Were I asked to exemplify my ideas of rural, animated, cheering landscape, I should say—“My friend, travel!—visit that narrow region which we call the _Golden Belt of Ireland_;[26] explore every mile from the metropolis to the ‘meeting of the waters:’ journey which side you please, you will find the native myrtle and indigenous arbutus glowing throughout the severest winter, and forming the cottage fences, together with the waving cypress and the sweet acacia.”
That lovely district extends about thirty miles in length, and from four to seven in breadth: it commences near Dublin, and ends at a short distance beyond Avondale: the soil is generally a warm gravel, with verdant valleys, bounded by mountains arable to their summits on one side, and by the sea upon the other. The gold mine is on a frontier of this district; and it is perhaps the most congenial to the growth of trees and shrubs of any spot in the British dominions.
The scenery of Wicklow is doubtless on a minor scale, quite unable to compete with the grandeur and immensity of continental landscape; even to our own Killarney it is not comparable; but it possesses a genial glowing luxury, a contrast and a variety, whereof more elevated _extensive_ scenery is often destitute. It is small, but it is in the world: its beauties seem _alive_. It blooms: it blossoms: the mellow climate extracts from every shrub a tribute of its fragrance; and the atmosphere, saturated with the perfumes of nature, creates that delicious medium through which refreshing showers descend to brighten the hue and revive the odour of the lively evergreen!
I frankly admit myself an enthusiast as to that lovely district. In truth, I fear I should have been enthusiastic on many points, had not _law_, the most powerful antidote to all refined enthusiasm, interposed to check its growth.
The site of my sylvan residence, Drummon, was nearly in the centre of the Golden Belt, about fifteen miles from the capital;—but owing to the varied nature of the country, it appeared far more distant. Bounded by the beautiful glen of the Downs, at the foot of the magnificent Bellevue, and the more distant sugar-loaf mountain of the Dargle, Tynnehinch, (where is seated that cottage celebrated for its unrivalled scenery, and honoured by the residence of Ireland’s first patriot,) the dark deep glen, the black lake, and mystic vale and rocks of Luggelough, (that nursery of eagles and of falcons,) contrasted quite magically with the highly cultivated beauties of Drummon: (the parks, and wilds, and sublime cascade of Powerscourt, and the newly-created magnificence of Mount Kennedy, abundantly prove that perfection itself may exist in contrasts:) in fine, I found myself enveloped by the hundred beauties of that enchanting district, which, though of one family, were rendered yet more attractive by the variety of their features; and had I not been tied to laborious duties, I should infallibly have sought refuge there altogether from the cares of the world.