You leave the spot where “three fair counties meet together,” and topping the aforesaid short ascent, soon begin to descend, and as you descend, do not attempt to shew your learning by quoting Virgil, and calling this “_facilis descensus Averni_,” for it is a most _infacile_ and _innerman-jumbling_ “_descensus_” into a very different place—a vale destined through future ages to hold a proud rank amongst the thousand be-rhymed and be-sonneted localities of ancient and modern poets, such as “The Plains of Troy, of which blind Homer sang,” “Parnassus' hill where wells fair Castaly,” “The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece, where burning Sappho loved and sung,” “The soft flowing Avon,” “The wide and winding Rhine,” “The Banks o’ Doon,” “The Groves of Blarney,” &c., &c., &c.—for it is the subject of a rosary of sonnets by our great moral poet, of higher celebrity than any given to the world since the days of Petrarch, and I hope that neither Mr Wordsworth nor you will think that I exceed my commission by quoting here the two first of the series of “Sonnets on the River Duddon.”— [Sidenote: “SORDID INDUSTRY.”] I. Not envying Latian shades—if yet they throw A grateful coolness round that crystal spring, Blandusia prattling as when long ago The Sabine Bard was moved her praise to sing; Careless of flowers that in perennial blow Round the moist marge of Persian fountains cling; Heedless of Alpine torrents thundering Through ice-built arches radiant as Heaven’s bow; I seek the birth-place of a native stream. All hail! ye mountains! hail thou morning light! Better to breathe at large on this clear height Than toil in needless sleep from dream to dream: Pure flow the verse, pure, vigorous, free, and bright, For Duddon, long-loved Duddon, is my theme! II. Child of the clouds! remote from every taint Of sordid industry thy lot is cast; Thine are the honours of the lofty waste; Not seldom, when with heat the valleys faint, Thy handmaid Frost with spangled tissue quaint Thy cradle decks;—to chant thy birth, thou hast No meaner Poet than the whistling blast, And desolation is thy Patron-Saint!— She guards thee, ruthless Power! who would not spare Those mighty forests, once the bison’s screen, Where stalked the huge deer to his shaggy lair Through paths and alleys roofed with sombre green; Thousands of years before the silent air Was pierced by whizzing shaft of hunter keen!