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 THE LIFE OF 
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
 
 THE 
 
 LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM KNIGHT, LL.D., 
 
 PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOI'HY, ST ANDREWS. 
 
 VOLUME l-'IRST 
 
 EDINBURGH : 
 WILLIAM PATERSON 
 
 MDCCCLXXXIX.
 
 /^ UUKAHY 
 
 S^^ I IIMVERSITV OF CAL 
 
 ^r- SAiNTA liAUUAJ 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 No reader of this Life of Wordsworth can regret, so 
 much as the author does, the long delay that has 
 occurred in its publication. Although the first of the 
 three volumes has been printed for more than a year, 
 the issue of the work has been postponed from causes 
 too numerous to mention. When the edition of the 
 Works of Wordsworth — to which this Life was to be an 
 appendix — was projected, eight years ago, the first idea was 
 that a single volume would suffice, both for a Biography 
 of the poet, and for a critical Essay upon him. As soon 
 as the work of research began, however, so much new 
 material accumulated from many sources, that it was 
 judged expedient, not only to extend the Biography from 
 one volume to two, and ultimately to three, but to ex- 
 clude the critical Essay, reserving it for a future occasion, 
 and a different purpose. 
 
 It can be of little consequence to any who read these 
 volumes, to know what the writer thinks of Wordsworth, 
 of his place as a poet in the great hierarchy of genius, 
 and of his function as a teacher of mankind ; but it matters 
 a great deal that they should liave authentic information as 
 to the manner of man Wordsworth was — as to what he 
 thought and said and did — and that they should know the 
 relations he sustained toward the more distinguished of his 
 contemporaries. 
 
 The hitherto unpublished material which the volumes 
 contain far exceeds, in value and importance, what has been 
 added to them from the miscellaneous sources of informa-
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 tion, open to all students of English Literature. The 
 solitary canto of the projected Recluse — already published 
 by itself, but which was intended to appear first in this 
 work — the fragments of Michael, the poem on Nab Well 
 (originally designed as a portion of TJic Ecclusc), and many 
 nufjcc which the lovers of the poet will not willingly let die ; 
 the Alfoxden, the Hamburg, and above all the Grasmere 
 Journal of Wordsworth's sister ; the two records of the Con- 
 tinental Tour of 1820, written by Dorothy, and by Mrs 
 Wordsworth respectively ; the Journals of other Tours in 
 Scotland, in tlie Isle of Man, and on the Continent, written 
 by the sister and the daughter of the poet; numerous letters 
 of Wordsworth, to his wife and his sister, to Coleridge, 
 Southey and Sir Walter Scott, to Landor and Talfourd, 
 to Mrs Barrett Browning, to Richard Sharp and Barron 
 Field and John Kenyon, to Scott (the editor of The 
 Champion), to Lord Lonsdale and Viscount Lowther, to 
 Henry Crabb Robinson, to Professor Reed of Philadelphia, 
 and to the poet's publisher, Moxon ; letters also from 
 Dorothy AVordsworth to Miss Pollard, afterwards Mrs 
 Marshall, and to Crabb Robinson ; with others from Mrs 
 Clarkson, and Mrs Arnold — all these are published for the 
 first time. In addition, there are many letters from 
 Wordsworth's correspondents on the question of copyright, 
 — including Mr Gladstone, Sergeant Talfourd, and Lord 
 Houghton, — and some extracts containing notices of the 
 poet, and facts regarding him, from books written by 
 contemporaries now almost forgotten. 
 
 It is absurd at any time, and now-a-days it would 
 be ludicrous, for a biographer to assume the role of 
 eulogist. To be blind to the weaknesses of a great man is 
 itself a weakness. To enlarge upon them is both foolish 
 and useless ; but to conceal them is to be unfaithful to 
 posterity. There is this advantage however in writing the
 
 PREFACE. Vll 
 
 life of one who has been dead for well-nigh half a century, 
 that there need be less scruple in mentioning character- 
 istics which must also rank as weaknesses, allusion to 
 which would have given pain to survivors, had it been 
 made a generation earlier. There would have been some 
 difficulty, for example, in printing those reminiscences of 
 the Westmoreland peasantry, which Mr Rawnsley has 
 brought together, immediately after the poet's death. The 
 same remark applies to some of the jottings in Henry 
 Crabb Eobinson's Diary, and in Barron Field's memoranda. 
 
 Both the Diary and the Eeminiscences of Robinson 
 are full, not only of his own literary judgments on the 
 questions of the day — which were often as acute as 
 his appreciation was catholic — but also of the opinions 
 of the most eminent of his contemporaries ; and they 
 contain some of the best critical estimates of Words- 
 worth's poems, as they successively appeared. Through 
 the kindness of the Trustees of the Williams Library, I 
 have had access to the rich storehouse of materials which 
 exists in the Crabb Robinson MSS., and have made many 
 extracts from it. 
 
 The poets and men of letters who belonged to the earlier 
 years of the nineteenth century — that second spring-time 
 in the literature of England — are so closely associated 
 with each other, that it is impossible altogether to separate 
 their works. To form an adequate estimate of one, we 
 must take account of all the others. This is especially the 
 case with Wordsworth and Coleridge — the two poets who 
 may be said, without disparagement of the rest, to have been 
 the leaders of the whole movement. I have therefore to 
 refer frequently, not only to Coleridge, but also to Southey, 
 Lamb, Scott, Landor, and many others ; and it will be seen 
 that a noteworthy feature in Wordsworth's character was 
 his appreciation of his contemporaries.
 
 VI 11 PREFACE. 
 
 Tliis has often been denied to him. It used to be said that, 
 in his okl age, lie cared only for his own poems. A more 
 baseless calumny has seldom been uttered. Superabundant 
 evidence of the opposite will be found in these volumes. It 
 is true that he gave no poet a place among great writers, 
 unless he was a Teacher as well as an author of verses, and 
 unless the outcome of his teaching was to ennoble character. 
 r>ut in Wordsworth there was the total absence of what has 
 l)een said to be a prevailing weakness of literary men — 
 although I suspect not specially confined to them — viz., 
 jealousy of others. Not a trace of envy toward contem- 
 poraries was ever seen in him. On the contrary, the gener- 
 osity of his appreciation was conspicuous ; and, although 
 he withdrew from the men who misconstrued and critically 
 assailed him, he never quarrelled with them. As will be 
 seen in these pages, his relationship to the dearest of his 
 early friends — the one man with whom his name will be for 
 ever associated in literature — was for a time overshadowed 
 by a cloud, and somewhat severely strained ; but Words- 
 worth bore with Coleridge's increasing weakness, with real 
 magnanimity. He believed in him, as a friend and a poet, 
 and felt the marvellous charm and fascination of his genius 
 to the very last. Of Landor and Leigh Hunt, of Montagu, De 
 Quincey, and Hazlitt, Wordsworth sometimes spoke forcibly 
 enough ; and it was not his habit to extenuate faults, or 
 to take a rose-water view of a defect in character; but 
 he was never censorious, and he did not make enemies. 
 
 I have purposely recorded some of his adverse judg- 
 ments, because they exhibit him in the capacity of moral 
 analyst, but there was no bitterness in the severest of them. 
 To refer to a single instance. He spoke unfavourably 
 of Sir Walter Scott as a poet, simply because he con- 
 sidered that novels in verse — rhymed romances, or metri- 
 cal tales — however admirable, were not poems, in his
 
 PREFACE. IX 
 
 sense of the term. He never concealed his opinion that 
 
 amongst 
 
 The stars pre-eminent in magnitude, 
 
 And they that from the zenith dart their beams, 
 
 Scott had no place ; " for," he once said, " he has never in 
 verse written anything addressed to the immortal part of 
 man." But where is there a nobler tribute to genius than 
 is to be found in the Abbotsford sonnet, composed before 
 Scott's departure to Naples ? 
 
 The might 
 Of the whole world's good wishes with him goes ; 
 Blessings and prayers, in nobler retinue 
 Than sceptred king or laurelled conqueror knows, 
 Follow this wondrous Potentate. 
 
 A distinguished critic of our time once referred me to 
 Wordsworth's letter to Scott on the publication of Marmion, 
 which he characterised as " one of the most consummate speci- 
 mens of frog-to-bull impertinence in the annals of literature." 
 On receipt of his letter I turned, with some impatience 
 as well as curiosity, to Wordsworth's letter to Scott ; and I 
 found simply this, " Thank you for Marmion. I think your 
 end has been attained. That it is not the end which I 
 should wish you to propose to yourself, you will be well 
 aware, from what you know of my notions of composition, 
 both as to matter and manner. In the circle of my acquain- 
 tance it seems as well liked as the Lay, though I have heard 
 that in the world it is not so." The whole point of Words- 
 worth's criticism was that he would have preferred ;the 
 subject treated, not so much from the objective, or Homeric 
 point of view. He would have wished it handled, as he 
 had himself attempted to deal with a story of the past, in his 
 White Doc of Rylstone. Wordsworth's appreciation of Scott 
 was genuine from first to last. 
 
 Toward Hazlitt and De Quincey his feelings gradually
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 cooled. If anyone should blame him for that coolness, 
 future biographers may mention facts which explain and 
 justify it. 
 
 Although the subject is referred to in the introductory 
 cliapter to the first of these volumes — written some years 
 ago — I add a paragi\aph on the end which the biography of 
 a great man may serve, when it is intentionally a store- 
 house of facts and not a critical memoir. It may be 
 called a quarry, rather than a building ; but of what 
 use are our best criticisms, in comparison with an accurate 
 record of what is known regarding those who ' have 
 been the chief teachers of mankind ? The commentary 
 of the biographer is speedily forgotten ; but, while our esti- 
 mates pass away, the lives of the great remain, and remain 
 to teach posterity. It appears to me that to add a running 
 commentary on each incident recorded, instead of letting the 
 incident speak for itself, lessens its influence instead of in- 
 creasing it. The world is doubtless taught by the mature 
 judgments of its great critics, as well as by the works of its 
 chief thinkers and poets ; and to be a just appraiser of 
 new literary products is a noble function. It is a func- 
 tion however which appeals to the few, rather than to 
 the many ; and what the many mostly need is tlie careful 
 collection of all relevant data regarding the chief teachers 
 of the world, the publication of what is helpful to the under- 
 standing of these teachers, and the suppression of all that is 
 irrelevant. 
 
 One reason why extended critical commentary on Words- 
 worth is less necessary than in the case of other poets is 
 what may be called the homeliness of his genius, notwith- 
 standing its depth. He had a profound grasp of the deep 
 things of life and of the universe ; but he was more homely 
 than any of his contemporaries, not only in manner — his 
 rustic air — but in the type of his genius. " His verses," as
 
 PREFACE. XI 
 
 an American author wrote to me, " bring all that is necessary 
 for their own understanding ; and the best advice that we 
 can give to his readers is to treat him like their own hearts, 
 to commune with him, and be still." It is for this reason 
 that I let Wordsworth — and his sister, wife, and daughter, 
 as well as his numerous friends and correspondents — tell 
 the story of his life whenever it is possible. 
 
 Perhaps the best preparation for the study of "Wordsworth 
 is the " wise passiveness " of which he speaks so often — the 
 heart " at leisure from itself." Coleridge once said, " Poetry 
 knocks at the door ; if there is no one at home, it goes 
 straight away ; " and Goethe 
 
 Wer den Dichter will verstehen 
 Muss in Dichter Lands gelien. 
 
 If the entrance is sympathetic, there is little need for 
 criticism. 
 
 These volumes then being for the most part a collection 
 of facts, whenever the authority for those which are new, 
 (and cannot be found elsewhere in published works), is not 
 mentioned in the footnotes, they are invariably given on 
 the authority of letters or documents to which I have had 
 access, but with the statement of which I have not thought 
 it desirable to encumber the pages. I may add that 
 in this, as in most biographies, a mass of detail, interesting 
 enough to specialists — and which would, in all probability, 
 had it been expedient to continue the Wordsworth Society 
 for a longer time, have found a place in its Transactions — 
 is omitted from the Life. It is to be noted that while 
 Wordsworth detested letter-writing, and wrote as little 
 as he could, a great deal of his correspondence survives ; 
 nearly thrice as much as is published in these volumes. 
 It might have been desirable in all cases, perhaps, to have 
 indicated where the letters are now preserved. This has 
 been occasionally, but not always, mentioned.
 
 Xll PREFACE. 
 
 One result of delay in the issue of a Biography, the 
 materials for which accumulate slowly, is that new facts 
 are sure to be discovered, as fresh sources of information 
 open up, which must modify judgments already come 
 to, and which in some instances may affect statements 
 previously made. This is doubtless both an advantage 
 and a disadvantage. There is no such thing as a Biography 
 that could not have been improved by keeping, as there is 
 no single instance of an immaculate literary text. Every 
 author finds that his work could be improved as soon as 
 it leaves his hands. With this he lays his account before- 
 hand, but it is very mortifying in the course of the 
 passage of a book through the press, to discover new facts 
 which completely alter what has been already said. The 
 most important fact of this kind that I have to record is, 
 that long after the first volume was printed off, I discovered 
 a serious mistake, in which I had followed tradition, and 
 described Mrs Wordsworth as the poet's cousin. This 
 I mention at p. 335 of volume one. It was not till I had 
 the opportunity of examining the series of letters addressed 
 by Wordswortli to ^Ir Moxon, that I found out my mistake. 
 (See vol. III. p. 374.) Mr Hutchinson of Kimbolton, Mrs 
 Wordsworth's nephew, wrote to me lately, assuring me that 
 there was no truth in the tradition ; and as I write I 
 receive the following from Mr Gordon Wordsworth, the 
 poet's grandson. 
 
 " The Stepping Stones, January 22, 1889, 
 " I think I have solved the gi'and-parental cousinship 
 question. My gi-andmother left some memoranda as to her 
 family, which have enabled me to draw up a pedigree of 
 them, for four generations back from herself, so complete 
 that I do not think any connecting link can have escaped 
 me. Throughout the eighteenth century, her ancestors were
 
 PREFACE. Xlll 
 
 confined to Cumberland and Durham, and are unlikely 
 to have married anyone from South Yorkshire before 
 that; and they certainly did not after my great-great- 
 grandfather came into Cumberland. The story arose in 
 this way. My grandfather's uncle, Dr Cookson of 
 Windsor, married a daughter of my grandmother's great 
 aunt, which would enable someone to say that the families 
 were already connected. Hence the myth. . . . One of my 
 grandmother's few recollections of her mother is her weep- 
 ing on her return from the funeral of the poet's mother." 
 
 Two other things may be mentioned before I acknowledge 
 my debt to those who have helped me in this work. I have 
 elsewhere spoken of Wordsworth's profound appreciation of 
 the results of Science, and his grasp of its principles. An- 
 other important point is his insight into the great Questions 
 of the Ages, those ultimate philosophical problems, which 
 he never handled speculatively, but of which he had his 
 own intuitive solution, a solution that was at once luminous 
 and vital. A second feature of exceeding interest is the 
 way in which a profoundly liberal instinct, and a genuine 
 conservative tendency were so balanced in him, as to raise 
 him, in all his deeper teachings, above party. He had un- 
 bounded reverence for the past. That reverence, however, 
 was consistent with antagonism to much that we inherit 
 from it. He was conservative in the bent of his mind, and 
 his habitual attitude toward the past ; but he was liberal in 
 his revolt from its thraldom, its mannerism, and artificiality. 
 He felt, as few have done, that the conservative instinct of 
 Human Nature keeps it from disintegration and collapse ; 
 while its liberal instinct keeps it from stagnation, and 
 leads to forward movements and new developments. Tlie 
 radicalism of his youth came out nowhere so explicitly as 
 in his letter to the Bishop of Landaff, written shortly after 
 he had left the University. The common opinion, however.
 
 XIV PREFACE. 
 
 is that Wordsworth soon afterwards became a conservative 
 of the most rigid type, and that he remained one to the 
 close of his life. It is true that politically he was a con- 
 servative, and his dread of the overthrow of our Institutions 
 produced in him an unreasoning horror of Eeform. His 
 dislike to change deepened, with the deepening of his love 
 for our great inheritances, in Church and State. Sara 
 Coleridge writes of a visit he paid to her father at Hamp- 
 stead in 1834. "How well do I remember Mr Words- 
 worth, with one leg upon the stair, delaying his ascent, till 
 he had uttered, with an emphasis which seemed to proceed 
 from the very profoundest recesses of his soul, ' I would lay 
 down my life for the Church.* " * An anecdote, however, 
 for which I am indebted to Lord Coleridge, shews the 
 other side of the picture, and proves that while in party 
 politics he was conservative, Wordsworth remained liberal 
 in heart to the very end of his life. 
 
 The story refers to his later years. The father of the 
 present Cliief-Justice, while a judge in the Northern Circuit, 
 spent some time at Ambleside ; and calling at Eydal Moimt, 
 Wordsworth proposed that he should accompany him on 
 a visit to Lord Lonsdale. He did so. They drove by 
 Kirkston Pass, with the ladies of the household ; and after 
 descending at Ullswater the poet proposed that Mr Coleridge 
 and he should leave the carriage, and walk the remainder 
 of the way through the woods to Lowther. Soon after they 
 started on their walk they left the highway, and proceeded 
 across a field by a disused track, towards a blank wall at 
 the opposite side. Seeing there was no gate in view, and 
 no apparent stile to cross, Mr Coleridge asked if they were 
 on the right path, " Yes," said Wordsworth, " you will soon 
 see ; " and approaching the loosely built wall, put his foot 
 
 * See Memoir and Letters of Sara Coleridge, vol. i. p. 107.
 
 PKEFACE. XV 
 
 against it, and made a breach sufficient to let them pass on 
 their way. Wordsworth then resumed, " There used to 
 be a right-of-way for the people here, time out of mind ; 
 
 but the land has been recently bought by Lord , 
 
 and he has closed this ancient footpath against the 
 people. I am determined, however, to have it kept 
 open, so far as I am able ; and I will walk no other way to 
 Lowther. I wouldn't be surprised, now, if we met Lord 
 
 to-night at the Castle, and if so, I shall probably let 
 
 him know what I think of his action." And so it was. 
 After dinner the new proprietor, who had shut up the foot- 
 path, referred at considerable length to the Eadicals, who 
 broke down his walls, and entered his grounds without per- 
 mission. Wordsworth listened for some time, and then risino- 
 
 said, " Yes, Lord , I am the person who broke down 
 
 your wall, and I shall do it again ; for there is an ancient 
 right-of-way through that field, a right of the people, and I 
 am determined to maintain it. You bought your property 
 with that right attached to it, and. Conservative as I am, 
 scratch me thus, and you'll find the Eadical underneath." 
 
 We may connect with this anecdote, what Wordsworth 
 once said to Henry Crabb Robinson, " I have no respect 
 whatever for the Whigs, but I have a great deal of the 
 Chartist in me." 
 
 Wordsworth had a genuine and clear insight into the 
 principles and rights that underlie all change ; and though 
 he deprecated innovation, and strangely saw destruction in 
 every departure from established usage, his poetic teaching 
 is no more conservative than it is liberal, because it is both 
 the one and the other, and fits equally well into a new order 
 of things as into the old. It is my strong conviction that 
 what Matthew Arnold so happily called the " healing power " 
 of Wordsworth — his tranquillising and restorative power — 
 may be as profoundly felt by the masses, and by the most
 
 xvj PREFACE. 
 
 advanced radicals (when they come to know it), as by the 
 most conservative minds amongst us. 
 
 My indebtedness to those who have helped me in this 
 Biogi-aphy is almost too gi-eat to be mentioned in detail, 
 and it extends to many who can no longer be thanked in 
 person. 
 
 First of all, I must thank the representatives of the 
 Wordsworth family. To the great kindness of the late 
 William Wordsworth, the poet's son — of Willow Bank, 
 Kton, when I first knew him, and afterwards of the Stepping 
 Stones, Ambleside — and of his wife, the late Mrs William 
 Wordsworth, in placing at my disposal the Journals, the 
 MSS. of the Poems, and the Letters, in the rich collection at 
 the Stepping Stones, I owe more than to anything else in 
 the preparation of this Life. To their son, Mr Gordon 
 Wordsworth, I have a similar debt of friendship to acknow- 
 ledge, for his sending me, and kindly allowing me to publish, 
 so many letters and memoranda regarding his grandfather. 
 From the late Bishop of Lincoln, the nephew and biographer 
 of the poet, I learned many things about Wordsworth, and 
 received a generous permission to make free use of the 
 materials he had collected, both those incorporated in the 
 Memoirs, and others which he supplied to me. To the 
 Bishop of St Andrews my thanks are also due for much 
 information regarding his uncle. 
 
 By the late Dr Cradock, the Principal of Brasenose 
 College, Oxford, I was informed of many facts, and directed 
 to several sources of information. During walks and visits 
 with him in the Lake Country, I learned more of the local 
 iillusi(ins which the poems contain than from any one else. 
 To Miss Quillinan at Loughrigg Holme, to Miss Arnold at 
 Foxhowe, and to the late Matthew Arnold I acknowledge 
 obligations manifold. Miss Quillinan supplied me with the
 
 PREFACE. xvu 
 
 original MS. of the Fen wick notes to the poems, and with 
 other memoranda. The late Lady Richardson of Lancrigg 
 gave me many personal reminiscences of the poet, and Mrs 
 Stanger of Fieldside, Keswick, has done the same. To Sir 
 George and Lady Beaumont of Coleorton, Leicestershire, I am 
 indebted for access to all the letters from Wordsworth, his 
 wife and sister, to their ancestors — the Beaumonts with whose 
 names those of Coleridge, Southey, Scott, and many others as 
 well as the Wordsworths, are associated. Mention should also 
 be made of the kindness of the Rev. W. Beaumont, at the Rec- 
 tory, Coleorton. To Mr Ernest Coleridge — to whose biography 
 of S. T. C. the lovers of English Literature are looking for- 
 ward with rare expectancy — I am deeply grateful for permis- 
 sion to use the letters of his grandfather to Wordsworth ;* to 
 the late Rev. Cuthbert Southey for liberty to make use of 
 any letters of his father that it might seem desirable to 
 publish ; to the Hon. Mrs Maxwell Scott for a similar per- 
 mission to examine and use the unpublished letters of 
 Wordsworth to Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford ; and to 
 Mrs Sandford, Chester, and the Bishop of Gibraltar for the 
 use of those written to Thomas Poole of Nether Stowey. 
 
 To Mr Locker-Lampson I am obliged for permission to 
 copy his large collection of one hundred and thirty-six 
 letters by Wordsworth to Mr Moxon. I have further to 
 express my cordial tlianks for access to the still larger store 
 of letters now at Lowther Castle, addressed by Wordsworth to 
 the late Lord Lonsdale, and to Viscount Lowther. Mr Mor- 
 rison of Eonthill has also allowed me to copy several in his 
 remarkable collection of autographs. 
 
 To Lord Coleridge I am indebted for letters from Words- 
 worth to his father, Mr Justice Coleridge, for access to the 
 
 * Many of Wordsworth's letters will appear for the first time in the 
 forthcoming Biography of Coleridge. 
 
 I. h
 
 XVlll PREFACE, 
 
 most valuable copy of the 1836 edition of Wordsworth's 
 poems which exists — it being full of annotations, corrections, 
 and various readings, made by the poet's own hand — for some 
 unpublished fragments of verse, and for much general infor- 
 mation; to the Rev. Thomas Hutchinson, Kimbolton (Mrs 
 "Wordsworth's nephew), for MSS., letters, and poems both by 
 Wordsworth and his sister ; and to him, and to Miss 
 Hutchinson, West Malvern, for many facts regarding the 
 Wordsworth family ; to the Eev. Mr Hill of Warwick, son- 
 in-law of Southey, for some anecdotes of the poet ; to Mr 
 Aubrey de Vere, for information on many points, and for free 
 permission to use his papers on Wordsworth ; to Mr Henry 
 Reed, Philadelphia, for copies of all of Wordsworth's letters 
 to his father, the late Professor Eeed, and for details of his 
 father's relations to the poet ; to Mr Ellis Yarnall of the 
 same city, for his varied reminiscences of Wordsworth, 
 and memoranda of his visits to the Lake District of Eng- 
 land ; and to Mr F. C, Yarnall (of Wynndown, Overbrook, 
 Montgomery Co., Pennsylvania), for his valuable paper on 
 Wordsworth's influence in America. 
 
 Mr Browning has kindly sent me the poet's letters to 
 his wife, the late jMrs Barrett-Browning, and has given me 
 information in reference to Wordsworth's friend and corre- 
 spondent, John Kenyon, the cousin to whom Mrs Brown- 
 ing dedicated Aurora Leigh. Mr Frederick Hutcluns sent 
 me sixteen letters from the poet and his wife and sister, 
 addressed to Kenyon. The late Mrs Proctor, widow of 
 " Barry Cornwall," supplied me Avith many interesting facts 
 in reference to Wordsworth, his sister, and Basil Montagu. 
 To Mr Gladstone I am indebted for the letters of the poet 
 written to him, and for permission to publish his own 
 letters to Wordsworth, on the subject of copyright, and 
 other matters. All the letters addressed to Wordsworth on 
 the subject of copyright by his numerous correspondents —
 
 PREFACE. XIX 
 
 such as Talfourd, Lord Malion, Monkton Milnes, and Mr 
 Gladstone, were sent to me for inspection by their present 
 owner, Mr Nicholson ; and, as the subject has more than 
 a passing interest, extracts from them will be found in 
 the third volume. 
 
 To Lady Monteagle, and to her sister Mrs Myers, I am 
 specially obliged for access to the large collection of letters 
 wliich Dorothy Wordsworth wrote in her girlhood to Miss 
 Jane Pollard, afterwards Mrs Marshall ; to Miss Field, 
 sister of Mr Barron Field, for sending me the MSS. of 
 her brother's Critical Memoirs of William Wordsworth, and 
 permission to use the poet's own notes upon it. The late 
 Sir Henry Taylor sent me letters about "Wordsworth, and 
 Lady Taylor has given me permission to print others from 
 Wordsworth to him, and his own notes and observations on 
 his friend. My thanks are also due to Mrs Alexander 
 Carlyle for the use of her uncle's reminiscences of the poet, 
 and for some addenda to those previously published by Mr 
 Froude ; to Miss Stuart, daughter of the editor of the 
 London Courier, one of the poet's early friends, for the use 
 of letters which Wordsworth addressed to her father ; to 
 Mr J. T. Brown, for many which he wrote to John Scott 
 of The Champion newspaper ; to Mr Sketchley, librarian of 
 the Forster and Dyce collection at South Kensington, for 
 Wordsworth's letters to Walter Savage Landor, and others ; 
 to Mr Maunde Thomson, and to Mr Garnett, of the British 
 Museum, both for access to MSS. and for information ; and to 
 to Mr Scharf, the Director and Secretary of the National 
 Portrait Gallery at South Kensington. The late Miss 
 Gillies, the artist whose portraits of Wordsworth are 
 referred to frequently, also supplied me with some anecdotes 
 and letters, and information as to her cousin, who was a 
 correspondent of Wordsworth's. Mrs Drummond of Fredley 
 near Dorking, who, as Miss Kinnaird, was a great friend of
 
 XX PREFACE. 
 
 Dora Wordsworth, the poet's daughter, has shown me several 
 letters, and given me many delightfully vivid accounts of her 
 early intercourse witli the family. Mr Eichard Sharp, 
 Wordsworth's early friend, was Mrs Drummoud's guardian 
 in youth. 
 
 To those who have allowed me to make extracts from 
 their published works, my thanks are also specially due ; 
 to ^Ir Percival Graves for his generosity in reference to 
 Wordsworth's letters to Sir W. Rowan Hamilton and his 
 sister, to Mr Alaric Watts, to Mr Wiffen, to the represen- 
 tatives of Miss Caroline Fox, and to many others. The 
 late Lady Richardson was equally kind with reference to 
 her AutohiograjjJiy of Mrs Fletcher. 
 
 I have already referred to the permission of the trustees 
 of the Williams Library, to examine the extensive volumes 
 of Henry Crabb Robinson's MSS. at Grafton Street. Much 
 had been previously extracted by Dr Sadler, both from the 
 Diary and the Reminiscences, but 1 found additional material 
 of exceeding interest, and of real importance, bearing more 
 especially upon the cloud which for a time darkened the 
 old and bright relationship of Wordsworth to Coleridge ; 
 and I have to thank Dr Sadler more particularly, for his 
 generosity in permitting me to examine those documents, 
 after his own great labour on the same papers was ended. 
 With the late Principal Shairp I often discussed the subject 
 of this Life, in which he took the liveliest interest. He 
 was one of the " best knowers " of Wordsworth (to use 
 Charles Lamb's phrase) in this generation ; and it is a 
 satisfaction to myself that the plan we often talked of, of 
 writing the Life, by giving facts and letting criticism alone, 
 approved itself to him. 
 
 To many lisang writers and critics I have been greatly 
 indebted; to Professor Dowden of Dublin, with whom, 
 from first to last, I have had much correspondence bearing
 
 PREFACE. XXI 
 
 on Wordsworth ; to Mr Rawnsley of Crosthwaite Vicarage, 
 Keswick, to whose knowledge, and divining tact, and endless 
 enthusiasm, and appreciation tempered by judgment, I owe 
 much ; to the Hon. Roden Noel, for his papers and letters, 
 and conversation ; to Canon Ainger, for what he has 
 suggested, and what he has found out for me in various 
 ways, by his wide acquaintance with the literary period, 
 and its prominent writers ; to Professor Rowley of Uni- 
 versity College, Bristol, for facts relating to the Somerset- 
 shire period; to the Rev. W. L. Nichols of Woodlands, 
 Bridgewater, for information about the Quantocks and 
 Wordsworth's life at Alfoxden ; to the Rev. W. Heard of 
 Westminster, for suggestions bearing more especially 
 upon the Prelude and Excursion ; to Mr Herbert Rix, 
 Secretary to the Royal Society, for his papers and local 
 notes on the Duddon ; and, above all, to Mr J. Dykes 
 Campbell, for obligations indefinitely great, especially in the 
 way of information and suggestion as to Coleridge, and 
 Wordsworth's relation to him. In reference to many points 
 about Coleridge, Mr Dykes Campbell is probably the chief 
 living authority. He has been kind enough to revise the 
 proof sheets of part of these three volumes. Had the first 
 volume passed under his critical eye before it was printed off, 
 it would have been more accurate than it is. In the same 
 connection I must thank Mr Archibald Constable, Edinburgh. 
 I have to explain that owing to the way in which 
 these volumes have been prepared, and sent to press, I 
 have been compelled to insert at the close of the second of 
 tliem what would have found a more appropriate place in 
 the body of the third volume, or at its close. These 
 appendices — which have been placed where they are with a 
 view to equalise the size of the three volumes — do not, 
 however, belong to the connected story of Wordsworth's 
 life, and may be examined after the third volume is read.
 
 xxu PREFACE. 
 
 The portrait prefixed to tlie first volume is taken from 
 the picture by Haydon, which gave rise to Mrs Browning's 
 sonnet, beginning — 
 
 Wordsworth upon Helvellyn ! 
 and ending — 
 
 This is the poet and his poetry. 
 
 It was engraved by Lupton, but by him completely idealized. 
 Lupton's engraving has been often reproduced, but while it 
 is an impressive portrait, it is utterly unlike the original. 
 The original is in the possession of Mr Cornelius Nicolson, 
 Isle of Wight, who kindly sent it down to Edinburgh to 
 be etched for this work. For information regarding it, I 
 refer to the fifth appendix lo the second volume. It was 
 the original, and not Lupton's mezzotint, that suggested Mrs 
 Browning's noble sonnet. 
 
 I may add that the quotation from Hazlitt (pp. 149-152) 
 was taken from Barron Field's MS., and that the text differs 
 in some particulars from the printed version of Hazlitt's re- 
 marks ; also, that Miss Meteyard's conjecture (p. 187), as 
 to Wordsworth and Coleridge having received a subsidy 
 from the Wedgwoods, when they visited Germany in 1798, 
 is probably quite erroneous. The transactions between 
 them during that winter were, in all likelihood, merely 
 banking ones ; and there is no evidence to show that the 
 Wedgwoods defrayed the cost of Coleridge's residence in 
 Germany, over and above the annuity which they paid him 
 regularly. 
 
 WILLIAM KNIGHT.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introductory 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 COCKEUMOUTH 8 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Hawkshead : School-Days 25 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Cambridge : University Life and Summer Holidays : 
 
 Dorothy Wordsworth at Forncett 39 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 London : France : The Revolution 55 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Unsettlement : Wanderings in Wales and Cumberland, 
 
 Etc 84 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 First Home at Racedown 105 
 
 CHAPTER VIIL 
 
 Alfoxden : Coleridge: The Lyrical Ballads. . . . 114
 
 XXIV CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, written at Alfoxden 
 
 IN 1798 131 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Last Days at Alfoxden : Visit to the Wye, Etc. . . 144 
 
 CHAPTER Xr. 
 Hamburgh and Goslar 162 
 
 CHAPTER XTI. 
 
 SOCKBURN 190 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Grasmere. ... 208 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 The Recluse 231 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal. . . , 255 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Visit to Calais : Marriage to Mary Hutchinson : Return 
 
 TO Grasmere 335 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 Tour in Scotland : John Wordsworth. .... 362 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Fragments of Verse : Correspondence. . . . . 331
 
 LIFE OF WILLIAM WOEDSWORTH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTOKY. 
 
 Woedsworth's life was given to the world in his Poems. 
 His biography may be said to have been written when the 
 Fen wick notes to the 1856 edition of his works were 
 published, much more truly than that the lives of Shake- 
 speare, or Milton, or any of his predecessors, were written in 
 their works. And some who appreciate him much, would 
 prefer that nothing more should be said about him, that he 
 should remain, if possible, nominis itiiibra, or, to use his own 
 happy phrase, but " a wandering voice." 
 
 Nevertheless, the present generation desires — and posterity 
 will probably desire much more — to know all it can regarding 
 one whose function in the great hierarchy of genius is so 
 distinctive and unique. His supremacy has been slowly 
 but securely won, by the simple process of the survival of 
 the fittest to live. By the sure verdict of time — despite 
 the judgment of contemporary reviewers — the trivial is set 
 aside, and only what is great remains ; and Wordsworth 
 now ranks, in his own sphere, as one of the chief teachers 
 of the modern world. 
 
 The slender story of his life has been told, with more 
 or less of accuracy, a score of times ; and there would 
 be no justification in re-stating it, unless some things had 
 to be added that were previously unknown. Words- 
 
 IX. A
 
 2 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 worth himself wished that there should be no extended 
 record of his life, and some of his friends, who have given 
 us their own admirable autobiographies (such as Sir Henry 
 Taylor), have thought that the matter might be left as 
 Wordsworth indicated. Sir Henry has said that the path of 
 a great man to posterity runs the risk of being Mocked by 
 the very accumulation of materials that go to form his 
 biography. Our greatest men are not, however, the best 
 judges of what posterity may wish to know in regard to 
 themselves ; and, as time goes on, almost in exact proportion 
 to the debt we owe to those who have had the chief in- 
 fluence over us, we desire to find out all that is ascertainable 
 regarding them — to learn the authentic story of their lives, 
 fiction and inaccuracy being weeded out, irrelevancy set 
 aside, and all trivial gossip buried in oblivion. 
 
 There is one advantage in postponing the work of writing 
 the life of a great man for some time after his death, viz., 
 that the estimates of his contemporaries sink — or rise — by 
 slow degrees to their proper level ; and it is almost impos- 
 sible for any contemporary adequately to appraise the work 
 of an original genius. In this respect, Ben Jonson's apprecia- 
 tion of Shakespeare, and Coleridge's estimate of Wordsworth, 
 are instances of far-reaching critical insight. In reference 
 to the great teachers of the world, however, does it really 
 matter what judgment their contemporaries passed, pro- 
 vided we have a full and accurate knowledge of the ' manner 
 of men ' these teachers were, and of how they lived ? I 
 do not disparage criticism in its own place. Its function 
 is great, and it rightly thrusts aside what does not deserve to 
 live ; but it is the fate of by far the larger part of con- 
 temporary criticism to be superseded in the next generation, 
 wliile it is notorious that the reviews which carried most 
 authority in their day, have in many instances been abso- 
 lutely reversed by the judgment of posterity. When we
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 3 
 
 see liow the ex cathedra verdicts of Johnson, Jeffrey, and 
 Macaulay have been set aside by the calmer insight of the 
 future, we learn that literary estimates are as uncertain as 
 political prophecy. The really important point is to hand 
 down, before it is too late, a full and unbiassed picture of 
 the life and character of our chief teachers, of what they 
 were, and what they did — a plain unvarnished tale, conceal- 
 ing nothing that is essential, and revealing nothing that is 
 unnecessary. 
 
 My aim, therefore, has been to make these volumes 
 authentic, full, impartial, adequate ; and to let Wordsworth 
 and his Sister for the most part speak for themselves — he in 
 his poems, and especially in his autobiographical one, she in 
 her journals, and both in their letters. No doubt the Poems 
 teach, and will continue to teach mankind, independently of 
 any record of Wordsworth's life ; but, on the other hand, 
 many will appreciate his works all the more because of what 
 they come to know of the man who wrote them. 
 
 Coleridge has spoken wisely and well * of the " cravings 
 of worthless curiosity," in reference to the lives of great 
 men, as distinguished from " the thirst after useful know- 
 ledge ; " and Tennyson has said, in lines that deserve re- 
 publication,! that 
 
 *' Now the poet cannot die, 
 
 Nor leave his music as of old, 
 But round him, ere he scarce be cold, 
 Begin the scandal and the cry. 
 
 " Ah ! shameless ! for he did but sing 
 A song that pleased us for its worth ; 
 No public life was his on earth, 
 No blazoned statesman he, nor king. 
 
 * See The Friend, vol. ii., No. 21. 
 
 t It is to be hoped that he will not consider this republication an in- 
 stance of the very evil he condemns.
 
 4 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 " He gave the people of his best, 
 His worst he kept, his best he gave, 
 My curse upon the clown and knave 
 Who will not let his ashes rest." 
 
 All tliis is true; and the publication of unnecessary detail in 
 reference to the lives of great men is a scandal, and a crime 
 against human nature ; but, in proportion as tliis is under- 
 stood and acted upon, our legitimate curiosity in reference 
 to their lives and deeds is invariably whetted. 
 
 It is of course no more possible, in the biography of a poet, 
 to state the circumstances under which all his poems were 
 composed,* tlian it is to estimate the place which each poem 
 holds in literature ; and no biographer can unfold the full 
 story of a life, and least of all of a literary life. To do so, 
 he would require to estimate the antecedent influences 
 which shaped it into form, and that would involve digres- 
 sion at every turn. To be exhaustive in this way is 
 impossible, and would be very undesirable. It is even 
 possible that " critical reviews," as they are called, are, on 
 the whole, misleading. Even a running biographical com- 
 mentary, placed alongside of the biographical facts, is apt — 
 with all its value, and all its charm, when deftly made — to 
 distract the mind of the reader from the subject of the 
 biography, and to put before him a possibly transient 
 judgment, in place of what he ought to know, viz., the per- 
 manent work of the poet. In these volumes, therefore, I 
 shall for the most part give the facts, and leave commen- 
 tary alone. 
 
 It must also be remembered that we already possess 
 much and very valuable criticism on Wordsworth. Scores 
 of books, and many scores of magazine articles have 
 been written, some of them so excellent that a new 
 
 * The task has been attempted, so far, in the notes to this edition of 
 his works.
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 5 
 
 writer may well pause before presuming to add another 
 stone to the monumental cairn. The critical estimates by 
 Coleridge and his daughter Sara, by Lamb, Southey, Scott, 
 De Quincey, Landor, Wilson, and Hazlitt amongst contempo- 
 raries, by Henry Taylor, Clough, Shairp, Arnold, Stopford 
 Brooke, Aubrey De Vere, Leslie Stephen, Hutton, Henry 
 Eeid, Mason, F. Myers, and Hudson amongst more recent 
 writers, — in addition to what has been issued in the " Trans- 
 actions of the Wordsworth Society," — form a mass of 
 literary judgment by competent minds from opposite points 
 of view, and may well disincline any novice from the task 
 of additional criticism. It is true that, in the preface to 
 the first volume of this edition of the poems, I was rash 
 enough to promise a " critical essay " on the poet ; and I 
 have the substance of such an essay almost ready for pub- 
 lication, but materials far more valuable for an estimate of 
 the poet's life have accumulated so much that I feel bound 
 to postpone the essay still. My present function is a much 
 humbler one, viz., to tie together with a slender biographic 
 thread the narrative of the lives of Wordsworth and his 
 sister, and of those who were inseparably connected with 
 them in poetic labour, in such a way that nothing of import- 
 ance is omitted from it, and thus to arrange the materials 
 on which future critics may work. 
 
 A second difficulty I have had to encounter is that 
 many of the most important facts in reference to Words- 
 worth are already before the world. These I cannot merely 
 repeat, and yet to omit all mention of them would seriously 
 mar the picture of the man. A new biographer is in this 
 dilemma. If he includes all things worth mentioning 
 that happen to be already recorded, readers may say, ' We 
 have heard of this before.' If he omits them, and merely 
 refers to the sources where they may be found, other 
 readers will ask, ' Why have we not the full biography 
 before us now ? ' Since, however, many of the notes to the
 
 t> LIFE OF WORDSWOKTH. 
 
 poems in the previous volumes of this edition are biogra- 
 phical — especially the notes to The Prelude — I have, at 
 times, merely referred to what will be found by turning up 
 these volumes. 
 
 The mention of Tlic Prelude recalls the fact that no poet, 
 and scarcely any other literary man, has given so re- 
 markable a disclosure of his own character and personality, 
 — of the very springs of liis life, and of the influences that 
 moulded him, — as Wordsworth has done. That auto- 
 biography stands quite alone amongst the lives of poets, as 
 Descartes' treatise On Method, stands alone amongst the 
 lives of philosophers, and perhaps the .Confessions of St 
 Augustine amongst those of divines. I believe it will be 
 increasingly appreciated with the lapse of time. It is 
 singularly graphic and rich in detail, and for this reason 
 frequent reference must be made to it in the chapters on 
 Hawkshead and on France. The delineation of character 
 is so vivid, so stereoscopic, that even in the most prosaic 
 passages one forgets the medium through which it is pre- 
 sented, in the light of the disclosure itself. 
 
 The Fenwick notes, too, are full of biographic incident. 
 It was a happy thought of Miss Fenwick to get the aged 
 poet to dictate these memoranda to her. Some have said that 
 his memory was not to be trusted at the age of seventy-five ; 
 but the few inaccuracies which they contain are the merest 
 trifles ; and the notes are not more garrulous or gossipy than 
 every one wishes an old man of genius, a poet and a teacher, 
 to be. The marvel is, that they are so full of minute detail, 
 and yet so very accurate. How many men can recall even 
 ten years of their life, and give an accurate report of it ? 
 And then — how little is there usually worth recording ! 
 
 As to the Memoirs of Wordsworth by his nephew, the 
 late Bishop of Lincoln, it has been a fashion in some quarters 
 to despise that book, either as heterogeneous, or as too 
 eulogistic, or again as too diffuse. I cannot agree with the
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 7 
 
 censure it has received. It may be, in some respects, a dull 
 book ; but, written as it was in the summer after the poet 
 died, necessarily in haste, and without many of the detailed 
 facts which we now possess, it is a remarkable book ; and, 
 with the exception of the Grasmere Journals and the letters 
 of Wordsworth and of his sister not then known, it remains 
 the chief quarry whence the materials for any subsequent 
 life of the poet must be obtained. In every respect it is 
 absolutely indispensable to the student of Wordsworth. 
 With all their desultoriness, it is to these Memoirs that we 
 must go back, amid the miscellaneous mass of opinion, &c., 
 for facts, elsewhere undiscoverable ; and, although I think 
 that something has to be added to them, in order to a full 
 and adequate knowledge of the poet as he was, it is more 
 than a mistake to disparage these volumes. Posterity will 
 tind this out. 
 
 It has often been said, and sometimes given as a reason 
 against rewriting the life of Wordsworth, that there were no 
 remarkable incidents in his life, and that, therefore, it had no 
 great public interest. Others are of opinion that no lives are 
 so interesting as those of literary men of the highest order, 
 of men who — not only by their thoughts, but the way 
 in which these thoughts have been unfolded and embodied 
 — have become the teachers of their own and of subsequent 
 generations. It is of great interest, doubtless, to follow the 
 career of a great statesman or an administrator, of the 
 leader of a party, the discoverer of a hidden law of nature, 
 or the inventor of some new contrivance for the benefit of 
 mankind ; but the more silent lives of those who have 
 enriched the world by the legacy of great thoughts, and who 
 l)y opening up new channels of emotion, and quickening 
 aspiration, have added to the sources of our joy, are quite as 
 worthy of record, and quite as interesting to the race. It 
 is not the lives that have been most crowded with incident 
 or adventure that have necessarily the most to teach.
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 COCKERMOUTH. 
 
 The ancestry of the Wordsworths may be traced back to the 
 fourteenth century. In the reign of Edward III. a Words- 
 worth family had settled at Penistone, in the south of the 
 county of York, not far from Sheffield. "It is scarcely 
 possible," says the author of the Genealogical Memoranda of 
 the Family, " to refer to any deed of the period between the 
 latter half of the fourteenth century and the beginning of 
 the eighteenth, which related to property or to ecclesiasti- 
 cal or civil matters in the parish of Penistone, without coming 
 across the name of some member of the family of Words- 
 worth, either as principal or witness. The name was 
 variously spelt — Wurdesworth, Wadysworth, Wades worth, 
 Wadisworth, Wordesworth, Wordisworth, Wordysworth, 
 Wadsworth, Wordsworthe, Wodesworth, and Wordsworth. 
 Some members of the family at the present time spell the 
 name Wadsworth, and others Wordsworth. . . . The earliest 
 deed in which the name occurs is dated 1392, when one 
 Nicholas Wordesworth appears as one of the witnesses to 
 the same."* 
 
 In the reign of Henry VIII. a WiUiam Wordsworth of 
 Penistone liit upon a novel but effective plan of recording 
 his pedigree, by carving the names of four generations of his 
 
 * Genealogical Memoranda of the Family of Wordsworth, by Edwin 
 Jackson Bedford, privately printed, 1851. Compare Hunter's History of 
 the Deanery of Doncaster, and Percy's Note to "The Dragon of Wantley " 
 in his Reliques of Ancient Poetry, vol. iii., p. 296.
 
 COCKERMOUTH. 9 
 
 ancestors on an oaken chest, or (as he called it in his will) 
 ■' a greate arke." This ancestral aumery, made in the year 
 1525, was brought from Penistone in the poet's lifetime, and 
 used to stand in the dining-room of Eydal Mount, It is now 
 in the possession of Mrs William Wordsworth, the poet's 
 daughter-in-law, at the Stepping Stones, Ambleside.* The 
 following is the inscription on it : — 
 
 " Hoc op. fiebat A° D'ni m°ccccc°xxv° ex su'ptu Will'mi 
 Wordesworth, filii W., fil. Joh., fil. W., fil. Nich., viri 
 Elizabeth filice et hered. W. Proctor de Peniston q°ru 
 ani'abus p'picietur De." t 
 
 From the copious records of the family, collected by the 
 industry of Mr Bedford, little need be extracted here. 
 There was a William Wordsworth, vicar of Penistone, in 
 1458; another William Wordsworth had an inscription 
 in his memory carved on the woodwork of a seat in 
 Penistone Church, " Orate pro animabus Willmi Wordesworth 
 et Johanna uxoris, ae pro anima Willmi Benson, qui hanc 
 capellum fieri fecerunt in honorem sancti Erasmi et sancti 
 Axthonii A° D'ni M D°xxv." t In the Churchwarden's 
 Minute Book in Penistone Church, a donation is recorded, 
 about the year 1640, by a Wordsworth of Water Hall, 
 " yearly for ever to be dealt to six of the most needful poore 
 within Penistone, on St Thomas' day." In 1731, a Josias 
 Wordsworth (who had gone to London, and was of the 
 parish of St Dunstan's in the east) entered in Ms will, " I 
 
 * It is mentioned in the Publication of the S^ir lees Society, vol. iv., and 
 is described in The Gentleman's Magazine, July 1850. 
 
 t The Nicholas "Wordsworth mentioned in this inscription was probably 
 the Nicholas who witnessed the deed of 1392. "From whatever place he 
 came, he seems to have been the common ancestor of numerous families of 
 the name settled in Penistone and the part adjacent, most of whom possessed 
 lands, and some of whom were families of consideration." (Letter from 
 Rev. Joseph Hunter to Wordsworth, Oct. 1831. See Memoirs, ii., p. 513.) 
 
 t'See Hunter's South Yorkshire, vol. ii., p. 342.
 
 10 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 give to Penistone, in Yorkshire, for teaching poor girls to 
 read and write, two hundred Pounds." 
 
 Mr Hunter sent to the poet, in the year 1827, a detailed 
 genealogical record of six branches of the Wordsworth 
 family tree, adding that he believed the poet had sprung 
 from the second branch, which settled at Falthwaite, near 
 Stainborough, in the middle of the seventeent*h century, and 
 removed to Sockbridge, close to Penrith, in Westmoreland, 
 in the eighteenth. 
 
 Early in the eighteenth century Eichard Wordsworth, the 
 poet's grandfather, in consequence of unfortunate specula- 
 tions in coal mines, sold his Palthwaite property, and be- 
 came superintendent of the estates of the Lowthers of 
 Lowther. When he married he bought the estate of Sock- 
 bridge, in the parish of Barton. At the time of the Eebel- 
 lion of 1745, he was the receiver-general of the county. 
 An extract from a letter of his great-grandson. Captain 
 Charles Eobinson, R.N., to the late Bishop of Lincoln, may 
 here be given, from its allusion to an incident in the '45. 
 " Sockbridge was not far from the public road, and not 
 wishing that the public money would fall into the hands of 
 the rebels, he, both upon their advance and retreat, retired, 
 attended by a trusty servant, with his money bags into 
 some glen about Paterdale, leaving his wife in charge of the 
 house, who was accustomed to prepare a plentiful table upon 
 these occasions, thinking that a good repast was the surest 
 way to secure good treatment from them. I may add that 
 the house at Sockbridge was built by a yeoman, who is 
 supposed to have found some treasure left upon the retreat 
 of the rebels in the previous rebellion of 1715. At his 
 death it was bought by our great-grandfather. He (Richard 
 Wordsworth) died circa 1762, and was buried in Barton 
 Church." * 
 
 * See Memoirs of Wordsworth, vol. ii,, p. 523.
 
 COCKERMOUTH. 1 1 
 
 This Richard Wordsworth's second son, John, born at 
 Sockbridge in 1741, became an attorney at Cockermouth. 
 In 1766 he married Anne Cookson of Penrith. They were 
 the father and mother of the poet. 
 
 John Wordsworth was a man of great force of character, 
 and real business capacity. An old clerk of his father's, 
 John Eobinson of Appleby, had been appointed, in 1746, as 
 principal law agent and land steward to Sir James Lowther, 
 and was afterwards mayor of Appleby, and member of 
 parliament for Westmoreland. In 1766 a difference arose 
 between Sir James Lowther and Eobinson on the American 
 question and Lord North's policy ; Eobinson resigned his 
 agency, which Sir James at once conferred on John Words- 
 worth. He lived in the town of Cockermouth, a respected 
 local solicitor. The present agent of Lord Lonsdale writes : 
 " From the books of the Court I find that John Wordsworth 
 was steward of the manor and forest of Ennerdale from 
 1766 to 1786." He was cut off suddenly at the compara- 
 tively early age of forty-two, by an attack of inflammation 
 of the lungs, caught by exposure on the heights of Coldfell, 
 where he had spent the night, having lost his way in re- 
 turning from Broughton-in-rurness to Cockermouth. 
 
 Of the poet's mother, Anne Cookson, we know little. 
 She was born at Penrith in January 1747, was married at 
 the age of nineteen in February 1766, and died in March 
 1778, being only thirty-one years of age,* and predeceasing 
 her husband by nearly six years. 
 
 Four of the children of John and Anne Wordsworth of 
 Cockermovith were distinguished in after life ; two of them 
 were illustrious. Their family consisted of Eichard Words- 
 worth, born May 19, 1768, died May 19, 1816 ; William 
 Wordsworth, born April 7, 1770, died April 23, 1850 ; 
 
 * Details in reference to the poet's maternal grandmother will be found 
 in his own autobiographical memoranda, p. 12.
 
 12 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Dorothy Wordsworth, born Christmas Day l77l, died 
 January 25, 1855 ; John Wordsworth, born December 4, 
 1772, drowned February 5, 1805 ; Christopher Words- 
 worth, born June 9, 1774, died February 2, 1846. To 
 one of the brothers of the poet, and to their " sole sister," 
 frequent reference will be made in the pages that follow. 
 
 In November 1847 Wordsworth dictated certain ''auto- 
 biographical memoranda " to his nephew, the late Bishop of 
 Lincoln, These have now a significance that warrants their 
 reproduction in full. They were composed at the age of 
 seventy-seven, and revert (as was natural) to the early days 
 at Cockermouth, Hawkshead, and Cambridge more than to 
 the later years at Rydal, It is curious that there is 
 scarcely a reference to anything that occurred after the 
 poet's marriage in 1802. The cursory allusions in them 
 to facts which call for further elucidation as we proceed, 
 (and the restatement of a few already mentioned), will 
 not make the insertion of Wordsworth's own memoranda 
 unnecessary, or unwelcome. 
 
 AutoUographical Memoranda dictated hj William Words- 
 worth, P.L., at Rydal Mount, November 1847. 
 
 " I was born at Cockermouth, in Cumberland, on April 
 7th, 1770, the second son of John Wordsworth, attorney- 
 at-law, as lawyers of tliis class were then called, and law- 
 agent to Sir James Lowther, afterwards Earl of Lonsdale. 
 My mother was Anne, only daughter of William Cookson, 
 mercer, of Penrith, and of Dorothy, born Crackanthorp, of 
 the ancient family of that name, who from the times of 
 Edward the Third had lived in Newbiggen Hall, Westmore- 
 land. My grandfather was the first of the name of 
 Wordsworth who came into Westmoreland, where he pur-
 
 COCKERMOUTH. 1 3 
 
 chased the small estate of Sockbridge. He was descended 
 from a family who had been settled at Peniston in York- 
 shire, near the sources of the Don, probably before the 
 Norman Conquest. Their names appear on different occa- 
 sions in all the transactions, personal and public, connected 
 with that parish ; and I possess, through the kindness of 
 Col. Beaumont, an aumery made in 1525, at the expense of 
 a William Wordsworth, as is expressed in a Latin inscription 
 carved upon it, which carries the pedigree of the family back 
 four generations from himself. 
 
 " The time of my infancy and early boyhood was passed 
 partly at Cockermouth, and partly with my mother's parents 
 at Penrith, where my mother, in the year 1778, died of a 
 decline, brought on by a cold, the consequence of being put, 
 at a friend's house in London, in what used to be called ' a 
 best bedroom.' My father never recovered his usual cheer- 
 fulness of mind after this loss, and died when I was in my 
 fourteenth year, a schoolboy, just returned from Hawkshead, 
 whither I had been sent with my elder brother Pdchard, in 
 my ninth year. 
 
 " I remember my mother only in some few situations, one 
 of which was her pinning a nosegay to my breast when I 
 was going to say the catechism in the church, as was 
 customary before Easter. I remember also telling her on 
 one week day that I had been at church, for our school 
 stood in the churchyard, and we had frequent opportunities 
 of seeing what was going on there. The occasion was, a 
 woman doing penance in the church in a white sheet. My 
 mother commended my having been present, expressing a 
 hope that I should remember the circumstance for the rest 
 of my life. ' But,' said I, ' Mama, they did not give me a 
 penny, as I had been told they would.' ' Oh,'" said she, 
 recanting her praises, ' if that was your motive, you were 
 very properly disappointed.'
 
 14 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 " My last impression was having a glimpse of her on 
 passing the door of her bedroom during her last illness, 
 when she was reclining in her easy chair. An intimate 
 friend of hers, Miss Hamilton by name, who was used to 
 visit her at Cockermouth, told me that she once said to her, 
 that the only one of her five children about whose future 
 life she was anxious, was William ; and he, she said, would 
 be remarkable either for good or for evil. The cause of this 
 was, that I was of a stiff, moody, and violent temper ; so 
 much so that I remember going once into the attics of my 
 grandfather's house at Penrith, upon some indignity having 
 been put upon me, with an intention of destrojdng myself 
 with one of the foils which I knew was kept there. I took 
 the foil in hand, but my heart failed. Upon another 
 occasion, while I was at my grandfather's house at Penrith, 
 along with my eldest brother, Richard, we were whipping 
 tops together in the large drawing-room, on which the carpet 
 was only laid down upon particular occasions. The walls 
 were hung round with family pictures, and I said to my 
 brother, ' Dare you strike your whip through that old lady's 
 petticoat ? ' He replied, ' Xo, I won't.' ' Then,' said I, 
 ' Here goes ; ' and I struck my lash through her hooped 
 petticoat, for which no doubt, though I have forgotten it, I 
 was properly pvmished. But possibly, from some want of 
 judgment in punishments inflicted, I had become perverse 
 and obstinate in defying chastisement, and rather proud of 
 it than otherwise. 
 
 " Of my earliest days at school I have little to say, but 
 that they were very happy ones, chiefly because I was left at 
 liberty, then and in the vacations, to read whatever books I 
 liked. For example, I read all Fielding's works, Don 
 Quixote, Gil Bias, and any part of Swift that I liked ; 
 Gulliver's Travels, and the Tale of the Tub, being both much 
 to my taste. I was very much indebted to one of the ushers
 
 COCKERMOUTH. 1 5 
 
 of Hawkshead School, by name Shaw, who taught me more 
 of Latin in a fortnight than I had learnt during two pre- 
 ceding years at the School of Cockermouth. Unfortunately 
 for me this excellent master left our school, and went to 
 Stafford, where he taught for many years. It may be 
 perhaps as well to mention, that the first verses which I 
 wrote were a task imposed by my master; the subject, 'The 
 Summer Vacation ; ' and of my own accord I added others 
 upon 'Eeturn to School.' There was nothing remarkable 
 in either poem ; but I was called upon, among other scholars, 
 to write verses upon the completion of the second centenary 
 from the foundation of the school in 1585, by Archbishop 
 Sandys. The verses* were much admired, far more than 
 they deserved, for they were but a tame imitation of Pope's 
 versification, and a little in his style. This exercise, how- 
 ever, put it into my head to compose verses from the 
 impulse of my own mind, and I wrote, while yet a schoolboy, 
 a long poem running upon my own adventures, and the 
 scenery of the country in which I was brought up. The 
 only part of that poem which has been preserved is the con- 
 clusion of it, which stands at the beginning of my 'collected 
 Poems, t 
 
 "In the month of October, 1787, 1 was sent to St John's 
 College, Cambridge, of which my uncle, Dr Cookson, had 
 been a fellow. The master, Dr Chevallier, died very soon 
 after ; t and, according to the custom of that time, his body, 
 after being placed in the coffin, was removed to the hall of 
 the college, and the pall, spread over the coffin, was stuck 
 over by copies of verses, English or Latin, the composition 
 of the students of St John's. My uncle seemed mortified 
 when, upon inquiry, he learnt that none of these verses 
 
 * See vol. i., p. 283. 
 
 t See vol. i., 1 ; and vol. vi,, .365. 
 
 X He was succeeded by Dr Craven in 1789.
 
 16 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 were from my peu, ' because,' said he, ' it would have been 
 a fair opportunity for distinguishing yourself.' I did not, 
 however, regret that I had been silent on this occasion, as I 
 felt no interest in the deceased person, with whom I had 
 had no intercourse, and whom I had never seen but during 
 his walks in the college grounds. 
 
 " When at school, I, with the other boys of the same 
 standing, was put upon reading the first six books of Euclid, 
 with the exception of the fifth ; and also in algebra I learnt 
 simple and quadratic equations ; and this was for me 
 imlucky, because I had a full twelvemonth's start of the 
 freshmen of my year, and accordingly got into rather an idle 
 way, reading nothing but classic authors according to my 
 fancy, and Italian poetry. My Italian master was named 
 Isola,* and had been well acquainted with Gray the poet. 
 As I took to these studies with much interest, he was proud 
 of the progress I made. Under his correction I translated 
 the Vision of Mirza, and two or three other papers of the 
 Spectator, into Italian. In the month of August, 1790, I 
 set off for the Continent, in companionship with Robert 
 Jones, a Welshman, a fellow -collegian. We went staff in 
 hand, without knapsacks, and carrying each his needments 
 tied up in a pocket handkercliief, with about twenty pounds 
 a-piece in our pockets. We crossed from Dover, and landed 
 at Calais on the eve of the day when the king was to swear 
 fidelity to the new constitution — an event which was 
 solemnised with due pomp at Calais. On the afternoon of 
 that day we started, and slept at Ardres. For what seemed 
 best to me worth recording in this tour, see the Poem of my 
 own Life.t 
 
 * Agostino Isola, an Italian refugee, settled in Cambridge. His grand- 
 daughter was adopted by the Lambs, and became Mrs Moxon, the wife of 
 the publisher. 
 
 t See The, Prelude, book vi.
 
 COCKERMOUTH. 17 
 
 "After taking my degree in January 1791, I went to 
 London, stayed there some time, and then visited my friend 
 Jones, who resided in the Vale of Clwydd, North Wales. 
 Along with him I made a pedestrian tour through North 
 Wales, for which also see the Poem.* 
 
 " In the autumn of 1791 I went to Paris, where I stayed 
 some little time, and then went to Orleans, with a view of 
 being out of the way of my own countrymen, that I might 
 learn to speak the language fluently. At Orleans, and 
 Blois, and Paris, on my return, I passed fifteen or sixteen 
 months, t It was a stirring time. The king was dethroned 
 when I was at Blois, and the massacres of September took 
 place when I was at Orleans. But for these matters see 
 also the Poem. I came home before the execution of the 
 king, and passed the subsequent time among my friends in 
 London and elsewhere, till I settled with my only sister at 
 Eacedown in Dorsetshire in the year 1796. 
 
 " Here we were visited by Mr Coleridge, then residing at 
 Bristol ; and for the sake of being near him when he had 
 removed to Nether-Stowey, in Somersetshire, we removed to 
 Alfoxden, three miles from that place. This was a very 
 pleasant and productive time of my life. Coleridge, my 
 sister, and I set off on a tour to Linton and other places in 
 Devonshire ; and in order to defray his part of the ex- 
 pense, Coleridge on the same afternoon commenced his 
 poem of the Ancient Mariner, in which I was to have 
 borne my part, and a few verses were written by me, and 
 some assistance given in planning the poem ; but our styles 
 agreed so little, that I withdrew from the concern, and he 
 finished it himself. 
 
 " In the course of that spring I composed many poems, 
 
 * See The Prdiule, book xiv. 
 
 t This is not quite accurate. He left England, November 1791, and 
 returned in December 1792. 
 
 IX. B
 
 18 
 
 LIFE OF WORDSVVOETH. 
 
 most of wliicli were printed at Bristol, in one volume, by 
 my friend Joseph Cottle, along with Coleridge's Ancient 
 Mariner, and two or three other of his pieces. 
 
 "In the autumn of 1798, Mr Coleridge, a friend of his 
 Mr Chester, my sister, and I, crossed from Yarmouth to 
 Hamburgh, where we remained a few days, and saw, several 
 times, Klopstock the poet. Mr Coleridge and his friend 
 went to Ratzburg, in the north of Germany, and my sister 
 and I preferred going southward ; and for the sake of 
 cheapness, and the neighbourhood of the Hartz Mountains, 
 we spent the winter at the old imperial city of Goslar. 
 The winter was perishingly cold — the coldest of this cen- 
 tury ; and the good people with whom we lodged told me 
 one morning that they expected to find me frozen to death, 
 my little sleeping-ronm being iminediately over an archway. 
 However, neither my sister nor I took any harm. 
 
 " We returned to England in the following spring, and 
 went to visit our friends the Hutchinsons at Sockburn-on- 
 Tees, in the county of Durham, with whom we remained till 
 the 19th of December. We then came, on St Thomas's 
 Day, the 21st, to a small cottage at Townend, Grasmere, 
 which, in the course of a tour some months previously with 
 Mr Coleridge, I had been pleased with, and had hired. 
 This we furnished for about a hundred pounds, which 
 sum had come to my sister by a legacy from her uncle 
 Crackanthorp. 
 
 " I fell to composition immechately, and published, in 
 1800, the second volume of the Lyrical Ballads. 
 
 "In the year 1802 I married Mary Hutchinson, at 
 Brompton, near Scarborough, to which part of the countrv 
 the family had removed from Sockburn. We had known 
 «ach other from cliildhood, and had j^ractised reading and 
 spelling under the same old dame at Penrith, a remarkable 
 personage, who had taught three generations, of the upper
 
 COCKERMOUTH. 1 9 
 
 classes principally, of the town of Penrith and its neighbour- 
 hood. 
 
 " After our marriage we dwelt, together with our sister, 
 at Townend, where three of our children were born. In 
 the spring of 1808 the increase of our family caused us to 
 remove to a larger house, then just built, Allan Bank, in the 
 same vale, where our two younger children were born, and 
 who died at the Eectory, the house we afterwards occupied 
 for two years. They died in 1812, and in 1813 we came 
 to Eydal Mount, where we have since lived with no further 
 sorrow till 1836,* when my sister became a confirmed 
 invalid, and our sister Sarah Hutchinson died. She lived 
 alternately with her brother and with us." 
 
 We should like to know more of the poet's mother, but — 
 as is seldom the case with men of marked originality — in 
 his case it was from the father's side that the larger gift 
 descended. It was to the Wordsworths, rather than to the 
 Cooksons or the Crackanthorps, that he owed his inherit- 
 ance of genius. The allusions to his mother in the poems 
 are very tender. In the Ecclesiastical Sonnets t he recalls 
 her act, already referred to, of pinning a nosegay to his 
 breast when he was going to church to say his catechism 
 before Easter, and mentions her presence there to hear how 
 he said it. It is not one of his best sonnets, but its 
 reference to his mother gives it interest. 
 
 "Beloved Mother ! Thou whose happy hand 
 Had bound the flowers I wore with faithful tie ; 
 Sweet flower, at whose inaudible command 
 Her countenance, phantom-like, doth reappear ; 
 O lost too early for the frequent tear. 
 And ill requited by this heartfelt sigh." 
 
 More significant are the allusions to her in Tlie Prelude. In 
 
 It was ia 1835. t Part iii. 2J.
 
 20 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 the second book be traces, witli subtle power, the blessings 
 of the babe, 
 
 " Who with his soul 
 Drinks in the feelings of his Mother's eye, 
 For him, in one dear Presence, there exists 
 A virtue which irradiates and exalts 
 Objects through widest intercourse of sense." 
 
 He speaks of the " poetic spirit of our liuniun life " as due 
 to a maternal inheritance ; and he tells us how, 
 
 " By intercourse of touch 
 He held mute dialogues with his Mother's heart, 
 Whereby this infant sensibility, 
 Great birthright of our being, was in him 
 Augmented and sustained." 
 
 In the fifth book he tells us : — 
 
 " Early died 
 My honoured Mother, she who was the heart 
 And hinge of all our learnings and our loves. 
 Nor would I praise her but in perfect love." 
 
 Nowhere is there a finer or more discriminative description 
 of a mother's influence. He pictures her as fetching her 
 goodness from times past, and as full of trust in the guiding 
 uf filial instincts. She had no dread of the future, but lived 
 in the present, without either unnatural fears or unwarrant- 
 able hopes, — a serenely placid and a very patient spirit, 
 unselfishly devoted to her children. But, as Mrs Words- 
 worth died when her son was little more than eight years 
 old, her personal influence in the development of his char- 
 acter was but slight. For a couple of years before her 
 death his education had been carried on partly at Cocker- 
 mouth and partly at Penrith. Wlien at Cockermouth the 
 Rev. Mr Eillbanks was his teacher; when at Penrith he 
 lived with the Cooksons, and was taught in a dame's school 
 by Mrs Anne Birkett. Of her he wrote, in 1828, to his 
 friend Huuh James Rose : " The old dame taught us to read,
 
 COCKERMOUTH. 21 
 
 and practised the memory, often no doubt by rote, but still 
 the faculty was improved." 
 
 The chief interest connected with these years, spent by 
 the boy Wordsworth at Penrith school, is the fact that there, 
 at the same time, was another pupil, Mary Hutchinson, a 
 school girl of his own age, his cousin, and afterwards his 
 wife. Neither at Cockermouth, nor at Penrith, however, did 
 he learn much. The work his father set him to, — viz., the 
 committing to memory large passages of Shakespeare, 
 Milton, and Spenser, — was of immeasurably greater use to 
 him than any teaching he received at school. 
 
 The house in which Wordsworth was born at Cocker- 
 mouth remains very much as it was in his boyhood. It is 
 a somewhat heavy but comfortable two-storied mansion, 
 unpicturesque as it faces the main street of the town ; but, 
 viewed from the north side of the river Derwent, it gains in 
 attractiveness. The chief feature connected with it is the 
 terrace-walk at the foot of the garden, with the river below 
 it, whence the tower of the old castle of Cockermouth — " a 
 shattered monument of feudal sway " — can be seen to the 
 east. In The Freludc Wordsworth tells us that 
 
 " One, the fairest of all rivers, loved 
 To blend his murmurs with my nurse's song, 
 And from his alder shades and rocky falls, 
 And from his fords and shallows, sent a voice 
 That flowed along my dreams." 
 
 The ceaseless music of the stream composed his thoughts, 
 he says, '' to more than infant softness." Even then, while 
 the voice of the Derwent lulled liim, he had 
 
 " A foretaste, a dim earnest, of the calm 
 That Nature breathes among the hills and groves." 
 
 He describes the " bright blue river," passing along " the 
 margin of their terrace walk,"
 
 22 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 " A tempting ])]ayniate, whom we dearly loved. 
 Oh ! many a time liave I, a five years' child, 
 In a small mill-race severed from liis stream, 
 Made one long bathing of a summer's day ; 
 Basked in the sun, and plunged, and basked agaiu 
 Alternate, all a summer's day, or scoured 
 The sandy fields, leaping through flowery groves 
 Of yellow ragwort." 
 
 This " mill-race " may be guessed, and the " sandy fields " 
 are at hand ; but it is in the garden, and on the terrace 
 walk, that we can best realise the " five years' child," with 
 his sister Dorothy — not a year his junior — in their favourite 
 playground, visiting the " sparrow's nest " in the privet 
 hedge, and the clematis bower, with roses intermingled — 
 
 " She looked at it and seemed to fear it ; 
 Dreading, though wishing to be near it : 
 Such heart was iu her, being theu 
 A little Prattler among men. 
 The Blessing of my later years 
 Was with me when a boy : 
 She gave me eyes, she gave me ears ; 
 And humble cares, and delicate fears ; 
 A heart, the fountain of sweet tears ; 
 
 And love, and thought, and joy." * 
 
 Again he writes, iu liis fragment To a Butterfly, composed 
 in the orchard at Grasmere — 
 
 " Oh ! pleasant, pleasant were the days, 
 The time, when, in our childish plays. 
 My sister Emmeline and I 
 Together chased the butterfly ! 
 A very hunter did I rush 
 Upon the pi-ey : — with leaps and springs 
 I followed on from brake to bush ; 
 But she, God love her ! feared to brush 
 The dust from off its wings."t 
 
 Let anyone go down the main street in Cockermouth, 
 and passing Wordsworth's house to the west, cross the 
 river a few hundred yards lower, by the two-arched Derwent 
 
 * Vol. ii. p. 207. t Vol. ii. p. 254.
 
 COCKERMOUTH. 23 
 
 Bridge, and walk up by the meads — the " grassy holms " — 
 to the smaller (new) bridge, and he will have a view of 
 the back of the old house, with its terrace-walk at the foot 
 of the garden, very much as Wordsworth would see it in his 
 childhood. The sound of the lapsing river combines with the 
 sight of the shattered castle towers, and the associations of 
 a vanished past, to give a tinge of melancholy to the scene. 
 In 1833 Wordsworth wrote two sonnets on his birth-place: 
 one. Suggested in sight of the Toum of Cochermouth ivhere the 
 Author was horn, and his Fathers remains are laid, and 
 the other. The Address to the Spirit of Cockermouth Castle. 
 
 Though a child, the boy Wordsworth had his occasional 
 expeditions to the country round his birthplace. In the 
 Pen wick note to the sixth of his ' Evening Voluntaries,' 
 written in 1833, and entitled On a High Part of the Coast 
 of Cumberland, he tells us : " With this coast I have been 
 familiar from my earliest childhood, and remember being- 
 struck for the first time by the town and port of White- 
 haven, and the white waves breaking against its quays and 
 piers, as the whole came into view from the top of the high 
 ground, down which the road then descended abruptly. My 
 sister, when she first heard the voice of the sea from this 
 point, and beheld the scene before her, burst into tears. 
 Our family then lived at Cockermouth.'" 
 
 The last sentence makes it clear that the household went 
 down to Whitehaven and St Bees in their childhood. 
 The boys would doubtless wander up Lorton Vale ; and, 
 in a very characteristic passage of The Prelude, Wordsworth 
 tells us that the mere sight of the windings of a public 
 way, crossing the naked summit of a hill, farther off than 
 he had wandered, and there daily beheld by him as a dis- 
 appearing and vanishing point, wrought upon his imagina- 
 tion, and, 
 
 " VVas like an invitation into s])ace 
 Boundless, or guide into eternity."
 
 24 
 
 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 This was the high road to the hamlet of Isel, over the 
 Hay or Watch Hill, about three and a half miles from 
 Cockermouth. 
 
 Again in Tlic Prelude, we have the record of a ride 
 which the boy took over the hills, when he could scarcely 
 hold a bridle, accompanied Ijy an old servant of his 
 father s. He parted from his guide, dismounted through 
 fear, and led his horse over a rough and stony moor, till he 
 came to a place where in former times a murderer had been 
 hung in chains, and where the letters of his name were 
 still visible, carved in the turf. He fled at once, and de- 
 scribes in memorable words the " visionary dreariness " that 
 invested the moorland waste, and all its accompanying sights. 
 
 These are all the incidents he has himself recorded of 
 his childhood, and no other family traditions regarding his 
 early years survive.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HAWKSHEAD : SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 In 1788, the boy William Wordsworth — now nine years 
 of age — was sent, with his elder brother Richard, to the 
 grammar-school at Hawkshead, in Lancashire. The younger 
 brothers, John and Christopher, followed to the same school 
 subsequently. This school, one of the oldest and best of its 
 kind in the North of England, was founded by Archbishop 
 Sandys, of York, in the year 1588. His statutes ordained, 
 amongst other things, " that there shall be a perpetual free 
 school, to be called ' the free grammar school of Edwyne 
 Sandys,' for teaching grammar and the principles of the Greek 
 tongue, with other sciences necessary to be taught in a 
 grammar school ; the same to be taught in the school freely, 
 without taking any stipend, wage, or other exactions from 
 the scholars resorting to the said school for learning ; that 
 there shall be a head-master, and an usher ; that between 
 the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary and St Michael the 
 Archangel, the school shall begin at six in the morning, or 
 at least half-past six, and continue till eleven, and begin 
 again at one, and continue till five ; and that for the 
 remainder of the year it begin at seven, continue till 
 eleven, be resumed at one, and continue till four ; during all 
 which time the schoolmaster and usher shall be present." '" 
 
 Archbishop Sandys, the pious founder of this school, was 
 a native of the district ; and, to his far-seeing wisdom it is 
 due, that for three centuries the boys of the Hawkshead 
 
 * Report of Tar centenary Commemoration of Hawkshead School, 1885.
 
 26 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 village and neighbourhood liavc liad an excellent education 
 free. As many as one hundred scholars have been in 
 attendance at one time. The original constitution of the 
 school remained unaltered till 1832. 
 
 The antique simplicity and primitive usages of the Hawks- 
 head village, its seclusion and old-world air, have had some- 
 thing to do with the development of the pupils at its school. 
 The teaching in AVordsworth's time was good, and during the 
 nine years of his residence lie had experience of no less than 
 four masters.* For one of them, William Taylor, who 
 taught him for four years (1782 to 1786), he felt the 
 warmest regard. In his Address to the ScJwlars of a Village 
 School, he speaks of him as " our common Friend and 
 Father ; " and it was the farewell which this Master took of 
 his pupils on his deathbed (of whom Wordsworth was one) 
 that suggested the Address. Other poems, written at Goslar 
 in 1799, — Mcdlicio, Tlie Two A^ril Mornings, and The 
 Fountain — refer to Taylor. t 
 
 But far more important than the teaching Wordsworth re- 
 ceived at school, was the teaching of the place where he was 
 taught, the influence of his schoolmates, and, above all, the 
 influence of Nature and the country round aliout Hawks- 
 head. The sense of freedom and equality amongst the boys 
 developed in him the seeds of an almost republican feeling. 
 As compared with Christ's Hospital, — where his friend Cole- 
 ridge endured the irrational floggings of the headmaster, and 
 the bullyings of his comrades, — at Hawkshead School there 
 was neither tyranny, nor rowdyism. It is probable that this 
 had sometliing to do with the calm tenor of Wordsworth's 
 
 * Their names were James Peake, who died in 1781 ; K J ward Christian, 
 master for one year (1781) ; William Taylor (1782 to 1786) ; and Thomas 
 Bowman (1786 to 1821). 
 
 t He is alluded to in The Prelude more than once ; and his grave, in 
 Cartmell Churchyard, which Wordsworth visited eight years after his 
 death, is described in the tenth book.
 
 HAWKSHEAD : SCHOOL DAYS. 27 
 
 after life, as compared with that of Coleridge. At Hawks- 
 head, the boys boarded in the houses of the village dames, a 
 kindly, simple-hearted race. As will be seen by reference to 
 the notes to The Prelude, Wordsworth lived in the cottage 
 of Anne Tyson, whom he has immortalized in that poem. 
 
 There it was that, in his ninth year, "the fomidations of 
 his mind were laid," by direct and daily intercourse with 
 Nature. Physically robust, full of life and vivacity, in 
 abounding health, ready for every kind of sport which the 
 seasons brought him, and for expeditions far or near in 
 all sorts of weather, living on a very simple frugal even 
 " Sabine fare," his school work over in the early afternoon, 
 and with no evening pressure for " examinations " next day, 
 the boy was free to " range the open heights," to walk round 
 the little lake, and row across it, or saunter in the woods, and 
 listen to their voices. He tells us how he would sometimes 
 " set springes to catch woodcocks," and pursue them through 
 half the autumn night ; how with his schoolmates in spring 
 he would climb to high places to harry the raven's nest 
 
 and when he hung, 
 
 by knots of grass 
 And half-inch fissures in the slippery rock 
 But ill sustained, and almost (so it seemed) 
 Suspended by the blast that blew amain, 
 Shouldering the naked crag, oh, at that time 
 While on the perilous ridge I hung alone, 
 With what strange utterance did the loud dry wind 
 Blow through mine ear ! the sky seemed not a sky 
 Of earth — and with what motion moved the clouds ! 
 
 He tells us how he would rise stealthily, long before a smoke- 
 wreath was visible in the village, to watch the first gleams 
 of dawn, " alone upon some jutting eminence." Again, he 
 would stroll with a companion round Esthwaite water, the two 
 repeating favourite verses of some poet " with one voice," — as 
 happy as the birds that carolled around them. He would 
 go angling by lonely brooks on rainy days, and bewildered in
 
 28 
 
 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 the mist, see suddenly a shepherd, like a giant, glorified by 
 the radiance of the sunset.* 
 
 At nights he would take liis boat, and row alone in the 
 moonlight across the lake ; and, while his elfin pinnace went 
 heaving through the water like a swan, the huge peak of 
 Wetherlam would rise up behind the horizon, " as if with 
 voluntary power instinct." Such a spectacle would for 
 many days work in liis brain, 
 
 " with a dim aud undetermined sense 
 Of unknown modes of being. " 
 
 On winter evenings, skating on the Ipj'c^e, he would with 
 his comrades imitate a woodland chase, and then part from 
 them into a silent bay, and try to cut across the reflection 
 of a star in the clear ice, that "flying still before him, 
 gleamed upon the glassy plain," till — suddenly stopping — 
 the whole mo\^ng panorama would seem to sweep by him 
 on either side, as he stood motionless and still. 
 
 On lialf-holidays the boys went to more distant places. 
 They liad rival contests in rowing on Windermere, or visited 
 Furness Abbey on horseback, and explored 
 
 " The sands of Westmoreland, the creeks and bays 
 Of Cumbria's rocky limits." 
 
 They were a " noisy crew," and it was " a tempestuous 
 time : " but he records how, even in his tenth year, while 
 
 "He held unconscious intercourse with Beauty 
 Old as creation, drinking in a pure 
 Organic pleasure. 
 
 even then I felt 
 Gleams like the flashings of a shield ; — the earth 
 And common face of Nature, spake to me 
 Eememberable things." 
 
 Addressing the " Wisdom and Spirit of the Universe," he 
 says that from the first dawn of his childhood, the Soul of 
 Nature intertwined for him the " passions that build up our 
 
 * See The Prelude, vol. viii., p. 291.
 
 HAWKSHEAD : SCHOOL DAYS. 29 
 
 human soul," with " high objects and enduring things ; " and 
 this it was that purified in him the very elements of feeling 
 and of thought. 
 
