Page:Types of Scenery and Their Influence on Literature.djvu/22

 The scenery of that valley, around Olney and Weston, is thoroughly characteristic of the southern lowlands. The ground lies on limestones and clays, belonging to the Oolitic series, which, though they have been greatly denuded, have yielded in a general equable manner to the progress of decay. They possess no such differences of structure as to allow one part of them to project in crag or scar above the rest. They have been worn down into a gently undulating plateau or plain, covered with corn-fields and pastures, and dotted with occasional woods and 'spinnies,' or patches of trees. Farms and villages diversify the landscape, while to the north lies the forest-like expanse of Yardley Chase. Through this champaign the River Ouse has cut for itself a winding valley, the bottom of which, quite flat and from a few hundred yards to upwards of a mile in breadth, lies rather more than a hundred feet below the general level of the country. Along the flat alluvial plain, the stream, sluggishly flowing among rushes and sedges, curves in circuitous bends, often dividing so as to enclose insular patches of meadow, which it entirely overspreads in times of flood. The slopes rise softly from the river-plain, now projecting now retreating, as the valley winds from side to side. A gentle ascent brings us from the banks of the Ouse up to the highest part of the ground in the vicinity, and places before our eyes a wide sweep of rich agricultural country, with peeps of village spires and gleams of the winding river.

Such were the simple elements of Cowper's landscape. They have no special attraction that is not