Part 4

By this description, I do not mean the cottage placed by the hand of art, and made merely to suit the situation, but the real residence of humble industry, solely for use, not ornamented, and which time has naturalized to the soil it occupies. This gives it double value; its moss-grown thatch and time-stained walls are both in colour and form in perfect harmony with the objects that surround it, and, the knowledge that it is really the habitation of the peasant, though we see not its inhabitants is congenial with our feelings, and aid the delusions which such scenes impress upon the senses. Connexion of objects which ought to be the prevailing principle in every kind of decoration, is too often the last circumstance that is attended to; by connexion I mean that objects ought to be adapted to the situation they are intended to occupy, both in form and colour; and this principle holds good almost in an equal degree in the internal parts of a house, as in those decorations which are employed about the pleasure grounds.

In painting it is a general rule that no invention, drawing or execution, can make amends for want of harmony; a single predominant colour out of place destroys the effect of a picture. It is the same in a real landscape, any object out of place, or that does not connect with the scene, or even admitting that it is well situated if its construction be disagreeable, or what is worse its colour, it becomes offensive, it fixes the attention to the spot and disgusts in proportion as it has the power of obtruding itself on the view.

The approach from hence to Weybourn, another village upon the sea coast, is highly picturesque. An ancient ruin of part of the monastic church, adjoining the parish church, from its peculiar stile of building may be worth the attention of the curious in the researches of antiquity, though it is capable of affording but little to the sketch book of the artist.

From Weybourn instead of returning to Cromer by the same road, the traveller will keep along the edge of the sea coast, having on his right hand the woods which he had before passed between.

By this route he is carried to Lower Sherringham, where there is a good house of entertainment, with rooms so delightfully situated, that at high water you may actually conceive yourself at sea; indeed, there is scarcely a foot path left between the house and the cliff, and no little care has been taken to exclude it from the rude embrace of that boisterous element.

Hither parties are frequently formed for the purpose of eating lobsters, where they are to be had in the same perfection as at Cromer. A small share of that variety is also furnished for which human nature pants so eagerly.

The beach spreads before its wanderers the same inviting surface and the sea as noble an expanse as at Cromer. Here, too, they may either invoke the Nereides or admire the sublime and splendid beauties of a summer's sun, setting in the ocean, a circumstance which Thompson has noticed with exquisite accuracy and equal elegance.

"Low walks the sun, and broadens by degrees Just o'er the verge of day; the shifting clouds Assembled gay, a richly gorgeous train, In all their pomp attend his setting throne. Air, earth, and ocean, smile immense. And now, As if his weary chariot fought the bowers Of Amphitrite and her tending nymphs; (So Grecian fable sung) he dips his orbs; Now half immersed; and now a golden curve Gives one bright glance, then total disappears."

[Picture: Decorative graphic of a tree and tombstone with Finis on it]

ERRATA. {82}

Page 8 For the autumnal equinox, read _in_ the autumnal, &c. -- 14 For water, read _waters_. -- 29 For obsurity read _obscurity_. -- 37 For massed with age, read _mossed_. -- 38 For in is read in _his_. -- 42 For composes, read _compares_. -- 54 For distance, read _distant_. -- 68 For set of, read set _off_. -- 76 For wildest, largest growth, read _of_ wildest, &c.

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PRINTED BY JOHN PARSLEE, HOLT.

FOOTNOTES.

{9} I wish it was in my power to say, that scenes of this nature always terminated so favourably; but a most fatal instance happened to the contrary at Cromer, in the afternoon of the 2nd of February, 1799. About three o'clock a boat with a number of men was seen making toward the shore--the surf on the beach was dreadful, and it was the general opinion that the boat could not live through it--and it was but too just!--for it no sooner came amongst the breakers than the first sea half filled it, and another quickly following before it could right, it carried the boat, in an instant, with its unfortunate crew, to the bottom. A boat from the shore had before been launched to give them assistance if possible--but it was in vain; the hazard was so imminent that the trial was ineffectual; only two out of twelve souls escaped; the captain and a poor boy--the latter was taken up to all appearance dead and was with great difficulty recovered. These unfortunate men were Danes, their vessel laden with timber had struck upon a sand the night before this melancholy catastrophe, and they had taken to their boat as a desperate resource to save their lives, which were almost exhausted for want of sustenance, not having been able to come at any food from the state of the ship for the two preceding days.

{33} Ruinated structures (says Shenstone) appear to derive their power of pleasing from the irregularity of surface, which is variety, and the latitude they afford the imagination to conceive an enlargement of their dimensions or to recollect any events or circumstances appertaining to their pristine grandeur.

{36} All trees have a character analogous to that of men. Oaks are in all respects the perfect image of the manly character. In former times I should have said, and in present times I think I am authorised to say, the British one, as a brave man, is not suddenly either elated by prosperity or depressed by adversity;--so the oak displays not its verdure on the sun's first approach nor drops it on his first departure. Add to this its majestic appearance, the rough grandeur of its bark and the wide protection of its branches.

A large branching oak is, perhaps, the most venerable of all inanimate objects.

_See Shenstone's Essay on Gardening_.

{41} By this I do not mean to insinuate that Beckham Church Yard has any claim to the honour of having given birth to that beautiful elegy, but to infer that its merits as an elegant ruin, joined to its sequestered solitude, might place it upon the footing of no mean rival to those that have disputed the pre-eminence.

{45} Whoever has seen King's College Chapel or any other building where there is a profusion of painted glass and where the other parts are fitted up with Norway oak, the colour of which is dark brown, must have perceived a visible effect produced by the solemnity of its appearance. In all churches having any claim to antiquity the light appears to have been sparingly introduced, and to me it has always a very pleasing effect.

{52} An accident in painting is an obstruction of the sun's light by the interposition of clouds in such a manner that some part of the earth shall be in light, and others in shade, which, according to the motion of the clouds, succeed each other, and produce such wonderful effects and changes of the claro-obscuro as seem to create so many new situations.

This is daily observed in nature and as this newness of situations is grounded only on the shapes of the clouds, and their motions, which are very inconstant and unequal, if follows, that these accidents are arbitrary; and a painter of genius may dispose of them to his own advantage when he thinks fit to use them.

_See Mons. du Piles_.

{82} The errata has been applied to this eBook.--DP.