 The whole of Wordsworth's subsequent work — as poetic 
 teacher and interpreter of Nature and of human life — 
 arose out of these experiences of his boyhood at Hawkshead. 
 He " loved whate'er he saw/' welcomed what Nature gave 
 him, and craved no more. He notes the difficulty, in after 
 life, of going back to our youthful consciousness, and analys- 
 ing our inheritances — the familiar -difficulty of determining 
 what " portion of the river of our minds " came from what 
 fountain. But he believed that, as the child holds a mute 
 unconscious dialogue with its mother's heart, so does the 
 unsophisticated soul of man with Nature, — whether under 
 the quiet stars, or while listening in storm to " notes, that 
 are the ghostly language of the ancient earth." In all this 
 he was mainly, and at first entirely, passive — receiving in- 
 fluence from sources that were inexhaustible ; nevertheless, 
 all the while, he says, a " plastic power abode within him," a 
 " local spirit of his own " that was " at war with general 
 tendency." He says that 
 
 " Au auxiliar light 
 Came from my mind, which, on the setting sun, 
 Bestowed new splendour ; fountains that run on. 
 Murmuring so sweetly in themselves, obeyed 
 Alike dominion, and the midnight storm 
 Grew darker in the presence of my eye : 
 Hence my obeisance, my devotion hence, 
 And hence my transport." 
 
 ,. It was not that what he saw in Nature was illusively 
 thrown into it by himself. He half perceived it, and half 
 created it ; but he was only al^le to create, because of the 
 pre-existing harmony between man and Nature. His inter- 
 pretation was ideal, because it came from within, and necessi- 
 tated his construing the universal life as quasi- human. And
 
 30 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 so he took less interest in the passive " analystic industry " 
 that splits up Nature into sections, and deals with each 
 section apart, than in the active synthetic grasp that com- 
 bines wliat seems remote, and detects affinities in " objects 
 where no brotherhood exists to passive minds." Subse- 
 quently lie traced all the blessings of his after-life, — his 
 contentment with " modest pleasures," the absence of " little 
 enmities and low desires," his continued faith in man and 
 in liis destiny, — to this gift received from Nature, from the 
 mountains, the lakes, the cataracts, the mists, and winds, 
 " that dwelt among the hills where he was born," 
 
 The passage in which this gift of nature is most definitely 
 and grandly expressed is the following from Tlic Prelude : — 
 
 " From Nature and her overflowing soul, 
 I had received so much, that all my thoughts 
 Were steeped in feeling ; I was only then 
 Contented, when with bliss ineffable 
 I felt the sentiment of Being spread 
 O'er all that moves and all that seemeth still ; 
 O'er all that, lost beyond the reach of thought 
 And human knowledge, to the human eye 
 Invisible, yet liveth to the heart ; 
 O'er all that leaps and runs, and shouts and sings. 
 Or beats the gladsome air ; o'er all that glides 
 Beneath the wave, yea, in the wave itself, 
 And mighty depth of waters. Wonder not 
 If high the transport, great the joy I felt, 
 Communing in this sort through earth and heaven 
 With every form of creature, as it looked 
 Towards the Uncreated with a countenance 
 Of adoration, with an eye of love. 
 One song they sang, and it was audible, 
 Most audible then when the fleshly ear, 
 O'ercome by humblest prelude of that strain, 
 Forgot her functions, and slept undisturbed." 
 
 One other paragraph from Tlie Excursion, unfolding the joy 
 of the growing youth in the presence of Nature amongst the 
 hills of Athole, may be put alongside of this, as it is, with- 
 out doubt, descriptive of his own life.
 
 HAWKSHEAD : SCHOOL DAYS. 3 1 
 
 " Such was the Boy — but for the growing Youth 
 What soul was his, when, from the naked top 
 Of some bold headland, he beheld the sun 
 Rise up, and bathe the world in light ! He looked — 
 Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth 
 And ocean's liquid mass, in gladness lay- 
 Beneath him : — Far and wide the clouds were toi;ched. 
 And in their silent faces could he read 
 Unutterable love. Sound needed none, 
 Nor any voice of joy ; his spirit drank 
 The spectacle : sensation, soul, and form. 
 All melted into him : they swallowed up 
 His animal being ; in them did he live. 
 And by them did he live ; they were his life. 
 In such access of mind, in such high hour 
 Of visitation from the living God, 
 Thought was not ; in enjoyment it expired. 
 No thanks he breathed, he proffered no request ; 
 Eapt into still communion that transcends 
 The imperfect offices of prayer and praise, 
 His mind was a thanksgiving to the power 
 That made him ; it was blessedness and love ! " 
 
 The Hawkshead school is a small two-storied building, 
 and it remains at present very much what it was in the end 
 of last century. The main schoolroom is on the ground 
 floor ; one small chamber above was used by the head- 
 master, in Wordsworth's time, for the advanced pupils. 
 In another there is a library, formed for the most part l»y 
 the donations of former pupils. Wordsworth's last teacher. 
 Bowman, established a custom, which lasted for some time, 
 that each scholar should pay live shillings per annum to the 
 library, and on leaving school should present any book or 
 books he chose. It may be interesting to know that, 
 on leaving for Cambridge, Wordsworth and Eobert H. Green- 
 wood together presented to the library Gillies's " History of 
 Greece," in four volumes 8vo. In anotlier school custom 
 the boy Wordsworth joined, viz., in carving liis name witli a 
 penknife on one of the oaken desks. This memorial of his 
 boyhood has been recently protected from injury by a piece
 
 32 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 of glass let into the bench, through which the name — W. 
 Wordsworth — may be easily read. Quite lately the following 
 sentences from his poems have been drawn on scrolls, and 
 put up around the walls of the chief class-room : — * 
 " Small service is true service while it lasts." 
 " The child is father to the man, 
 Aud I could wish my days to be 
 Bound each to each by natural piety." 
 " We live by admiiation, hope, and love." 
 " Books we know 
 Are a substantial world, both pure and good." 
 
 Like the school-house, Anne Tyson's cottage is externally 
 
 very much as it was, in 1778 ; and it is little changed 
 
 in the interior, although its surroundings are much altered. 
 
 It is a humble dwelling of two storeys. The floor of the 
 
 basement flat, paved with the blue flags of Coniston slate, 
 
 is probably just as it was in Wordsworth's time. On the 
 
 second flat there are two bedrooms to the front, one of 
 
 which must have been Wordswortli's. The cottage faces 
 
 south-west, and Wordsworth's room was probably that on 
 
 the proper left, with the smaller of the two windows. He 
 
 speaks of it thus : — 
 
 " Ye lowly cottages wherein we dwelt, 
 A ministration of your own was yours ; 
 Can I forget you, being as you were 
 So beautiful among the pleasant fields 
 In which ye stood ] or can I here forget 
 The plain and seemly countenance with which 
 Ye dealt out your plain comforts '? Yet had ye 
 Delights and exultations of your own." t 
 
 Again : 
 
 " That lowly bed whence I had heard the wind 
 Eoar, and the rain beat hard ; where I so oft 
 Had lain awake on summer nights to watch 
 The moon in splendour couched among the leaves 
 
 * The suggestion was due to Mr Rawnsley, then Vicar of Wray, now of 
 Crosthwaite, Keswick, and the scrolls are the work of Mrs RaM'nsley. 
 t See The Frtlude, book i., vol. iii., p. 147.
 
 HAWKSHEAD : SCHOOL DAYS. 33 
 
 Of a tall ash, that near our cottage stood ; 
 
 Had watched her with fixed eyes while to and fro 
 
 In the dark summit of the waving tree 
 
 She rocked with every impulse of the breeze." * 
 
 This ash tree is gone, but its locality is not difficult to 
 trace. It grew on the proper right front of the cottage, 
 where an outhouse is now built. Tyson's house has special 
 interest in connection with the " fair seed-time of his soul"; 
 and it is perhaps easier for us to realise the boy Wordsworth 
 at Hawkshead as it is now, than it is to imagine the man 
 Wordsworth at Dove Cottage or at Rydal, as they now are. 
 
 Wordsworth's reference to Anne Tyson, the " old dame, so 
 kind and motherly," her cottage, and the garden, are familiar 
 to every reader of The Prelude. Perhaps the most in- 
 teresting is his allusion to 
 
 That unruly child of mountain birth, 
 
 The famous brook, who soon as he was boxed 
 
 Within our garden, found himself at once, 
 
 As if by trick insidious and unkind, 
 
 Stripped of his voice and left to dimple down 
 
 (Without an effort and without a will) 
 
 A channel framed by man's officious care. 
 
 There has been doubt, and there still is controversy, as 
 to the identity of this brook. Dr Cradock wrote thus of it; 
 " Persons have visited the cottage without discovering it : 
 and yet it is not forty yards distant, and is still exactly as 
 described. On the opposite side of the lane already referred 
 to, a few steps above the cottage, is a narrow passage through 
 some new stone buildings. On emerging from this, you 
 meet a garden, the farther side of which is bounded by the 
 brook, confined on both sides by large flags, and also covered 
 by flags of the same Coniston formation, through the interstices 
 of which you may see and hear the stream running freely. 
 The upper flags are now used as a footpath, and lead by 
 
 * See The Prelude, book iv., vol. iii. p. 194. 
 IX. C
 
 34 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 auother passage back into the village. No doubt the garden 
 has been reduced in size by the use of that part of it fronting 
 the lane for building purposes. The stream, before it enters 
 the area of buildings and garden, is open by the lane side, 
 and seemingly comes from the hills to the westward. The 
 large flags are extremely hard and durable, and it is probable 
 that the very flags which paved the channel in Wordsworth's 
 time may be doing the same duty still." 
 
 There is another spot a few hundred yards above this 
 one, in the course of the brook, at a place now called 
 Walker Ground, where the streamlet is also " boxed within 
 a garden " and " stripped of its voice " for some distance ; 
 and it is said that boys attending the school in the end of 
 the last century used to board there. But it seems more 
 probable that the "garden" with its "crowd of things about its 
 narrow precincts all beloved," was near Dame Tyson's house. 
 
 Wordsworth's school holidays were spent either at Penrith, 
 with his mother's family the Cooksons, or at Cockermouth. 
 He gives us a most graphic picture of one holiday at 
 Cockermouth, and of his joy at finding a " golden store " of 
 books in his father's house ; how he took out one book — 
 the " Arabian Nights " — with his rod when he went 
 a-fishing ; and how, though the soft west wind was ruffling 
 the water to the angler's heart, he lay amid the hot stones 
 of the Derwent, and in the glaring sun, the whole long-live 
 day, devouring these tales of delightful fiction. 
 
 Wlien the school hoHdays were at Penrith, there was to 
 William the great delight of occasional meetings with his 
 sister Dorothy, and doubtless of seeing his old schoolfellow 
 and cousin, Mary Hutchinson. Dorothy's cliildhood with her 
 relations at Penrith seems to have been an unhappy one, 
 and she poured out her sorrows in frequent letters to her 
 friend Jane Pollard, afterwards Mrs John Marshall of Leeds 
 and Hallsteads. In these letters, which have not been
 
 HAWKSHEAD : SCHOOL DAYS. 35 
 
 published,* there are the signs of a deep, strong, affectionate, 
 lonely nature, longing for a fellowship that was denied to it. 
 The Penrith relatives were ungenial people. The grandfather 
 had not the best of tempers, and the grandmother had little 
 affection to spare ; cold unsympathetic natures, both of them. 
 Dorothy writes, at the age of sixteen, how bitterly she 
 laments the loss of her parents, (she was an orphan at 
 thirteen). She lived as a stranger in the house, and 
 grew up grave and silent, wearied with the triviality of the 
 work she was set to do, and with the stock topics of con- 
 versation in the house. Incessantly lectured as to the duty 
 of sedateness by a very artificial old lady, she took it 
 meekly, but poured out her spirit the more earnestly in these 
 letters to her friend. A subsequent chapter will contain 
 many of them. The following may now be given, as it 
 contains the earliest hint of Wordsworth's thoughts as to a 
 profession in life, and shews that he at first wished to follow 
 his father's. It was written from Penrith in 1787, but is 
 undated : — 
 
 " I do not now pass half my time alone. I can bear the 
 ill-nature of all my relations, for the affection of my brothers 
 consoles me in all my griefs ; but how soon shall I be 
 deprived of this consolation. They are so affectionate. . . . 
 William and Christopher are very clever. . . . John, who is 
 to be the sailor, has a most affectionate heart. He is not so 
 bright as either William or Christopher, but he has very 
 good common sense. . . . Eichard, the eldest, is equally 
 affectionate and good, but he is far from being as clever as 
 William. . . . Many a time have W., J., C, and myself shed 
 tears together, tears of the bitterest sorrow. We all of us 
 feel each day the loss we sustained when we were deprived 
 
 * One or two extracts are given in Mr Myers' volume on Wordsworth, in 
 the English Men of Letters series.
 
 36 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 of our parents ; and each day do we receive fresh insults of 
 the most mortifying kind, the insults of servants." [The 
 uncle would not send horses to bring the boys from school 
 after the holidays had begun, but kept them a week at 
 Hawkshead till W. hired a horse and rode over to Penrith. 
 In the Penrith house they had evidently much to endure.] 
 "' Uncle Kit (who is our guardian) cares little for us. . . . 
 We have been told a thousand of times that we were liars. 
 Mortifications to which we are continually subject. . . . W. 
 has a wish to be a lawyer, if his health will permit." 
 
 Another characteristic incident of the Hawkshead days 
 is mentioned in The Prelude. Immediately before the 
 Christmas holidays in 1783, and shortly before his father's 
 death, William and liis brothers went out from the village to 
 watch for the horses that were to be sent to take them over 
 to Penrith. There was a crag that rose from " the meeting- 
 point of two highways," and overlooked them both. Thither 
 the boy went, " scout-like, and gained the summit," and he 
 watched, on a dark tempestuous day, beside a naked wall 
 and a blasted hawthorn tree, in an anxiety of hope, straining 
 his eyes intensely for the first sight of the horses. Soon 
 after they got to Penrith the father died, and the four 
 orphan boys followed him to his grave at Cockermouth ; 
 and then he tells us that the memory of that day of 
 expectation on the crag came back to him. He bowed low 
 in submission, but, 
 
 " afterwards, the wind and sleety rain, 
 And all the business of the elements ; 
 The single sheep, and the one blasted tree, 
 And the bleak music from that old stone wall, 
 The noise of wind and water, and the mist 
 That on the line of each of these two roads 
 Advanced in such indisputable shapes ; 
 All these were kindred spectacles and sounds, 
 To which I oft repaired, and thence would drink, 
 As at a fountain."
 
 HAWKSHEAD I SCHOOL DAYS. 37 
 
 There is no doubt that, iu these joyous Hawkshead days, 
 the continuity of the life of the world, and the reciprocal 
 influence of one object on another — all things being knit 
 together in one vast hierarchy — was realised by Words- 
 worth. But it must be remembered that his vision of 
 Nature was in one sense the vision of a "light that never 
 was on sea or land" — that the radiance which " bestowed 
 new splendour" on external Nature " came from within ; " 
 and, on the other hand, that it also really existed in the 
 objects that surround us, while by the majority of men 
 it is unperceived. We must connect the Ode on Immor- 
 tality with these Hawkshead years, as well as with Cocker- 
 mouth. The hour of the first "splendour in the grass," and 
 " glory in the flower " — which had vanished when he wrote 
 this Ode at Grasmere — survived at Hawkshead ; but it was 
 being slowly changed, from the mere organic pleasure and 
 delight of the earlier years, to a delight in Nature for what 
 it taught or revealed of Man. When the boy went out to 
 watch the light of dawn from some "jutting eminence" near 
 Hawkshead, he tells us that in these moments 
 
 " such a holy calm 
 Would overspread his soul, that bodily eyes 
 "Were utterly forgotten, and what he saw, 
 Appeared like something in himself, a dream 
 A prospect in the mind." 
 
 This by degrees ripened still further into 
 
 " these obstinate questionings 
 Of sense, and outward things, 
 Falling from us, vanishings," &c., 
 
 of which the great Ode is the record. The process of 
 idealisation — begun in early childhood — was matured only 
 when he detached himself from Nature, and realised the 
 separateness and the kindredness together. 
 
 In all this experience at Hawkshead, however, he was
 
 38 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 in a real sense, alone. He had companions, with whom he 
 walked, and rode, and played, but none of them — neither 
 Raincock, " the boy of Windermere," nor Greenwood, " the 
 minstrel of the troop," nor Fleming, the companion of his 
 walks round Esthwaite — really understood him. 
 
 Of verses written by Wordsworth during his Hawkshead 
 days, we have (perhaps fortunately) no surviving trace, ex- 
 cept the extract "From the conclusion of a Poem, com- 
 posed in anticipation of leaving school," and the other frag- 
 ment (of greater promise) entitled, Written in very early 
 Youth, and beginning 
 
 "Calm is all Nature as a resting wheel." * 
 
 That he did write verses was known to all his schoolfellows ; 
 and I am indebted to a nephew of Southey's, the Rev. Mr 
 Hill of Warwick, for the fact, told him by the poet, that 
 one of his very prosaic schoolfellows at Hawkshead once 
 addressed him thus : " I say, Bill, when you write poems, 
 do you always invoke the Muse ? " -f* 
 
 * It is worthy of note that this earliest fragment is in irregular sonnet 
 form. 
 
 1 1 may here mention, though out of their chronological place, two other 
 little anecdotes derived from the same source. One of the peasantry near 
 Rydal hearing him often talking aloud and humming over his verses in all 
 weathers out of doors, replied to the question of a stranger : " W^hat sort 
 of a man is Mr Wordsworth ? " " Oh, sir, he goes bumming, and muffling, 
 and talking to his sen ; but ichiles he's as sensible as you or I !" 
 
 Once in the later years of his life (see vol. ii.) Wordsworth met with 
 an accident in driving from Keswick to Ambleside. Just beyond Naddle 
 Bridge, in the vale of St John, the coach from Grasmere to Keswick, 
 through great carelessness on the part of the driver, came into violent col- 
 Msion with Wordsworth's carriage, and upset it. The vehicle was smashed, 
 but \\'ordsworth was not injured. In after years the driver seemed rather 
 elated with the honour of having smashed the carriage of so distinguished 
 a man, and used to say to the passengers on descending that hill, "Now 
 here, here's the place where we spilt the Powet. " My informant asked 
 him, "And what did he say to you?" "Well, sir," was the reply, "he 
 got up, sir, and shook himself, and said, ' I intend, sir, I intend to make a 
 thorough investigation into this here business ! ' "
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE : UNIVERSITY LIFE AND SUMMER HOLIDAYS : 
 DOROTHY WORDSWORTH AT FORNCETT. 
 
 In October 1787 Wordsworth went up from Westmoreland 
 to Cambridge by York (where he spent four days), and 
 began life as an undergraduate at John's College. In Tlu 
 Prelude he has described his first view of Cambridge from the 
 top of the coach, whence he saw " the long-roofed chapel of 
 King's College," its turrets and pinnacles ; his alighting 
 at the Hoop Inn ; his earliest impression of the streets, the 
 colleges and cloisters ; and the strange contrast in it all to 
 what he had been accustomed to amongst the hills of the 
 north. His rooms were in the first of the three courts of 
 St John's, above the college kitchens. The clock of Trinity 
 hung near him, and from the window of his bedroom he 
 could look into the ante-chapel of that college. 
 
 He received little influence from the teaching of the 
 college tutors or lecturers, Their prelections were emi- 
 nently dull, and so he read the poets and the novelists more 
 than the classics, and studied Italian. It will surprise no 
 one that his name did not appear on the list of wranglers. 
 Other boys from Hawkshead school eclipsed him easily in 
 mathematical honours (see vol. ii. p. 38). In fact he was 
 out of his natural element during all the three years at 
 Cambridge. He tells us that he felt 
 
 "a strangeness in the mind, 
 A feeling that I was not for that hour, 
 Nor for that place." 
 
 He would have felt the very same in boyhood had he
 
 •10 LIFE OF WOEDSWORTH. 
 
 been sent to one of the larger English public schools instead 
 of to the primitive simplicities of Hawkshead. At^ Cam- 
 bridge he was most at his ease when he left his comrades 
 and the college grounds, anil went out to the level fields 
 around the city. There he solaced himself as he " perused 
 the common countenance of earth and sky," or turned in- 
 wards upon the mysteries of his own nature. Even in the 
 level flats of the fen country, to " the loose stones that 
 covered the highway " he " gave a moral life." Sensitive to 
 every changing mood of Nature, as the surface of the water 
 to the influence of the sky, all that he beheld, he tells us, 
 "respired with inward meaning." His comrades thought 
 him an eccentric youth, but he had his own world to live in. 
 And so, as an undergraduate, he made few friends. It was 
 a lonely, yet a joyous time. A spell seemed on him when 
 he was alone ; and yet he was a social youth, and loved not 
 merely companionship, but mirth. During these Cambridge 
 years he boated in the river, rode into the country, read 
 novels, and went to parties with the rest of his collegians. 
 Once, he tells us, in the college room which had been 
 Milton's, at a wine party, he poured out libations to the 
 memory of the Bard till his brain grew dizzy. He left 
 the room, and rushing out found he was too late for chapel. 
 He adds, what we can well beKeve, that never before or 
 since had he been excited by wine. 
 
 Cambridge, however, did more for Wordsworth than he 
 himself knew. It gave him little scholarship, but it 
 disciplined Ms character. Instead of the free hand of 
 Nature, the equally powerful hand of the Past was now 
 upon him. It awakened a new, thougli almost unconscious, 
 reverence for antiquity. He tells us that lie 
 
 " Could not print 
 Ground where the grass had yielded to the steps 
 Of generations of illustrious men, 
 Unmoved."
 
 CAMBRIDGE : SUMMER VACATIONS : ETC. 41 
 
 The simple fact that Milton and Newton had passed through 
 the gateways, lived in the college, and were familiar with 
 the quadrangles that he knew, stirred him — while it brought 
 these great intellects nearer to him. He sauntered out to 
 the village of Trompington with his Chaucer, and read the 
 " Keve's Tale " under the hawthorns. So, too, with the other 
 Poets. And the months passed on, in a somewhat desultory 
 manner. Imagination slept, the heart reposed, the pulse of 
 contemplation almost failed to beat. It was his own fault, 
 he says ; but the free and open Hawkshead life had ill 
 tutored him for the comparative stagnation and the " indoor 
 study " of Cambridge. He regrets, and with good reason, 
 that he did not study harder ; but, at the same time, he 
 notes the passions, and academic jealousies, to which hard 
 study and fierce competitions give rise. He tells us that 
 he spent most of the first eight months at Cambridge in 
 studying the characters of the College tutors, men somewhat 
 grotesque in character, bookworms, and humourists of a type 
 now obsolete. 
 
 Wordsworth's first summer vacation from Cambridge, in 
 1788, was memorable to him in many ways. He went 
 back to Westmoreland and Lancashire. Readers of The 
 Prelude know well his description of his return to Hawks- 
 head, his meeting with Dame Tyson, his return to his old 
 room in her house, his saluting every familiar person and 
 place — the tall ash tree, the garden, the brook, his old 
 companion dog, his wanderings up the Vale, and round the 
 Lake, to the old haunts of his boyhood. Everything was the 
 same, and yet all was changed. There was now — partly 
 the effect of temporary absence, and partly due to the 
 enlargement of his own nature — a " human-heartedness " 
 about his love for the objects of external nature. Trees, 
 mountains, brooks, even the stars of heaven were now 
 regarded, not with awe, but with a deep and an enthusiastic
 
 42 LIFE OF WOEDSWOKTH. 
 
 human love. He thinks he wasted some time by the pursnit 
 of trivial pleasures during this first summer holiday. He 
 would occasionally join his old companions in a rustic 
 dance : and he records one of these, at a small mountain 
 farm. Every one knows the memorable lines in which he 
 describes his return in the morning to Hawkshead, when 
 in the calm brightness of that new-born day, he " made no 
 vows, but vows were made for him," and he realised that he 
 must henceforward dedicate himself to the office of a Poet 
 solely. The first fruits of this dedication was the Evening 
 Walk, which he began to write during this first holiday in 
 the north.* 
 
 Before returning to Cambridge, he seems to have gone up 
 to London for a few days, and 
 
 " Paced her endless streets 
 A transient visitant." 
 
 He went, apparently, in some travelling cart or showman's 
 waggon,! " with vulgar men about him ; " but, as soon as 
 he had passed through the long labpdnth of suburban 
 villages, it was almost as when first he saw the Alps, the 
 " weight of ages " descended upon him, a sense of power in 
 the vast city. He afterwards compared his experience of 
 London to that of the curious traveller, in the grotto of 
 Antiparos or the cave of Yordas, bewildered with the gloom, 
 but gradually realizing the vastness and the many-sided 
 interest of the place. 
 
 When he returned to Cambridge, in October 1789, he 
 seems first to have realised that he might be able to leave 
 behind him some work, which "pure hearts would reverence." 
 
 Over and over again he expresses his thankfulness that 
 
 * Fragmentary passages, written at Hawkshead, were inwoven into the 
 Evening Walk, when it was finally prepared for the press in 1793. 
 t See Prelude, book viii., vol. iii. p. 301.
 
 CAMBEIDGE : SUMMER VACATIONS : ETC. 43 
 
 he was not compelled to read, in the formal lines of classical 
 or mathematical scholarship, that he was left as free to range 
 the " happy pastures " of Literature as in boyhood to range 
 the woods and heights at Hawkshead. And it was well for 
 him — although it would be the worst thing possible for the 
 majority of us — that the academic " guides and wardens 
 of our faculties " did not confine him to the work of reading 
 for honours in any tripos. Left very much to himself, the 
 awe of mighty names in past Literature, which had possessed 
 him hitherto, was softened down, and the place of these 
 Teachers of mankind seemed approachable. 
 
 All that wirier at Cambridge, he tells us, he used to fre- 
 quent the College grove and walks by night — usually alone 
 — till the porter's bell summoned him to his room at nine. 
 He used to be spell-bound by one particular tree, an ivy-clad 
 ash, which, with its lightsome twigs, and sprays, and seeds, 
 that hung in yellow tassels, fascinated him, especially as seen 
 beneath a frosty moon. This ash tree is now gone. He 
 did not entirely neglect his mathematical studies, and he has 
 written in The Prelude, with rare appreciation, of geometric 
 science, " and its high privilege of lasting life." He even 
 felt the charms of mathematical synthesis, to a mind " beset 
 with images, and haunted by itself." 
 
 His next summer vacation was even more important to 
 him than that of 1788, for it brought him again into 
 contact with his sister Dorothy and Mary Hutchinson. He 
 went north by Dovedale in Derbyshire, and, by the wilder 
 Yorkshire dales, to Penrith. With his sister he wandered 
 over the whole Penrith district, climbed the Border Beacon, 
 explored the banks of the Emont, and lingered about the 
 towers of Brougham Castle. They would go up the Emont 
 to Sockbridge, the old home of their grandfather, down the 
 same stream past Brougham Castle to the Countess' l^illar 
 possibly out to the great druidical circle of Long Meg, and
 
 44 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 certainly through the woods of Lowther Castle. The poem, 
 which he had begun in his last autumn vacation at 
 Hawkshead, was now continued ; and the belief that he 
 must dedicate himself to song, " else sinning greatly" — which 
 came upon him with such vivid force in liis morning-walk 
 after the rustic dance a year ago — deepened in the course 
 of these wanderings with his sister and Mary Hutchinson, in 
 that long holiday at Penrith. Its first fruit was the Poem, — 
 which he dedicated to his sister after his return to " Granta's 
 Cloisters" in October 1789, — but did not publish till five 
 years later, in 179)^. 
 
 His last year at Cambridge — to the majority of studious 
 men a year of intense labour at competitive examinations — 
 was spent by Wordsworth pretty much as the two earlier 
 ones had been. 
 
 In his third summer holiday, instead of returning to the 
 north, he started with a friend, a fellow collesrian in John's, 
 on a pedestrian tour through France and Switzerland. 
 They had discussed the Alps together, thought over 
 Hannibal's achievements, and wished to see the mountains 
 and the passes ; but another impulse moved them. It was 
 a wondrous time in modern European history. Prance 
 seemed to be " standing on the top of golden hours." A 
 revolution was in the air, and with the promise of that 
 revolution both these young spirits were in sympathy. The 
 year before, the Bastille had fallen in Paris, and to many 
 of the youth of England it seemed the dawn of a new era, 
 an era of cosmopolitan freedom. Even in the conservative 
 seats of learning sympathy with the new movement was 
 expressed, as well as felt. The Vice-Chancellor of Cam- 
 bridge had gone so far as to speak of the destruction of the 
 Bastille as " a subject of triumph and congratulation." 
 Wordsworth's friend was a Welshman, Robert Jones of Plas- 
 yn-llan, in Denbighshire, afterwards Fellow of John's College,
 
 CAMBRIDGE I SUMMER VACATIONS : TC. 45 
 
 and parson in Oxfordshire. They took with them walking- 
 sticks, but no knapsacks, each tying up " in a pocket- 
 handkerchief ''" what they required for a three months' 
 journey on foot, and " twenty pounds apiece in their 
 pockets." In passing through London, Wordsworth did not 
 tarry to call on his brother Richard (settled in business 
 there), as he thought that their scheme of pedestrian travel 
 would be regarded as " mad and impracticable." On the 
 IStli July 1790 they left Dover for Calais, and were on 
 the Continent till the month of October. They touched the 
 French soil on the very day when King Louis XIV. swore 
 fidelity to the new Constitution imposed on him. Calais 
 was in high festival, and they saw 
 
 " How bright a face is worn when joy of one 
 Is joy for tens of millions." 
 
 They cast no regretful thoughts back to England, when 
 everywhere as they wandered, even in sequestered villages 
 along their route, they seemed to see the signs of present 
 joy, and of coming blessedness to the people. There was as 
 yet no evidence that in these " dances of liberty " there was' 
 the " pomp of a too credulous day." They avoided Paris, 
 went on to Burgundy ; and, at Chalons embarked, and with 
 a crowd of delegates returning from Paris, floated down the 
 Ehone. At night they landed, supped with their fellow- 
 voyagers, danced, and pledged the new republic with glee, 
 resuming their voyage in the morning, till they reached 
 Lyons. Thence they again started on foot, and in two days 
 reached the Convent of Cliartreuse. In the first volume of 
 this work will be found part of a long letter from Words- 
 worth to his sister, written at Keswick on Sejitember (i, 
 1790, giving a detailed account of this journey, which was 
 almost "a marvel of military speed." They went on from 
 the Chartreuse to Villeneuve, thence to Martigny and
 
 46 LIFE OF WORDSWOETH. 
 
 to Chamouny, saw the great glaciers under Mont Blanc, its 
 " dumb cataracts and streams of ice," returned to the Rhone 
 valley, went up as far as Brieg, crossed over the Alps by 
 the Simplon, heard at the summit with a pang of regret 
 that the climb was over, and that they must thence descend 
 to Como. Como seems to have impressed Wordsworth more 
 than any other spot during this journey. He gives a 
 minute account of it. They returned by the sources of the 
 Ehine, went by Lucerne and Zurich to Schaffhausen, and 
 after sundry minor excursions, floated down the Rhine to 
 Cologne, and returned by Calais. Wordsworth's long letter 
 to his sister must be referred to, as it cannot be reproduced ; 
 and there it will be seen how much his thoughts turned to 
 her while he was abroad, and how intense was his apj)recia- 
 tion both of the magnificence of the Swiss scenery, and of 
 the French and the Swiss character.* The two young 
 pedestrians must have presented an odd appearance, and he. 
 admits that they raised many a smile in the villages as 
 they passed on, carrying their bundles on their heads ! 
 
 A first visit to Switzerland usually opens the eye to 
 certain aspects of the sublime in Nature never seen before. 
 It was so with these Cambridge youths, and a poetical record 
 of their travels, entitled Descriptive Sketches, was written 
 by Wordsworth, and published in the same year as The 
 Evening Walk, 1793. This journey, and all that it brought 
 to Wordsworth, is also recorded, in much nobler verse, in 
 the sixth book of The Prelude. There we learn that all he 
 saw, and heard, and felt in that delightful journey, was a 
 stream that flowed parallel to a kindred stream. It flowed 
 
 " Confederate with the current of the soul." 
 Wordsworth was more profoundly moved by the new 
 
 * Wordsworth tells us they learned lessous of " genuine brotherhood."
 
 CAMBRIDGE I SUMMER VACATIONS : ETC. 47 
 
 revelations which Nature made to him, in the Alps and in 
 Italy than by the political revolution that was going on, or by 
 the European strife for freedom which was the great question 
 of the hour. Speaking to Coleridge of the " glorious and 
 happy time " of this tour, Wordsworth says, that though they 
 " crossed the Brabant armies in the front, for battle in the 
 cause of Liberty," he looked upon the event " as from a 
 distance." He indeed " heard, and saw, and felt, but with 
 no intimate concern." The glories of the ever-living uni- 
 verse, opening up around him, and calling him to new delights, 
 magnetised him, and he needed nothing more to satisfy him. 
 When he came to write out the Descrijjtivc Sketches, and 
 dedicate them to his fellow traveller, the European conflict 
 had touched him more deeply ; and he concludes that poem 
 by expressing sympathy with the struggle for Liberty, and 
 a hope for its realisation. The Sketches, however, were com- 
 posed for the most part in the year 1792, while he resided 
 in France, and when his mind had undergone some new 
 developments. 
 
 His sister sent to her friend. Miss Pollard, an account 
 of her brother's Swiss tour ; and as it may be best to give 
 several of her letters together as illustrative of her life in 
 Norfolk, and of the family movements of the brothers, espe- 
 cially of William, John, and Christopher, we go back to the 
 date of William's leaving the north for Cambridge in 1787. 
 Dorothy was then at Penrith ; she went thence to Halifax, 
 and from Halifax to her uncle Cookson's rectory at Forncett, 
 in Norfolk. Each letter will explain itself. 
 
 " Penrith, Monday/ Evening, 10 o'clock [1787]. 
 
 " Yesterday morning I parted with the kindest and the 
 most affectionate of brothers. I cannot paint to you my 
 distress at their departure. For a few hours I was abso- 
 lutely miserable, as a thousand tormenting fears rushed upon
 
 48 LIFE OF WOKDSWORTH. 
 
 me ; the approaching winter, the ill -nature of my grand- 
 father and Uncle Chris., the little probability there is of my 
 soon again seeing my youngest brother, the still less likeli- 
 hood of my visiting my Halifax friends, in quick succession 
 filled my mind. . . . You know not how forlorn and dull 
 I find myself now that my brothers are gone, neither can 
 you imagine how I enjoyed their company, when I could 
 contrive to be alone with them. If the partial affection of 
 a sister does not greatly magnify all their merits they are 
 charming boys, particularly the three youngest (William, 
 John, and Kit). ... I often say to myself I have the 
 most affectionate brothers in the world. While I possess 
 them can I ever be entirely miserable. ... It is indeed 
 mortifying to my brothers and me that amongst all those who 
 visited at my fatlier's house he had not one real friend. . . . 
 Mr brother William goes to Cambridge in October. He 
 wishes very much to be a lawyer, if his health will permit; 
 but he. is troubled with violent headaches, . . , 
 
 [She gives a catalogue of the books she had received from 
 her brothers, including the Iliad, the Odyssey, Fielding's 
 works, Gil Bias, Milton's works. Goldsmith's poems, with 
 the promise of a Shakespeare. She tells her friend she is 
 determined to pursue study in French and English though 
 under difficulties, because she had work to do in the shop at 
 Penrith, and it was only " by working particularly hard for 
 one hour " that she could manage " to read the next without 
 being discovered."] 
 
 " I rise pretty early in the morning, so I hope in time to 
 have perused them all. I am at present at the Iliad, and 
 like it very much. My brother William read part of it. . . . 
 I wear my hair curled about my face in light curls frizzled 
 at the bottom." 
 
 The following extracts, from three undated letters, seem 
 to belong to the year 1787 : —
 
 CAMBRIDGE: SUMMER VACATIONS : ETC. 49 
 
 " I have heard from my brother William since his arrival 
 at Cambridge. He spent three or four days at York on the 
 road." " John will very likely be off to India in spring." 
 
 [The next letter is one of ardent passionate friendship, 
 written just after her grandfather's death, thankful that he 
 was gone], " for he has for these two years been a burden to 
 himself and friends." [Expresses a longing to go to Halifax 
 to see her friend], " that dear place which I shall ever con- 
 sider as my home. ..." We have no father to protect, 
 no mother to guide us." ..." My brother John has set 
 sail for Barbadoes. ... I hope, poor lad, that he will be 
 successful and happy. He is much delighted with the pro- 
 fession he has chosen. How we are squandered abroad ! " 
 [Then she goes on to wish her correspondent were her sister], 
 " how happy we should be ! Our fortunes would be very 
 small, but sufficient for us to live comfortably, and on our 
 brothers we would depend for everything." 
 
 Dccemler 1th. — " Could I but see you. I really think 
 that for an hour after our meeting there would nothing pass 
 betwixt us but tears of joy, fits of laughter, and unconnected 
 exclamations. ... I assure you I am a very skilful archi- 
 tect. I have so many different plans of building our castle, 
 so many contrivances ! Do you ever build castles ? . . . 
 It is a very fine morning, most likely you are taking 
 a walk up the bank. As for me, I never go out but on a 
 Sunday." 
 
 The next extract is from a letter, dated " Norwich, Decem- 
 ber 6, 1788." 
 
 "Norwich, December 6, 1788 ] 
 
 [She praises her Uncle and Aunt Cookson. When it was 
 
 told her that she was to go with them to Forncett, she was] 
 
 " almost mad with joy. . . . After the wedding was over" 
 
 [presumably tlie Cookson's wedding], " we set off on our 
 
 IX. D
 
 50 LIFE OF WOllDSWORTH. 
 
 journey to Newcastle, and spent a fortnight there." [Thence 
 to Cambridge, where she saw her brothers], " very well, and 
 in excellent spirits." [Stayed only a day in Cambridge, 
 thence to Norwich, and thence next day to Forncett.] " Forn- 
 cett is a little village, entirely inhabited by farmers, who 
 seem a very decent kind of people. My uncle's house is 
 very comfortable, and the gardens will be charming. I 
 intend to be a great gardener, and to take care of the 
 poultry, which we have in great abundance." 
 
 In the beginning of the following year, January 25, 1789, 
 
 she writes : — 
 
 "■JaniMry %bth, 1789. 
 
 " My brother John, I imagine, sailed for India on Satur- 
 day or Sunday in the Earl of Abergavenny. William is at 
 Cambridge, Eichard at London, and Kit at Hawkshead. 
 How we are squandered abroad. ... I have got a little 
 school. ... I have only kept it six months. I have nine 
 scholars. . . . Our hours in winter are, on Sunday morn- 
 ings, from nine till church time ; at noon from half-past one 
 to three; and at night from four till half-past five. Those 
 who live near us come to me every Wednesday and Satur- 
 day evening. I only instruct them in reading and spelling. 
 ... I have one very bright scholar, some very tolerable, 
 and one or two very bad. I intend in a little time to have 
 a school on a more extensive plan. Mr Wilberforce has 
 been with us for rather more than a month. He allows me 
 two guineas a year to distribute in what manner I think best 
 for the poor." 
 
 ^^ Sunday, December 28^A, 1789. 
 
 ..." We are happily situated at Forncett, and upon a 
 
 near view my prospects appear even more delightful than 
 
 upon a more distant one. On Christmas day we went in 
 
 the morning to one of my uncle's churches, which is only a
 
 CAMBRIDGE: SUMMER VACATIONS : ETC. 51 
 
 stej) or two from the house, and in the afternoon to the 
 other, which is about a mile from us." [Speaks of the "only 
 neighbour within two miles," a Miss Dix, a rich maiden 
 lady, and of her visits to her, of her merits, and of her 
 censoriousness ; also of meetings with Dr Enfield of Norwich ; 
 of " roivts, which are of all things in the world the most dis- 
 agreeable."] ..." Did I ever tell you that my brother John 
 is gone to Jamaica, and on his return is going to the West 
 Indies. One of my amusements is feeding the robin red- 
 breasts. There are at present two in the room, which are 
 gone to rest. You may imagine how tame they are, when 
 I tell you that they hop about the room where we sit, with- 
 out the least appearance of fear." 
 
 " FoRNCETT, Ap-il 30ih, 1790. 
 
 ..." My brothers, I hope, are all well. I long to have 
 an opportunity of introducing you to my dear William. I 
 am very anxious about him just now, as he will shortly 
 have to provide for himself. Next year he takes his degree. 
 When he will go into Orders I do not know, nor how he 
 will employ himself. He must, wlien he is three -and-twenty, 
 either go into Orders or take pupils. He will be twenty in 
 April. I do not know whether I mentioned my brother Kit 
 to you. He intends to go to Cambridge. My uncle tells 
 me he is a most amiable youth ; and I am told that, for his 
 years, he is a most excellent scholar ; and from my own 
 experience I know that he has the best of tempers." 
 
 " FoRNCETT, October ()th, 1700. 
 
 " If you have been informed that I have had so dear a 
 friend as my brother William traversing (on foot, with only 
 one companion) the mountains of Switzerland during the 
 whole of this sunnuer, and that he has not yet returned, 1
 
 52 LIFE OF WOUDSWORTH. 
 
 flatter myself you will be anxious on my account to hear of 
 his welfare. I received a very long letter from him a week 
 ago, which was begun upon the Lake of Constance." [She 
 gives a long account of the letter.] . . . "William is a perfect 
 enthusiast in his admiration of nature in all her various 
 forms." [She quotes from the letter in detail as printed in 
 the Memoirs.] " I once saw the Miss Martineau you 
 mention at Norwich. Mr and Mrs Martineau, her brother 
 and sister, we are very well acquainted with. Last summer 
 we spent two or three days at their house, and had an 
 invitation from them this summer to the musical festival. . . . 
 My school goes on as usual." . . . 
 
 " December 7th, 1791. 
 " Living quietly, though very happily, at Forncett, without 
 having been at one ball, one play, one concert." [Miss Pollard 
 having told her of a visit to Leeds ; she, D. W., indicates that 
 she had been at Cambridge before this, because, referring to 
 York Minster* of which her friend writes to her, she says :] 
 " I have a pretty good idea of your feelings on entering the 
 Minster at York, by my own when I visited King's College 
 Chapel at Cambridge." [Tells about the Lonsdale law suit, 
 and that her grandmother has had possession of a very 
 handsome estate for about a year.] " She has shewn us 
 great kindness, and has promised to give us five hundred 
 pounds (c£100 a-piece) the first time she receives her rents. 
 . . . Our several resources are these : the £500 which my 
 grandmother is to give us, £500 which is due on account of 
 my mother's fortune, about £200 which my uncle Kit owes 
 us, and £1000 at present in the hands of our guardians, 
 and about £150 which we are to receive out of the New- 
 biggin estate, with what may be adjudged as due to us from 
 Lord L. My brother Richard has about £100 per annum, 
 and William has received his education, for which a reduc-
 
 CAMBRIDGE: SUMMER VACATIONS: ETC. 53 
 
 tion will be made ; so that I hope, unless we are treated in 
 the most unjust manner possible, my three younger brothers 
 and I will have £1000 a-piece, deducting in William's 
 share the expense of his education. . . . John is to go out in 
 the spring in the Tlictis, East Indiaman. . . . William is 
 arrived, I hope, by this time at Orleans, where he means to 
 pass the winter for the purpose of learning the French 
 language, which will qualify him for the office of travelling 
 companion to some young gentleman, if he can get recom- 
 mended. . . . He is at the same time engaged in the study 
 of the Spanish language, and if he settles in England on his 
 return, he will begin the study of the Oriental languages. . . . 
 We are going to establish a school of industry. My uncle 
 is at present in treaty about a house for the purpose. The 
 operations of my little school have been suspended ever 
 since the birth of Christopher." 
 
 Eeturning to England, and to Cambridge, Wordsworth 
 took his B.A. degree in January 1791. He went immedi- 
 ately afterwards to Eorncett Eectory, and spent six weeks 
 with his sister. 
 
 The following letter from Dorothy to Miss Pollard, 
 though written four months later, may be given here, from 
 its allusions to her brother's visit to the Rectory : — 
 
 " FoRNCETT, May 23rd, 1791. 
 
 " My brother William is now in Wales, where he intends 
 making a pedestrian tour, along with his old friend and 
 companion Jones, at whose house he is at present staying. 
 . . . My aunt would tell you that she saw my brothers 
 Richard and William in town. I hope John will arrive 
 there in about a month. We are daily expecting tidings of 
 the Ahergavcnny. I heard from my brother Kit lately. 
 He tells me he has been upon a pedestrian tour amongst
 
 54 LIFE OF AVORDSWORTH. 
 
 the Lakes, with two of his schoolfellows. He is to come to 
 Cambridge next October, . . . The idea of having him so 
 near is, you will imagine, very agreeable to me. I hope we 
 shall see much of each other. He is a most amiable young 
 man." [Speaks of the prospect of a settlement "in about a 
 year " of the Lonsdale claims.] " I have been three times 
 at Norwich lately, which is something extraordinary, as we 
 stir little from home. These three journeys produced three 
 visits to the theatre. ... I rise about six every morning ; 
 and, as I have no companion, walk with a book till half- 
 past eight, if the weather permits ; if not, I read in the 
 house. Sometimes we walk in the mornings, but seldom 
 more than half-an-hour, just before dinner. After tea we 
 all walk together till about eight, and I then walk alone, as 
 long as I can, in the garden. I am particularly fond of a 
 moonlight or twilight walk. It is at this time I think most 
 of my absent friends. My brother William was with us 
 six months * in the depth of winter. You may recollect 
 that at that time the weather was exceedingly mild. We 
 used to walk every morning about two hours ; and every 
 evening we went into the garden, at four or half-past four, 
 and used to pace backwards and forwards till six. Unless 
 you have accustomed yourself to this kind of w^alking, you 
 will have no idea that it can be pleasant ; but I assure you 
 it is most delightful, and if you and I happened to be 
 together in the country (as we probably may), we shall try 
 liow you like my plan, if you are not afraid of the evening 
 air." 
 
 * So it is •written, but she must mean weeks, not months. Wordsworth 
 graduated in .January, and went to London in February, 1791.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 LONDON : FKANCE : THE EEVOLUTION. 
 
 In February 1791 Wordsworth went up from Cambridge to 
 London, where he stayed for three months. For the par- 
 ticulars of his residence there we are mainly indebted to his 
 autobiographical poem. In it he apostrophises the city as 
 a " Grave Teacher, stern Preceptress ! " In the seventh and 
 eighth books he describes both his glimpse of the metropolis 
 in 1788, when he was a "transient visitant," and his longer 
 stay and fuller impressions in 1791. Still earlier, how- 
 ever, in his Hawkshead schooldays, one of his companions, 
 a cripple from birth, had been sent to London, and on 
 his return to the north the boy Wordsworth scanned him 
 curiously ; and was rather disappointed to find that he had 
 not been changed in look and air from having been even for 
 a day or two in that " fairy land " of his young imagination. 
 The most mysterious thing to him — in that village where 
 each was known to all — was to find that people in London 
 could be next-door neighbours, and yet not know each 
 other's names ! 
 
 In the seventh book of TJte Prelude he describes the 
 common sights of the metropolis in no commonplace fashion. 
 He speaks of the characters he met with, the pantomimic 
 scenes he witnessed, and the degradation as well as tlie 
 gaiety of the town. It may surprise some to know that the 
 theatre was " his dear delight." In seeking out and 
 chronicling those links that " bind the perishable hours of 
 life" together, he records some trivial things, and some
 
 56 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 incidents, which belonged (as he puts it) to " the suburbs of 
 the mind " ; although none were really trivial to his eye. 
 He went to the Law Courts, to listen to the pleadings of the 
 barristers ; to the Houses of Parliament, to hear the 
 speeches of statesmen. Poor parents with sick children in 
 their arms, blind beggars in the streets, mobs in the 
 thoroughfares, the booths of strolling vendors, puppet shows 
 at St Bartholomew's festival ; all had a new human interest 
 to him. The motley picture might be wearisome to one 
 wlio did not look at it steadily, and see it whole ; but to 
 one wlio had, " amongst least things, an under-sense of 
 greatest," who " saw the parts as parts, but with the feeling 
 of the whole," it was far otherwise. The great lesson which 
 Wordsworth bore away with him, from these few weeks' 
 experience of London life was this : he realised more than 
 ever before, and more than was possible elsewhere, " the 
 unity of man." He saw one spirit predominant over the 
 ignorance and vice of the city. This was, in fact, the same 
 great and radical truth which he had learned before, 
 amongst the silence of the liills — the sense of Unity, of 
 Harmony, of Law, of Order, and of Love everywhere 
 diffused, though often hidden under strange guises. The 
 same idea now kept him at rest, in his jfirst experience of 
 the real turmoil of city life, kept him anchored securely, 
 while the vessel in which he sailed rocked temporarily upon 
 the waters. 
 
 The eighth book of Tlic Prelude is entitled " Retrospect : 
 Love of Nature leading to love of Man " ; and it traces 
 what he owed while in London to the influence that followed 
 him from the place of his nativity and upbringing. In 
 spite of all that had been done and suffered — and of what 
 was then being done and then suffering in the great city — 
 he felt that he could still converse with a hidden Majesty 
 and Power. Neither the vice nor the misery he witnessed
 
 LONDON : FRANCE : THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 57 
 
 could shake his trust in what human nature might yet 
 become. He had been taught amongst the hills to believe in 
 man, and in man's destiny, in an Infinite Living Power, in a 
 Providence that was world-wide, and that " rolled through 
 all things," guiding every object in external Nature equally ; 
 and how could he cease to believe in its sovereignty over 
 man, notwithstanding the apparent chaos of our present 
 life? 
 
 On the 26th June Dorothy Wordsworth wrote to Miss 
 Pollard :— 
 
 " FoRNCETT, Sunday Morning, June 26, 1791. 
 " I often hear from my brother William, who is now in 
 Wales, where I think he seems so happy that it is probable 
 he will remain there all the summer, or a great part of it. 
 [She refers to her brother Kit, and says], " his disposition 
 is of the same caste as William's, and his inclinations have 
 taken the same turn, but he is much more likely to make 
 his fortune. He is not so warm as WiUiam, but has a most 
 affectionate heart. His abilities, though not so great 
 perhaps as his brother's, may be of more use to him ; as he 
 has not fixed his mind upon any particular species of 
 reading, or conceived an aversion to any. He is not fond 
 of mathematics, but has resolution sufficient to study them, 
 because it will be impossible for him to obtain a fellowship 
 without them. William, you may have heard, lost the 
 chance (indeed the certainty) of a fellowship, by not com- 
 bating his inclinations. He gave way to his natural dislike 
 to study so dry as many parts of mathematics, consequently 
 could not succeed at Cambridge. He reads Italian, Spanish, 
 French, Greek, Latin, and English, but never opens a 
 mathematical book. We promise ourselves much pleasure 
 from reading Italian together at some time. He wishes 
 that I was acquainted with the Italian poets. . . . William
 
 58 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 has a great attachment to poetry ; so indeed has Kit, but 
 William particularly, which is not the most likely thing to 
 produce his advancement in the world. His pleasures are 
 chiefly of the imagination. He is never so happy as when 
 in a beautiful country. Do not think in what I have said 
 that he reads not at all, for he does read a great deal ; and not 
 only poetry, and other languages he is acquainted with, but 
 history, &c., &c. Kit has made a very good proficiency in 
 learning. He is just seventeen. At October '92 we shall 
 lose him at Cambridge." . . . [Tells of riding a good deal. 
 She had a horse of her uncle's.] "The country about, 
 though not romantic or picturesque, is very pleasing ; the 
 surface slowly varied ; and we have great plenty of wood, 
 but a sad want of water." 
 
 Leaving London in the end of May 1791, Wordsworth 
 paid a visit to his friend Robert Jones at Plas-yn-llan, in 
 the Vale of Clwydd. From his friend's house he wrote thus 
 to another fellow-student at Cambridge, William Mathews : — 
 
 " Plas-tn-llan, near Ruthin, 
 " Denbighshire, June 17, 1791. 
 
 " You will see by the date of this letter that I am in 
 AVales, and whether you remember the place of Jones' 
 residence or no, you will immediately conclude that I am 
 with him. I quitted London about three weeks ago, where 
 my time passed in a strange manner, sometimes whirled 
 about by the vortex of its strcnua inertia, and sometimes 
 thrown by the eddy into a corner of the stream. Think 
 not, however, that I had not many pleasant hours. . . . My 
 time has been spent since I reached Wales in a very 
 agreeable manner, and Jones and I intend to make a tour 
 through its northern counties, — on foot, as you will easily 
 suppose."
 
 LONDON : FRANCE : THE REVOLUTION. 59 
 
 They did so : and, as Wordsworth puts it in the Dedica- 
 tion of the Descriptive Sketches (inscribed to Jones), they saw 
 " the sunsets wliich give such splendour to the Vale of 
 Clwyd, Snowdon, the chair of Idris, the quiet village of 
 Bethgelert, Menai and her druids, the Alpine steeps of the 
 Conway, and the still more interesting windings of the 
 wizard stream of the Dee." * Their ascent of Snowdon is 
 described in the fourteenth Book of The Prelude. At the 
 summit of the mountain at the dead of night, a sea of mist 
 around, and a hundred hills seeming to rise out of it, the 
 moonlight overhead, and the noise of waters, of torrents and 
 streams innumerable, mounting to them, " roaring with one 
 voice," became to Wordsworth the emblem of a mind that 
 feeds upon infinity. A power within Nature, moving it, 
 and yet one within its multitudinous voices and forces, 
 seemed to be displaying itself through outward things. As 
 creative minds build up the greatest things from least 
 suggestions, not subdued but only stimulated by the 
 impressions of sense, so it seemed to him that the 
 Omnipresent Power within nature disclosed its presence, and 
 yet attested its supremacy. We may connect with this a 
 familiar passage in The Excursion, beginning 
 
 " Within the soul a faculty abides." t 
 
 On the 3rd August he again writes to Mathews from 
 Plas-yn-llan : " I regret much not to have been made 
 acquainted with your wish to have employed your vacation 
 in a pedestrian tour, both on your own account, as it would 
 have contributed greatly to exhilarate your spirits, and on 
 mine, as we should have gained much from the addition of 
 your society. Such an excursion would have served like an 
 Aurora Borealis to gild your long Lapland night of 
 melancholy." 
 
 * See vol. i. p. 287. t See vol. v. p. 188.
 
 60 
 
 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 These pedestrian tours and tentative efforts in poetic 
 work were delightful ; but how was the young poet to 
 maintain himself ? He thought of many things. He was 
 urged by his friend Kobinson to take Orders, and it was a 
 letter received from this friend, while he was staying at 
 Plas-yn-Uan, that led him to leave the place abruptly. On 
 the 23rd September we again find him at Cambridge. He 
 writes to Mathews : " I quitted Wales on a summons from 
 Mr Robinson, a gentleman you most likely have heard me 
 speak of, respecting my going into Orders, and taking a 
 curacy at Harwich, which curacy he considered as intro- 
 ductory to the living. I thought it was best to pay my 
 respects to him in person, to inform him that I am not of 
 age for ordination." In the same letter he tells Mathews 
 that he means to " remain at Cambridge till the University 
 fills." 
 
 On the 9th October 1791, Dorothy Wordsworth wrote 
 to Miss Pollard from Forncett : — 
 
 " My brother John is arrived in England, and, I am told, 
 is grown a very tall handsome man. . . . Kit is entered at 
 Trinity College, and I hope that we two meet by this time 
 next year. William is at Cambridge ... I know not 
 when my brother William will go into the north ; probably 
 not so soon as he intended, as he is going to begin a new 
 course of study, which he may perhaps not be able to go on 
 with so well in that part of the world, as I conjecture he 
 may find it difficult to meet with books. He is going, by 
 the advice of my uncle William, to study the Oriental 
 Languages." 
 
 It being impossible for him to take Orders at his present 
 age, he thought of writing for the Newspapers as a means of 
 livelihood ; but, having enough of money for a year's sojourn 
 abroad, and being now more interested in contemporary 
 events in France than he w^as when he passed through it
 
 LONDON: FRANCE: THE REVOLUTION. 61 
 
 with Jones in 1790, he resolved to spend twelve months on 
 the Continent. He wrote to Mathews from Brighton on the 
 23rd November that he was on "his way to Orleans, where 
 he proposed to pass the winter." As we have seen, his 
 sister wrote to Miss Pollard that his object was to acquire a 
 knowledge of French and also of Spanish, which he might 
 perhaps turn to'account subsequently as travelling tutor. 
 
 The contrast between the course of Wordsworth's life 
 hitherto, and what it became during that winter of 1791, 
 was great. Carlyle has somewhere said, that from the 
 silent glens of Nithsdale to the rattling whinstones of 
 Piccadilly, is but a step. That contrast Wordsworth had 
 already known ; but, from the quiet of the Lakes and the 
 monotony of Cambridge, he was now transferred to the 
 rapidly-shifting scenes and the wild excitements of Prance, 
 in the most stirring period of its history. His aim in 
 crossing the cha]inel was chiefly, as his sister tells us, to 
 learn the language ; but in addition, there is no doubt that 
 the state of the country, and sympathy with its aspirations 
 after liberty, "lured him forth."* The readiest way to 
 Orleans was through Paris, and there he stayed some days. 
 He visited, in haste, " each spot of old or recent fame," the 
 latter chiefly. He went to the National Assembly, and 
 there heard the futile, weak, excited debates ; attended the 
 Club of the Jacobins, and 
 
 " saw the Revolutionary Power . 
 
 Toss like a ship at anchor, rocked by storms." 
 
 In the spot where the Bastille had stood (destroyed the 
 previous year) he sat hi the sun, and gathered a stone from 
 the rubbish, and " pocketed the relic." It was a stirring 
 time for Prance : the Assembly of Senators, " effervescent, 
 
 * ee Tlie Prelude, "book ix. , vol. iii. p. 308.
 
 62 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 well-intentioned,"* divided against itself, to-day swearing 
 fealty to the Constitution with enthusiastic " vivats," to- 
 morrow quarrelling over it in hatred ; the king accepting 
 the " rheumatic Constitution," t and yet unable to carry it 
 out ; in the Jacobin amphitheatre, the wild harangues of the 
 leaders of the new " mother-society " of the world ; Liberty 
 only thought of in connection with Equality, and the 
 levelling of all distinctions. 
 
 It is somewhat curious that in the midst of these scenes 
 Wordsworth was not much moved. He even tells us that 
 he " affected "more emotion than he felt." This was perhaps 
 partly due to his ignorance of the nature of the movement, 
 partly also to a dim perception that there might be another 
 side to it, and that there was something hollow in its aims. 
 Certainly he was not stirred by it sufficiently to induce him 
 to remain in Paris, He pushed on to Orleans, where he 
 wintered. There he even likened himself to a plant under 
 glass in a greenhouse, when every bush and tree in the 
 country was shaking to the roots. At Orleans his chief 
 associates were a band of military officers stationed in the 
 city, men who had but one aim, \dz,, to undo the mischief 
 already done to their country. They seem to have liked 
 Wordsworth, and welcomed him in their society. He gives 
 us a striking account of them, in that time of universal fer- 
 ment and social earthquake, when the soil of common Kfe 
 seemed almost " too hot to tread on," although he laughed 
 ^t the bare idea of presenting an adequate picture of it to 
 posterity, 
 
 Wordsworth had never himself seen anything contrary to 
 the order of Nature in certain men possessing rank above 
 others. This was rather the order of ISTature. His only 
 lament had been that the best persons in the world were not 
 
 * See Carlyle's French Revolution. t Carlyle,
 
 LONDON : FRANCE : THE REVOLUTION. 63 
 
 the world's rulers, as they ought to be. But the easy, almost 
 communal life at Hawkshead, and the fraternal equality 
 of undergraduate life at Cambridge, prepared him for sym- 
 pathising with the aspirations of France at this time ; and 
 the sight of soldiers hastening along the roads near Orleans, 
 to join the war in the frontier, in defence of what they 
 deemed the cause of liberty, touched him to the quick. 
 With one of this band of officers — the patriot Beaupuis — 
 intimacy ripened into friendship. They walked many a mile 
 in the woods around the city, and by the banks of the Loire, 
 discussing the origin and end of government, 5nd its best 
 forms, the personal and social virtues, the rights of man as 
 man, his fundamental nature and destiny — " heart-bracing 
 colloquies " Wordsworth called them. They traversed history 
 for ancient parallels, and applied them to the events of the 
 hour. One day they met a poor girl in a rural lane, languid, 
 famished, leading a lean heifer by a cord tied to her arm, 
 and herself busy knitting with thin hands. Beaupuis turned 
 round and said, " It is against that that we are lighting." 
 Wordsworth told Coleridge in after years that if it was a joy 
 to them to discuss the state of man, and question of human 
 liberty and destiny, by the banks of their favourite Cumbrian 
 streams, it was doubly so to do this with one who had to te 
 an actor in the great tragedy, and to put the doctrines which 
 he held into living deeds. In Tlie Prelude, Wordsworth 
 likens Beaupuis to Dion, and speaks of him as a man worthy 
 to be associated with the noblest of ancient times. 
 
 There is little doubt that it was these walks and talks 
 with Beaupuis that stirred Wordsworth's soul so as to call out 
 its latent republican feeling for a time. He returned to 
 Paris much more of a radical than he left it. lie desired 
 that every law should be abolished that legalised the exclu- 
 sion of any class from political privilege. He wished to see 
 the people having " a strong hand " in the framing of their
 
 64 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 own laws, and from tliat lie anticipated "better days to all 
 mankind." 
 
 During this winter of 1791-2, he was also busy with the 
 work of writing a " descriptive sketch" in verse of his tour in 
 the Alps with Jones. The style of the poem is Pope's, and 
 its form is that of Goldsmith ; yet the voice is the voice of 
 Wordsworth. But a critical estimate of the poem must be 
 postponed. 
 
 Early in the spring of 1792, Wordsworth went from 
 Orleans to Blois, and on the I7tli of May he wrote thus to 
 his friend l&athews : — 
 
 " The horrors excited by the relation of the events con- 
 sequent upon the commencement of hostilities is general. 
 Not but that there are some men who felt a gloomy satisfac- 
 tion from a measure which seemed to put the patriot army 
 out of a possibility of success. An ignominious flight, the 
 massacre of their general, a dance performed with savage joy 
 round his burning body, the murder of six prisoners, are 
 events which would have arrested the attention of the reader 
 of the annals of Morocco." 
 
 He then expresses his fear that the patriot army would 
 be routed by the invaders. But " suppose," he adds, " that 
 the German army is at the gates of Paris, what will be the 
 consequence ? It will be mipossible for it to make any 
 material alterations in the constitution ; impossible to rein- 
 state the clergy in its ancient guilty splendour ; impossible 
 to restore an existence to the noblesse similar to that it 
 before enjoyed ; impossible to add much to the authority 
 of the king. Yet there are in France some (millions ?) — I 
 speak without exaggeration — who expect that this will take 
 place." * 
 
 We do not know much of how Wordsworth spent his 
 
 * See Memoira, vol. i. p. 75.
 
 LONDON: FRANCE: THE EEVOLUTION. 65 
 
 time at Blois. But there is a passage in The Prelude which 
 refers to it, though not given in its chronological place in 
 that poem. In the eighth book he tells us that for two 
 and twenty summers Man had been subordinate to Nature 
 in his regards : Nature " a passion, a rapture often," Man 
 only " a delight occasional," " his hour being not yet come." 
 Now Wordsworth's twenty-second summer was the one he 
 spent at Blois ; and while there was less to attract him in 
 the scenery of Blois than there had been in England, these 
 late conversations with Beaupuis, and the fresh incidents of 
 every day, were such as now to give Man the first place in 
 his thoughts, — Man in his aspirations and struggles, in his 
 individual nature, and his social destiny. 
 
 The " September massacres " had taken place in the first 
 week of that month, while Wordsworth was still at Blois. 
 When he reached Paris, Louis the XVI. was dethroned, and 
 in prison with his wife and children. The Eepublic had 
 been decreed on the 22nd September, but Wordsworth 
 thought that the " dire work of massacre " being over, and 
 the " earth free of them for ever," France would at once 
 reach the promised goal of universal brotherhood. He went 
 to the prison where the king was in captivity, the Tuilleries, 
 the Place du Carousal, where the dead had lain so lately, 
 " upon the dying heaped." These things were mysteries to 
 him. He likened them to the contents of a book, written 
 in a tongue he could not read. He went back to his 
 lodging, a high lonely room at the top of a large hotel, and 
 all night kept watcli, reading by the light of a small taper, 
 thinking of the massacres and their results. He remem- 
 bered that the tides come again, that the earthquakes and 
 the hurricanes return; "all things have second birth." Tlie 
 place he was in appeared defenceless, as a wood wlierc wild 
 beasts roam ; and, in tlie weird silence, he seemed to hear a 
 voice crying out to the whole city of Paris, " Sleep no more." 
 IX. E
 
 66 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Next day he had some experience of how rapidly the 
 tides of revohition do turn. In the streets hawkers 
 were bawHng, " Denunciation of the Crimes of Maximilian 
 Eobespierre." He heard Louvet denounce him from the 
 Tribune, but noted the failure of his charge. He saw that 
 Liberty, and the issues of Life and Death, were again in the 
 hands of those few men who ruled the metropolis. Here 
 was tyranny coming back hydra-headed. His inmost soul 
 was agitated. He not only grieved, but he thought of 
 remedies, and would himself have willingly undertaken 
 personal service in the cause. He thought how much 
 depended in all great crises on the action of individuals, and 
 how a true and strong soul, faithful to duty, can guide the 
 unreasoning masses. But he remembered that those who 
 have not been trained for action are unfit to mingle in the 
 thick of social struggles. It would have been an utterly 
 quixotic enterprise for him to have attempted to do so. He 
 believed, however, that if "one paramount mind" had arisen, 
 it could have ended the chaos, and " cleared a passage for 
 just government." In this frame of mind he left Paris, and 
 returned to England in December 1792. He had spent fully 
 two months in the French capital. Had he not left it at the 
 time he did, he would have been soon led to make common 
 cause with the Brissotins, with many of whom he was inti- 
 mate, and would doubtless have fallen a victim along with 
 them to the rival Jacobin party in the following year. 
 
 While Wordsworth was in France we do not hear 
 much of his sister's life at Forncett ; but a letter addressed 
 to Miss Pollard, on the 6th of May 1792, may be quoted, 
 and the substance of another given. 
 
 " Forncett, Tuesday, May 6ih, 1792. 
 
 [She speaks of a prospect of going to Windsor in the 
 autumn, but while pleased to go, was more pleased in prospect
 
 LONDON : FRANCE : THE REVOLUTION. 67 
 
 of returning to the quiet of Forncett. John had spent four 
 months at Forncett ; was now in London, upon his road into 
 Cumberland, and intended to sail from "Whitehaven for the 
 West Indies.] " I promised to transcribe some of William's 
 compositions. As I made the promise I will give you a 
 little sonnet, but all the same I charge you, as you value 
 our friendship, not to read it, or to show it to any one — to 
 your sister, or any other person. ... I take the first that 
 offers. It is only valuable to me because the lane which 
 gave birth to it was the favourite evening walk of my dear 
 William and me. 
 
 " ' Sweet was the walk along the narrow lane 
 At noon, the bank and hedgerows all the way 
 Shagged with wild pale green tufts of fragrant hay, 
 Caught by the hawthorns from the loaded wane 
 Which Age, with many a slow stoop, strove to gain ; 
 And Childhood seeming still more busy, took 
 His little rake with cunning sidelong look. 
 Sauntering to pluck the strawberries wild unseen. 
 Now too, on melancholy's idle dream 
 Musing, the lone spot with my soul agrees 
 Quiet and dark ; for through the thick-wove trees 
 Scarce peeps the curious star till solemn gleams 
 The clouded moon, and calls me forth to stray 
 Through tall green silent woods and ruins grey.' " 
 
 [She adds] " I have not chosen this sonnet because of 
 any particular beauty it has ; it was the first I laid my 
 hands upon." 
 
 Windsor, October I6th, 1792. 
 [Left Forncett, July 31st. In London, August 1st. Did 
 not like London at all ; was heartily rejoiced to quit it for 
 Windsor, a week after arrival. Went to the top of St 
 Paul's. Eeached Windsor on the 9 th August. Charmed 
 with it. Met the Royal Family walking on the terrace 
 every evening, and admired the King in his conversation 
 with her uncle and aunt, and his interest (and that of the
 
 68 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Princesses) in the children of her nncle and aunt. From 
 the terrace above watches the Queen driving a phaeton with 
 four white ponies in the Lower Park, and is charmed witli 
 the fairy-like scene ; is taken country drives, and to see races, 
 and to several balls. Describes the Windsor cloisters.] 
 
 In December 1792 Wordsworth had again reached London. 
 He doubtless went to his eldest brother Richard's house, 
 the solicitor. His sister writes from Forncett, December 
 22: "William is in London. He writes to me regularly." 
 He seems to have gone down to Forncett almost immedi- 
 ately, for Dorothy speaks in a letter (June 16, 1793)* of 
 liis having spent Christmas there, and of their daily walks 
 in the garden of the Eectory. Here doubtless it was that 
 the publication of The Evening Walk, dedicated to his sister, 
 was talked of and definitely decided. It is extremely 
 likely that it was copied out for press by her ; and it must 
 have been published early in 1793, for on February 16th 
 she writes to Miss Pollard of a review of the book. 
 
 Wordsworth's movements during the earlier months of 
 1793 are not easily traced. Probably the publication of 
 The Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches occupied him a 
 good deal in London. Mr Myers, on the evidence of an 
 MS. letter of Dorothy Wordsworth's, thinks that these 
 poems were published in 1792; but this letter has no date 
 appended to it by the writer, except " Forncett, February 
 16," and internal evidence shows that it was written in 
 1793. Besides, the first edition of the poems are dated, 
 and speak for themselves. 
 
 The work of seeing these earliest volumes through the press 
 would take some time. But Wordsworth also says that, now 
 a " patriot of the world," he could not at once return to his 
 
 * See p. 8().
 
 LONDON : FRANCE : THE REVOLUTION. 69 
 
 former " tuneful haunts." He found London excited over 
 the question of negro emancipation ; but that seemed to him 
 a small question, compared with the vast problem now 
 being wrought out in France, and one that would easily 
 solve itself, if the larger question was first disposed of. 
 
 Of the political situation he wrote thus to his friend 
 Mathews : " I disapprove of monarchical and aristocratical 
 governments, however modified. Hereditary distinctions, 
 and privileged orders of every species, I think, must neces- 
 sarily counteract the progress of human improvement. 
 Hence it follows, that I am not among the admirers of the 
 British constitution. I conceive that a more excellent 
 system of civil policy might be established among us ; yet 
 in my ardour to attain the goal, I do not forget the nature 
 of the ground where the race is to be run. The destruction 
 of those institutions which I condemn, appears to me to be 
 hastening on too rapidly. / recoil from the very idea of a 
 revolution. I am a determined enemy to every species of 
 violence. I see no connection, but what the obstinacy of 
 pride and ignorance renders necessary, between justice and 
 the sword, — between reason and bonds. I deplore the 
 miserable condition of the French, and think that we can 
 only be guarded from the same scourge by the undaunted 
 efforts of good men. ... I severely condemn all inflamma- 
 tory addresses to the passions of men. I know that the 
 multitude walk in darkness. I would put into each man's 
 hands a lantern, to guide him ; and not have him to set out 
 upon his journey depending for illumination on abortive flashes 
 of lightning, or the coruscations of transitory meteors." * 
 
 A much more remarkable letter, however, was the one 
 which he wrote when in London to the Bishop of Landaff, on 
 the subject of the Eevolution in France, — an essay in the 
 
 * See Memoirs, L, p. 71).
 
 70 
 
 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 form of a letter. This letter is alluded to in the Bishop of 
 Lincoln's Memoirs of his nncle, but it was not published till 
 1876, when Mr Grossart edited the Prose Works of the 
 poet. It is so remarkable as to warrant a detailed reference 
 to it. 
 
 Bishop Waters, of the See of Landaff, had preached a 
 sermon in 1785, which he published in January 1793, with 
 an Appendix — issued also separately — entitled, " Strictures 
 on the French Eevolution, and the British Constitution, 
 &c., &c." The advertisement of such a work would naturally 
 awaken the curiosity, and wliet the intellectual appetite of 
 a youth of twenty-three, just returned from the stirring,' 
 scenes in Paris. Its perusal stirred him to the very 
 depths. It revived the intense republican feeling, 
 awakened in tlie Orleans woods by Beaupuis, and 
 led him to address the Bishop in a letter, which 
 is equally remarkable for its insight, and its outspoken 
 directness. The title of Wordsworth's reply is " A letter to 
 the Bishop of Landaff on the extraordinary avowal of his 
 Political Principles, contained in the appendix to his late 
 sermon, by a Eepublican ! " The force of its reasoning 
 is great, but its chief interest is a biographical one. It 
 shows us how clearly, after he left France, Wordsworth 
 grasped the higher but unconscious aims of the revolutionary 
 movement, detaching them from the acts of the men who 
 were its too enthusiastic leaders — "blind leaders of the 
 blind," who accordingly " both fell into the ditch," — and 
 how he could look beneath the frenzy and the horror that 
 attended it. It is the best evidence we possess, not only ot^ 
 the way in which the revolutionary movement fascinated 
 Wordsworth, by its promise of " liberty, equality, fraternity," 
 but also of his insight into the principle which underlay it, 
 — a principle to wliich he clung to the last, even when 
 borne back on the full tide of a healthy conservative re-
 
 LONDON : FRANCE : THE REVOLUTION. 7 1 
 
 action. In many things Wordsworth remained a radical to 
 the end ; a conservative radical let us say, (or a radical-con- 
 servative), but still an advocate for the inalienable rights 
 of the people. We shall have abundant evidence of this, as 
 we proceed. 
 
 It would probably have been useless for Wordsworth to 
 have signed, and published this "Letter," in 1793. We 
 do not know — as in the case of Hume's celebrated letter 
 written in boyhood to his " Physician," if he ever sent it 
 to the Bishop ; or, if so, if it was signed ; and, if signed, if it 
 received an acknowledgment in answer. Had he printed it, 
 it would certainly have led him into distracting and un- 
 profitable controversy. 
 
 He begins Ms " Letter " by taunting the Bishop of Lan- 
 daf!' for deserting the popular cause ; and referring to 
 Addison's allegoric "Vision of Mirza " — which, by the way, 
 the poet had been translating into Italian during his last 
 year at Cambridge — he pictures the Bishop rather boldly, as 
 falling through one of the trap doors in the bridge into the 
 waters of oblivion. He speaks of the " idle cry of modish 
 lamentation, which has resounded from the court to the 
 cottage," over the late royal martyr (Louis XVI.) ; and 
 regrets that, " at a period big with the fate of the human 
 race," the Bishop should attach so much importance to the 
 fate of the French king. " I flatter myself," he adds, " I 
 am not alone, even in this Icingdom, when I wisli tliut it 
 may please the Almighty, neither by the liands of his priests 
 nor his nobles, to raise his posterity to the throne of his 
 ancestors." He admits the horrors perpetrated in the name 
 of Liberty ; but " have you so little knowledge of the nature 
 of men as to be ignorant that a time of revolution is not tlio 
 season of true Liberty ? Alas ! the obstinacy and perver- 
 sion of man is such that she is too often obhged to borrow 
 the very arms of despotism to overthrow liim ; and, in order 
 to reign in peace, must establish herself by vioKnice. SIic
 
 72 
 
 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 deplores such stern necessity, but the safety of the people, 
 her supreme necessity, is her consolation. This apparent 
 contradiction between the principles of Liberty and the 
 march of Eevolutions ; this spirit of jealousy, of severity, of 
 disquietude, of vexation, indispensable from a state of war 
 between the oppressors and oppressed, must of necessity 
 confuse the ideas of morality, and contract the best affec- 
 tions of the human heart." Eef erring to the fate of the 
 French priesthood, he says it is some consolation that " a 
 part of their prodigious mass of riches is gone to preserve 
 from famine some thousands of cures who were pining in 
 villages unobserved by courts." 
 
 He "proceeds to principles," and boldly defends the 
 Republic. In adopting it, the French people only exercised 
 " that right in which liberty essentially resides." He is 
 surprised that the Bishop should think of " dictating to the 
 world a servile adoption of the British constitution." He 
 quotes, with scorn, the Bishop's own wise sentence : " In a 
 Republic the bulk of the people are deceived with a show 
 of liberty. They live in it under the most odious of all 
 tyrannies — the tyranny of their equals." He proceeds to 
 trace the root of human misery, and the evils which deso- 
 late States, to the fact that the Governors have interests 
 distinct from the governed ; and he infers that whatever tends 
 " to identify the two must also, in the same degree, promote 
 the general welfare." He advocates universal suffrage, and 
 a brief tenure of office on the part of every legislator, because 
 our best guarantee for the virtue of office exists when the 
 private citizen knows that "to-morrow he may either smart 
 under the oppression, or bless the justice of the law which he 
 has enacted to-day." 
 
 He defends the insight of the masses, and pleads for their 
 extended education. He maintains that if the laws of a 
 country proceeded from the general will of the people, much
 
 LONDON : FRANCE : THE REVOLUTION. 73 
 
 less force would be needed to secure obedience to them. He 
 objects to regal government, from its instability ; and boldly 
 affirms that from the " eternal nature of man " the office of 
 King is a trial to which human virtue is not equal ; and, 
 while admitting that the end of government cannot be 
 secured without some members of society commanding, and 
 others obeying, he thinks that nothing will check the abuses 
 of power so much, as when " the person in whom authority 
 has been lodged occasionally descends to the level of private 
 citizen ; he will learn from it a wholesome lesson, and the 
 people will be less liable to confound the person with the 
 power." 
 
 He admits that there are inequalities inseparable from 
 civil society, but denounces the "unnatural monster of 
 primogeniture," and objects to those " badges of fictitious 
 superiority," such as stars, ribbons, garters, &c. Even titles 
 are " outrages done to tlie dignity of our nature." " He 
 who to-day merits the civic wreath may to-morrow deserve 
 the Tarpeian rock ; " and, when titles descend, successors 
 sometimes abuse them, while labour is dishonoured. The 
 Bishop had said that the people of these islands were " in the 
 possession of both liberty and equality." Wordsworth tells 
 him that " acquiescence is not choice, obedience is not free- 
 dom," and that every man denied the suffrage in Great 
 Britain was a Helot. He quotes Burke's statement about 
 the perpetual obligations of the Constitution, which he calls 
 a " dead parchment," and tells the Bishop that he is " aiming 
 an arrow at Liberty and Philosophy, the eyes of the human 
 race." At the close of his letter, referring to the Bishop's 
 defence of Liberty, and his silence about Parliamentary 
 Reform, he writes : "In some parts of England it is ([uaiiitly 
 said, when a drunken man is seen reeling towards his liome 
 that he has business on both sides of the road. Observing 
 your Lordship's tortuous path, the spectators will be far from
 
 74 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 insinuating that you have partaken of Mr Burke's intoxicat- 
 ing bowl. They will content themselves — shaking their 
 heads as you stagger along — with remarking that you have 
 business on both sides of the road." 
 
 And yet Wordsworth himself had business, and very im- 
 portant business, " on both sides of the road." He was already 
 far more eclectic in politics, and in literary art, than he knew. 
 
 This remarkable letter to the Bishop of Landaff casts a great 
 deal of light, however, on the evolution of his character. I do 
 not think it has received the attention it deserves, while its 
 ability would almost warrant its revival by the advocates 
 of "home rule" I It would not, however, by itself, be a true 
 reflection of the oj)inion and sympathies of the writer. 
 We have seen how much his life at Hawkshead was a com- 
 munal life, how in Cambridge he lived in a sort of republic, 
 how foreign travel with Jones, and subsequent residence alone 
 in France, developed the socialistic side of his nature ; but it 
 was by intuition that he grasped the meaning of the Eevolu- 
 tion, and appreciated its significance, — piercing to what lay 
 heneath it, and was elemental to man ; and, with all its 
 ability and subtlety, its political eloquence and inward fire, 
 there is a strain of " apology " in that letter to the Bishop 
 that is prophetic of reaction about to be. 
 
 There were two streams of tendency flowing side by side, 
 and at work together, in that wondrous movement of 1792, 
 the one a purely democratic movement, that turned for sup- 
 port to the primal nature and the personal " rights of man," 
 and could therefore ally itself easily with a stream of as pure 
 and thorough conservatism as the world has ever known. 
 The other was a spirit of reactionary uprise against order, 
 of blind wrath and antagonism to those fundamental differ- 
 ences in humanity, which had by time been evolved, and 
 which are at all times radical and inevitable. With the 
 former, Wordsworth liad the fullest sympathy ; with the
 
 LONDON : FKANCE : THE REVOLUTION. 75 
 
 latter, he had none. But when he tried to vindicate the 
 Revolution in France, by the arguments advanced in this 
 letter, he was drawn for a time unconsciously aside, by the 
 magnetic spell of a tendency which he at heart abjured. 
 
