Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1838 edition. Excerpt: ... LETTERS TO FRIENDS. I. From 1823 To 1827. I. (y. 1.) 1823.--I will pledge my own peculiar veracity to the following statement: --The situation is, I am confident, and on this matter experience has peculiarly qualified me to judge, far the most beautiful place in the world, the focus of irradiated perfection, the favoured haunt of romance and sentiment, the very place which, if you recollect the circumstance, you taxed me with a disposition to romanticity iox encomiazing, when I informed you, that I had destined it for my Kpwtpvytrov, where unmolested " flumina amem silvasque inglorius." The parsonage is situated in a steep and narrowish glen, which intersects a long line of coppice that overhangs the Dart for the length of nearly a mile, and rises almost perpendicularly out of the river to the height of about 200 feet. The stream there is still, clear, and very deep; on the opposite side is Dartington, and a line of narrow, long, flat meadows, interspersed with large oak and ash trees, forms the bank of the river. The steep woods on the Little Hempston side are in the form of a concave crescent (thereby agreeing with Buckland). From the parsonage to the river is a steep descent through a small orchard; at the bottom of which, on turning the corner which the glen aforesaid makes on its north side with the course of the stream, you come at once on a sort of excavation, of about half an acre, which, terminated by an overhanging rock, forms a break in the line of coppice aforesaid. In this said rock young M. found the hawks' nests. I think they build there every year. On the opposite side, i. e. the Dartington side, is what was formerly a little island, but now no longer - claims that proud title, in the oaks of which I am in hopes we shall...
