Page:A tour through the northern counties of England, and the borders of Scotland - Volume I.djvu/257

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Athelwold revenged the perfidy of his favourite, is, as the poet describes it,

" A darkling dell, which opens in a lawn,
" Thick set with elm around,"

and is pointed out by tradition as the scene of the murder in 963.

Yorkshire now began to lose its natural beauties and artificial adornments. We had left the clothing country, and its numerous villages peopled by the happy race of manufacturers, who, remote from the contamination of large towns, pass their hours in industry and innocence, unenslaved by those vices which are too often found to result from the association of numbers in one place. The proudly wooded hills, and broad expanse of fertile vale, had also disappeared; and an uninteresting face of nature introduced itself in the room of these grand and impressive objects.

In the midst of this scenery, Harrogate is situated, eight miles from Leeds; and though this town have divided itself into two parts, the higher and the lower the former seated upon a high flat, the other spread over a bottom yet neither has any claim to the picturesque. A line air, and an extensive view, which commands York Minster, and other objects, at twenty miles distance, may recommend High Harrogate to the visitor; but its