 A reaction soon set in, and this the subsequent course 
 of events in France itself determined. It came at first as a 
 shock, and then as a terrible blow to Wordsworth, that the 
 promised " liberty, equality, and fraternity " of the movement 
 should issue in tyranny, diversity, and hate. He seems to 
 have endured the pain of this reaction to a large extent in 
 silence. He did not write it down, as he recorded his 
 sympathy with the former movement. But there is no 
 doubt that, during the first year of his return to England, 
 the great problems of the rights of man, of political freedom, 
 of the moral government of the world, and of human destiny 
 haunted him ; and he underwent a struggle in regard to 
 them. We shall see how he emerged from this struggle, 
 how his experience of " despondency " was followed by one of 
 " despondency corrected," and how the influence of his sister 
 especially helped him. 
 
 Two things, however, are to be noted at this stage. The 
 first may perhaps explain Wordsworth's outburst of indigna- 
 tion in this letter to the Bishop of Landaff. It was the 
 action of England, after the murder of the French King in 
 January 1793, in preparing for war with France, that chiefly 
 roused him. Tlie idea of his own country joining with others 
 to suppress the now insurgent cry for liberty in Europe, 
 and taking the side of the oppressor and the tyrant, fired 
 him with indignation. The second is that it was the action 
 of France, in the day of its newly found freedom, becom- 
 ing unjust and oppressive towards Switzerland, — the old 
 home and bulwark of the liberties of Europe, — that dis- 
 illusionized him, shewing him that the very grossest tyranny 
 might be practised under the specious name of liberty, and
 
 76 
 
 LIFE OF WORDSWOKTH. 
 
 that the very champions of democracy, in levelling all dis- 
 tinctions, might be neither true sons of France, nor genuine 
 citizens of the world, nor friends of the human race.* 
 
 The disappointment he underwent was, in the truest 
 sense, an education to him. It shewed him the intellectual 
 and moral root of the illusion, that had blinded Ins eye for a 
 time, when France seemed to be 
 
 " Standing on the top of golden hours," 
 and when he wrote of it — 
 
 " Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, 
 But to be young, was heaven." 
 
 To see the illusion that lay within the brilliant promise of 
 that time, and yet to be made neither wildly reactionary in 
 opinion, nor reckless in act, nor disconsolate and hopeless of 
 the future, — in this Wordsworth stands in marked contrast 
 with many of his contemporaries. One great lesson it 
 taught him, more than it taught any of the rest, viz. this, 
 how out of evil good may come, and be more signally 
 evolved because of the disasters that have preceded it. It 
 is one of the ideas with which his later poems are full, 
 that the loftiest good, alike to the individual and to 
 the race, is being constantly developed out of the most 
 terrible disaster, by a process hidden to our eyes, yet veri- 
 fiable both in personal and in national experience. We 
 owe a great deal of this later teaching to the experience 
 which Wordsworth passed through, in France in 1792, 
 and in England in 1793. 
 
 It must also be remembered that what Wordsworth 
 sympatliized with — while in France, and on his return — was 
 rather the wave of national enthusiasm, the glad uprise of 
 the suppressed instinct of freedom, and its outcome, 
 " Joy in widest commonalty spread," 
 
 * Compare the ThanJcsfjiv'mg Odt, the Invocation to the Earth, &c., and 
 all the sonnets dedicated to Liberty.
 
 LONDON : FRANCE : THE REVOLUTION. 77 
 
 tlian any intellectual doctrine as to " the rights of man," the 
 formulated creed of the democracy. It was because he saw, 
 (or thought he saw), by intuition, that the Central Heart of 
 the universe beats in sympathy with the joy of each separate 
 human heart, and reveals itself thus, that he sympathized 
 with the movement to whicli he was a temporary convert ; 
 and this remained with him — this faith in the destiny of 
 the individual, and of the race — when his " defection " from 
 republicanism was pronounced. The truth is, Wordsworth 
 never sympathized with the formal or rational " system " 
 of democratic thought. He seized the movement, or rather 
 a fragment of it, by intuition ; and he partly idealized its 
 other sides, with which — presented in prosaic literalness — 
 he had no sympathy. And when, to attain an end with 
 which he sympathized, dubious means, or means unrighteous, 
 were adopted and defended, — when, e.g., the Revolution swept 
 before it not only the evils of the past, but the barriers against 
 evil in the present, and created new ones of its own, his 
 vivid emotional sympathy with it received a check, and 
 finally died away. The truth is, that Wordsworth became a 
 radical at the most susceptible age, and ceased to be one at 
 the age when conviction usually takes deepest root. The 
 consequence is that, in his maturer poems, we have such a 
 sympathy with democratic aspirations, as every wise con- 
 servative will endorse ; tempered by such an aversion to its 
 revolutionary outcome, as every wise liberal must hail. The 
 " Sonnets dedicated to Liberty " are amongst his very finest, 
 but it is easy to see how the author of these Sonnets could 
 afterwards write the Thanksgiving Ode. 
 
 Special interest attaches to the change in Wordsworth's 
 attitude towards the French Eevolution, 'from the references 
 made to it, first by a contemporary, and then by a subsequent 
 poet, by Shelley and by Browning. 
 
 Shelley addressed a Sonnet to Wordsvvortli, in which,
 
 78 LIFE OF WOKDSWORTH. 
 
 — referring to the lament in the Ode on Immortality that 
 tilings pass away never to return — he applies it thus : — 
 
 " Thou hast like to a rock -built refuge stood 
 Above the blind and battling multitude, 
 In honoured poverty thy voice did weave 
 
 Songs consecrate to Truth and Liberty. 
 Deserting them, thou leaveth me to grieve, 
 
 Thus, having been, that thou shouldst cease to be." 
 
 And Browning wrote, in his lyric on The Lost Leader : — 
 
 " We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him, 
 
 Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, 
 Learned his great language, caught his clear accents. 
 
 Made him our pattern to live and to die ! 
 Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us, 
 
 Burns, Shelley, were with us — they watch from their graves. 
 He alone breaks from the van and the freedmen. 
 
 He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves ! " 
 
 He laments, in the second stanza, that this wonderful 
 " sinking to the rear," and identifying himself with the 
 radical interests and aspirations of mankind, had ceased — 
 with this result that a new wrong had been done to the 
 human race. Browning had been often asked who " the 
 Lost Leader" was, and in a letter to the editor of the 
 Prose Works of Wordsworth, he says that in his youth 
 he did " use the great and venerated personality of Words- 
 worth as a sort of painter's model ; one from which this or 
 the other particular feature may be selected and turned to 
 account; had I intended more, above all such a boldness as 
 portraying the entire man, I should not have talked about 
 ' handfuls of silver and bits of ribbon.' " Therefore he could 
 not allow his picture of the " change of politics in the great 
 poet " — while he considered that defection an event to be 
 deplored — to be " the vera effigies of such a moral and intel- 
 lectual superiority." 
 
 The late Baron Field — in an unpublished sketch of
 
 LONDON : FRANCE : THE REVOLUTION. 79 
 
 Wordsworth's life, written iu 1836 — hazarded the remark: 
 " Wordsworth's poetry is essentially democratic." The MS. 
 was submitted to the poet, and he wrote in pencil opposite 
 this sentence : " I am a lover of liberty, but know that 
 liberty cannot exist apart from Order ; * and the opinions in 
 favour of aristocracy found in my works, the latter ones 
 especially, all arise out of the consciousness I have that, in 
 the present state of human knowledge, and its probable 
 state for some ages, order cannot, and therefore liberty 
 cannot be maintained, without degrees. It is pride and 
 presumption, and not a real love of liberty, which has made 
 the French and the Americans so enamoured of what they 
 call equality." ..." I am a Eeformer ; only my views of 
 ' Eeform ' differ greatly from Mr Hazlitt's." 
 
 Two letters from Dorothy to her friend cast light on her 
 brother's movements, and her own, at this stage. 
 
 "FoRNCETT, February 16^/<, 1/93. 
 " Your letter found me happy in the society of one of my 
 dear brothers. Christopher and I have been separated for 
 nearly five years last Christmas. Judge then of my trans- 
 ports at meeting him again. . . . He is like William. He 
 has the same traits in his character, but less highly touched. 
 He is not so ardent in any of his pursuits, but is yet more 
 particularly attached to the same pursuits which have so 
 irresistible an influence over William, which deprive him of 
 the power of chaining his attention to others discordant to 
 his feelings. Christopher is no despicable poet, but he can 
 become a mathematician also. He is not insensible to the 
 beauty of the Greek and Latin classics, or any of the charms 
 of elegant literature ; but he can draw his mind from these 
 
 * Compare Madame Eoland's words at the foot of the scaffold, looking 
 toward the statue of Liberty: "0 Liberty, what things arc done in thy 
 name ! "
 
 80 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 fascinating studies, to others less alluring. He is steady 
 and sincere in liis attachments. William has both these 
 virtues in an eminent degree ; and a sort of violence of 
 affection, if I may so term it, wliich demonstrates itself 
 every moment of the day, when the objects of his affection 
 are present with him, in a thousand almost imperceptible 
 attentions to their wishes, in a sort of restless watchfulness 
 which I know not how to describe, a tenderness that never 
 sleeps, and at the same time such a delicacy of manners as 
 I have observed in few men." . . , [She then expresses a 
 hope that her friend will one day be better acquainted with 
 W., and talks of plans for receiving her " in my little 
 parsonage."] " I hope you will spend at least a year with 
 me. I have laid the particular scheme of happiness for 
 each season. When I think of winter, I hasten to furnish 
 our little parlour. I close the shutters, set out the tea- 
 table, brighten the lire. When our refreshment is ended, I 
 produce our work, and William brings his book to our table, 
 and contributes at once to our instruction and amusement ; 
 and at intervals we lay aside the book, and each hazard our 
 observations upon what has been read, without the fear of 
 ridicule or censure. We talk over past days. We do not 
 sigh for any pleasures beyond our humble habitation. With 
 such romantic dreams as these I amuse my fancy. . . . My 
 brother and I have been endeared to each other by early 
 misfortune. We in the same moment lost a father, a 
 mother, a home. We have been equally deprived of our 
 patrimony. . . . These afflictions have all contributed to 
 unite us closer by the bonds of affection, notwithstanding 
 we have been compelled to spend our youth far asunder. 
 ' We drag at each remove a lengthening chain.' This idea 
 often strikes me very forcibly. Neither absence, nor dis- 
 tance, nor time, can ever break the chain that links me 
 to my brothers. ... By this time you have doubtless
 
 LONDON : FRANCE : THE REVOLUTION. 81 
 
 seen my brother "William's poems.* . . . The scenes which 
 he describes have been viewed with a poet's eye, and are 
 pourtrayed with a poet's pencil, and the poems contain many 
 passages exquisitely beautiful ; but they also contain many 
 faults, the chief of which is obscurity, and a too frequent 
 use of some particular expressions and uncommon words, for 
 instance moveless, which he applies in a sense if not new, at 
 least different from its ordinary one. By moveless, when 
 applied to the swan, he means that sort of motion which is 
 smooth, without agitation ; it is a very beautiful epithet, but 
 ought to have been cautiously used. He ought, at any rate, 
 only to have hazarded it once, instead of which it occurs 
 three or four times. The word vieivless also is introduced 
 far too often. This, though not so uncommon a word as the 
 former, ought not to have been made use of more than once 
 or twice. I regret exceedingly that he did not submit these 
 works to the inspection of some friend before their publica- 
 tion, and he also joins with me in this regret. Their faults 
 are such as a young poet was most likely to fall into, and 
 least likely to discover, and what the suggestions of a friend 
 would easily have made him see, and at once correct. It is, 
 however, an error he will never fall into again. . . , My 
 brother Kit and I, while he was at Forncett, amused our- 
 selves by analysing every line, and prepared a very bulky 
 criticism, which he was to transmit to William as soon as 
 he could have added to it the remarks of a Cambridge friend. 
 At the conclusion of The Evening Walk I think you would 
 be pleased with these lines — 
 
 " ' Thus Hope, first pouring,' " &c. 
 
 [She refers to the picture of their small cottage on 
 the horizon of hope, but realises the "dark and broad gulf 
 of time " between.*] 
 
 * See The Hveninj Walk: 
 IX. F
 
 82 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 " There are some very glaring faults, but I hope that you 
 will discover many beauties, which could only have been 
 created by the imagination of a ])oct" 
 
 The following undated letter of Miss "Wordsworth's, 
 addressed to the same friend. Miss Pollard, evidently 
 belongs to the year 1793, and was written at Forncett. 
 
 "The evening is a lovely one, and I have strolled 
 into a neighbouring meadow, where I am enjoying the 
 melody of birds, and the busy sounds of a fine summer's 
 evening, while my eye is gratified by a smiling prospect of 
 cultivated fields richly wooded, our own church, and the 
 parsonage house." [She laments her solitude, but anticipates 
 the time when she and her brother William will be together 
 and have Miss Pollard for guest.] " He is now going upon 
 a tour to the West of England, along with a gentleman who 
 was formerly a schoolfellow,* a man of fortune, who is to 
 bear all the expense of the journey, and only requests the 
 favour of William's company." [She describes her brother's 
 appearance]: "his person is not in his favour," " he is certainly 
 rather plain ; otherwise has an extremely thoughtful coun- 
 tenance." ..." My brother's tour will not be completed till 
 October." ..." This favourite brother of mine happens to 
 be no favourite with any of his near relations, except his 
 brothers, by whom he is adored, I mean by John and 
 Christopher." . . . She speaks of the prejudices " of my two 
 uncles against my dear William ; tlie subject is an un- 
 pleasant one." " He has been somewhat to blame, yet I 
 think excuse might have been found in his natural dis- 
 position. 
 
 " ' lu truth he was a strange and wayward wight,' &c. 
 That verse of Beattie's Minstrel always reminds me of him 
 
 * William Calvert.
 
 LONDON : FRANCE : THE REVOLUTION. 83 
 
 and indeed the whole character of Edwin resembles much 
 what William was when I first knew him, after leaving 
 Halifax. 
 
 " ' And oft he traced the uplands,' " &c., &c. 
 [She quotes a part of a letter fiom her brother to herself, in 
 which he speaks of " that sympathy which will almost 
 identify us, when we have stolen to our little cottage."] 
 
 In another letter Wordsworth speaks of accepting Cal- 
 vert's offer,* and says to his sister, " Write, as I have written 
 this letter, at twenty different sittings or standings, when- 
 ever you find a moment to yourself." 
 
 * I.e., the offer that he should defray all the expenses of the tour.
 
 OHAPTEK YI. 
 
 UNSETTLEMENT : WANDERINGS IN AVALES AND CUMBEK- 
 LAND ; ETC. 
 
 WoEDSWOETH Went from London to the Isle of Wight for 
 a month in the summer of 1793, with his friend, William 
 Calvert. They saw the English fleet in the Solent, preparing 
 for expected war. Every evening, as the sunset cannon was 
 fired at Portsmouth, it roused in his mind visions of possible 
 disaster, or of long-continued misery in store for the world. 
 
 Leaving the Isle of Wight, — and (writing of it in 1842) he 
 says it was "with melancholy forebodings" * that he did so, — 
 he drove with Calvert through the New Forest to Salisbury. 
 An accident occurring there, put a stop to their intended 
 tour. Their carriage was wrecked in a ditch, Calvert 
 went to the north on horseback, and Wordsworth walked, 
 via Bristol, through South Wales, and thence onwards to the 
 house of his other Welsh friend, Jones. Before leaving Salis- 
 bury, however, he spent three days among " the wilds of 
 Sarum's Plain." Hanging over the trackless pastoral downs, 
 or along the bare white roads, he strove to realise the state 
 of matters in the Druid time. He saw in imagination the 
 ancestral past, the primitive Britons in wolf-skin vests 
 striding across the wold, and sacrificial altars flaming in 
 the darkness. He traced the circle of Stonehenge, and 
 seemed to see the long - bearded Teachers with white 
 wands, pointing alternately to the sky, and to the mighty 
 
 * Sea tlie " Advertisement " to Gvilt and Sorrow, 1S42.
 
 UNSETTLEMENT : WANDERINGS : ETC. 85 
 
 Stones, arranged by them to represent their knowledge of 
 the heavens. His Salisbury wanderings, during these three 
 (lays, gave rise to the poem which he first called Tlie Female 
 Vagrant, but afterwards Guilt and Soroviv, or Incidents on 
 Sarwii Plain* 
 
 From Salisbury he proceeded on foot to Bath, thence to 
 Bristol, next to the Wye, to Tinteru Abbey, and on to 
 Wales. This solitary visit to the Wye is referred to at 
 the beginning of the Lines addressed to Tintern Abbey, in 
 1798. From Tintern he went up the river to Goodrich, 
 and there, in the ruined courtyard of the old castle, he met 
 the little girl, who persisted in reckoning her dead brothers 
 as still in the family circle.! He went from Goodrich 
 through South Wales, and thence to the house of his friend 
 Jones, at Plas-yn-llan. 
 
 The very practical question of his own future, which had 
 often been before him, had now to be faced, and, if possible, 
 settled. Being twenty-three years of age, he could now have 
 taken orders, if he chose. But he felt no vocation to do 
 so, and his sense of duty would not permit him to become a 
 clergyman merely to obtain a means of livelihood, or with a 
 view to some future preferment. 
 
 His sister shared his anxieties, and wrote thus to Miss 
 Pollard : — 
 
 " FoRNCETT, June 16, Sunday Mormng, 1793. 
 
 I cannot foresee the day of my felicity, the day on 
 which I am once more to find a home under the same roo' 
 as my brother. All is still obscure and dark. 
 
 You remember the enthusiasm with which we used to 
 be fired, when in the back kitchen, the croft, or in any of 
 our favourite haunts, we built our little Tower of Joy. . . . 
 
 * See the "Advertisement" to Guilt and Sorrow, 1842. 
 t See We are Seven,
 
 86 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Let us never forget these days. ... I often hear from my 
 dear brother William. I am very anxious "about him just 
 now, as he has not yet got an employment. He is looking- 
 out, and wishing for the opportunity of engaging himself as 
 tutor to some young gentleman, an office for which he is 
 peculiarly well qualified. ... I cannot describe his atten- 
 tion to me. There was no pleasure that he would not have 
 given up with joy for half an hour's conversation with me. 
 It was in winter (at Christmas) that he was last at 
 Forncett ; and every day, as soon as we rose from dinner, we 
 used to pace the gravel walk in the garden till six o'clock, 
 when we received a summons (which was always welcome) 
 to tea. Nothing but rain or snow prevented our taking this 
 walk. Often have I gone out, when the keenest north wind 
 has been whistling amongst the trees over our head, and 
 have paced that walk in the garden, which will always be 
 dear to me — from the remembrance of those very long con- 
 versations I have had upon it supported by my brother's 
 arm. Ah ! I never thought of the cold when he was with 
 me. I am as heretical as yourself in my opinions concerning 
 love and friendship. I am very sure that love will never 
 bind me closer to any human being than friendship binds me 
 to you my earliest friends, and to William my earliest and 
 my dearest male friend. . . ." 
 
 The most of the autumn of 1793 was spent with Jones. 
 With liini he renewed his wanderings on foot in North 
 Wales, traversing much the same ground as Coleridge did 
 with a friend in the following year on a pedestrian tour. 
 At this time, Coleridge was at Cambridge, and the two men 
 had not yet met. 
 
 Coleridge's own account of his first knowledge of Words- 
 worth's poems is given in the Biograpliia Literaria, chap. iv. 
 " During the last year of my residence at Cambridge, 1794, I
 
 UNSETTLEMENT : WANDERINGS : ETC. 87 
 
 became acquainted with Mr Wordsworth's first publication * 
 entitled DescriiJtive Shetches, and seldom, if ever, was the 
 emergence of an original poetic genius above the literary- 
 horizon more evidently announced," 
 
 The earliest authentic notice of Coleridge's knowledge of 
 Wordsworth occurs in the Cambridge Diary of Christopher 
 Wordsworth, the poet's brother, afterwards master of Trinity, 
 extracts from which are published by his grandson, in his 
 Social Life at the English Universities in the eighteenth 
 century. In that diary the following is recorded : — " Tuesday, 
 Nov. 5, 1793. — Round about nine o'clock by Bilsbarrow 
 and Le Grice, with a proposal to become member of a 
 literary society : the members they mentioned as having 
 already come into the plan, [S. T.] Coleridge, Jcs., Setter- 
 thwiate. Rough, and themselves, Trin. Coll., and Franklin, 
 Petribroke. . . . Was to have gone to Coleridge's to wine to 
 consult on the plan. . . . Got all into a box, and (having 
 met with the Monthly Review of my Brother's Poems) 
 entered into a good deal of literary and critical conversation 
 on Dr Darwin, Miss Seward, Mrs Smith, Bowles, and my 
 Brother. Coleridge spoke of the esteem in which my 
 Brother was holden by a society at Exeter, of which Down- 
 man and Hole were members, as did Bilsbarrow (which he 
 had before told me), of his repute with Dr Darwin, Miss 
 Seward, &c., at Derby. . . . 
 
 Saturday, 9. — . . . No author ought, I think, without 
 he enters the world with considerable advantages, to begin 
 with publishing a very elaborate work, however, not a work 
 upon which tastes may very considerably vary, e.g., my 
 
 * It may have been "first," — preceding The Evening Walk, — but ym 
 have no evidence. The first (quarto edition of each poem, published in 
 1793, refers to the other as "by the same author." It is not unworthy of 
 note that both tliese early quarto publications were by Johnson, the pub- 
 lisher and friend of Cowper, who brought out the first edition of The Tank 
 only nine years earlier, viz., in 1784.
 
 as LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Br[other]'s Poems. If he had had his reputation raised by 
 some less important and more popular poems, it would have 
 insured from petty critics a different reception to his 
 Descriptive Sketches, and Evening WcdTc." — (p. 590.) 
 
 With Jones in Denbighshire he doubtless often dis- 
 cussed his future prospects. In the beginning of the 
 following year he left Wales, and we find him first as 
 far north as Armathwaite, near Keswick, living with the 
 Speddings. In February he went to the Rawsons, at Mill 
 House, Hahfax. Mrs Rawson was the Miss Thelkeld, to 
 whose care his sister Dorothy had been handed over after 
 she left Penrith ; and it was partly to meet his sister, and 
 discuss their prospects, that he went to Halifax, where he 
 spent four weeks. While at Mill House he gave Mr 
 Rawson's nephew lessons in French. 
 
 In a letter to Mathews, February I7th, 1794, Words- 
 worth says : " My sister is under the same roof with me ; 
 indeed, it was to see her that I came into this country. I 
 have been doing nothing, and still continue to do nothing. 
 What is to become of me I know not." He adds that he 
 has determined not to enter the Church ; and, " as for the 
 Law, I have neither strength of mind, purse, or constitution, 
 to engage in that pursuit." * 
 
 In this state of suspense as to his future, the brother and 
 sister started on one of those delightful walks, — so many of 
 which they afterwards took together, — partly to talk over 
 their future, partly to visit friends with whom they might 
 further discuss it, partly to see if they could find a fit spot 
 where they might settle down. Their mode of travelling was 
 delightfully simple and unencumbered. They took coach, 
 in the first instance, from Halifax to Kendal, there com- 
 
 * See Memoirs, vol. i. p. 82. His three brothers had all made up their 
 minds as to their future long before William could make up his. He was 
 nuw twenty-tliree years of age.
 
 UNSETTLEMENT : WANDERINGS : ETC. 89 
 
 luenced their walk, and they went on foot to Grasmere, from 
 Grasmere to Keswick, from Keswick to Cockermouth, and 
 from Cockermouth to Whitehaven. 
 
 Of this tour his sister wrote thus to a friend : " After 
 having enjoyed the company of my brother William at 
 Halifax, we set forward by coach towards Whitehaven, and 
 thence to Kendal. I walked with my brother at my side, 
 from Kendal to Grasmere, eighteen miles, and afterwards from 
 Grasmere to Keswick, fifteen miles, through the most de- 
 lightful country that was ever seen. We are now at a farm- 
 house, about half a mile from Keswick. When I came, I 
 intended to stay only a few days ; but the country is so de- 
 lightful, and, above all, I have so full an enjoyment of my 
 brother's company, that I have determined to stay a few 
 weeks longer. After I leave Windybrow " (this is the name 
 of the farm-house), " I shall proceed to Whitehaven." '"" 
 
 Again to Miss Pollard, from the same place, she gives 
 details of their life, and describes the Keswick scenery. 
 William Calvert had evidently told them they might remain 
 at Windybrow, till there appeared some definite prospect 
 of remunerative work. Windybrow farm was on the flank 
 of Latrigg, under Skiddaw. 
 
 " Windy Brow, near Keswick [1794]. 
 
 " Since I wrote to I walked from Grasmere to 
 
 Keswick, 13 miles, and at Keswick I still remain. I liave 
 been so mucli delighted with the people of this house, with its 
 situation, with the cheapness of living, and above all with the 
 opportunity which I have of enjoying my brother's company, 
 that although on my arrival I only talked of staying a few 
 days, I have already been here above a fortnight, and intend 
 staying still a few weeks longer, perhaps three or four. You 
 cannot conceive anything more delightful than the situation 
 
 * See Memoim, vol. i. p. 82.
 
 90 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 of tliis liouse. It stands upon the top of a very steep bank, 
 which rises in a direction nearly perpendicular from a 
 dashing stream below. From the window of the room 
 where I write, I have a prospect of the wood winding along 
 the opposite banks of this river, of a part of the Lake of 
 Keswick and the town, and towering above the town a 
 woody steep of a very considerable height, whose summit is 
 a long range of silver rocks. This is the view from the 
 house, but a hundred yards above it is impossible to describe 
 its grandeur. There is a natural terrace along the side of 
 the mountain, which shelters Windy brow, whence we com- 
 mand a view of the whole vale of Keswick (the Vale of 
 Elysium, as Mr Gray calls it). This vale is terminated at 
 one end by a huge pile of grand mountains, in whose lap 
 the lovely lake of Derwent is placed ; at the other end by 
 the lake of Bassenthwaite, on one side of which Skiddaw 
 towers sublime, and on the other a range of mountains, not 
 of equal size, but of much grandeur ; and the middle part of 
 the vale is of beautiful cultivated grounds, interspersed with 
 cottages, and watered by a winding stream which runs 
 between the Lakes of Derwent and Bassenthwaite. I have 
 never been more delighted with the manners of any people 
 than of the family under whose roof I am at present. They 
 are the most honest, sensible people I ever saw in their rank 
 of life, and I think I may safely affirm, happier than any- 
 body I know. They are contented with a supply of the 
 bare necessaries of life, are active and industrious, and 
 declare with simple frankness, unmixed with ostentation, 
 that they prefer their cottage at Windy Brow to any of the 
 .showy edifices in the neighbourhood, and they believe that 
 there is not to be found in the whole vale a happier family 
 than they are. They are fond of reading, and reason not 
 indifferently on what they read. We have a neat parlour 
 to ourselves, which Mr Calvert has fitted up for his own
 
 UNSETTLEMENT : WANDERINGS : ETC. 9 1 
 
 use, and the lodging-rooms are very comfortable. Till my 
 brother gets some employment he will lodge here. Mr 
 Calvert is not now at "Windy Brow, as you will suppose. 
 We please ourselves in calculating from our present expenses 
 for how very small a sum we could live. We find our own 
 food. Our breakfast and supper are of milk, and our dinner 
 chiefly of potatoes, and we drink no tea. We have received 
 great civilities from many very pleasant families, particularly 
 from a Mr Spedding of Armathwaite, at whose house you 
 may recollect my brother was staying before he went to 
 Halifax. Mr Spedding has two daughters, who are in every 
 respect charming women. . . . They live in the most 
 delightful place that ever was beheld. We have been 
 staying there three nights. . . . William is very intimate 
 with the eldest son." 
 
 Nothing being determined as to their future, they left 
 Keswick in May, and went by Cockermouth to Wliitehaven, 
 on a visit to their uncle, Eichard Wordsworth, There the 
 idea of some conjoint literary labour with Mathews in 
 London took definite shape, and Wordsworth proposed to 
 him that they should start a Monthly Magazine, literary and 
 political, in which " he would communicate critical remarks 
 on poetry, the arts of painting, gardening, &c., besides essays 
 on morals and politics." " I am at present," he adds, " nearly 
 at leisure — I say nearly, for I am not quite so, as I am 
 correcting, and considerably adding to, those poems which I 
 published in your absence.* It was with great reluctance 
 that I sent those two little works into the world in so im- 
 perfect a state. But as I had done nothing by wliicli to 
 distinguish myself at the university, I tliought tliese little 
 things might show that I could do something. Tliey have 
 been treated with unmerited contempt by some of the 
 
 * The Eoening Walk and Descriptive Sketches.
 
 -'2 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 periodicals, and others have spoken in higher terms of them 
 than they deserve." 
 
 This letter is interesting as a sign of his own dissatis- 
 faction with his youthful poems. 
 
 Next month — June 1794 — writing from the same place, 
 he forwarded to Mathews a prospectus of the proposed 
 Magazine, which he suggested should be called " The Philan- 
 THEOPIST, a monthly Miscellany." In politics it was to be 
 republican, but not revolutionary.* 
 
 This project failed, as well it might. Mathews was 
 already a journalist ; but no wise publisher would have 
 started a new Magazine, and entrusted it to the care of a 
 couple of adventurers, one of them a raw recruit in journalism 
 seeking a sphere, but wholly unpractised in the art of writing 
 for tlie press. It is interesting, however, to note, that in 
 the prospectus sent up to Mathews, Wordsworth proposed to 
 popularize the magazine by criticisms on gardening, as well as 
 poetry and art. He knew the principles of landscape garden- 
 ing well ; as the groimds of Eydal, Foxhow, Hallsteads, and, 
 above all, the winter garden at Coleorton abundantly attest. 
 
 His relatives soon began to be more than disappointed 
 that he could not find a sphere of work. They knew, and 
 had daily evidence of his ability ; but they thought that he 
 had been recently wasting his time. 
 
 Before returning to William Calvert's house at Windy- 
 brow, he must have wandered on foot alone, or with his sister, 
 over other parts of Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Lanca- 
 shire, during that autvmm of 1794. I think there is evi- 
 dence that he crossed fi'om Whitehaven to the Isle of Man, 
 and remained there for a month. 
 
 " I was thy neighbour once, thou rugged Pile ! 
 Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee," t 
 
 he says in the Stanzas suggested hj a picture of Peeh 
 
 * See Memoirs, vol. i. p. 83. 
 t See vol. iii. p. 45.
 
 UNSETTLEMENT : WANDERINGS : ETC. 93 
 
 Castle in a storm. There is no subsequent year in which 
 that month can be placed so fittingly as this one. 
 
 No record of these wanderings survives ; but in the tenth 
 book of The Prelude, he tells us he was crossing the Ulverston 
 sands when he heard the news of the fall of Eobespierre, 
 Robespierre was guillotined on the 28th of July, and it must 
 have been on one of the early days of August that he had 
 gone, probably after a visit to Hawkshead, to see the grave 
 of his old master in the grammar school, William Taylor, who 
 had died eight years before, and was buried at Cartmell. At 
 Ulverston, the tide being out, the customary crowd of travellers, 
 on foot and in carriages, was crossing the sands ; and while 
 Wordsworth paused in admiration of the sight, the foremost 
 of the band advancing cried out, " Eobespierre is dead." So 
 great was his joy, that he poured forth what he called a 
 " hymn of triumph." 
 
 It was during this autumn that a reaction set in, and 
 developed itself, in Wordsworth's mind, against the demo- 
 cratic movement in France with which, in 1792, he had 
 been in fullest sympathy. The whole process is traced for 
 us, with singular felicity of autobiographical analysis, in the 
 eleventh book of The Prelude. It is done so well, that 
 it is at least possible that future students of the period will 
 have more interest — they will have some difficulty — in 
 tracing out the numerous allusions, in those condensed pages 
 of The Prelude, to the passing events of the time, than in 
 searching for the facts in the journals of the day. He still 
 believed that the fresh intuitions of his youth (which were 
 in sympathy with the radical movement) were truer, or at 
 least a more trustworthy guide to him, than the prosaic 
 counsels of conservative tradition. He lamented the policy 
 of the government of the day, inspired by a fear of revolu- 
 tion in England.* But, pondering the large question of 
 * See Note, vol. iii. p. 350.
 
 9-1 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 " the rule and management of nations," — whether their pros- 
 perity hinges altogether on their laws, — he saw cause 
 modify some of the opinions he had embraced at the dawn 
 of the revolutionary movement in France. 
 
 Mathews gave him no encouragement in the notion of 
 their starting a monthly Magazine together, but told his 
 friend that if he came up to town he would easily get work 
 on the metropolitan press. He seems to have made up his 
 mind at last, that it would be the best thing for him to 
 make such a venture; and, on the 7th November 1794, 
 having returned to his friend Calvert's house at Windybrow, 
 Keswick, he writes to Mathews : — " You say a newspaper 
 would be glad of me. Do you think you could insure me 
 employment in that way, on terms similar to your own ? I 
 mean, also, in an Opposition Paper, for I cannot abet, in 
 the smallest degree, the measures pursued by the present 
 ministry. They are already so deeply advanced in iniquity? 
 that, like Macbeth, they cannot retreat. When I express 
 myself in this manner, I am far from reprobating those 
 whose sentiments differ from my own ; I know that many 
 good men are persuaded of the expediency of the present 
 war. . . . You would probably see that my brother ^" 
 has been honoured with two college declamation prizes. 
 This goes towards a fellowship, which I hope he will obtain, 
 and am sure he will merit. He is a lad of talents, and in- 
 dustrious withal. This same industry is a good old Eoman 
 quality, and nothing is to be done without it." t 
 
 The notion that he might become a journalist was not 
 seriously entertained by Wordsworth ; or, if the idea 
 ever crossed the horizon of his mind as a possibility, a 
 true instinct led him to abandon it, as soon as the means 
 
 * Christopher, then au under-gradiiate of Trinity College, Cambridge, 
 t See Memoirs, vol. i. p. So.
 
 UNSETTLEMENT : WANDERINGS : ETC. 9 5 
 
 of frugal livelihood were otherwise within his reach. He 
 wrote slowly, and disliked the task of writing at all. How 
 he afterwards came to write so many letters to so many 
 friends — and some of them of such length and elaborateness 
 — is a mystery to those who know his intense aversion to 
 the physical labour of correspondence. To sit down before 
 a writing desk was to him like taking a seat on a penance- 
 stool. Then his prose style — though at times rising to 
 heights of austere beauty, even of grandeur, and incisive 
 power — was, as a rule, heavy and dull ; sometimes indeed it 
 was exceedingly commonplace. It lacked the sparkle, the 
 terseness, the verve, the light touch, and the humour that 
 are the requisites of a good newspaper style. 
 
 It is curious to speculate on the kind of Wordsworth 
 the world would have had, if, by stress of circumstances, he 
 had devoted himself, even for a few years, to the miscel- 
 laneous vocation of a pressman, and toiled as Samuel Taylor 
 Coleridge did. Poems, wrung with new intensity from the 
 wine-press of experience, and with some wilder ethereal flights? 
 Perhaps. It is impossible to say. In any case I believe he 
 would have kept himself well in hand. We should have 
 had nothing of Burns's experience, or of Byron's to record. 
 
 The mention of Burns recalls a supposed meeting of the 
 two bards, suggested by a poet and literary critic of 
 our time, whose name need not be given. The tw^o men 
 meet, at a time and place when conviviality was most 
 natural, and pledge each other with enthusiasm, but with 
 due sobriety, when Burns is supposed to rise, and ask the 
 bard of Eydal to 
 
 " Tak a cup o' kindness yet 
 For auld langsyne." 
 
 To whom Wordsworth, replying, says, " Mr Burns, don't you 
 
 think we've had enough ! " 
 
 Waiting on at Keswick for a reply from Mathews, ho
 
 06 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 had a sad duty to discharge. Raisley Calvert, the brother 
 of the friend with whom he had travelled in the Isle 
 of Wight, and at whose house he and his sister were 
 guests, had long been delicate. Symptoms of pulmonary 
 disease now showed themselves. Even when writing 
 to Mathews about going up to Town, Wordsworth had 
 said, " I cannot think of quitting him in his present 
 debilitated state." Two months later, writing from Penrith 
 (January 7, 1795), he says: "I have been here for some 
 time. I am still much engaged with my sick friend, and 
 sorry am I to add that he worsens daily. . . . He is barely 
 alive." Soon afterwards Raisley Calvert died. In his will 
 it was found that he had left the sum of £900 to the friend 
 who had nursed him in his illness. This he did, not only 
 as a mark of personal friendship, but because he believed 
 that, if Wordsworth were only free from the pressure of 
 monetary cares, he would write something, in verse or prose, 
 that would benefit the world. 
 
 Wordsworth's gratitude to his friend prompted the sonnet 
 beginning 
 
 " Calvert ! it must not be unheard by tbem," * 
 
 and a passage in the fourteenth book of The Prelude, 
 beginning 
 
 " A youth , — he bore 
 The name of Calvert." t . . . 
 
 It was William, not Eaisley Calvert, who was Words- 
 worth's special friend. They were sons of R. Calvert, 
 steward to the Duke of Norfolk. But Raisley knew the 
 difficulty in which his brother's friend was placed, as to 
 finding the means of livelihood. He had doubtless heard 
 the question often discussed by his brother and sisters, and 
 
 * See vol. iv., p. 40 and note. t See vol. iii., p. 400.
 
 UNSETTLEMENT : WANDERINGS: ETC. 97 
 
 by Dorothy Wordsworth ; and having the tact to appreciate 
 the genius of his brother's friend, and feeling that his own 
 tenure of life was to be a short one, he generously devised 
 this legacy, on public as well as personal grounds. He had 
 mentioned to Wordsworth himself — a month before the 
 latter wrote to Mathews (asking liim to procure a post for 
 him in the metropolitan press) — his intention to leave him 
 a legacy, but he then spoke of £600. Wordsworth wrote 
 to William Calvert, October 1, 1794, that Raisley meant to 
 set out for the winter to Lisbon, and that he (Wordsworth) 
 had a desire to accompany him, as he was too weak to go 
 alone ; adding that he had bequeathed all his property to 
 William, with the exception of this legacy of £600. The 
 legacy was to be subject to one condition : that on enquiry 
 into the state of the Wordsworth family affairs in London 
 (doubtless corresponding with Eichard, the solicitor, and 
 with Mr Cookson at Windsor), it should seem " advisable 
 to do so." The result of Eaisley's enquiries must have 
 been to shew him that it was specially advisable, for 
 he left, not £600, but £900. He did not live to visit 
 Lisbon. 
 
 Those who are familiar with the Life of Spinoza, will 
 remember that when Simon de Vries of Amsterdam was 
 dying — of the same malady that carried off Eaisley Calvert 
 — he offered his friend a gift of 2000 florins, just to mark 
 the intellectual debt he owed him, and to add a little to his 
 comfort. Spinoza, accustomed to the most frugal mode of 
 life, declined what would have been a burden rather than a 
 comfort to him. De Vri(!S then made a will, in which he 
 left all liis fortune to Spinoza. Spinoza hearing of this, at 
 once visited de Vries, and remonstrated, reminding him 
 that he had a brother, to whom his fortune would, in course 
 of nature, descend. De Vries consented, only stipulating 
 that his brother should pay a small annuity to Spinoza. 
 IX. G
 
 98 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 This incident has a curious parallel in Calvert's gift to 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 Wordsworth's sonnet to the memory of Calvert records 
 his own feelings, and is a tribute to his friend's character. 
 In a letter to Sir George Beaumont in 1805, he gives an 
 account of the gift, and of the use he made of it. The fol- 
 lowing is part of that letter :- — 
 
 " Grasmere, Feh. 20th, 1805. 
 
 "My Deae Friend, — My father, who was an attorney of 
 considerable eminence, died intestate, when we were chil- 
 dren : and the chief part of his personal property after his 
 decease was expended in an unsuccessful attempt to compel 
 the late Lord Lonsdale to pay a debt of about £5000 to my 
 father's estate. Enough, however, was scraped together to 
 educate us all in different ways. I, the second son, was 
 sent to college with a view to the profession of the church 
 or law ; into one of which I should have been foiced by 
 necessity, had not a friend left me £900. This bequest 
 was from a young man with whom, though I call him 
 friend, I had had but little connection ; and the act was 
 done entirely from a confidence on his part that I had 
 powers and attainments which might be of use to mankind. 
 This I have mentioned, because it was his due, and I thought 
 the fact would give you pleasure. Upon the interest of the 
 £900, £400 being laid out in annuity, with £200 deducted 
 from the principal, and £100 a legacy to my sister, and 
 £100 more which the "Lyrical Ballads" have brought me, 
 my sister and I contrived to live seven years, nearly eight. 
 Lord Lonsdale then died, and the present Lord Lowther 
 paid to my father's estate £8500. Of this sum I believe 
 £1800 apiece will come to my sister and myself; at least, 
 would have come: but £3000 was lent out to our poor
 
 UNSETTLEMENT : WANDERINGS: ETC. 99 
 
 brother* I mean taken from the whole sum, which was 
 about £1200 more than his share, which £1200 belonged 
 to my sister and me. This £1200 we freely lent him: 
 wliether it was insured or no, I do not know ; but I dare 
 say it will prove to be the case ; we did not however stipu- 
 late for its being insured. But you shall faithfully know 
 all particulars as soon as I have learned them." 
 
 His course in life was now made clear to him. He gave 
 up the search for a " profession." Calvert's legacy had 
 cleared a passage for him, and now allowed the stream of 
 his ambition to flow as natural instinct led it."j" By dint of 
 strictest economy — to him, as to Spinoza, a luxury — and by 
 joining his sister, and throwing their small means into a 
 common fund, he had enough to live upon ; while he de- 
 voted his future solely to that office to which he had been 
 " dedicated " in his eighteenth year, during the Hawkshead 
 "" morning walk." 
 
 And now began what was certainly the most powerful 
 influence over him, if not the most important event in his 
 life — that fellowship with his Sister, which lasted, with 
 scarcely an interval, for fifty-five years, till his death in 
 1850. 
 
 Hitherto Wordsworth had lived much alone. He had 
 companions, familiar ones ; but none of the Hawkshead boys, 
 and neither Jones, nor Mathews, nor Beaupuis, nor Calvert 
 were friends in an intimate sense. The ties to liis brothers 
 and sister were not, as yet, specially close. " Home " had 
 been a name to him, not an experience ; he speaks of having 
 led " an undomestic wanderer's life." J And a somewhat 
 stern element had developed in his character, as he himself 
 
 * John Wordsworth. 
 
 t See The Prelude, book xiv., vol. iii. p. 400. 
 
 X The Prelude, book xiv,, vol. iii. p. 4U0.
 
 100 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 confesses, and as his sister points out in her letters from 
 Forncett. 
 
 The effect of his sister's influence over liim, the education 
 it was, and its " healing power," have been gratefully re- 
 corded by himself. This " blessing of his later years," he 
 tells us, was " with him wlien a boy." 
 
 " She gave me eyes, she gave me ears, 
 And humble cares, and delicate fears ; 
 A heart — the fountain of sweet tears — 
 And love, and thought, and joy." * 
 
 But alone at Hawkshead, alone at Cambridge, alone in 
 France, he was deprived of its steadying influence, its 
 staying power ; and the result was — 
 
 " I too exclusively esteemed that love. 
 And sought that beauty, which (as Milton sings) 
 Hath terror in it. Thou didst soften down 
 This over-sternness." t 
 
 He says that, but for the influence of his sister, the self- 
 confidence of his nature would have kept him like 
 
 " A rock with torrents roaring, with the clouds 
 Familiar, and a favourite of the stars : 
 But thou didst plant its crevices with flowers. 
 Hang it with shrubs that twinkle in the breeze, 
 And teach the little birds to build their nests 
 And warble in its chambers." t 
 
 More than this, in that autobiographic analysis of himself, 
 and of the state of mind he passed through in France, and 
 on his return to England, which is given in the eleventh 
 book of The Prelude — in the period of unsettlement that 
 ensued, when the scrutinising intellect was at work, and he 
 lost all sense of conviction, and gave up moral problems in 
 despair, and was on the verge of becoming like " the 
 
 * See vol. ii., p. 207. 
 
 t See The Prelude, book xiv. , vol. iii. p. 396.
 
 UNSETTLEMENT : WANDERINGS: ETC. 101 
 
 Solitary," whom he afterwards described in The Excursion — 
 then it was that, travelling together on foot in the York- 
 shire dales, and Cumbrian valleys, his sister brought him 
 back from what was almost misanthropy, corrected his 
 despondency, and, (as he put it,) 
 
 " Maintained for me a saving intercourse 
 
 With my true self ; 
 
 She whispered still that brightness would return, 
 She, in the midst of all, preserved me still 
 A Poet, made me seek beneath that name. 
 And that alone, my office upon earth." * 
 
 Elsewhere he writes of her — 
 
 " Her voice was like a hidden brook that sang ; 
 The thought of her was like a flash of light, 
 Or an unseen companionship." t 
 
 Again — 
 
 " Birds in the bower, and lambs in the green field, 
 Could they have known her, would have loved ; methought 
 Her very presence such a sweetness breathed. 
 That flowers, and trees, and even the silent hills, 
 And everything she looked on, shovild have had 
 An intimation how she bore herself 
 Towards them, and to all creatures." | 
 
 It was a process of gradual development. Nothing in 
 Wordsworth's life was sudden or abrupt. By degrees he 
 learned that " peace settles where the intellect is meek," and 
 the renewed influence of Nature's voice, along with that of 
 his Sister 
 
 " led him back through opening day 
 To those sweet counsels between head and heart 
 Whence grew that genuine knowledge, fraught with peace." § 
 
 * The Prelude, book xi. See vol. iii. p. 359. 
 
 t The liedme, book i. MS. 
 
 J The Prelude, book xii. See vol. iii. p. ;{<)9. 
 
 § The Prelude, book xi. See vol. iii. p. .SCO.
 
 102 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 No poet was ever so happy in the unselfish ministry of a 
 sister. From Chaucer downwards we meet with none in 
 the records of English literature who was so fortunate in 
 the devotion and the service of the women who surrounded 
 him. 
 
 This devotion, however, — with all its unselfish tender- 
 ness, — would not have done so much for Wordsworth as it 
 did, had it not been accompanied by that wonderful insight 
 which Dorothy possessed. She had quite as clear and deli- 
 cate a perception as her brother had of those rarer beauties 
 of Nature which the common eye sees not. Abundant 
 evidence will be found in the passages to be extracted from 
 the Journals she wrote at Alfoxden and Grasmere of that 
 intellectual second-sight — that knowledge born of love — 
 which made both brother and sister poets. It was the 
 insight and the service combined that made her so invalu- 
 able to Wordsworth. 
 
 The very service, however, had its hurtful side. We 
 shall see signs of self-involution by-and-bye, which it 
 fostered. Wordsworth had so much done for him, his 
 reading, his writing, his copying, the sister working in every 
 sort of way that could contribute to his ease, that a certain 
 element, not of selfishness — he never showed signs of 
 that — but of self-engrossedness and self-centredness arose, 
 almost as a matter of course. Even this was akin to a 
 virtue, but the rootedness it gave to his character took away 
 something of the charm, and almost of necessity lessened 
 the benignity and radiance, which we find in natures less 
 robust and strong. For another thing, it led him to 
 individualize a great deal in his writings, to occupy himself 
 with minute objects, incidents, and themes, rather than to 
 generalize, and deal with large questions and national 
 interests. 
 
 Wliere Wordsworth passed the summer of 1795 we do
 
 UNSETTLEMENT : WANDERINGS: ETC. 103 
 
 not exactly know. Part of his time would doubtless be spent 
 at Penrith, but it is more than probable that he accom- 
 panied his sister to Halifax, and then went up to town. 
 He would wish to see William Calvert, and we know that Mr 
 Basil Montagu, Q.C., had some personal communications 
 with him during the autumn ; while his sister writes, in 
 September, of William's " unsettled" life being unfavourable to 
 mental work. Anothei' evidence that he spent this autumn 
 in London is that the Mr Pinney of Bristol, who gave him 
 his first home in Dorsetshire, was a friend of Basil Mon- 
 tagu's. Most probably it was Montagu who introduced him 
 to Pinney, and sent him down to Bristol to see if he could not 
 there make a start in taking pupils. What led him to make 
 Eacedown, in Dorsetshire, his home in the autumn of 1795, 
 is detailed in one of his sister's letters to Miss Pollard, who 
 had just been married to Mr Marshall of Leeds. Her brother 
 had gone to Bristol, and was staying with Mr Pinney, a 
 local merchant there, who had a country house at Racedown, 
 Dorsetshire. Mr Pinney had given over this house to his 
 son. The son offered it, furnished, with orchard, garden, 
 &c., to Wordsworth, rent free, apparently on the sole con- 
 dition that he (IMr Pinney, jr.) should occasionally come 
 down and stay for a few weeks. Wordsworth at the same 
 time had another important offer from Mr Montagu, viz., 
 to take charge of his boy Basil, for which Montagu 
 offered him £50 a year for board. He hoped to have 
 the son of Mr Pinney, aged 13, as a second pupil, while 
 Dorothy was asked to take charge of a cousin's child, a girl 
 of three and a half years. 
 
 The following is an extract from his sister's letter : — 
 
 MiLLHOUSE, Septeynher 2nd, 1795. 
 
 [On the back of the letter, in Lady Monteagle's hand- 
 writing, the year is given as 1796 ; but it was 1795.
 
 104 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Miss Pollard was now Mrs Marshall. She speaks of a 
 visit of Kit's before going up to Cambridge for his final 
 term before graduating, and adds,] " He is very like me ! 
 It is allowed by every one, and I myself think I never saw 
 a stronger likeness. ... I am going to live in Dorsetshire. 
 . . . You know the pleasure I have always attached to 
 the idea of home, a blessing which I' have so early lost. 
 ... I think I told you that Mr Montagu had a little 
 boy, who, as you will perceive, could not be very well 
 taken care of, either in his father's chambers, or under 
 tlie uncertain management of various friends of Mr M., 
 with whom he has frequently stayed. ... A daughter 
 of Mr Tom Myers (a cousin of mine whom I daresay you 
 have heard nie mention) is coming over to England by the 
 first ship, which is expected in about a week, to be educated. 
 She is, I believe, about three or four years old, and T. 
 Myers' brother, who has charge of her, lias suggested that I 
 should take her under my care. With these two children, 
 and the produce of Eaisley Calvert's legacy, we shall have 
 an income of at least £70 or £80 per annum. William 
 finds that he can get nine per cent, for the money upon the 
 best security. He means to sink half of it upon my life, 
 which will make me always comfortable and independent. 
 . . . Living in the unsettled way in which my brother 
 has hitherto lived in London is altogether unfavourable to 
 mental exertion. . . . He has had the offer of ten guineas 
 for a work which has not taken up much time, and half the 
 profits of a second edition if it should be called for. It is 
 a little sum ; but it is one step. ... I am determined to 
 work with resolution. ... It will greatly contribute to my 
 happiness, and place me in such a situation that I shall be 
 doing something. ... I shall have to join William at 
 Bristol, and proceed thence in a chaise with Basil to Race- 
 down. It is fiftv miles."
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 FIRST HOME AT EACEDOWN. 
 
 In this Racedown house, half way between Crewkerne in 
 Somersetshire, and Lyme in Dorsetshire, Wordsworth began, 
 what was to continue till his death, the one supreme object 
 of his life. The following is a description of the house as 
 seen in the summer of 18S7 : — 
 
 " We approached the old farm-house over meadows bright 
 with yellow iris and foxglove, and through lanes lined wit'h 
 fern, and hung with honeysuckle and wild rose. Large 
 beech trees shade the entrance gate ; the house and its 
 clustering farm buildings stands on the slope of Black down; 
 open grass fields surround it. From the terrace garden on 
 the left hand side of the house, wide views of hill and valley 
 are obtained. Below, amongst meadows famous for daffodils, 
 winds Cindreford Brook. The hollow is well wooded, the 
 remains of an avenue of Scotch firs being a prominent 
 feature. On the opposite side of the valley rises Greggy, with 
 quaint clumps of fir trees on the ridge of the hill ; beyond, 
 a glimpse of Lambert's Castle is to be had, and of another 
 hill locally known as Goldencap, from the brilliance of the 
 gorse in bloom, which is said to serve as a beacon to ships. 
 The sea itself is visible from the top of the house, and its 
 reviving breezes may be felt in the garden. The house, 
 built of dull red brick, covered in front with grey stucco 
 and much weather-stained, is three stories high, and has no 
 beauty beyond that of situation and association. A porch, 
 added recently, opens into a fairly wide and airy hall, with
 
 106 LIFE OF WORDSWOKTH. 
 
 old-fashioned fleet staircase. The room on the right hand, 
 looking out to the grass fields in front and to the large 
 beeches at the entrance gate, is the one Wordsworth 
 occupied. It is square and low, with two deep recesses and 
 a high ornamented plaster ceiling ; a small room over the 
 hall is said to have been used as a study by the poet." 
 
 Here, in tliis farm-house, well stocked with books, William 
 and Dorothy Wordsworth began their life of closely associated 
 labour. They spent their time industriously in reading — 
 " if reading," Wordsworth said to Mathews,* " can ever 
 deserve the name of industry " — in writing, and in gardening. 
 Wordsworth tells Mathews that he had begun to read 
 Ariosto with his sister ; and she, writing to Mrs Marshall, 
 says that her " brother handles the spade with great dex- 
 terity." They had no society to distract them, and the 
 post brought them letters only once a week. Four years 
 later — after they had experience of Alfoxden, and of Germany 
 — Dorothy spoke of Racedown as " the place dearest to my 
 recollections upon the whole surface of the island ; it was 
 the first home I had ; " and she writes of the " lovely 
 meadows above the tops of the coombs, and the scenery on 
 Pilsden, Lewisden, and Blackdown-hill, and the view of the 
 sea from Lambert's Castle." i* 
 
 Strange to say, the first thing Wordsworth seems to have 
 done at Racedown was to make experimental essays at 
 both Satire and Tragedy, the two kinds of poetical com- 
 position in which he was least of all fitted to excel. 
 He began by certain imitations of Juvenal, which he sent 
 to his friend Wrangham, on the 20th November 1795. 
 The two had thought of publishing a joint volume of 
 satirical pieces, and Wordsworth worked at it till the spring 
 of 1796. Perhaps it was to this that his sister refers in 
 
 * In a letter dated March 21, 1796. 
 t See Memoirs, vol. i. p. 94.
 
 FIRST HOME AT RACEDOWN. 107 
 
 lier letter to Mrs Marshall, September 21, 1795, as a work 
 that " has not taken up much time," and for which a 
 pecuniary offer had been made to him ; but he put it aside. 
 He had the wisdom to see that it was not his function to 
 become a satirist. And when asked, as late as November 
 7, 1806, to allow these effusions to be printed, he replied: — 
 " I have long since come to a fixed resolution to steer 
 clear of personal satire ; in fact, I never will have anything 
 to do with it, as far as concerns the 'private vices of in- 
 dividuals on any account. Witli respect to public delin- 
 quents or offenders, I will not say tlie same ; though I should 
 be slow to meddle even with these. This is a rule which 
 I have laid down for myself, and shall rigidly adhere to ; 
 though I do not in all cases blame those who think and act 
 differently. 
 
 " It will therefore follow, that I cannot lend any assistance 
 to your proposed publication. The verses which you have 
 of mine, I should wish to be destroyed ; I have no copy of 
 them myself, at least none that I can find. I would most 
 willingly give them up to you, fame, profit, and everything, 
 if I thought either true> fame or profit could arise out of 
 them." 
 
 In the autumn of 1795 he began, and carried on through- 
 out the whole of that winter at Kacedown, the composition 
 of his one tragedy — The Borderers — completing it in the 
 summer of 1796. Very likely, as his nepliew suggests,* 
 the subject occurred to him during his residence in tlie 
 Border district, — at Penrith, or at Keswick, — where so many 
 of the ruined castles ha^'e traditions which carry us back 
 to the period of the drama in question, viz., in tlie time of 
 Henry III. ; and Wordsworth tells us himself that he had 
 read Redpath's History of the Borders, that \w. rniglit know 
 something of tlie local history.! 
 
 * See Memoirs, vol. i. p. 96. 
 
 f See the Fenwick note to Thf Bordf.rpm, vol. i. p. 108.
 
 108 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 We shall return to the Tragedy, to see its fate in the 
 year 1797. 
 
 Meanwhile it is thus that Dorothy Wordsworth describes 
 her life at Eacedown to Mrs Marshall : — 
 
 " Eacedown, November 30th* 
 
 ..." Basil is a charming boy. He affords us perpetual 
 entertainment. Do not suppose from this that we make 
 him our perpetual plaything. . . . We walk about two 
 hours every morning. We have very pleasant walks about 
 us ; and what is a great advantage, the roads are of a sandy 
 kind, and are almost always dry. We can see the sea, 150 
 or 200 yards from the door; and at a little distance we 
 have a very extensive view terminated by the sea, seen 
 through different openings of the unequal hills. We have 
 not the warmth and luxuriance of Devonshire, though there 
 is no want either of wood, or of cultivation ; but the trees 
 appear to suffer from the sea-blasts. We have hills which, 
 seen from a distance, almost take the character of mountains, 
 some cultivated nearly to their summits ; others in their 
 wild state, covered with furze and broom. These delight 
 me most, as they remind me of our native wilds. Our 
 common parlour is the prettiest little room that can be." . . . 
 [She mentions that they were seven miles from Crewkerne, 
 and nearly equal distance from Axminster, Bridport, and 
 Lyme.] " A little brook which runs at the distance of one 
 field from us divides us from Devonshire." [She adds that 
 the peasants were miserably poor ; their cottages " shapeless 
 structures of wood and clay ; " " they are not at all beyond 
 what might be expected in savage life."] 
 
 * Lady Monteagle, in whose possession this, and all the other letters from 
 Dorothy Wordsworth to ]\Irs Marshall are^ has written 1796 upon it, but I 
 think it must belong to the year 1795.
 
 FIRST HOME AT RACEDOWN. 109 
 
 Again Miss Wordsworth writes to Mrs Marshall, as 
 follows : — 
 
 " Racedown, Sunday Night. 
 
 " You ask to be informed of our system respecting Basil. 
 It is a very simple one, so simple that, in this age of 
 systems, you will hardly be likely to follow it. We teach 
 him nothing at present, but what he learns from the evidence 
 of his senses. He has an insatiable curiosity, which we are 
 always careful to satisfy. It is directed to everything." . . . 
 [At first disposed to be fretful, he was told that crying was 
 not allowed in this house ; and that it must go on in a cer- 
 tain room, if at all ; at first his visits to this room were very 
 long, but he always came out perfectly good humoured. 
 He found that this mode of treatment was never departed 
 from ; and so there was little need to send him into this 
 " apartment of tears."] 
 
 " Mary Hutchinson is staying with us. She is one of the 
 best girls in the world, and we are as happy as human 
 beings can be, that is when William is at home ; for you 
 cannot imagine how dull we feel when he is away. . . . 
 He is the life of the whole house." 
 
 Again she writes to Mrs Marshall, giving an account of 
 the Pinneys' visit to Racedown, speaks of their being out 
 walking, riding, hunting, clearing and carving wood, " which 
 is a very desirable employment, and could be recommended 
 to all." ..." William is going to publish a poem. The 
 Pinneys have taken it to the bookseller. I am studying 
 Italian very hard." 
 
 The poem referred to may have been Guilt and Sorrow ; 
 but more probably it was his tragedy. The Borderers. 
 
 It was in the early spring of 179 G, I think, that Words- 
 worth went in to Bristol ''to see Coleridge ; and there it was,
 
 110 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 in No. 25 College Street (the house is at present numbered 
 51,) that these two remarkable men first met. 
 
 Wordsworth wrote to his friend Mathews,* " I am going 
 to Bristol to-morrow to see there two extraordinary youths, 
 Coleridge and Southey." 
 
 In March 1796, Coleridge notes that he had met 
 Wordsworth, and in a list of authors with whom he was 
 acquainted, which Coleridge drew up in March 1796, 
 Wordsworth's name is to be found.! 
 
 It is curious, however, that over the first meeting of these 
 two men — whose relations to each other were afterwards so 
 close and significant — there should be some obscurity. In 
 October 1795 Coleridge was married, and went to the cottage 
 at Clevedon. There, in the earliest months of his married 
 life, he prepared for the press his first volume of Poems, 
 which was published in April 1796. He then busied him- 
 self with the editing of TJic Watchman, the first number of 
 which appeared on 1st March, and the tenth (the final one) 
 on May 14, 1796. His misunderstanding with Southey 
 occurred in the beginning of 1796. He was full of the 
 excitement of launching Tlie Watchman, when he first made 
 Wordsworth's acquaintance, whose name occurs amongst 
 those to whom he asked Cottle to send a copy of his 
 poems in April 1796.| He afterwards went down to 
 Eacedown to return Wordsworth's visit, but the precise 
 date of his first arrival at Racedown is unknown. Probably, 
 during that summer and autumn of 1796, there were 
 several interchanges of visits. But in the followinsf 
 
 * See Oilman's Life of Coleridge, p. 74. 
 
 t But in aa MS. note to a copy of the second edition of his own Poems 
 (1797) Coleridge says that the note " was written before I had ever seen Mr 
 Wordsworth." I am inclined to doubt the accuracy of Coleridge's memory 
 in this instance. The note, which is in a copy of the Poems belonging to 
 Mr Locker Lampson, was probably written late in Coleridge's life. 
 
 X vSee Bioiji-aphia Literaria, vol. ii. p. 363.
 
 FIRST HOME AT RACEDOWN. 1 1 1 
 
 June, Coleridge, who had gone to live at Nether Stowey 
 in January of the same year,* went to Dorsetshire and 
 stayed some time at Eacedown ; and the Wordsworths paid 
 a return visit to Stowey in July. 
 
 The following letter — written by Mrs Wordsworth to 
 Sara Coleridge, in November 7, 1845, is a further illustra- 
 tion of the difficulty of ' determining ' these dates : — 
 
 " With my husband's tender love to you, he bids me say, 
 in reply to a question you have put to him through Miss 
 Fenwick, that he has not as distinct a remembrance as he 
 could wish, of the time when he first saw your father and 
 your uncle Southey, but the impression upon his mind is, 
 that he first saw them both, and your aunt Edith at the 
 same time, in a lodging in Bristol ; this must have been 
 about the year 179 5.1 Your father, he says, came after- 
 wards to see us at Racedown, where I was then living with 
 my sister. We have both a distinct remembrance of his 
 arrival. He did not keep to the high road, but 'leapt over 
 a gate and bounded down the pathless field, by which he 
 cut off' an angle. We both retain the liveliest possible 
 image of his appearance at that moment. My poor sister 
 has just been speaking of it to me with much feeling and 
 tenderness. — Ever, dear Sara, most affectionately yours, 
 
 " M. WORDSWOETH." 
 
 Dorothy Wordsworth's description of Coleridge as she 
 first met him is worthy of special notice, as is Coleridge's of 
 her ; their friendship subsequently assuming such a tender 
 edge and intensity. 
 
 " You had a great loss," she writes to a friend,| who had 
 
 * See Biofj. Lit., vol. ii. ; Biog. SuppL, jj. .S91. 
 t It was evidently 1796. 
 
 J See Memoirs, vol. i. p. 99. It is a pity tliat the Bishop of Lincoln 
 withheld hor name. Was it Mary idutchiuson?
 
 112 LIFE OF WORDSWOETH. 
 
 left Racedown early in 1797, "in not seeing Coleridge. He 
 is a wonderful man. His conversation teems with soul, 
 mind, and spirit. Then he is so benevolent, so good- 
 tempered and cheerful, and, like William, interests himself 
 so much about every little trifle. At first I thought him very 
 plain, that is, for about three minutes. He is pale, thin, has 
 a wide mouth, thick lips, and not very good teeth, longish, 
 loose-growing, half-curling, rough, black hair. But if you 
 hear him speak for five minutes you think no more of them. 
 His eye is large and full, and not very dark, but grey, such 
 an eye as would receive from a heavy soul the dullest ex- 
 pression ; but it speaks every emotion of his animated 
 mind : it has more of ' the poet's eye in a fine frenzy roll- 
 ing ' than I ever witnessed. He has fine dark eyebrows, 
 and an overhanging forehead. 
 
 "The first thing that was read after he came was 
 William's new poem, ' The Ruined Cottage,' with which he 
 was much, delighted ; and after tea he repeated to us two 
 acts and a half of liis tragedy, ' Osorio.' The next morning 
 William read his tragedy, ' The Borderers.' " 
 
 In Cottles' Early Recollections * of Coleridge, an account 
 of this visit will be found written by Coleridge to Cottle, in 
 June 1797. "I am sojourning for a few days," he says, 
 " at Racedown, Dorset, the mansion of our friend Words- 
 worth. . . . Wordsworth admires my tragedy, which 
 gives me great hopes. He has written a tragedy himself. 
 I speak with heartfelt sincerity, and, I think, unbUnded 
 judgment, when I tell you that I feel myself a little man 
 by his side." 
 
 Wlien the Wordsworths returned this visit and went to 
 ]S!"ether Stowey in July, Coleridge wrote again to Cottle : 
 " W. and his exquisite sister are with me. She is a woman 
 
 * See vol. i. p. 250, &c.
 
 FIRST HOME AT RACEDOWN. 113 
 
 indeed ! in mind I mean, and heart ; for her person is sucli 
 that if you expected to see a pretty woman, you would 
 think her rather ordinary ; if you expected to see an ordi- 
 nary woman, you would think her pretty ! but her manners 
 are simple, ardent, impressive. In every motion her most 
 innocent soul outbeams so brightly, that who saw would 
 say — 
 
 ' Guilt was a thing impossible with her.' 
 
 Her information various. Her eye watchful in minutest 
 observation of Nature ; and her taste a perfect electrometer. 
 It bends, protrudes, and draws in at subtlest beauties and 
 most recondite faults." * 
 
 Odd stories linger in the gossip of the Dorsetshire farm 
 folk about Wordsworth and Coleridge. They were reported 
 to carry on chemical experiments, and were supposed to 
 be in league with the devil ; and the Eacedown household 
 was exposed in co-nsequence to some boycotting. There is 
 a story too of Wordsworth borrowing a horse from a farmer 
 near by. After riding to Lyme, and putting up the horse 
 at the Three Cups Inn, he forgot all about it, and walked 
 back to Racedown, about eight miles. Inquiry being made 
 for the horse on his return, he stoutly protested that he 
 Iiad had none ! This, liowever, may be mere local gossip. 
 
 * See "Cottle's Early Recollections, vol. i., p. 252. 
 
 IX. H
 
 CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 ALFOXDEN : COLEEIDGE : THE LYKICAL BALLADS. 
 
 On the 13th of July 1797, William and Dorothy Words- 
 worth took up their residence at Alfoxden. During that 
 month we already found them visiting the Coleridges in 
 their cottage at Nether Stowey. They reached it on the 
 evening of the 3rd July, and Dorothy, writing on the 
 4 th,* thus describes her first visit to the district of the 
 Quantocks : — 
 
 " There is everything here ; sea, woods wild as fancy 
 ever painted, brooks clear and pebbly as in Cumberland, 
 villages so romantic ; and William and I, in a wander by 
 ourselves, found out a sequestered waterfall in a dell formed 
 by steep hills covered with full-grown timber trees. The 
 woods are as fine as those at Lowther, and the country more 
 romantic ; it has the character of the less grand parts of the 
 neighbourhood of the lakes." 
 
 The waterfall referred to is the small cascade in the 
 Alfoxden dell, a bowshot from the house, to which so many 
 future visits were paid by themselves and Coleridge. They 
 found that the mansion of Alfoxden, belonging to Mrs St 
 Albyn, was to let. Wordsworth applied for it, and got it 
 on lease. They do not seem to have returned to Racedown, 
 but to have transferred themselves from Stowey to Alfoxden 
 nine days after they first saw the old mansion-house. Miss 
 Wordsworth gives the following account of their new abode, 
 a month after they entered it : — 
 
 * See Memoirs, vol. i., p. 102.
 
 ALFOXDEN: COLERIDGE: THE LYRICAL BALLADS. 115 
 
 "Alfoxden near Nether-Stowey, Somersetshire, 
 August 14, 1797. 
 
 " Here we are in a large mansion, in a large park, with 
 seventy head of deer around us. But I must begin with 
 the day of leaving Racedown to pay Coleridge a visit. You 
 know how much we were delighted with the neighbourhood 
 of Stowey. . . . The evening that I wrote to you,* William 
 and I had rambled as far as this house, and pryed into the 
 recesses of our little brook, but without any more fixed 
 thoughts upon it than some dreams of happiness in a little 
 cottage, and passing wishes that such a place might be 
 found out. We spent a fortnight at Coleridge's : in the 
 course of that time we heard that this house was to let, 
 applied for it, and took it. Our principal inducement was 
 Coleridge's society. It was a month yesterday since we 
 came to Alfoxden. 
 
 " The house is a large mansion, with furniture enough for 
 a dozen families like ours. There is a very excellent 
 garden, well stocked with vegetables and fruit. The garden 
 is at the end of the house, and our favourite parlour, as at 
 Racedown, looks that way. In front is a little court, with 
 grass plot, gravel walk, and shrubs ; the moss roses were in 
 full beauty a month ago. ^ The front of the house is to the 
 south, but it is screened from the sun by a high hill which 
 rises immediately from it. This hill is beautiful, scattered 
 irregularly and abundantly with trees, and topped with fern, 
 which spreads a considerable way down it. The deer dwell 
 here, and sheep, so that we have a living prospect. From 
 the end of the house we have a view of the sea, over a 
 woody meadow-country ; and exactly opposite the window 
 where I now sit is an immense wood, whose round top from 
 this point has exactly the appearance of a mighty dome. In 
 
 * July 4th.
 
 116 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 some parts of this wood there is an under grove of hollies 
 which are now very beautiful. In a glen at the bottom of 
 the wood is the waterfall of which I spoke, a quarter of a 
 mile from the house. We are three miles from Stowey, and 
 not two miles from the sea. Wherever we turn we have 
 woods, smooth downs, and valleys with small brooks run- 
 ning down them, through green meadows, hardly ever inter- 
 sected with hedgerows, but scattered over with trees. The 
 hills that cradle these valleys are either covered with fern 
 and bilberries, or oak woods, which are cut for charcoal. . . . 
 Walks extend for miles over the hill-tops ; the great beauty 
 of which is their wild simplicity : they are perfectly smooth, 
 witliout rocks. 
 
 " The Tor of Glastonbury is before our eyes during more 
 than half of our walk to Stowey ; and in the park wherever 
 we go, keeping about fifteen yards above the house, it 
 makes a part of our prospect." 
 
 Alfoxden has been somewhat enlarged since Wordsworth's 
 time, but the view from it is still very much as it was 
 described by Dorothy at the end of last century. The tall 
 larch tree is gone, though its site is easily traced, about 
 twenty yards to the south-east of the house. The glen is 
 not much changed. The " dome " of wood, the hills " topped 
 with fern," the grove of holly, are all as they were ; and 
 the garden is the same as of old, surrounded by a lofty wall. 
 There are some very large elms in the grounds, which must 
 liave been standing in Wordsworth's time — one in parti- 
 cular, to the north-east, as the ground slopes down to the 
 public road. 
 
 It was to be nearer Coleridge that Wordswortli left 
 Eacedown ; but the circle into which his residence at 
 Alfoxden introduced him, though small, was in many re- 
 spects a distinguished one. In addition to Coleridge, it 
 included Mr Thomas Poole of Nether Stowey, — a very
 
 ALFOXDEN: COLERIDGE: THE LYRICAL BALLADS. Il7 
 
 remarkable man, and one of the greatest friends Coleridge 
 ever had. Bristol was so near that Southey, Cottle, and 
 others could easily come down. Charles Lloyd lived much 
 with Coleridge, and George Burnet, one of his Pantisocratic 
 friends, was a frequent visitor. Macintosh (afterwards Sir 
 James) used to come, and Bowles, and more important 
 still, Charles Lamb was an occasional guest. In 1793 
 Bristol was the second city in England, with a popu- 
 lation of 100,000 inhabitants, or more than double that of 
 Liverpool. A famous democrat, John Thelwall, who had 
 recently been tried for high treason, lived not far off. In 
 the Fenwick note to the Anecdote for Fathers,^ Wordsworth 
 says that Thelwall had renounced politics, and lived at 
 Liswyn Farm, a beautiful spot on the Wye, where he had 
 taken to agriculture, although with no greater success 
 than he achieved in politics. He also tells us that he 
 and his sister, along with Coleridge, had visited Thelwall at 
 his place on the Wye. But, although the Fenwick note is 
 ambiguous, it must have been before this visit to Liswyn 
 that Wordsworth made Thelwall's acquaintance. Thelwall 
 seems to have been a visitor at Stowey on the 18th July 
 1797, and from the following passage in a letter to his 
 wife it will be seen that Coleridge went over to Alfoxden 
 very soon after the Wordsworths settled there, on July 11, 
 and that Thelwall, with Mrs Coleridge, followed him thither 
 on the 18th. 
 
 "Alfoxden, ISth July 1797.t 
 
 " But profit and everything else but my Stella and my 
 Babes are now banished from my mind by the enchanting 
 retreat (the Academus of Stowey) from which I write this, 
 
 * See vol. i., p. 203. t Mr Cosens's MSS.
 
 118 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 and by tlie delightful society of Coleridge and of Words- 
 worth — the present occupier of All fox Den. We have 
 been having a delightful ramble to-day among the planta- 
 tions, and along a wild romantic dell in these grounds, 
 through which a foaming, rushing, murmuring torrent of 
 water winds its long artless course. There have we — 
 sometime sitting on a tree, sometime wading boot-top deep 
 through the stream, and again stretched on some mossy 
 stone or root of a decayed tree, a literary egotistical trium- 
 virate — passed sentence on the productions and characters of 
 the age — burst forth in poetical flights of enthusiasm, and 
 philosophised our minds into a state of tranquillity which 
 the leaders of nations might enjoy and the residents of cities 
 can never know." 
 
 [He goes on to say that when he arrived at the Stowey 
 cottage on the preceding night he found that Coleridge 
 was at Alfoxden, and that Sara and he joined them before 
 breakfast next morning.] 
 
 " Faith, we are a most philosophical party ! A large 
 house, with grounds and plantations about it, which Words- 
 worth has hired, I understand, for a trifle, merely that he 
 might enjoy the society of Coleridge, contains the enthu- 
 siastic group, consisting of C. and his Sara, W. and his 
 sister, and myself, without any servant, male or female. 
 An old woman who lives in an adjoining cottage does what 
 is required for our simple wants. 
 
 ' Delightful spot ! O were my Stella here ! ' " 
 
 Thelwall was a man of great political talent, and a writer 
 of verse, endowed with considerable poetic insight, withal a 
 gentle soul, though a very outspoken radical. Coleridge 
 writing to Mr Wade in 1797 said of him, "John 
 Thelwall is a very warm-hearted honest man ; and, dis-
 
 ALFOXDEN: COLERIDGE: THE LYRICAL BALLADS. 119 
 
 agreeing as we do in almost every point of religion, of 
 morals, of politics, and philosophy, we like each other 
 uncommonly well." * It is of him that Wordsworth tells 
 the story that, in the Alfoxden glen beside the waterfall, 
 when Coleridge had remarked, " This is a place to reconcile 
 one to all the jarrings and conflicts of the wide world," 
 Thelwall replied, " Nay, to make one forget them altogether." 
 (It may be noted in passing, however, that Coleridge's was 
 the deeper saying of the two.) Thelwall was an honest 
 democrat, but a perfervid and blind defender of the French 
 Eevolution, and his visits to Stowey were not specially 
 advantageous to either of the two poets. There can be 
 little doubt that it was their friendship with this radical 
 — the man who had narrowly escaped conviction for high 
 treason, and whom Canning satirized in the Anti-Jacobi7i, 
 "Thelwall! and ye that lecture as ye go"t. — that led to 
 their own proceedings being watched, and to Mrs St Albyn 
 refusing to let the Wordsworths remain at Alfoxden longer 
 than one year. 
 
 The best of Wordsworth's early Lyrics were written at 
 Alfoxden — TJie Thorn, Tlic Mad Mother, The Night Piece, 
 Simon Lee, The Last of the Flock ; above all, Expostulation 
 and Reply, The Tables Turned, the Lines written in early 
 spring, beginning — 
 
 " I heard a thousand blended notes," 
 
 and the Address to his Sister, beginning — ^ 
 
 " It is the first mild day of March." 
 The four last poems were composed in the very dawn of 
 Wordsworth's lyrical genius. The Fenwick notes will be 
 found to cast much light on the poet's life at this time. 
 The old huntsman, Simon Lee, lived in the Park. 
 
 * See Cottle's Early liecollectionn, vol. i., p. 254. 
 t One of the " lecturers " was, doubtless, S. T. C.
 
 120 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Probably no district in Britain could have been more 
 perfectly suited for the work that both Wordsworth and 
 Coleridge had at this time to do, than the region of 
 the Quantocks, and the two residences of Alfoxden and 
 Nether Stowey. In an interesting work," privately printed 
 by the Rev. W. L. Nichols, of Woodlands, Bridgewater 
 (which arose out of a paper read to the Bath Literary Club 
 in 1871), the range of the Quantocks is called "the Ober- 
 land of Somersetshire." Mr Nichols says : — 
 
 " The chief characteristic of Quantock scenery I venture 
 to designate as Cheerful Beauty. ... Its breezy sum- 
 mits rise in gentle and graceful undulations, and sink into 
 woody combes of the most romantic beauty, thickly clothed, 
 many of them with scrub oak, and each with its own little 
 stream winding through it ; its slopes fringed with gorse and 
 ferns of luxuriant growth, or purple with heather, and 
 abounding everywhere with the whortleberry. . . . The 
 prevalence of the yew and the holly may also be noted ; 
 the former is found singly in the woods and hedgerows, or 
 in the churchyards, of which few are without one or more 
 specimens, often of majestic growth and venerable age. The 
 holly is still more abundant, and the fine undergrowth of 
 tliis tree, like that in the grove at Alfoxden, forms quite a 
 speciality of these woods. . . ." 
 
 A bright account of the group that used to gather at 
 Stowey and Alfoxden is given by Cottle, in recording his 
 earliest visit to Stowey in July 1797. T. Poole had driven 
 him over from Bridgewater. Lamb had just left Coleridge's 
 cottage, and gone back to London. Coleridge took Cottle 
 through the house, garden, and orchard, and showed him the 
 path by which he had contrived to connect Poole's grounds 
 with his own. The sequel is best told in Cottle's own 
 
 * The Quantocks and their Associations.
 
 ALFOXDEN: COLERIDGE: THE LYRICAL BALLADS. 121 
 
 words : " We approached the ' jasmine harbour,' where, 
 to our gratifying surprise, we found the tripod table 
 laden with delicious bread and cheese, surmounted by a 
 brown mug of the true Taunton ale. We instinctively 
 took our seats ; and there must have been some down- 
 right witchery in the provision, which surpassed all of 
 its kind ; nothing like it in the wide terrene, and one glass 
 of the Taunton settled it to an axiom. While the dappled 
 sunbeams played on our table, through the umbrageous 
 canopy, the very birds seemed to participate in our felicities, 
 and poured forth their selectest anthems. As we sat in our 
 sylvan hall of splendour, a company of the happiest of 
 mortals (T. Poole, C. Lloyd, S. T. Coleridge, and myself), 
 the bright blue heavens, the sporting insects, the balmy 
 zephyrs, the feathered choristers, the sympathy of friends, 
 all augmented the pleasurable to the highest point this side 
 the celestial ! Every interstice of our hearts being filled 
 with happiness, as a consequence there was no room for 
 sorrow, exorcised as it now was, and hovering around at un- 
 approachable distance. With our spirits thus entranced, 
 though we might weep at other moments, yet joyance so 
 filled all within and without, that if, at this juncture, tidings 
 liad been brought us that an irruption of the ocean had 
 swallowed up all our dear brethren of Pekin, from the pre- 
 occupation of our minds, ' poor things ' would have been 
 our only reply, with anguish put off till the morrow." 
 
 Before Wordsworth came to Alfoxden, Coleridge had 
 familiarised himself with these water-headlands of Somer- 
 setshire,! the Quantock hills. Some of his best poetic work 
 had already been done before the arrival of his friend, while 
 wandering amongst the coombes or in his cottage at Stowey. 
 "He, as well as, perhaps at that time more than Words- 
 
 * See Early Recollections, vol. i. , p. 27.5-6. 
 
 t Quantock is tlio Keltic name for water-lieadland.
 
 122 LIFE OF WOEDSWORTH. 
 
 worth, felt that there was a Divine Life hidden beneath the 
 raiment of the natural world. He had learned this from 
 Plato, and Plotinus ; but he got it more especially through 
 the intuition of his own soul in vital contact with external 
 Xature ; and it was their community of thought on all the 
 fundamental aspects of the universe— their common love of 
 Nature as thus symbolically interpreted, and their conse- 
 quent hidden agreement as to the root whence the noblest 
 poetry springs — that brought the two men together more 
 than anything else.* It is a curious circumstance that, 
 while living at Stowey, and in almost daily intercourse with 
 Wordsworth and his sister, Coleridge records the fact that 
 he wished to write a Poem on Man, Nature, and Society — 
 just as Wordsworth planned it out in The Recluse — under the 
 symbol of a brook flowing from a liidden source in the up- 
 lands to the sea. In addition to this radical tie, Coleridge 
 and the Wordsworths had many other things in common, 
 e.g., their sympathy with animal life, and especially with 
 animal suffering. Coleridge, however, had not till now met 
 with a literary aspirant, whom he could feel in any sense 
 his superior ; and he met very few in the course of his life 
 
 * Compare tlie lines of Coleridge in his yEolinn Harp, 
 " And what, if all of animated Nature 
 Be bnt organic harps diversely framed, 
 That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps, 
 Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze. 
 At once the soul of each and God of all," 
 with the welI-kno\\n passage in Wordsworth's Tintrrn Abbey, 
 
 " I have felt 
 A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
 Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime 
 Of something far more deeply interfused, 
 ^Vhose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
 And the round ocean and the living air, 
 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man : 
 A Motion and a Spirit, that impels 
 All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
 And rolls tliiough all things."
 
