96 RICHMOND HILL. accustomed exertions, he sunk under a fever fourteen weeks after his enlargement. The expectation of immortality by the Christian covenant, and the remembrance of his conscientious life, enabled him to meet death with complacency. His loss, irreparable to his wife and children, was deeply regretted by all his friends and relatives. "Thomas Wakefield, B. A., the minister of this parish, erects this memorial of his brother's desert and his own affection." I had the pleasure of knowing and esteeming this excellent man. Be these pages sacred to his memory! Richmond Hill is a subject in which prose and poetry have exhausted their energies for its celebra. tion. Indeed the spot is so truly enchanting as almost to set exaggeration at defiance. I shall not attempt the description of it, but content myself with introducing two delineations; the first written upwards of half a century ago; the other of modern date; both of singular beauty: Say, shall we ascend * Highgate and Hampstead. 97 1 RICHMOND HILL. Calmly magnificent: then will we turn To Twit'nam's bowers; to royal HAMPTON's pile; O vale of bliss! O softly swelling hills! And joys to see the wonders of his toil. Heav'ns! what a goodly prospect spreads around THOMSON. Loveliest of HILLS that rise in glory round, The richer landscape's thine, the nobler bower. And 'mid the splendours of an ardent sky With floods of verdant light refresh the eye: RICHMOND! still welcome to my longing sight Of a long race of kings the proud delight! + Petersham Lodge. Ham House. F 98 RICHMOND HILL. Of old the sainted sage thy groves admir'd, MAURICE. The poet is not content with lauding its beauties by a reference to its own history, but ascends still higher and revels in all the profusion of classical mythology:- Not that fam'd mount within whose hallow'd bounds MAURICE. The poet, immediately afterwards, alluding to the several bards who had preceded him in such panegy RICHMOND HILL. 99 rical strains, relative to the merits of this spot and those of the adjoining districts, particularly Denham, Pope, Thomson, Collins and Gray, breaks out into this spirited apostrophe : Rise awful shadows! rise immortal throng! Burst DEATH's dark confines and attest my song; Amid your favour'd haunts the lyre resume, Elegant mansions meet the eye in every direction. It is impossible to pass unnoticed those of the Duke of Clarence, the Duke of Buccleugh, Lady Diana Beauclerk, Earl of Leicester, Sir Lionell Darell, Bart., &c. The lover of the beautiful must, from RICHMOND HILL, possess a high gratification; but should his taste extend to the sublime, he must visit the lakes of Cumberland, or traverse the mountains of the principality of Wales. Indeed, in Transatlantic regions alone is the sublime enjoyed in its highest perfection. The Andes of South, and the Allegany Mountains of North America, excite profound astonishment. Dr. Waterhouse, an American physician, writing to the patriotic Lettsom, thus expresses himself on the subject exploring the interior of the American conti 100 SUBLIMITY OF THOUGHT. nent, he says, "I went nearly three hundred miles from the sea coast, and was about ten weeks travelling what may be called a magnificent country, yet very different, little big men, who inhabit palaces and haunt courts, would consider as worthy of that epithet. I passed one mountain that was twenty-eight miles over; it has four or five towns on it. At its summit, where great Nature dwells in awful solitude, the surrounding prospect was pleasing, far beyond my powers of description. When afterwards I rode along the spacious Hudson, and saw this vast current winding majestically between enormous mountains, with here and there a stupendous cataract, I more clearly comprehended the cause of that elevation of thought manifested by a common soldier in our army during the war. While the army was encamped on the banks of this river a private soldier one day, when off duty, amused himself with climbing one of these huge mountains. When he had reached the pinnacle his mind was so sublimely affected with the amazing height he found himself from the surface of the water, and the vast extent his eye reached, that he stretched forth his right arm and gave the following words of command: Attention the UNIVERSE! By Kingdoms to the right wheel. March!' This anecdote I had from General Lincoln, and serves, I think, to shew that situations affect the human mind more than writers on education are aware of. It is probable that the sons of the mountains conceive sublimer ideas from their habit of looking down on the world.” |