The Vale of Keswick and Lake of Derwentwater, in Cumberland, are thought by those who have been there to be the finest point of view in England, and extremely beautiful they are, far more so than Dr. Dalton has been able to make them appear in his descriptive poem; or than the Doctor’s brother, Mr. Dalton, has painted them in his fine drawings; and yet they are inferior in charms to the vale, the lake, the brooks, the shaded sides of the surrounding mountains, and the tuneful falls of water to which we came in Westmoreland. In all the world, I believe, there is not a more glorious scene to be seen in the fine time of the year (Vol. III, p. 93). And, again, “Westmoreland is the most beautiful and romantic solitude in the world” (Vol. III, p. 151). The first volume of Amory’s book appeared in 1756. The other volumes, written at intervals thereafter, were published in 1766. The best passages are in the third volume, but at the latest they must have been written three years before Gray made his tour to the lakes. It would be interesting to know whether Gray had read “John Buncle,” as Amory had Dalton’s poem. At any rate Amory’s novel shows how early the Lake District was visited by lovers of the beautiful, for he not only describes it himself, but he speaks as if there were already a good deal of discussion as to the rival charms of Keswick and Westmoreland. In “Rasselas” (Dr. Johnson, 1759) the scenery of the Happy Valley is briefly described. Since it was a spot where “all the diversities of the world were brought together, the blessings of nature were collected, and its evils were extracted and excluded,” it would be in vain to look for first-hand description. We have merely an impossible combination of millennial details. After leaving the Happy Valley Imlac wanders through the world, but his only impression from Nature is a feeling of repulsion at the “barren uniformity” of the ocean. When he tried to be a poet he did, to be sure, turn to Nature. He “ranged mountains and deserts for images and similitudes” in true classical style. He studied trees and flowers, he wandered along rivulets, and sometimes he watched the clouds, for “to a poet nothing can be useless.” Dr. Johnson’s use of Nature in “Rasselas” is tasteless and insipid. Sterne’s one allusion to Nature in “Tristram Shandy” (1759–67) is too characteristic to be omitted. It occurs in the description of a journey.