 ALFOXDEN: COLEEIDGE: THE LYRICAL BALLADS. 123 
 
 who were at any single point his equal. He found more 
 than an equal in Wordsworth, in point of insight into 
 Nature, and above all in force of character, self-control, and 
 power of will ; although Wordsworth was his inferior in 
 versatility and brilliance. In a letter to Joseph Cottle,* 
 March 8th, 1798, Coleridge says — "The Giant Words- 
 worth — God love liim ! When I speak in the terms of 
 admiration due to his intellect, I fear lest these terms 
 should keep out of sight the amiableness of his manners. 
 He has written near twelve hundred lines of blank verse, 
 superior, I hesitate not to aver, to anything in our language 
 which any way resembles it." 
 
 Nine years afterwards, in 1807, Coleridge wrote similarly 
 of Wordsworth to Cottle — " He is one whom, God knows, 
 I love and honour as far beyond myself, as both morally 
 and intellectually he is above me." 
 
 The closeness of the tie that bound these three poets 
 (Coleridge, William and Dorothy Wordsworth) together, has 
 its best evidence in two things — first, in the Journal wliich 
 Dorothy kept of their daily life, and of the way in which 
 Nature reveals itself to one who " watches and receives ; " 
 and secondly, in the joint work that Wordsworth and Cole- 
 ridge planned and wrote in these days, viz.. The Lyrical 
 Ballads. 
 
 The origin of the Lyrical Ballads has been often told, and 
 readers must refer to vol. i. of this edition, p. 198, for the 
 Fenwick note to We arc Seven, in which Wordsworth himself 
 tells the story in graphic detail. The first idea was simply 
 to raise £5 to defray the expenses of the few days' tour, 
 which the two poets took to the "Valley of Stones," — Dorothy 
 Wordsworth accompanying them, — by writing a single poem 
 jointly, and sending it to tlie New Monthly Magazine. Cole- 
 
 * See Cottle's Early Recollections, vol. i., p. 252.
 
 124 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 ridge suggested the Ancient Mariner, founding it on a dream 
 of his friend, Cruikshank.* Wordsworth added a good deal. 
 He had been recently reading about albatrosses, and he sug- 
 gested that the crime of the " Old Mariner " should be the 
 shooting of an albatross on entering the South Sea, and his 
 being doomed in consequence by the tutelary spirits of the 
 south to wander over the ocean. He also suggested " the 
 navigation of the ship by the dead man." They "began the 
 composition together," and Wordsworth wrote a few of the 
 lines. But, as they went on, differences in their mode of 
 working prevented their making the poem a joint one. The 
 subject did not suit the genius of Wordsworth, nearly so 
 well as it suited Coleridge ; and Wordsworth very wisely 
 left to him the working of it out, believing that co-operation 
 would only have been " a clog " to the imagination of his 
 friend. Nothing but the " Ancient Mariner " was thought 
 of during that walk to the Valley of Stones. But on 
 returning to Alfoxden, they planned a joint vohime, to which 
 each might contribute separately. It was to be a volume of 
 poems, " chiefly on natural subjects taken from common life, 
 but looked at, as much as might be, through an imaginative 
 medium." Such is an epitome of Wordsworth's account of 
 the origin of the Lyrical Ballads. 
 
 Coleridge's account, in the Biographia Literaria,f coincides 
 with it. He tells us that he and Wordsworth had often, 
 during that winter at Alfoxden, discussed the essential prin- 
 ciples of Poetry, which they thought w^ere an adhesion to the 
 truth of Nature, while adding fresh interest by the work of 
 the imaginaiton ; as the glow of sunset or as moonlight give 
 an added charm to a familiar landscape. They thought that, 
 
 * Doubtless the Cruikshank referred to in Dorothy Wordsworth's 
 Journal. February 26th, 1798. See p. 139. 
 + Vol. ii., eh. i. ,
 
 ALFOXDEN: COLERIDGE: THE LYRICAL BALLADS. 125 
 
 in this fashion, poems might be composed, either when the 
 incidents and agents were supernatural or romantic, or when 
 they belonged to ordinary human life as it is found in every 
 village. It was agreed that he should take the former 
 class of subjects, and, by humanising the stories, give a life 
 and charm to their imaginative setting ; while Wordsworth 
 should take the latter, and try to invest the things of every- 
 day life with the charm of novelty, and by breaking up the 
 " lethargy of custom," disclose something of the loveliness of 
 the world and its wonders , which the great majority of 
 persons, from " the film of familiarity," could neither see nor 
 understand. For this purpose he wrote The Ancient Mariner, 
 and was preparing the Dai'k Ladie and Christahel ; but 
 Wordsworth, having been much more industrious, and " the 
 number of his poems so much greater," his (Coleridge's) 
 contributions seemed out of keeping, and of less significance 
 than his friend's. 
 
 Wordsworth himself, in the Preface to the second edition 
 of the Ballads, when a new volume was added, said that 
 they were published as " an experiment," to ascertain how 
 far the process of throwing into verse " the real language of 
 men in a state of vivid sensation " would result in living 
 poetic pleasure ; and it was his defence of this special theory 
 — that all true poetry consists in the language of real life 
 made vivid by imagination — that, in Coleridge's opinion, made 
 the Ballads so long comparatively unpopular. The exposi- 
 tion and defence of a questionable theory of poetry — a theory 
 which was not, by any means, an explanation of the practice 
 on which the poet himself worked — might well retard the 
 sale, and keep back the influence of a wliolly new style of 
 poetic production. And Coleridge was riglit. Had Words- 
 worth omitted his " Preface," and pruned a few of the 
 ballads of their more trivial phases and stanzas, tlic " new 
 departure " in our English poetry — which the publication of
 
 126 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 that small volume at Bristol in 1798 inaugurated — might 
 have been rapid and continuous. 
 
 Wordsworth's Tragedy was written during the winter 
 of 1795-6, after he had settled at Eacedown. Coleridge's 
 admiration of it, though sincere, was excessive ; and it 
 is just possible that a tendency to " mutual admiration " 
 found a partial outlet in the letter already printed (p. 112). 
 The tragedy was read by many. Coleridge wrote to 
 Poole to come and hear it read, under the trees at Nether 
 Stowey. And he subsequently wrote a letter to Cottle,"**" 
 making a formal offer of his own and Wordsworth's 
 tragedy to the Bristol publisher. The following is Cole- 
 ridge's letter : — " I am requested by Wordsworth to put to 
 you the following question — what could you, conveniently 
 and prudently, and what would you give for, first, our two 
 tragedies, with small preface, containing an analysis of the 
 principal characters ? (exclusive of the prefaces the tragedies 
 are together five thousand lines, which in printing in the 
 dialogue form, with directions respecting actors and scenery, 
 are at least equal to six thousand). . . . Second, Words- 
 worth's ' Salisbury Plain ' and ' Tale of a Woman,' t which 
 two poems, with a few others which he will add, and the 
 notes, will make a volume." Cottle says he replied to this, 
 offering " Mr Coleridge and Mr Wordsworth thirty guineas 
 each, as proposed, for their two tragedies; but this, after 
 some hesitation, was declined, from the hope of introducing 
 one or both upon the stage. The volume of poems was left 
 for future arrangement." + 
 
 As the weeks advanced, Coleridge managed, through one 
 of the Messrs Poole, to get The Borderers brought under 
 
 * See Early Recollections, vol. i. p. 298. Cottle gives 1798 as the date, 
 but it evidently belongs to the previous year, 
 t The Female Vagrant. 
 J See Early Recollections, vol. i., p. 299.
 
 ALFOXDEN: COLERIDGE: THE LYRICAL BALLADS. 127 
 
 the notice of the authorities at Covent Garden Theatre. 
 In an undated letter to Cottle, in 1797, he said, "I have 
 procured for Wordsworth's tragedy an introduction to Harris, 
 the manager of Covent Garden, who has promised to read it 
 attentively, and give his answer immediately ; and, if he 
 accepts it, to put it in preparation without an hour's delay."* 
 " William's play," wrote Dorothy Wordsworth on the 
 20th November 1797, "is finished, and sent to the managers 
 of the Covent Garden Theatre. We have not the faintest 
 expectation that it will be accepted." 
 
 An actor who read the play, joined in the praise of it, 
 but suggested sundry changes, and asked the writer to come 
 up to London, and adjust these on the spot. So the brother 
 and sister went up, and spent three weeks in town, doubt- 
 less staying at Eichard Wordsworth's house. Returning to 
 Bristol, Dorothy wrote, on the 21st December, "We have 
 been in London : our business was the play ; and the play 
 is rejected. It was sent to one of the principal actors at 
 Covent Garden, who expressed great approbation, and 
 advised William strongly to go to London to make certain 
 alterations. Coleridge's play is also rejected." For the rejec- 
 tion of Coleridge's she expresses great sorrow and disappoint- 
 ment. 
 
 Neither his contemporaries nor successors have agreed 
 with Coleridge's eulogy on his friend's drama, t The Borderers 
 had no success, and it deserved none. From London Words- 
 worth wrote to Cottle in Bristol, December 13th, "Mr 
 Harris has pronounced it impossible that my play could 
 succeed in the representation," and he admitted that it 
 was by Mr Harris most "judiciously returned as not 
 
 * .See Early Recollections, vol. i., p. 25L 
 
 t Coleridge's own tragedy had better fortune. It was rejected as Oaorki 
 in 1797, but in 1813 it was again brought forward as Remorse, and had a 
 temporary run on the stage.
 
 128 LIFE OF WORDSWOETH. 
 
 calculated for the stage." Wordsworth had no dramatic 
 faculty, not even that of the " dramatic lyric " writer ; 
 his dramatis personam were not various enough ; and he had 
 the good sense to perceive this, and to admit it. He said, 
 when sending the work to the press in 1842 — on the 
 whole it is a pity it was ever published — that, had he 
 written it later in life, the plot would have been more com- 
 plete, and there would have been " a greater variety in the 
 characters, to relieve the mind from the pressure of incidents 
 so mournful." But in issuing it to the public — after keeping 
 it for forty-six years unprinted — while he revised it care- 
 fully, Wordsworth made no alteration on the story, or on 
 the characters, simply because he did not wish it to be thought 
 that he was adapting it for dramatic performance. He had 
 the sense to see that what failed in 1797 would fail in 
 1843, and therefore wished it simply to be read as an ex- 
 hibition of the underlying tendencies of human nature ; and, 
 (Oswald's character in particular), as casting some light on 
 "the apparently motiveless actions of bad men." 
 
 On his return to Alfoxden, Wordsworth continued to write 
 fresh lyrical ballads. Coleridge had left ISTether Stowey, 
 having undertaken the work of preaching in a Unitarian 
 chapel at Shrewsbury. The brothers, Josiali and Thomas 
 Wedgwood, however,- — -whose large philanthropy was as 
 memorable as their artistic work in pottery, — recognising his 
 rare genius, and seeing it dissipated by miscellaneous work, 
 offered him an annuity of £150, to free hun from present 
 embarrassment; and in January 1798, Coleridge wrote as 
 follows to Wordsworth from Shrewsbury : " You know that 
 I have accepted the magnificent liberality of Josiah and 
 Thomas Wedgwood. I accepted it on the presumption that 
 I had talents, honesty, and propensities to persevering effort. 
 ... Of the pleasant ideas which accompanied this unex- 
 pected event, it was not the least pleasant, that I should be
 
 ALFOXDEN: COLERIDGE: THE LYRICAL BALLADS. 129 
 
 able to trace the spring and early summer of Alfoxden with 
 you, and that wherever your after residence may be, it is 
 probable that you will be within the reach of my tether, 
 lengthened as it now is." * 
 
 By going back to Stowey, Coleridge could renew his 
 intimacy with Wordsworth, and how often they met, how 
 the lives and interests of tlie Wordsworth household were 
 identified with his, during the next four months, Dorothy's 
 Journal is the best evidence. Coleridge said of them, 
 " We are three people, but only one soul." This Journal — 
 which, from the end of January to the beginning of May 
 will be printed almost in its entirety — requires little com- 
 ment; and it renders any description of the district by 
 another pen worse than useless. Some persons will doubt- 
 less wish that Dorothy had written fewer trivial details, 
 and given us instead an ampler record of the talk of the 
 most brilliant conversationalist of the century, especially 
 during that annus mirdbilis, in which he and her brother 
 walked so much together, and planned and wrote the Lyrical 
 Ballads in concert. But it must be remembered, first, that 
 she jotted down these humble memoranda merely as aids to 
 her memory, and without the faintest idea that they would 
 ever see the light ; and secondly, that it was almost impos- 
 sible to record Coleridge's talk. Wordsworth himself described 
 it as " like a majestic river, the sound or sight of whose 
 course you caught at intervals ; which was sometimes con- 
 cealed by forests, sometimes lost in sand ; then came flash- 
 ing out broad and distinct ; and even when it took a turn 
 which your eye could not follow, yet you always felt and 
 knew that there was a connection in its parts, and that it 
 was the same river." It is not at all likely tliat the discus- 
 sions of these two friends turned to the politics of the day, 
 
 * iiee Memoirs, vol. i., p. IIG. 
 IX. I
 
 180 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 nearly so much as to Nature, and to the very things that 
 Dorothy, in her own characteristic way, so directly, naively, 
 and laconically sets down. Coleridge, in the Biographia 
 Literaria, — speaking of his residence at Stowey, of what he 
 gained from Wordsworth, and of his reverence for him as n 
 poet, a philosopher, and a man, adds, — " his conversation ex- 
 tended to almost all subjects, except physics and politics ; 
 with the latter he never troubled himself." Besides, on 
 politics the two men were slowly drifting asunder, while their 
 poetic work still ran in parallel lines. Mr Nichol's remark 
 on the difference between them is excellent — " No two men 
 could be more unlike than the poets who now met beside 
 the Quantocks. Coleridge, a student and recluse from his 
 boyhood, of immense erudition, a heluo lihrorum ; all his life 
 a valetudinarian, who scarcely knew what health was — ever 
 'planning mighty works — multa et pulcra minans — yet so 
 irresolute and infirm of purpose, as never to realise his 
 aspirations — the very Hamlet of literature ; Wordsworth, 
 on the other hand, — as robust in body as one of the peasants 
 of his native Cumberland, of indomitable purpose, keeping 
 his way right onward when made the scorn of fools, till he 
 became the glory of his age — was no reader of books, except 
 of the great book of Nature, and his study was on the Quan- 
 tock downs. ..." * 
 
 In addition to its allusions to Coleridge, Dorothy Words- 
 worth's Journal will be appreciated by many, from the very 
 minuteness of its record, its notes on the gradual changes of 
 the seasons as the months advanced, and even its homely 
 domestic and economic jottings. 
 
 * 7'Ae Quantocks, and their Associations.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 DOKOTHY Wordsworth's journal, written at 
 
 ALFOXDEN IN 1798. 
 
 The following chapter contains the larger part of the Jour- 
 nal which Dorothy Wordsworth kept, of her own and her 
 brother's daily life at Alfoxden, during the first four months 
 of 1798. Many trivial details are omitted, and if any 
 that are recorded are thought too trivial for preservation, 
 it will be seen that this Jourual brings out, in a way that 
 nothing else could do, the closeness of the tie between 
 Coleridge and the Wordsworth household. It is probable 
 that during these Alfoxden days Dorothy Wordsworth 
 " maintained," — for Coleridge as well as for her brother, — 
 "a. saving intercourse with his true self." If she did not 
 " give him eyes," and " give him ears," she kept him, — dur- 
 ing their conversations in the woods and coombes of the 
 Quantocks, and on the road to Stowey, — true to his vocation 
 as a poet. Had it not been for Alfoxden, and the magnet 
 that drew him thither in all weathers in 1798, Samuel Taylor 
 Coleridge might have drifted away from "Lyrical Ballads," 
 into popular preaching, and miscellaneous newspaper writing, 
 for many a year to come. 
 
 "Alfoxden, 20th January 1798. — The green paths down 
 the hill-sides are channels for streams. The young wheat 
 is streaked by silver lines of water running between the 
 ridges, the sheep are gathered together on the slopes. After 
 the wet dark days, the country seems more populous. It 
 peoples itself in the sunbeams. Tlie garden, mimic of sj)ring, 
 is gay with flowers. The purple-starred hepatica spreads
 
 132 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 itself in the sun, and the chistering snow-drops put forth 
 their white heads, at first upright, ribbed with green, and 
 like a rosebud when completely opened, hanging their heads 
 downwards, but slowly lengthening their slender stems. 
 The slanting woods of an unvarying brown, showing the 
 light through the thin net- work of their upper boughs. 
 Upon the liighest ridge of that round hill covered with 
 planted oaks, the shafts of the trees show in the light like 
 the columns of a ruin. 
 
 " 21st. — Walked on the hill-tops — a warm day. Sate 
 under the firs in the park. The tops of the beeches of a 
 brown-red or crimson ; those oaks fanned by the sea breeze 
 thick with feathery sea-green moss, as a grove not stripped 
 of its leaves. Moss cups more proper than acorns for fairy 
 goblets. 
 
 " 22nd. — Walked through the wood to Holford. The ivy 
 twisting round the oaks like bristled serpents. The day 
 cold — a warm shelter in the hollies, capriciously bearing 
 berries. Query : Are the male and female flowers on 
 separate trees ? 
 
 " 2Srd. — Bright sunshine. I went out at three o'clock. 
 The sea perfectly calm blue, streaked with deeper colour by 
 the clouds, and tongues or points of sand ; on our return of 
 a gloomy red. The sun gone down. The crescent moon, 
 Jupiter, and Venus. Tbe sound of the sea distinctly heard 
 on the tops of the hills, which we could never hear in 
 summer. We attribute this partly to the bareness of the 
 trees, but chiefly to the absence of the singing of birds, the 
 hum of insects, that noiseless noise which lives in the summer 
 air.* The villages marked out by beautiful beds of smoke. 
 
 * Compare Keats — 
 
 There crept 
 A little noiseless noise amongst the leaves 
 Born of the very sigh that silence heaves. 
 
 — {Miscellaneous Poems. )
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's alfoxden jourjsal. 133 
 
 The turf fadino; into the moimtam road. The scarlet flowers 
 of the moss. 
 
 "24^7i. — Walked between half-past three and half-past 
 five. The evening cold and clear. The sea of a sober 
 grey, streaked by the deeper grey clouds. The half dead 
 sound of the near sheep-bell, in the hollow of the sloping 
 coombe, exquisitely soothing. 
 
 " 2Wi. — Went to Poole's after tea. The sky spread over 
 with one continuous cloud, wliitened by the light of the 
 moon, which, though her dim shape was seen, did not throw 
 forth so strong a light as to chequer the earth with shadows. 
 At once the clouds seemed to cleave asunder, and left her 
 in the centre of a black-blue vault. She sailed along, 
 followed by multitudes of stars, small, and bright, and sharp. 
 Their brightness seemed concentrated. 
 
 "26th. — Walked upon the hill-tops; followed the sheep 
 tracks till we overlooked the larger coombe. Sat in the 
 sunshine. The distant sheep-bells, the sound of the stream ; 
 the woodman winding alono, the half-marked road with his 
 laden pony ; locks of wool still spangled with the dew- 
 drops ; the blue-grey sea shaded with immense masses of 
 cloud, not streaked ; the sheep glittering in the sunshine. 
 Returned through the wood. The trees skirting the wood, 
 being exposed more directly to the action of the sea breeze, 
 stripped of the net-work of their upper boughs, which are 
 stiff and erect and like black skeletons ; the ground strewed 
 with the red berries of the holly. Set forward before two 
 o'clock. Eeturned a little after four. 
 
 " 27th. — Walked from seven o'clock till half-past eight. 
 Upon the whole an uninteresting evening. Only once 
 while we were in the wood the moon burst through the 
 
 And Coleridge — 
 
 The stilly murmur of the distant sea 
 Tells us of silence. — {The JEolian Ha7-ji.)
 
 134 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 invisible veil which enveloped her, the shadows of the oaks 
 blackened, and their lines became more strongly marked. 
 The withered leaves were coloured with a deeper yellow, a 
 brighter gloss spotted the hollies ; again her form became 
 dimmer ; the sky flat, unmarked by distances. The 
 manufacturer's dosj makes a strand, uncouth howl, which 
 it continues many minutes after there is no noise near it 
 but that of the brook. It howls at the murmur of the 
 village stream. 
 
 " 29^A. — A very stormy day. William walked to the top 
 of the hill to see the sea. Nothing distinguishable but a 
 heavy blackness. An immense bough riven from one of tlie 
 fir trees. 
 
 " Z^tli. — William called me into the garden to observe a 
 singular appearance about the moon. A perfect rainbow, 
 within the bow one star, only of colours more vivid. The 
 semi-circle soon became a complete circle, and in the course 
 of three or four minutes the whole faded away. Walked 
 to the blacksmith's and the baker's. An uninteresting 
 evening. 
 
 " Z\st. — Set forward to Stowey at half -past five. A 
 violent storm in the wood. Sheltered under the hollies. 
 When we left home the moon immensely large, the sky 
 scattered over with clouds. These soon closed in, contract- 
 incr the dimensions of the moon without concealing her. 
 The sound of the pattering shower, and the gusts of wind, 
 very grand. Left the wood when nothing remained of the 
 storm but the driving wind, and a few scattering drops of 
 rain. Presently all clear, Venus first showing herself be- 
 tween the struggling clouds ; afterwards Jupiter appeared. 
 The hawthorn hedges black and pointed, glittering with 
 millions of diamond drops. Tlie hollies shining with 
 broader patches of light. The road to the village of 
 Holford glittered like another stream. On our return, the
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's alfoxden journal. 135 
 
 wind high — a violent storm of hail and rain at the Castle 
 of Comfort. All the heavens seemed in one perpetual 
 motion when the rain ceased ; the moon appearing, now 
 half veiled, and now retired behind heavy clouds, the stars 
 still moving, the roads very dirty. 
 
 " February 1st. — About two hours before dinner, set for- 
 ward towards Mr Bartelmy's. The wind blew so keen in 
 our faces that we felt ourselves inclined to seek the covert of 
 the wood. There we had a warm shelter, gathered a burthen 
 of large rotten boughs blown down by the wind of the pre- 
 ceding night. The sun shone clear, but all at once a heavy 
 blackness hung over the sea. The trees almost roared, 
 and the ground seemed in motion with the multitudes of 
 dancing leaves, which made a rustling sound distinct from 
 that of the trees. Still the asses pastured in quietness 
 under the hollies, undisturbed by these forerunners of the 
 storm. The wind beat furiously against us as we returned. 
 Full moon. She rose in uncommon majesty over the sea, 
 slowly ascending through the clouds. Sat with the window 
 open an hour in the moonlight. 
 
 " 2nd. — Walked through the wood, and on to the Downs 
 before dinner. A warm pleasant air. The sun shone, but 
 was often obscured by straggling clouds. The redbreasts 
 made a ceaseless song in the woods. The wind rose very 
 high in the evening. The room smoked so that we were 
 obliged to quit it. Young lambs in a green pasture in the 
 Coombe, Thick legs, large heads, black staring eyes, gaunt 
 as a new- dropped lamb. 
 
 " ?>rd. — A mild morning, the windows open at breakfast, 
 the redbreasts singing in the garden. Walked with Cole- 
 ridge over the hills. The sea at first obscured by vapour ; 
 that vapour afterwards slid in one mighty mass alon" the 
 sea-shore ; the islands and one point of land clear beyond 
 it. The distant country (which was purple in the clear dull
 
 136 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 air), overhung by straggling clouds that sailed over it, 
 appeared like the darker clouds, which are often seen at a 
 great distance apparently motionless, while the nearer ones 
 pass quickly over them, driven by the lower winds. I never 
 saw such a union of earth, sky, and sea. The clouds be- 
 neath our feet spread themselves to the water, and the clouds 
 of the sky almost joined them. Gathered sticks in the 
 wood ; a perfect stillness. The redbreasts sang upon the 
 leafless boughs. Of a great number of sheep in the field, 
 only one standing. Eeturned to dinner at five o'clock. 
 The moonlight still and warm as a summer's night at 
 nine o'clock. 
 
 " ^tli. — Walked a great part of the way to Stowey with 
 Coleridge. The morning warm and sunny. The young- 
 lasses seen on the hill-tops, in the villages and roads, in 
 their summer holiday clothes — pink petticoats and blue. 
 Mothers with their children in arms, and the little ones that 
 could just walk, tottering by their sides. Midges or small 
 flies spinning in the sunshine ; the songs of the lark and 
 redbreast, daisies upon the turf, the hazels in blossom, 
 honeysuckles budding. I saw one solitary strawberry 
 flower under a hedge. The furze gay with blossom. The 
 moss rubbed from the pailings by the sheep, that leave 
 locks of wool, and the red marks with which they are 
 spotted, upon the wood. 
 
 " bth. — Walked to Stowey with Coleridge, returned by 
 Woodlands ; a very warm day. In the continued singing 
 of birds distinguished the notes of a blackbird or thrush. 
 The sea overshadowed by a thick dark mist, the land in 
 sunshine. The sheltered oaks and beeches still retaining 
 their brown leaves. Observed some trees putting out red 
 shoots. Query : What trees they are ? 
 
 " 8^^. — Went up the park, and over the tops of the hills, 
 till we came to a new and very delicious pathway, which
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's alfoxden journal. 137 
 
 conducted us to the Coombe. Sat a considerable time upon 
 the heath. Its surface restless and glittering with the 
 motion of the piles of withered grass, and the waving of the 
 spiders' threads. On our return the mist still hanging over 
 the sea, but the opposite coast clear, and the rocky cliffs 
 distinguishable. In the deep Coombe, as we stood upon 
 the sunless hill, we saw the hills of grass, light and glitter- 
 ing, and the insects passing. 
 
 " 1 Qth. — Walked to Woodlands, and to the waterfall. The 
 adders-tongue and the ferns green in the low damp dell. 
 These plants now in perpetual motion from the current of 
 the air. In summer only moved by the drippings of the 
 rocks, A cloudy day. 
 
 "11/A. — Walked with Coleridge near to Stowey. The 
 day pleasant, but cloudy. 
 
 "12tli. — Walked alone to Stowey. Eeturned in the 
 evening with Coleridge. A mild, pleasant, cloudy day. 
 
 " Vdth. — Walked with Coleridge through the wood. A 
 mild and pleasant morning, the near prospect clear. The 
 ridges of the hills fringed with wood, showing the sea 
 through them like the white sky, and still beyond the 
 dim horizon of the distant hills, hanging as it were in one 
 undetermined line between sea and sky. 
 
 " 1 Uh. — Gathered sticks with William in the wood, he 
 being unwell and not able to go further. The young birch 
 trees of a bright red, through which gleams a shade of purple. 
 Sat down in a thick part of the wood. The near trees still, 
 even to their topmost boughs, but a perpetual motion in 
 those that skirt the wood. The breeze rose gently ; its path 
 distinctly marked till it came to the very spot where we 
 were. 
 
 " \Uh. — Gathered sticks in the further wood. The dell 
 green with moss and brambles, and the tall and slender 
 pillars of the unbranching oaks. I crossed the water with
 
 138 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 letters ; returned to William and Basil. A shower met us 
 in the wood, and a ruffling breeze. 
 
 « I'jth. — A deep snow upon the ground. William and 
 Coleridge walked to Mr Bartelmy's, and to Stowey. William 
 returned, and we walked through the wood into the Coombe 
 to fetch some eggs. The sun shone bright and clear. A 
 deep stillness in the thickest part of the wood, undisturbed 
 except by the occasional dropping of the snow from the holly 
 boughs ; no other sound but that of the water, and the slender 
 notes of a redbreast, which sang at intervals on the outskirts 
 of the southern side of the wood. There the bright green 
 moss was bare at the roots of the trees, and the little birds 
 were upon it. The whole appearance of the wood was en- 
 chanting ; and each tree, taken singly, was beautiful. The 
 branches of the hollies pendent with their white burden, but 
 still showing their bright red berries, and their glossy green 
 leaves. The bare branches of the oaks thickened by the 
 snow. 
 
 " ISth. — Walked after dinner beyond Woodlands. A 
 sharp and very cold evening ; first observed the crescent 
 moon, a silvery line and thready bow, attended by Jupiter 
 and Venus in their palest hues. 
 
 " 1 9 til. — I walked to Stowey before dinner; William un- 
 able to go all the way. Eeturned alone ; a fine sunny, 
 clear, frosty day. The sea still, and blue, and broad, 
 and smooth. 
 
 " 21st. — Coleridge came in the morning, which prevented 
 our walking. William went through the wood with him 
 towards Stowey ; a very stormy night. 
 
 " 22nd. — Coleridge came in the morning to dinner. Wil- 
 liam and I walked after dinner to Woodlands ; the moon and 
 two planets ; sharp and frosty. Met a razor-grinder with 
 a soldier's jacket on, a knapsack upon his back, and a boy 
 to drag his wheel. The sea very black, and making a loud
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's alfoxden journal. 139 
 
 noise as we came through the wood, loud as if disturbed, and 
 the wind was silent. 
 
 " 2Srd. — William walked with Coleridge in the morning. 
 I did not go out. 
 
 " 24!th. — Went to the hill-top. Sat a considerable time 
 overlooking the country towards the sea. The air blew 
 pleasantly round us. The landscape mildly interesting- 
 The Welsh hills capped by a huge range of tumultuous 
 white clouds. The sea, spotted with white, of a bluish grey 
 in general, and streaked with darker lines. The near shores 
 clear ; scattered farm houses, half-concealed by green mossy 
 orchards, fresh straw lying at the doors ; hay-stacks in 
 the fields. Brown fallows, the springing wheat, like a 
 shade of green over the brown earth, and the choice 
 meadow plots, full of sheep and lambs, of a soft and vivid 
 green ; a few wreaths of blue smoke, spreading along the 
 ground ; the oaks and beeches in the hedges retaining their 
 yellow leaves ; the distant prospect on the land side, 
 islanded with sunshine ; the sea, like a basin full to the 
 margin ; the fresh-ploughed fields dark ; the turnips of a 
 lively rough green. Returned through the wood, 
 
 " 26th. — Coleridge came in the morning, and Mr and Mrs 
 Cruikshank ; walked with Coleridge nearly to Stowey after 
 dinner. A very clear afternoon. We lay sidelong upon 
 the turf, and gazed on the landscape till it melted into more 
 than natural loveliness. The sea very uniform, of a pale 
 greyish blue, only one distant bay, bright and blue as a sky ; 
 had there been a vessel sailing up it, a perfect image of 
 delight. Walked to the top of a high hill to see a fortifica- 
 tion. Again sat down to feed upon the prospect ; a magnifi- 
 cent scene, curiously spread out for even minute inspection, 
 though so extensive that the mind is afraid to calculate its 
 bounds. A winter prospect shows every cottage, every farm, 
 and the forms of distant trees sucli as in summer have no
 
 140 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 distinguishing mark. On our return, Jupiter and Venus 
 before us. Wliile the twilight still overpowered the light of 
 the moon, we were reminded that she was shining bright 
 above our heads, by our faint shadows going before us. We 
 had seen her on the tops of the hills, melting into the blue 
 sky. Poole called while we were absent. 
 
 " 21111. — I walked to Stowey in the evening. William and 
 Basil went with me through the wood. The prospect bright, 
 yet mildly beautiful. The sea big and white, swelled to the 
 very shores, but round and high in the middle. Coleridge 
 returned with me, as far as the wood. A very bright moon- 
 light night. Venus almost like another moon. Lost to us 
 at Alfoxden long before she goes down the large white sea. 
 
 " March 1st. — We rose early. A thick fog obscured the 
 distant prospect entirely, but the shapes of the near trees 
 and the dome of the wood dimly seen and dilated. It 
 cleared away between ten and eleven. The shapes of the 
 mist, slowly moving along, exquisitely beautiful ; passing 
 over the sheep they almost seemed to have more of life than 
 those quiet creatures. The unseen birds singing in the mist. 
 
 " '2^nd. — Went a part of the way home with Coleridge in 
 the morning. Gathered fir apples afterwards under the 
 trees. 
 
 " Srd — I went to the shoemaker's. William lay under 
 the trees till my return. Afterwards went to the secluded 
 farm house in search of eggs, and returned over the hill. A 
 very mild, cloudy evening. The rose trees in the hedges 
 and the elders budding. 
 
 " bth. — Gathered fir apples. A thick fog came on. 
 Walked to the baker's and the shoemaker's, and through 
 the fields towards Woodlands. On our return, found Tom 
 Poole in the parlour. He drank tea with us. 
 
 " Cith. — A pleasant morning, the sea white and bright, 
 and full to the brim. I walked to see Coleridge in the
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's alfoxden journal. 141 
 
 evening. William went with me to the wood. Coleridge 
 very ill. It was a mild, pleasant afternoon, but the evening 
 became very foggy ; when 1 was near Woodlands, the fog 
 overhead became thin, and I saw the shapes of the Central 
 Stars. Again it closed, and the whole sky was the same. 
 
 " ^th. — William and I drank tea at Coleridge's. A 
 cloudy sky. Observed nothing particularly interesting — 
 the distant prospect obscured. One only leaf upon the 
 top of a tree — the sole remaining leaf — danced round and 
 round like a rag blown by the wind. 
 
 • " 10th. — Coleridge, William, and I walked in the evening 
 to the top of the hill. We all passed the morning in 
 sauntering about the park and gardens, the children play- 
 ing about, the old man at the top of the hill gathering 
 furze ; interesting groups of human creatures, [the young 
 frisking and dancing in the sun, the elder quietly drinking 
 in the life and soul of the sun and air. 
 
 " l\tli. — A cold day. The children went^ down towards 
 the sea. William and I walked to the top of the hills above 
 Holford. Met the blacksmith. Pleasant to see the labourer 
 on Sunday jump with the friskiness of a cow upon a sunny 
 day. 
 
 " l^th. — The Coleridges left us. A cold, windy morning. 
 Walked with them half way. On our return, sheltered 
 under the hollies during a hail-shower. The withered leaves 
 danced with the hailstones. William wrote a description of 
 the storm. 
 
 " l^th. — William and Basil and I walked to the hill- tops, 
 a very cold, bleak day. We were met on our return by 
 a severe hailstorm. William wrote some lines describing a 
 stunted thorn. 
 
 " 21 si. — We drank tea at Coleridge's. A quiet shower of 
 snow was in the air during more than half our walk. At 
 our return the sky partially shaded with clouds. The
 
 142 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 horned moon was set. Startled two night birds from the 
 great elm tree. 
 
 " 23rd — Coleridge dined vjith us. He brought his ballad 
 finished. We walked with him to the miner's house. A 
 beautiful evening, very starry, the horned moon. 
 
 " 24i!A, — Coleridge, the Chesters, and Ellen Crewkshank 
 called. We walked with them through the wood. Went 
 in the evening into the Coombe to get eggs; returned 
 through the wood, and walked in the park. A sort of white 
 shade over the blue sky. The stars dim. The spring con- 
 tinues to advance very slowly, no green trees, the hedges 
 leafless ; notliing green but the brambles that still retain 
 their old leaves, the evergreens and the palms, which indeed 
 are not absolutely green. Some brambles I observed to-day 
 budding afresh, and those have shed their old leaves. The 
 crooked arm of the old oak tree points upwards to the 
 moon. 
 
 " 2bth. — Walked to Coleridge's after tea. Arrived at 
 home at one o'clock. The night cloudy but not dark. 
 
 " 2G^7i. — Went to meet Wedgwood at Coleridge's after 
 dinner. Eeached home at half-past twelve, a fine moonlight 
 night ; half moon. 
 
 " llth. — Dined at Poole's. Arrived at home a little after 
 twelve. 
 
 " 29^/i. — Coleridge dined with us. 
 
 " April 2nd. — A very high wind. Coleridge came to avoid 
 the smoke ; stayed all night. We walked in the wood, and 
 sat under the trees. The half of the wood perfectly still, 
 while the wind was making a loud noise behind us. The 
 still trees only bowed their heads, as if listening to the wind. 
 The hollies in the thick wood unshaken by the blast ; only, 
 when it came with a greater force, shaken by the rain drops 
 falling from the bare oaks above. 
 
 " ^rd. — Walked to Crookham, with Coleridge and William,
 
 DOROTHY WOEDSWORTH's ALFOXDEN JOURNAL. 143 
 
 to make the appeal. Left William there, and parted with 
 Coleridge at the top of the hill. A very stormy afternoon. 
 
 " 4:th. — Walked to the sea-side in the afternoon. A great 
 commotion in the air, but the sea neither grand nor beauti- 
 ful. A violent shower in returning. Sheltered under some 
 fir trees at Potsdam. 
 
 " loth. — Set forward after breakfast to Crookham, and 
 returned to dinner at three o'clock. A fine cloudy morning. 
 Walked about the squire's grounds. Quaint waterfalls 
 about, where Nature was very successfully striving to make 
 beautiful what art had deformed — ruins, hermitages, &c., &c. 
 In spite of all these things, the dell romantic and beauti- 
 ful, though everywhere planted with unnaturalised trees. 
 Happily we cannot shape the huge hills, or carve out the 
 valleys according to our fancy. 
 
 " 2Qth. — Walked in the evening up the hill dividing the 
 Coombes. Came home the Crookham way, by the thorn, 
 and the little muddy pond. Nine o'clock at our return. 
 William all the morning engaged in wearisome composition. 
 The moon crescent ; " Peter Bell " begun. 
 
 " 2Qth. — William went to have his picture taken. I 
 walked with him. Dined at home. Coleridge and he 
 drank tea. 
 
 "May 6th, Sunday. — Expected the painter, and Coleridge. 
 A rainy morning — very pleasant in the evening. Met 
 Coleridge as we were walking out. Went with him to 
 Stowey ; heard the nightingale ; saw a glow-worm. 
 
 " Wednesday, 16th. — Coleridge, William, and myself set 
 forward to the Chedder rocks ; slept at Bridge water."
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 LAST DAYS AT ALFOXDEN ; VISIT TO THE WYE, ETC. 
 
 DUKING the early spring of 1798, Wordsworth saw that 
 he must quit Alfoxden at no distant date. The original 
 agreement or lease of the house, by Mrs St Albyn — now in 
 possession of Mrs Sandford at Chester* — is signed by Thomas 
 Poole of Nether Stowey, as witness ; and it was largely owing 
 to Poole's kindness and tact that the Wordsworths were able 
 to obtain entry into Alfoxden at all. The owner of the 
 property was a minor, and the trustees — by whom it had 
 been leased to Wordsworth — became alarmed about their 
 tenant, and his many radical friends. In one of the notes 
 which Wordsworth added to the Memoir of himself, compiled 
 by the late Baron rield,t he wrote the following, opposite a 
 statement of Hazlitt's to the effect that Alfoxden " was in 
 the possession of a friend, who gave him the free use of it " : 
 " A mistake. I rented the house, and had no personal 
 knowledge of the trustees of its owner, then a minor." The 
 local Conservatives imagined that there was a party danger 
 — if there was no national risk — in the gatherings and 
 conferences of men so little understood as William Words- 
 worth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It was very possibly 
 the long and late wanderings of the poets, and their habit 
 of muttering their half-formed verses aloud — singing them 
 into rhythmic shape — that awakened suspicion. But what- 
 
 * Mrs Sandford has also a letter of Poole's to Mrs St Albyn, assuring 
 her of Wordsworth's "respectability," in view of a further lease. 
 t It is still in MS.
 
 LAST DAYS AT ALFOXDEN. 145 
 
 ever the reason, the Wordsworths were not only unpopular 
 in the neighbourhood, they were suspected ; and a Sir Philip 
 Hale of Cannington crave information to the Government 
 that very suspicious persons were now in this Quantock 
 country. Accordingly, a Spy was sent down to watch them 
 all — Wordsworth, Coleridge, Poole, &c.* The story of this 
 Spy has been deemed apocryphal by many persons ; but the 
 following letter from Southey to his brother gives General 
 Peachey's account of the affair : — 
 
 " Keswick, August 22, 1805. 
 
 " My Dear Tom, — . . . General Peachy . . . spoke of 
 the relationship with us ; he said of me and Wordsworth 
 that, however we might have got into good company, he 
 might depend upon it we were still Jacobins at heart, 
 and that he believed he had been instrumental in having 
 us looked after in Somersetshire, This refers to a spy 
 who was sent down to Stowey to look after Coleridge 
 and Wordsworth. The fellow, after trying to tempt the 
 country people to tell lies, could collect nothing more than 
 that the gentlemen used to walk a good deal upon the coast, 
 and that they were what they call ' poets.' He got drunk at 
 the inn, and told his whole errand and history, but we did 
 not till now know who was the main mover." . . . t 
 
 In writing to Thelwall from Stowey, Coleridge did his 
 best to dissuade him from carrying out a wish he entertained 
 to come to settle there. He did this on the ground that 
 Thelwall's coming would add a new burden to Poole. As 
 Poole had brought much odium on himself amongst " the 
 aristocrats," by first bringing Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and 
 then William Wordsworth, the advent of so pronounced a 
 radical as Thelwall would make the cup run over 1 T 
 
 * Compare, A Group of Entjlishmeu, by Eliza Mctcyard, p. 78. 
 
 t See The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, vol. ii., p. 343. 
 
 IX. K
 
 146 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 thinlv it was Thelwall's visit to Stowey on the 18th July 
 1797 (referred to at p. 117) that first awakened suspicion 
 on the part of Mrs St Albyn; but Coleridge's expression 
 that Wordsworth was " caballed against " is far too strong. 
 He was merely suspected. 
 
 In a poem of Thelwall's, called Lines written at Bridge- 
 water in Somersetshire, on the 29th of July 1797, during a 
 long Excursion, in quest of a peaceful Retreat, he expresses a 
 wish to settle near " My Samuel," and 
 
 " Alfoxden's musing tenant, and the maid 
 Of ardent eye, who with fraternal love 
 Sweetens his solitude. With those should join 
 Arcadian Poole, swain of a happier age." * 
 
 Neither " Samuel," however, nor the " musing tenant," nor 
 " the maid," nor the " Arcadian " would hear of it. It is 
 curious to think of the local excitement to wliich, in days 
 of disturbance, a very mild conspirator may give rise ! 
 
 The following letter from Wordsworth to James Losh, 
 a friend at Carlisle, explains his relation to Alfoxden, and 
 his project of spending the next winter in Germany. 
 It will be seen that while Wordsworth remarks to Losh, 
 " we are obliged to quit this place at midsummer," he says 
 nothing about being refused a renewal of the lease. Any 
 request for it — and it probably was made by Poole — would 
 certainly come from others ; and Wordsworth writes the 
 following, on the margin of Baron Field's MS., about the 
 ' caballing long and loud ' against himself as ' occasioning 
 his removal.' " A mistake. Not the occasion of my removal. 
 Annoyances I had none. The facts mentioned by Coleridge 
 of a spy, &c., came not to my knowledge till I had left the 
 neighbourhood. I was not refused a continuance. I never 
 applied for one." 
 
 * See The Fairy of the Lake, etc., by J. Thelwall (1802), p. 1.30.
 
 LAST DAYS AT ALFOXDEN. 147 
 
 " My Dear Losh,* — I have wished much to hear from 
 you. I suppose that your marriage has not yet taken place, 
 or I shouki certainly have been apprised of it. I have had 
 some fears about your health, but I have constantly banished 
 them as soon as they came into my mind. Perhaps you 
 have heard of the unexampled liberality of the Wedgewoods 
 towards Coleridge; they have settled an annuity of £150 
 upon him, for life. We are obliged to quit this place at 
 midsummer. I have already spoken to you of its enchant- 
 ing beauty. Do contrive to come and see us before we go 
 away. Coleridge is now writing by me at the same table. 
 I need not say how ardently he joins with me in this wish, 
 and how deeply interested he is in anything relating to you. 
 
 We have a delightful scheme in agitation, which is ren- 
 dered still more delightful by a probability which I cannot 
 exclude from my mind that you may be induced to join in 
 the party. We have come to a resolution — Coleridge, Mrs 
 Coleridge, my sister, and myself — of going into Germany, 
 where we purpose to pass the two ensuing years in order to 
 acquire the German language, and to furnish ourselves with 
 a tolerable stock of information in natural science. Our plan 
 is to settle if possible in a village near a University, in a 
 pleasant, and, if we can, a mountainous country. It will he 
 desirable that the place should be as near as may be to Ham- 
 burgh, on account of the expense of travelling. What do you 
 say to this ? I know that Cecilia Baldwin has great activity 
 and spirit ; may I venture to whisper a wish to her that she 
 would consent to join this little colony ? I have not for- 
 gotten your apprehensions from sea-sickness ; there may be 
 many other obstacles wliich I cannot divine. I cannot, how- 
 ever, suppress wishes wliich I have so ardently felt. Where is 
 
 * From the Add. MSS. Brit. Museum, No. 18204, f. 19.3 :—" William 
 Wordsworth, Alfoxden, March 11, 1798, to James Losli, Esq., Woodside, 
 near Carlisle, Cumberland."
 
 148 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Tweddel ? Will you have the goodness to write to him, and 
 to request that he would inform you what places he has seen 
 in Germany, which he thinks eligible residences for persons 
 with such views, either for accidental or permanent advan- 
 tages ; also, if he could give any information respecting the 
 prices of board, lodging, house rents, pro\dsions, &c., upon 
 which we should be justified in proceeding, it would be 
 highly useful. 
 
 " I have not yet seen any numbers of the Economist, 
 though I requested Cottle to transmit them to me. I have 
 been tolerably industrious within the last few weeks. I 
 have written 706 lines of a poem which I hope to make 
 of considerable utility. Its title will be. The Eecluse, or 
 Views of Nature, Man, and Society. Let me hear from you 
 immediately. My sister begs her kind remembrances. — I 
 am, dear Losh, your affectionate friend, 
 
 "W. WORDSWOKTH." 
 
 " Alfoxden, near Stowey-Bridgewater, 
 Somersetshire, March 11." * 
 
 A visit which William Hazlitt paid to Alfoxden in the 
 spring of 1798 was recorded by him subsequently in TJie 
 Liberal, t 
 
 It is difficult to know when Hazlitt is to be regarded 
 as a literal reporter, and when he is introducing some- 
 thing of De Quincey's style of narrative. There may be 
 some subjective colour in this, as in others of his picturesque 
 delineations : but it is very vivid, and at times felicitous ; 
 and, although it did not altogether please the subject delin- 
 eated ! I only wish that Wordsworth had more frequently 
 been photographed in the same way. 
 
 * It will be seen from this letter that, during these Alfoxden days, 
 Wordsworth had begun the composition of what he expected would be his 
 magnum opus, viz., "The Recluse." 
 
 tSeeVol. ii., p. 371.
 
 LAST DAYS AT ALFOXDEN. 149 
 
 " In the afternoon," says Hazlitt, " Coleridge took me to 
 Alfoxden. . . , Wordsworth himself was from home, but his 
 sister kept house, and set before us a frugal repast, and we 
 had free access to her brother's poems, the Lyrical Ballads, 
 which were still in manuscript. I dipt into a few of them, 
 with great satisfaction, and with the faith of a novice. I 
 slept that night in an old room with blue hangings, and 
 covered with the round-faced family portraits of the age of 
 Georges I. and II. ; and from the wooded declivity of the 
 adjoining Park, that overlooked my window, at the dawn of 
 day, could ' hear the loud stag speak.' * That morning as 
 soon as breakfast was over, we strolled into the Park, and seat- 
 ing ourselves on the branch of an old oak tree, Coleridge read 
 aloud, with a sonorous and musical voice, the ballad of 
 ' Betty Foy.' I was not critically or sceptically inclined. 
 I saw touches of truth, and nature, and took the rest for 
 granted. But in The Thorn, Tlic Mad Mother, and TJic 
 Complaint of a Poor Indian Woman, I felt that deeper 
 passion and pathos, which have since been acknowledged 
 as the characteristics of the author ; and, the sense of a new 
 style, and a new spirit in poetry came over me. It had 
 to me something of the effect that arises from the turn- 
 ing up of the fresh soil, or the first welcome breath of 
 spring. . . . 
 
 " Coleridge and I walked back to Stowey that evening ; 
 and . . . as we passed through echoing grove, by fairy 
 stream or waterfall in the summer moonlight, he lamented 
 that Wordsworth was not prone enough to believe in the 
 traditional superstitions of the place, and that there was a 
 something corporeal, a matter-of-factness, a clinging to the 
 palpable, and often to the petty, in his poetry, in conse- 
 quence. His genius was not a spirit that descended to him 
 
 * Ben Jonson.
 
 loO LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 through the air; it sprung out of the ground, like a flower, 
 or unfolded itself from a green spray on which the goldfinch 
 sang. He said, however, if I remember right, that this 
 objection must be confined to his descriptive pieces — that 
 his philosophical poetry had a grand and comprehensive 
 spirit in it, so that his soul seemed to inhabit the Uidverse 
 like a palace, and to discover truth by intuition rather than 
 by deduction. 
 
 " The next day, Wordsworth arrived from Bristol, at Cole- 
 ridge's cottage. I think I see liim now. He answered in 
 some degree to his friend's description of him, but was more 
 gaunt and Don Quixote like. He was quaintly dressed in a 
 brown fustian jacket, and striped pantaloons. There was 
 something of a roll, a lounge in his gait, not unlike his own 
 Peter Bell. There was a severe, worn presence of thought 
 about his temples, a fire in his eye (as if he saw something 
 in objects more than the outward appearance), an intense 
 high narrow forehead,* a Eoman nose, cheeks furrowed by 
 strong purpose and feeling, and a convulsive inclination to 
 laughter about the mouth, a good deal at variance with the 
 solemn stately expression of the rest of his face. Chantry's 
 bust wants tlie marking traits, but he was teazed into 
 making it regular and heavy.! Hay don's head of him, 
 
 * Wordsworth writes a note on the MS. here : "Narrow forehead I I 
 went through three large magazines of hats in Paris, before I could find one 
 large enough, and yet my scull is almost cut away behind ! " 
 
 + Baron Field's footnote here is : "Coleridge said of it that it was more 
 like Wordsworth than Wordsworth himself was. He meant it was too 
 much idealized, that it expresses the soul of the poetry, and not the counte- 
 nance of the man. If so, Wordsworth agrees with him, and both he and 
 Miss Wordsworth are satisfied that it is the best likeness extant — the 
 happiest attitude of the face, just as Sir Thomas Lawrence used to achieve 
 on the canvas. Wordsworth informed me that he prepared Sir Francis 
 Santlford's mind for it, by repeating to him three stanzas of The Poet's 
 Epitaph, beginning ' But who is he with modest looks?' &c. Wordsworth 
 considered Mr Pickersgill's portraits of him earthy and lumpish compared 
 with the great sculptor's ' animated bust.' " See a paper on " The portraits 
 of Wordsworth," in the WordsworthSociety Transactions, No. iii., p. 20.
 
 LAST DAYS AT ALFOXDEN. 151 
 
 introduced in the ' Entrance of Christ into Jerusalem,' 
 is the most like his drooping weight of thought and expres- 
 sion.* He sat down, and talked very naturally and freely, 
 with a mixture of clear gushing accents in his voice, a deep 
 guttural intonation, and a strong tincture of the northern 
 burr, like the crust in wine. He instantly began to make 
 havoc of the half of a Cheshire cheese on the table, and said 
 triumphantly that ' his marriage with experience had not 
 been so unproductive as Mr Southey's, in teaching him a 
 knowledge of the good things of this life !'t He had been 
 to see the Castle Spectre by Monk Lewis, while at Bristol, 
 and described it very well. He said, ' It fitted the taste of 
 the audience like a glove.' This ad captandum merit was, 
 however, by no means a recommendation of it, according to 
 the severe principles of the new school, which reject rather 
 than court popular effect. Wordsworth, looking out of the 
 low-latticed window said, ' How beautifully the sun sits on 
 that yellow hank.' I thought, with what eyes these poets see 
 Nature ; and, ever after, when I have seen the sunset 
 streaming on the objects facing it, conceived I had made a 
 discovery, and thanked Mr Wordsworth for having made one 
 for me. 
 
 " We went over to Alfoxden again the following day, 
 and Wordsworth read us the story of ' Peter Bell ' in the 
 open air, and the comment made upon it by his face and 
 voice was very different from that of some later critics ! 
 Whatever might be thought of the poem, ' his face was as a 
 book, where men might read strange matters ; ' | and he 
 announced tlie fate of his hero in prophetic tones. There is 
 a chant in the recitation, both of Coleridge and Wordsworth, 
 
 * Painted in 1817. See Haydon's Autobiography, vol. i., p. 358. Also 
 Transacllont of t]ie Wordsworlli Sociclji, No. iii., ]>. .'>!). 
 
 t Here, I think, we have the hand of Hazlitt rather than that of Words- 
 worth. 
 
 X Shakespeare, Macbeth, act i., scene 5.
 
 152 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 which acts as a spell upon the hearer, and disarms the 
 judgment. Perhaps they have deceived themselves by 
 making use of tliis ambiguous accompaniment. Coleridge's 
 manner is more full, animated, and varied ; Wordsworth's 
 more equable, sustained, and internal. The one might be 
 termed dramatic, the other more lyrical. Coleridge has 
 told me that he himself liked to compose in walking over 
 uneven ground, or breaking through the straggling copses of 
 a pine wood ; whereas Words wortli always wrote (if he 
 could) walking up and down on a straight gravel walk, or in 
 some spot where the continuity of his verse met with no 
 collateral interruptions." 
 
 For this, and for some other reminiscences, posterity is 
 grateful to Mr Hazlitt. 
 
 Cottle's account of the earliest transactions with Words- 
 worth, in reference to the two tragedies, has been already 
 given. While the offer for the tragedies was declined, 
 Wordsworth says that " the volume of poems was left for 
 future arrangement." This refers to the Lyrical Ballads; 
 and Cottle's account of the negotiations which led to his 
 publishing this volume is too interesting to omit. 
 
 " A visit to Mr Coleridge at Stowey had been the means 
 of my introduction to Mr Wordsworth, who read me many 
 of his Lyrical Pieces, when I perceived in them a peculiar 
 but decided merit. I advised him to publish them, ex- 
 pressing a belief that they would be well received. I 
 further said that he should be at no risk ; that I would 
 give him the same sum which I had given Mr Coleridge 
 and ]\Ir Southey, and that it would be a gratifying circum- 
 stance to me to usher into the world, by becoming the 
 publisher of, the first volumes of three such poets as Southey, 
 Coleridge, and Wordsworth — a distinction that might never 
 again occur to a provincial publisher. 
 
 " To the idea of publishing he expressed a strong objec-
 
 LAST DAYS AT ALFOXDEN. 153 
 
 tion, and after several interviews I left him, with an earnest 
 wish that he would reconsider his determination. 
 
 " Soon after Mr Wordsworth sent me the following 
 letter : — 
 
 " ' Alfoxden, \Wi April 1798. 
 
 " ' My deak Cottle, — . . . You will be pleased to hear 
 that I have gone on very rapidly adding to my stock of 
 poetry. Do come and let me read it to you, under the old 
 trees in the Park. We have a little more than two months 
 to stay in this place. Within these few days the season has 
 advanced with greater rapidity than I ever remember, and 
 the country becomes almost every hour more lovely. God 
 bless you. — Your affectionate friend, 
 
 " ' W. WOEDSWOKTH.' 
 
 " A little after, I received an invitation from Mr Cole- 
 ridge, to pay himself and Mr Wordsworth anotlier visit. 
 At about the same time I received the following corrobora- 
 tive invitation from Mr Wordsworth : — 
 
 " ' Dear Cottle, — We look for you with great impatience. 
 We will never forgive you if you do not come. I say 
 nothing of the " Salisbury Plain," till I see you. I am 
 determined to finish it, and equally so that you shall 
 publish. 
 
 " ' I have lately been busy about another plan, which I 
 
 do not wish to mention till I see you. Let this be very, very 
 
 soon, and stay a week if possible ; as much longer as you 
 
 can. God bless you, dear Cottle. — Yours sincerely, 
 
 '"W. Wordswokth. 
 "'Alfoxden, 2th May 1798.' 
 
 " The following letter, on the same subject, was received 
 from Mr Coleridge : — 
 
 " ' My DEAR Cottle, — Neither Wordsworth nor myself 
 could have been otherwise than uncomfortable if any but
 
 154 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 yourself had received from us the first offer of our tragedies 
 and of the volume of Wordsworth's poems. At the same 
 time we did not expect that you could, with prudence and 
 propriety advance sucli a sum as we should wish at the 
 time we specified. In short, we both regard the publication 
 of our tragedies as an evil. It is not impossible but that 
 on happier times they may be brought on the stage ; and 
 to throw away this chance for a mere trifle would be to 
 make the present moment act fraudulently and injuriously 
 towards the future time. 
 
 " My tragedy employed and strained all my thoughts and 
 fancies for six or seven months ; Wordsworth consumed far 
 more time, and far more thought, and far more genius. We 
 consider the publication of them an e^dl on any terms ; but 
 our thoughts were bent on a plan, for the accomplishment of 
 which a certain sum of money was necessary (the whole at 
 that particular time), and in order to that we resolved, 
 although reluctantly, to part with our tragedies ; that is, if 
 we could obtain thirty guineas for each, and at less than 
 thirtjy guineas Wordsworth will not part with the copyright 
 of his volume of poems. We shall offer the Tragedies to no 
 one, for we have determined to procure the money some 
 other way. If you chose the volume of Poems at the price 
 mentioned, to be paid at the time specified, i.e., thirty 
 guineas, to be paid sometime in the last fortnight of July, 
 you may have them ; but remember, my dear fellow, I write 
 to you now merely as a bookseller, and entreat you, in your 
 answer, to consider yourself only. As to us, although money 
 is necessary to our plan [that of visiting Germany], yet the 
 plan is not necessary to our happiness ; and if it was, W. 
 would sell his Poems to someone else, or we could procure 
 the money without selling the Poems ; so I entreat you, 
 again and again, in your answer, which must be immediate, 
 consider yourself only.
 
 LAST DAYS AT ALFOXDEN. 155 
 
 "Wordsworth has been caballed against -so long and so 
 loudly', that he has found it impossible to prevail on the 
 tenant of the Alfoxden estate to let him the house after the 
 tirst agreement is expired, so we.must quit it at Midsummer ; 
 whether we shall be able to procure him a house and fur- 
 niture near Stowey we know not, and yet we must ; for the 
 lulls, and the woods, and the streams, and the sea, and the 
 shores would break forth into reproaches against us if we 
 did not strain every nerve to keep their Poet among them. 
 Without joking, and in serious sadness, Poole and I cannot 
 endure to think of losing him. 
 
 " At all events, come down, Cottle, as soon as you can, 
 but before Midsummer, and we will procure a horse easy as 
 thy own soul, and we will go on to a roam to Linton and 
 Linmouth, which, if thou comest in May, will be in all their 
 pride of woods and waterfalls, not to speak of its august 
 cliff, and the green ocean, and the vast Valley of Stones, all 
 which live disdainful of the seasons, or accept new honours 
 only from the winter's snow. At all events, come down 
 soon, and cease not to believe me much and affectionately 
 your friend, S. T. Coleridge." 
 
 " In consequence of their conjoint invitation, I spent a 
 week with Mr C. and Mr W. at Alfoxden House, and during 
 this time (besides the reading of MS. poems) they took me 
 to Linmouth, and Linton, and the Valley of Stones. . . . 
 
 " At this interview it was determined that the volume 
 would be published under the title of ' Lyrical Ballads,' on 
 the terms stipulated in a former letter ; that this volume 
 should not contain the poem of ' Salisbury I'lain,' but only 
 an extract from it ; that it should not contain the poem of 
 ' I'eter Bell,' but consist rather of sundry shorter poems, and, 
 for the most part, of ijieces more recently written. I had 
 recommended two volumes, but one was fixed on, and that 
 to be published anonymously. It was to be begun imme-
 
 156 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 diately, and with the ' Ancient Mariner,' which poem I 
 brought with me to Bristol. A day or two after, I received 
 the following : — 
 
 " ' My dear Cottle, — 
 
 " ' Wordsworth and I have duly weighed your proposal, 
 and this is an answer. W. would not object to the pub- 
 lishing of ' Peter Bell ' or tlie ' Salisbury Plain ' singly ; but 
 to the publishing of his poems in two volumes he is de- 
 cisively repugnant and oppugnant. 
 
 " ' He deems that they would want variety, &c., &c. If this 
 apply in his case, it applies with tenfold more force to mine. 
 We deem that the volumes offered you are, to a certain 
 degree, one work, in kind, though not in degree, as an ode is 
 one work ; and that our different poems are as stanzas good, 
 relatively rather than absolutely : mark you, I say in kind, 
 though not in degree. . . . 
 
 " ' The picture shall be sent.* . , . 
 
 " ' Cottle, my dear Cottle, I meant to have written you an 
 Ess«ry on the Metaphysics of Typography, but I have not 
 time. Take a few hints, without the abstruse reasons for 
 them, with wliich I mean to favour you. Eighteen lines in 
 a page, the lines closely printed, certainly more closely 
 printed than those of the ' Joan 't [' Oh, by all. means, closer, 
 W. Wordsworth '], equal ink, and large margins ; that is 
 beauty ; it may even, under your immediate care, mingle 
 the sublime ! And now, my dear Cottle, may God love you 
 and me, who am, with most unauthorish feelings, your 
 true friend, S. T. Coleridge.' 
 
 " yir W. had taken the Alfoxden House, near Stowey, for 
 
 * This refers to the earliest portrait of Wordsworth, painted in 1797, by 
 nil artist in Stowey, now the property of Mr George, BristoL 
 . t Joan of Arc, 4to, first edition, had twenty lines in a page.
 
 LAST DAYS AT ALFOXDEN. 157 
 
 one year (during the minority of the heir), and the reason 
 why he was refused a continuance, by the ignorant man 
 who had the letting of it, arose (as Mr Coleridge informed 
 me) from a whimsical cause, or rather, a series of causes. 
 The wiseacres of the village had, it seemed, made Mr W, 
 the subject of their serious conversation. One said that, 
 ' He had seen him wander about by night, and look rather 
 strangely at the moon ! and then, he roamed over the hills, 
 like a partridge.' Another said, ' he had heard him mutter, 
 as he walked, in some outlandish brogue, that nobody could 
 understand !' Another said, ' It's useless to talk, Thomas, 
 I think he is what people call a " wise man " [a conjuror ! ']. 
 Another said, ' You are every one of you wrong. I know 
 what he is. We have all met him, tramping away toward 
 the sea. Would any man in his senses, take all that trouble 
 to look at a parcel of water ! I think he carries on a snug 
 business in the smuggling line, and, in these journeys, is on 
 the look-out for some toet cargo ! ' Another very, signifi- 
 cantly said, ' I know that he has got a private still in his 
 cellar, for I once passed his house, at a little better tlmn a 
 hundred yards distance, and I could smell the spirits, as 
 plain as an ashen fagot at Christmas !' Another said, 
 ' However that was, he is surely a desperate French jacobin, 
 for he is so .silent and dark, that no body ever heard him 
 say one word about politics ! ' And thus these ignoramuses 
 drove from their village, a greater ornament than will ever 
 again be found amongst them. . . . 
 
 "A visit to Mr Coleridge, at Stowey, in the year 1797, 
 liad been the means of my introduction to Mr Wordsworth. 
 Soon after our acquaintance had commenced, Mr W. happene:! 
 to be in Bristol, and asked me to spend a day or two with 
 him at Alfoxden. I consented, and drove him down in a 
 gig. We called for Mr Coleridge, Miss Wordsworth, and 
 the servant, at Stowey ; and they walked, while we rode on
 
 158 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 to Mr W.'s liouse, (distant two or three miles), where we 
 purposed to dine. A London alderman would smile at our 
 bill-of-fare. It consisted of philosophers' viands, namely, a 
 bottle of brandy, a noble loaf, and a stout piece of cheese ; 
 and as there were plenty of lettuces in the garden, with all 
 these comforts we calculated on doing very well. 
 
 " Our fond hopes, however, were somewhat damped, by 
 finding that our ' stout piece of cheese ' had vanished ! A 
 sturdy rat of a beggar, whom we had relieved on the road, 
 with his olfactories all alive no doubt, smelt our cheese ; 
 and, wliile we were gazing at the magnificent clouds, con- 
 trived to abstract our treasure ! Cruel tramp ! An ill 
 return for our pence ! We both wished the rind might not 
 choke him ! The mournful fact was ascertained a little 
 before we drove into the court-yard of tlie house. Mr Cole- 
 ridge bore the loss with great fortitude, observing, that we 
 should never starve with a loaf of bread and a bottle of 
 brandy. He now, with the dexterity of an adept (admired 
 by his friends around), unbuckled the liorse, and putting 
 down the shafts with a jerk, as a triumphant conclusion of 
 his work, lo ! the bottle of brandy, that had been placed 
 most carefully behind us, on the seat, from the inevitable 
 law of gravity, suddenly rolled down, and before we could 
 arrest the spirituous avalanche, pitcliing right on the stones, 
 was dashed to pieces ! We all beheld the spectacle, silent 
 and petrified • We might have collected the broken frag- 
 ments of glass, but, tlie brandy ! that was gone ! clean 
 gone ! 
 
 " One little untoward thing often follows another, and while 
 the rest stood musing, chained to the place, regaling them- 
 selves with the Cogniac effluvium, and all miserably cha- 
 grined, I led the horse to the stable, when a fresh perplexity 
 arose. I removed the harness without difficulty, but after 
 many strenuous attempts, I could not get off the collar. In
 
 LAST DAYS AT ALFOXDEN. 159 
 
 despair, I called for assistance, when aid soon drew near. Mr 
 W. first brought his ingenuity into exercise, but after several 
 unsuccessful efforts, he relinquished the achievement, as 
 altogether impracticable. Mr Coleridge ;iow tried his hand, 
 but showed no more grooming skill than his predecessors ; 
 for after twisting the poor liorse's neck, almost to strangula- 
 tion, and to the great danger of his eyes, he gave up the 
 useless task, pronouncing that 'the horse's head must have 
 grown (gout or dropsy !) since the collar was put on, for,' he 
 said, ' it was a downright impossibility for such a huge os 
 frontis to pass through so narrow a collar ! ' Just at this 
 instant the servant girl drew near, and understanding the 
 cause of our consternation, ' La, master,' said she, ' you do 
 not go about the work in the right way. You should do 
 like this,' when, turning the collar completely upside down, 
 she slipped it off in a moment, to our great humiliation and 
 wonderment, each satisfied afresh that there were heights of 
 knowledge in the world to which he had not attained. 
 
 " We were now summoned to dinner, and a dinner it was, 
 such as every blind and starving man in the three kingdoms 
 would have rejoiced to behold. At the top of the table 
 stood a superb l^rown loaf. The centre dish presented a 
 pile of the true coss lettuces, and at the bottom appeared an 
 empty plate, where the ' stout piece of cheese ' ought to have 
 stood (cruel mendicant !) and though the brandy was ' clean 
 gone,' yet its place was well, if not letter supplied by a 
 superabundance of fine sparkling Castalian Champagne ! A 
 happy thought at this time started into one of our minds, 
 that some sauce would render the lettuces a little more 
 acceptable, when an individual in the company recollected a 
 question once propounded by the most patient of men, 
 ' How can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt ? ' 
 and asked for a little of that valuable culinary article. 
 * Indeed, sir,' Betty replied, ' I quite forgot to buy salt.'
 
 160 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 A general laugh followed the announcement, in which our 
 host lieartily joined. This was nothing. We had plenty 
 of other good things, and while crunching our succulents, 
 and munching our crusts, we pitied the far worse condition 
 of those, perchance as hungry as ourselves, who were forced 
 to dine alone off aether. For our next meal, the mile-off 
 village furnished all that could be desired, and these trifling 
 incidents present the sum and the result of half the little 
 passing disasters of life." * 
 
 On the 26tli of June the Wordsworths left Alfoxden, 
 spent a farewell week with Coleridge at Stowey, another 
 week with Cottle in Bristol (arranging details about the 
 forthcoming volume), and then left for that short ramble up 
 the Wye, with which the Lines on Tintern Abhey are for 
 ever associated. It is thus that Wordsworth narrates it : — 
 
 " We left Alfoxden on Monday morning, the 26th of June, 
 stayed with Coleridge till the Monday following, then set 
 forth on foot towards Bristol. We were at Cottle's for a 
 week, and thence we went toward the banks of the Wye. 
 We crossed the Severn Ferry, and walked ten miles further 
 to Tintern Abbey, a very beautiful ruin on the Wye. The 
 next morning we walked along the river through Monmouth 
 to Goodrich Castle, there slept, and returned the next day to 
 Tintern, thence to Chepstow, and from Chepstow back again 
 in a boat to Tintern, where we slept, and thence back in a 
 small vessel to Bristol. 
 
 " The Wye is a stately and majestic river from its width 
 and depth, but never slow and sluggish ; you can always 
 hear its murmur. It travels through a woody country, now 
 varied with cottages and green meadows, and now with huge 
 and fantastic rocks." t 
 
 * See Cottle's Early RecoUfctions, vol. i., pp. 309-324. 
 t See Memoirs, vol. i., pp. 116, 117.
 
 LAST DAYS AT ALFOXDEN. 161 
 
 His own account of the Lines on Tintern Abbey is as 
 follows : — 
 
 " No poem of mine was composed under circumstances 
 more pleasant for me to remember than this. I began it 
 upon leaving Tintern, after crossing the Wye, and concluded 
 it just as I was entering Bristol in the evening, after a 
 ramble of four or five days with my sister. Not a line of 
 it was altered, and not any part of it written down till I 
 reached Bristol. It was published almost immediately after, 
 in the little volume of which so much has been said in 
 these notes." * 
 
 "After the Wye tour," Wordsworth and his sister took 
 up their abode at Bristol, " in order," says the late Bishop 
 of Lincoln,! "that he might be nearer the printer." His 
 sister wrote, July 18th, 1798: "William's poems are now 
 in the press ; they will be out in six weeks. They are 
 in one small volume, without the name of the author ; 
 their title is ' Lyrical Ballads, with other Poems.' " 
 
 "On August 27," adds Bishop Wordsworth, "they" — 
 i.e., the poet and his sister — " had arrived in London, 
 having passed Oxford and Blenheim. In a few days the 
 Lyrical Ballads appeared ; and on the 1 6th September, 
 Wordsworth, his sister, and Mr Coleridge left Yarmouth for 
 Hamburgh." 
 
 * Compare the Fenwick note to the poem, 
 t See Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 120. 
 
 IX.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 HAMBUEGH AND GOSLAE. 
 
 The voyage from Yarmouth to Hamburgh is grapliically 
 described by Coleridge in Satyrancs Letters. In his 
 imaginary conversation witli the Dane, Coleridge's humour 
 is at its best. His reference to the " single, solitary, wild 
 duck," swimming in " that round, objectless desert of 
 waters," and his description of the scenery during the sail 
 from Cuxhaven up the Elbe to Altona, may be compared 
 with Dorothy Wordsworth's shorter jottings in her Journal. 
 Tliis Journal is only the record of the two days spent in 
 crossing the North Sea, and sixteen days spent in Ham- 
 burgh and its vicinity. A Journal would probably be kept 
 of the winter at Goslar, but I have not seen it. 
 
 The incidents of that winter were few, and may be 
 stated in a paragraph ; but there are passages in the 
 Journal which deserve a place by themselves. 
 
 The party reached Hamburgh on the IStli September, 
 spent eight or ten days in studying the people and the 
 place, had introductions to Mr Klopstock, the brother of the 
 poet, met the latter at his brother's house, and had long 
 conversations with him — of which "Wordsworth afterwards 
 wrote out extensive notes, wliich Coleridge reproduced in 
 Tlie Friend, and in the Biograplda Literaria. 
 
 After a week's residence in Hamburgh, Coleridge — whose 
 chief aim in coming to Germany was the acquisition of the 
 German language — went on to Eatzeburg, a small town on 
 the road to Lubeck, about thirty-five miles to the north-east
 
 HAMBURGH AND GOSLAE. 163 
 
 of Hamburgh, a place recommended to him by Klopstock, 
 who gave him an introduction to the Amtmann. He left 
 Hamburgh, on Sunday the 23 rd, apparently alone, and 
 being satisfied with Eatzeburg, and the pastor — to whom the 
 Amtmann sent him — returned to Hamburgh on the 27th, 
 to say good-bye to the Wordsworths, with whom his friend 
 Chester had remained during his four days' absence. On the 
 1st October Coleridge and Chester went back to Eatzeburg, 
 where they staid four months ; and on the 3rd, Wordsworth 
 and his sister left Hamburgh, by the Brunswick coach for 
 Goslar. 
 
 Coleridge's account of the days spent at Hamburgh, and 
 of his visit with Wordsworth to Klopstock's house beyond 
 the city gates, is much more graphic than his friend's letter on 
 the same subject to Thomas Poole, or his sister's Journal.* 
 The beauty and singularity of one sunset in particular, which 
 they saw together on leaving Klopstock's house — and its 
 effect on the objects around — at once broke the thread of 
 their talk on the old poet they had left. 
 
 " There were woods in the distance. A rich sandy light 
 (nay, of a much deeper colour than sandy) lay over these 
 woods that blackened in the blaze. Over that part of the 
 woods which lay immediately under the intenser light a 
 Ijrassy mist floated. The trees on the ramparts, and the 
 people moving to and fro between them, were cut or divided 
 into equal segments of deep shade and brassy light. Had 
 the trees, and the bodies of the men and women, been 
 divided into equal segments by a rule or pair of compasses, 
 the portions could not have been more regular. All else 
 was obscure. It was a fairy scene," &c. t 
 
 * Coleridge's description of the lakes of Ratzeburg in winter, and the 
 skating there (see The Friend, Essay iii.), is one of the finest he ever 
 wrote, and almost equal to the skating scene in The Prelude. 
 
 + See Satyrane's Letters, Bio<j. Lit., vol. ii., p. 241.
 
 16-4 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 The following are extracts from Dorothy Wordsworth's 
 Journal of the days spent at Hamburgh : — 
 
 " Quitted London, Friday, 14tli September 1798. Arrived 
 at Yarmouth on Saturday noon, and sailed on Sunday morn- 
 ing at eleven o'clock. Before we heaved the anchor I was 
 consigned to the cabin, which I did not quit till we were in 
 still water at the mouth of the Elbe, on Tuesday morn- 
 ing at ten o'clock. I was surprised to find, when I came 
 upon deck, that we could not see the shores, though we were 
 in the river. It was to my eyes a still sea. But oh ! the 
 gentle breezes and the gentle motion ! ... As we advanced 
 towards Cuxhaven the shores appeared low and flat, and 
 thinly peopled ; here and there a farm-house, cattle feeding, 
 hay-stacks, a cottage, a windmill. Some vessels were at 
 anchor at Cuxhaven, an ugly, black-looking place. Dismissed 
 a part of our crew, and proceeded in the packet-boat up the 
 river, 
 
 " Cast anchor between six and seven o'clock. The moon 
 shone upon the waters. The shores were visible rock ; here 
 and there a light from the hous'es. Ships lying at anchor 
 not far from us. We drank tea upon deck by the light of 
 the moon. I enjoyed solitude and quietness, and many a 
 recollected pleasure, hearing still the unintelligible jargon of 
 the many tongues that gabbled in the cabin. Went to bed 
 between ten and eleven. The party playing at cards, but 
 they were silent, and suffered us to go to sleep. At four 
 o'clock in the morning we were awakened by the heaving of 
 the anchor, and till seven, in the intervals of sleep, I en- 
 joyed the thought that we were advancing towards Ham- 
 burgh ; but wiiat was our mortification on being told that 
 there was a tliick fog, and that we could not sail till it was 
 dispersed. I went on to the deck. The air was cold and 
 wet, the decks streaming, the shores invisible, no hope of 
 clear weather. At ten however the sun appeared, and we
 
 HAMBUK.GH AND GOSLAR. 165 
 
 saw the green shores. All became clear, and we set sail. 
 Churches very frequent on the right, with spires red, blue, 
 sometimes green ; houses thatched or tiled, and generally 
 surrounded with low trees. A beautiful low green island, 
 houses, and wood. As we advanced, the left bank of the 
 river became more interesting. 
 
 " The houses warm and comfortable, sheltered with trees, 
 and neatly painted. Blankanese, a village or town scattered 
 over the sides of three hills, woody where the houses lie and 
 sleep down below, the houses half-concealed by, and half- 
 obtruding themselves from, the low trees. Naked boats with 
 masts lying at the bare feet of the Blankanese hills. 
 Houses more and more frequent as we approach Hamburgh. 
 The banks of the Elbe more steep. Some gentlemen's seats 
 after the English fashion. The spires of Altona and Ham- 
 burgh visible a considerable time. At Altona we took a 
 boat, and rowed through the narrow passages of the Elbe, 
 crowded with vessels of all nations. Landed at the Boom 
 House, where we were received by porters, ready to carry 
 our luggage to any part of the town. "William went to seek 
 lodgings, and the rest of the party guarded the luggage. 
 Two boats were about to depart. An elegant English car- 
 riage was placed in one, and presently a very pretty woman, 
 conducted by a gentleman, seated herself in it, and they 
 rowed off. The other contained a medley crew of all ages. 
 There was an old woman, with a blue cap trimmed with 
 broad silver lace, and tied under her chin. She had a short 
 coloured cloak, &c. While we stood in the street, which 
 was open on one side to the Elbe, I was much amused by 
 the various employments and dresses of the people who passed 
 before us. . . . There were Dutch women with immense 
 straw bonnets, with flat crowns and rims in the shape of 
 oyster shells, without trimming, or with only a plain riband 
 round the crown, and literally as large as a small-sized
 
 166 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 umbrella. Hamburgher girls with white caps, with broad 
 over-hanging borders, crimped and stift', and long lappets of 
 riband. Hanoverians with round borders, showing all the 
 face, and standing upright, a profusion of riband. . . . Fruit- 
 women, with large straw hats in the shape of an inverted 
 bowl, or white handkerchiefs tied round the head like a 
 bishop's mitre. Jackets the most common, often the petti- 
 coat and jacket of different colours. The ladies without 
 hats, in dresses of all fashions. Soldiers with dull-looking 
 red coats, and immense cocked hats. The men little differ- 
 ing from the English, except that they have generally a pipe 
 in their mouths. After waiting about an hour we saw Wm. 
 appear. Two porters carried our luggage upon a sort of 
 wheelbarrow, and we were conducted through dirty, ill-paved 
 streets to an inn, where, with great difficulty, and after long 
 seeking, lodgings had been procured for us. 
 
 " Breakfasted with Mons. de Loutre. Chester and I went 
 to the promenade. People of all ranks, and in various 
 dresses, walking backwards and forwards. Ladies with 
 small baskets hanging on their arms, long shawls of various 
 colours thrown over their shoulders. The women of the 
 lower order dressed with great modesty. . . . Went to the 
 French theatre in the evening. . . . The piece a mixture of 
 dull declamation and unmeaning rant. The ballet unintel- 
 ligible to us, as the story was carried on in singing. The 
 body of the house very imperfectly lighted, which has a 
 good effect in bringing out the stage, but the acting was not 
 very amusing. . . . 
 
 "Sunday. — William went in the boat to Harburgh. In 
 our road to the boat we looked into one of the large 
 churches. Service was just ended. The audience appeared 
 to be simply composed of singing boys dressed in large 
 cocked hats, and a few old women who sat in the aisles. . .
 
 HAMBUUGH AND GOSLAR. 167 
 
 Met many bright-looking girls with white caps, carrying black 
 prayer-books in their hands. . . . Coleridge went to Raze- 
 berg at five o'clock in the diligence. Chester accompanied 
 me towards Altona. The streets wide and pleasant in that 
 quarter of the town. Immense crowds of people walking 
 for pleasure, and many pleasure-waggons passing and re- 
 passing. Passed through a nest of Jews. Were invited to 
 view an exhibition of waxwork. The theatres open, and the 
 billiard-tables attended. The walks very pleasing between 
 Hamburgh and Altona. A large piece of ground planted 
 with trees, and intersected by gravel walks. Music, cakes, 
 fruit, carriages, and foot-passengers of all descriptions. A 
 very good view of the shipping, and of Altona and the town 
 and spires of Hamburgh. I could not but remark how- 
 much the prospect would have suffered by one of our English 
 canopies of coal smoke. The ground on the opposite side of 
 the Elbe appears marshy. There are many little canals or 
 lines of water. While the sun was yet shining pleasantly, 
 we were obliged to blink perpetually to turn our eyes to the 
 church clock. The gates are shut at half-past six o'clock, 
 and there is no admittance into the city after that time. 
 This idea deducts much from the pleasure of an evening 
 walk. You are haunted by it long before the time has 
 elapsed. . . . 
 
