Page:The Diary of Dr John William Polidori.djvu/38

26 born on December 10, 1815, and had announced it to his wife, to whom the notion was not agreeable.]

The view from Shooter's Hill was extensive and beautiful, being on a much larger scale than the view from Stirling.

[Polidori mentions Stirling, as being no doubt a reminiscence of his own, from the days when he had been in Edinburgh to take his medical degree.]

The plain, enamelled with various colours according to the different growth of the corn, spread far before our sight, was divided irregularly by the river. The Thames next, with its majestic waves, flowed in the plain below, bearing numerous fleets upon its flood. Its banks in many parts were beautiful. The chalky banks were alternated with the swelling hills, rising from the waves, of the pleasing green-brown, the effect of the first dawn of spring on the vegetable creation.

At Canterbury we saw the Cathedral. I know not how it was, whether my mind had been prepared by the previous sight of glorious nature to receive pleasing impressions, but the spot where the high altar and Thomas à Becket's tomb stood seemed to me one of the most beautiful effects that I had ever seen arising from Saxo-Gothic architecture; for, though it had not all the airiness and awe-inspiring height that I had seen in other cathedrals, yet its