Original Size
If he were not well prepared for its exceeding loveliness beforehand, it must have been to him a surprise as well as a delight. Comparisons are proverbially distasteful, but we can understand, if we can not wholly endorse, the rapturous verdict of John Dennis, who gives it as his opinion that the prospect from Leith Hill “surpasses at once in rural charm, pomp, and magnificence” the view of the Val d’Arno from the Apennines, or of the Campagna from Tivoli.