 " Wednesday. — Dined with Mr Klopstock. Had the plea- 
 sure of meeting his brother the poet, a venerable old man, 
 retaining the liveliness and alertness of youth, though he 
 evidently cannot be very far from the grave. . . . The party 
 talked with much interest of the French comedy, and seemed 
 fond of music. The poet and his lady were obliged to 
 depart soon after six. He sustained an animated conversa- 
 tion with William during the whole afternoon. Poor old 
 man ! I could not look upon him, the benefactor of liis 
 country, the father of German poetry, without emotion. . . .
 
 168 LIFE OF WOEDSWORTH. 
 
 " During my residence in Hamburgh I have never seen any- 
 thing like a quarrel in the streets but once, and that was so 
 trifling that it would scarcely have been noticed in England. 
 ... In the shops (except the established booksellers and 
 stationers) I have constantly observed a disposition to cheat, 
 and take advantage of our ignorance of the language and 
 money. . . . 
 
 " Thursday, 28th Scptcmhcr. — William and I set forward 
 at twelve o'clock to Altona. .. . . The Elbe in the vicinity of 
 Hamburgh is so divided, and spread out, that the country 
 looks more like a plain overflowed by heavy rain than the 
 bed of a great river. We went about a mile and a half 
 beyond Altona ; the roads dry and sandy, and a causeway 
 for foot-passengers. . . . The houses on the banks of the Elbe, 
 chiefly of brick, seemed very warm and well built. . . . 
 
 " The small cottage houses seemed to have little gardens, 
 and all the gentlemen's houses were surrounded by gardens 
 quaintly disposed in beds and curious knots, with ever- 
 twisting gravel walks and bending poplars. The view of 
 the Elbe and the spreading country must be very interesting 
 in a fine sunset. There is a want of some atmospherical 
 irradiation to give a richness to the view. On returning 
 home we were accosted by the first beggar whom we have 
 seen since our arrival at Hamburdi. 
 
 " Friday, 28th. — Sought Coleridge at the bookseller's, and 
 went to the Promenade. . . . All the Hamburghers full of 
 Admiral Nelson's victory. 
 
 " Called at a baker's shop. Put two shillings into the 
 baker's hands, for which I was to have had four small rolls. 
 He gave me two. I let him understand that I was to 
 have four, and with this view I took one shilling from him, 
 pointed to it and to two loaves, and at the same time 
 offering it to him. Again I took up two others. In a 
 savage manner he half knocked the rolls out of my hand,
 
 HAMBURGH AND GOSLAR. 169 
 
 and when I asked him for the other shillmg he refused 
 to return it, and wouki neither suffer nie to take bread, 
 nor give me back my money, and on these terms I quitted 
 the shop. I am informed that it is the boast and glory 
 of these people to cheat strangers, that when a feat of this 
 kind is successfully performed the man goes from the shop 
 into his house, and triumphantly relates it to his wife and 
 family. The Hamburgher shopkeepers have three sorts 
 of weights, and a great part of their skill, as shopkeepers, 
 consists in calculating upon the knowledge of the buyer, 
 and suiting him with scales accordingly. . . . 
 
 "Saturday, 29th September. — The grand festival of the 
 Hamburghers, dedicated to Saint Michael, observed with 
 solemnity, but little festivity. Perliaps this might be partly 
 owing to the raininess of the evening. In the morning the 
 churches were opened very early. St Christopher's was 
 quite full between eight and nine o'clock. It is a large 
 heavy-looking building, immense, without either grandeur or 
 beauty ; built of brick, and with few windows. . . . There 
 are some pictures, . . . one of the Saint fording the river 
 with Christ upon his back — a giant figure, which amused 
 me not a little. . . . Walked with Coleridge and Chester 
 upon the promenade. . . . "We took places in the morning 
 in the Brunswick coach for Wednesday. 
 
 " Simday, 1st October. — Coleridge and Chester went to 
 Eatzeberg at seven o'clock in the morning. . . . William 
 and I set forward at half-past eleven with an intention 
 of going to Blankanese. . . . The buildings all seem solid 
 and warm in themselves, but still they look cold from tlieir 
 nakedness of trees. They are generally newly built, and 
 placed in gardens, which are planted in front with poplars 
 and low shrubs, but the possessors seem to have no prospec- 
 tive view to a shelter for their children. They do not plant 
 behind their houses. All the buildings of this character are
 
 170 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 near the road which runs at different distances from the 
 edge of the bank which rises from the river. This bank is 
 generally steep, scattered over witli trees which are either 
 not of ancient growth, or from some cause do not thrive, but 
 serve very well to shelter and often conceal the more humble 
 dwellings, which are close to the sandy bank of the river. 
 . . We saw many carriages. In one of them was Klopstock, 
 the poet. There are many inns and eating-houses by the 
 roadside. We went to a pretty village, or nest of houses 
 about a league from Blankanese, and beyond to a large open 
 field, enclosed on one side with oak trees, through which 
 winds a pleasant gravel walk. On the other it is open to 
 the river. . . . When we were within about a mile and a half 
 or two miles of Altona, we turned out of the road to go down 
 to the river, and pursued our way along the path that leads 
 from house to house. These houses are low, never more 
 than two storeys high, biiilt of brick, or a mixture of brick 
 and wood, and thatched or tiled. They have all window- 
 shutters, which are painted frequently a grey light green, but 
 always jjainted. We were astonished at the excessive neat- 
 ness whicli we observed in the arrangement of everything 
 within these houses. They have all window curtains as 
 white as snow ; the floors of all that we saw were perfectly 
 clean, and the brass vessels as bright as a mirror. ... I 
 imagine these houses are chiefly inhabited by sailors, 
 pilots, boat-makers, and others whose business is upon the 
 water. 
 
 "Monday, Oct. 2nd. — William called at Klopstock's to 
 inquire the road into Saxony. Bought Burgher's poems, 
 the price 6 marks. Sate an hour at Eemnant's. Bought 
 Percy's ancient poetry, 1 4 marks. Walked on the ramparts ; 
 a very fine morning." 
 
 Coleridge has recorded in Satyrancs Letters the interview 
 which he and the Wordsworths had with the poet Klop-
 
 HAMBURGH AND GOSLAR. l^/l 
 
 Stock ; and the details of the conversation — which Coleridge 
 could scarcely follow, as it was carried on in French — are 
 given in the Biographia Ziteraria, as an extract from 
 Wordsworth's notes. As there are some curious differ- 
 ences between the original and the transcript, it may- 
 be worth while to quote a considerable portion of the 
 former, more especially as its earlier paragraphs are entirely 
 omitted by Coleridge. It will be observed, however, by 
 those who take the trouble to look into Satyrane's Letters, 
 that some sentences — like Wordsworth's remarks about 
 old men wearing powder — are placed in a new connection, 
 and glorified by Coleridge.* 
 
 " Mr Klopstock took us to see his brother, the Poet, who 
 lives about a quarter of a mile out of the town. In choos- 
 ing his residence, the poet does not seem to have been influ- 
 enced by poetic ideas. His house is one amongst a range of 
 commonplace houses, with four or five rows of trees of a few 
 years' growth before the windows, beyond which is a green, 
 and dead flat intersected with several roads, but no object 
 whatsoever to interest the eye. We were ushered into a 
 plain decent room, ornamented with a few drawings or 
 plates, I believe from the Messiah, and the figures of two of 
 the Muses. We had not been here two minutes before the 
 Poet himself made his appearance. I was somewhat dis- 
 appointed in his countenance, in which I was not able to 
 discover the marks either of sublimity or enthusiasm. We 
 began a conversation in French upon the events whicli had 
 just taken place in Ireland. He spoke with great liveliness 
 and spirit upon the surrender of the detachment of French 
 troops under General Steinbert ; and their proceedings with 
 
 *I am, of course, unable to say whether the "glorification" was Cole- 
 ridge's or his editor's. This may be explained in the forthcoming Life of 
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, by his grandson.
 
 172 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 regard to the coniinittee which they had appointed, and the 
 rest of their organising system, seem to have given him great 
 entertainment. He said they had in the German language 
 no history of German poetry. He did not appear to have 
 regularly studied the poetry of his country before his own 
 time. He preferred the blank verse of Glover * (each verse 
 separately considered) to that of Milton, but agreed with me 
 tliat the true harmony of blank verse consisted in the 
 periods, and not in a succession of musical lines. He 
 showed us a new edition of his works, which is printing at 
 Leipzig, and read us some passages from his Odes, in which 
 he has adopted the Latin measures. I must cordially avow 
 that my ear was unable to discover the movement in the 
 specimen which he read us. He said he had read a trans- 
 lation of Milton when he was fourteen years old. He 
 spoke with great animation of the powers of the German 
 language, particularly on the score of compression. He 
 observed that his first Ode was fifty years older than tlie 
 last. He is now in his seventy-fourth year. His teeth are 
 almost entirely gone, yet he expresses himself with the liveli- 
 ness of a girl of seventeen. This is striking to an English- 
 man, and rendered him an interesting object, and such I 
 found him, notwithstanding his enormous powdered and 
 frizelled wig. By-tlie-bye, old men ought never to wear 
 powder. Tlie contrast between a large snow white wig and 
 the colour of an old man's skin is disgusting, and wrinkles 
 in such a neighbourhood appear only channels for dirt. 
 Coleridge spoke of a work which he wished to execute, 
 namely, a history of German poetry, and added, that he 
 hoped to have the pleasure of translating some of his Odes 
 as specimens. He begged that if he did so, he would like- 
 wise give some fragments of the Messiah, to revenge him of the 
 
 The author of an epic, Leonidas, 1737.
 
 HAMBURGH AND GOSLAR. l73 
 
 man who had made so execrable, so detestable a translation 
 of that work. He spoke with much feeling on this subject. 
 
 " He mentioned Ebert's translation of Leonidas and 
 Young's Night Tliouglits as the best translation from 
 the English which they had. By-the-bye, Ebert was his 
 particular friend. He wished to see the Calvary of Cum- 
 berland, and wished to know what we thought of it in 
 England. 
 
 " Went to Remnant's, the English bookseller, where I 
 procured the Analytical Bevicw, in which is contained the 
 review of C.'s Calvary. I remember to have read there 
 some specimens of a blank verse translation of the 
 Messiah. I have mentioned this to Mr K., and he had 
 a great desire to have a sight of them. I walked over 
 to his house, and put the book into his hand. We talked 
 of Admiral Nelson's rumoured victory. He was all faith ; 
 I had my doubts. . . . He began the Messiah when he was 
 seventeen years old. He devoted three entire years to 
 the plan, without composing a single word. He was 
 greatly at a loss in what manner to execute his 
 work. There were no successful specimens of versifi- 
 cation in the German language before his time. The 
 first three cantos he wrote in a species of measured or 
 murmurous prose. This, though done with much labour and 
 some success, was far from satisfying him. He had com- 
 posed translations, both Latin and Greek, as a school exer- 
 cise ; and there had been also, in the German language, 
 attempts in that style of versification. These were only of 
 moderate merit. One day he was struck with the idea of 
 trying what could be done in this way. He kept his room 
 a whole day, even went without his dinner, and found tliat 
 in the evening he had written twenty-three hexameters, 
 versifying a part of what he had before written in prose. 
 From that time, pleased with his efforts, he composed no
 
 174 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 more prose. To-day he informed me that he had finished 
 his poem before he had read Milton. He was enchanted to 
 see an author wlio, before him, had trod the same path. This 
 is a contradiction of what he had said before. He did not 
 wish to speak of his poem to anyone till it was finished, 
 but some of his friends, who had seen what he had completed, 
 tormented him till he consented to publish a few books in a 
 journal. He was then, I believe, very young, about twenty- 
 five. The rest was finished at different periods, four books 
 at a time. The reception given to the first specimen was 
 highly flattering. He was near thirty years in finishing the 
 whole poem, but of those thirty years not more than two 
 were employed in the composition. He only composed in 
 favourable moments ; besides, he had other occupations. He 
 values himself on the plans of his Odes, and accuses the 
 modern lyrical writers of gross deficiency in this respect. I 
 laid the same accusation against Horace. He would not 
 hear of it ; but we waived the discussion. He called 
 Eousseau's Ode to Fortune a moral dissertation in stanzas. 
 I spoke of Dryden's Cecilia, but he did not seem familiar 
 with our writers. 
 
 " He wished to know the distinctions between our drama- 
 tic and epic blank verse. He recommended to me to read 
 
 his drama on the story of Aso , before I read either his 
 
 Messiah or his Odes. He flattered himself that some time 
 or other these would be known in England. He had not 
 heard of Cowper. He thought that Voss, in his transla- 
 tion of the Iliad, had done violence to the idiom of the Ger- 
 man, and had sacrificed it to the Greek, not remembering 
 sufiiciently that each language has its particular spirit and 
 senius. He said that Lessing was the first of their dramatic 
 authors. I complained of Nathan as tedious. He said 
 there was not enough of action in it, but that Lessing 
 was the most chaste of their writers. He spoke favourably
 
 HAMBUEGH AND GOSLAR. 175 
 
 of Goethe, but said that his Sorroius of Werther was his 
 best work, better than any of his dramas. He preferred 
 the first written to the rest of Goethe's dramas, 
 
 " Schiller's Bobbers he found so extravagant that he 
 could not read it. I spoke of the scene of the setting sun : 
 he did not know it ; he said Schiller could not live. He 
 thought Bon Carlos might be the best of his dramas, but 
 said the plot was inextricable. It was evident that he 
 knew little of Schiller's works ; indeed, he said he could 
 not read them. Biirger, he said, was a true poet, and 
 would live ; but Schiller, on the contrary, must soon be 
 forgotten, because he gave himself up to the imitation of 
 Shakespeare. He was often extravagant, but Schiller 
 was ten thousand times more so. He spoke very 
 slightingly of Kotzebue, as an immoral author in the first 
 place, and next as deficient in power. At Vienna, said 
 he, they are transported with him, but we do not reckon 
 the people of Vienna either the wisest or the wittiest people 
 of Germany. 
 
 " He said Wieland was a charming author, and a sove- 
 reign master of his own language ; that, in this respect, 
 Goethe could not be compared to him, or, indeed, any- 
 body else. He said that his fault was to be fertile to 
 exuberance. I told him the Obcron had just been trans- 
 lated into English. He asked if I was not delighted with 
 the poem. I answered that I thought the story began to 
 flag about the seventh or eighth book, and observed that it 
 was unworthy of a man of genius to make the interest of a 
 long poem turn entirely upon animal gratification. He 
 seemed at first disposed to excuse him, by saying that there 
 are different subjects for poetry, and that poets are not to 
 be restricted in their choice. I answered that I thought the 
 passion of Love as well suited to the purposes of poetry as 
 any other passion, but that it was a cheap way of pleasing to
 
 176 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 fix the attention of the reader through a long poem on 
 mere animal enjoyment. Well, but, said he, such poems 
 please everybody. I answered, that it was the province 
 of a great poet to raise people up to his own level, not to 
 descend to theirs. He agreed, and confessed that on no 
 account whatsoever would he have written a work like the 
 Oberon. He spoke in raptures of Wieland's style, and 
 pointed out the passage where Amanda is delivered of her 
 child as exquisitely beautiful. I said that I did not per- 
 ceive any very striking passages in the poem, but that I 
 made allowance for the imperfections of a translation. 
 
 " Of the thefts of Wieland he said they were so exquisitely 
 managed that the greatest writer might be proud to steal 
 as he did. He considered the books and fables of the old 
 Eoman writers in the light of the ancient mythology, as a 
 sort of common property, from which a man was free to 
 take whatever he could make a good use of. An Englishman 
 had presented him with the Odes of Collins. He had read 
 them wdth pleasure. He seemed to know little or nothing 
 of Gray, except his Churchyard. He complained of * the fool ' 
 in Zcar. I observed that he seemed to give a terrible wild- 
 ness to the distress ; that might be ; but still he complained. 
 Upon the wdiole, he did not seem to be at all familiar with 
 our writers. He asked whether it was not allowed that 
 Pope had written a hymn with more skill than any 
 of our writers. I said I preferred Dryden, because his 
 couplets had greater variety in their movement. He 
 thought my reason a good one, but asked whether the 
 rhymes of Pope were not more exact. This question I 
 understood as appljdng to the final terminations, and I ob- 
 served to him that I believe it was the case ; but that I 
 thought it was easy to excuse some inaccuracies in the final 
 sounds, if the general sweep of the verse was superior. 
 
 " I told him that we were not so exact with regard to the
 
 HAMBURGH AND GOSLAR. 17V 
 
 final endings of lines as the French ; he did not seem to 
 know that we made no distinction between masculine and 
 feminine rhymes, — at least he put inquiries to me on this 
 subject. He seemed to think that no language could ever 
 be so far formed that it might not be enriched by idioms 
 borrowed from another tongue. I said I thought this a very 
 dangerous practice, and told him that I thought Milton had 
 often injured both his prose and his verse by taking this 
 liberty too frequently. I recommended to him the prose 
 works of Dryden as models of pure and native English. I 
 was treading on tender ground, as I have reason to suppose 
 that he has himself liberally indulged in the practice I took 
 upon me to condemn." 
 
 On the 3rd October 1798, "Wordsworth, still living at 
 Hamburgh, wrote thus to his friend Thomas Poole, at 
 Nether Stowey : — 
 
 Hamburg, October Zrd [1798]. 
 
 " My Dear Poole, — It was my intention to have written 
 to you from England, to bid you farewell. I was prevented 
 by procrastination, and I now take up the pen to assure you 
 that my sister and myself both retain the most lively recol- 
 lection of the many kindnesses which we have received from 
 you and your family. I believe my letter would be more 
 acceptable to you if, instead of speaking on this sub- 
 ject, I should tell you what we have seen during our fort- 
 night's residence at Hamburg. It is a sad place. In this 
 epithet you have the soul and essence of all the information 
 which I have been able to gather. We have, however, been 
 treated with unbounded kindness by Mr Klopstock, the 
 brother of the poet ; and I have no doubt tliis city contains 
 a world of good and honest people, if one had but tlie 
 IX. M
 
 178 LIFE OF WOEDSWORTH. 
 
 skill to find them. I will relate to you an anecdote. 
 The other day I* went into a baker's shop, put into his hand 
 two pieces of money, for which I ought to have had five 
 loaves, but I thought the pieces had only been worth two 
 loaves each. I took up four loaves. The baker would not 
 permit this, upon which I took from his hand one of the 
 pieces, and pointed to two leaves, and then, re-offering to him 
 the piece, I took up two others. He dashed the loaves from 
 my hand into the basket in the most brutal manner. I 
 begged him to return the other piece of money, which he re- 
 fused to do, nor would he let me have any bread into the 
 bargain. So I left the shop empty-handed, and he retained 
 the money. Is there any baker in England who would have 
 done this to a foreigner ? I am afraid we must say, yes. 
 Money, money is here the god of universal worship, and 
 rapacity and extortion among the lower classes, and the 
 classes immediately above them ; and just sufficiently 
 common to be a matter of glory and exultation. 
 
 " The situation of the town is, upon the whole, pleasant ; 
 the ramparts present many agreeable views of the river and 
 the adjoining country. The banks of the Elbe are thickly 
 sown with houses, built by the merchants for Saturday and 
 Sunday retirement. The English merchants have set the 
 example ; the style is in imitation of the English garden, 
 imitated as Delia Crusca might imitate Virgil. It is, how- 
 ever, something gained, the dawning of a better day. 
 
 " We set off this evening by the diligence for Brunswick. 
 We shall be two days and two nights constantly travelling 
 in a vehicle, compared with which Tanlin's long coach is a 
 very chariot of the gods — patience ! patience ! We have 
 one comfort travelling in this way, a very great one for the 
 poor, viz., that we cannot be cheated. Coleridge has most 
 likely informed you that he and Chester have settled at 
 
 * It happened to his sister, not to himself.
 
 HAMBURGH AND GOSLAR. l79 
 
 Ratzeburg. Dorothy and I are going to speculate further up 
 in the country. 
 
 " I have seen Ivlopstock, the poet. There is nothing re- 
 markable either in his conversation or appearance, except 
 his extreme gaiety, with legs swelled as thick as your 
 thigh. He is in his seventy-fourth year. He began his 
 Messiah at seventeen, — not the composition, for the plan 
 employed him three years. 
 
 " I sent a copy of my tragedy by Wade. "Ward will 
 transcribe it as soon as he can, and you have the goodness 
 to transmit the original to Wade. It is in a sad incorrect 
 state. Ward must use his best eyes and his best sagacity 
 in deciphering it. Pray have the goodness to remove those 
 boxes of ours from that damp room at Mr Coleridge's, and 
 lodge them in some perfectly dry place at Stowey. I could 
 wish also that they might be well aired, I mean on the out- 
 side, as I am afraid the things may have already sustained 
 some injury. Either let them be put in the sunshine, or 
 before a large fire. 
 
 " My sister joins me in kindest remembrances to yourself, 
 and your mother, not forgetting Ward. I hope Mrs Cole- 
 ridge is well, and the children. — Yours most affectionately, 
 
 "Wm. Woedswokth. 
 
 " I have one word to say about Alfoxden : pray, keep 
 your eye upon it. If any series of accidents should bring it 
 again into the market, we should be glad to have it, if we 
 could manage it." 
 
 Having seen all of Hamburgh that they cared to see, and 
 the autumn rapidly advancing, the Wordsworths pushed 
 on to their selected winter-quarters at Goslar. Dorothy 
 Wordsworth thus describes their journey from Hamburgli 
 to Goslar : — 
 
 " We quitted Hamburg on Wednesday evening, at five
 
 180 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 o'clock, reached Luneburg to breakfast on Thursday, and 
 arrived at Brunswick between three and four o'clock on 
 Friday evening. . . . There we dined. It is an old, silent, 
 dull-looking place ; the duke's palace a large white building, 
 with no elegance in its external appearance. The next 
 morning we set off at eight. You can have no idea of the 
 badness of the roads. The diligence arrived at eight at night 
 at the city of Goslar, on Saturday October 6, the distance 
 being only twenty-five miles." 
 
 It was a dreary town, on the edge of the Hartz forest, 
 which had once been an imperial residence, where the old 
 Franciscan Emperors used to keep court ; and though not 
 without traces of its old magnificence, it was now deserted 
 and forlorn-looking. The Wordsworths selected Goslar 
 that they might, if possible, see some German society, 
 while they learned the language, in a quiet town. They 
 made a mistake, however, in choosing Goslar as their 
 retreat. From its very seclusion, it was less hospitable to 
 foreign residents than a larger and busier town would have 
 been ;* and the Wordsworths did not make friends easily. 
 Coleridge told his friend that two things stood in the way 
 of his getting to know the people, viz., that he was not 
 alone, and that he detested tobacco. " You have two things 
 against you : your not loving smoke ; and your sister. If 
 the manners at Goslar resemble those at Eatzeburg, it is 
 almost necessary to be able to bear smoke. Can Dorothy 
 endure smoke ? Here, when my friends come to see me, 
 the candle nearly goes out, the air is so thick." 
 
 From Goslar Miss Wordsworth wrote : — " Coleridge is 
 very happily situated at Eatzeburg for learning the language. 
 
 * It is said that at the time of the Treaty of Augsburg, Goslar was so 
 much divided into parties, that its church was put at the service of the 
 Lutherans on Sundays, and of the Roman Catholics on week days. (See 
 Early Years and late Rejltctions, by Clement Carlyon, p. 115.)
 
 HAMBURGH AND GOSLAR. 181 
 
 We are not fortunately situated here, with respect to the 
 attainment of our main object, a knowledge of the language. 
 We have, indeed, go'ne on improving in that respect, but not 
 so expeditiously as we might have done : for there is no 
 society at Goslar, it is a lifeless town ; and it seems that 
 here, in Germany, a man travelling alone may do very well, 
 but, if his sister or wife goes with him, he must give enter- 
 tainments. So we content ourselves with talking to the 
 people of the house, &c.,* and reading German. William is 
 very industrious. His mind is always active ; indeed, too 
 much so. He over-wearies himself, and suffers from pain 
 and weakness in the side. . . . We have plenty of dry 
 walks ; but Goslar is very cold in winter." 
 
 That particular winter — 1798-9 — is said to have been 
 the coldest known in Europe during the whole of the 
 eighteenth century. 
 
 The Fenwick note to the Lines written in Germany, gives 
 so vivid a picture of their life at Goslar, that it may be 
 reproduced here : — 
 
 " A bitter winter it was when these verses were composed 
 by the side of my sister, in our lodgings, at a draper's house, 
 in the romantic imperial town of Goslar, on the edge of the 
 Hartz Forest. So severe was the cold of this winter, that 
 when we passed out of the parlour warmed by the stove, our 
 cheeks were struck by the air as by cold iron. I slept in a 
 room over a passage that was not ceiled. The people of the 
 house used to say, rather unfeelingly, that they expected 1 
 should be frozen to death some night ; but with the protec- 
 tion of a pelisse lined with fur, and a dog's-skin bonnet, such 
 as was worn by the peasants, I walked daily on the ram- 
 parts, or on a sort of public ground or garden, in which was 
 a pond. Here I had no companion but a kingfishca', a 
 
 Coleridge addressed them, " Chez Madame le Veuve Dipp^rnjaer."
 
 182 LLFE OF WORDSWOKTH. 
 
 beautiful creature that used to glance by me. I conse- 
 quently became much attached to it. During these walks I 
 composed The Poet's Epitaph" 
 
 Residence in Germany did much more for Coleridge than 
 for Wordsworth. Coleridge mastered the German language ; 
 and the vast storehouses of its literature were opened up 
 to him, in such a way, that his translation of Wallenstein 
 has merits of a very high order.* Wordsworth did not learn 
 a language so easily as Coleridge did. His nature was less 
 plastic, less adaptable to fresh surroundings. Besides, 
 he really did not care for the toil of learning a language 
 while his mind was being borne forward with the new 
 creative impulse it had received at Alfoxden. 
 
 The winter at Goslar was, however, an eminently pro- 
 ductive one to Wordsworth, He not only composed the 
 lines on Nutting, The Poet's Epitaph, The Fountain, the Two 
 April Mornings, Ruth, and a whole series of poems on lAicy 
 — including the lyric written in the Hartz Forest, beginning, 
 " Three years she grew, in sun and shower" — 
 
 but he also planned out and began the composition of The 
 Prelude, and sent portions of it to Coleridge at Eatzeburg, 
 such as the lines on " The Boy of Windermere." 
 
 Absence from his own country in that cold season, and 
 amongst the unsympathetic burghers of Goslar, had a curious 
 effect on Wordsworth. It not only drove him back on his 
 former life, and stirred him up to memorialise the scenes 
 and incidents of his native land, but it led him to think of 
 writing his own life in verse ; and during that winter he 
 
 * Some have even preferred it to the original. Schiller sent over a 
 copy of his WaUensfein to Bell, the London publisher, for translation, 
 before it was finally arranged for the press in Germany. This was passed 
 on to Longman, who gave it to Coleridge to translate. Schiller revised the 
 translation himself, and so faithfully had it been done, that, wei'e the 
 German text lost, it has been said that it could almost be recovered by 
 re-translating the English version.
 
 HAMBURGH AND GOSLAR. 183 
 
 blocked out the large design of The Recluse (as he narrates 
 at length in his Preface to The Exeursion), and kept it 
 before him as the months passed on. 
 In The Prelude * he tells us of his life 
 
 " when, from the melancholy walls 
 Of Goslar, once imperial, I renewed 
 My daily walk along that wide champaign. 
 That, reaching to her gates, spreads east and west, 
 And northwards, from beneath the mountainous verge 
 Of the Hercynian forest." 
 
 The evidence is clear, however, that he had planned out the 
 larger poem, to which Tlie Prelude was to be only the 
 introduction, at Goslar ; and that he had then resolved to 
 address it to Coleridge is, I think, also evident. 
 
 The first lines of The Prelude were composed as he left 
 the old imperial city, on the 10th of February 1799. They 
 were written on his way to visit Coleridge, who had then 
 removed to Gottingen; and the first forty-five lines were 
 murmured out that day, 
 
 " O there is blessing in this gentle breeze, 
 A visitant that while it fans my cheek 
 Doth seem half-conscious of the joy it brings 
 From the green fields, and from yon azure sky. 
 Whate'er its mission, the soft breeze can come 
 To none more grateful than to me ; escaped 
 From the vast city, where I long had pined 
 A discontented sojourner : now free. 
 Free as a bird to settle where I will." 
 
 The breeze that met him was a symbol of the " corres- 
 pondent breeze" which he felt would work within him. 
 He speaks of himself then, as having 
 
 " A heart 
 Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty ; " 
 
 and he looked forward to finding, after the long-continued 
 frost of mind and body during that Goslar winter, 
 
 * See Book viii.
 
 184 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 " Days of sweet leisure, taxed with patient thought 
 Abstruse, nor wanting punctual service high, 
 Matins and vespers of harmonious verse," 
 
 The lines on the Boy of Windermere beginning — 
 
 " There was a Boy : ye knew him well, ye cliflfs 
 And islands of Winander," 
 
 he had already sent in MS. to Coleridge, at Eatzeburg, who 
 wrote in reply : " The blank lines gave me as much direct 
 pleasure as was possible, in the general bustle of pleasure 
 with which I received and read your letter. I observed, I 
 remember, that the 'fingers woven,' &c., only puzzled me; 
 and though I liked the twelve or fourteen first lines very 
 well, yet I liked the remainder much better. Well, now I 
 have read them again, they are very beautiful, and leave an 
 affecting impression. That 
 
 ' Uncertain heaven received 
 Into the bosom of the steady lake,' 
 
 I sliould have recognised any where ; and had I met these 
 lines running wild in the deserts of Arabia, I should have 
 instantly screamed out ' Wordsworth ! ' " He refers to the 
 possibility of their again living near each other in England, 
 and says, " I am sure I need not say how you are incor- 
 porated into the better part of my being ; how, whenever I 
 spring forward into the future with noble affections, I 
 always alight by your side." 
 
 The following, in reference to German hexameters, is 
 taken from two of Coleridge's letters, written at this time, 
 to Wordsworth : — 
 
 " With regard to measures, I am convinced that our 
 language is, in some instances, better adapted to these metres 
 tlian the German, e.g., '«' and 'the' are better short syllables 
 than ' ein ' and ' der ; ' ' not ' than ' 7iicht.' ... Is the 
 German, in truth, adapted to these metres ? I grievously 
 suspect that it is all pure pedantry. Some advantages there.
 
 HAMBURGH AND GOSLAR. 185 
 
 doubtless, are, for we cannot. fall foul of any thing without 
 advantages. 
 
 " As to the German hexameters, they have in their very 
 essence grievous defects. It is possible and probable that 
 we receive organically very little pleasure from the Greek 
 and Latin hexameters ; for, most certainly, wc read all the 
 spondees as iambics or trochees. But then the words have 
 a fixed quantity. We know it ; and there is an effect pro- 
 duced in the brain similar to harmony without passing 
 throuG[h the ear-hole. The same words, with different mean- 
 ings, rhyming in Italian, is a close analogy. I suspect that 
 great part of the pleasure derived from Virgil consists in 
 this satisfaction of the judgment. 'Majestate manus' begins 
 an hexameter ; and a very good beginning it is. ' Majestate 
 magna ' is read exactly in the same manner, yet that were a 
 false quantity ; and a schoolmaster would conceit that it 
 offended his ear. Secondly, the words having fixed quanti- 
 ties in Latin, the lines are always of equal length in time ; 
 but in German, what is now a spondee is in the next line 
 only two -thirds of a dactyl. Thirdly, women all dislike the 
 hexameters with whom I have talked. They say, and in 
 my opinion they say truly, that only the two last feet have 
 any discernible melody ; and when the liberty of two spondees, 
 ' Jovis incrementum,' is used, it is absolute prose. 
 
 " When I was ill and wakeful, I composed some English 
 
 hexameters : — 
 
 ' William, my teacher, my friend ! dear William and dear Dorothea ! 
 Smooth out the folds of my letter, and place it on desk or on table ; 
 Place it on table or desk ; and your right hands loosely half-closing, 
 Gently sustain them in air, and extending the digit didactic, 
 Rest it a moment on each of the forks of the five-forked left hand, 
 Twice on the breadth of the thumb, and once on the tip of each 
 
 finger ; 
 Eead with a nod of the head in a humouring recitativo ; 
 And, as I live, you will see my hexameters hopping befoi'e you.
 
 186 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 This is a galloping measure ; a hop, and a trot, and a gallop ! 
 All my hexameters Hy, like stags pui'sued by the stag-hounds, 
 Breathless, and panting, and ready to drop, yet still flying onwards. 
 I would full fain pull in my hard-mouthed runaway hunter ; 
 But our English Spondeans are clumsy yet impotent curb-reins ; 
 And so to make him go slowly, no way have I left but to lame him. 
 
 'William, my head and my heart! dear Poet that feelest and 
 thinkest ! 
 Dorothy, eager of soul, my most affectionate sister ! 
 Many a mile, O ! many a wearisome mile are ye distant, 
 Long, long, comfortless roads, with no one eye that doth know us. 
 O ! it is all too far to send to you mockeries idle : 
 
 Oh ! what a life is the eye ! what a fine and inscrutable essence I 
 Him that is utterly blind, nor glimpses the fire that warms him ; 
 Him that never beheld the swelling breast of his mother ; 
 Him that ne'er smiled at the bosom as babe that smiles in its 
 
 slumber ; 
 Even to him it exists, it stirs and moves in its prison ; 
 Lives with a separate life, and " Is it the spirit ? " he murmurs : 
 Snre, it has thoughts of its own, and to see is only its language.' 
 
 " There was a great deal more, which I have forgotten, 
 as I never wrote it down. No doubt, much better might 
 be written ; but these will still give you some idea of them. 
 The last line which I wrote I remember, and write it for 
 the truth of the sentiment, scarcely less true in company 
 than in pain and solitude ; — 
 
 ' William, my head and my heart ! dear William and dear Dorothea ! 
 You have all in each other ; but I am lonely, and want you ! ' " 
 
 The Wordsworths spent some time with Coleridge at 
 Gottingen. If the statement made by Dorothy, in a letter 
 to Thomas Poole, from Sockburn,* that they left Coleridge 
 " ten weeks ago," is strictly accurate, they must have 
 remained at Gottingen for about three weeks. They then 
 returned to Hamburgh by diligence, crossed over thence to 
 Yarmouth by boat, and from Yarmouth went straight north 
 to Sockburn-on-Tees, in the county of Durham. 
 
 * Dated July 4, 1799.
 
 HAMBURGH AND GOSLAB. 187 
 
 It is not unworthy of note that the Wedgwoods, who had 
 enabled Coleridge to visit Germany during this winter, had 
 also advanced certain sums to the Wordsworths in the same 
 liberal spirit. Miss Meteyard has published, in her Group 
 of Englislimen* the accounts transmitted to England by the 
 Messrs von Axen of Hamburgh, showing what sums the 
 Wedgwoods advanced. And it may be interesting (now 
 that they have been made public) to transcribe a few 
 of the items here : " October 2, Wordsworth received by 
 letter from the firm, £32, 7s. 3d.; on the 12th of the 
 same month Coleridge was paid £35 ; on December 24, £30; 
 on January 24, 1799, £30 ; March 29, £30 ; and on July 
 8th, the poets conjointly received the sum of £106, 10s. 
 This last sum must refer to a current account between 
 March and July, as Wordsworth returned to England in the 
 spring of 1799." 
 
 The Goslar poems include those addressed to Lucy. Some 
 have supposed that there was an actual Lucy, known to 
 Wordsworth in Yorkshire, " about the springs of Dove," to 
 whom he was attached, who died early, and whose love and 
 beauty he commemorates in these five memorial poems. 
 There is no doubt that the intensity of the lines, the allusion 
 to the spinning wheel, to the " violet by the mossy stone half 
 hidden from the eye," to " the bowers where Lucy played," 
 to the " heath, the calm, and quiet scene," all suggest a real 
 person. We only wish there were evidence that it had been 
 so. But there is no such evidence. 
 
 A German novelist, the Baroness von Stockhausen (Alice 
 Saltzbrun), in her Novellcn und SkizzenUdtter,\ has written a 
 slight tale, which she calls Vielchcnduft, in which she tries 
 to found upon these Lucy poems a story of Wordsworth's 
 early attachment. She shows no knowledge of Wordsworth 
 
 * See p. 99. 
 
 t Published by Kiihtmann at Bremen.
 
 188 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 beyond these Lucy poems, and the tale is a " conceit ; " but 
 as Miss Harriet Martineau — in her notice of Mrs Words- 
 worth, in The Daily News, thought the gossip about an early 
 " phantom of delight," that floated across the Poet's path, 
 of sufficient importance to mention it — it may be worth 
 while not only to contradict it now, but also to give a 
 summary of the German story in a footnote.* 
 
 As Miss Martineau went so far as to suggest that the 
 lines — 
 
 " She was a phautom of delight, 
 When first she gleamed upon my sight," 
 
 referred not to Mary Hutchinson at all, but to this mythical 
 " Lucy," it may be well to add that in a note by Henry 
 
 * Wordsworth is supposed to be living in the house of Lucy's grand- 
 mother, on the Dove, not far from Pickering, with Lucy waiting on 
 him. Lucy and her sister go to Pickering in a boat to sell their herbs, 
 and there the Bishop of Carlisle is staying. The water is that of a lake, 
 and WordsMorth goes out in the boat with Lucy. The time is after the 
 publication of the Lyrical Ballads, and Wordsworth has been travelling on 
 the Continent, and has brought home a picture of a foreign lady. He is 
 very hard up. Legacies come to him after this episode, as well as the 
 Directorship of Stamps, to which he was appointed (at Lucy's instigation) 
 by the Bishop of Carlisle ! ! Lucy is nineteen. She has a friend, ISIary 
 Green, also in the herb business. 
 
 Lucy is deeply interested in the poet, who reads his verses to her. She 
 goes out early to get violets for his table. The title V^ielchenduft (violet 
 fragrance), is symbolical of what Lucy is to Wordsworth — a sweet presence, 
 little regarded. She goes to the Bishop Avith his poems, and interests him 
 in the poet: also purchases for him with her scanty earnings a "Poet's 
 Dictionary ! " which he had been too poor to buy. She hears a forester 
 singing his lines — 
 
 "A slumber did my spirit seal," 
 
 and sings over the air to him. 
 
 The poet soothes himself with her society, and accepts her services, even 
 letting her row the boat, the rascal, without seeing that sliu is dying of con- 
 sumption. No trace here of his "cherishing " her, or crying out, "If Lucy 
 should be dead ! " 
 
 The Pentecost Festival and the flower-season are approaching. Discus- 
 sion takes place between Wordsworth and Lucy as to her decorating 
 herself with violets or roses, with remarks on the significance of violets 
 as symbols of domestic happine&s.
 
 HAMBURGH AND GOSLAR. 189 
 
 Crabbe Robinson, to a letter written by Mrs Clarkson to 
 liim in 1842, Robinson adds, "Tlie poet expressly told me 
 that the verses were on his wife." 
 
 Wordsworth and Coleridge are at church in Pickering, and hear the 
 flower-sermon, which is given in the tale. Lucy is there, adorned with 
 roses, purchased from a gardener, as not hoping for domestic happiness. 
 Wordsworth is astonished at her beauty, on Coleridge pointing it out. 
 She faints at the close of the service, and dies three weeks after, when 
 Wordsworth finds how much he misses her. 
 
 The tale has much less merit, and less justification, than Auerbacli's novel 
 on Spinoza, in which Van den Ende's daughter is introduced.
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 SOCKBUKN. 
 
 Wordsworth and his sister spent about nine months * of 
 the summer and autumn of 1799 at Sockburn, with the 
 Hutchinsons. It will be seen from Dorothy's letter to Mr 
 Poole (July 4) that they were in doubt where they should 
 settle. Coleridge had not written to them during the ten 
 weeks that had elapsed since they left him at Gottingen, 
 and they wished to settle near him, if possible ; but Words- 
 worth also wished his home to be not far from a good 
 library. This made them think of the Quantock country, 
 from its proximity to Bristol, rather than of Cumberland or 
 Westmoreland ; as, in these days, neither at Kendal nor 
 Keswick was there any public library. 
 
 Since Mrs Wordsworth came from Sockburn, and the Poet 
 and his sister spent so much of the year 1799 in that solitary 
 farm-house, some description of the place may be given. 
 
 Sockburn-on-Tees is seven miles south south-east of 
 Darlington. It is thus described in the Delineations of 
 England, historical, to'pograpliical, and descriptive t : — " Sock- 
 borne, a small parish, comprehending only the manor of the 
 same, is accurately described by Leland as of 'a mile cum- 
 pace, of exceeding pleasant ground, almost made an isle as 
 Tese ryver windeth about it.' " In Hutchinson's DurhamX 
 it is said, " A farm-house stands on or near the place where 
 Sockburn-house formerly was, and the Grey Stone mentioned 
 as the monument of Comin's victory over his dreadful enemy 
 
 * Compare the Fenwick note to the lines on A Favourite Dog, vol. iii. , p. 39. 
 t Vol. v., p. 42. X Vol. iii., p. 149.
 
 SOCKBURN. 191 
 
 is shown to the traveller in a field adjoining the Church." 
 This Grey Stone is referred to by Lewis in his Topographical 
 Dictionary of England* 
 
 In a letter from Dorothy Wordsworth to Miss Pollard, 
 dated only, " Sockburn, April," but evidently written some 
 time before this visit, and possibly when her brother was 
 living in France, she says she is on a visit to the Hutchin- 
 sons, six miles from Darlington. "They are settled at 
 Sockburn, six miles from Darlington, perfectly to their 
 satisfaction. They are perfectly independent, and have not 
 a wish ungratified. . . , The house was built by their 
 uncle, who left them the furniture and £1800. It is an 
 excellent house, not at all like a farm-house. ... It is a 
 grazing estate, and most delightfully pleasant, washed nearly 
 round by the Tees (a noble river), stocked with sheep and 
 lambs." . . . [She speaks in this letter of having been at 
 i^ewcastle]. 
 
 There is also some account of Sockburn in Mackenzie 
 and Eoss's History of the County Palatine of Durham. The 
 whole township consists of one large farm. 
 
 In the parish church there is an altar tomb with the 
 inscription, " Here lies the body of Sarah Hutchinson, 
 daughter of Thomas Hutchinson of Whitton, who died July 
 18th, 178G, in the 76th year of her age." 
 
 The History states that a headstone commemorates some 
 of the family of Hutchinson of Penrith and Stockton. 
 
 The old house of the Conyers, which was the ancient hall 
 of Sockburn, has entirely vanished. The little church, 
 standing lonely on its level green, has survived the halls 
 of its ancient patrons. Deep traces of foundations of 
 gardens and orchards a little to the south point out the 
 site of the mansion, and one old (hicaying Spanish chestnut 
 
 * Vol. iv., p. 102.
 
 192 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 seems alone to connect the deserted spot with some recollec- 
 tion of its ancient owners. The only approach to the church 
 and manor is by a narrow carriage-road from the north, and 
 the solitude of the place seems enhanced by the uninviting 
 notice on a sign-post, " No road but to Sockburn." 
 
 In answer to inquiries as to the relation of the family of 
 the Hutchinsons to Sockburn, a nephew of Mrs Wordsworth's, 
 the Rev. Thomas Hutchinson of Kimbolton, Leominster, writes, 
 " Tlie family of Hutchinson is descended from a follower 
 of Harold Harfager, and was settled on the banks of the 
 Tees before the Conquest. My father was a son of John 
 and Mary Hutchinson, who left the neighbourhood of 
 Stockton-on-Tees, and settled in business in Penrith, his 
 wife being a Penrith lady. The mother died in 1783, 
 and the fatlier two years afterwards. On this sad event, 
 my father was adopted, at twelve years of age, by his great 
 uncle and aunt, both unmarried, who occupied the farm 
 at Sockburn. This lady died in 1786, aged seventy-six, 
 and her brother three years later, when my father was only 
 sixteen years old, too young to undertake the management 
 of the farm. But as the stock, &c., on the farm was left 
 to him by his great uncle, his grandfather, Henry Hutchinson 
 of Whitton, came to Sockburn, and remained there till the 
 landlord would accept the young man as a tenant. My 
 father remained at Sockburn till 1800, when he left, in 
 consequence of a disagreement with the landlord, and re- 
 moved to Gallow Hill, in the parish of Brompton, near 
 Scarborough, an estate belonging to Sir George Cayley. 
 The Sockburn estate belonged at that time, and still belongs, 
 to the family of Blacketts, of Northumberland. I cannot 
 give you any particulars of Gallow Hill — my father did not 
 often refer to it. I believe his heart clung to Sockburn to 
 the last day of his life." 
 
 The following letter from Dorothy Wordsworth to
 
 SOCKBDRN. 193 
 
 Thomas Poole, Nether Stowey, casts some light on the 
 movements and plans of the family : — 
 
 " SocKBURN, Ath Jtdy [1799]. 
 " My Deae Mr Poole, — Ever since our arrival in England 
 it has been William's intention to write to you, yet his de- 
 laying disposition has so got the better of him, that though 
 we have been two months on English ground, you have 
 heard nothing of us from ourselves. Knowing how much 
 you are interested in our welfare, I can no longer refrain 
 from taking up the pen to inform you vjhere we are, and 
 that we are in good health. We found living in Germany, 
 with the enjoyment of any tolerable advantages, much more 
 expensive than we expected, which determined us to come 
 home with the first tolerable weather of the spring. We 
 left Coleridge and Mr Chester at Gottingen ten weeks ago,* 
 as you probably have heard, and proceeded with as little 
 delay as possible, travelling in a German diligence to Ham- 
 burgh, whence we went down the Elbe in a boat to Cux- 
 haven, where we were not detained longer than we wished 
 for our necessary refreshment, and we had an excellent 
 passage to England of two days and nights. We proceeded 
 immediately from Yarmouth into the north, where we are 
 now staying with some of our early friends at a pleasant 
 farm on the banks of the Tees. We are very anxious to 
 liear from Coleridge, — he promised to write us from 
 Gottingen, and though we have written twice, we have 
 heard nothing of him. We hope that, having delayed 
 writing to us longer than he intended, he now delays 
 because he is on the point of returning to England. When 
 we were at Gottingen he received a letter from Mrs Cole- 
 ridge, by which we had the pleasure of hearing that she and 
 
 * I.e., on 26th February. 
 IX. N
 
 194 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 dear little Hartley were well. Poor Berkely.* I was 
 much grieved to hear of his death. It gave us sincere joy 
 to learn from Coleridge that your good mother was in better 
 health three months ago than she had ever been for some 
 time. I hope that we shall again have the same good 
 accounts of her. We are yet quite undetermined where we 
 shall reside ; we have no house in view at present. It is 
 William's wish to be near a good library, and, if possible, in 
 a pleasant country. If j'ou hear of any place in your 
 neighbourhood that will be likely to suit us, we shall be 
 much obliged to you if you will take the trouble of writing 
 to us. We were very glad to hear that Mr Wedgwood is 
 going to settle not far from Stowey. 
 
 " William joins with me in kind remembrances to your 
 mother, and Mrs Coleridge, and yourself. 
 
 " I will not make any apology for this short and un- 
 entertaining letter. I know you will not receive it without 
 pleasure. — Believe me, my dear sir, yours afiectionately, 
 
 DOEOTHY WOKDSWOETH." 
 
 " Pray remember us to Mr Ward, and request Coleridge 
 to write when he arrives at Stowey. 
 
 " Our address — At Mr Hutchinson's, Sockburn, near 
 Northallerton, Yorkshire." 
 
 There is scarcely any record of how the nine months, 
 from March to December 1799, were spent at Sockburn. 
 But, in addition to the difficult question of determining his 
 future home, he had business correspondence with Cottle 
 during that summer. 
 
 In his Early Recollections,! Cottle tells us that both he 
 
 * The infant cMlcl of the Coleridges ; born at Nether Stowey, May 
 1798 ; died, while Coleridge was ia Germany, Feb. 1799. 
 t Vol. ii., p. 23, &c.
 
 SOCKBURN. 195 
 
 and Coleridge paid a visit to Wordsworth in the autumn of 
 1799. Coleridge left Gottingen on the 24th June, was at 
 Brunswick on the 30th, and soon afterwards returned to 
 England. He seems to have gone first to his old home at 
 Stowey, and then to see his relations at Ottery, in Devon- 
 shire. In November he was in London, busy at the ofhce 
 of The Morning Post. Between his return from Ottery and 
 his going up to the Metropolis, however, he went north with 
 Cottle to Greta Bridge, to meet Wordsworth, and accom- 
 panied him into Westmoreland and Cumberland, each seek- 
 ing a place where he might settle down not far apart from 
 the other. In the published accounts of the movements of 
 the respective households at this particular time there are 
 conflicting statements ; but it is not difficult to trace 
 the main thread of the story. The Bishop of Lincoln 
 tells us that "in the summer of 1799," * Coleridge wrote to 
 Wordsworth : " I am anxiously eager to have you steadily 
 employed on The Bcelusc. . . . My dear friend, I do 
 entreat you go on with The Recluse ; and I wish you would 
 write a poem, in blank verse, addressed to those who, in 
 consequence of the complete failure of the French Eevolu- 
 tion, have thrown up all hopes of the amelioration of man- 
 kind, and are sinking into an almost epicurean selfishness, 
 disguising the same under the soft titles of domestic attach- 
 ment and contempt for visionary ^philosojjhcs. It would do 
 great good, and might form a part of TJic Bechisc, for in my 
 present mood I am wholly against the publication of any 
 small poems." It would Ije important to know the date of 
 this letter. It is certain that it was not written from 
 Gottingen. Dorothy Wordsworth's letter to Mr Poole 
 makes it clear that, since their arrival in England, they had 
 not heard from Coleridge up to the 4tli of July. The next 
 
 * Memoirn, vol. i., p. 139.
 
 196 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 letter which he wrote on the same subject — the continua- 
 tion of Tlie Eccluse—ia dated October 12, 1799. But 
 before that date Coleridsre had been with Wordsworth in 
 the North of England. 
 
 Cottle's account* of the sale of the Lyrical Ballads, of his 
 action regarding them, and subsequent correspondence, is 
 our best clue to the sequence of events at this stage. 
 
 " As a curious literary fact, I might mention that the sale 
 of the first edition of the Lyrical Ballads was so slow, and 
 the severity of most of the reviews so great, that its pro- 
 gress to obKvion seemed ordained to be as rapid as it was 
 certain. I had given thirty guineas for the copyright, as 
 detailed in the preceding letters ; but the heavy sale induced 
 me to part with the largest proportion of the impression of 
 500 at a loss, to Mr Arch, a London bookseller. After this 
 transaction had occurred, I received a letter from Mr 
 Wordsworth, written the day before he set sail for the 
 Continent, requesting me to make over my interest in the 
 Lyrical Bcdlads to Mr Johnson, of St Paul's Churchyard. 
 Tliis I could not have done, had I been so disposed, as the 
 engagement had been made with Mr Arch." 
 
 Cottle adds: "On Mr W.'s return to England, I 
 addressed a letter to him, explaining the reasons why 
 I could not comply with his request, to wliich he thus 
 replied : 
 
 " ' My deae Cottle, — I perceive that it would have been 
 impossible for you to comply with my request respecting the 
 Lyrical Ballads, as you had entered into a treaty with Arch. 
 How is the copjTight to be disposed of when you quit the 
 bookselling business ? We were much amused with the 
 Anthology. Your poem of the Killcrop we liked better than 
 any ; only w^e regretted that you did not save the poor little 
 
 * Early Recollections, Vol. ii., p. 23, &c.
 
 SOCKBURN. 197 
 
 innocent's life, by some benevolent act or other. You might 
 have managed a little pathetic incident, in which nature, 
 appearing forcibly in the child, might have worked in some 
 way or other upon its superstitious destroyer. 
 
 " ' We have spent our time pleasantly enough in Germany, 
 but we are right glad to find ourselves in England, for we 
 have learnt to know its value. We left Coleridge well at 
 Gottingen a month ago. . . . — God bless you, my dear 
 Cottle. — Your affectionate friend, 
 
 W. Wordsworth.' " 
 Cottle continues : " Soon after the receipt of the above, I 
 received another letter from Mr W., kindly urging me to 
 pay him a visit in the north, in which, as an inducement, 
 he says, ' If you come down I will accompany you on your 
 tour.' . . . . ' Write to me beforehand and I will accom- 
 pany you on a tour. You will come by Greta Bridge, which 
 is about twenty miles from this place (Sockburn) ; thither 
 Dorothy and I will go to meet you. Dorothy will return 
 to Sockburn, and after we have seen all the curiosities of 
 that neighbourhood I will accompany you into Cumberland 
 and Westmoreland. . . . — God bless you, dear Cottle. 
 
 W. W.' " 
 (Bishop Wordsworth mentions Sept. 2 as the date of this 
 letter.) Cottle continues: "A short time after the receipt 
 of this invitation, Mr Coleridge arrived in Bristol from Ger- 
 many, and as he was about to pay Mr Wordsworth a visit, 
 he pressed me to accompany hiin. ... In this inter- 
 view with Mr Wordsworth the subject of the Lyrical Ballads 
 was mentioned but once, and that casually, and only to 
 account for its failure ! which Mr W. ascribed to two 
 causes : first, the Ancient Mariner, which, he said, no one 
 seemed to understand ; and, secondly, the unfavourable 
 notice of most of the reviews. 
 
 " On my reaching London, having an account to settle
 
 198 LIFE OF WOKDSWORTH. 
 
 with Messrs Longman & Eees, the booksellers, of Paternoster 
 Row, I sold them all my copyrights, which were valued as 
 one lot, by a third party. On my next seeing Mr Longman 
 he told me that, in estimating the value of the copyrights, 
 Fox's AcJimcd and Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads were 
 ' reckoned as nothing.' ' That being the case,' I replied, ' as 
 both these authors are my personal friends, I should be 
 obliged if you would return me again these two copyrights, 
 that I may have the pleasure of presenting them to the 
 respective writers.' Mr Longman answered, with his ac- 
 customed liberality, ' You are welcome to them.' On my 
 reaching Bristol I gave Mr Fox his receipt for twenty 
 guineas ; and on ]\Ir Coleridge's return from the north I 
 gave him Mr Wordsworth's receipt for his thirty guineas ; so 
 that whatever advantage has arisen subsequently from the 
 sale of this volume of the Lyrical Ballads has pertained 
 exclusively to Mr W." 
 
 In the Memoirs of Wordsworth, by his nephew, it is 
 stated* that, while Cottle could not go beyond Greta Bridge, 
 Coleridge accompanied Wordsworth, and his brother John, 
 in this tour into the region of the lakes ; and that Coleridge 
 sent the following account of the journey to Dorothy 
 Wordsworth at Sockburn : — 
 
 " William has received your two letters. At Temple 
 Sowerby we met your brother John, who accompanied us to 
 Hawes-Water, Ambleside, and the divine sisters, Rydal and 
 Grasmere. Here we stayed two days. We accompanied 
 John over the fork of Helvellyn, on a day when light and 
 darkness coexisted in contiguous masses, and the earth and 
 sky were but one. Nature lived for us in all her grandest 
 accidents. We quitted him by a wild tarn just as we caught 
 a view of the gloomy Ullswater, 
 
 *Vol. ii., p. 147.
 
 SOCKBURN. 1 9 9 
 
 "Your brother John is one of you; a man who hath 
 solitary usings * of his own intellect, deep in feeling, with 
 a subtle tact, a swift instinct of truth and beauty: he 
 interests me much. 
 
 " You can feel, what I cannot express for myself, how 
 deeply I have been impressed by a world of scenery 
 absolutely new to me. At Kydal and Grasmere I received, 
 I think, the deepest delight; yet Hawes-Water, through 
 many a varying view, kept my eyes dim with tears ; and, 
 the evening approaching, Derwent-Water, in diversity of 
 harmonious features, in the majesty of its beauties, and in 
 the beauty of its majesty . . . and the black crags close 
 under the snowy mountains, whose snows were pinkish with 
 the setting sun, and the reflections from the rich clouds that 
 floated over some and rested upon others ! — it was to me a 
 vision of a fair country: why were you not with us ?" 
 
 Of the same journey Wordsworth wrote : — 
 
 "We left Cottle, as you know, at Greta Bridge. We 
 were obliged to take the mail over Stanemoor ; the road 
 interesting with sun and mist. At Temple Sowerby I 
 learned that John was at Newbiggin. I sent a note ; he 
 came, looks very well, said he would accompany us a few 
 days. Next day we set off and dined at Mr Myers', thence 
 to Bampton, where we slept. On Friday proceeded along 
 the lake of Hawes-Water, a noble scene which pleased us 
 much. The mists hung so low that we could not go directly 
 over to Ambleside, so we went round by Long Sleddale to 
 Kentmere, Troutbeck, Kayrigg, and Bowness ; . . . a rainy 
 and raw day. . . . Went to the ferry, much disgusted with 
 the new erections about Windermere ; . . . thence to 
 Hawkshead : great change among the people since we were 
 last there. Next day by Eydal to Grasmere, Robert New- 
 
 * Query, "musings."
 
 
 200 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 ton's. At Robert Newton's we have remained till to-day. 
 John left us on Tuesday : we walked with him to the tarn. 
 This day was a fine one, and we had some grand mountain 
 scenery ; the rest of the week has been bad weather. The 
 <ivening before last we walked to the upper waterfall at 
 Eydal, and saw it through the gloom, and it was very 
 magnificent. Coleridge was much struck with Grasmere 
 and its neighbourhood. I have much to say to you. You 
 will think my plan a mad one, but I have thought of build- 
 ing a house there by the lake-side. John would give me 
 £40 to buy the ground. There is a small house* at Gras- 
 mere empty, which, perhaps, we may take ; but of this we 
 will speak." 
 
 In the first book of The Prelude, after the forty-five lines 
 written on leaving Goslar, we have an account of an autumn 
 day which Wordsworth spent at Sockburn, or near it, 
 pondering the vexed question of his future home. He tells 
 us he came " to a green, shady place," and sat down beneath 
 a tree, where — in the stillness of the sheltering grove — he 
 revolved tlie question for many hours ; and the hours passed, 
 as he debated with himself many plans of many places, 
 " encouraging and dismissing " them ; and hearing nothing 
 but the occasional fall of an acorn from its cup, pattering 
 through the sere leaves to the ground, till at last, at sun- 
 down, he made choice of the Vale of Grasmere, and the 
 cottage at the Town End, which soon afterwards became 
 his home. He rose from his long reverie as the sun was 
 setting, and started on foot, " with the chance equipment of 
 that hour," on a three days' journey, 
 
 " Keen as a Truant, or a Fugitive, 
 But as a Pilgrim resolute," 
 
 to that "hermitage." 
 
 * This, of course, refers to Dove Cottage. See AutoUographicaJ, 
 Memoranda, p. 18.
 
 SOCKBURN". 201 
 
 Either this passage records another visit to Grasmere in 
 the early autumn, or — what is much more likely — the realism 
 of the narrative here gives way, and Wordsworth supplies 
 us with an imaginative account of the journey with his 
 sister in the late December to Dove Cottage. 
 
 From the letter written to his sister, during the autumn 
 excursion with Coleridge and his brother John, it seems that 
 he first thought of building a house at Grasmere by the 
 lake, and that his brother had offered him money to buy the 
 ground. This excursion took place in the month of Sep- 
 tember. It could hardly have been afterwards that the day 
 (described in The Prelude) was spent in meditative reverie 
 under the tree near Sockburn ; and if beforehand, the 
 description must, I think, refer, by anticipation, to the 
 journey finally taken to Grasmere in December.* 
 
 On his return to the south, we find Coleridge writing thus 
 to Wordsworth : — t 
 
 Oct. 12, 1799. — "I long to see what you have been 
 doing. let it be the tail-piece of The Recluse, for of 
 nothing but The Reeluse can I hear patiently. That it is to 
 be addressed to me makes me more desirous that it should 
 not be a poem of itself. To be addressed, as a beloved man, 
 by a thinker, at the close of such a poem as The Reeluse, a 
 poem non unius populi, is the only event, I believe, capable 
 of inciting in me an hour's vanity — vanity, nay, it is too 
 ^'ood a feeling to be so called ; it would indeed be a self- 
 elevation produced ai extra." 
 
 In Dec. 1799 he again writes from London, "As to 
 myself, I dedicate my nights and days to Stuart. ... By 
 all means let me have the tragedy and Peter Bell as soon as 
 
 * It is, however, quite possible that Wordsworth took a journey alone 
 in August to Grasmere. 
 
 t Memoirs, vol. i. pp. 159-60.
 
 202 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 possible;" and in Feb. 1800, "I grieve that The Recluse 
 sleeps." * 
 
 These extracts from letters, which the Bishop of Lincoln 
 gives us in fragments, show the deep interest which Cole- 
 ridge took in the completion of Wordsworth's biographical 
 poem ; and they are amongst the few documents that cast 
 light on the line of Wordsworth's work during that summer 
 and autumn at Sockburn. He must have been attempting, 
 at intervals, to bring passages of this poem into shape ; but 
 his work was doubtless very desultory, and uncertainty as 
 to his future would prevent him from undertaking anything 
 that implied steady application. 
 
 At last — the decision being come to, and Grasmere selected 
 as his home — his aims became clearer, and he felt himself 
 braced up to more continuous work and determined labour. 
 The account he gives of his journey from Sockburn to 
 Grasmere, in a letter to Coleridge,t and especially his 
 account of Hardrane waterfall, is one of the best specimens 
 of his prose writing that we possess. It was written a 
 few days after the end of that "pleasant, loitering journey," J 
 as Wordsworth called it, when the brother and sister reached 
 their "hermitage" at Dove Cottage on the 21st Dec. (St 
 Thomas's day) 1799, This journey supplied him with 
 the materials of some of his later lyrics, notably Hart Leap 
 Well. 
 
 "We arrived here on the evening of St Thomas's day, 
 last Friday, and have now been four days in our new abode 
 without writing to you — a long time ! but we have been in 
 such confusion as not to have had a moment's leisure. My 
 dear friend, we talk of you perpetually, and for me I see 
 you everywhere. 
 
 * Memoirs, vol. i., p. 160. 
 t Memoirs, vol. i., pp. 149-54. 
 J The Prelude, book i.
 
 SOCKBURN. 208 
 
 " But let me be a little more methodical. We left 
 Sockburn last Tuesday morning. We crossed the Tees 
 by moonlight in the Sockburn fields, and after ten good 
 miles' ridinej came in sioht of the Swale. It is there a 
 beautiful river, with its green bank and flat holms scattered 
 over with trees. Four miles further brought us to Richmond, 
 with its huge ivied castle, its friarage steeple, its castle tower 
 resembling a huge steeple, and two other steeple towers, for 
 such they appeared to us. The situation of this place re- 
 sembles that of Barnard Castle, but I should suppose is 
 somewhat inferior to it. George accompanied us eight 
 miles further, and there we parted with sorrowful hearts. 
 We were now in Wensley Dale, and Dorothy and I set off 
 side by side to foot it as far as Kendal. I will not clog 
 my letter with a description of this celebrated dale ; but 
 I must not neglect to mention that a little before sunset 
 we reached one of the waterfalls, of which I read you a 
 short description in Mr Taylor's tour. It is a singular 
 scene ; I meant to have given you some account of it, but 
 I feel myself too lazy to execute the task. 'Tis such a 
 performance as you might have expected from some giant 
 gardener employed by one of Queen Elizabeth's courtiers, if 
 this same giant gardener had consulted with Spenser, and 
 they two had finished the work together. By this you will 
 understand tlmt it is at once formal and wild. We reached 
 Askrigg, twelve miles, before six in the evening, having been 
 obliged to walk the last two miles over hard frozen roads, 
 to the great annoyance of our ankles and feet. Next morn- 
 ing the earth was thinly covered with snow, enough to make 
 the road soft and prevent its being slippery. 
 
 " On leaving Askrigg we turned aside to see another water- 
 fall. It was a beautiful morning, with driving snow showers, 
 which disappeared by fits, and unveiled the east, which was 
 all one delicious pale orange colour. After walking through
 
 204 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 two small fields, we came to a mill, which we passed ; and 
 in a moment a sweet little valley opened before us, with an 
 area of grassy ground, and a stream dashing over various 
 laminte of black rocks, close under a bank covered with firs ; 
 the bank and stream on our left, another woody bank on 
 our right, and the flat meadow in front, from which, as at 
 Buttermere, the stream had retired as it were to hide itself 
 under the shade. As we walked up this delightful valley 
 we were tempted to look back perpetually on the stream, 
 which reflected the orange lights of the morning among the 
 gloomy rocks, with a brightness varying with the agitation 
 of the current. The steeple of Askrigg was between us and 
 the east, at the bottom of the valley ; it was not a quarter 
 of a mile distant, but oh ! how far we were from it ! The 
 two banks seemed to join before us with a facing of rock 
 common to them both. When we reached this bottom the 
 valley opened out again ; two rocky banks on each side, 
 which, hung with ivy and moss, and fringed luxuriantly 
 with brushwood, ran directly parallel to each other, and 
 then approaching with a gentle curve at their point of 
 union, presented a lofty w^aterfall, the termination of the 
 valley. It was a keen frosty morning, showers of snow 
 threatening us, but the sun bright and active. We had a 
 task of twenty-one miles to perform in a short winter's day. 
 All this put our minds into such a state of excitation that 
 we were no unworthy spectators of this delightful scene. 
 On a nearer approach the waters seemed to fall down a tall 
 arch or niche that had shaped itself by insensible moulder- 
 ings in the wall of an old castle. We left this spot with 
 reluctance, but highly exhilarated. 
 
 " When we had walked about a mile and a half we 
 overtook two men with a string of ponies and some 
 empty carts. I recommended to Dorothy to avail herself 
 of this opportunity of husbanding her strength: we rode
 
 SOCKBUKN. 205 
 
 with them more than two miles. 'Twas bitter cold, the 
 wind driving the snow behind us in the best style of a 
 mountain storm. We soon reached an inn at a place 
 called Hardrane, and descending from our vehicles, after 
 warming ourselves by the cottage fire, we walked up 
 the brook-side to take a view of a third waterfall. We 
 had not walked above a few hundred yards between two 
 winding rocky banks before we came full upon the waterfall, 
 which seemed to throw itself in a narrow line from a lofty 
 wall of rock, the water, which shot manifestly to some 
 distance from the rock, seeming to be dispersed into a thin 
 shower scarcely visible before it reached the basin. We 
 were disappointed in the cascade itself, though the in- 
 troductory and accompanying banks were an exquisite 
 mixture of grandeur and beauty. We walked up to the 
 fall ; and what would I not give if I could convey 
 to you the feelings and . images which were then com- 
 municated to me ? After cautiously sounding our way 
 over stones of all colours and sizes, encased in the clearest 
 water formed by the spray of the fall, we found the 
 rock, which before had appeared like a wall, extendino- 
 itself over our heads, like the ceiling of a huge cave, 
 from the summit of which the waters shot directly over 
 our heads into a basin, and among fragments wrinkled 
 over with masses of ice as white as snow, or rather, as 
 Dorothy says, like congealed froth. The water fell at least 
 ten yards from us, and we stood directly behind it, the ex- 
 cavation not so deep in the rock as to impress any feeling of 
 darkness, but lofty and magnificent ; but in connection with 
 the adjoining banks excluding as much of the sky as could 
 well be spared from a scene so exquisitely beautiful. 
 
 " The spot where we stood was as dry as the chamber in 
 which I am now sitting, and the incumbent rock, of which the 
 groundwork was limestone, veined and dappled with colours
 
 206 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 which melted into each other with every possible variety of 
 colour. On the summit of the cave were three festoons, or 
 rather wrinkles, in the rock, run up parallel like the folds of 
 a curtain when it is drawn up. Each of these was hung 
 with icicles of various length, and nearly in the middle of 
 the festoon in the deepest valley of the waves that ran 
 parallel to each other, the stream shot from the rows of 
 icicles in irregular fits of strength, and with a body of water 
 that varied every moment. Sometimes the stream shot into 
 the basin in one continued current ; sometimes it was inter- 
 rupted almost in the midst of its fall, and was blown 
 towards part of the waterfall at no great distance from our 
 feet like the hea\dest thunder-shower. In such a situation 
 you have at every moment a feeling of the presence of the 
 sky. Large fleecy clouds drove over our heads above the 
 rush of the water, and the sky appeared of a blue more than 
 usually brilliant. The rocks on each side, which, joining 
 with the side of this cave, formed the vista of the brook, 
 were chequered with three diminutive waterfalls or rather 
 courses of water. Each of these was a miniature of all that 
 summer and winter can produce of delicate beauty. The 
 rock in the centre of the falls, where the water was most 
 abundant, a deep black, the adjoining parts yellow, white, 
 purple, and dove-colour, covered with water-plants of the 
 most vivid green, and hung with streaming icicles, that in 
 some places seem to conceal the verdure of the plants, and 
 the violet and yellow variegation of the rocks ; and in some 
 places render the colours more brilliant. 
 
 " I cannot express to you the enchanting effect produced 
 by this Arabian scene of colour as the wind blew aside 
 the great waterfall behind which we stood and alternately 
 hid and revealed each of these fairy cataracts in irregu- 
 lar succession, or displayed them with various gradations 
 of distinctness as the intervening spray was thickened
 
 SOCKBURN. 207 
 
 or dispersed. What a scene too in summer ! In the 
 luxury of our imagination we could not help feeding upon 
 the pleasure which this cave, in the heat of a July 
 noon, would spread through a frame exquisitely sensible. 
 That huge rock on the right, the bank winding round 
 on the left with all its living foliage, and the breeze 
 stealing up the valley, and bedewing the cavern with 
 the freshest imaginable spray. And then the murmur of 
 the water, the quiet, the seclusion, and a long summer 
 day."
 
 CHAPTEE XII I. 
 
 GRASMERE. 
 
 Dove Cottage, Grasmere, has been described in the Memoirs 
 of the Poet by the Bishop of Lincoln (vol. i. p. 156); by 
 De Quincey, in his Recollections of the Lakes (p. 130, &c.) ; 
 in the notes to this edition of the Poems (vol. ii. p. 102, 
 &c.) ; and also in the English Lake District, as interpreted in 
 the Poems of Wordsworth (p. 41, &c.) ; and in Through 
 the Wordsworth Country (p. 55, &c.). The district around is 
 memorialized in many of the poems ; and, in Dorothy 
 Wordsworth's Journal, its features are still more remark- 
 ably recorded, with a simplicity and minuteness, a subtle 
 insight and a loving fidelity, that make that journal 
 unique amongst her many descriptions of places. Small 
 portions of it have been already published, as illustrations of 
 some of the poems, in their chronological place ; but larger 
 extracts in continuous series will be the best disclosure of 
 the simple yet noble ways — the " plain living and high 
 thinking " of the Wordsworth household in these Grasmere 
 days. 
 
 The hitherto unpublished canto of The Recluse, entitled 
 Home at Grasmere, given in full (pp. 232-254), will also 
 cast some light on the daily work, and the manner of life, 
 in that cottage at Townend. Here it was that to Words- 
 worth there was 
 
 " Life 
 In common things, the endless store of things, 
 Rare, — or at least so seeming, — every day 
 Found all about me in our neighbourhood,
 
 GflASMERE. 209 
 
 and, from morn 
 To night, unbroken cheerfulness serene." * 
 
 For a description of the externals of the house, and of its 
 interior, as well as of the orchard, often alluded to in the 
 sister's journal, 
 
 " This plot of orchard ground is ours. 
 My trees are there, my sister's flowers," 
 
 the reader must be referred back to vol, ii. pp. 102-3. 
 The cottage still remains as it was in the beginning of the 
 century, although its surroundings are entirely changed. 
 In Wordsworth's time there was no other (competing) 
 cottage near it ; and down to the side of the lake no house 
 or outhouse interruj)ted the view of the water and the 
 opposite slopes of Loughrigg and Silver Howe. The 
 " orchard " is slightly changed. The " moss hut " is gone, 
 and a stone seat takes its place ; but there are apple trees 
 around its site, the successors of those which shed their 
 blooms on the poet as he watched the " brother of the 
 dancing leaves " — the green linnet — " lead the revels of the 
 May " amongst the hazels close at hand. 
 
 The little rocky well, where Wordsworth and his sister 
 planted their daffodils and Christmas roses, may still be 
 seen. Daffodils still grow about the well, but the roses 
 were transplanted to another corner of the "garden 
 ground," All around this cottage, at every turn of the 
 road, there are places as thoroughly immortalized in verse, 
 as poetry can confer it on locality. There is the fir grove 
 — " Brothers Grove " or " John's Grove " — close at hand ; 
 the " Wishing Gate " beyond it ; the two " Heath-clad 
 Rocks " named after Mary and Sarah Hutchinson ; " the 
 Glow-worm Rock," and the " Quarry " below it ; tlie 
 "Leech Gatherer's" pool, on White-Moss Common, with 
 
 * The Prelude, book i. 
 TX.
 
 210 LIFE OF WORDSWOETH. 
 
 " Stone Arthur " above it ; the site of " Michael's sheepfold " 
 in Greenhead Ghyll ; the " Parsonage " where okl Sympson, 
 the pastor of The Excursion, lived ; " the churchyard amongst 
 the mountains " at Grasmere, where tlie Poet, his wife, his 
 sister, their chiklren who died in infancy, their daughter, 
 and son, all lie under the shade of the yew trees planted 
 by his own hand ; the Church itself, with its " naked rafters 
 intricately crossed," its "oaken benches," its "marble monu- 
 ments," its " heraldic shields " and " faded hatchments," its 
 " sepulchral stones, with footworn epitaphs," its "admonitory 
 texts, each in its ornamental scroll enclosed " ; " Emma's 
 Dell " on Easdale beck, and " Joanna's rock " (whose echo- 
 ing laugh rang over Cumberland) hard by ; Lancrigg, with 
 its terrace walks, where much of The Prclv.dc was murmured 
 out, and dictated to the Poet's willing scribes ; Allan Bank, 
 where The Excursion was mainly composed ; Wyke cottage, 
 where " the Westmoreland girl " rescued her lamb from 
 drowning ; Loughrigg, with its terraces and its tarn, — 
 " Diana's looking-glass," associated with Beaumont's purchase, 
 — and the mere below, with its " one green island and its 
 winding shores." But it is needless to particularize, where 
 there are fifty spots, in this delightful centre, associated with 
 the genius of its poet, which can easily be traced, and which, 
 with all the alterations of recent years — few of them im- 
 provements — are still recognisable, as they were described 
 at the beginning of the century. 
 
 There were sundry drawbacks, however, associated with 
 Dove cottage, especially when tlie family had — as they con- 
 stantly had — visitors with them, which are frankly stated in 
 the following letters from Dorothy Wordsworth to Mrs Mar- 
 shall. These letters throw light on the occupations and move- 
 ments of the household, and on the visits of John Wordsworth, 
 Mary Hutchinson, and the Coleridges during 1800. John 
 Wordsworth seems to have come to Dove Cottage in January,
 
 GRASMERE. 211 
 
 and to have stayed eight months with his brother and 
 sister, leaving them on Sept. 29th (never to return). Mary- 
 Hutchinson had spent five weeks before September ; and she 
 returned to Grasmere on the 7th October, and stayed till 
 the very close of the year. Coleridge was two months, and 
 Mrs Coleridge and their boy one month, in the cottage. If 
 this is a sample of their hospitality, it is obvious that it must 
 have been difficult to make the little cottage accommodate 
 so many visitors. 
 
 On the 10th Sept. Dorothy wrote thus to Mrs Mar- 
 shall : — After describing the Vale as " one small, green, 
 retired woody valley," she says, " We are daily more 
 delighted with Grasmere and its neighbourhood. Our 
 walks are perpetually varied, and we are more fond of the 
 mountains as our acquaintance with them increases. We 
 have a boat upon the lake, and a small orchard, and a small 
 garden ; which, as it is the work of our own hands, we re- 
 gard with pride and partiality. This garden we enclosed 
 from the road, and pulled down a fence which formerly 
 divided it from the orchard. The orchard is very small ; 
 but then it is a delightful one, from its retirement, and the 
 excessive beauty of the prospect from it. Our cottage is 
 quite large enough for us, though very small ; and we have 
 made it neat and comfortable within doors, and it looks very 
 nice on the outside, for though the roses and honeysuckles, 
 which we have planted against it, are only of this year's 
 growth, yet it is covered all over with green leaves and 
 scarlet flowers ; fur we have trained scarlet beans upon 
 threads, which are not only exceedingly beautiful, but very 
 useful, as their produce is immense. The only objection we 
 have to our house is that it is rather too near the road ; 
 and from its smallness, and the manner in which it is built, 
 noises pass from one part of the house to the other ; so that 
 if we had any visitors, a sick person could not be in quiet-
 
 212 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 ness. . . , My brother John has been with us eight months, 
 during which time we have had a good deal of company. 
 . . . William is going to publish a second edition of the 
 Lyrical Ballads, with a second volume. He intends to give 
 them the title of ' Poems by W. Wordsworth,' as Mrs 
 Kobinson has claimed the title, and is about publishing a 
 volume of Lyrical Tales* This is a great objection to the 
 former title, particularly as they are both printed at the same 
 press, and Longman is the publisher of both works. The 
 first volume sold much better than we expected, and was 
 liked by a much greater number of people ; not that we had 
 ever much doubt of its finally making its way ; but we 
 knew that poems, so different from what have in general 
 become popular immediately after their publication, were 
 not likely to be admired all at once. The first volume, I 
 have no doubt, has prepared a number of purchasers for the 
 second ; and, independently of that, I think the second is 
 much more likely to please the generality of readers. 
 William's health is by no means strong. He lias written a 
 great deal since we first went to Alfoxden, namely, during 
 the years preceding our going into Germany, while we were 
 there, and since our arrival'in England; and he writes with 
 so much feeling and agitation that it brings on a sense of 
 pain. . . . 
 
 " We have spent a week at Mr Coleridge's since his 
 arrival at Keswick. His house is most delightfully situated, 
 and combines all possible advantages both for his wife and 
 himself. She likes to be near a town, he in the country. 
 It is only half or quarter of a mile from Keswick, and 
 commands a view of the whole vale. . . . William and 
 John were in Yorkshire last summer,! at Goredale, Yordas, 
 
 * A volume, Lyrical Talea, was published at London in ISOO, written by 
 Mrs Mary Robinson. 
 
 + They left Grasmere on May 14, and returned on June 7, 1800.
 
 GRASMERE. 21:^ 
 
 &c. Thence they went to see our friends the Hutchinsons. 
 During their absence I felt myself very lonely. ... We 
 •are very comfortably situated with respect to neighbours of 
 the lower classes. They are excellent people, friendly in 
 performing all oftices of friendship and humanity, and atten- 
 tive to us without servility. If we were sick they would 
 wait upon us night and day. We are also upon very inti- 
 mate terms with one family in the middle rank of life, a 
 clergyman'" with a very small income, his wife, son, and 
 daughter. The old man is upwards of eighty, yet he goes 
 a-fishing to the tarns on the hill-tops with my brothers, and 
 he is as active as any man of fifty. His wife is a delight- 
 ful old woman, mild and gentle, yet cheerful in her manners, 
 and much of the gentlewoman, so made by long exercise of 
 the duties of a wife and a mother, and the charities of a 
 neighbour ; for she has lived forty years in the Vale and 
 seldom left her home." . . . 
 
 Of their employments at Grasmere she says : — 
 " Though not very various, they are irregular. We 
 walk at all times of the day ; we row upon the water ; 
 and, in the summer, sit a great part of our time under 
 the apple trees of the orchard, or in a wood close by 
 the lake side. William writes verses, John goes fishing. 
 We read the books we have, and such as we can procure. 
 I read German, partly as preparatory to translating ; but I 
 am unfit for the task alone, and William is better employed, 
 so I do not know when it will turn to much account. If 
 AVilliam's name rises amongst the booksellers we shall have 
 no occasion for it. We often have our friends calling in 
 upon us." [Mr Ciarkson is specially mentioned.] " Mr 
 Clarkson is the man who took so much pains about the 
 slave trade. He has a farm at Ullswater, and has built a 
 house. Mrs C. is a pleasant woman." 
 
 * Sympson, the Pastor of The Excurt^ion.
 
 214 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 It was at the close of the first year of the Wordsworths' 
 residence at Dove Cottage that the second edition of the 
 Lyrical Ballads appeared in two volumes, with an elaborate 
 " Preface," explaining the principles on which the poems had 
 been written. Eeference to the preparation of this "preface" 
 will be found in Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal. A critical 
 estimate of it is here out of place ; but it should be noted 
 that it represents the poetical theory of Wordsworth only, 
 not that of Coleridge ; while Southey wrote to Coleridge of 
 Wordsworth (Aug. 4, 1802): "Does he not associate more 
 feeling with j)articular phrases, — and you also with him, — 
 than these phrases can convey to anyone else ? " — a judg- 
 ment which reveals the limitation of the critic, rather than 
 of the poets he criticised. 
 
 The second edition of Lyrical Ballads contained, amongst 
 other poems. Hart Leap Well, The Brothers, Lucy Gray, 
 Ruth, the Mathew Poems, Three Years She Grew, The Old 
 Cumherland Beggar, The Poet's Epitaph, the Poem on the 
 Naming of Places, and Michael. Explanatory notes, stating 
 the circumstances under which each was composed, will be 
 found in the second volume of this edition. 
 
