of no great altitude-their highest point, "the Old "Man," being only 2,655 feet above the sea; and it may be that their advanced and, apparently, detached position gives them an advantage over the neighbouring fells, or that few others are seen from equally favourable points of view, or perhaps that I have had more opportunity of studying, and taken more pains to make myself acquainted with, their beauties, but I certainly believe that the group of mountains, known as the Coniston range, exhibit more of the picturesque than any other within the four seas of Britain. I have attempted to describe them elsewhere and they have been described by many abler hands; it is therefore unnecessary to repeat such description here.

At the apex or bight of a wide bay nearly opposite to Brantwood stands Coniston Hall, the fine old seat of the

Flemings, now of Rydal. It has for many years been converted into a farm-house, but still shews many traces of its former grandeur. An enthusiastic local author and artist, writing half a century ago, says of Coniston Hall :--" It was, "till lately, a splendid ruin, and is yet such when seen from "the south and west, but the view from the north is frightful, "and must affect with mixed feelings of disgust and sorrow

every lover of the picturesque. By way of improvement, "the projecting wings have been severed from the main body "of the building, and without leaving a wreck behind.' All "has, however, been scraped down and smoothed to as even a surface as the rugged nature of the materials would allow, "without going to the expense of mortar and whitewash ;"half way between end and end, has been constructed in an "inclined plane, a cart road from the ground to the huge "doors of a granary, the chambers of this ancient hall being now used as a depository for corn." Shorn of its original fair proportions and reduced from its ancient dignity as Coniston Hall undoubtedly is, there is still much about it to please any admirer of the substantial domestic architecture of the period when fortification had ceased to be a necessity, and convenience had superseded security as the primary consideration in erecting a hall even in the northern counties. The very thickness of the walls-the massive and lofty chimneys now almost buried in ivy-the stairs, each a long square log of solid oak-the garde-robe formed in the thickness of the wall, on a level with the upper floor-its sedicula also a block of native oak, perforated-the flooring and wainscotwork of the banqueting hall, now a barn, or, as Green says, a granary, and the evidences still remaining of its once much greater extent, all and each present something to interest the lover of antiquity, and must convey to every spectator a vivid idea of its early grandeur and importance.

The family, of which this hall was for several centuries the