a favourite with the poet, as his verses show.--The steps above, northward, lead to an upward _sloping terrace_, about two hundred and fifty feet long. On the right side it is shaded by laburnums, Portugal laurels, mountain-ash, and fine walnut-trees and cherries; on the left it is flanked by a low stone wall, coped with rude slates, and covered with lichens, mosses, and wild-flowers. The fern waves on the walls, and at its base grows the wild-strawberry and foxglove. Beneath this wall, and parallel to it, on the left, is a _level terrace_, constructed by the poet for a friend most dear to him and his,--who, for the last twenty years of Mr. Wordsworth’s life, was often a visitor at Rydal Mount. The terrace was a favourite resort of the poet, being more easy for pacing to and fro, when old age began to make him feel the acclivity of the other terrace to be toilsome. Both these terraces command beautiful views of the vale of the Rothsay, and the banks of the lake of Windermere.” Then we have a description of Rydal Lake, and of the “long, wooded, and rocky hill of Loughrigg beyond, and above it,” as seen from an orifice on the ascending terrace; of the beautiful sycamore close to the arbour, the fine firs in the foreground, and the dark woods of fir, ash, oak, hazel, holly, and birch, on the right and left; of the “FAR FERRDEL on the mountain’s side,” a little to the right of the “ascending terrace”--which, after a serpentine course of one hundred and fifty feet, terminates at a little gate, close to the “Nab Well,” where the poet was wont to quaff his daily libations. Another walk from the arbour leads to a field, sloping down to the valley, called “Dora’s field,” and on the right is a rude stone, bearing this inscription-- “In these fair vales hath many a tree At Wordsworth’s suit been spared; And from the builder’s hand this stone, For some rude beauty of its own, Was rescued by the bard. So let it rest, and time will come, When here, the tender-hearted, May heave a gentle sigh for him, As one of the departed.” A pond containing gold fish, underneath a large oak, close to the gate which leads to this “Dora’s field,” completes the inventory of the external features of Rydal Mount.