 In the beginning of January 1801 Coleridge wrote to his 
 friend Thomas Poole, asking him to procure the new edition 
 because of its " valuable preface." By his advice, and at his 
 dictation, letters were sent, — with copies of the book, — to the 
 Duchess of Devonshire and Mr Wilberforce ; while Words- 
 worth wrote a more elaborate letter to Mr Fox. The latter 
 was pubKshed in the Memoirs in 1850. Coleridge's to Mr 
 Wilberforce will be published in the forthcoming Memoir of 
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and in Mrs Sandford's Thomas 
 Poole and his Friends. Both the letters were transcribed by 
 Coleridge and sent to Poole in January 1801, "because the 
 two contain a good view of our notions and motives, poetical 
 and political." The following was Wordsworth's letter : —
 
 GRASMERE. 215 
 
 " Grasmere, near Ambleside, Westmoreland, 
 " April 9th [1801]. 
 
 " My Deae Poole, — , ... In the last Poem of my 2nd 
 volume I have attempted to give a picture of a man, of 
 strong mind and lively sensibility, agitated by two of the 
 most powerful affections of the human heart ; the parental 
 affection, and the love of property (landed property), includ- 
 ing the feelings of inheritance, home, and personal and 
 family independence. This poem has, I know, drawn tears 
 from the eyes of more than one who were well acquainted 
 with the manners of the ' Statesmen,' as they are called, of 
 this country ; and, moreover, persons who never wept, in 
 reading verse, before. This is a favourable augury for me. 
 But, nevertheless, I am anxious to know the effect of this 
 poem upon you, on many accounts ; because you are your- 
 self the inheritor of an estate which has long been in 
 possession of your family ; and, above all, because you are 
 so well acquainted, nay, so familiarly conversant with the 
 language, manners, and feelings of the middle order of 
 people who dwell in the country. Though from the com- 
 parative infrequency of small landed properties in your 
 neighbourhood, your situation has not been altogether so 
 favourable as mine, yet your daily and hourly intercourse 
 with these people must have far more than counterbalanced 
 any disadvantage of this kind ; so that, all things considered, 
 perhaps there is not in England a more competent judge 
 than you nuist be, of the skill or knowledge with which my 
 pictures are drawn. I had a still further wish that this 
 poem should please you, because in writing it I had your 
 character often before my eyes ; and sometimes thought that 
 I was delineating such a man as you yourself would have 
 been under the same circumstances. 
 
 " Do not suspect me of a wish to bribe you into an 
 admiration of the poem in question. Py this time, no doubt,
 
 216 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 you must have read it, and it must have had a fair trial 
 upon you. 
 
 " I am now come to the circumstance whicli was the 
 determiniTig cause of my writing to you. The second 
 vohime is throughout miserably printed, and after line, 
 page 210, 
 
 ' Receiving from his Father hire of praise,' 
 
 by a shameful negligence of the printer there is an omission 
 of fifteen lines absolutely necessary to the connection of the 
 poem. If, in the copy sent to you, this omission has not 
 been supplied, you may be furnished with half a sheet which 
 has been reprinted, if you have any acquaintance who will 
 call at Longman's for it, and send it down to you. In the 
 meanwhile, my sister will transcribe for you the omitted 
 passage. I should be vexed if your copy is an imperfect 
 one, as it must have then been impossible for you to give 
 the poem a fair trial. Eemember me affectionately to your 
 mother, and also to Ward, and believe me, dear Poole, yours 
 sincerely, W. Wokdswoeth." 
 
 " "We shall be highly delighted to see you in this country. 
 I hope you will be able to stay some time with us. Cole- 
 ridge was over at Grasmere a few days ago : he was both in 
 better health and in better spirits than I have seen him for 
 some time. He is a great man, and if God grant him life, 
 will do great things. My sister desires to be affectionately 
 remembered to you, and your mother, not forgetting Ward. 
 
 W. W." 
 
 " CJiristahd is to be printed at the Bulmerian Press, with 
 vignettes, &c., &c. I long to have the book in my hand, it 
 will be such a beauty. Farewell." 
 
 Wordsworth's letter to Mr Pox is as follows : —
 
 GR AS MERE. 217 
 
 « Sir, — It is not without much difficulty that I have 
 summoned the courage to request your acceptance of these 
 vohmies. Should I express my real feelings, I am sure 
 tliat I should seem to make a parade of diffidence and 
 humility. 
 
 " Several of the poems contained in these volumes are 
 written upon subjects which are the common property of all 
 poets, and which, at some period of your life, must have 
 been interesting to a man of your sensibility, and perhaps 
 may still continue to be so. It would be highly gratifying 
 to me to suppose that even in a single instance the manner 
 in which I have treated these general topics should affi)rd 
 you any pleasure ; but such a hope does not influence me 
 on the present occasion, in truth I do not feel it. Besides, 
 I am convinced that there must be many things in this 
 collection, which may impress you with an unfavourable idea 
 of my intellectual powers. I do not say this with a wish 
 to degrade myself, but I am sensible that this must be the 
 case, from the different circles in which we have moved, 
 and the different objects with which we have been con- 
 versant. 
 
 "Being utterly unknown to you, as I am, I am well 
 aware, that if I am justified in writing to you at all, it is 
 necessary that my letter should be short ; but I have 
 feelings within me which I hope will so far show themselves 
 in this letter as to excuse the trespass which I am afraid I 
 shall make. In common with the whole of the English 
 people, 1 have observed in your public character a constant 
 ])redominance of sensibility of heart. Necessitated as you 
 have been, from your public situation, to have much to do 
 with men in bodies and in classes, and accordingly to con- 
 template them in tliat relation, it 1ms been your praise that 
 you have not therel)y been prevented from looking upon 
 them as individuals, and that you have habitually left your
 
 218 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 heart open to be influenced by them in that capacity. This 
 habit cannot but have made you dear to poets ; and I am 
 convinced that if, since your first entrance into public life, 
 there has been a single true poet living in England, he must 
 have loved you. 
 
 " But were I assured that I myself had a just claim to 
 the title of a poet, all the dignity being attached to the 
 word which belongs to it, I do not think that I should have 
 ventured for that reason to offer these volumes to you : at 
 present it is solely on account of two poems in the second 
 volume — the one entitled Tlie Brothers, the other 3IicJiacl 
 — that I have been emboldened to take this liberty. 
 
 " It appears to me that the most calamitous effect which 
 has followed the measures, which have lately been pursued 
 in this country, is a rapid depay of the domestic affections 
 among the lower orders of society. This effect the present 
 Eulers of this country are not conscious of, or they disregard 
 it. For many years past, the tendency of society amongst 
 almost all the nations of Europe has been to produce it. 
 But recently, by the spreading of manufactures through 
 every part of the country, by the heavy taxes upon postage, 
 by workhouses. Houses of Industry, and the invention of Soup 
 Shops, &c., &c., — superadded to the increasing disproportion 
 between the price of labour and that of the necessaries of 
 life, — the bonds of domestic feeling, as far as the influence 
 of these things has extended, have been weakened, and, in 
 innumerable instances, entirely destroyed. The evil would 
 be the less to be regretted, if these institutions were regarded 
 as palliatives to a disease ; but the vanity and pride of their 
 promoters is so subtly interwoven with them that they are 
 deemed great discoveries and blessings to humanity. In 
 the meantime, parents are separated from their children, 
 and children from their parents ; the wife no longer prepares 
 with her own hands a meal for her husband, the produce of
 
 GRASMERE. 219 
 
 his labour ; there is little doing in his house about which 
 his affections can be interested, and but little left in it 
 which he can love. I have two neighbours, a man and his 
 wife, both upwards of eighty years of age — they live alone ; 
 the husband* has been confined to his bed many months, 
 and has never had, nor till within these few weeks has ever 
 needed, anybody to attend to him but his wife. She has 
 recently been seized with a lameness, which has often pre- 
 vented her from being able to carry his food to his bed, 
 the neighbours fetch water for her from the well, and do 
 other kind offices for them 1 )oth ; but her infirmities increase. 
 She told my servant two days ago that she was afraid they 
 must both be boarded out amongst some other Poor of the 
 parish ; (they have long been supported by the parish), but 
 she said it was hard, after having kept house together so 
 many years, to come to this, and she was sure ' that it would 
 burst her heart.' I mention this fact to show how deeply 
 the spirit of independence is, even yet, rooted in some parts 
 of the country. These people could not express themselves 
 in this way without an almost sublime conviction of the 
 blessings of independent domestic life. If it is true, as I 
 beheve, that this spirit is rapidly disappearing, no greater 
 curse can befal a land. 
 
 " I earnestly entreat your pardon for having detained you 
 so long. In the two poems. The Brothers and Michael, I 
 have attempted to draw a picture of the domestic affections, 
 as I know they exist amongst a class of men who are now 
 almost confined to the North of England. They are small, 
 independent proprietors of land, here called Statesmen, men 
 of respectable education, who daily labour in their own little 
 properties. The domestic affections will always be strong 
 among men who live in districts not crowded with popula- 
 tion, if these men are placed above poverty. But if they 
 are proprietors of small estates which have descended to
 
 220 LIFE OF WORDSWOKTH. 
 
 them from their ancestors, the power which these affections 
 will acquire among such men is inconceivable by those who 
 have only had an opportunity of observing hired labourers, 
 farmers, and the manufacturing poor. Their little tract of 
 land serves as a kind of permanent rallying point for their 
 domestic feelings, as a table upon which they are written, 
 which makes them objects of memory in a thousand instances, 
 when they would otherwise be forgotten. It is a fountain 
 fitted to the nature of social man, from which supplies of 
 affection, as pure as his heart was intended for, are daily 
 drawn. This class of men is rapidly disappearing. 
 
 " You, sir, have a consciousness, upon which every good 
 man will congratulate you, that the whole of your public con- 
 duct has, in one way or other, been directed to the preservation 
 of this class of men and those who hold similar situations. 
 You have felt that the most sacred of all property is the 
 property of the poor. The two poems which I have men- 
 tioned were written with a view to show that men who do 
 not wear fine clothes can feel deeply. ' Pectus enim est 
 quod disertos facit, et vis mentis. Ideoque imperitis quoque 
 si modo sint aliquo affectu concitati, verba non desunt.' 
 
 " The poems are faithful copies from nature, and I hope, 
 whatever effect they may have upon you, you will at least 
 be able to perceive that they may excite profitable sym- 
 pathies in many kmd and good hearts, and may in some small 
 degree enlarge our feelings of reverence for our species, and 
 our knowledge of human nature, by showing that our best 
 qualities are possessed by some whom we are too apt to con- 
 sider, not with reference to the points in which they resemble 
 us, but to those in which they manifestly differ from us. I 
 thought, at a time when these feelings are sapped in so 
 many ways, that the two poems might co-operate, howeyer 
 feebly, with the illustrious efforts which you have made to 
 stem this and other evils, with which the country is labour-
 
 GRASMERE. 221 
 
 ing ; and it is on this account alone that I have taken the 
 liberty of thus addressing you. 
 
 " Wishing earnestly that the time may come when the 
 country may perceive what it has lost by neglecting your 
 advice, and hoping that your latter days may be attended 
 with health and comfort, I remain, with the highest respect 
 and admiration, &c., &c. W. Words woeth." 
 
 The remarks of two of Wordsworth's friends and contem- 
 poraries (Coleridge and Lamb) on the publication of the 
 second volume of The Lyrical Ballads, may be quoted as a 
 sequel to this letter to Mr Fox. 
 
 A sentence or two, however, as to Coleridge's movements 
 must precede the extracts from his letters. 
 
 Coleridge came down to Keswick early in May 1801. 
 He settled in Greta Hall more than two years before 
 Southey's arrival there. Southey did not come down till 
 July 1803; but it was at his urgent entreaty that Coleridge 
 went to live at Keswick. Southey wrote to him from Bristol 
 (April 13, 1801), and it was the prospect of the society 
 of Wordsworth, not far off, that was the cliief inducement he 
 put before him.* In July 1801 we find Southey writing 
 again from Bristol to Coleridge at Greta Hall, " I feel here 
 as a stranger ; somewhat of Leonard's feeling. God bless 
 Wordsworth for that poem." t 
 
 The following extracts from letters of Coleridge to Godwin, 
 and to Sir Humphrey Davy, cast light on Wordsworth's work, 
 at this time. The one dated October 9, 1800, is specially 
 interesting, as indicating Coleridge's idea of Christahel, his 
 appreciation of Wordsworth, his modesty in reference to The 
 Lyrical Ballads, the original intention of the two men to 
 print Christahel and The Excursion (or a part of tlie latter) 
 
 * Lift and Corrcupondance oj South y, vol. ii., p. 178. 
 
 t Ibid., vol. ii. 150; compare Wordsworth's poem, The Brothers.
 
 222 LIFE OF W0RD8W0RTH. 
 
 in a volume by themselves, as well as Coleridge's apprecia- 
 tion of Buth, and of the lyric, Three years she grew in sun 
 and shower. This letter has also a special interest, in its 
 relation to "Wordsworth's work, from the condemnation 
 which Coleridge afterwards passed on him for writing short 
 pieces instead of devoting himself to The Recluse as the work 
 of his life. 
 
 Writing to William Godwin on May 21, 1800, Coleridge 
 said : 
 
 "... If I settle at Keswick, Davy will be with me in 
 the fall of the year, and so must you. And let me tell you 
 Godwin, four such men — as you, I, Davy, and Wordsworth — 
 do not meet together in one house every day of the year. I 
 mean, four men so distinct, with so many sympathies. ..." 
 
 Again, on Sept. 11, 1800: " . . . Here, too, you will 
 meet with Wordsworth, ' the latchet of whose shoe I am 
 unworthy to unloose ; ' and five miles from Wordsworth 
 Charles Lloyd has taken a house." 
 
 Again, 
 
 " Keswick, Friday Evening, July 25, 1800. 
 
 "... Wordsworth is such a lazy fellow, that I bemire 
 myself by making promises for him. The moment I received 
 your letter, I wrote to him. He will, I hope, write 
 immediately to Biggs and Cottle. At all events, those poems 
 must not as yet be delivered up to them, because that 
 heautiful poem, ' The Brothers,' which I read to you in Paul 
 Street, I neglected to deliver to you, and that must begin 
 the volume. I trust, however, that I have invoked the 
 sleeping bard with a spell so potent, that he will awake and 
 deliver up that sword of Argantyr, which is to rive the en- 
 chanted Gaudy verse from his crown to his foot. . . . 
 
 S. T. Coleridge." * 
 
 * Fragmentary Bemains of Sir Humphrerj Davy, Bart. Edited by John 
 Davy, M.D. Pp. 77, 78.
 
 GRASMEKE. 223 
 
 Again, 
 
 " Thursday Night, October 9, 1800. 
 
 "... As to myself, I am doing little worthy the rela- 
 tion. I write for Stuart in the Morning Post, and I am 
 compelled by the god Pecunia, which was one name of the 
 supreme Jupiter, to give a volume of letters from Germany, 
 which will be a decent lounge book, and not an atom more. 
 The ' Christabel ' was running up to 1 ,3 lines, and was so 
 much admired by Wordsworth, that he thought it indelicate 
 to print two volumes with his name, in whicli so much of 
 another man's was included ; and which was of more con- 
 sequence, the poem was in direct opposition to the very 
 purpose for which the Lyrical Bcdlads were published, viz., 
 an experiment to see how far those passions which alone 
 give any value to extraordinary incidents were capal:)le of 
 interesting in and for themselves in the incidents of common 
 life. We mean to publish the Christabel, therefore, with a 
 long blank verse poem of Wordsworth's, entitled The 
 Pedlar. I assure you I think very differently of Christabel. 
 I would rather have written ' Euth ' and ' Nature's Lady ' 
 than a million such poems. By why do I calumniate my 
 own spirit, by saying T would rather ? God knows it is as 
 delightful to me that they are written. I hioio that at 
 present, and I hojje that it unll be so ; my mind has dis- 
 ciplined itself into a willing exertion of its powers, witliout 
 any reference to their comparative value. . . . 
 
 " Wordsworth is fearful you have been much tcazed by 
 the printers on his account, but you can symjiathise witli 
 him. . . . Fronting our house the Greta runs into the 
 Derwent. . . . Greta, or rather Grieta, is exactly the 
 Cocytus of the Greeks ; the word, literally rendered in 
 modern English, is, ' Tlie loud Lamenter ; ' to griet, in the 
 Cambrian dialect, signifying to roar aloud for grief or pain,
 
 224 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 and it does roar with a vengeance ! . . . God bless you ! 
 — Your most affectionate, S. T. Coleridge." * 
 
 Again, 
 
 "Greta Hall, Tuesday Night, December 2, 1800. 
 
 "... Wordsworth has nearly finished the concluding 
 poem. It is of a mild, uuimposing character, but full of 
 beauties to those short-necked men who have their hearts 
 sufficiently near their heads — the relative distance of which 
 (according to citizen Tourder, the French translator of 
 Spallanzani) determmes the sagacity or stupidity of all 
 bipeds or quadrupeds. 
 
 " There is a deep blue cloud over the heavens ; the lake, 
 and the vales, and the mountains, are all in darkness ; only 
 the summits of all the mountains in long ridges, covered 
 with snow, are bright to a dazzling excess. A glorious 
 scene ! . . . God love you 1 S. T. CoLEraDGE." t 
 
 On the 25th March 1801, Coleridge wrote thus to 
 William Godwin : — t 
 
 " Have you seen the second volume of the ' Lyrical 
 Ballads,' and the preface prefixed to the first ? I should 
 judge of a man's heart and intellect, precisely according to 
 the degree and intensity of the admiration with which he 
 read these poems. Perhaps instead of heart, I should have 
 said taste, but when I think of TJic Brothers, of Huth, and of 
 Michael, I recur to the expression, and am enforced to say 
 heart. If I die, and the booksellers will give you anything 
 for my life, be sure to say ; ' Wordsworth descended on him 
 like the Tvudi aavrov from heaven, by showing to him what 
 true poetry was, he made him know that he himself was no 
 Poet.' " 
 
 * Fragmentary Remaim of Sir Humphrey Davy, Bart. Edited by John 
 Davy, M.D. Pp. 81-8.3. 
 
 t Ibid., p. 85. 
 
 X William Godwin: his fnends and contemporaries. By C. Kegan PauL 
 VoL ii., p. 79.
 
 GRASMERE. 225 
 
 The followina- is the fraoment of a letter from Charles 
 Lamb — (part being lost), — on the reappearance of the 
 Ballads, in two volumes. Lamb's inaccuracy, in quoting 
 the poems by titles of his own, is characteristic. 
 
 "Thanks for your letter, and present. I had already 
 borrowed your second volume. What most please me are, 
 ' The Song of Lucy ; ' Simon's sicJdi/ daughter, in ' The 
 Sexton,' made me cri/. Next to these are the description of 
 the continuous echoes, in the story of 'Joanna's Laugh,' 
 where the mountains, and all the scenery absolutely seem 
 alive ; and that fine Skakespearian character of the ' happy 
 man,' in the ' Brothers.* I will mention one more^ — the 
 delicate and curious feeling in the wish for the ' Cumber- 
 land Beggar,' that he may have about him the melody of 
 birds, although he hear them not. Here the mind knowingly 
 passes a fiction upon herself, first substituting her own 
 feelings for the Beggar's ; and, in the same breath detecting 
 the fallacy, will not part with the wish. The 'Poet's 
 Epitaph ' is disfigured, to my taste, by the common satire 
 upon parsons and lawyers in the beginning, and the coarse 
 epithet of ' pinpoint,' in the sixth stanza. All the rest is 
 eminently good, and your own. I will just add that it 
 appears to me a fault in the ' Beggar,' that the instructions 
 conveyed in it are too direct, and like a lecture : they don't 
 slide into the mind of the reader while he is imamnina" no 
 such matter. An intelligent reader finds a sort of insult in 
 being told, ' I will teach you liow to tliink upon this 
 subject.' This fault, if I am right, is in a ten-thousandth 
 worse degree to be found in Sterne, and very many 
 novelists and modern poets, who continually put a sign-post 
 up to show where you are to feel. They set out with 
 assuming their readers to be stupid ; very different from 
 ' Robinson Crusoe,' the ' Vicar of Wakefield,' ' Ptoderick 
 Eandom,' and other beautiful bare narratives. There is 
 IX. P
 
 226 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 implied tin unwritten compact between author and reader : 
 ' I will tell you a story, and I suppose you will understand 
 it.' Modern novels, ' St Leon ' and the like, are full of such 
 flowers as these — ' Let not my reader suppose,' ' Imagine, if 
 you can, &c.' Modest ! I will here have done with praise 
 and blame. I have written so much, only that you may 
 not think I have passed over your book without observa- 
 tion. ... I am sorry that Coleridge has christened his 
 ' Ancient Mariner ' ' a Poet's Reverie.' It is as bad as 
 Bottom the Weaver's declaration that he is not a lion, but 
 only the scenical representation of a lion. What new idea 
 is gained by his title but one subversive of all credit — which 
 the tale should force upon us, — of its truth ? 
 
 " For me, I was never so affected with any human tale. 
 After first reading it, I was totally possessed with it for 
 many days. I dislike all the miraculous part of it, but the 
 feeling of the man under the operation of such scenery, 
 dragged me along like Tom Pipes's magic whistle. I totally 
 differ from the idea that the ' Mariner ' should have had a 
 character and profession. This is a beauty in ' Gulliver's 
 Travels,' where the mind is kept in a placid state of little 
 wonderments ; but the ' Ancient Mariner ' undergoes such 
 trials, as overwhelm and bury all individuality, or memory of 
 what he was — like the state of a man in a bad dream, one 
 terrible peculiarity of which is, that all consciousness of per- 
 sonality is gone. Your other observation is, I think as well, 
 a little unfounded ; the ' Mariner,' from being conversant in 
 supernatural events, has acquired a super-nature and strange 
 cast of phrase, eye, appearance, &c., which frighten the 
 ' wedding-guest.' You will excuse my remarks, because I 
 am hurt and vexed that you should think it necessary, 
 with a prose apology, to open the eyes of dead men that 
 cannot see. 
 
 " To sum up a general opinion of the second volume, I do
 
 GRASMEKE. 227 
 
 not feel any one poem in it so forcibly as the 'Ancient 
 Mariner/ the ' Mad Mother,' and the ' Lines at Tintern 
 Abbey,' in the first." ■^' 
 
 Wordsworth had written to Lamb in 1800, asking him to 
 buy him some copies of the old English dramatists, and 
 Lamb's very characteristic reply will be found among his 
 letters, edited by Sergeant Talfourd (vol. i., pp. 170-173). 
 A subsequent letter, in answer to Wordsworth's invitation to 
 his friend to visit him in Cumberland, may be quoted, as 
 it casts much light on the relationship and the differences 
 between the two men. 
 
 " I ought before this to have replied to your very kind 
 invitation into Cumberland. With you and your sister I 
 could gang anywhere ; but I am afraid whether I shall ever 
 be able to afford so desperate a journey. Separate from the 
 pleasure of your company, I don't now care if I never see a 
 mountain in my life. I have passed all my days in Lon- 
 don, until I have formed as many and intense local attach- 
 ments, as any of you mountaineers can have done with dead 
 nature. The lighted shops of the Strand and Fleet Street, 
 the innumerable trades, tradesmen, and customers, coaches, 
 waggons, playhouses ; all the bustle and wickedness round 
 about Covent Garden ; the watchmen, drunken scenes, 
 rattles ; — life awake, if you awake, at all hours of the night ; 
 the impossibility of being dull in Fleet Street ; the crowds, 
 the very dirt and mud, the sun shining upon houses and 
 pavements, the print-shops, the old book-stalls, parsons 
 cheapening books, coffee-houses, steams of soups from 
 kitchens, the pantomimes — London itself a pantomime and a 
 masquerade — all these things work themselves into my 
 mind, and feed me without a power of satiating me. The 
 wonder of these sights impels me into night-walks about her 
 
 * Fijial Memoriah of Charles Lamb. By Thomas Noon Talfourd. Vol. 
 i., pp. 144-147.
 
 228 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 crowded streets, and I often shed tears in the motley Strand 
 from fuhiess of joy at so much life. All these emotions 
 must be strange to you ; so are your rural emotions to me. 
 But consider what must I have been doing all my life, not 
 to have lent great portions of my heart with usury to such 
 scenes ? 
 
 " My attachments are all local, purely local. I have no 
 passion (or have had none since I was in love, and then it 
 was the spurious engendering of poetry and books) to groves 
 and valleys. The rooms where I was born, the furniture 
 which has been before my eyes all my life, a book-case 
 which has followed me about like a faithful dog (only ex- 
 ceeding him in knowledge) wherever I have moved, — old 
 chairs, old tables, streets, squares, where I have sunned 
 myself, my old school, — these are my mistresses — have I 
 not enough without your mountains ? I do not envy you. 
 I should pity you did I not know that the mind will make 
 friends of anything. Your sun, and moon, and skies, and 
 hills, and lakes, affect me no more, or scarcely come to me 
 in more venerable characters, than as a gilded room with 
 tapestry and tapers, where I might live with handsome 
 visible objects. I consider the clouds above me but as a 
 roof beautifully painted, but unable to satisfy the mind ; and 
 at last, like the pictures of the apartment of a connoisseur, 
 unable to afford him any longer a pleasure. So fading upon 
 me, from disuse, have been the beauties of Nature, as they 
 have been confinedly called ; so ever fresh, and green, and 
 warm are all the inventions of men, and assemblies of men 
 in this great city. I should certainly have laughed with 
 dear Joanna.* 
 
 * Alluding to the "Poem on the Xaming of Places" called Joanna, ami 
 the effect of the echo of her laughter amongst the mountains.
 
 GRASMERE. 
 
 229 
 
 " Give my kindest love, and my sister's, to D. and your- 
 self. And a kiss from me to little Barbara Lewthwaite.* 
 Thank you for liking my play !t C. L." 
 
 With all the charms of Grasmere and Eydal, it will be 
 seen, from a letter which Coleridge sent to Humphrey Davy 
 in 1801, that "Wordsworth at least entertained the idea of 
 migrating across to Keswick ; and the reason Coleridge 
 gives is worthy of note. William Calvert (Eaisley's brother) 
 had an ardent desire to begin the study of chemistry, along 
 with Wordsworth and Coleridge, and offered the former his 
 house at Windy Brow, Keswick (in which Wordsworth had 
 stayed in 1794) ; and Coleridge tells Davy that Wordsworth 
 felt his acceptance of the offer would not only bring him 
 nearer to Greta Hall, but would enable him to " have an 
 intellectual pursuit less closely connected with deep passion 
 than poetry." This points to the wearing out of nervous 
 energy, by exclusive devotion to his poetic work, of which 
 we have so many evidences in his sister's Journal. 
 
 The following is Coleridge's letter to Davy : — 
 
 February 3, 1801. J 
 
 "... A gentleman resident here, his name Calvert, an 
 idle, good-hearted, and ingenious man, has a great desire to 
 commence fellow-student with me and Wordsworth in 
 Chemistry. He is an intimate friend of Wordsworth's, and 
 he has proposed to W. to take a house which he (Calvert) 
 has nearly built, called Windy Brow, in a delicious situa- 
 tion, scarce half a mile from Greta Hall, the residency of 
 S. T. Coleridge, Esq., and so for him (Calvert) to live with 
 
 * See llie poem, The Pet Lamb. 
 
 t The Letters o/Charle-s Lamb. Hy Thomas Koon Talfoiiid, vol. i., pp. 
 212-215. 
 
 :;: See the Frafjmentmvj Jiemaiiix of Sir Ilnnq/hrcy Danj, Bl. Ed. by JhIjh 
 Divy, M.D., pp. 8G, S7.
 
 -•''0 LIFE OF WOKDSWORTH. 
 
 them, i.e., Wordsworth and his sister. In this case he 
 means to build a little laboratory, &c. Wordsworth has 
 not quite decided, but is strongly inclined to adopt the 
 scheme, because he and his sister have before lived with 
 Calvert on the same footing, and are much attached to him : 
 because my health is so precarious, and so much injured by 
 wet, and his health, too, is like little potatoes, no great 
 things, and therefore Grasmere (thirteen miles from Kes- 
 wick) is too great a distance for us to enjoy each other's 
 society, without inconvenience, as mucli as it would be pro- 
 fitable for us both : and likewise because he feels it more 
 necessary for him to have some intellectual pursuit less closely 
 connected with deep passion than poetry, and is of course 
 desirous, too, not to be so wholly ignorant of knowledge so 
 exceedingly important. However, whether Wordsworth come 
 or no, Calvert and I have determined to begin and go on. 
 Calvert is a man of sense and some originality, and is, 
 besides, what is well called a handy man. He is a good 
 practical mechanic, &c., and is desirous to lay out any sum 
 of money that is necessary. . . . — God bless you, my dear 
 Davy ! and your ever affectionate friend, 
 
 S. T. Coleridge."
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE RECLUSE. 
 
 The unpublished canto of Wordsworth's autobiographical 
 poem will fitly precede any extracts from the Journals of 
 1800 and subsequent years, as it is the Poet's own record 
 of his " Home at Grasmere." 
 
 The introduction to Tlie Becluse was not only kept back 
 by him during his lifetime, but was omitted by his repre- 
 sentatives — with what must be regarded as true critical 
 insight — when The Prelude was published in 1850. As a 
 whole, it is not equal to The Prelude ; certain passages are 
 very inferior, but there are others that posterity will cherish, 
 and cannot willingly let die. It was probably a conviction 
 of its inequality and inferiority that led Wordsworth to give 
 selected extracts from this canto to the world in his own 
 lifetime. Two passages were given in his Guide to the District 
 of the Lakes ; another — a description of the flight and move- 
 ment of birds — was published in 1827, and subsequent 
 editions, under the title of Water Foivl ; while the Bishop 
 of Lincoln published other two passages in the Memoirs of 
 his uncle, beginning respectively — • 
 
 " On Nature's invitation do I come," 
 and 
 
 " Bleak season was it, turbulent and wild." 
 
 Although these five short passages have been already 
 printed in this edition, it will be better now to reproduce 
 the whole of the as yet unpul)lished canto as it stands, than 
 to mutilate it by omitting a few lines already familiar to 
 the readers of Wordsworth. Future editors may find it 
 desirable to make " selections " from this canto, but in this
 
 232 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 edition the " Home at Grasmere " will stand nntouclied, and 
 without comment. The MS. heading is — 
 
 THE EECLUSE. Book Fikst, Part Eikst. 
 
 HOME AT GRASMERE. 
 
 Once to the verge of yon steep barrier came 
 
 A roving school-hoy ; what the Adventurer's age 
 
 Hath now escaped his memory — but the hour, 
 
 One of a golden summer holiday, 
 
 He well remembers, though the year be gone. 
 
 Alone and devious from afar he came ; 
 
 And, with a sudden influx overpowered 
 
 At sight of this seclusion, he forgot 
 
 His haste, for hasty had his footsteps been 
 
 As boyish his pursuits ; and, sighing said, 
 
 " "Wliat happy fortune were it here to live ! 
 
 And, (if a thought of dying, if a thought 
 
 Of mortal separation, could intrude 
 
 AVith paradise before him), here to die ! " 
 
 Xo prophet was he, had not even a hoj^e. 
 
 Scarcely a wish, but one bright pleasing thought, 
 
 A fancy in the heart of what might be 
 
 The lot of others, never could be his. 
 
 The station whence he looked was soft and green, 
 Not giddy yet aerial, with a depth 
 Of vale below, a height of hills above. 
 For rest of body, perfect was the spot. 
 All that luxurious nature could desire. 
 But stirring to the spirit. Who could gaze 
 And not feel motions there ? He thought of clouds 
 That sail on winds, of breezes that delight 
 To play on water, or in endless chase 
 Pursue each other through the yielding plain
 
 THE RECLUSE. 23) 
 
 Of grass or corn, over and through and through, 
 In billow after billow, evermore 
 Disporting. Nor unmindful was the Boy 
 Of sunbeams, shadows, butterflies and birds, 
 Of fluttering Sylphs, and softly-gliding Fays, 
 Genii, and winged Angels that are Lords 
 Without restraint of all which they behold. 
 The illusion strengthening as he gazed, he felt 
 That such unfettered liberty was his, 
 Such power and joy ; but only for this end, 
 To flit from field to rock, from rock to field, 
 From shore to island, and from isle to shore, 
 From open ground to covert, from a bed 
 Of meadow-flowers into a tuft of wood, 
 From high to low, from low to high, yet still 
 "VVithin the bound of this high concave ; here 
 Must be his home, this Valley be his world. 
 
 Since that day forth the place to him — to ms 
 (For I who live to register the truth 
 Was that same young and happy being) became 
 As beautiful to thought, as it had been, 
 "When present, to the bodily sense ; a haunt 
 Of pure affections, shedding upon joy 
 A brighter joy ; and through such damp and gloom 
 Of the gay mind, as ofttimes splenetic youth 
 Mistakes for sorrow darting beams of light 
 That no self-cherished sadness could withstand : 
 And now 'tis mine, perchance for life, dear Yale, 
 Beloved Grasmere (let tlie Wandering Streams 
 Take up, the cloud-capped hills repeat, the Name), 
 One of tliy lowly dwellings is my Home. 
 
 And was the cost so great ? and could it seem 
 An act of courage, and the thing itself 
 A conquest ? who must bear the blame ? sage man
 
 234 LIFE or WORDSWOETH. 
 
 Tliy prudence, thy experience — thy desires ; 
 Thy apprehensions — Lkish thou for them all. 
 
 Yes, the realities of life so cold, 
 So cowardly, so ready to betray, 
 So stinted in the measure of their grace 
 As we pronounce them, doing them much wrong, 
 Have been to me more bountiful than hope, 
 Less timid than desire — but that is passed. 
 
 On Nature's invitation do I come, 
 By reason sanctioned — Can the choice mislead. 
 That made the calmest fairest spot of earth, 
 With all its unappropriated good. 
 My own ; and not mine only, for with me 
 Entrenched, say rather peacefully embowered, 
 Under yon orchard, in yon humble cot, 
 A younger orphan of a home extinct. 
 The only daughter of my parents, dwells. 
 
 Aye, think on that, my heart, and cease to stir. 
 Pause upon that, and let the breathing frame 
 No longer breathe, but all be satisfied. 
 Oh if such silence be not thanks to God 
 For what hath been bestowed, then where, where then 
 Shall gratitude find rest ? Mine eyes did ne'er 
 Fix on a lovely object, nor my mind 
 Take pleasure in the midst of happy thoughts, 
 But either She whom now I have, who now 
 Divides with me this loved abode, was there. 
 Or not far off. "Where'er my footsteps turned, 
 Her Voice was like a hidden Bird that sang. 
 The thought of her was like a flash of light. 
 Or an unseen companionship, a breath. 
 Or fragrance independent of the wind. 
 In all my goings, in the new and old 
 Of all my meditations, and in this
 
 THE lIEt'LUSK. 235 
 
 Favourite of all, in this the most of all. 
 
 — What Being, therefore, since the birth of man 
 
 Had ever more abundant cause to speak 
 
 Thanks, and if favours of the heavenly Muse 
 
 ]\Iake him more tliankful, then to call on verse 
 
 To aid him, and in Song resound his joy. 
 
 The boon is absolute ; surpassing grace 
 
 To me hath been vouchsafed ; among the bowers 
 
 Of blissful Eden this was neither given, 
 
 Xor could be given, possession of the good 
 
 AVliich had been sighed for, ancient thought fulfilled 
 
 And dear Imaginations realized 
 
 Up to their highest measure, yea and more. 
 
 Embrace me then ye Hills, and close me in, 
 Now in the clear and open day I feel 
 Your guardianship ; I take it to my heart ; 
 'Tis like the solemn shelter of the night. 
 But I would call thee beautiful, for mild 
 And soft, and gay, and beautiful thou art. 
 Dear Valley, having in thy face a smile 
 Though peaceful, full of gladness. Thou art pleased, 
 Pleased with thy crags, and woody steeps, thy Lake, 
 Its one green Island and its winding shores ; 
 The multitude of little rocky hills. 
 Thy Church and cottages of mountain stone 
 Clustered like stars some few, but single most, 
 And lurking dindy in llieir shy retreats. 
 Or glancing at each <jther cheerful looks. 
 Like separated stars witli clouds between. 
 What want we ? liave we not perpetual streams. 
 Warm woods, and sunny hills, and fresh green fields, 
 And mountains not less green, and flocks, and lierds, 
 And thickets full of songsters, and the voice 
 Of lordly birds, an unexpected sound
 
 236 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Heard now and then from morn till latest eve, 
 
 Admonishing the man who walks below 
 
 Of solitude, and silence in the sky. 
 
 These have we, and a thousand nooks of earth 
 
 Have also these, but no where else is found 
 
 Xo where (or is it fancy) can be found 
 
 The one sensation that is here ; 'tis here, 
 
 Here as it found its way into my heart 
 
 In childhood, here as it abides by day, 
 
 By night, here only ; or in chosen minds 
 
 That take it with them hence, where'er they go. 
 
 'Tis, but I cannot name it, 'tis the sense 
 
 Of majesty, and beauty, and repose, 
 
 A blended holiness of earth and sky, 
 
 Sometliing that makes this individual Spot, 
 
 This small abiding-place of many men, 
 
 A termination, and a last retreat, 
 
 A centre come from wheresoe'er you will, 
 
 A whole without dependence or defect, 
 
 Made for itself ; and happy in itself, 
 
 Perfect contentment, unity entire. 
 
 Bleak season was it, turbulent and wild. 
 When hitherward we journeyed, side by side, 
 Through bursts of sunshine and through flying showers, 
 Paced the long Vales — how long they were — and yet 
 How fast that length of way was left beliind, 
 Wensley's rich Vale and Sedbergh's naked heights. 
 The frosty wind, as if to make amends 
 For its keen breath, was aiding to our steps. 
 And drove us onward like two ships at sea, 
 Or like two birds, companions in mid air, 
 Parted and re-united by the blast. 
 Stern was the face of Nature. "VVe rejoiced 
 In that stern coimtenance, for our souls thence drew
 
 THE RECLUSE. 237 
 
 A feeling of their strength. The naked trees, 
 
 The icy brooks, as on we passed, appeared 
 
 To question us, " Whence come ye ? to what end ? " 
 
 They seemed to say. " What would ye," said the shower, 
 
 " Wild wanderers, whither through my dark domain ?" 
 
 The sunbeam said, " Be happy." When this Yale 
 
 We entered, bright and solemn was the sky 
 
 That faced us with a passionate welcoming, 
 
 And led us to our threshold. Daylight failed 
 
 Insensibly, and round us gently fell 
 
 Composing darkness, with a quiet load 
 
 Of full contentment, in a little shed 
 
 Disturbed, uneasy in itself as seemed. 
 
 And wondering at its new inhabitants. 
 
 It loves us now, this Vale so beautiful 
 
 Begins to love us ! By a sullen storm, 
 
 Two months unwearied of severest storm, 
 
 It put the temper of our minds to proof, 
 
 And found us faithful througli the gloom, and heard 
 
 The Poet mutter his prelusive songs 
 
 With cheerful heart, an unknown voice 
 
 Among the silence of the woods and hills ; 
 
 Silent to any gladsomeness of sound 
 
 AVith all their Shepherds. 
 
 But the gates of Spring- 
 Are opened. Churlish Winter hath given leave 
 That she should entertain for this one day. 
 Perhaps for many genial days to come. 
 His guests, and make them jocund. They arc pleased, 
 (But most of all the Birds that haunt the flood), 
 With the mild summons ; iiniiates tliough tliey be 
 Of winter's household, they keep festival 
 This day, who drooped, or seemed to droop, so long ; 
 They shew their pleasure, and shall I do less ?
 
 238 LIFE OF WOEDSWOKTH. 
 
 Happiest of liappj though I l)e, like them 
 
 I cannot take possession of the sky, 
 
 Mount with a thoughtless impulse, and wheel there, 
 
 One of a luighty multitude, whose way 
 
 Is a perpetual harmony, and dance 
 
 Magnificent. Behold, how with a grace 
 
 Of ceaseless motion, that might scarcely seem 
 
 Inferior to angelical, they prolong 
 
 Their curious pastime, shaping in mid air. 
 
 And sometimes with ambitious wing that soars 
 
 High as the le\'el of the mountain tops, 
 
 A circuit ampler than the lake beneath. 
 
 Their own domain ; but ever, while intent 
 
 On tracing and retracing that large round. 
 
 Their jubilant activity evolves 
 
 Hundreds of curves and circlets, to and fro. 
 
 Upward and downward, progress intricate 
 
 Yet imperplexed, as if one spirit swayed 
 
 Their mdefatigable flight. 'Tis done — 
 
 Ten times, or more, I fancied it had ceased ; 
 
 But lo ! the vanished company again 
 
 Ascending, they approach — I hear their wings 
 
 Faint, faint at first ; and then an eager sound 
 
 Passed in a moment — and as faint again ! 
 
 They tempt the sun to sport among their plumes ; 
 
 Tempt the smooth water, or the gleaming ice. 
 
 To show them a fair image ; 'tis themselves, 
 
 Their own fair forms, upon the glimmering plain, 
 
 Painted more soft and fair as they descend, 
 
 Almost to touch ; — then up again aloft, 
 
 Up with a sally, and a flash of speed. 
 
 As if they scorned both resting-place and rest ! * 
 
 This day is a thanksgiving, 'tis a day 
 
 * The last twenty-six lines were publisheti under the title Water Fowl, 
 in the edition of IS"27.
 
 THE RECLUSE. 23G 
 
 Of glad emotion and deep quietness ; 
 
 Not upon me alone hath been bestowed, 
 
 Me rich in many onward-looking thoughts, 
 
 The penetrating bliss, oh surely these 
 
 Have felt it, not the happy Quires of Spring, 
 
 Her own peculiar family of love 
 
 That sport among green leaves, a blither train. 
 
 But two are missing — two, a lonely pair 
 Of milk-white Swans, wherefore are tlici/ not seen 
 Partaking this day's pleasure ? From afar 
 They came to sojourn here in solitude. 
 Choosing this Valley, they wdio had the choice 
 Of the whole world, "We saw them day by day, 
 Through these two months of unrelenting storm. 
 Conspicuous at the centre of the Lake, 
 Their safe retreat. We knew them well, I guess 
 That the whole Valley knew them ; but to us 
 They were more dear than may be well believed, 
 Not only for their beauty, and their still 
 And placid way of life, and constant love 
 Inseparable, not for these alone, 
 But that tJteir state so much resembled ours. 
 They having also chosen this abode ; 
 They strangers, and we strangers ; they a pair, 
 And we a solitary pair like them. 
 They should not have departed ; many days 
 Did I look forth in vain, nor on the wing 
 Could see them, nor in that small open space 
 Of blue unfrozen water, wliere they lodged, 
 And lived so long in (piiet, side Ijy side. 
 Shall we behold them, consecrated friends, 
 Faithful companions, yet another year 
 Surviving — they for us, and we for them — 
 And neither pair be broken ? Xay perchance
 
 240 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 It is too late already for such hope, 
 
 The Dalesmen may have aimed the deadly tube, 
 
 And parted them ; or haply both are gone 
 
 One death, and that were mercy given to both. 
 
 Eecal my song the ungenerous thought; forgive, 
 
 Thrice favoured Region, the conjecture harsh 
 
 Of such inhospitable penalty, 
 
 Inflicted upon confidence so pure. 
 
 Ah, if I wished to follow where the sight 
 
 Of all that is before mine eyes, the voice 
 
 Wliich speaks of a presiding Spirit here. 
 
 Would lead me, I should whisper to myself. 
 
 They who are dwellers in this holy place 
 
 Must needs themselves be hallowed, they require 
 
 Xo benediction from the stranger's lips, 
 
 For they are blest already. None would give 
 
 The greeting " peace be with you " unto them, 
 
 For peace they have, it cannot but be theirs, 
 
 And mercy, and forbearance ; nay, with these. 
 
 Their healing offices a pure goodwill 
 
 Preludes, and charity beyond the bounds 
 
 Of charity — an overflowing love, 
 
 Not for the creature only, but for all 
 
 That is around them, love for every thing 
 
 AVliich in this happy region they behold ! 
 
 Thus do we soothe ourselves, and when the thought 
 Is past we blame it not for having come. 
 What, if I floated down a pleasant Stream 
 And now am landed, and the motion gone. 
 Shall I reprove myself ? Ah no, the stream 
 Is flowing, and will never cease to flow. 
 And I shall float upon that stream again. 
 By such forgetfulness the soul becomes, 
 Words cannot say, how beautiful. Then hail.
 
 THE RECLUSE. 241 
 
 Hail to the visible Presence, liail to thee, 
 Delightful Valley, habitation fair ! 
 And to whatever else of outward form 
 Can give us inward help, can purify. 
 And elevate, and harmonise, and soothe. 
 And steal away, and for a while deceive 
 And lap in pleasing rest, and bear us on 
 Without desire in full complacency. 
 Contemplating perfection absolute 
 And entertained as in a placid sleep. 
 
 But not betrayed by tenderness of mind 
 That feared, or wholly overlooked the truth. 
 Did we come hither, with romantic hope 
 To find, in midst of so much loveliness, 
 Love, perfect love ; of so much majesty 
 A like majestic frame of mind in those 
 Who here abide, the persons like the place. 
 Not from such hope, or aught of such belief 
 Hath issued any portion of the joy 
 Which I have felt this day. An awful voice, 
 'Tis true, hath in my walks been often heard. 
 Sent from the mountains or the sheltered fields ; 
 Shout after shout — reiterated wlioop 
 In manner of a bird that takes delight 
 In answering to itself ; or like a hound 
 Single at chase among the lonely woods, 
 His yell repeating ; yet it was in truth 
 A human voice — a Spirit of coming niglit. 
 How solemn when the sky is dark, and cartli 
 Xot dark, nor yet enlightened, but by snow 
 Made visible, amid a ii(»isc of winds 
 And bleatings manifold of mountain sheep. 
 Which in that iteration recognise 
 Their .summons, and are gathering round for food, 
 
 IX. Q
 
 242 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Devoured with keenness e'er to grove or bank 
 Or rocky hicld with patience they retire. 
 
 That very voice, which, in some timid mood 
 • Of superstitious fancy, might have seemed 
 Awful as ever stray Demoniac uttered. 
 His steps to govern in the Wilderness ; 
 Or as the Norman Curfew's regular beat, 
 To hearths when first they darkened at the knell : 
 That Shepherd's voice, it may have reached mine ear 
 Debased and under profanation, made 
 The ready Organ of articulate sounds 
 From ribaldry, impiety, or wrath 
 Issuing when shame hath ceased to check the brawls 
 Of some abused Festivity — so be it. 
 I came not dreaming of unruftied life. 
 Untainted manners ; born among the hills, 
 Bred also there, I wanted not a scale 
 To regulate my ho2)es. Pleased with the good, 
 I shrink not from the evil with disgust. 
 Or with immoderate pain. I look for Man, 
 The common creature of the brotherhood, 
 Differing but little from the Man elsewhere. 
 For selfishness, and envy, and revenge, 
 111 neighbourhood — pity that this should be — 
 Flattery and double dealing, strife and wrong. 
 
 Yet is it something gained, it is in truth 
 A mighty gain, that Labour here preserves 
 His rosy face, a servant only here 
 Of the fire-side, or of the open field, 
 A freeman, therefore, sound and unimpaired ; 
 That extreme penury is here unknown, 
 And cold and hunger's abject wretchedness. 
 Mortal to body, and the heaven-born mind ; 
 That they who want, are not too great a weight
 
 THE RECLUSE. 2 4.3 
 
 For those who can relieve. Here may the heart 
 
 Breathe in the air of fellow-suffering 
 
 Dreadless, as in a kind of fresher breeze 
 
 Of her own native element, the hand 
 
 Be ready and unwearied without plea 
 
 From tasks too frequent, or beyond its power 
 
 For languor, or indifference, or despair. 
 
 And as these lofty barriers break the force 
 
 Of winds, this deep Vale, — as it doth in part 
 
 Conceal us from the storm, — so here abides 
 
 A power and a protection for the mind, 
 
 Dispensed indeed to other solitudes, 
 
 Favoured by noble privilege like this. 
 
 Where kindred independence of estate 
 
 Is prevalent, where he who tills the field, 
 
 He, happy man ! is master of the field. 
 
 And treads the mountain which his fathers trod. 
 
 Not less than half way up yon Mountain's side 
 Behold a dusky spot, a grove of Firs, 
 That seems still smaller than it is. This grove 
 Is haunted — by what ghost ? a gentle spirit 
 Of memory faithful to the call of love ; 
 For, as reports the dame, whose fire sends up 
 Yon curling smoke from the grey cot below, 
 The trees (her first-born cliild being then a babe) 
 Were planted by her husband and herself, 
 That ranging o'er tlie high and liouseless ground 
 Their sheep might neither want, (from perilous storms 
 Of winter, nor from summer's sultry heat), 
 A friendly covert. " And they knew it well," 
 Said slie, "for thither us tlie trees grew up, 
 We to the patient creatures carried food 
 In times of licavy snow." She then began 
 In fond obedience to her private thoughts
 
 244 LIFE OF AYORDSWORTH. 
 
 To speak of her dead husband. Is there not 
 An art, a music, and a strain of words 
 That shall be like the acknowledged voice of life. 
 Shall speak of what is done among the fields, 
 Done truly there, or felt, of solid good 
 And real evil, yet be sweet withal. 
 More grateful, more harmonious than the breath. 
 The idle Ijreath of softest pipe attuned 
 To pastoral fancies ? Is there such a stream, 
 Pure and unsullied, flowing from the heart 
 With motions of true dignity and grace ? 
 Or must we seek that stream where Man is not ? 
 Methinks I could repeat in tuneful verse, 
 Delicious as the gentlest breeze that sounds 
 Through that aerial fir-grove, could preserve 
 Some portion of its human history 
 As gathered from the Matron's lips, and tell 
 Of tears that have been shed at sight of it, 
 And moving dialogues between this pair, 
 "Wlio in their prime of wedlock, with joint hands 
 Did plant the grove, now flourishing, while they 
 No longer flourish, he entirely gone. 
 She withering in her loneliness. Be this 
 A task above my skill ; the silent mind 
 Has her own treasures, and I think of these, 
 Love what I see, and honour humankind. 
 No, we are not alone, we do not stand, 
 ]\Iy Sister, here misplaced and desolate. 
 Loving what no one cares for but ourselves ; 
 We shall not scatter through the plains and rocks 
 Of this fair Vale, and o'er its spacious heights 
 Unprofitable kindliness, bestowed 
 On objects unaccustomed to the gifts 
 Of feeling, which were cheerless and forlorn
 
 THE EECLUSE. 245 
 
 A few weeks past, and would be so again 
 
 Were we not here ; we do not tend a lamp 
 
 Whose lustre we alone participate, 
 
 Which shines dependent upon us alone, 
 
 Mortal though bright, a dying, dying flame. 
 
 Look where we will, some human hand has been 
 
 Before us with its offering ; not a tree 
 
 Sprinkles these little pastures but the same 
 
 Hath furnished matter for a thought ; perchance. 
 
 For some one, serves as a familiar friend. 
 
 Joy spreads, and sorrow spreads ; and this whole Vale, 
 
 Home of untutored shepherds as it is. 
 
 Swarms with sensation, as with gleams of sunshine. 
 
 Shadows or breezes, scents or sounds. Nor deem 
 
 These feelings, though subservient more than ours 
 
 To every day's demand for daily bread. 
 
 And borrowing more their spirit, and their shape 
 
 From self-respecting interests, deem them not 
 
 Unworthy therefore, and unhallowed : no, 
 
 They lift the animal being, do themselves 
 
 By Nature's kind and ever-present aid 
 
 Refine the selfishness from which they spring. 
 
 Redeem by love the individual sense 
 
 Of anxiousness with which they are combined. 
 
 And thus it is tliat fitly they become 
 
 Associates in the joy of purest minds, 
 
 They blend therewith congenially : meanwhile, 
 
 Calmly they breatbe their own undying life 
 
 Through this their mountain sanctuary. Long, 
 
 Oh long may it remain inviolaLe, 
 
 Diffusing health, and sober cheerfulness, 
 
 And giving to the moments as they pass 
 
 Their little boons of animating tliought 
 
 That sweeten labour, make it seen and frit
 
 246 LIFE OF WORDSWOETH. 
 
 To be no arbitrary weight imposed, 
 But a glad function natural to man. 
 
 Fair proof of this, newcomer though I be, 
 Already have I gained. Tlie inward frame 
 Though slowly opening, opens every day 
 With process not unlike to that which cheers 
 A pensive stranger, journeying at his leisure 
 Through some Helvetian dell, when low-hung mists 
 Break up, and are beginning to recede ; 
 How pleased he is when thin and thinner grows 
 The veil, or where it parts at once, to spy 
 The dark pines thrusting forth their spiky heads ; 
 To watch the spreading lawns with cattle grazed. 
 Then to be greeted by the scattered huts. 
 As they shine out ; and see the streams whose murmur 
 Had soothed his ear while they were hidden : how pleased 
 To have about him, which way e'er he goes. 
 Something on every side concealed from \dew, 
 In every quarter something visible. 
 Half-seen or wholly, lost and found again. 
 Alternate progress and impediment, 
 And yet a growing prospect in the main. 
 
 Such pleasure now is mine, albeit forced; 
 Herein less happy than the traveller 
 To cast from time to time a painful look 
 Upon unwelcome things, which unawares 
 Reveal themselves ; not therefore is my heart 
 Depressed, nor does it fear what is to come. 
 But confident, enriched at every glance. 
 The more I see the more delight my mind 
 Receives, or by reflexion can create. 
 Truth justifies herself, and as she dwells 
 With Hope, who would not follow where she leads. 
 
 Nor let me pass unheeded other loves
 
 THE RECLUSE. 247 
 
 Where no fear is, and Imniblier sympathies. 
 
 Already hath sprung up within my heart 
 
 A liking for the small grey horse that bears 
 
 The paralytic man, and for the brute — 
 
 In Scripture sanctified — the patient brute, 
 
 On whicli the cripple, in the quarry maimed, 
 
 Eides to and fro : I know them and their ways. 
 
 The famous sheep-dog, first in all the Vale, 
 
 Though yet to me a stranger, will not be 
 
 A stranger long ; nor will the blind man's guide. 
 
 Meek and neglected thing, of no renown ! 
 
 Soon will peep forth the primrose, ere it fades 
 
 Friends shall I have at dawn, blackbird and thrush 
 
 To rouse me, and a hundred warblers more ; 
 
 And if those eagles to their ancient hold 
 
 Eeturn, Helvellyn's eagles ! with the pair 
 
 From my own door I shall be free to claim 
 
 Acquaintance as they sweep from cloud to cloud. 
 
 The owl that gives the name to owlet-crag 
 
 Have I heard whooping, and he soon will be 
 
 A chosen one in my regard. See there 
 
 The heifer in yon little croft belongs 
 
 To one who holds it dear ; with duteous care 
 
 She reared it, and in speaking of her charge 
 
 I heard her scatter some endearing words 
 
 Domestic, and in spirit motherly 
 
 She being herself a mother, happy beast 
 
 If the caresses of a human voice 
 
 Can make it so, and care of human hands. 
 
 And ye as happy under Nature's care. 
 Strangers to me, and all men, or at least 
 Strangers to all jiarticular amity. 
 All intercourse of knowledge or of love 
 That parts the individual from his kind,
 
 248 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Whether in large communities ye keep 
 From year to year, not shunning Man's abode, 
 A settled residence, or be from far. 
 Wild creatures, and of many homes, that come 
 The gift of winds, and whom the winds again 
 Take from us at your pleasure — yet shall ye 
 Not want, for this, your own subordinate place 
 In my affections. Witness the delight 
 With which erewhile I saw that multitude 
 Wheel through the sky, and see them now at rest. 
 Yet not at rest, upon the glassy lake. 
 They cannot rest, they gambol like young whelps ; 
 Active as lambs, and overcome with joy. 
 They try all frolic motions ; flutter, plunge, 
 And beat the passive water with their wings. 
 Too distant are they for plain view, but lo ! 
 Those little fountains, sparkling in the sun, 
 Betray their occupation, rising up. 
 First one and then another silver spout, 
 As one or other takes the fit of glee, 
 Fountains and spouts, yet somewhat in the guise 
 Of play-thing fire-works, that on festal nights 
 Sparkle about the feet of wanton boys. 
 How vast the compass of this theatre, 
 ■ Yet nothing to be seen but lovely pomp 
 And silent majesty ; the birch-tree woods 
 Are hung with thousand thousand diamond drops 
 Of melted hoar-frost, every tiny knot 
 In the bare twigs, each little budding place 
 Cased with its several bead, what myriads there 
 Upon one tree, while all the distant grove 
 That rises to the summit of the steep 
 Show like a fountain built of silver light. 
 See yonder the same pageant, and again
 
 THE RECLUSE. 249 
 
 Behold the iinivtirsal imagery 
 
 Inverted, all its sun-bright features touched 
 
 As with the varnish, and the gloss of dreams ; 
 
 Dreamlike the blending also of the whole 
 
 Harmonious landscape, all along the shore 
 
 The boundary lost, the line invisible 
 
 That parts the image from reality ; 
 
 And the clear hills, as high as they ascend 
 
 Heavenward, so piercing deep the lake below. 
 
 Admonished of the days of love to come 
 
 The raven croaks, and fills the upper air 
 
 With a strange sound of genial harmony ; 
 
 And in and all about that playful band, 
 
 Incapable although they be of rest. 
 
 And in their fashion very rioters. 
 
 There is a stillness, and they seem to make 
 
 Calm revelry in that their calm abode. 
 
 Them leaving to the joyous hours I pass. 
 
 Pass with a thought the life of the whole year 
 
 That is to come, the throng of woodland flowers. 
 
 And lilies that will dance upon the waves. 
 
 Say boldly then that solitude is not 
 "VVliere these things are. He truly is alone, 
 He of the multitude whose eyes are doomed 
 To hold a vacant commerce day by day 
 With objects wanting life, repelling love ; 
 He in the vast Metropolis immured, 
 Wliere pity shrinks from unremitting calls, 
 AVhcre numbers overwhelm humanity. 
 And neighbourhood serves rather to divide 
 Than to unite. " What sighs more deep than his, 
 Whose nobler will liatli long been sacrificed ; 
 Who must inhabit, under a black sky, 
 A City where, if indifference to disgust
 
 250 LIFE OF WORDS WOFtTH. 
 
 Yield not, to scorn, or sorrow, living men 
 
 Are ofttimes to their fellow-men no more 
 
 Than to the forest hermit are the leaves 
 
 Tliat hang aloft in myriads — nay, far less. 
 
 For they protect his walk from sun and shower. 
 
 Swell his devotion with their voice in storms. 
 
 And whisper while the stars twinkle among them 
 
 His lullaby. From crowded streets remote, 
 
 Far from the living and dead wilderness 
 
 Of the thronged world. Society is here 
 
 A true Community, a genuine frame 
 
 Of many into one incorporate. 
 
 That must be looked for here, paternal sway, 
 
 One household under God for high and low, 
 
 One family, and one mansion ; to themselves 
 
 Appropriate, and divided from the world 
 
 As if it were a cave, a multitude 
 
 Human and brute, possessors undisturbed 
 
 Of this recess, their legislative hall. 
 
 Their Temple, and their glorious dwelling-place. 
 
 Dismissing therefore, all Arcadian dreams, 
 All golden fancies of the golden age. 
 The bright array of shadowy thoughts from times 
 That were before all time, or is to be 
 Ere time expire, the pageantry that stirs, 
 And will be stirring when our eyes are fixed 
 On lovely objects, and we wish to part 
 "With all remembrance of a jarring world, 
 Take we at once this one sufficient hope, 
 AMiat need of more ? that we shall neither droop. 
 Nor pine for want of pleasure in the life 
 Scattered about us, nor through dearth of aught 
 That keeps in health the insatiable mind ; 
 That we shall have of knowledge and of love
 
 THE RECLUSE. 251 
 
 Abundance ; and that, feeling as we do 
 How goodly, how exceeding fair, how pure 
 From all reproach is yon ethereal vault. 
 And this deep vale its earthly counterpart. 
 By which, and under which, we are enclosed 
 To breathe in peace, we shall moreover find 
 (If sound, and what we ought to be ourselves, 
 If rightly we observe and justly weigh) 
 The inmates not unworthy of their home 
 The dwellers of their dwelling. 
 
 And if this 
 "Were otherwise, vi^e have within ourselves 
 Enough to fill the present day with joy. 
 And overspread the future years with hope, 
 Our beautiful and quiet home, enriched 
 Already with a stranger whom we love 
 Deeply, a stranger of our father's house, 
 A never-resting Pilgrim of the Sea,* 
 Who finds at last an hour to his content 
 Beneath our roof. And others whom we love 
 Will seek us also, sisters of our hearts, t 
 And one, like them, a brother of our hearts, 
 Philosopher and Poet,+ in whose sight 
 These mountains will rejoice with open joy. 
 — Such is our wealth ; Vale of Peace, we are 
 And must be, with CJod's will, a happy band. 
 
 Yet 'tis not to enjoy that we exist, 
 For that end only ; something must be done. 
 I must not walk in unreproved delight 
 These narrow bounds, and think of nothing more, 
 No duty that looks further, and no care. 
 Each being has his office, lowly some 
 And common, yet all worthy if fulfilled 
 
 * John Wordsw orth. t The H utchinsous. t Coleridge.
 
 252 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 With zeal, acknowledgment that with the gift 
 Keeps pace, a harvest answering to the seed 
 Of ill-advised ambition and of pride. 
 I would stand clear, but yet to me I feel 
 That an internal brightness is vouchsafed 
 That must not die, that must not pass away. 
 Wliy does this inward lustre fondly seek, 
 And gladly blend with outward fellowship ? 
 Why do they shine around me whom I love ? 
 Why do they teach me whom I thus revere ? 
 Strange question, yet it answers not itself. 
 That humble roof embowered among the trees. 
 That calm fire- side, it is not even in them, 
 — Blest as they are — to furnish a reply. 
 That satisfies and ends in perfect rest. 
 Possessions have I that are solely mine. 
 Something within which yet is shared by none, 
 Not even the nearest to me and most dear. 
 Something which power and effort may impart, 
 I would impart it, I would spread it wide. 
 Immortal in the world which is to come. 
 Forgive me if I add another claim. 
 And would not wholly perish even in this, 
 Lie down and be forgotten in the dust, 
 I and the modest partners of my days 
 Making a silent company in death ; 
 Love, knowledge, all my manifold delights 
 All buried with me without monument 
 Or profit unto any but ourselves. 
 It must not be, if I, divinely taught. 
 Be privileged to speak as I have felt 
 Of what in man is human or divine. 
 
 Wliile yet an innocent little-one, with a heart 
 That doubtless wanted not its tender moods,
 
 THE RECLUSE. 253 
 
 I breathed (for this I better recollect) 
 
 Among wild appetites and blind desires, 
 
 Motions of savage instinct, my delight 
 
 And exaltation. Nothing at that time 
 
 So welcome, no temptation half so dear 
 
 As that which urged me to a daring feat. 
 
 Deep pools, tall trees, black chasms, and dizzy crags, 
 
 And tottering towers ; I loved to stand and read 
 
 Their looks forbidding, read and disobey. 
 
 Sometimes in act, and evermore in thought. 
 
 With impulses that scarcely were by these 
 
 Surpassed in strength, I heard of danger, met 
 
 Or sought with courage ; enterprize forlorn 
 
 By one, sole keeper of his own intent. 
 
 Or by a resolute few who for the sake 
 
 Of glory, fronted multitudes in arms. 
 
 Yea to this hour I cannot read a tale 
 
 Of two brave vessels matched in deadly fight. 
 
 And fighting to the death, but T am pleased 
 
 More than a wise man ought to be. I wish. 
 
 Fret, burn, and struggle, and in soul am there ; 
 
 But me hath Nature tamed, and bade me seek 
 
 For other agitations, or be calm ; 
 
 Hath dealt with me as with a turbulent stream, 
 
 Some nursling of the mountains, which she leads 
 
 Through quiet meadows, after he has learnt 
 
 His strength, and had his triumph and his joy. 
 
 His desperate course of tumult and of glee. 
 
 That wliich in stealth by Nature was performed 
 
 Hath Eeason sanctified. Her deliberate voice 
 
 Hath said, 'Be mild and cleave to gentle things. 
 
 Thy glory and thy happiness be there. 
 
 Nor fear, though thou confide in me, a want 
 
 Of aspirations that have been, of foes
 
 254 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 To wrestle with, and victory to complete, 
 r>ounds to be leapt, darkness to be explored, 
 All that inflamed thy infant heart, the love. 
 The longing, the contempt, the undaunted guest, 
 All shall survive — though changed their offices — 
 Shall live, it is not in their power to die.' 
 
 Then farewell to the Warrior's schemes, farewell 
 The forwardness of soul which looks that way 
 Upon a less incitement than the cause 
 Of Liberty endangered, and farewell 
 That other hope, long mine, the hope to fill 
 The heroic trumpet with the Muse's breath ! 
 Yet in this peaceful Vale we will not spend 
 Unheard of days, though loving peaceful thoughts. 
 A voice shall speak, and what will be the theme ? * 
 
 * There follows in the MS. which contains the above canto— 
 
 "On Man, on Nature, and on Human Life 
 Musing in Solitude." 
 
 (See the Preface to The Excursion.)
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 DOROTHY WOEDSWOKTH'S GRASMERE JOURNAL. 
 
 By far the best record of the life at Dove Cottage, and of 
 how the Poet and liis Sister spent their time at Grasmere, 
 is contained in Dorothy Wordsworth's daily Journal. What 
 I have read of it extends from May 14 to Dec. 21, 1800, 
 and from Oct. 10, 1801, to Jan. 16, 1803. There can be 
 no hesitation about printing a large part of that Journal, or 
 copious extracts from it. It gives the most vivid picture of 
 the influence of the sister upon the brother ; showing how — 
 in womanhood as in girlhood — " she gave him eyes and gave 
 him ears." From the Journal we learn — as from no other 
 source we could learn — how they walked, read, and wrote 
 together ; of the visitors they received ; of their frequent 
 wanderings on the mountains, but more especially round 
 Grasmere and Eydal ; of how William and his brother John 
 went to fish, and to bathe in the lakes ; of how, in the 
 evenings, they drank tea and played whist in neighbours' 
 houses ; of the way in which Dorothy's " inward eye " noted 
 each change of the seasons, the fleeting loveliness as well 
 as the underlying meaning of each natural object ; of the 
 circumstances under which each one of the Poems of these 
 years was begun, continued, and ended ; of those " moods of 
 his own mind " which enal^led him to complete one of them 
 in a single hour, and compelled him to labour for months 
 over another. We hear of stray incidents in the life of the 
 dalesmen, or of travelling pedlars, who became the subjects of
 
 256 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 poems ; of the books the househokl read, and the gardening 
 work they did, and the details of kindly service rendered by 
 the sister to the brother ; — above all, of the interviews with 
 Coleridge,* his frequent visits to Grasmere, and Dorothy's 
 long talks with him there, the Wordsworths accompanying 
 him to the poet's trysting-place at Wythebiirn (Sara's rock), 
 and their return visits to Keswick, the arrivals at the cottage 
 of Mary Hutchinson, of Jones (with whom Wordsworth 
 travelled on the Continent), of Clarkson (the future philan- 
 thropist) and his wife — these, and a score of other things, 
 are to be found in tliis Journal. 
 
 It is possible that some may think the record too minute, 
 and too uniform. Posterity, however, may wish to know 
 more of these things than some of our contemporaries may 
 care for them ; and the very contrast of our present mode of 
 life, and what is possible nowadays, with the routine in that 
 cottage, may add an interest to the fragments that record 
 it. It is easy to criticise it, as the daily inventory of the 
 doings of a small household; but the Journal itself is the 
 best evidence that the charge so often brought against the 
 Wordsworths of self-centredness, or self-involvement, is much 
 exaggerated. What more fitting than those daily records 
 of weather-changes, and of the face of Nature all around them, 
 
 * One of the things we learn from these Journals is the immense number 
 of letters that passed between the Wordsworth and Coleridge family, par- 
 ticularly from Coleridge to Dorothy Wordsworth, and from Dorothy to 
 him, all written at the very height and spring-time of their genius, 
 which have apparently perished. Many of Coleridge's must have been 
 full of interest ; but where are they ? People don't write such letters 
 nowadays. (See the volume of Coleorton Letters.) The very capacity 
 for such writing has departed ; displaced perhaps, in part, by the pro- 
 gress of journalism. They were essays rather than letters. To read one 
 is like having a long morning's talk with a friend ; and when there were 
 no morning papers, or morning post, what more natural or delightful ? We 
 may wonder at the frequent walks to Ambleside, but that was the post 
 town ; and to go there, in almost all weathers, was a regular part of the 
 life of the household at Dove Cottage.
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's grasmere journal. 257 
 
 in the Journal of a household that daily looked on Nature 
 with the " inward eye " ? Besides, one of the chief lessons 
 that the perusal of this Journal teaches is the wisdom of 
 the " wise passiveness " that simply " watches and receives." 
 Many and many a time did Wordsworth and his sister enjoy 
 divine feasts of sHence, in the mere presence of Nature, with 
 no intrusive chatter of remark, no critical commentary, or 
 " aside ; " and the chief justification of printing copious 
 extracts from their Journal is the increasing need we have 
 — in the haste and high pressure of our modern life — to 
 escape into solitude, and to be alone with Nature. The 
 perusal of such a Journal may be helpful to some, in show- 
 ing them where especially the " healing power " of Words- 
 worth's poetry is to be found. 
 
 It is also interesting as showing the way in which many 
 of Wordsworth's poems were composed, the great labour he 
 bestowed on some of the apparently simplest ones, the effort 
 which their composition was to him, the actual pain it cost, 
 and the repeated revision to which they were all subjected. 
 Over and over again the sister records, " William wearied 
 himself with composing." " William fatigued himself witli 
 altering." "W. could not sleep, thinking of his poem." 
 We find records of the poetic fire being suddenly kindled, — 
 it might be by a chance remark of hers, about a daisy, or a 
 butterfly — and so long as the fit was upon him, so long as 
 the inspired mood lasted, he could neither sleep, nor eat, 
 nor attend to any lesser interest. But it involved far more 
 toil, and even severe labour, than tlie majority imagine. 
 Wordsworth was familiar with " poetic pains," altliough to 
 him there was added the compensating pleasure " which 
 only poets know." 
 
 Another thing to be noted in the life led by the Words- 
 worths in that lunuble cottage at Grasmere is the simple 
 and almost austere calmness with which it developed itself, 
 IX. R
 
 258 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 and bore fruit. There was no rush of excitement, from an 
 old to a new interest ; no taking up of the latest fashion, 
 and (as soon as it became tedious by familiarity) again 
 craving " some new thing," urged on by the mere stimu- 
 lus of change ; and, in consequence, no premature ex- 
 haustion of the power of vision, and the power of enjoy- 
 ment. It is the penalty, which a too early unfolding of 
 any natural capacity has to pay for its premature develop- 
 ment, that it exhausts itself, and satiety sets in. The 
 Wordsworths were poor, and they were not ashamed to be 
 poor. They lived for a great end, and they pursued that 
 end through all hindrance, in all weathers (so to speak), and 
 with a self-denial that was heroic. Even if we grant that 
 there was some self-involvement ; how, it may be said, could 
 it be otherwise ? They loved their mountain solitude, and 
 found in it " blithe society ; " and thus a type of character 
 was develo]3ed, which for lack of these very surroundings of 
 calm and quiet, runs the risk of becoming rare. As Mr 
 Aubrey de Vere says profoundly:* "Talents rush to the 
 market, the theatre, or the arena, and genius itself becomes 
 vulgarised for want of that ' liermit heart ' wliich ouglit 
 to belong to it." 
 
 It has anotlier side, however. There is no doubt that their 
 long walks on the mountains, and the utter want of regularity 
 as to hours for meals, &c. — perhaps an inevitable element in 
 that poetic household — injured the sister's health. The records 
 in her Journal (which are not published), giving signs of this, 
 are most pathetic ; and while her ministry of service to her 
 brother is one of the most beautiful things recorded in the 
 annals of literature, it may surely be said that the brother 
 should not have accepted so much, and should have noted the 
 injury she was inflicting on herself. But if she had not 
 thus injured herself, we should probably not now possess 
 
 * See the Memoir of Sara Coleridije, vol. i-, p. 52.
 
 DOROTHY WORDSWORTH S GRASMERE JOURNAL. 250 
 
 some of the poems that are richest in teaching and healing 
 power for posterity. Are we to construe even this injury 
 to the sister as an inevitable outcome of the law of 
 sacrifice ? 
 
 In 1805, Wordsworth addressed some exquisite lines to 
 his sister, under the characteristic title, " To a Young Lady 
 who had been reproached for taking long walks in the 
 country ; " and in these lines, beginning 
 
 " Dear Child of Nature, let them rail," 
 
 he anticipated for his sister a future home — " a nest in a 
 green dale " — where she should see " her own heart-stirring 
 days." That prophecy was never fulfilled, and though she 
 lived to nearly the age of eighty-four — four years longer 
 than her brother — her old age was not " serene and bright." 
 This, however, is to anticipate. 
 
 The following are extracts from the Grasmere Journal : — 
 " lAth May, 1880. — AVilHam and John set off into York- 
 shire after dinner at half-past two o'clock. ... I left them at 
 the turning of the Low Wood bay under the trees. My heart 
 was so full that I could hardly speak to W. when I said 
 farewell. I sate a long time upon a stone at the margin of 
 the lake, and after a flood of tears my heart was easier. 
 The lake looked to me, I knew not why, dull and melan- 
 choly, and the weltering on the shores seemed a heav}- 
 sound. I walked as long as I could amongst the stones of 
 the shore. The wood ricli in flowers ; a beautiful yellow 
 (palish yellow) flower, that looked thick, round, and double — 
 the smell very sweet (I supposed it was a ranunculus), 
 crowfoot, the grassy-leaved rabbit-looking white flower, 
 strawberries, geraniums, scentless violets, anemones, two 
 kinds of orchises, primroses, the heckberry very beautiful, 
 the crab coming out as a low shrub. . , . Came home by 
 Clappersgate. The valley very green ; many sweet views up
 
 260 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 to Rydal, when I could juggle away the fine houses ; but 
 they disturbed me, even more than when I have been 
 happier; one beautiful view of the bridge, without St 
 Michaels ; * sate down very often, though it was cold. I 
 resolved to write a journal of the time, till W. and J. 
 return. ... I shall give William pleasure by it when 
 he comes home. . . . 
 
 "Friday Morning, IQfJi. — . . . The woods extremely 
 beautiful with all autumnal variety and softness. I carried 
 a basket for mosses, and gathered some wild plants. Oh ! 
 that we had a book of botany. All flowers now are gay 
 and deliciously sweet. The primrose still prominent ; the 
 later flowers and the shiny foxgloves very tall, with their 
 heads budding. I went forward round the lake at the foot 
 of Loughrigg Fell. I was much amused with the business 
 of a pair of stone chats ; their restless voices as they 
 skimmed along the water, following each other, their 
 shadows under them, and their returning back to the stones 
 on the shore, chirping with the same unwearied voice. Could 
 not cross the water, so I went round by the stepping-stones. 
 . . . Rydal was very beautiful with spear-shaped streaks of 
 polished steel. . . . Grasmere very solemn in the last 
 glimpse of twilight. It calls home the heart to quietness. 
 ... In my walk back I had many of my saddest thoughts, 
 and I could not keep the tears within me. But when I 
 •came to Grasmere I felt that it did me good. I finished my 
 letter to M. H. . . . 
 
 " Saturday. ■ — Incessant rain from morning till night. . . . 
 Worked hard, and read Midsummer Night's Dream, and 
 ballads. Sauntered a little in the garden. The blackbird 
 sate quietly in its nest, rocked by the wind, and beaten by 
 the rain. 
 
 * I.e., Grasmere Church.
 
 DOROTHY WORDSWORTH'S GRASMERE JOURNAL. 261 
 
 "Sunday 19th. — . . . Letters from Coleridge and Cottle. 
 John Fisher* overtook me on the other side of Eydal. He 
 talked much about the alteration in the times, and observed 
 tliaX in a short time there would be only two ranks of people,, 
 the very rich and the very poor, ' for those who have small 
 estates,' says he, ' are forced to sell, and all the land goes 
 into one hand.' Did not reach home till ten o'clock. 
 
 " MondaTj. — Sauntered a good deal in the garden, bound 
 carpets, mended old clothes, read Timon of Athens, dried 
 linen. . . . Walked up into the Black Quarter. I sauntered 
 a long time among the rocks above the church. The most 
 delightful situation possible for a cottage, commanding two 
 distinct views of the vale and of the lake, is among those 
 rocks. . . . The quietness and still seclusion of the valley 
 affected me even to producing the deepest melancholy. I 
 forced myself from it. The wind rose before I went to 
 l)ed. . . . 
 
 " Tuesday Morning. — A fine mild rain. . . . Everything 
 green and overflowing with life, and the streams making a 
 perpetual song, with the thrushes, and all little birds, not 
 forgetting the stone chats. . . . 
 
 " Sunday. — . . . Read 3fachcth in the morning ; sate 
 under the trees after dinner. ... I wrote to my brother 
 Christopher. ... On my return found a letter from Coleridge 
 and from Charles Lloyd, and three papers. 
 
 "Monday, May 26. — . . . Wrote letters to J. H., Cole- 
 ridge, Col. LI., and W. I walked towards Rydal, and turned 
 aside at my favourite field. The air and the lake were still. 
 One cottage light in the vale, and so much of day left that 
 I could distinguish objects, the woods, trees, and houses. 
 Two or three different kinds of birds sang at intervals on 
 
 * Their neighbour at Townend who helped Wordsworth to make the 
 .steps up to the orchard in Dove Cottage garden.
 
 262 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 the opposite shore. I sate till I could hardly drag myself 
 away, I grew so sad. ' When pleasant thoughts,' &c. 
 
 " Wednesday. — In the morning walked up to the rocks 
 above Jenny Dockray's. Sate a long time upon the grass ; 
 the prospect divinely beautiful. If I had three hundred 
 pounds, and could afford to have a bad interest for my 
 money, I would buy that estate, and we would build a 
 cottage there to end our days in. I went into her garden 
 and got white and yellow lilies, &c., periwinkle, &c., which I 
 planted. Sate under the trees with my work. ... A beauti- 
 ful evening. The crescent moon hanging above Helm Crag. 
 
 " Thursday. — In the morning worked in the garden a 
 little. Eead Kin.fj John. . . . "Went to Mr Gill's boat. 
 Before tea we fished upon the lake, and amongst us caught 
 13 ! . . . 
 
 " Friday. — . . . As I came past Rydal I saw a heron 
 swimming with only its neck out of water. It beat and 
 struggled amongst the water, when it flew away, and was 
 long in getting loose. 
 
 " Sunday, June 1st. — Eain in the night. A sweet mild 
 morning. Eead ballads. Went to church. Singers from 
 Wytheburn. . . . 
 
 " Monday. — A cold dry windy morning. I worked in 
 the garden, and planted flowers, &c. Sate under the trees 
 after dinner till tea time. ... I went to Ambleside after tea, 
 crossed the stepping-stones at the foot of Grasmere, and, 
 pursued my way on the other side of Rydal and by Clappers- 
 gate. I sate a long time to watch the hurrying waves, and 
 to hear the regularly irregular sound of the dashing waters. 
 The waves round about the little Island seemed like a dance 
 of spirits that rose out of the water, round its small circum- 
 ference of shore. Inquired about lodgings for Coleridge.
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's grasmere journal. 263 
 
 God be thanked, I want not society by a moonlight lake. 
 It was near eleven when I reached home. I wrote to 
 Coleridge. 
 
 " Thursday. — I sate out of doors great part of the day, 
 and worked in the garden. . . . Wrote an answer to 
 Coleridge. The little birds busy making love, and pecking 
 the blossoms and bits of moss off the trees. They flutter 
 about and about, and beneath the trees as I lie under 
 them. . . . 
 
 " Saturdcnj. — . . . I did not leave home, in the expectation 
 of William and John ; and, sitting at work till after eleven 
 o'clock, I heard a foot at the front of the house, turned round, 
 and opened the gate. It was William. . . . We did not go 
 to bed till four o'clock in the morning, so he had an oppor- 
 tunity of seeing our improvements. . . . All looked fresh, 
 though not gay. There was a greyness on earth and sky. 
 We did not rise till near ten. . . . We were busy all day in 
 writing letters to Coleridge, Montagu, &c. . . . We met 
 John on our return home. 
 
 " Monday, dth. — In the morning W. cut down the winter 
 cherry tree. I sowed French beans, and weeded. . . . Went 
 on to the lake to fisli. . . . The reeds and bullrushes or 
 bullpipes of a tender, soft green, making a plain whose 
 surface moved with tlie wind. The reeds not yet tall. 
 The lake clear to the bottom, but saw no fish. . . . Those 
 parts of the water which were jierfectly unrullled lay like 
 green islands of various shapes. William and I walked to 
 Ambleside to seek lodgings for Coleridge. 
 
