All this seems a very imperfect picture indeed, or panorama of Windermere, from the hill behind the school-house in the village of Bowness. So, to put a stop to such nonsense, let us descend to the White Lion--and inquire about Billy Balmer. Honest Billy has arrived from Waterhead--seems tolerably steady--Mr Ullock's boats may be trusted--so let us take a voyage of discovery on the lake. Let those who have reason to think that they have been born to die a different death from drowning, hoist a sail. We to-day shall feather an oar. Billy takes the stroke--Mr William Garnet's at the helm--and "row, vassals, row, for the pride of the Lowlands," is the choral song that accompanies the Naiad out of the bay, and round the north end of the Isle called Beautiful, under the wave-darkening umbrage of that ancient oak. And now we are in the lovely straits between that Island and the mainland of Furness Fells. The village has disappeared, but not melted away; for hark! the Church-tower tolls ten--and see the sun is high in heaven. High, but not hot--for the first September frosts chilled the rosy fingers of the morn as she bathed them in the dews, and the air is cool as a cucumber. Cool but bland--and as clear and transparent as a fine eye lighted up by a good conscience. There were breezes in Bowness Bay--but here there are none--or, if there be, they but whisper aloft in the tree-tops, and ruffle not the water, which is calm as Louisa's breast. The small isles here are but few in number--yet the best arithmetician of the party cannot count them--in confusion so rich and rare do they blend their shadows with those of the groves on the Isle called Beautiful, and on the Furness Fells. A tide imperceptible to the eye drifts us on among and above those beautiful reflections--that downward world of hanging dreams! and ever and anon we beckon unto Billy gently to dip his oar, that we may see a world destroyed and recreated in one moment of time. Yes, Billy! thou art a poet--and canst work more wonders with thine oar than could he with his pen who painted "heavenly Una with her milk-white lamb," wandering by herself in Fairyland. How is it, pray, that our souls are satiated with such beauty as this? Is it because 'tis unsubstantial all--senseless, though fair--and in its evanescence unsuited to the sympathies that yearn for the permanencies of breathing life? Dreams are delightful only as delusions within the delusion of this our mortal waking existence--one touch of what we call reality dissolves them all; blissful though they may have been, we care not when the bubble bursts--nay, we are glad again to return to our own natural world, care-haunted though in its happiest moods it be--glad as if we had escaped from glamoury; and, oh! beyond expression sweet it is once more to drink the light of living eyes--the music of living lips--after that preternatural hush that steeps the shadowy realms of the imagination, whether stretching along a sunset-heaven or the mystical imagery of earth and sky floating in the lustre of lake or sea.