Page:A Companion and Useful Guide to the Beauties of Scotland.djvu/39

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THE LAKES.
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worth the fatigue of obtaining it, even in a clear day. On the summit of Skiddaw, to which travellers climb, is a long and broad bed of very large loose pieces of slate. Upon each of the points on this summit of Skiddaw is a huge heap of these slate flakes; one heap is called My Lord, the other My Lady. A dreamer of dreams, not many years since, dreamed that a great treasure was hid under My Lord; the man secretly mounted Skiddaw, removed the slate heap piece by piece; but whether a treasure rewarded him for his labour I never could learn.

Mr. Pocklington has a house well situated on the side of Derwent Water, near Lodore Fall, and he has a very pretty fall of a beck (that is, a small stream) through the wood behind his house; but were I a nymph of Derwent Water, I should, like Niöbe, weep myself to a statue, for the injury committed on taste and nature, by the other erections of that gentleman on one of the islands, and on the banks of this charming lake; for, alas! Mr. Pocklington's slime[1] may be traced in every

  1. "A gentleman, whose taste stands as high as any man's, observed and lamented the extent of Mr.———'s operations. Formerly, said he, improvers, at least, kept near the house, but this fellow crawls like a snail all over the