 " Tuesday, May 2^ tit. — A very tall woman, tall nuich 
 beyond the measure of tall women, called at the door. Hlie 
 had on a very long brown cloak, and a very white cap, 
 without bonnet. Her face was excessively brown, but it had
 
 264 LIFE OF WOEDSWOETH. 
 
 plainly once been fair. She led a little barefooted child about 
 two years old by the hand, and said her husband, who was 
 a tinker, was gone before with the other children. I gave 
 her a piece of bread. Afterwards, on my way to Amble- 
 side, beside the bridge at Rydal, I saw her husband sitting 
 by the roadside, his two asses feeding Ijeside him, and the 
 two young children at play upon the grass. The man did 
 not beg. I passed on, and about a quarter of a mile 
 further I saw two boys before me, one about ten, the other 
 about eight years old, at play chasing a butterfly. They 
 were wild figures, not very ragged, but without shoes and 
 stockings. The hat of the elder was wreathed round with 
 yellow flowers ; the younger, whose hat was oidy a rimless 
 crown, had stuck it round with laurel leaves. They con- 
 tinued at play till I drew very near, and then they addressed 
 me with the begging cant and the whining voice of sorrow. I 
 said I served your mother this morning. (The boys were 
 so like the woman wdio had called at our door that I could 
 not be mistaken.) '0!' says the elder, 'you could not 
 serve my mother, for she's dead, and my father's on at the 
 next town — he's a potter.' I persisted in my assertion, and 
 that I would give them nothing. Says the elder, ' Let's 
 away,' and away they flew like lightning. They had, how- 
 ever, sauntered so long in their road that they did not reach 
 Ambleside before me, and I saw them go up to Matthew 
 Harrison's house, with their wallet upon the elder's shoulder, 
 and creeping with a beggar's complaining foot. On my 
 return through Amljleside, I met in the street the mother 
 driving her asses, in the two panniers of one of which were 
 the two little children, whom she was chiding and threaten- 
 ing with a wand which she used to drive on her asses, 
 while the little things hung in wantonness over the pannier's 
 edge. The woman had told me in the morning that she 
 was of Scotland, which her accent fully proved, but that
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's grasmere journal. 265 
 
 she had lived (I think at Wigton), that they coukl not keep 
 a house, and so they travelled.* 
 
 "Wednesday, 12th June. — . . . We landed upon the island, 
 where I saw tlie whitest hawthorn I have seen this year — 
 the generality of hawthorns are bloomless. I saw wild 
 roses in the hedges. . . . 
 
 "Friday, 15ih June. — A rainy morning. William and 
 John went upon the lake. Very warm and pleasant, 
 gleams of sunshine. Caught a pike, 7| lbs., trolling. . . . 
 
 " Monday. — William and I went to Brathay, by Little 
 Langdale. . . . Colwith wild and interesting, from the peat 
 carts and peat gatherers. The valley all perfumed with 
 the gale and wild thyme. The woods about the waterfall 
 bright with rich yellow broom. . . . We met a pretty little 
 boy with a wallet over his shoulder. He came from 
 Hawkshead and was going to sell a sack of meal. He 
 spoke gently and without complaint. When I asked him 
 if he got enough to eat, he looked surprised, and said ' Nay.' 
 He was seven years old, but seemed not more than five. . . . 
 
 " TJui.rsday. — . . . W. and I walked up to Mr Simpson's. 
 W. and old Mr S. went to fish in Wytheburn water. I 
 dined with John, and lay under the trees. The afternoon 
 changed from clear to cloudy, and to clear again. John 
 and I walked up to the waterfall. . . . Met the fishers. 
 W. cauglit a pike weighing 4| lbs. There was a gloom 
 almost terrible over Grasmere water and vale. . . . No 
 Coleridge, whom we fully expected. . . . 
 
 "Saturday. — Walked u]) tlie liill to Ilydal lake. C.ras- 
 mere looked so beautiful that my heart was almost melted 
 
 * Comi)are BigyarK, vol. ii., pp. 247-252.
 
 2CG LIFE OF WOKDSWOETH. 
 
 away. It was quite calm, only siDotted with sparkles of 
 light ; the church visible. On our return all distant 
 objects had faded away, all but the hills. The reflection 
 of the light bright sky above Black Quarter was very 
 solemn. . . . 
 
 "Sunday. — . . , In the evening I planted a honeysuckle 
 round the yew tree. ... No news of Coleridge. . . . 
 
 " Wednesd((ij. — ... On Sunday, Mr and Mrs Coleridge 
 and Hartley came. The day was very warm. We sailed 
 to the foot of Loughrigg. They staid with us three weeks, 
 and till the Thursday following, from 1st till the 23rd of July. 
 On the Friday preceding their departure, we drank tea at 
 the island. The weather was delightful, and on the Sunday 
 we made a great fire, and drank tea in Bainriggs with the 
 Simpsons. I accompanied Mrs C. to Wytheburn. . . . 
 
 " Sunday Morning, 2(jt]i. — Very warm. . . . I wrote out 
 Ruth in the afternoon. . . . After tea we rowed down to 
 Loughrigg Fell, visited the white foxglove, gathered wild 
 strawberries, and walked up to view Eydal. We lay a long 
 time looking at the lake ; the shores all dim with the 
 scorching sun. The ferns were turning yellow, that is, here 
 and there one was quite turned. We walked round by 
 Benson's wood home. The lake was now most still, and 
 reflected the beautiful yellow and blue and purple and grey 
 colours of the sky. We heard a strange sound in the 
 Bainriggs wood, as we were floating on the water ; it sccnwd 
 in the wood, but it must have been above it, for presently 
 we saw a raven very high above us. It called out, and the 
 dome of the sky seemed to echo the sound.* It called 
 again and again as it flew onwards, and the mountains gave 
 
 * Compare vol. v., p. lfl.3.
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's grasmere journal. 267 
 
 back the soimd, seeming as if from their centre ; a mvisical 
 bell-like answering to the bird's hoarse voice. "We heard 
 both the call of the bird, and the echo, after we covild see 
 him no longer. . . . 
 
 " Monday Morning. — Received a letter from Coleridge 
 enclosing one from Mr Davy about the Lyrical Ballads. 
 Intensely hot. . . . William went into the wood and altered 
 his poems. . . . 
 
 " TJiursday. — All the morning I was busy copying poems. 
 In the afternoon Coleridge came. He brought the second 
 volume of Anthology. The men went to bathe, and we 
 afterwards sailed down to Loughrigg. Eead poems on the 
 water, and let the boat take its own course. We walked a 
 long time upon Loughrigg. I returned in the grey twilight. 
 The moon just setting as we reached home. 
 
 " Friday, 1st August. — In the morning I copied The 
 Brothers. Coleridge and William went down to the lake. 
 They returned, and we all went together to Mary Point, 
 where we sate in the breeze and the shade, and read 
 William's poems. Altered The Whirlhlast, &c. . . . 
 
 " Saturday Morning, 2nd. — William and Coleridge went to 
 Keswick. John went with them to Wytheburn, and staid 
 all day fishing. . . . 
 
 Wednesday, Gth August. — William came home from 
 Keswick at eleven o'clock. . . . 
 
 " Friday Morning. — We intended going to Keswick, Ijnt 
 were prevented l)y the excessive heat. Nailed u]) scarlet 
 beans in the morning. . . . Walked over the mountains by 
 Wattendlath. ... A most enchanting walk. Wattendlatli 
 a heavenly scene. lieached Coleridge's at eleven o'clock.
 
 268 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 " Saturday Moi'ning. — I walked with Coleridge in the 
 Windy Brow woods. 
 
 " Sundai/. — Very hot. The C.'s went to church. We 
 sailed upon Derwent in the evening. 
 
 " Mo7iday Afternoon. — Walked to Windy Brow. 
 
 " Tuesday. — . . . William and I walked along the Cocker- 
 mouth road. He was altering his poems. 
 
 " Wednesday. — ]\Iade the Windy Brow seat. 
 
 "Sunday, IGth August. — . . . William read us the Seven 
 Sisters. 
 
 " Saturday, 22nd. — . . . William composing all the morn- 
 ing. . . . The gleams of sunshine and the stirring trees and 
 gleaming boughs, cheerful lake, most delightful. . . . W. 
 read Fcter Bell and the poem of Joanna, beside the Eothay 
 by the roadside. 
 
 "Friday Evening, 28th August. — We walked to Eydal to 
 inquire for letters. We walked over the hill by the fir- 
 grove. I sate upon a rock, and observed a flight of swallows 
 gathering together high above my head. They flew towards 
 Eydal. We walked through the wood over the stepping- 
 stones. The lake of Eydal very beautiful, partly still. 
 John and I left William to compose an inscription ; that 
 about the path.* We had a very fine walk by the gloomy 
 lake. There was a curious yellow reflection in the water, as 
 of corn fields. There was no li^ht in the clouds from which 
 it appeared to come. 
 
 "Saturday Morning, 28th August. — . . . William finished 
 his Inscription of the Pathway, then walked in the wood ; 
 
 * Compare vol. viii. , p. 132.
 
 DOROTHY WOPvDSWORTH's GRASMERE JOURNAL. 269 
 
 and when John returned he sought him, and they bathed 
 together. I read a little of Boswell's Life of Johnson. 
 
 "Sunday, 29th. — . . . A great deal of corn is cut in 
 the vale, and the whole prospect, though not tinged with a 
 general autumnal yellow, yet softened down into a mellow- 
 ness of colouring, which seems to impart softness to the 
 forms of hills and mountains. At eleven o'clock Coleridge 
 came when I was walking in the still clear moonshine in 
 the garden. He came over Helvellyn. William was gone 
 to bed, and John also, worn out with his ride round Coniston. 
 We sate and chatted till half-past three, . . . Coleridge 
 reading a part of Christahcl. Talked mucli about the 
 mountains, &c., &c. . . . 
 
 "Monday Morning, \st Scj^tcwbcr. — We walked in the 
 wood by the lake. W. read Joanna and the Firgrovc 
 to Coleridge. They bathed. The morning was delightful, 
 with somewhat of an autumnal freshness. After dinner, 
 Coleridge discovered a rock seat in the orchard. Cleared 
 away brambles. ... I chatted with John and Coleridge till 
 near twelve. 
 
 " Tuesday, 2nd. — In the morning they all went to Stickle 
 Tarn. A very fine, warm, sunny, beautiful morning. . . . 
 The fair day. . . . Tliere seemed very few people and very 
 few stalls, yet I believe there were many cakes and much 
 beer sold. My brothers came home to dinner at six o'clock. 
 ... It was a lovely moonlight night. We talked much 
 about a house on Helvellyn. Tlie moonlight shone oidy 
 upon the village. It did not eclipse the village lights, and 
 the sound of dancing and merriment came along the still 
 air. I walked with Coleridge and William up tlie lane and 
 by the church, and then lingered witli Coleridge in tlic 
 garden. John and William were both gone to bed and all 
 tlie lights out. 
 
 "Wednesday, 2rd September. — Coleridge, William, and
 
 270 LIFE OF WORDSWOKTH. 
 
 John went . . . upon Helvellyn with Mr Simpson. They 
 set out after breakfast. I accompanied them up near the 
 blacksmith's. ... I then went to a funeral at John Dawson's. 
 About ten men and four women. Bread, cheese, and ale. 
 They talked sensibly and cheerfully about common things. 
 The dead person, fifty-six years of age, buried by the parish. 
 The coffin was neatly lettered and painted black, and covered 
 with a decent cloth. They set the corpse down at the door, 
 and while we stood within the threshold the men, with their 
 hats off, sang, with decent and solemn countenances, a verse 
 of a funeral psalm. The corpse was then borne down the 
 hill, and they sang till they had passed- the Town-end. I 
 was affected to tears while we stood in the house, the coffin 
 lying before me. There were no near kindred, no children. 
 When we got out of the dark house the sun was shining, 
 and the prospect looked as divinely beautiful as I ever saw 
 it. It seemed more sacred than I had ever seen it, and yet 
 more allied to human life. The green fields in the neigh- 
 bourhood of the churchyard were green as possible, and, 
 with the brightness of the sunshine, looked quite gay. I 
 thought she was going to a quiet spot, and I could not help 
 weeping very much. AVhen we came to the bridge they 
 began to sing again, and stopped during four lines before 
 they entered the churchyard. . . . 
 
 " Friday, V2th Sqjtcmlcr. — . . . The fern of the mountains 
 now spreads yellow veins among the trees ; the coppice 
 wood turns brown. William observed some affecting little 
 things in Borrowdale. A decayed house with this inscrip- 
 tion in the churchyard, the tall, silent rocks seen through 
 the broken windows. A sort of rough column put upon 
 the sable end of a house, with a ball stone smooth from the 
 river-island upon it for ornament. Near it, a stone like it, 
 upon an old mansion, carefully hewn.
 
 DOEOTHY Wordsworth's grasmere journal. 271 
 
 " Saturday, 1 oth Scptemher. — Morning. William writing 
 his Preface * — did not walk. . . . 
 
 "Sunday morning, l^th. — . . . A lovely day. Eead 
 Boswell in the house in the morning, and after dinner under 
 the bright yellow leaves of the orchard. The i^ear trees a 
 bright yellow. The apple trees green still. . . . John came 
 home in the evening after Jones left. Jones returned again 
 on the Friday, the 19th September. Jones stayed with us 
 till Friday, 26th September. Coleridge came in. 
 
 "Sunday, 27 fh. — We . . . heard of the Abergavenny's 
 arrival. . . . 
 
 " Honda y, 29tJi. — John left us. Wm. and I parted with 
 him in sight of Ulswater. It was a fine day, showery, but 
 with sunshine and fine clouds. Poor fellow, my heart was 
 right sad. I could not help thinking we should see him 
 again, because he was only going to Penrith. 
 
 " Tuesday, Srd September. — . . . Rydal was extremely 
 wild, and we had a fine walk. We sate quietly and com- 
 fortably by the fire. I wrote the last sheet of Notes and 
 Preface.* Went to bed at twelve o'clock. 
 
 " Wednesday, 1st Oetober. — . . . The lake still in the 
 morning. In the forenoon flashing light from the beams 
 of the sun, as it was ruffled by the wind. We corrected 
 the last sheet* . . . We walked after dinner to observe the 
 torrents. . . . The Black Quarter looked marshy, and the 
 general prospect was cold, but the force was very grand. 
 The lichens are now coming out afresh. I carried home a 
 collection in the afternoon. We had a pleasant conversa- 
 tion about the manners of the rich, avarice, inordinate 
 desires; and the effeminacy, unnaturalness, and unworthy 
 objects of education. . . . The moonlight lay upon the hills 
 like snow. 
 
 Evidently the Notes and Preface to the '2ii(l eilition of Lijriral BaUwln.
 
 272 LIFE OF WOKDSWORTH. 
 
 " Friday, Zrd Odoher. — A^ery rainy all the morning. . . . 
 William talked much about the object of his essay for the 
 second volume of ' L. B.' . . . Amos Cottle's death in the 
 Morning Post. . . . When William and I returned from 
 accompanying Jones, we met an old man almost double. He 
 had on a coat, thrown over his shoulders, above his waistcoat 
 and coat. Under this he carried a bundle, and had an apron 
 on and a night-cap. His face was interesting. He had 
 dark eyes and a long nose. John, who afterwards met him 
 at Wytheburn, took him for a Jew. He was of Scotch 
 parents, but liad been born in the army. He had had a 
 wife, and ' she was a good woman, and it pleased God to 
 bless us with ten children.' All these were dead but one, 
 of whom he had not heard for nuxny years, a sailor. His 
 trade was to gather leeches, but now leeches were scarce, and 
 he had not strength for it. He lived by begging, and was 
 making his way to Carlisle, where he should buy a few 
 godly books to sell. He said leeches were very scarce, 
 partly owing to this dry season, but many years they have 
 been scarce. He supposed it owing to their being much 
 sought after, that they did not breed fast, and were of slow 
 growth. Leeches were formerly 2s. Gd. per 100; they are now 
 30s. He had been hurt in driving a cart, liis leg broken, 
 his body driven over, his skull fractured. He felt no pain 
 till he recovered from his first insensibility. It was then 
 late in the evening, when the light was just going away.* 
 
 "Saturday, -ith October 1800. — , . . Head a part of 
 Lamb's Play. The language is often very beautiful, but too 
 imitative in particular phrases, words, &c. The characters, 
 except Margaret, unintelligible, and, except Margaret's, do not 
 show themselves in action, Coleridge came in while we 
 were at dinner, very wet. We talked till twelve o'clock. 
 He had sate up all the night before, writing essays for the 
 
 * Compare The LeecJigatherer, vol. ii., p. 275.
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's grasmere journal. 273 
 
 newspaper. . . . Exceedingly delighted witli the second part 
 of Christabel. 
 
 " S^mday Morning, oth October. — Coleridge read Christabel 
 a second time ; we had increasing pleasure. A delicious 
 morning. William and I were employed all the morning in 
 writing an addition to the Preface. . . . Coleridge and I 
 walked to Ambleside after dark with the letter. . , . Silver 
 How in both lakes. 
 
 " Monday. — A rainy day. Coleridge intending to go, but 
 did not go off. . . . After tea read The Pedlar. De- 
 termined not to print Christabel with the L. B. 
 
 " Tuesday. — Coleridge went off at eleven o'clock. . . . 
 
 " Wednesday. — . . . I copied a part of The Beggar in the 
 morning. ... A very mild moonlight night. Glow-worms 
 everywhere. 
 
 "Friday, 10th October. — In the morning when I arose 
 the mists were hanging over the opposite hills, and the tops 
 of the highest hills were covered with snow. There was a 
 most lively combination at the head of the vale of the 
 yellow autumnal hills wrapped in sunshine, and overhung 
 with partial mists, the green and yellow trees, and the dis- 
 tant snow-topped mountains. It was a most heavenly 
 morning. The Cockermouth traveller came with thread, 
 hardware, mustard, &c. She is very healthy ; has travelled 
 over the mountains these thirty years. She does not mind 
 the storms, if she can keep her goods dry. Her husband 
 will not travel with an ass, because it is the tramper's badge ; 
 she would have one to relieve her from the weary load. 
 She was going to Ulverston, and was to return to Ambleside 
 Fair. . . . The fern among the rocks exquisitely beautiful. 
 . . . Sent off The Beggar, &c., by Thomas Ashburner. 
 - . . William sat up after me, writing Point Bash Jiulgmcnt. 
 
 "Saturday, 1 1th. — A fine October morning. Sat in the 
 IX. S
 
 274 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 house working all the morning. William composing. . . . 
 After dinner we walked up Greenhead Gill in search of a sheep- 
 fold. ... It was a delightful day, and the views . . . cheerful 
 and beautiful, chiefly that from Mr Ollif s field, where our own 
 house is to be built. The colours of the mountains soft, and 
 rich with orange fern ; the cattle pasturing upon the hill- 
 tops ; kites sailing in the sky above our heads ; sheep bleat- 
 ing, and feeding in the water courses, scattered over the 
 mountains. They come down and feed, on the little green 
 islands in the beds of the torrents, and so may be swept 
 away. The sheepfold is falling away. It is built nearly in 
 the form of a heart unequally divided. Looked down the 
 brook, and saw the drops rise upwards and sparkle in the air 
 at the little falls. The higher sparkled the tallest. We 
 walked alono; the turf of the mountain till we came to a 
 track made by the cattle which come upon the hills. . . . 
 
 " Sundaif, October 12th. — . . . Sate in the house writing in 
 the morning while William went into the wood to compose. 
 Wrote to Jolm in the morning ; copied poems for the L. B. 
 . . . We walked before tea by Bainriggs to observe the 
 many-coloured foliage. The oaks dark green with yellow 
 leaves, the birches generally still green, some near the water 
 yellowish, the sycamore crimson and crimson-tufted, the 
 mountain ash a deep orange, the common ash lemon-colour, 
 but many ashes still fresh in their peculiar green, those that 
 were discoloured chiefly near the water. William composing 
 in the evening. . . . 
 
 "Monday, October loth. — A grey day. Mists on the hills. 
 We did not walk in the morning. I copied poems on the 
 Naming of Places. . . . 
 
 " Wednesday. — A very fine clear morning. After William 
 had composed a little, I persuaded him to go into the orchard ; 
 we walked backwards and forwards ; the prospect most
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's grasmere journal. 275 
 
 divinely beautiful from the seat, colours all melting into 
 each other. I went in to put bread in the oven, and we 
 both walked within view of Rydal. William again com- 
 posed at the sheepfold after dinner. I walked with him to 
 Wytheburn, and he went on to Keswick. . . . Wytheburn 
 looked very wintry, but yet there was a foxglove blossoming 
 by the roadside. 
 
 "Friday, 1*7 th. — A very fine grey morning. The swan 
 hunt. ... I walked round the lake. ... I found William 
 at home, where he had been almost ever since my departure. 
 Coleridge had done nothing for the L. B. Working hard 
 for Stuart.* Glow-worms in abundance. 
 
 " Saturday. — A very fine October morning. William 
 worked all the morning at the sheepfold, but in vain. . . . 
 
 " Sunday Morning. — We rose late, and walked directly 
 after breakfast. The tops of Grasmere mountains cut off. 
 Rydal very beautiful. The surface of the water quite still, 
 like a dim mirror. The colours of the large island exquisite, 
 and the trees, still fresh and green, magnified by the mists. 
 . . . We sate at the ' two points.' . . . The lowing of the 
 cattle was echoed by a hollow voice in the vale. . . . 
 
 "Monday, '20th. — William worked in the morning at the 
 sheepfold. After dinner we walked to Rydal, crossed the 
 stepping-stones, and while we were walking under the tall 
 oak trees, . . . the lights were very grand upon the woody 
 Eydal hills. Those behind dark and tipped with clouds. 
 The two lakes were divinely beautiful. Grasmere exces- 
 sively solemn, the whole lake calm and dappled with soft 
 grey ripples. . . . 
 
 " Wednesday Morniny. — . . . William composed without 
 much success at the sheepfold. Coleridge came in to dinner. 
 
 * Of the Alorniny Post.
 
 276 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 He had done nothing. We were very merry. C. and I went 
 to look at the prospect from his seat. . . . Wilham read 
 Ritth, &c., after supper. Coleridge read Christahel. 
 
 " TJmrsday, 23rd. — Coleridge and Stoddart went to Kes- 
 wick. "We accompanied them to Wythebiirn. A wintry 
 grey morning from the top of the Eaise. Grasmere looked 
 like winter, and Wytheburn still more so. . . . William 
 was not snccessfnl in composition in the evening. 
 
 "Friday, 24ith. — A very fine morning. We walked, 
 before William began to work, to the top of the Rydal hill. 
 He was afterwards only partly successful in composition. . . . 
 We walked round Rydal lake, rich, calm, streaked, very 
 beautiful. We went to tlie top of Loughrigg. Grasmere 
 sadly inferior. . . . The ash in our garden green, one close 
 to it bare, the next nearly so. 
 
 "Saturday. — . . . William again unsuccessful. We could 
 not walk, it was so very rainy. We read Rogers, Miss 
 Seward, Cowper, &c. 
 
 " Sunday. — . . . William composed a good deal in the 
 morning. . . . 
 
 "Monday, 28th October, — . . . William in the firgrove. I 
 had before walked with him there for some time. It was a 
 fine shelter from the wind. The coppices now nearly of one 
 brown. An oak tree in a sheltered place near John Fisher's, 
 not having lost any of its leaves, was quite brown and dry. 
 ... It was a fine wild moonlight night. William could 
 not compose much. Fatigued himself with altering. 
 
 " Tuesday, 29th. — . . . We walked out before dinner to 
 our favourite field. The mists sailed along the mountains, 
 and rested upon them, enclosing the whole vale. In 
 the evening the Lloyds came. We played a rubber at 
 whist. . . . 
 
 " Wednesday. — William worked at his poem all the 
 morning. . . .
 
 DOROTHY WORDSWOETH's GRASMERE JOURNAL. 277 
 
 "Friday Night. — . . . The moon shone like herrings in 
 the water. 
 
 " Tuesday. — . . . Tremendous wind. The snow blew from 
 Helvellyn horizontally like smoke. . . . 
 
 " Tlmrsday, Qth November. — . . . Eead Point Rash Judg- 
 'nient. . . . 
 
 " Friday, ^th Novemher. — . . . I working and reading 
 Amelia. The Michaelmas daisy droops, the pansies are full 
 of flowers, the ashes still green all but one, but they have 
 lost many of their leaves. The copses are quite brown. 
 The poor woman and child from Whitehaven drank tea. . . . 
 
 "Monday. — . . . Jupiter over the hilltops, the only star, 
 like a sun, flashed out at intervals from behind a black 
 cloud. 
 
 Tuesday Morning. — . . . William had been working at 
 the sheepfold. . . . Played at cards. . . . 
 
 " Saturday Morning, 1 ^th Novemher. — A terrible rain pre- 
 vented William from going to Coleridge's. The afternoon fine. 
 . . . We both set forward at five o'clock. A fine wild night. 
 I walked with W. over the Raise. It was starlight. I parted 
 with him very sad, unwilling not to go on. The hills and 
 the stars, and the white waters, with their ever varying yet 
 ceaseless sound, were very impressive. ... 
 
 " Tuesday, December 2nd. — . . . Coleridge was obliged to 
 set off. . . . 
 
 " Tliursday. — Coleridge came in just as we finished dinner. 
 . . . We walked after tea by moonlight to look at Lang-
 
 278 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 dale covered with snow, the pikes not grand, but the Old 
 Man very expressive. Cold and slippery, but exceedingly 
 pleasant. Sat up till half-past one. 
 
 " Friday Morning. — . . . Coleridge and William set for- 
 ward towards Keswick, but the wind in Coleridge's eyes made 
 him turn back. . . . We were very merry in the evening, 
 but grew sleepy soon, though we did not go to bed till 
 twelve o'clock. 
 
 " Saturday. — William accompanied Coleridge to the foot 
 of the Eaise. . . . Sara and I accompanied him half way to 
 Keswick. Thirlemere was very beautiful, even more so than 
 in summer. William . . . had laboured unsuccessfully. . . . 
 
 " Ttiesday, 9 th. — , . . William finished his poem to-day. . . . 
 
 "Saturday, 10th October 1801. — Coleridge went to 
 Keswick after we had built Sara's seat. 
 
 " Thicrsday, loth. — . . , Coleridge came in to Mr L.'s 
 while we were at dinner. William and I walked up Lough- 
 rigg Fell, then by the waterside. . , . 
 
 "Saturday, 2Uh. — Attempted Fairfield, but misty, and 
 we went no further than Green Head Gill to the sheepfold ; 
 mild, misty, beautifully soft. William and Tom put out 
 the boat. . . . 
 
 "Sunday, 25th. — Rode to Legberthwaite with Tom, 
 expecting Mary. . . , Went upon Helvellyn. Glorious 
 sights. The sea at Cartmel. The Scotch mountains beyond 
 the sea to the right. Whiteside large, and round, and very 
 soft, and green, behind us. Mists above and below, and close 
 to us, with the sun amongst them. They shot down to the 
 coves. . . . Eeached home at nine o'clock. A soft grey 
 evening ; the light of the moon, but she did not shine 
 on us.
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's grasmere journal. 279 
 
 " Ticesday, lOth JVbvemher. — Mary and I sate iu C.'s room 
 a while. Poor C. left us, and we came home together. We 
 left Keswick at two o'clock and did not arrive at G. 
 till nine o'clock. . . . Every sight and every sound re- 
 minded me of Coleridge — dear, dear fellow, of his many 
 talks to us, by day and by night, of all dear things. I was 
 melancholy, and could not talk, but at last I eased my heart 
 by weeping. . . . ! how many, many reasons have I to be 
 anxious for him. 
 
 "Wednesday, llth. — . . . Put aside dearest Coleridge's 
 letters, and now, at about seven o'clock, we are all sitting 
 by a nice fire. William with his book and a candle, and 
 Mary writing to Sara. 
 
 ''November l^th. — , , . William is reading Spenser. 
 Mary is writing beside me. The little syke murmurs. We 
 are quiet and happy. ... I am going to write to Coleridge and 
 Sara. Poor C. ! I hope he was in London yesterday. . . . 
 
 "Wednesday, \^th. — . . . The church an image of peace. 
 William wrote some lines upon it. ... A sweet sound of 
 water falling into the quiet lake. A storm was gathering 
 in Easedale, so we returned ; but the moon came out, and 
 opened to us the church and village. Helm Crag in shade, 
 the larger mountains dappled like a sky. We stood long 
 upon the bridge. . . . 
 
 " Friday, 20th. — We walked in the morning to Easedale. 
 In the evening we had cheerful letters from Coleridge and 
 Sara. 
 
 " Tuesday, 2Wl. — . . . It was very windy, and we heard 
 the wind everywliere about us as we went along the lane, 
 but the walls sheltered us. John Green's house looked
 
 280 LIFE OF WORDSWOKTH. 
 
 pretty under Silver How. As we were going along we 
 were stopped at once, at the distance, perhaps, of fifty 
 yards from our favourite birch tree. It was yielding to the 
 gusty wind with all its tender twigs. The sun shone upon 
 it, and it glanced in the wind like a flying sunshiny shower. 
 It was a tree in shape, with stem and branches, but it was 
 like a spirit of water. The sun went in, and it resumed its 
 purplish appearance, the twigs still yielding to the wind,' 
 but not so visibly to us. Tlie other birch trees that were 
 near it looked bright and cheerful, but it was a creature by 
 its own self among them. . . . We went through the wood. 
 It became fair. There was a rainbow which spanned the 
 lake from the island-house to the foot of Bainriggs. The 
 village looked populous and beautiful. Catkins are 
 coming out ; palm trees budding ; the alder, with its 
 plumb-coloured buds. "We came home over the stepping- 
 stones. The lake was foamy with white waves. I saw a 
 solitary butter flower in the wood. . . . Eeached home at 
 dinner time. Sent Peggy Ashburner some goose. She sent 
 me some honey, with a thousand thanks. ' Alas, the grati- 
 tude of men has,' &c. I went in to set her right about 
 this, and sate a while with her. . . . We sate by the fire 
 without work for some time, then Mary read a poem of 
 Daniel. . . . William read Spenser now and then aloud to 
 us. We were making his w^aistcoat. .We had a note from Mrs 
 C, with bad news from poor C. — very ill: William walked 
 to John's Grove. I went to him. Moonlight, but it rained. 
 . . . He had been surprised and terrified by a sudden 
 rushing of winds, which seemed to bring earth, sky, and 
 lake together, as if the whole were going to enclose 
 liim in. . . . 
 
 "In speaking of our walk on Sunday evening, the 22nd 
 November, I forgot to notice one most impressive sight. 
 It was the moon and the moonlight seen through hurrying
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's grasmere journal. 281 
 
 driving clouds immediately behind the stone-man upon the 
 top of the hill, on the forest side. Every tooth and every 
 edge of rock was visible, and the man stood like a giant 
 watching from the roof of a lofty castle. The hill seemed 
 perpendicular from the darkness below it. It was a sight 
 that I could call to mind at any time, it was so distinct. 
 
 "Friday, Uh. — . . . William translating The Prioress's 
 Tale. ... I finished the letter to Coleridge, and we 
 received a letter from him and Sara. ... A letter of Lamb's 
 about George Dyer with it. 
 
 "Saturday, 5th — . . . William finished The Prioress's 
 Tale, and after tea Mary and he wrote it out. . . . 
 
 Sunday, 6 th. — A very fine beautiful sunshiny morning. 
 William worked a while at Chaucer, then we set forward to 
 walk into Easedale. . . . We walked backwards and for- 
 wards in the flat field, which makes the second course of 
 Easedale, with that beautiful rock in the field beside us, and 
 all the rocks and tlie woods and the mountains enclosing us 
 round. The sun was shining among them, the snow thinly 
 scattered upon the tops of the mountains. In the afternoon 
 we sate by the fire : I read Chaucer aloud, and Mary read 
 the first canto of The Fairy Queen. After tea Mary and I 
 walked to Ambleside for letters. ... It was a sober star- 
 light e\^ening. The stars not shining as it were with all 
 their brightness when they were visible, and sometimes 
 hiding themselves behind small greying clouds, that passed 
 soberly along. We opened Coleridge's letter. . . . We 
 tliought we saw that he wrote in good spirits, so we came 
 happily homewards, . . . Ijut it was a sad melancholy letter, 
 and prevented us all from sleeping. 
 
 " Monday Morning, 7th. — We rose liy candlelight. A 
 sliowery unpleasant morning, after a downriglit rainy night. 
 We determined, however, to go to Keswick if possible, and
 
 282 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 we set off * a little after nine o'clock. When we were iipon 
 the Eaise it snowed very nnich ; and the whole prospect closed 
 m upon US, like a moorland valley, upon a moor very wild. 
 But when we were at the top of the Raise we saw the moun- 
 tains before us. The sun shone upon them, here and there ; 
 and Wytheburn vale, thougli wild, looked soft. The day went 
 on cheerfully and pleasantly. Now and then a hail shower 
 attacked us ; but we kept up a good heart, for Mary is a 
 famous jockey. . . . We reached Greta Hall at about one 
 o'clock. Met Mrs Coleridge in the field. Derwent in the 
 cradle asleep, . . . the image of his father. Hartley well. We 
 wrote to Coleridge. . . . We parted from them at four 
 o'clock. It was a little of the dusk when we set off'. Cotton 
 mills lighted up. The first star at Nadel Fell, but it was 
 never dark. We rode very briskly. Snow upon the Eaise. 
 Eeached home at seven o'clock. William at work with 
 Chaucer, The God of Love. I wrote a letter to Coleridge. 
 
 "Tuesday, 8th December 1801. — A dullish, rainyish 
 morning. William at work with Chaucer. I read Bruce's 
 Lochlcvc/i. . . . William worked at the Cuckoo and the 
 Nirjhtingcde till he was tired. . . , 
 
 " Wednesday Morning, 9 th December. — . . . I read Pcdcnion 
 and Arcite. . . . William writing out his alteration of 
 Chaucer's Cuckoo and Niyhtinfjak. . . . When I had finished 
 a letter to C, . . . Mary and I walked into Easedale. , . . Tlie 
 river came galloping past the Church, as fast as it could 
 come, and when we got into Easedale we saw Churn Milk 
 Force, hke a liroad stream of snow at the little footbridge. 
 We stopped to look at the company of rivers which came 
 hurrying down the vale, this way and that. It was a valley 
 of streams and islands, with that great waterfall at the head, 
 and lesser falls in different parts of the mountains, coming 
 down to these rivers. We could hear the sound of the 
 
 * On horseback apparently.
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's grasmere journal. 283 
 
 lesser falls, but we could not see them. We walked back- 
 wards and forwards till all distant objects, except tbe white 
 shape of the waterfall and the lines of the mountains, were 
 gone. We had the crescent moon when we went out, and 
 at our return there were a few stars that shone dimly, but it 
 was a grey cloudy night. 
 
 " Thursday, 10th December. — . . . We walked into Easedale 
 to gather mosses, and then we went ... up the Gill, beyond 
 that little waterfall. It was a wild scene of crag and 
 mountain. One craggy point rose above the rest irregular 
 and rugged, and very impressive it was. . . . 
 
 "Saturday, \Wi. — . . . Snow upon the ground. . . . All 
 looked cheerful and bright. Helm Crag rose very bold and 
 craggy, a Being by itself, and behind it was the large ridge 
 of mountain, smooth as marble and snow white. All the 
 mountains looked like solid stone, on our left, going from 
 Grasmere, i.e.. White Moss and Nab Scar. The snow hid 
 all the grass, and all signs of vegetation, and the rocks 
 showed themselves boldly everywhere, and seemed more 
 stony than rock or stone. The birches on the crags beauti- 
 ful, red brown and glittering. The ashes glittering spears 
 with their upright stems. The hips very beautiful, and so 
 good ! ! and, dear Coleridge ! I ate twenty for thee,* when I 
 was by myself. . . . William went to look at Langdale 
 Pikes. We had a sweet invigorating walk. Mr Clarkson 
 came in before tea. We played at cards. Sate up late. 
 The moon shone upon tlie waters below Silver How, and 
 above it hung (combining with Silver How on one side) a 
 bowl-shaped moon, the curve downwards ; the white fields ; 
 glittering roof of Thomas Ashburner's house ; the dark yew 
 tree, the white fields, gay and beautiful. William lay with 
 his curtains open that he might see it. 
 
 * Was S. T. C. fond of eating these ?
 
 284 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 " Monday, 1 ■^th December. — William and Mary walked to 
 Ambleside in the morning to buy mouse traps. ... I wrote 
 to Coleridge a very long letter while they were absent. Sate 
 by the fire in the evening reading. 
 
 " Thursday, VJth. — Snow in the night and still snowing. 
 . . . Ambleside looked excessively beautifid as we came 
 out — like a village in another country ; and the light 
 cheerful mountains were seen, in the long distance, as 
 bright and as clear as at mid-day, with the blue sky 
 above them. We heard waterfowl calling out by the lake 
 side. Jupiter was very glorious above the Ambleside hills, 
 and one large star liung over the corner of the hills on the 
 opposite side of Eydal water. 
 
 "Tuesday, 12nd. — . . . William composed a few lines of 
 TJie Pedlar. We talked about Lamb's tragedy as we went 
 down the white moss. We stopped a long time in going to 
 watch a little bird with a salmon-coloured breast, a white 
 cross or T upon its wings, and a brownish back with faint 
 stripes. ... It began to pick upon the road at the distance 
 of four yards from us, and advanced nearer and nearer till 
 it came within the length of William's stick without any 
 apparent fear of us. . . . We overtook old Fleming at 
 Rydal, leading his little Dutchman-like grandchild along 
 the slippery road, Tlie same face seemed to be natural to 
 them both — the old man and the little child — and they 
 went hand in hand, the grandfather cautious, yet looking 
 proud of his charge. He had two patches of new cloth at 
 the shoulder-blades of liis faded claret-coloured coat, like 
 eyes at each shoulder, not worn elsewhere. I found Mary 
 at home in her riding-habit, all her clothes being put up. 
 We were very sad about Coleridge. ... We sate snugly
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's grasmere journal. 285 
 
 round the fire. I read to them the Tale of distance and 
 the Syrian monarch in the Man of Lau'c's Tale, also some of 
 the Prologue, . . . 
 
 "Wednesday, 2ord. — . . . Mary wrote out the Tales from 
 Chaucer for Coleridge. William worked at The Ruined 
 Cottage and made himself very ill. ... 
 
 " Saturday, 2^th. — . . . Grasmere lake a beautiful image 
 of stillness, clear as glass, reflecting all things. The wind 
 was up, and the waters sounding. The lake of a rich 
 purple, the fields a soft yellow, the island yellowish-green, 
 the copses red-brown, the mountains purple, the church and 
 buildings, how quiet they were ! Poor Coleridge, Sara, and 
 dear little Derwent here last year at this time. After tea 
 we sate by the fire comfortably. I read aloud Tlic Millers 
 Tale. Wrote to Coleridge. . . . William wrote part of the 
 poem to Coleridge.* 
 
 "Sunday, lltli. — . . . William went to take in his boat. 
 I sate in John's Grove a little while. . . . Mary wrote some 
 lines of the third part of the poem which William brought 
 to read to us when we came home.t . . . 
 
 "Monday, 2^th of December. — William, Mary, and I set 
 off on foot to Keswick. . . . The sun shone, but it was 
 coldish. We parted from William upon the Eaise. He 
 joined us opposite Sara's rock. He was busy in composi- 
 tion and sate down upon the wall. . . . Once he left his 
 Spenser, and Mary turned back for it, and found it. . . . We 
 reached Greta Hall at about half-past five o'clock. . . . 
 
 "Tuesday, 29th. — . . . Wilkinson went with us to the 
 top of the hill. We turned out of the road at the second 
 mile stone, and passed a pretty cluster of houses at the foot 
 of St John's Vale. The houses were among tall trees, 
 partly of Scotch fir, and some naked forest trees. We 
 crossed a bridge just below these houses, and the river 
 
 . * See vol. ii., pp. .305-308. t Was this Peter Bell?
 
 286 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 winded sweetly along the meadows. Our road soon led us 
 along the sides of dreary bare hills, but we had a glorious 
 prospect to the left of Saddleback, half way covered with 
 snow, and underneath the comfortable white houses and the 
 village of Tlirelkeld. These houses and the village want 
 trees about them. Skiddaw was behind us, and dear 
 Coleridge's desert home. As we ascended the hills it grew 
 very cold and slippery. Luckily, the wind was at our 
 backs, and helped us on. A sharp hail shower gathered 
 at the head of Martindale, and the view upwards was 
 very grand — wild cottages, seen through the hurrying hail 
 shower. The wind drove and eddied about and about, and 
 the hills looked large and swelling through the storm. We 
 thought of Coleridge. ! the bonny nooks and windings 
 and curlings of the beck down at the bottom of the steep, 
 green mossy banks. . . . 
 
 "On Sunday the 19th January we went to meet Mary. 
 It was a mild gentle thaw. She stayed with us till Friday, 
 24th. ... On Thursday we dined at Mr Myers's, and 
 on Friday, 24th, we parted from Mary. Before our parting 
 we sate under a wall in the sun near a cottage above 
 Stainton Bridge. The field in which we sate sloped down- 
 wards to a nearly level meadow, round which the Emont 
 flowed in a small half-circle as at Lochleven. The opposite 
 bank is woody, steep as a wall, but not high, and above that 
 bank the fields slope gently, and irregularly down to it. 
 These fields are surrounded by tall hedges, with trees among 
 them, and there are clumps or grovelets of tall trees here 
 and there. Sheep and cattle were in the fields. Dear 
 Mary ! there we parted from her. I daresay as often as 
 she passes that road she will turn in at the gate to look at 
 this sweet prospect. There was a barn and I think two or 
 three cottages to be seen among the trees, and slips of lawn 
 and irregular fields. . . . We dined at Thomas Wilkinson's
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's grasmere journal. 287 
 
 on Friday the l7th, and walked to Penrith for Mary. The 
 trees were covered with hoar-frost — grasses, and trees, and 
 hedges beautiful ; a glorious sunset ; frost keener than 
 ever. . . . Mrs Clarkson amused us with many 
 stories of her family and of persons whom she had 
 known. I wish I had set them down as I heard them, 
 when they were fresh in my memory. . . . Mrs Clarkson 
 knew a clergyman and his wife who brought up ten children 
 upon a curacy, sent two sons to college, and he left £1000 
 when he died. The wife was very generous, gave food and 
 drink to all poor people. She had a passion for feeding 
 animals. She killed a pig with feeding it over much. 
 When it was dead she said, ' To be sure it's a great loss, but 
 I thank God it did not die clemmed ' (the Cheshire word for 
 starved). Her husband was very fond of playing back- 
 gammon, and used to play whenever he could get anybody 
 to play with him. She had played much in her youth, and 
 was an excellent player ; but her husband knew nothing of 
 this, till one day she said to him, ' You're fond of back- 
 gammon, come play with me.' He was surprised. She told 
 him she had kept it to herself, while she had a young family 
 to attend to, but that now she would play with him ! So 
 they began to play, and played every night. ... 
 
 "On Saturday, January 23rd, we left Eusemere at ten 
 o'clock in the morning, I behind William. Mr Clarkson 
 on his Galloway. The morning not very promising, the 
 wind cold. The mountains large and dark, but only thinly 
 streaked with snow. . . . We dined in Grisdale. . . . We 
 struggled with the wind, and often rested as wo went along. 
 A hail shower met us before we reached the Tarn, and the 
 way often was difficult over the snow ; but at the Tarn the 
 view closed in. We saw nothing but mists and snow ; and 
 at first the ice on the Tarn below us cracked and split, yet 
 without water, a dull grey white. We lost our path, and
 
 -ibb LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 could see tlie Tarn no longer. We made our way out with 
 difficulty, guided by a heap of stones which we well remem- 
 bered. We were afraid of being bewildered in the mists, 
 till the darkness should overtake us. We were long before 
 we knew that we were in the right track, but thanks to 
 William's skill we knew it long before we could see our way 
 before us. There was no footmark upon the snow either of 
 man or beast. We saw four sheep before we had left the 
 snow region. The vale of Grasmere, when tlie mists broke 
 away, looked soft and grave, of a yellow liue. It was dark 
 before we reached home. . . . Sitting by our own fire, . . . 
 we talked about the Lake of Como, read the description, 
 looked about us, and felt that we were happy. . . . 
 
 ''Sunday, 24;tJt. — We went into the orchard as soon as 
 breakfast was over. Laid out the situation for our new 
 room, and sauntered a while. ... I wrote to Coleridge. . . . 
 
 "Monday, lloth January. — . . . William tired with 
 composition. . . . 
 
 "Tuesday, 26th. — . . . We are going to walk, and I am 
 ready and waiting by the kitchen fire for William. We set 
 forward intending to go into Easedale, but the wind being 
 loudish, and blowing down Easedale, we walked under Silver 
 How for a shelter. We went a little beyond tlie syke ; 
 then up to John's Grove, where the storm of Thursday lias 
 made sad ravages. Two of the finest trees are uprooted, one 
 lying with the turf about its root, as if the whole togetlier 
 had been pared by a knife. The other is a larch. Several 
 others are blown aside, one is snapped in two. . . . William 
 had tired himself with working. . . . We received a letter 
 from Mary with an account of Coleridge's arrival in London. 
 ... I wrote to Mary before bedtime. . . . WilHam wrote out 
 part of his poem, and endeavoured to alter it, and so made 
 himself ill. I copied out the rest for him. . , . 
 
 " Wednesday, 27th. — A beautiful mild morning; the sun
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's grasmere journal. 289 
 
 shone ; lake was still, and all the shores reflected in it. I 
 finished my letter to Mary. William wrote to Stuart. I 
 copied sonnets for him. . . . William wasted his mind in 
 the magazines. I wrote to Coleridge and Mrs C. . . . Then 
 we sate by the fire, and were happy, only our tender thoughts 
 became painful. . . . 
 
 " Thursday, 28tJi. — . . . William wrote an epitaph, and 
 altered one that he wrote when he was a boy. . . . 
 
 "Friday, 29th January. — . . . I read the first Book of 
 Paradise Lost. After dinner we walked to Ambleside. 
 ... A heart-rending letter from Coleridge. We were sad 
 as we could be. WilKam wrote to him. We talked about 
 William's going to London. It was a mild afternoon. There 
 was an unusual softness in the prospects as we went, a rich 
 yellow upon the fields, and a soft grave purple on the waters. 
 When we returned many stars were out, the clouds were 
 moveless, and the sky soft purple, the lake of Rydal calm, 
 Jupiter behind. Jupiter at least wc call him, but William 
 says we always call the largest star Jupiter. When we 
 came home we both wrote to C. I was stupefied. 
 
 " Saturday, January 'iOth. — A cold dark morning. 
 William chopped wood. I brought it in a basket. . . . He 
 asked me to set down the story of Barbara Wilkinson's 
 turtle dove. Barbara is an old maid. She had two turtle 
 doves. One of them died, the first year I think. The other 
 continued to live alone in its cage for nine years, but for 
 one whole year it had a companion and daily visitor — a 
 little mouse, that used to come and feed with it ; and the 
 dove would carry it and cover over it with its wings, and 
 make a loving noise to it. The mouse, though it did not 
 testify equal delight in the dove's company, was yet at 
 perfect ease. The poor mouse disappeared, and the dove 
 was left solitary till its death. It died of a short sickness, 
 and was buried under a tree, with funeral ceremony by 
 IX. T
 
 290 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Barbara and her maidens, and one or two others. On 
 Saturday, 30th, William worked at Tlic Pedlar all the 
 morning. He kept the dinner waiting till four o'clock. He 
 was much tired. . . . 
 
 " S inula >/, olst. — . . . We walked round the two lakes. 
 Grasmere was very soft, and Rydal was extremely beautiful 
 from the western side. Nab Scar was just topped by a 
 cloud which, cuttin" it off as hit^h as it could be cut off, 
 made the mountain look unconnnonly lofty.* We sate 
 down a long time in different places. I always love to walk 
 that way, because it is tlie way I first came to Eydal and 
 Grasmere, and because our dear Coleridge did also. When 
 I came with William, six and a half years ago, it was just at 
 sunset. There was a rich yellow light on the waters, and 
 the islands were reflected there. To-day it was grave and 
 soft, but not perfectly calm. William says it was much such 
 a day as when Coleridge came with him. The sun shone 
 out before we reached Grasmere. We sate by the roadside 
 at the foot of the lake, close to Mary's dear name which she 
 had cut herself upon the stone. William cut at it with his 
 knife to make it plainer.! We amused ourselves for a long 
 time in watching the breezes, some as if they came from the 
 bottom of the lake, spread in a circle, brushing along the 
 surface of the water, and growing more delicate as it were 
 thinner, and of a j9«/c?' colour till they died away. Others 
 spread out like a peacock's tail, and some went right forward 
 this way and that in all directions. The lake was still 
 where these breezes were not, but they made it all alive. I 
 found a strawberry blossom in a rock. The little slender 
 flower had more courage than the green leaves, for they were 
 but half expanded and half grown, but the blossom was 
 
 * Compare the poem To the Clouds, vol. viii., p. 130, and the Fenwick 
 
 note to that poem. 
 
 t This still exists, and is kuowu to a few.
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's grasmere journal. 291 
 
 spread full out. I uprooted it rashly, and I felt as if I had 
 been committing an outrage, so I planted it again. It will 
 have but a stormy life of it, but let it live if it can. We 
 found Calvert here. I brought a handkerchief full of mosses, 
 which I placed on the chimneypiece when Calvert was gone. 
 He dined with us, and carried away the encyclopaedias. 
 After they were gone, I spent some time in trying to recon- 
 cile myself to the change, and in rummaging out and 
 arranging some other books in their places. One good thing 
 is this — there is a nice elbow place for William, and he may 
 sit for the picture of John Bunyan any day. . . . We payed 
 our rent to Benson. . . . 
 
 "Monday, February 1st. — . . . William worked hard at 
 The Pedlar, and tired himself. . . . There was a purplish 
 light upon Mr Oliff's house, which made me look to the 
 other side of the vale, when I saw a strange stormy mist 
 coming down the side of Silver How of a reddish purple 
 colour. It soon came on a heavy rain. . . . 
 
 " Tuesday, 2nd Felruary. — . . . William went into the 
 orchard after breakfast to chop wood. . . . Walked back- 
 wards and forwards between Goody Bridge and Butterlip 
 How. William wished to break off composition, but was 
 unable, and so did himself harm. The sun shone, but it was 
 cold. William worked at The Pedlar. After tea I read aloud 
 the eleventh book of Paradise Lost. We were much impressed, 
 and also melted into tears. The papers came in soon after 
 I had laid aside the book — a good thing for William. . . . 
 
 " Saturday, 6th February. — . . . Two very affecting letters 
 from Coleridge ; resolved to try another climate. I was 
 stopped in my writing, and made ill by the letters. . . . 
 Wrote again after tea, and translated two or tliree of Less- 
 ing's Fables. 
 
 "Sunday, 7th. — . . . William . . . working at his poem.
 
 292 LIFE OF WOPvDSWOKTH. 
 
 We sate by the fire, and did not walk, but read The Pedlar, 
 thinking it done ; but W. could find fault with one part 
 of it. It was uninteresting, and must be altered. Poor 
 William ! 
 
 "Monday Morning, Sth Felruary 1802. — . . . Before we 
 had come to the shore of the lake, we met our patient bowbent 
 friend, with his little wooden box at his back. ' Where are 
 you going,' said he. ' To Eydal for letters.' ' I have tw^o for 
 you in my box.' We lifted up the lid, and there they lay. 
 Poor fellow, he straddled and pushed on with all his might ; 
 but we outstripped him far away when we had turned 
 back with our letters. ... I could not help comparing lots 
 with him. He goes at that slow pace every morning, and 
 after having wrought a hard day's work returns at night, 
 however weary he may be, takes it all quietly, and, though 
 perhaps he neither feels thankfulness nor pleasure, when he 
 eats his supper, and has nothing to look forward to but falling 
 asleep in bed, yet I daresay he neither murmurs nor tliinks it 
 hard. He seems mechanised to labour. We broke the seal 
 of Coleridge's letters, and I had light enough just to see that 
 he was not ill. . . . At the top of the white moss, . . . 
 the sight was wild. There was a strange mountain lightness. 
 ... I have often observed it there in the evenings, being 
 between the two valleys. There is more of the sky there 
 than any other place. It has a strange effect. Some- 
 times along with the obscurity of evening or night it seems 
 almost like a peculiar sort of light. There was not much 
 wind till we came to John's Grove, then it roared right out 
 of the grove, all the trees were tossing about. Coleridge's 
 letter somewhat damped us. It spoke with less confidence 
 about France. William wrote to him. ... 
 
 " Wednesday, iOth. — A very snowy morning. ... I 
 was writing out the poem, as we hope, for a final writing.
 
 DOEOTHY Wordsworth's grasmere journal. 293 
 
 . . . We read the first part and were delighted with it, but 
 William afterwards got to some ugly place, and went to 
 bed tired out. A wild, moonlight night. 
 
 ''Thursday, 11th. — . . . William sadly tired and working 
 at The Pedlar .... I read to W. the life of Ben Jonson 
 and some short poems of his, which were too interesting for 
 him, and would not let him go to sleep. I had begun with 
 Fletcher, but he was too dull for me. Fuller says, in his 
 Life of Jonson (speaking of his plays), ' If his latter be 
 not so spriteful and vigorous as his first pieces, all that are 
 old, and all who desire to be old, should excuse him therein.' 
 He says he ' beheld ' wit-combats between Shakespeare and 
 Jonson, and compares Shakespeare to an English man-of- 
 war, Jonson to a great Spanish galleon. There is one 
 affecting line in Jonson's epitaph on his first daughter — 
 
 " ' Here lies to each her parents ruth, 
 Mary the daughter of their youth. 
 At six months' end she parted hence, 
 In safety of her innocence.' 
 
 "Friday, 12th. — A very fine, bright, clear, hard frost. 
 William working again. I recopied The Pedlar, but poor 
 William all the time at work. ... In the afternoon a 
 poor woman came to beg, . . . but she has been used to go 
 a-begging, for she has often come here. Her father lived to 
 the age of 105. She is a woman of strong bones, with a 
 complexion that has been beautiful, and remained very 
 fresh last year, but now she looks broken, and her little boy 
 — a pretty little fellow, and whom I have loved for the sake 
 of Basil — looks thin and pale. I observed this to her. 
 ' Aye,' says she, ' we have all been ill. Our house was 
 nearly unroofed in the storm, and we lived in it so for more 
 than a week.' The child wears a ragged drab coat and a 
 fur cap. Poor little fellow, I think he seems scarcely at all
 
 294 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 grown since the first time I saw him. William was with 
 me when we met him in a lane going to Skelwith Bridge. 
 He looked very pretty. He was walking lazily, in the 
 deep narrow lane, overshadowed with the hedgerows, his 
 meal poke hung over his shoulder. He said he was going 
 a laiting. Poor creature ! He now wears the same coat 
 he had on at that time. "When the woman was gone, I 
 could not help thinking that we are not half thankful 
 enough that we are placed in that condition of life in which 
 we are, ... as we wish for this £50, that £100, &c., &c. 
 We have not, however, to reproach ourselves with ever breath- 
 ing a murmur. This woman's was but a common case. The 
 snow still lies upon the ground. Just at the closing in of 
 the day, I heard a cart pass the door, and at the same time 
 the dismal sound of a crying infant. I went to the window, 
 and had light enough to see that a man was driving a cart, 
 which seemed not to be very full, and that a woman with 
 an infant in her arms was followin<][ close behind and a docc 
 close to her. It was a wild and melancholy sight. . . . After 
 candles were lighted, we sate a long time with tlie windows 
 unclosed, and almost finished writing Tlie Pedlar ; but poor 
 William wore out himself and me out with labour. We had 
 an affecting conversation. Went to bed at twelve o'clock. 
 
 "Saturday, ISth. — It snowed a little tliis morning. Still 
 at work at 27ie Pedlar, altering and refitting. . . . William 
 read parts of his Recluse aloud to me. . . . 
 
 "Sunday, \4ith February. — A fine morning. Tlie sun 
 shines out, but it has been a hard frost in the night. There 
 are some little snowdrops that are afraid to put their white 
 heads quite out, and a few blossoms of hepatica that are 
 half-starved. William left me at work altering some 
 passages of The Peellar, and went into the orchard. The 
 fine day pushed him on to resolve, and as soon as I had 
 read a letter to him, which I had just received from Mrs
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's grasmere journal. 295 
 
 Clarkson, he said he would go to Penrith, so Molly was 
 despatched for the horse. I worked hard, got the writing 
 finished, and all quite trim. I wrote to Mrs Clarkson, and 
 put up some letters for Mary H., and off he went. . . . 
 I then sate over the fire, reading Ben Jonson's Poetaster, 
 and other things. Before sunset, I put on my shawl and 
 walked out. The snow-covered mountains were spotted with 
 rich sunlight, a palish-buffish colour. ... I stood at the 
 wishing-gate, and when I came in view of Rydal, I cast a 
 long look upon the mountains beyond. . . . After dinner, a 
 little before sunset, I walked out about twenty yards above 
 Glow-worm Eock. I met a carman, a Highlander, I suppose, 
 witli four carts, the first three belonging to himself, the last 
 evidently to a man and his family who had joined company 
 with him, and who I guessed to be potters. The carman 
 was cheering his horses, and talking to a little lass about 
 ten years of age who seemed to make him her companion. 
 She ran to the wall and took up a large stone to support 
 the wheel of one of his d?lrts, and ran on before with it in 
 her arms to be ready for him. She was a beautiful creature, 
 and there w^as something uncommonly impressive in the 
 lightness and joyousness of her manner. Her business 
 seemed to be all pleasure — pleasure in her own motions, 
 and the man looked at her as if he too was pleased, and 
 spoke to her in the same tone in which he spoke to his 
 horses. There was a wildness in her whole figure, not the 
 wildness of a mountain lass, but of the road lass, a traveller 
 from her birth, who had wanted neither food nor clothes. 
 Her mother followed the last cart with a lovely child, 
 perhaps about a year old, at her back, and a good-looking 
 girl, about fifteen years old, walked beside her. All the 
 children were like the mother. She had a very fresh com- 
 plexion, but she was blown with fagging up the steep hill 
 and with wliat she carried. Her husband was helping the
 
 ^^^ LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 liorse to drag the cart up by pusliing it with his shoukler. 
 ... I wrote to Coleridge. Went to bed at about twelve 
 o'clock. ... I slept badly, for iny thoughts were full of 
 William. 
 
 " Tuesday, 16th. — . . . Mr Clraham said he wished William 
 had been with him the other day ; he was riding in a post- 
 chaise, and he heard a strange cry that he could not under- 
 stand ; the sound continued, and he called to the chaise 
 driver to stop. It was a little girl that was crying as if her 
 heart would burst. She had got up behind the chaise, and 
 her cloak had been caught by the wheel and was jammed 
 in and it hung there. She was crying after it, poor thing. 
 Mr Graham took her into tlie chaise, and her cloak was 
 released from the wheel, but the child's misery did not 
 cease, for her cloak was torn to rags ; it had been a miser- 
 able cloak before, but she had no other, and it was the 
 greatest sorrow that could befall her. Her name was Alice 
 Fell.* She had no parents, and belonged to the next town. 
 At the next town Mr G. left money with some respectable 
 people in the town, to buy her a new cloak. 
 
 "Wednesday, 17 th. — . . . I copied the second part of 
 Fete7' Bell. . . . 
 
 "Thursday, 18M. — . . . I copied new part of Peter Bell in 
 W.'s absence, and began a letter to Coleridge. William 
 came in with a letter from Coleridge. ... We talked to- 
 gether till eleven o'clock, when William got to work and 
 was no worse for it. Hard frost. 
 
 "Saturday, 20th. — . . . I wrote the first part of Peter 
 Bell. . . . 
 
 "Sunday, ^Ist. — A very wet morning. I wrote the 
 second prologue to Peter Bell. . . . After dinner I wrote 
 
 * See vol. ii., p. 243-247.
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's grasmeee journal. 297 
 
 the first prologue. . . . Snowdrops quite out, but cold and 
 winterly ; yet, for all this, a thrush that lives in our orchard 
 has shouted and sung its merriest all day long. . . . 
 
 "Monday, 22ncl — . . . In the evening we walked to the 
 top of the hill, then to the bridge. We hung over the wall, 
 and looked at the deep stream below it come with a full, 
 steady, yet a very rapid, flow down to the lake. The sykes 
 made a sweet sound everywhere, and looked very interesting 
 in the twilight, and that little one above Mr Oliff's house 
 was very impressive, a ghostly white serpent line — it made 
 a sound most distinctly heard of itself. . . . 
 
 " Tuesday, 2Srd. — . . . When we came out of our own 
 doors, that dear thrush was singing upon the topmost of the 
 smooth branches of the ash tree at the top of the orchard. 
 How long it had been j)erched on that same tree I cannot 
 tell, but we had heard its dear voice in the orchard the day 
 through, along with a cheerful undersong made by our 
 winter friends, the robins. As we came home, I picked up 
 a few mosses by the roadside, which I left at home. We 
 then went to John's Grove. There we sate a little while 
 looking at the fading landscape. The lake, thougli the 
 objects on the shore were fading, seemed brighter than when 
 it is j)erfect day, and the island pushed itself upwards, 
 distinct and large. All the shores marked. There was a 
 sweet, sea-like sound in the trees above our heads. We 
 walked backwards and forwards some time for dear John's 
 sake, then walked to look at Rydal. . . . 
 
 "Friday, 26th. — , . . William always gets on better 
 with conversation at home than elsewhere. . . . 
 
 " Tuesday. — . . . We walked on Butterlip How under the 
 wind. It rained all the while. . . . The mountains of 
 Easedale, black and covered with snow at the tops, gave a
 
 298 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 peculiar softness to the valley. The clouds liid the tops of 
 some of them. The valley was populous, and enlivened 
 witli streams. . . . 
 
 " Wc(hiesda)/. — I was so unlucky as to propose to re-write 
 The Pedlar. William got to work, and was worn to 
 death. . . .' 
 
 " Friday. — Read L. B. Blessings on that brother of 
 mine. Beautiful new moon over Silver How. 
 
 " Sunday Morning. — A very fine, clear frost. I stitched 
 up The Pedlar ; wrote out R^dh ; read it with the altera- 
 tions, then wrote Mary H. Eead a little German, . . . and 
 in came William. . . . He brought two new stanzas of 
 Ruth. . . . 
 
 " Monday Morning. — A soft rain and mist. We walked 
 to Rydal for letters. The vale looked very beautiful in 
 excessive simplicity, yet, at the same time, in uncommon 
 obscurity. The church stood alone — mountains behind. 
 The meadows looked calm and rich, bordering on the still 
 lake. Nothing else to be seen but lake and island. . . . 
 
 " On Friday evening the moon liung over the northern side 
 of the highest point of Silver How, like a gold ring snapped 
 in two, and shaven off at the ends. Within this ring lay the 
 circle of the round moon, as distinctly to be seen as ever the 
 enlightened moon is. William had observed the same ap- 
 pearance at Keswick, . . . hanging over the Newland 
 Fells. ... 
 
 " Tuesday Morning. — William was reading in Ben 
 Jonson. He read me a beautiful poem on love. . . . We 
 sate by the firs in the evening, and read The Pedlar over. 
 William worked a little, and altered it in a few places. . . . 
 
 " Wednesday. — . . . William read in Ben Jonson in the 
 morning. I read a little German. . . . William has since tea
 
 DOROTHY WORDSWORTH'S GRASMERE JOURNAL. 299 
 
 been talking about publishing the Yorkshire Wolds poem 
 with The Pedlar. 
 
 " Tlmrsday. — A fine morning. William worked at the 
 poem of Tlic Singing Bird* Just as we were sitting down 
 to dinner we heard Mr Clarkson's voice. I ran down, 
 William followed. He was so finely mounted that William 
 was more intent upon the horse than the rider, an offence 
 easily forgiven, for Mr Clarkson was as proud of it himself as 
 he well could be. . . . 
 
 " Friday. — . . . The sun shone while it rained, and the 
 stones of the walls and the pebbles on the road glittered like 
 silver. . . . William finished his poem of The Singing Bird. 
 In the meantime I read the remainder of Lessing. In the 
 evening after tea William wrote Alice Fell. He went to 
 bed tired, with a wakeful mind and a weary body. . . . 
 
 " Saturday Morning. — It was as cold as ever it has been 
 all winter, very hard frost. . . . William finished Alice 
 Fell, and then wrote the poem of The Beggar Woman, 
 taken from a woman whom I had seen in May (now nearly 
 two years ago) when John and he were at Gallow Hill. I 
 sate with him at intervals all the morning, took down his 
 stanzas, &c. . . . After tea I read to William that account 
 of the little boy belonging to the tall woman, and an unlucky 
 thing it was, for he could not escape from those very words, 
 and so he could not write the poem. He left it unfinished, 
 and went tired to bed. In our walk from Rydal he had got 
 warmed with the subject, and had half cast the poem. 
 
 " Sunday Morning. — William . . . got up at nine o'clock, 
 but before he rose he had finished Tlte Beggar Boy, and 
 while we were at breakfast ... he wrote tlie poem To a 
 Butterfly ! He ate not a morsel, but sate with his shirt 
 neck unbuttoned, and his waistcoat open while he did it. 
 The thought first came upon him as we were talking about 
 
 First published in 1807 under the title of The Sailor's Mother.
 
 300 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 the pleasure we both always felt at the sight of a butterfly. 
 I told liim that I used to chase them a little, but that I was 
 afraid of brushing the dust off their wings, and did not catch 
 them. He told me how he used to kill all the white ones 
 when he went to school because they were Frenchmen. . . . 
 I wrote it down and the other poems, and I read them all 
 over to him. . . . William began to try to alter Tlic Butter- 
 fiy, and tired himself. . . . 
 
 "Monday Alorning. — We sate reading the poems, and I 
 read a little German. . . . 
 
 " Tuesday. — . . . William went up into the orchard, . . . 
 and wrote a part of The Emigrant Mother. After dinner 
 I read him to sleep. I read Spenser. . . . The moon was a 
 good height above the mountains. She seemed far distant 
 in the sky. There were two stars beside her, that twinkled 
 in and out, and seemed almost like butterflies in motion and 
 lightness. They looked to be far nearer to us than the 
 moon. 
 
 " Wednesday. — William went up into the orchard and 
 finished the poem. ... A sweet evening as it had been a 
 sweet day, and I walked quietly along the side of Rydal 
 lake with quiet thoughts — the hills and the lake were still 
 — the owls had not begun to hoot, and the little birds had 
 given over singing. I looked before me and saw a red light 
 upon Silver How as if coming out of the vale below, 
 
 " ' There was a light of most strange birth, 
 A light that came out of the earth, 
 And spread along the dark hill -side.' 
 
 Thus I was going on when I saw the shape of my beloved 
 in the road at a little distance. We turned back to see the 
 \\2\xt but it was fading — almost gone. The owls hooted when 
 we sate on the wall at the foot of White Moss ; the sky 
 broke more and more, and we saw the moon now and then. 
 John Gill passed us with his cart ; we sate on. When we
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's grasmere journal. 301 
 
 came in sight of our own dear Grasmere, the vale looked fair 
 and quiet in the moonshine, the Church was there and all 
 the cottages. There were huge slow-travelling clouds in the 
 sky, that threw large masses of shade upon some of the 
 mountains. We walked backwards and forwards, between 
 home and Olliff's, till I was tired. William kindled, and 
 began to write the poem. We carried cloaks into the 
 orchard, and sate a while there. I left him, and he nearly 
 finished the poem. I was tired to death, and went to bed 
 before him. He came down to me, and read the poem to me 
 in bed. . . . Rydal vale was full of life and motion. The wind 
 blew briskly, and the lake was covered all over with bright 
 silver waves, that were there each the twinkling of an eye, 
 then others rose up and took their place as fast as they went 
 away. The rocks glittered in the sunshine. The crows and 
 the ravens were busy, and the thrushes and little birds sang. 
 I went through the fields, and sate for an hour. ... As we 
 came along Ambleside vale in the twilight, it was a grave 
 evening. There was something in the air that compelled me 
 to various thoughts — the hills were large, closed in by the 
 sky. . . . Night was come on, and the moon was overcast. 
 But as I climbed the moss, the moon came out from behind a 
 mountain mass of black clouds. O, the unutterable dark- 
 ness of the sky, and the earth below the moon, and the 
 glorious brightness of the moon itself ! There was a vivid 
 sparkling streak of light at this end of Eydal water, but 
 the rest was very dark, and Loughrigg Fell and Silver How 
 were white and bright, as if they were covered with hoar 
 frost. The moon retired again, and appeared and disap- 
 peared several times before I reached home. Once there 
 was no moonlight to be seen but upon the island-house and 
 the promontory of the island where it stands. ' Tliat needs 
 must be a holy place,' &c., &c. I had many very exquisite 
 feelings, and when I saw this lowly building in the waters.
 
 302 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 among the dark and lofty hills, with that bright, soft light 
 npon it, it made me more than half a poet. When I reached 
 home, ... I tried to write verses. . . . 
 
 " Friday. — A very rainy morning. I went up into the 
 lane to collect a few green mosses to make the chimney gay 
 against my darling's return. Poor Coleridge, I did not wish 
 for, or expect him, it rained so. . . . Coleridge came in. 
 His eyes were a little swollen with the wind. I was much 
 affected by the sight of him, he seemed half-stupefied. 
 William came in soon after. Coleridge went to bed late, 
 and William and I sate up till four o'clock. A letter from 
 Sara sent by Mary. They disputed about Ben Jonson. My 
 spirits were agitated very much. 
 
 " Saturday. — . . . When I awoke the whole vale was 
 covered with snow. William and Coleridge walked. . . . 
 We had a little talk about going abroad. After tea William 
 read The Pedlar. Talked about various things — christen- 
 ing the children, &c., &c. 
 
 " Tuesday. — A mild morning. William worked at TAc 
 Cuckoo poem. I sewed beside him. ... I read German, 
 and, at the closing-in of day, went to sit in the orchard. 
 William came to me, and walked backwards and forwards. 
 We talked about Coleridge. Wm. repeated the poem to me. 
 I left him there, and in twenty minutes he came in, rather 
 tired with attempting to write. He is now reading Ben 
 Jonson. I am going to read German. . . . 
 
 "Wednesday. — I made a vow that we woidd not leave 
 this country for Gallow Hill. . . . William altered^ The 
 Butterfly as we came from Rydal. . . . 
 
 "Friday. — . . . William . . . worked at The Cuckoo. . . . 
 After dinner I sate two hours in the orchard. William . . . 
 trying, without success, to alter a passage in his Silver
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's grasmere journal. 303 
 
 Kow poem. He had written a conclusion just before he 
 went out. While I was getting into bed, he wrote Tlie 
 Mainhow. 
 
 " Saturday. — A divine morning. At breakfast William 
 wrote part of an ode. . . . We sate all day in the 
 orchard. 
 
 "Sunday. — We went to Keswick. Arrived wet to the 
 skin. ... 
 
 "Wednesday, ^\st MarcJi. — . . . We walked to Portin- 
 scale, lay upon the turf, and looked into the Vale of New- 
 lands ; up to Borrowdale, and down to Keswick — a soft 
 Venetian view. Calvert and Wilkinsons dined with us. 
 
 " Saturday, ^rd. — William went on to Skiddaw with 
 Coleridge. We dined at Calvert's. . . . 
 
 " Sunday, Mh. — We drove by gig to Water End. I 
 walked down to Coleridge's. Mrs Calvert came to Greta 
 Bank to tea. William walked down with Mrs Calvert, and 
 repeated his verses to them. . . . 
 
 "Monday, otli. — We came to Euesmere. Coleridge 
 walked with us to Threlkeld. . . . 
 
 "Monday, \1tli. — . , . The ground covered with snow. 
 Walked to T. Wilkinson's and sent for letters. The woman 
 brought me one from William and Mary. It was a sharp, 
 windy night. Thomas Wilkinson came with me to Barton, 
 and questioned me like a catechiser all the way. Every 
 question was like the snapping of a little thread about my 
 heart. I was so full of thought of my half-read letter and 
 other things. I was glad when he left me. Then I had 
 time to look at the moon while I was thinking my own 
 thoughts. The moon travelled through tlie clouds, tinging 
 them yellow as she passed along, with two stars near her,
 
 304 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 one larger than the other. These stars grew and diminished 
 as they passed from, or went into, the clouds. At this time 
 William, as I found the next day, was riding by himself 
 between Middleham and Barnard Castle. . . . 
 
 " TliiLrsday, April loth, 1802. — It was a threatening, 
 misty morning, but mild. We set off after dinner from 
 Eusemere. Mrs Clarkson went a short way with us, but 
 turned back. The wind was furious, and we thought we 
 must have returned. We first rested in the large boat- 
 house, then under a furze bush opposite Mr Clarkson's. 
 Saw the plough going in the field. The wind seized our 
 breath. The lake was rough. There was a boat by itself 
 floating in the middle of the bay below Water Millock. 
 We rested again in the Water Millock Lane. The haw- 
 thorns are black and green, the birches here and there 
 greenish, but there is yet more of purple to be seen on the 
 twigs. We got over into a field to avoid some cows — people 
 working. A few primroses by the roadside — woodsorrel 
 flower, the anemone, scentless violets, strawberries, and that 
 starry, yellow flower which Mrs C. calls pile wort. When 
 we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow Park we saw a 
 few daffodils close to the water-side. We fancied that the 
 sea had floated the seeds ashore, and that the little colony 
 had so sprung up. But as we went along there were more 
 and yet more ; and at last, under the boughs of the trees, 
 we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore, 
 about the breadth of a country turnpike road. I never saw 
 daffodils so beautiful. They grew among the mossy stones 
 about and above them ; some rested their heads upon these 
 stones, as on a pillow, for weariness ; and the rest tossed and 
 reeled and danced, and seemed as if they verily laughed 
 with the wind, that blew upon them over the lake ; they 
 looked so gay, ever glancing, ever changing. This wind
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's grasmere journal. 305 
 
 blew directly over the lake to them. There was here and 
 there a little knot, and a few stragglers higher up ; but they 
 were so few as not to disturb the simplicity, unity, and life 
 of that one busy highway. We rested again and again. 
 The bays were stormy, and we heard the waves at dif- 
 ferent distances, and in the middle of the water, like the 
 sea. . . . 
 
 "Friday, IGth April (Good Friday). — When I undrew 
 curtains in the morning, I was much affected by the beauty 
 of the prospect, and the change. The sun shone, the wind 
 had passed away, the hills looked cheerful, the river was 
 very bright as it flowed into the lake. The church rises up 
 behind a little knot of rocks, the steeple not so high as an 
 ordinary three-story house. . . . The valley is at first 
 broken by little woody knolls that make retiring places, 
 fairy valleys in tlie vale, the river winds along vmder these 
 hills, travelling, not in a bustle but not slowly, to the lake. 
 We saw a fisherman in the flat meadow on the other side of 
 the water. He came towards us, and threw his line over 
 the two-arched bridge. It is a bridge of a heavy construc- 
 tion, almost bending inwards in the middle, but it is grey, 
 and there is a look of ancientry in the architecture of it 
 that pleased me. As we go on the vale opens out more 
 into one vale, with somewhat of a cradle bed. Cottages, 
 with groups of trees, on the side of the hills. We passed a 
 pair of twin children, two years old. Sate on the next 
 bridge which we crossed — a single arch. We rested again 
 upon the turf, and looked at the same bridge. We observed 
 arches in the water, occasioned by the large stones sending 
 it down in two streams. A sheep came plunging through 
 the river, stumbled up the bank, and passed close to us. 
 It had been frightened by an insignificant little dog on the 
 other side. Its fleece dropped a glittering shower under its 
 belly. Primroses by the road-side, pile wort that shone 
 IX. u
 
 306 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 like stars of gold in the sim, violets, strawberries, retired 
 and half-buried among the grass. When we came to the 
 foot of Brothers Water, I left William sitting on the bridge, 
 and went along the path on the right side of the lake through 
 the wood. I was delighted with what I saw. The water 
 under the boughs of the bare old trees, the simplicity of 
 the mountains, and the exquisite beauty of the path. 
 There was one grey cottage. I repeated The Glow-worm, 
 as I walked along. I hung over the gate, and thought I 
 could have stayed for ever. Wlien 1 returned, 1 found 
 William writing a poem descriptive of the sights and sounds 
 we saw and heard.* There was the gentle flowing of the 
 stream, the glittering, lively lake, green fields without a 
 living creature to be seen on them ; behind us, a flat 
 pasture with forty-two cattle feeding ; to our left, the road 
 leading to the hamlet. No smoke there, the sun shone on 
 the bare roofs. The people were at work ploughing, har- 
 rowing, and sowing ; . . . a dog barking now and then, 
 cocks crowing, birds twittering, the snow in patches at the 
 top of the highest hills, yellow palms, purple and green 
 twigs on the birches, ashes with their glittering spikes, 
 stems quite bare. The hawthorn a bright green, with black 
 stems under the oak. The moss of the oak glossy. We 
 went on. . . . William finished his poem before we got to the 
 foot of Kirkstone.* There were hundreds of cattle in the 
 vale. . . . The walk up Kirkstone was very interesting. 
 The becks among the rocks were all alive. William showed 
 me the little mossy streamlet which he had before loved 
 when he saw. its briglit green track in the snow. The view 
 above Ambleside very beautiful. There we sate and looked 
 down on the green vale. We watched the crows at a little 
 distance from us become white as silver as they flew in tlie 
 sunshine, and when they went still further, they looked like 
 
 * " The cock is crowing," &c., see vol. ii., p. 262.
 
 DOROTHY WORDSWORTH'S GRASMERE JOURNAL. 307 
 
 shapes of water passing over the green fiekls. The whiten- 
 ing of Ambleside church is a great deduction from the 
 beauty of it, seen from this point. . . . The garden looked 
 pretty in the half-moonlight, half-daylight, as we went up 
 the vale. . . . 
 
 " Saturday, 1*7 th. — . . . We sate in the garden all the 
 morning. William dug a little. I transplanted a honey- 
 suckle. The lake was still. The sheep on the island, 
 reflected in the water, like the grey-deer we saw in Gow- 
 barrow. ... I saw a robin chasing a scarlet butterfly this 
 morning. 
 
 "Sunday, 18th. — . . . We sate in the orchard. William 
 wrote the poem on The RoMn and the Butterfiy* . . . 
 William met me at Rydal . . . with the conclusion of the 
 poem of the Eobin. . . . We left out some lines. 
 
 " Tuesday, 20 th. — . . . William wrote a conclusion t to 
 the poem of the * Butterfly ' : — 
 
 * I've watched you now a full half -hour.' 
 
 . . . We sate in the orchard and repeated The Gloiv-ivorm 
 and other poems. Just when William came to a well or 
 trough, which there is in Lord Darlington's park, he began 
 to write that poem of The Gloia-worm ; . . . interrupted 
 in going through the town of Staindrop, finished it about 
 two miles and a half beyond Staindrop. He did not feel 
 the jogging of the horse while he was writing ; but, when 
 he had done, he felt the effect of it, and his fingers were 
 cold with his gloves. His horse fell with him on the other 
 side of St Helens, Auckland. So much for The Glow- 
 worm. It was written coming from Middleham on Monday, 
 April 12, 1802. . . . 
 
 * See vol. ii., p. 21)4. 
 
 t Published as a separate poem.
 
 i08 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 " Wednesday/, 21si. — "William and I sauntered a little in 
 the garden. Coleridge came to us, and repeated the verses 
 he wrote to Sara. I was affected by them. . . . The sun- 
 shine, the green fields, and the fair sky made me sadder ; even 
 the little happy, sporting lambs seemed but sorrowful to me. 
 The pile wort spread out on the grass a thousand shiney 
 stars ? The primroses were there, and the remains of a few 
 daffodils. The well, which we cleaned out last night, is still 
 but a little muddy pond, though full of water. . . . Eead 
 Ferguson's life and a poem or two. . . . 
 
 " TJiursday 22nd. — . , . We walked into Easedale. The 
 sun shone. Coleridge talked of his plan of sowing the 
 laburnum in the woods. The waters were high, for there 
 had been a great quantity of rain in the night. I sate under 
 the shade of a holly tree that grows upon a rock, and 
 looked down the stream. I then went to the single holly 
 behind that single rock in the field, and sate upon the grass 
 till they came from the waterfall. I saw them there, and 
 heard William flinging stones into the river, whose roaring 
 was loud even where I was. When they returned, William 
 was repeating the poem : — 
 
 ' I have thouglits that are fed by the suu.' 
 
 It had been called to his mind by the dying away of the 
 stunning of the waterfall when he got behind a stone. . . . 
 "Friday 22>rd Ajjril 1802. — . . . We determined to go 
 under Nab Scar. . . . The sun shone, and we were lazy. Cole- 
 ridge pitched upon several places to sit down, but we could 
 not be all of one mind respecting sun and shade, so we pushed 
 on to the foot of the Scar. It was very grand when we looked 
 up, very stormy, here and there a budding tree. William 
 observed that the umbrella yew tree, that breasts the wind, 
 had lost its character as a tree, and had become something
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's grasmere journal. 309 
 
 like to solid wood. Coleridge and I pushed on before. 
 We left William sitting on the stones, feasting with silence ; 
 and C. and I sat down upon a rocky seat — a couch it might 
 be under the bower of William's eglantine, Andrew's Broom. 
 He was below us, and we could see him. He came to us, 
 and repeated his poems * while we sate beside him upon the 
 ground. He had made himself a seat in the crumbling 
 ground. Afterwards we lingered long, looking into the vales ; 
 Ambleside vale, with the copses, the village under the hill, 
 and the green fields ; Eydal, with a lake all alive and glit- 
 tering, yet but little stirred by breezes ; and our dear 
 Grasmere, making a little round lake of nature's own, with 
 never a house, never a green field, but the copses and the 
 bare hills enclosing it, and tlie river flowing out of it. Above 
 rose the Coniston Fells, in their own shape and colour — not 
 man's hills, but all for themselves, the sky and the clouds, 
 and a few wild creatures. C. went to search for something 
 new. We saw him climbing up towards a rock. He called 
 us, and we found him in a bower — the sweetest that was 
 ever seen. The rock on one side is very high, and all covered 
 with ivy, which hung loosely about, and bore bunches of 
 brown berries. On the other side it was higher than my 
 head. We looked down on the Ambleside vale, that seemed 
 to wind away from us, the village lying under tlie hill. The fir- 
 tree island was reflected beautifully. About this bower there 
 is mountain- ash, common -ash, yew-tree, ivy, holly, hawthorn, 
 grasses, and flowers, and a carpet of moss. Above, at the 
 top of the rock, there is another spot. It is scarce a bower, 
 a little parlour only, not enclosed by walls, but shaped out 
 for a vestry-place by the rocks, and the ground rising about 
 it. It had a sweet moss carpet. We resolved to go and 
 
 * See the pomn The Waterfall and Ike Efj/atitiiir, and 'fhe Oak and the 
 Broom, vol. ii., p. Ki'J.
 
