Page:A tour through the northern counties of England, and the borders of Scotland - Volume I.djvu/292

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[280]

them of the superiority of the natural style of gardening over the meretricious system, which in his days it was the fashion to adopt.

On quitting Hackfall, we could not but wonder and regret, that there is no house upon or near its delicious grounds; that its beauties are seen by the eye, and walks trodden by the feet, of the stranger alone.

A cross stony road led us through Masham to Bedale, eleven miles from Hackfall; on our way to which place, about four miles to the south of it, we took from an eminence a final view of that glorious part of Yorkshire over which our route had conducted us. Sorry as we were to bid a final adieu to it, we could not but allow that it made all the amends possible for its desertion, by throwing at once before our eyes such a boundless sheet of hill and dale, wood and rock, meadows and fields, houses, villages, and towns, as equally baffles the painter's pencil to delineate, or the tourist's pen to describe.

Your's, &c.

R. W.