 310 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 plant flowers in both these places to-morrow. We wished 
 for Mary and Sara. . . . 
 
 "Sat. 24.tJi. — , . . We walked in the evening to Rydal. 
 Coleridge and I lingered behind. Coleridge stopped iip the 
 little rnnnel by the road-side to make a lake. We all stood 
 to look at Glow-worm Rock — a primrose that grew there,* 
 and just looked out on the road from its own sheltered bower. 
 The clouds moved, as William observed, in one regular body 
 like a multitude in motion — a sky all clouds over, not one 
 cloud. On our return it broke a little out, and we saw here 
 and there a star. One appeared but for a moment in a pale 
 blue sky. 
 
 "Sunday, 25th April. — After breakfast we set off with 
 Coleridge towards Keswick. . . . We spent the morning in 
 the orchard reading the Epithalamium of Spenser ; walked 
 backwards and forwards. ... 
 
 " Moiulay, 26th. — I copied William's poems for Cole- 
 ridge. . . . 
 
 "Tuesday, 27th. — . . . In the evening W. began to 
 write the ' Tinker ' ; we had a letter and verses from Cole- 
 ridge. 
 
 "Wednesday, 28th Aptril. — . . , 1 copied The Prioress's 
 Tale. William was in the orchard. I went to him ; he 
 worked away at his poem. ... I happened to say that 
 when I was a child I would Jiot have pulled a strawberry 
 blossom. I left him, and wrote out The Maneiples Tale. 
 At dinner time he came in with the poem of Children 
 Gathering Floivers, t but it was not quite finished, and it 
 kept him long off his dinner. It is now done. He is 
 working at the 'Tinker.' . . . We corrected the Chancers, 
 but I could not finish them to-night. . . . 
 
 "Monday, 29th. — . . . After I had written down the 
 
 * See The Primrose of the Bock, vol. vii., p. 20 J. 
 t See Foresight, vol. ii., p. 267.
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's grasmere journal. 311 
 
 ' Tinker/ which "William finished this morning, ... we 
 went to John's Grove, sate a while at first ; afterwards 
 William lay, and I lay, in the trench under the fence — he 
 with his eyes shut, and listening to the waterfalls and the 
 birds. There was no one waterfall above another — it was 
 a sound of waters in the air — the voice of the air. . . . "We 
 were unseen by one another. We thought that it would bt 
 so sweet thus to lie in the grave, to hear the peaceful sounds 
 of the earth, and just to know that our dear friends were 
 near. The lake was still ; there was a boat out. Silver 
 How reflected with delicate purple and yellowish hues, as I 
 have seen spar ; lambs on the islands, and running races 
 together by the half-dozen, in the round field near us. The 
 copses greenish, hawthorns green, . . . cottages smoking. 
 As I lay down on the grass, I observed the glittering silver 
 line on the ridge of the backs of the sheep, owing to their 
 situation respecting the sun, which made them look beautiful, 
 but with something of strangeness, like animals of another 
 kind, as if belonging to a more splendid world. ... I got 
 mullins and pansies. . . . 
 
 " Friday, April 30 th. — We came into the orchard directly 
 after breakfast, and sate there. The lake was calm, the day 
 cloudy. . . . Two fishermen by the lake side. William 
 began to write the poem of The Celandine* . . . Walked 
 backwards and forwards with William — he repeated his 
 poem to me, then he got to work again and would not give 
 over. . . . William fell asleep, . . . having been disturbed 
 the night before with reading Coleridge's letter. ... I lay 
 with half-shut eyes looking at the prospect as on a vision 
 almost, I was so resigned t to it. Loughrig Fell was the most 
 
 * See vol. ii., p. 269. 
 
 t "Resigned" is curiously used in the Lake District. A woman there 
 once told me that Mr Ruskin was "very much resigned to his own 
 company."
 
 312 LIFE OF AYORDSWOIITH. 
 
 distant hill, then came the lake, slipping in between the 
 copses. Above the copse, the round swelling field ; nearer 
 to me, a wild intermixture of rocks, trees, and patches of 
 grassy ground. When we turned the corner of our little 
 shelter, we saw the church and the whole vale. It is a 
 blessed place. The birds were about us on all sides . - . 
 and flew over our heads, as we were warned by the sound 
 of the beating of the air above. We stayed till the light 
 of day was going, and the little birds had begun to settle 
 their singing. But there was a thrush not far off, that 
 seemed to sing louder and clearer than the thrushes had 
 sung when it was quite day. ... 
 
 " Saturday, May 1st. — . . . A clear sky. ... I sowed 
 the flowers, William helped me. We then went and sate 
 in the orchard. ... It was very hot. William wrote The 
 Celandine* We planned a shed, for the sun was too 
 much for us. After dinner, we went again to our old 
 resting-place in the hollins under the rock. We first lay 
 under the holly, where we saw nothing but the tree, and a 
 budding elm mossed, with the sky above our heads. But 
 that holly -tree had a beauty about it more than its own. . . . 
 When the sun had got low enough, we went to the rock 
 shade. Oh, the overwhelming beauty of the vale below, 
 greener than green ! Two ravens flew high, high in the 
 sky, and the sun shone upon their bellies and their wings, 
 long after there was none of his light to be seen but a little 
 space on the top of Loughrigg Fell. Heard the cuckoo 
 to-day, this first of May. We went down to tea at eight 
 o'clock, . . . and returned after tea. The landscape was 
 fading : sheep and lambs quiet among the rocks. We 
 walked towards King's, and backwards and forwards. The 
 
 * Doubtless the second of the two poems, beginning thus — 
 " Pleasures newly found are swee ."
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's grasmere journal. 313 
 
 sky was perfectly cloudless. . . . Three solitary stars in the 
 middle of the blue vault, one or two on the points of tlie 
 high hills. 
 
 " Tuesday, -ith May. — Though William went to bed 
 nervous and jaded in the extreme, he rose refreshed. I wrote 
 out The Leech Gatherer for him, which he had begun 
 the night before, and of which he wrote several stanzas in 
 bed this morning. [They started to walk to Wytheburn.] 
 It was very hot. . . . We rested several times by the way, — 
 read, and repeated The Leech Gatherer. . . . We saw Coleridge 
 on the Wytheburn side of the water ; he crossed the beck 
 to us. Mr Simpson was fishing there. William and I ate 
 luncheon, and then went on towards the waterfall. It is 
 a glorious wild solitude under that lofty purple crag. It 
 stood upright by itself ; its own self, and its shadow below, 
 one mass ; all else was sunshine. We went on further. A 
 bird at the top of the crag was flying round and round, and 
 looked in thinness and transparency, shape and motion like 
 a moth. . . . We climbed the hill, but looked in vain for a 
 shade, except at the foot of the great waterfall. We came 
 down, and rested upon a moss-covered rock rising out of the bed 
 of the river. There we lay, ate our dinner, and stayed there 
 till about four o'clock or later. William and Coleridge re- 
 peated and read verses. I drank a little brandy and water, 
 and was in heaven. The stag's horn is very beautiful and 
 fresh, springing upon the fells ; mountain ashes, green. We 
 drank tea at a farm house. . . . We parted from Coleridge at 
 Sara's crag, after having looked for the letters which C. carved 
 in the morning. I missed them all. William deepened the 
 X with C.'s penknife. We sate afterwards on tlie wall, 
 seeing the sun go down, and the reflections in the still water. 
 C. looked well, and parted from us cheerfully, hopping upon 
 the side stones. On the Raise we met a woman with two 
 little girls, one in her arms, the other, about four years old.
 
 1 4 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 walking by her side, a pretty little thing, but half-starved. . . . 
 Young as she was she walked carefully with thern. Alas, 
 too young for such cares and such travels. The mother, 
 when we accosted her, told us how her husband had left her, 
 and gone off with another woman, and how she ' inirsiiccl * 
 them. Then her fury kindled, and her eyes rolled about. 
 She clianged again to tears. She was a Cockermouth 
 woman, thirty years of age — a child at Cockermouth when 
 
 1 was. I was moved, and gave her a shilling. . . , We had 
 the crescent moon with the ' auld moon in her arms.' We 
 rested often, always upon the bridges. Reached home at 
 about ten o'clock. . . . We went soon to bed. I repeated 
 verses to William wliile he was in bed ; he was soothed, 
 and I left him. ' This is the spot ' over and over again. 
 
 " Wednesday, 5 th May. — A very fine morning, rather 
 cooler than yesterday. We planted three -fourths of the 
 bower. I made bread. We sate in the orchard. The 
 thrush sang all day, as he always sings. I wrote to the 
 Hutchinsons, and to Coleridge. Packed off Thalaba. 
 William had kept off work till near bed-time, when we re- 
 turned from our walk. Then he began again, and went to 
 bed very nervous. We walked in the twilight, and walked 
 till night came on. The moon had the old moon in her 
 arms, but not so plain to be seen as the night before. When 
 we went to bed it was a boat without the circle. I read 
 The Lovers Comijlaint to William in bed, and left him 
 composed. 
 
 " Tlinrsday, Wi May. — A sweet morning. We have 
 put the finishing stroke to our bower, and here we are sitting 
 in tlie orchard. It is one o'clock. We are sitting upon a 
 seat under the wall, which I found my brother building up, 
 when I came to liim. . , . He had intended that it should 
 have been done before I came. It is a nice, cool, shady spot. 
 The small birds are singing, lambs bleating, cuckoos calling,
 
 DOKOTHY Wordsworth's grasmere journal. 315 
 
 the thrush sings by fits, Thomas Ashburnam's axe is going 
 quietly (without passion) in the orchard, hens are cackling, 
 flies humming, the women talking together at their doors, 
 plum and pear trees are in blossom — apple trees greenish — 
 the opposite woods green, the crows are cawing, we have 
 heard ravens, the ash trees are in blossom, birds flying 
 all about us, the stitchwort is coming out, there is one 
 budding lychnis, the primroses are passing their prime, 
 celandine, violets, and wood sorrel for ever more, little 
 geraniums and pansies on the wall. We walked in the 
 evening to Tail End, to inquire about hurdles for the orchard 
 shed. . . . When we came in we found a magazine, and review, 
 and a letter from Coleridge, verses to Hartley, and Sara H. 
 We read the review, &c. The moon was a perfect boat, a 
 silver boat, when we were out in the evening. The birch tree 
 is all over green in smcdl leaf, more light and elegant than 
 when it is full out. It bent to the breezes, as if for the love 
 of its own delightful motions. Sloe-thorns and hawthorns 
 in the hedges. 
 
 " Friday, 7th May. — William had slept uncommonly well, 
 so, feeling himself strong, he fell to work at The Leech 
 Gatherer ; he wrote hard at it till dinner time, then he gave 
 over, tired to death — he had finished the poem. I was 
 making Derwent's frocks. After dinner we sate in the 
 orchard. It was a thick, hazy, dull air. The thrush sang 
 almost continually ; the little birds were more than usually 
 busy with their voices. The sparrows are now full fledged. 
 The nest is so full that they lie upon one another ; they sit 
 quietly in their nest with closed mouths. I walked to 
 Rydal after tea, which we drank by the kitchen fire. The 
 evening very dull ; a terrible kind of threatening brightness 
 at sunset above Easedale. The sloe-thorn beautiful in the 
 hedges, and in the wild spots higher up among the hawthorns. 
 No letters. William met me. He liad been digging in my
 
 316 LIFE OF ^yORDSWORTH. 
 
 absence, and cleaning the well. We walked up beyond 
 Lewthwaites. A very dull sky ; coolish ; crescent moon now 
 and then. I had a letter brought me from Mrs Clarksou 
 while we were walking in the orchard. I observed the 
 sorrel leaves opening at about nine o'clock. William went 
 to bed tired with thinking about a poem. 
 
 " Saturday Morning, 8th May. — We sowed the scarlet 
 beans in the orchard, and read Henry V. there. William 
 lay on his back on the seat, and wept. . . . After dinner 
 William added one to the orchard steps. 
 
 " Sunday Morning, 9 th May. — The air considerably colder 
 to-day, but the sun shone all day. William worked at 
 The Leech Gatherer almost incessantly from morning till 
 tea-time. I copied The Leech Gedhcrer and other poems 
 for Coleridge. I was oppressed and sick at heart, for he 
 wearied himself to death. After tea he wrote two stanzas 
 in the manner of Thomson's Castle of Lmlolencc, and was 
 tired out. Bad news of Coleridge. 
 
 "Monday, 10th May. — A fine clear morning, but coldish. 
 William is still at work, though it is past ten o'clock ; he 
 will be tired out, I am sure. My heart fails in me. He 
 worked a little at odd things, but after dinner he gave over. 
 An affecting letter from ]\Iary H. We sate in the orchard 
 before dinner. ... I wrote to Mary H. . . . I wrote to 
 Coleridge, sent off reviews and poems. Went to bed at 
 twelve o'clock. William did not sleep till three o'clock. 
 
 " Tuesday, 1 1 th May. — A cool air. William finished the 
 stanzas about C. and himself. He did not go out to-day. 
 Miss Simpson came in to tea, which was lucky enough, for 
 it interrupted his labours. I walked with her to Eydal. 
 The evening cool ; the moon only now and then to be seen ; 
 the lake purple as we went ; primroses still in abundance. 
 William did not meet me. He completely finished his 
 poem, I finished Derwent's frocks. We went to bed nt 
 twelve o'clock. . . .
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's grasmere jourjsal. 317 
 
 " Wednesday, 12th May. — A sunshiny, but coldish morn- 
 ing. We walked into Easedale. . . . We brought home 
 heckberry blossom, crab blossom, the anemone nemorosa, 
 marsh marigold, speedwell, — that beautiful blue one, the 
 colour of the blue-stone or glass used in jewellery — with the 
 beautiful pearl-like chives. Anemones are in abundance, and 
 still the dear dear primroses, violets in beds, pansies in abun- 
 dance, and the little celandine. I pulled a bunch of the 
 taller celandine. Butterflies of all colours. I often see 
 some small ones of a pale purple lilac, or emperor's eye 
 colour, something of the colour of that large geranium which 
 grows by the lake side. . . . William pulled ivy with beautiful 
 berries. I put it over the chimney-piece. Sate in the 
 orchard the hour before dinner, coldish. ... In the evening 
 we were sitting at the table writing, when we were roused 
 by Coleridge's voice below. He had walked ; looked palish, 
 but was not much tired. We sate up till one o'clock, all 
 together, then William went to bed, and I sate with C. in 
 the sitting-room (where he slept) till a quarter past two 
 o'clock. Wrote to M. H. 
 
 '' Tlmrsday, loth May. — The day was very cold, with 
 snow showers. Coleridge had intended going in the morn- 
 ins to Keswick, but the cold and showers hindered him. 
 We went with him after tea as far as the plantations by the 
 roadside descending to Wytheburn. He did not look well 
 when we parted from him. . . . 
 
 Friday, 14:th May. — A very cold morning — hail and 
 snow showers all day. We went to Brothers wood, intend- 
 ing to get plants, and to go along the shore of the lake 
 to the foot. We did go a part of the way, but there was 
 no pleasure in stepping along that difficult sauntering road 
 in this ungenial weather. We turned again, and walked 
 backwards and forwards in Brothers wood. William tired 
 himself with seeking an epithet for the cuckoo. I sate a
 
 318 LIFE OF WOKDSWOETH. 
 
 while upon my last summer seat, the mossy stone. William's, 
 unoccupied, beside me, and the space between, where 
 Coleridge has so often lain. The oak trees are just putting 
 forth yellow knots of leaves. The ashes with their flowers 
 passing away, and leaves coming out ; the blue hyacinth is not 
 quite full blown ; gowans are coming out ; marsh marygolds 
 in full glory ; the little star plant, a star without a flower. 
 We took home a great load of gowans, and planted them 
 about the orchard. After dinner, I worked bread, 
 then came and mended stockings beside William ; he fell 
 asleep. After tea I walked to Eydal for letters. It was 
 a strange night. The hills were covered over with a slight 
 covering of hail or snow, just so as to give them a hoary 
 winter look with the black rocks. The woods looked miser- 
 able, the coppices green as grass, which looked quite un- 
 natural, and they seemed half shrivelled up, as if they shrank 
 from the air. 0, thought I ! what a beautiful thing God has 
 made winter to be, by stripping the trees, and letting us see 
 their shapes and forms. What a freedom does it seem to 
 give to the storms ! There were several new flowers out, but 
 I had no pleasure in looking at them. I walked as fast as 
 I could back again with my letter from S. H. . . . Met 
 William at the top of White Moss. . . . Near ten when 
 we came in. William and Molly had dug the ground and 
 planted potatoes in my absence. We wrote to Coleridge ; 
 sent off bread and frocks to the C.'s. Went to bed at half- 
 past eleven. William very nervous. After he was in bed, 
 haunted with altering The Eaiiiboiv. 
 
 " Satimlay, loth. — A very cold and cheerless morning. 
 I sate mending stockings all the luorning. I read in 
 Shakespeare. William lay very late because he slept ill 
 last night. It snowed this morning just like Christmas. 
 We had a melancholy letter from Coleridge at bedtime.
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's grasmere journal. 319 
 
 It distressed me very much, and I resolved upon going to 
 Keswick the next day." 
 
 (The following is written on the blotting-paper opposite 
 this date : — ) 
 
 " S. T. Coleridge. 
 
 Dorothy "Wordsworth. William Wordsworth. 
 
 Mary Hutchinson. Sara Hutchinson. 
 
 William. Coleridge. Mary, 
 
 Dorothy. Sara. 
 
 16th May 
 
 1802. 
 
 John Wordsworth." 
 
 "Sunday, 16th. — William was at work all the morning. 
 I did not go to Keswick. A sunny, cold, frosty day. A 
 snow-storm at night. We were a good while in the orchard 
 in the morning. 
 
 " Monday, 17 th Hay. — William was not well, he went 
 with me to Wytheburn water, and left me in a post-chaise. 
 Hail showers, snow, and cold attacked me. The people 
 were graving peats under Nadel Fell. A lark and thrush 
 singing near Coleridge's house. Bancrofts there. A letter 
 from M. H. 
 
 " Tuesday, 18th May. — Terribly cold, Coleridge not well. 
 Froude called, Wilkinsons called, C. and I walked in 
 the evening in the garden. Warmer in the evening. 
 Wrote to M. and S. 
 
 "Wednesday, 19th May. — A grey morning — not quite 
 so cold. C. and I set off at half-past nine o'clock. Met 
 William near the six-mile stone. We sate down by the 
 road-side, and then went to Wytheburn water. Longed 
 to be at the island. Sate in the sun. We drank tea at 
 John Stanley's. The evening cold and clear. A glorious 
 light on Skiddaw. I was tired. Brought a cloak down
 
 320 LIFE OF WORDSWOETH. 
 
 from Mr Simpson's. Packed up books for Coleridge, then 
 got supper, and went to bed. 
 
 " Tliursday, 20th Mai/. — A frosty, clear morning. I lay 
 in bed late. William got to work. I was somewhat tired. 
 We sate in the orchard sheltered all the morning. In the 
 evening there was a fine rain. We received a letter from 
 Coleridge telling us that he wished us not to go to Keswick. 
 
 "Friday/, 21st May. — A very warm gentle morning, a 
 little rain. William wrote two sonnets on Buonaparte, after 
 I had read Milton's sonnets to him. In the evening he 
 went with Mr Simpson with Borwick's boat to gather ling 
 in Bainriggs. I plashed about the well, was much heated, 
 and I think I caught cold. 
 
 " Saturday, 22nd May. — A very hot morning. A hot 
 wind, as if coming from a sand desert. We met Coleridge. 
 He was sitting under Sara's rock. When we reached him 
 he turned with us. We sate a long time under the wall of 
 a sheep-fold. Had some interesting, melancholy talk, about 
 his private affairs. We drank tea at a farm-house. The 
 woman was very kind. There was a woman with three 
 children travelling from Workington to Manchester. The 
 woman served them liberally. Afterwards she said that 
 she never sufiered any to go away without a trifle ' sec as 
 we have.' The woman at whose house we drank tea the 
 last time was rich and senseless — she said ' she never 
 served any but their own poor.' C. came home with us. 
 We sate some time in the orchard. . . . Letters from S. 
 and M. H. 
 
 " Sunday. — I sat with C. in the orchard all the morning. 
 . . . We walked in Bainrigg's after tea. Saw the juniper 
 — umbrella shaped. C. went to the Points,* joined us on 
 White Moss. 
 
 * Mary Point and Sara Point; the " two heath-clad rocks" referred to 
 in one of the Poem>i on the Naminij of Places.
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's grasmere journal. 321 
 
 "Monday, 2-^th May. — A very, hot morning. We were 
 ready to go off with Coleridge, but foolishly sauntered, 
 and Miss Taylor and Miss Stanley called. William and 
 Coleridge and I went afterwards to the top of the Kaise. 
 
 " I had sent off a letter to Mary by C. I wrote again, 
 and to C. 
 
 " Tuesday, 25 th. — . . . Papers and short note from C. ; 
 again no" sleep for William, 
 
 Friday, 28th. — . . . William tired himself with ham- 
 mering at a passage. 
 
 "... We sate in the orchard. The sky cloudy, the air 
 sweet and cool. The young bulfinches, in their party-coloured 
 raiment, bustle about among the blossoms, and poise them- 
 selves like wire-dancers or tumblers, shaking the twigs and 
 dashing off the blossoms.* There is yet one primrose in the 
 orchard. The stitchwort is fading. The vetches are 
 in abundance, blossoming and seeding. That pretty 
 little wavy-looking dial-like yellow flower, the speed- 
 well, and some others, whose names I do not yet know. 
 The wild columbines are coming into beauty ; some 
 of the gowans fading. In the garden we have lilies, 
 and many other flowers. The scarlet beans are up in 
 crowds. It is now between eight and nine o'clock. It has 
 rained sweetly for two hours and a half ; the air is -very 
 mild. The heckberry blossoms are dropping off fast, almost 
 gone ; barberries are in beauty ; snowballs coming forward ; 
 May roses blossoming. 
 
 "Saturday, 29th. — . . . .. William finished his poem on 
 going for Mary. I wrote it out. I wrote to Mary H,, liav- 
 ing received a letter from her in the evening. A sweet 
 day. We nailed up tlie honey.suckles, and hoed the scarlet 
 beans. 
 
 * Compare 7Vie Green Liiinef, vol. ii., p. 319. 
 IX. X
 
 322 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 "Monday, Zlst. — . . . . We sat out all the clay. . . . 
 I wrote out the poem on ' Our Departure,' which he seemed 
 to have finished. In the evening Miss Simpson brought us 
 a letter from M. H., and a complimentary and critical letter 
 to W. from John Wilson of Glasgow. . . . 
 
 " Tuesday. — A very sweet day, but a sad want of rain. 
 We went into the orchard after I had written to M. H. 
 Then on to Mr Olliff's intake. . . . The columbine was grow- 
 ing upon the rocks ; here and there a solitary plant, sheltered 
 and shaded by the tufts and bowers of trees. It is a graceful 
 slender creature, a female seeking retirement, and growing 
 freest and most graceful where it is most alone. I observed 
 that the more shaded plants were always the tallest. A short 
 note and gooseberries from Coleridge. We walked upon 
 the turf near John's Grove. It was a lovely night. The 
 clouds of the western sky reflected a saffron light upon the 
 upper end of the lake. All was still. We went to look at 
 Rydal. There was an Alpine, fire-like red upon the tops of 
 the mountains. This was gone when we came in view of 
 the lake. But we saw the lake from a new and most beautiful 
 point of view, between two little rocks, and behind a small 
 ridge that had concealed it from us. This white moss, a 
 place made for all kinds of beautiful works of art and 
 nature, woods and valleys, fairy valleys and fairy tarns, 
 miniature mountains, alps above alps. 
 
 " Wednesday, 2nd June. — In the morning we observed that 
 the scarlet beans were drooping in the leaves in great numbers, 
 owing, we guess, to an insect. . . . Yesterday an old man 
 called, a grey-headed man, above seventy years of age. He 
 said he had been a soldier, that his wife and children had died 
 in Jamaica. He had a beggar's wallet over his shoulders ; a 
 coat of shreds and patches, altogether of a drab colour ; he 
 was tall, and though his body was bent, he had the look of
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's grasmere journal. 323 
 
 one used to have been upright. I talked a while, and then 
 gave him a piece of cold bacon and some money. Said he, 
 ' You're a fine woman ! ' I could not help smiling ; I 
 suppose he meant, ' You're a kind woman.' Afterwards a 
 woman called, travelling to Glasgow. After dinner we went 
 into Frank's field, crawled up the little glen, and planned a 
 seat; . . . found a beautiful shell-like purple fungus in 
 Frank's field. After tea we walked to Butterlip How, 
 and backwards and forwards there. All the young oak 
 tree leaves are dry as powder. A cold south wind, portend- 
 ing rain. . . . 
 
 " Thursday, Srd June 1802. — A very fine rain. I lay 
 in my bed till ten o'clock. William much better than 
 yesterday. We walked into Easedale. . . . The cuckoo 
 sang, and we watched the little birds as we sate at the door 
 of the cow-house. The oak copses are brown, as in autumn, 
 with the late frosts. . . . We have been reading the life 
 and some of the writings of poor Logan since dinner. 
 There are many affecting lines and passages in his poem, e.g., 
 
 ' And everlasting longings for the lost.' 
 . . . William is now sleeping with the window open, lying 
 on the window seat. The thrush is singing. There are, I 
 do believe, a thousand buds on the honeysuckle tree, all small 
 and far from blowing, save one that is retired behind the 
 twigs close to the wall, and as snug as a bird nest. John's 
 rose tree is very beautiful, blended with the honeysuckle. 
 
 " Yesterday morning William walked as far as the Swan 
 with Aggy Fisher, who was going to attend upon Goan's 
 dying infant. She said, ' There are many heavier crosses 
 than the death of an infant ; ' and went on, * There was a 
 woman in this vale who buried four grown-up children in 
 one year, and I have heard her say, when many years were 
 gone by, that she had more pleasure in thinking of those 
 four than of her living children, for as children get up and
 
 324 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 have families of their own, their duty to their parents 
 u-cars out and wcaJccns. She could trip lightly by the 
 graves of those who died when they were young ... as 
 she went to church on a Sunday." 
 
 " TJmrsday, ord June. — . . . A very affecting letter came 
 from M. H., while I was sitting in the window reading Milton's 
 Fenscroso to AVilliam. I answered this letter before I went 
 to bed. 
 
 "Saturday, ofJi. — A fine showery morning. I made both 
 pies and bread ; but we first walked into Easedale, and sate 
 under the oak trees, upon the mossy stones. There were 
 one or two slight showers. The gowaus were flourishing 
 along the banks of the stream. The strawberry flower 
 hanging over the brook ; all things soft and green. In 
 the afternoon William sate in the orchard. I went there ; 
 was tired, and fell asleep. William began a letter to John 
 Wilson. 
 
 "Sunday, Qth June. — A showery morning. We were 
 writing the letter to John Wilson when Ellen came. . . . 
 After dinner I walked into John Eisher's intake with Ellen. 
 He brought us letters from Coleridge, Mrs Clarkson, and 
 Sara Hutchinson. . . . 
 
 " Monday, 7 th June. — I wrote to Mary H. this morning ; 
 sent the C. ' Indolence ' poem. Copied the letter to John 
 Wilson, and wrote to my brother Eichard and Mrs Cole- 
 ridge. In the evening I walked with Ellen to Butterlip 
 How. ... It was a very sweet evening ; there was the 
 cuckoo and the little birds ; the copses still injured, but the 
 trees in general looked most soft and beautiful in tufts. . . . 
 I went with Ellen in the morning to Eydal Ealls. . . . 
 
 " Tuesday, 8th June. — Ellen and I rode to Windermere. 
 We had a fine sunny day, neither hot nor cold. I mounted 
 the horse at the quarry. We had no difficulties or delays
 
 DOEOTHY Wordsworth's grasmere journal. 325 
 
 but at the o-ates. I was enchanted with some of the views. 
 From the High Ray the view is very delightful, rich, and 
 festive, water and wood, houses, groves, hedgerows, green 
 fields, and mountains ; white houses, large and small. We 
 passed two or three new-looking statesmen's houses. The 
 Curwens' shrubberies looked pitiful enough under the native 
 trees. We put up our horses, ate our dinner by the water- 
 side, and walked up to the Station. We went to the Island, 
 walked round it, and crossed the lake with our horse in the 
 ferry. The shrubs have been cut away in some parts of 
 the island. I observed to the boatman that I did not think 
 it improved. He rejjlied : ' We think it is, for one could 
 hardly see the house before.' It seems to me to be, how- 
 ever, no better than it was. They have made nO' natural 
 glades ; it is merely a lawn with a few miserable young 
 trees, standing as if they were half-starved. There are no 
 sheep, no cattle upon these, lawns. It is neither one thing 
 nor another — neither natural, nor wholly cultivated and arti- 
 ficial, which it was before. And that great house ! Mercy 
 upon us ! if it could be concealed, it would be well for all 
 who are not pained to see the pleasantest of earthly spots 
 deformed by man. But it cannot be covered. Even the 
 tallest of our old oak trees would not reach to the top of it. 
 When we went into the boat, there were two men standing 
 at the landing-place. One seemed to be about sixty, a man 
 with a jolly red face ; he looked as if he might have lived 
 many years in Mr Curwen's house. He wore a blue 
 jacket and trousers, as the people who live close by Winder- 
 mere, particularly at the places of chief resort. . . . 
 He looked significantly at our boatman just as we were 
 rowing off, and said, ' Thomas, mind you take the direc- 
 tions off that cask. You know wliat I mean. It will 
 serve as a blind for them. You know. It was a blind 
 business, both for you, and the coachman, . . . and all of
 
 326 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 US. Mind you take off the directions. " A wink's as good 
 as a nod with some folks ;'" and then he turned round, looking 
 at liis companion with an air of self-satisfaction, and deep 
 insight into unknown things ! I could hardly help laugh- 
 ing outright at him. The laburnums blossom freely at the 
 island, and in the shrubberies on the shore ; they are blighted 
 everywhere else. Eoses of various sorts now out. Tlie brooms 
 were in full glory everywhere, ' veins of gold ' among the 
 copses. The hawthorns in the valley fading away ; beauti- 
 ful upon the hills. "We reached home at three o'clock. After 
 tea William went out and walked and wrote that poem, 
 
 ' The sun has long been set,' &c. 
 
 He . . . walked on our own path and wrote the lines ; he 
 called me into the orchard, and there repeated them to 
 me. . . . 
 
 " Wednesday, 9 th June. — . , . The hawthorns on the 
 mountain sides like orchards in blossom. . . . 
 
 " Tlmrsdarj, IQth Juiu. — . . . Coleridge came in with a 
 sack full of books, &c., and a branch of mountain ash. He 
 had been attacked by a cow. He came over by Grisdale. 
 A furious wind. . . . 
 
 "Saturday, 12th June. — A rainy morning. Coleridge 
 set off before dinner. "We went with him to the Eaise, but 
 it rained, so we went no further. Sheltered under a waU. 
 He would be sadly wet, for a furious shower came on just 
 when we parted. . . . 
 
 "Sunday, ISth June. — A fine morning. Sunshiny and 
 bright, but with rainy clouds. "William . . . has been 
 altering the poem to Mary this morning. ... I wrote out 
 poems for our journey. . . . Mr Simpson came when we were 
 in the orchard in the morning, and brought us a beautiful 
 drawing which he had done. In the evening we walked,
 
 DOROTHY WOEDSWORTH's GRASMERE JOURNAL. 327 
 
 first on our own path. ... It was a silent night. The 
 stars were out by ones and twos, but no cuckoo, no little 
 birds ; the air was not warm, and we have observed tliat 
 since Tuesday, 8th, when William wrote, ' The sun has long 
 been set,' that we have had no birds singing after the even- 
 ing is fairly set in. We walked to our new view of Rydal, 
 but it put on a sullen face. There was an owl hooting in 
 Bainrigg's. Its first halloo was so like a human shout that 
 I was surprised, when it gave its second call tremulous and 
 lengthened out, to find that the shout had come from an 
 owl. The full moon (not quite full) was among a company 
 of shady island clouds, and the sky bluer about it than the 
 natural sky blue. William observed that the full moon, 
 above a dark fir grove, is a fine image of the descent of a 
 superior being. There was a shower which drove us into 
 John's Grove before we had quitted our favourite path. 
 We walked upon John's path before we went to view 
 Rydal. . . . 
 
 ''Monday, \Ulh. — . . . William wrote to Mary and Sara 
 about The, Leech Gatherer, and wrote to both of them in 
 one . . . and to Coleridge also. ... I walked with William 
 ... on our own path. We were driven away by the horses 
 that go on the commons ; then we went to look at Rydal ; 
 walked a little in the fir grove ; went again to the top of the 
 hill, and came home. A mild and sweet night. William 
 stayed behind me. I threw him the cloak out of the 
 window. The moon overcast. He sate a few minutes in 
 tlie orchard; came in sleepy, and hurried to bed. I carried 
 him his bread and butter. 
 
 ''Tuesday, 15th. — A sweet grey, mild morning. The 
 birds sing soft and low. William has not slept all night ; 
 it wants only ten minutes of ten, and he is in bed yet. 
 After William rose we went and sate in tlie orcliard till 
 dinner time. We walked a long time in the evening upon
 
 828 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 our fayourite path ; the owls hooted, the night hawk sang to 
 itself incessantly, but there was no little birds, no thrushes. 
 I left William writing a few lines about the night 
 hawk and other images of the evening, and w^ent to seek 
 for letters. . . . 
 
 "Wednesday, 16th. — We walked towards Rydal for 
 letters. . . . One from Mary. We went up into Rydal 
 woods and read it there. We sate near the old wall, which 
 fenced a hazel grove, which William said was exactly like the 
 filbert grove at Middlehani. It is a beautiful spot, a sloping 
 or rather steep piece of ground, with hazels growing ' tall 
 and erect ' in clumps at distances, almost seeming regular, as 
 if they had been planted. ... I wrote to Mary after 
 dinner, while William sate in the orchard. ... I spoke 
 of the little birds keeping us company, and William 
 told me that that very morning a bird had perched upon 
 his leg. He had been lying very still, and had watched 
 this little creature. It had come under the bench where 
 he was sitting. . . . He thoughtlessly stirred himself to 
 look further at it, and it flew on to the apple tree 
 above him. It was a little young creature that had just 
 left its nest, equally unacquainted with man, and unaccus- 
 tomed to struggle against the storms and winds. While 
 it was upon the apple tree the wind blew about the stiff 
 boughs, and the bird seemed bemazed, and not strong enough 
 to strive with it. The swallows come to the sitting-room 
 window as if wishing to build, but I am afraid they will not 
 have courage for it ; but I believe they will build in my 
 room window. They twitter, and make a bustle, and a little 
 cheerful song, hanging against the panes of glass with their 
 soft white bellies close to the glass and their forked fish-like 
 tails. They swim round and round, and again they come. 
 ... I do not now see the brownness that was in the cop- 
 pices. The bower hawthorn blossoms passed away. Those
 
 DOROTHY WOUDSWORTH'S GRASMERE JOURNAL. 329 
 
 on the hills are a faint white. The wild guelder-rose is 
 coming out, and the wild roses. I have seen no honey- 
 suckles yet. . . . Foxgloves are now frequent. 
 
 "Thursday, 11 th. — . . . Wlien I came home I found 
 William at work attempting to alter a stanza in the poem 
 on our going for Mary, which I convinced him did not 
 need altering. We sate in the house after dinner. In the 
 evening walked on our favourite path. A short letter from 
 Coleridge. William added a little to the Ode he is writing.* 
 
 " Friday, 1 d,th June. — When we were sitting after break- 
 fast . . . Luff came in. He had rode over the Fells. He 
 brought news about Lord Lowther's intention to pay all 
 debts, &c,, and a letter from Mr Clarkson. He saw our 
 garden, was astonished at the scarlet beans, &c., &c., &c. 
 When he was gone, we wrote to Coleridge, M. H., and my 
 brother Richard about the affair. William determined to go 
 to Eusemere on Monday. . . . 
 
 "Saturday, Idth. — The swallows were very busy under 
 my window this morning.. . , , Coleridge, when he was last 
 here, told vis that for many years, there being no Quaker 
 meeting at Keswick, a single old Quaker woman used to go 
 regularly alone every Sunday to attend the meeting-house, 
 and there used to sit and perform her worship alone, in that 
 beautiful place among those fir trees, in that spacious vale, 
 under the great mountain Skiddaw ! ! ! . . . On Thursday 
 morning Miss Hudson of Workingtoji called. She said, 
 ' . . . 1 sow flowers in the parks several miles from 
 home, and my mother and I visit them, and watch them 
 how they grow.' This may show that botanists may 
 be often deceived when they find rare flowers growing 
 far from houses. This was a very ordinary young woman, 
 such as in any town in the North of England one 
 may find a score. I sate up a while after William. He 
 * Doubtless , the Ode on Immortality. See vol. iv., p. 47.
 
 330 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 then called me down to him. (I was writing to Mary H.) 
 I read Churchill's Rosciad. Returned again to my writing, 
 and did not go to bed till he called to me. The shutters 
 were closed, but I heard the birds singing. There was our 
 own thrush, shouting with an impatient shout ; so it sounded 
 to me. The morning was still, the twittering of the litth; 
 birds was very gloomy. The owls had hooted a quarter of 
 an hour before, now the cocks were crowing, it was near 
 daylight, I put out my candle, and went to bed. . . . 
 
 "Sunday, 20th. — . . . We were in the orchard a great 
 part of the morning. After tea we walked upon our own 
 path for a long time. We talked sweetly together about the 
 disposal of our riches. We lay upon the sloping turf. Earth 
 and sky were so lovely that they melted our very hearts. 
 The sky to the north was of a cliastened yet rich yellow, 
 fading into pale blue, and streaked and scattered over with 
 steady islands of purple, melting away into shades of pink. 
 It was like a vision to me. . . . 
 
 " Tuesday morning. — . . . I walked to Eydal. I waited 
 long for the post, lying in the field, and looking at the distant 
 mountains, looking and listening to the river. I met the 
 post. Letters from Montagu and Eichard. I hurried back, 
 forwarded these to William, and wrote to Montagu. When 
 I came home I wrote to my brother Christopher. I could 
 settle to nothing. ... I read the Midsummer NigMs 
 Dream, and began As You Like It. 
 
 " Wednesday, 2Srd June. — . . . A sunshiny morning. 
 I walked to the top of the hill and sate under a wall near 
 John's Grove, facing the sun. I read a scene or two in 
 As You Like It. . . . Coleridge and Leslie came just as I 
 had lain down after dinner. C. brought me William's 
 letter. He had got well to Eusemere. Coleridge and I 
 accompanied Leslie to the boat-house. It was a sullen,
 
 DOROTHY WORDSWOETH'S GRASMERE JOURNAL. 831 
 
 coldish evening, no sunshine ; but after we had parted 
 from Leslie a light came out suddenly that repaid us for all. 
 It fell only upon one hill, and the island, but it arrayed 
 the grass and trees in gem-like brightness. I cooked Cole- 
 ridge's supper. We sate up till one o'clock. 
 
 " Tlmrsday, 24: th June. — I went with C. half way up the 
 Raise. It was a cool morning. . . . William came in just 
 when M. had left me. It was a mild, rainy evening. . . . 
 We sate together talking till the first dawning of day ; a 
 happy time. 
 
 "Friday, 25th June. — . . . I went, just before tea, 
 into the garden. I looked up at my swallow's nest, and 
 it was gone. It had fallen down. Poor little creatures, 
 they could not themselves be more distressed than I 
 was. I went upstairs to look at the ruins. They lay 
 in a large heap upon the window ledge ; these swallows 
 had been ten days employed in building this nest, and it 
 seemed to be almost finished. I had watched them 
 early in the morning, in the day many and many a time, 
 and in the evenings when it was almost dark. I had seen 
 them sitting together side by side in their unfinished nest, 
 both morning and night. When they first came about the 
 window they used to hang against the panes, with their 
 white b'ellies and their forked tails, looking like fish ; but 
 then they fluttered and sang their own little twittering song. 
 As soon as the nest was broad enough, a sort of ledge for 
 them, they sate both mornings and evenings, but they did 
 not pass the night there. I watched them one morning, 
 when William was at Eusemere, for more than an hour. 
 Every now and then there was a motion in their wings, a 
 sort of tremulousness, and they sang a low song to one 
 another. 
 
 ... It is now eight o'clock ; I will go and see if my
 
 332 LIFE OF WORDS^YORTH. 
 
 swallows are on their nest. Yes ! there they are, side by 
 side, both looldng down into the garden. I have been out 
 on purpose to see their faces. I knew by looking at the 
 window that they were there. . . . Coleridge and WilUam 
 came in at about half-past eleven. They talked till after 
 twelve. 
 
 " Wednesday, SOth June. — . . . AVe met an old man 
 between the Eaise and Lewthwaites. He wore a rusty 
 but untorn hat, an excellent blue coat, waistcoat, and 
 breeches, and good mottled worsted stockings. His beard 
 was very thick and grey, of a fortnight's growth we guessed ; 
 it was a regular beard, like grey plush. His bundle con- 
 tained Sheffield ware. William said to him, after we had 
 asked him what his business was, ' You are a very old man ? ' 
 ' Aye, I am eighty- three.' I joined in, ' Have you any 
 children ? ' ' Children ? Yes, plenty. I have children 
 and grand-children, and great-grand- children. I have a 
 great-grand-daughter, a fine lass, thirteen years old.' I then 
 said, ' Won't they take care of you ? ' He replied, much 
 offended, ' Thank God, I can take care of myself.' He said 
 he had been a servant of the Marquis of Granby — ' he 
 was a good man ; he's in heaven ; I hope he is.' He then 
 told us how he shot himself at Bath, that he was with 
 him in Germany, and travelled with him everywhere. 
 ' He was a famous boxer, sir.' And then he told us a story 
 of his fighting with his farmer. ' He used always to call 
 me bland and sharp.' Then every now and then he broke 
 out, ' He was a good man ! Wlien we were travelling he 
 never asked at the public-houses, as it might be there,' 
 (pointing to the ' Swan '), ' what we were to pay, but he would 
 put his hand into his pocket and give them what he liked ; 
 and when he came out of the house they would say, now, 
 they would have charged, me a shilling or tenpence. God 
 help them, poor creatures ! ' I asked him again about his
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's grasmere journal. 333 
 
 children, how many he had. Say,s .he, ' I cannot tell you ' 
 (I suppose he confounded children and grand-children to- 
 gether) ; ' I have one daughter that keeps a boarding-school 
 at Skipton, in Craven. She teaches flowering and marking. 
 And another that keeps a boarding-school at Ingietoii. I 
 brought up my family under the Marquis.' He was familiar 
 with all parts of Yorkshire. He asked us where we lived. 
 At Grasmere. ' The bonniest dale in all England ! ' says 
 the old man. I bought a pair of slippers from him, and we 
 sate together by the road-side. When we parted I tried to 
 lift his bundle, and it was almost more than I could do. 
 . . . After tea I wrote to Coleridge, and closed up my 
 letter to M. H. We went soon to bed. A weight of children 
 a poor man's blessing ! . . . 
 
 " Friday, 2nd July. — A very rainy morning. ... I left 
 William, and wrote a short letter to M. H. and to Coleridge, 
 and transcribed the alterations in The Leech Gatherer. 
 
 "Sunday, 4>th July. — . . . William finished The Leech 
 Gatherer to-day. 
 
 " Monday, 5 th July. — A very sweet morning. William 
 stayed some time in the orchard. ... I copied out The 
 Leech Gatherer for Coleridge, and for us. Wrote to Mrs 
 Clarkson, M. H., and Coleridge. . . . 
 
 " Tuesday, 6 th July. — . . . We set off towards Eydal 
 for letters. The rain met us at the top of the White Moss, 
 and it came on very heavily afterwards. It drove past Nab 
 Scar in a substantial shape, as if going to Grasmere was as 
 far as it could go. . . . The swallows have completed their 
 beautiful nest. . . . 
 
 " Wednesday, 7th. — . . . Walked on the White Moss. 
 Glow-worms. Well for them children are in bed when they 
 shine.
 
 334 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 " Thursday, 8th. — . . . Wlien I was coming home, a post 
 chaise passed with a little girl behind in a patched, ragged 
 cloak. In the afternoon, after we had talked a little, 
 "William fell asleep. I read the Winter s Talc ; then I went 
 to bed, but did not sleep. The swallows stole in and out 
 of their nest, and sate there, whiles quite still, whiles they 
 sung low for two minutes or more, at a time just like a 
 muffled robin. William was looking at The Pedlar when 
 I got up. He arranged it, and after tea I wrote it out — 280 
 lines. . . . The moon was behind. William hurried me out 
 in hopes that I should see her. We walked first to the top 
 of the hill to see Eydal. It was dark and dull, but our 
 own vale was very solemn — the shape of Helm Crag was 
 quite distinct, though black. We walked backwards and 
 forwards on the White Moss path ; there was a sky-like 
 white brightness on the lake. The Wyke cottage right at 
 the foot of Silver How. Glow-worms out, but not so 
 numerous as last night. 0, beautiful place ! Dear Mary, 
 William. The hour is come ... I must prepare to go. 
 The swallows, I must leave them, the wall, the garden, the 
 roses, all. Dear creatures ! they sang last night after I was 
 in bed ; seemed to be singing to one another, just before they 
 settled to rest for the night. Well, I must go. Farewell." 
 
 Several of the poems, referred to in this Journal, are 
 difficult, if not impossible, to identify. " The Inscription of 
 the Pathway," finished on the 28th of August 1800 ; "The 
 Epitaph," written on the 28th January 1801 ; "The York- 
 shire Wolds poem," referred to on March 10th, 1802 ; also 
 " The Silver Howe poem," and that known in the Words- 
 worth household as "The Tinker." It is possible that some 
 of them were intentionally suppressed.
 
 CHAPTEKXVI. 
 
 VISIT TO CALAIS MAKKIAGE TO MAEY HUTCHINSON RETURN 
 
 TO GEASMEEE. 
 
 Teom the Grasmere Journal it will be seen that Mary 
 Hutchinson was a frequent and privileged inmate of Dove 
 Cottage. The tie which bound her to Wordsworth had 
 been formed in childhood. The early intimacy of the 
 Dame School at Penrith ripened by degrees into strong 
 mutual regard ; and that passed at length into an attach- 
 ment which led to marriage. They were cousins, and the 
 cousin relationship — the connecting-link to many between 
 the nearer tie to home and the remoter one to the world 
 beyond — made them increasingly and familiarly intimate, 
 long before Wordsworth had any thought of marriage. In 
 the autumn of 1789, during his second long vacation from 
 Cambridge, he paid a visit to Penrith, where his sister and 
 Mary Hutchinson were staying. When he went to wait on 
 Raisley Calvert in the same town, in 1795, Mary Hutchin- 
 son had gone to Sockburn to keej) house for her brother, 
 Thomas Hutchinson ; but in the following year we find her 
 livinc;; with the Wordsworths at Eacedown. Mr Hutchin- 
 son of Kimbolton Rectory, Mr Wordsworth's nephew, 
 supplies me with the following paragraph in reference 
 to his aunt : — 
 
 "After the death of my grandfather in 178G, my aunt, 
 Mary Wordsworth, remained in Penrith, and was brought 
 up, along with some of her younger brothers and sisters, by 
 an aunt, Miss Elizabeth Monkljouse, and a great-aunt, Mrs
 
 33G LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Gamage. My mother's family were left motherless in 
 1790, and they were nourished by the same kind old 
 ladies. On the death of my great-grandfather at Sockburn, 
 my aunt became my father's housekeeper, and remained 
 with him there, and at Gallow Hill, till her marriage in 
 1802. The passage in the sixth book of Tlic Prelude, 
 commencing ' Another maid there was,' shows that M. H. 
 was a resident in Penrith in 1790. Towards the end of 
 the year 1792, or the commencement of 1793, she took up 
 her residence at Sockburn." 
 
 "Wlien the Wordsworths returned from Germany in 
 1799, they went straight to Sockburn, where Mary 
 Hutchinson was keeping house ; and there, with the exception 
 of occasional excursions, the poet remained for ten months. 
 On the 10th of November 1801, Mary came to Dove 
 Cottage, and stayed till December 28. On that day she 
 went with the Wordsworths to Keswick, spent a night at 
 Greta Hall, and next day they all proceeded by Threlkeld 
 to visit the Clarksons at Eusemere, Ullswater. Mary left 
 them on New Year's Eve for Penrith, returning, however, 
 very early in January to Grasmere. On the 19th January 
 she paid a five days' visit to the Clarksons (the Words- 
 worths being still their guests), and on the 23rd went 
 back to Penrith ; her cousins crossing the hills, by the 
 Grisdale Hause, to Grasmere. 
 
 There was an entire absence of romance in Wordsworth's 
 courtship. It may almost be said there was no courtship 
 at all, in the ordinary sense of the term. He loved Mary 
 Hutcliinson ; he had always loved her ; and he loved her 
 with an ever- increasing tenderness : but his engagement to 
 her seemed somehow to be just the natural sequel to 
 their early unromantic regard, its development or flower- 
 ing. 
 
 The supreme devotion of Wordsworth's life was to his office
 
 MARY HUTCHINSON. 33T 
 
 as a poet. To this he was " conscript and consecrated ; " 
 and all other things ministered to it. He could portray the 
 enthusiastic and chivalrous devotion of man to woman ; but 
 it may be doubted if he ever felt it, and in this he stands 
 almost alone amongst poets. Milton, perhaps, comes nearest 
 to him. He did not devote himself much, either to his sister,. 
 or to his wife. Intense as the tie between them was, Dorothy 
 lived for him, much more than he ever lived, (or could live), 
 for her. He was the very light of her eyes, and her supreme 
 passion was to help him daily in his high vocation. It used 
 to be said — half in sport, half in earnest — that she did every- 
 thing for him, even wrote his love letters ! and there is 
 evidence that he often asked her to write for him to Mary 
 Hutchinson, as he detested correspondence. It was, of 
 course, inevitable that the wife should displace the sister, 
 in this office of correspondent ; but the " Emily " of the 
 Alfoxden and Dove Cottage days lived on with him to the 
 last, and retained her old function as fellow-traveller, and 
 scribe, and "sister of the sovd." 
 
 Wordsworth's wife was a noble Cumbrian maiden, with 
 a clear intellect and an unsophisticated heart, a gentle 
 tranquil unambitious soul, very tender-hearted, sympathetic, 
 and full of tact. Had she possessed a larger or wider 
 culture, slie would not have been any more perfectly fitted 
 for him ; and, on his side, if there was an absence of 
 passionate devotion, there was a calm and constant regard,^ 
 and a continuity of affection to the end of life. 
 
 Tlie readers of De Quincey's Recollectiona will remember 
 his description of Mary Wordsworth in 1807. She 
 "exercised," he said, "all the practical fascination of 
 beauty, through the mere compensatory charms of sweet- 
 ness all but angelic, of simplicity the most entire, womanly 
 self-respect and purity of heart speaking tlirough all her 
 looks, acts, and movements." ..." In a quiescent, reposing 
 IX. Y
 
 338 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 meditative way, slie appeared always to have a genial enjoy- 
 ment from her own thoughts ; ... to feel and to enjoy in 
 a luxurious tepose of mind, there was her forte and her 
 peculiar privilege." He speaks of the " supreme expression 
 of her features " being that of " sunny benignity — a radiant 
 graciousness." 
 
 Wordsworth's own verses addressed to his wife are more 
 worthy of attention, however, than the eulogy of any critic. 
 He tells us that, in her early days, all things about her were 
 drawn — 
 
 " From May time and the cheerful Dawn," 
 
 that she was 
 
 " A daring Shape, an Image gay, 
 To haunt, to startle, and way-lay." 
 
 Then, in the days of these visits at Racedown and Grasmere, 
 
 he saw " on nearer view " — 
 
 " A Spirit, yet a Woman too, 
 A countenance in which did meet 
 Sweet records, promises as sweet. 
 A Creature not too bright or good 
 For human nature's daily food ; 
 For transient sorrows, simple wiles, 
 Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles." 
 
 At length, when she took her place as a permanent 
 
 ■" inmate of the heart," she was seen as 
 
 "A Being breathing thoughtful breath, 
 A traveller between life and death ; 
 A i)erfect Woman, nobly planned, 
 To warn, to comfort, and command ; 
 And yet a Spirit still, and bright 
 With something of angelic light." 
 
 Other allusions to his wife, in The Prelude, in the de- 
 dication of The White Doc of Rylstonc, as well as in many 
 of the sonnets and lyrics, are known to every reader, and 
 are referred to in the notes to the poems where they occur; 
 and though Mary Hutchinson was neither a Beatrice nor a 
 Laura, and wanted some of the charms that have made the
 
 MARY HUTCHINSON. 339 
 
 lives of other poets radiant, she liad more enduring merits. 
 She had the staying power, the truth, goodness, and con- 
 sistency of character, that made her influence controlHng as 
 well as bright, guiding, equable, and benign to the last — 
 
 " Morn into noon did pass, noon into eve, 
 And the old day was welcome as the young ; 
 As welcome, and as beautiful — in ti'uth 
 More beautiful, as being a thing more holy." 
 
 Eeaders of the Journal that follows in this chapter may 
 be surprised at the way in which tlie marriage at Brompton 
 is recorded, and still more at what followed it ; — ^the poet, 
 his wife, and sister, all starting together in a post-chaise for 
 Westmoreland ! And yet it was most natural. The con- 
 trast is not more striking between the simple ceremony — of 
 which we have no record but the mere fact — in the humble 
 church at Brompton, and the marriage of Coleridge in the 
 splendid building of St Mary, lledcliffe, at Bristol, and what 
 followed, — Coleridge taking his bride to the cottage at 
 Clevedon, and Wordsworth " stepping westwards " with wife 
 and sister together, and writing a very unsentimental sonnet 
 at the close of the day ! And of all strange things, to go 
 straight to a churchyard, and look at the tombstones, while 
 the horses were being fed at Kirby, was about the very 
 strangest that a man could do, a few hours after his wed- 
 ding ! With all tlie rootedness of his nature, its secure 
 anchorage in a region where the cal)les could not drag, there 
 was a certain austerity in Wordsworth. To one side of our 
 complex human life he was blind — (I grant it to be a lower 
 side) — from the very fact that he saw so much on tlie 
 other, and the higher side. I daresay there are some wlio 
 will think, on reading the Journal, that, on tlie eventful day 
 of her marriage, Mary Hutchinson was more to be admired 
 than either William or Dorothy Wordsworth. We must 
 not forget, however, that JJorotliy lost her mother in early
 
 340 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 childhood, that her father died soon afterwards, that her next 
 home was miserable to her, and that her brother was the 
 very light of her eyes ; but I am gliding unawares into 
 criticism, from which I return with speed to the narrative. 
 
 This Journal records the journey of "William and Dorothy 
 from Grasmere by Keswick, Eusemere, Greta Bridge, across 
 the Yorkshire moors to Thirsk, thence by the Hambledon 
 Hills, Eivaux Abbey, Kirby, and Pickering, to the Hutchin- 
 son's house at Gallow Hill. There they remained for 
 ten days (15th to 25th July), making sundry excursions 
 to Scarborough, Wykeham, &c. It was still more than 
 two months till the wedding day ; and these months were 
 spent by Wordsworth in a journey with his sister to the 
 south of England, and the north of France. They went 
 by Hull, Lincoln, and Peterborough to London, from London 
 to Dover, and across the Channel to Calais. There they 
 stayed four weeks, returning to London on the 30th of 
 August. It was in leaving London on their journey south 
 that the sonnet on "Westminster Bridge was composed. 
 Dorothy Wordsworth's descriptions of the coast scenery, 
 and of the sunsets at Calais, are amongst the finest she 
 ever wrote. On their return, they spent three weeks in 
 London, and there they met their sailor-brother John, in one 
 of his brief home-comings from the sea. They went next to 
 Windsor, to visit the Cooksons ; then, leaving London, they 
 reached Gallow Hill on the 24th September. Ten days later, 
 Wordsworth was married to Mary Hutchinson in Brompton 
 Church. The conmionplaceness of the note in the sister's 
 Journal,''" the extreme matter-of-factness and brevity of the 
 entry, recording an event so momentous to her brother, 
 presents a singular contrast to her long and minute 
 
 * So far as can be gathered, none of the brothers (neither Richard, nor 
 Christopher, nor John) were present. I infer that John could not get away 
 from London.
 
 MARY HUTCHINSON. 341 
 
 descriptions of small objects in Nature, and the most 
 trivial incidents of travel. But really it should not surprise 
 us. It may seem strange to say that there was nothing 
 momentous, or out of the way, to Wordsworth, in what is 
 to most persons a turning-point in life, — the entering of a 
 new territory of thought, feeling, and experience. We 
 must not judge him, however, by any ordinary standard. 
 We must rather contemplate him as a teaclier with a 
 standard of his own. His path in life, now a selected 
 path, to which he believed, — as firmly as any ancient 
 seer, — that he had been expressly " called," was one of 
 daily communing with Nature — a high, blameless fellow- 
 ship, that was its own exceeding great reward ; and he went 
 on, in his own intense way of visionary musing, though at 
 times of painful self-involvement, profound yet solitary, 
 wrapt in the contemplation of ideal visions. He was to a 
 large extent independent of other solace, because, blest by 
 the possession of the " inward eye " that saw every day in 
 common things the 
 
 " light that never was on sea or land." 
 In truth, his marriage was but a small "incident" in his 
 experience. This may explain much that is otherwise strange 
 in the sister's record of his life, in these remarkable Journals. 
 Another thing we must not forget, in reading these Journals, 
 and judging of the life at Dove Cottage, and its inmates, 
 is the debt which Wordsworth owed to this sister, who 
 
 " maintained for him 
 A saving intercourse with his true self." 
 
 She, who saved him from despondency, and started him on 
 his career of devotion to poetry alone, could not but retain 
 to the last a " solitary " place in his regard. The Ijahince of 
 his nature had been disturbed, by the issue of the Frencli 
 Revolution ; and, despite his consecration to poetry at 
 Hawkshead in 1787, he was on tlie point of renouncing his
 
 342 
 
 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 early love, and going off' to abstract mathematical science. 
 It was his sister who brought him back to the realisation of 
 his " office upon earth." Was it strange that one who had 
 been thus identified with him, in the one great crisis of his 
 life, should remain to the end, a part of his very being ? Their 
 communism, indeed, assumed some strange phases. It ex- 
 tended to his using her Journal at times for the materials of 
 his poems, and extracting bits of it in his letters, not to save 
 himself the trouljle of composing himself, but because he 
 could not compose anything better ! What more natural to 
 a man of Wordsworth's temperament and surroundings ? 
 
 Dorothy wrote the following letter to Mrs Marshall 
 before the wedding : — 
 
 " Gallow Hill, September 29th, 1802. 
 
 " We were detained in London by a succession of unex- 
 pected events, the arrival of my brother Chris., then of 
 my brother John. . . . We leave Gallow Hill on Monday 
 morning, immediately after my brotlier AVilliam's marriage. 
 We expect to reach Grasmere on Wednesday evening. 
 William, Mary, and I go together in a post-chaise ; and 
 after Mr Hutchinson's harvest is over (when we shall have 
 got completely settled in our own house), he and his sister 
 Sarah will follow us, and spend some time at Grasmere and 
 Keswick. 
 
 " I half dread that concentration of all tender feelings, 
 past, present, and future, which will come upon me on the 
 wedding morning. There never lived on earth a better 
 woman than Mary Hutchinson. 
 
 " It was delightful to see all our brothers, particularly 
 John, after his return from India. He was in perfect 
 health and excellent spirits. We spent two days with my 
 uncle and aunt Cookson at Windsor. . . . There is every 
 prospect of a settlement of our affairs with Lord Lowther, 
 entirely to our satisfaction."
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's journal. 343 
 
 The following note on Gallow Hill as it now is, has been 
 supplied to me by Mr George Thackwray of Scarborough : — 
 
 " Gallow Hill is an isolated well-built farm-house, standing 
 midway between Sawdon and Brompton, a field's distance 
 beyond the railway embankment, and is well seen from the 
 line on the right hand going from Scarborough to I'ickering. 
 Before the construction of the railway, the view from it 
 must have been pleasing and extensive ; the country round 
 is for miles undulating and well wooded, bounded in the 
 distance by the low range of hills known as the Wolds. 
 The house itself is substantially the same as it was at the 
 time of the poet's marriage, some out-buildings only having 
 been erected in late years. A hill close to the house on the 
 right is called Gallows Hill, having been tlie place of execu- 
 tion for criminals within the barony. Brompton Church 
 stands pleasantly on a gentle eminence at the end of the 
 village ; the tower and spire peeping out among the trees 
 forming a picturesque object in the landscape. From the 
 churchyard is a good view of the Vale of Pickering. By 
 the permission of the Vicar, the Rev. F, 0. Chambers, I 
 examined the register of the poet's marriage. The officiating 
 minister was the Rev. John Ellis, who married Wordsworth 
 and Mary Hutchinson on October 4th, 1802, the witnesses 
 being Thomas Hutchinson, Joanna Hutchinson, and John 
 Hutchinson." 
 
 Dorothy Wordsworth's record of the journey from Grasmere 
 to Yorkshire, thence to London and to Calais, back to York- 
 shire for the marriage, and thence to Grasmere, is as follows: — 
 
 " On Friday morning, July 9 th, William and I set for- 
 ward to Keswick on our road to Gallow Hill. We had a 
 pleasant ride, though the day was showery. . . . Coleridge 
 met us at Sara's Rock. . . . We had been told by a handsome 
 man, an inhabitant of Wytheburn, with whom he had been 
 talking (and who seemed, by-tlie-bye, much pleased with his
 
 344 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 companion), that C. was waiting for us. We reached 
 Keswick against tea-time. We called at Calvert's on the 
 Saturday evening. ... On Monday, lltli July, we went 
 to Eusemere. Coleridge walked with us six or seven miles. 
 He was not well, and we had a melancholy parting after 
 having sate together in silence by the road-side. We turned 
 aside to explore the country near Hutton-John, and had a 
 new and delightful walk. The valley, which is subject to 
 the decaying mansion that stands at its head, seems to join 
 its testimou}'- to that of the house, to the falling away of the 
 family greatness, and the hedges are in bad condition. The 
 land wants draining, and is overrun with brackens ; yet 
 there is a something everywhere that tells of its former 
 possessors. The trees are left scattered about as if intended 
 to be like a park, and these are very interesting, standing as 
 they do upon the sides of the steep hills that slope down to 
 the bed of the river, a little stony-bedded stream that 
 spreads out to a considerable breadth at the village of 
 Dacre. A little above Dacre we came into the right road 
 to Mr Clarkson's, after having walked through woods and 
 fields, never exactly knowing whether we were right or 
 wrong. We learnt, however, that we had saved half-a-mile. 
 We sate down by the river-side to rest, and saw some 
 swallows flying about and under the bridge, and two little 
 schoolboys were loitering among the scars seeking after their 
 nests. We reached Mr Clarkson's at about eight o'clock 
 after a sauntering walk, having lingered and loitered and 
 sate down together that we might be alone. Mr and Mrs 
 C. were just come from Luffs, We spent Tuesday, the 
 1 3th of July, at Eusemere ; and on Wednesday morning, 
 the 14th, we walked to Emont Bridge, and mounted the 
 coach between Bird's Nest and Hartshorn Tree. ... At 
 Greta Bridge the sun shone cheerfully, and a glorious ride 
 we had over Gaterly Moor. Every building was bathed in
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's journal. 345 
 
 golden liglit. The trees were more bright than earthly 
 trees, and we saw round us miles beyond miles — Darlington 
 spire, &c., &c. We reached Leeming Lane at about nine 
 o'clock ; supped comfortably, and enjoyed our fire. 
 
 " On Thursday morning, at a little before seven, being the 
 14th July, we got into a post-chaise and went to Thirsk to 
 breakfast. We were well treated, but when the landlady 
 understood that we were going to vxdk off, and leave our 
 luggage behind, she threw out some saucy words in our hearing. 
 The day was very hot, and we rested often and long before 
 we readied the foot of the Hambledon Hills, and while we 
 were climbing them, still oftener. . , . We were almost 
 overpowered with thirst, when I heard the trickling of a 
 little stream of water. I was before William, and I stopped 
 till he came up to me. We sate a long time by this water, 
 and climbed the hill slowly. I was footsore ; the sun shon(^ 
 hot ; the little Scotch cattle panted and tossed fretfully 
 about. The view was hazy, and we could see nothing from 
 the top of the hill but an undistinct wide-spreading country, 
 full of trees, but the buildings, towns, and houses were lost. 
 We stopped to examine that curious stone, then walked 
 along the flat common. . . . Arrived very hungry at 
 Rivaux. Nothing to eat at the Millers, as we expected, but 
 at an exquisitely neat farm-house we got some boiled milk 
 and bread. This strengthened us, and I went down to look 
 at the ruins. Thrushes were singing ; cattle feeding among 
 green-grown hillocks about the ruins. The hillocks were 
 scattered over with f/rovclds of wild roses and other shrubs, 
 and covered witli wild flowers. I could have stayed in this 
 solemn quiet spot till evening, without a thought of moving, 
 but William was waiting for me, so in a quarter of an liour 
 I went away. We walked upon Mr Duncombe's terrace 
 and looked down upon tlie abbey. It stands in a larger 
 valley among a brotherhood of valleys, of different length
 
 346 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 and breadth, — all woody, and running up into the hills in all 
 directions. We reached Helmsly just at dusk. We had a 
 beautiful view of the castle from the top of the hill, and 
 slept at a very [nice inn, and were well treated ; floors 
 as smooth as ice. On Friday morning, 16tli July, we 
 walked to Kirby. Met people coming to Helmsly fair. 
 Were misdirected, and walked a mile out of onr way. 
 ... A beautiful view] above Pickering. . . . Met Mary 
 and Sara seven miles from G. H. Sheltered from the rain ; 
 beautiful glen, spoiled by the large house ; sweet church and 
 churchyard. Arrived at Gallow Hill at seven o'clock. 
 
 " Friday Evening, 1 Qth July. — , . . Sara, Tom, and I 
 rode up Bedale. Wm., Mary, Sara, and I went to Scar- 
 borough, and we walked in the Abbey pasture, and to 
 Wykeham; and on Monday, the 26th, we went off w4th 
 ]\Iary in a post-chaise. We had an interesting ride over 
 the Wolds, though it rained all the way. Single thorn 
 bushes were scattered about on the turf, sheep-sheds here 
 and there, and now and then a little hut. Swelling grounds, 
 and sometimes a single tree or a clump of trees. . . . We 
 passed through one or two little villages, embosomed in tall 
 trees. After we had parted from Mary, there were gleams 
 of sunshine, but with showers. We saw Beverley in a heavy 
 rain, and yet were much pleased with the beauty of the 
 town. Saw the minster — a pretty, clean building, but 
 injured very much with Grecian architecture. The country 
 between Beverley and Hull very rich, but miserably flat — 
 brick houses, windmills, houses again — dull and endless. 
 Hull a frightful, dirty, brickhousey, tradesman-like, rich, 
 vulgar place ; yet the river — though the shores are so low 
 that they can hardly be seen — looked beautiful with the 
 evening lights upon it, and l)oats moving about. We walked 
 a long time, and returned to our dull day-room but quiet 
 evening one, to supper.
 
 DOEOTHY Wordsworth's journal. 347 
 
 " Ttiesday, 2Qth. — Market day. Streets dirty, very rainy, 
 did not leave Hull till four o'clock, and left Barton at about 
 six ; rained all the way almost. A beautiful village at the 
 foot of a hill with trees. A gentleman's house converted 
 into a lady's boarding-school. . . . We left Lincoln on 
 Wednesday morning, 27th July, at six o'clock. It rained 
 heavily, and we could see nothing but the antientry of some 
 of the buildings as we passed along, The night before, 
 however, we had seen enough to make us regret this. The 
 minster stands at the edge of a hill overlooking an immense 
 plain. The country very flat as we went along ; the day 
 mended. We went to see the outside of the minster while 
 the passengers were dining at Peterborough ; the west end 
 very grand. . . . 
 
 "On Thursday morning, 28tli, we arrived in London. 
 Wm. left me at the Sun. . . . After various troubles and 
 disasters, we left London on Saturday morning at half- past 
 five or six, tlie 30th of July. We mounted the Dover coach 
 at Charing Cross. It was a beautiful morning. The city, 
 St Paul's, with the river, and a multitude of little boats, 
 made a most beautiful sight as we crossed Westminster 
 Bridge. The houses were not overhung by their cloud of 
 smoke, and they were spread out endlessly, yet the sun shone 
 so brightly, with such a fierce light, that there was even some- 
 thing like the purity of one of nature's own grand spectacles.* 
 
 " We rode on cheerfully, now with the Paris diligence 
 l)efore us, now behind. We walked up the steep hills, a 
 beautiful prospect everywhere, till we even reached Dover. 
 At first the rich, populous, wide-spreading, woody country 
 about London, then the River Thames, ships sailing, chalk 
 cliffs, trees, little villages. Afterwards Canterbury, situated 
 on a plain, rich and w(jody, but the city and cathedral dis- 
 appointed me. Hop grounds on each side of the road some 
 
 * Compare the suiiuet composed upon Westminster Bridge, vol. ii., [>. 287.
 
 0-48 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 miles from Cauterbury ; then we came to a common, the 
 race gronnd, an elevated plain, villages among trees in the 
 bed of a valley at our riglit, and, rising above this valley, 
 green hills scattered over with wood, neat gentlemen's 
 honses. One white house, almost hid with green trees, 
 which we longed for, and the parson's house, as neat a place 
 as could be, which would just have suited Coleridge. No 
 doubt we may have found one for Tom Hutchinson and 
 Sara, and a good farm too. We halted at a half-way house 
 — fruit carts under the shade of trees, seats for guests, a 
 tempting place to the weary traveller. Still, as we went 
 along, the country was beautiful and hilly, with cottages 
 lurking under the hills, and their little plots of hop ground 
 like vineyards. It was a bad hop year. A woman on the 
 top of the coach said to me, ' It is a sad thing for the poor 
 people, for the hop-gathering is the woman's harvest ; 
 there is employment about the hops for women and 
 children.' 
 
 " We saw the castle of Dover, and the sea beyond, four 
 or five miles before we reached it. We looked at it through 
 a long vale, the castle being upon an eminence, as it seemed, 
 at the end of this vale, which opened to the sea. The 
 country now became less fertile, but near Dover it seemed 
 more rich again. Many buildings stand on the flat fields, 
 sheltered with tall trees. There is one old chapel that 
 might have been there just in the same state in which it 
 now is when this vale was as retired, and as little known to 
 travellers as our own Cumberland mountain wilds thirty years 
 ago. There was also a very old building on the other side 
 of the road, which had a strange effect among the many new 
 ones that are springing up everywhere. It seemed odd that 
 it could have kept itself pure in its ancientry among so many 
 upstarts. It was near dark when we reached Dover. We 
 were told that a packet was about to sail, so we went down
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's journal. 349 
 
 to the custom-house in half-an-hour — had our luggage 
 examined, &c., &c., and then we drank tea with the Honour- 
 able Mr Knox and his tutor. "We arrived at Calais at four 
 o'clock on Sunday morning, the 31st of July. We stayed in 
 the vessel till half-past seven ; then William went for letters 
 at about half-past eight or nine. We found out Annette 
 and C. chez Madame Avril dans la Eue de la Tete d'or. 
 We lodged opposite two ladies, in tolerably decent-sized 
 rooms, but badly furnished. . . . The weather was very hot. 
 We walked by the sea-shore almost every evening with 
 Annette and Caroline, or William and I alone. I had a 
 bad cold, and could not bathe at first, but William did. It 
 was a pretty sight to see as we walked upon the sands 
 when the tide was low, perhaps a hundred people bathing 
 about a quarter of a mile distant from us. And we had 
 delightful walks after the heat of the day was passed — see- 
 ing far off in the west the coast of England like a cloud 
 crested with Dover castle, which was but like the summit of 
 the cloud — the evening star and the glory of the sky,* the 
 reflections in the water were more beautiful than the sky 
 itself, purple waves brighter than precious stones, for ever 
 melting away upon the sands. The fort, a wooden building, 
 at the entrance of the harbour at Calais, when the evening 
 twilight was coming on, and we could not see anything of 
 the building but its shape, which was far more distinct than 
 in perfect daylight, seemed to be reared upon pillars of 
 ebony, between which pillars the sea was seen in the most 
 beautiful colours that can be conceived. Nothing in ro- 
 mance was ever half so beautiful. Now came in view, as the 
 evening star sunk down, and the colours of the west faded 
 away, the two liglits of England, lighted u]) by English- 
 
 * Compare the sonnet — 
 
 *' Fair star of evening, glory of the west." 
 
 —Vol. ii., p. 2S8.
 
 350 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 men in our country to warn vessels off rocks or sands. 
 These we used to see from the pier, when we could see no 
 other distant objects but the clouds, the sky, and the sea 
 itself — all was dark behind. The town of Calais seemed 
 deserted of the light of heaven, but there was always light, 
 and life, and joy upon the sea. One night I shall never 
 forget — the day had been very hot, and William and I 
 walked alone together upon the pier. The sea was gloomy, 
 for there was a blackness over all the sky, except when it 
 was overspread with lightning, which often revealed to us a 
 distant vessel near, as the waves roared and broke against 
 the pier, and they were interfused with greenish fiery light. 
 The more distant sea always black and gloomy. It was 
 also beautiful, on the calm hot night, to see the little boats 
 row out of harbour with wings of fire, and the sail boats with 
 the fiery track which they cut as they went along, and which 
 closed up after them with a hundred thousand sparkles, 
 and streams of glow-worm light. Caroline was delighted. 
 
 " On Sunday, the 29th of August, we left Calais at 
 twelve o'clock in the morning, and landed at Dover at one 
 on Monday the 30th. ... It was very pleasant to me, 
 when we were in the harbour at Dover, to breathe the fresh 
 air, and to look up, and see the stars among the ropes of the 
 vessel. The next day was very hot. We . . . bathed, and 
 sate upon the Dover Cliffs, and looked upon France with many 
 a melancholy and tender thought. We could see the shores 
 almost as plain as if it were but an English lake. We 
 mounted the coach, and arrived in London at six, the 30th 
 August. It was misty, and we could see nothing. We 
 stayed in London till Wednesday the 22nd of September, 
 and arrived at Gallow Hill on Friday. 
 
 " September 24:th. — Mary first met us in the avenue. She 
 looked so fat and well that we were made very happy by 
 the sight of her ; then came Sara, and last of all Joanna.
 
 DOROTHY WORDSWORTH S JOURNAL. 351 
 
 Tom was forking corn, standing upon the corn cart. We 
 dressed ourselves immediately and got tea. The garden 
 looked gay with asters and sweet peas. Jack and George came 
 on Friday evening, 1st October. On Saturday, 2nd, we rode 
 to Hackness, William, Jack, George, and Sara single. I behind 
 Tom. On Sunday 3rd, Mary and Sara were busy packing. 
 
 "On Monday, 4th October 1802, my brother William 
 was married to Mary Hutchinson. I slept a good deal of 
 the night, and rose fresh and well in the morning. At a 
 little after eight o'clock, I saw them go down the avenue 
 towards the church. William had parted from me upstairs. 
 When they were absent, my dear little Sara prepared the 
 breakfast. I kept myself as quiet as I could, but when I 
 saw the two men running up the walk, coming to tell us it 
 was over, I could stand it no longer, and threw myself on 
 the bed, where I lay in stillness, neither liearing nor seeing 
 anything till Sara came upstairs to me, and said, ' They are 
 coming.' This forced me from the bed where I lay, and I 
 moved, I knew not how, straight forward, faster than my 
 strength could carry me, till I met my beloved William, 
 and fell upon his bosom. He and John Hutcliinson led me 
 to the house, and there I stayed to welcome my dear Mary. 
 As soon as we had breakfasted, we departed. It rained 
 when we set off. Poor Mary was much agitated, when she 
 parted from her brothers and sisters, and her home. Nothing 
 particular occurred till we reached Kirby. We had sunsliine 
 and showers, pleasant talk, love and cheerfulness. We 
 were obliged to stay two hours at K. while the horses were 
 feeding. We wrote a few lines to Sara, and tlien walked 
 out ; the sun shone, and we went to the cliurchyard after 
 we had put a letter into the post-office for tlie York Herald. 
 We sauntered about, and read the grave-stones. There was 
 one to the memory of five children, wlio had all died 
 witliin live years, and the longest lived had only lived four 
 years. . . .
 
 352 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 " We left Kirby at about half-past two. There is not 
 much variety of prospect from K. to Helmsley, but the 
 country is very pleasant, being rich and woody, and Helms- 
 ley itself stands very sweetly at the foot of the rising 
 grounds of Dunconibe Park, wliich is scattered over with 
 tall woods ; and, lifting itself above the common buildings 
 of the town, stands Helmsley Castle, now a ruin, formerly 
 inhabited by the gay Duke of Buckingham. Every foot of 
 the road was of itself interesting to us, for we had travelled 
 along it on foot, "William and I, when we went to fetch our 
 dear Mary, and had sate upon the turf by the roadside more 
 than once. Before we reached Helmsley, our driver told us 
 that he could not take us any further, so we stopped at the 
 same inn where we had slept before. My heart danced at 
 the sight of its cleanly outside, bright yellow walls, case- 
 ments overshadowed with jasmine, and its low, double 
 gavel-ended front. . . . Mary and I warmed ourselves at 
 the kitchen fire. We then walked into the garden, and 
 looked over a gate, up to the old ruin which stands at the 
 top of the mount, and round about it the moats are grown 
 up into soft green cradles, hollows surrounded with green 
 grassy hillocks, and these are overshadowed by old trees, 
 chiefly ashes. I prevailed upon William to go up with me 
 to the ruins. . . . The sun shone, it was warm and very 
 pleasant. One part of the castle seems to be inhabited. 
 There was a man mowing nettles in the open space which 
 had most likely once been the castle-court. There is one 
 gateway exceedingly beautiful. Children were playing upon 
 the sloping ground. We came home by the street. After 
 about an hour's delay, we set forward again ; had an excellent 
 driver, who opened the gates so dexterously that the horses 
 never stopped. Mary was very much delighted with the 
 view of the castle from the point where we had seen it 
 before. I was pleased to see again the little path which we
 
 DOEOTHY Wordsworth's journal. 853 
 
 liacl walked upon, the gate I had clmibed over, and the road 
 down which we had seen the two little boys drag a log of 
 wood, and a team of horses struggle under the weight of a 
 great load of timber. We had felt compassion for the poor 
 horses that were under the governance of oppression and ill- 
 judging drivers, and for the poor boys, who seemed of an 
 age to have been able to have dragged the log of wood 
 merely out of the love of their own activity, but from 
 poverty and bad food they panted for weakness, and were 
 obliged to fetch their father from the town to help them. 
 Duncombe house looks well from the road — a large build- 
 ing, though I believe only two-thirds of the original design 
 are completed. We rode down a very steep hill to Eivaux 
 valley, with woods all round us. We stopped upon the 
 bridge to look at the Abbey, and again when we had crossed 
 it. Dear Mary had never seen a ruined abbey before except 
 Whitby. We recognised the cottages, houses, and the little 
 valleys as we went along. We walked up a long hill, the 
 road carrying us up the cleft or valley with woody hills on 
 each side of us. When we went to G. H. I had walked 
 down the valley alone. William followed me. 
 
 " Before we had crossed the Hambledon Hill, and reached 
 the point overlooking Yorksliire, it was quite dark. We had 
 not wanted, however, fair prospects before us, as we drove 
 along the flat plain of the high hill. Far far off from us, in 
 the western sky, we saw shapes of castles, ruins among groves, 
 a great spreading wood, rocks, and single trees, a minster 
 with its tower unusually distinct, minarets in another 
 quarter, and a round Grecian Temple also ; the colours of 
 the sky of a bright grey, and tlie forms of a sober grey, with 
 a dome. As we descended the hill there was no distinct 
 view, but of a great space ; only near us we saw the wild 
 (and as the people say) bottomless tarn in the hollow at the 
 side of the hill. It seemed to be made visible to us only by 
 IX. z
 
 354 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 its own light, for all the hill about us was dark. Before we 
 reached Thirsk we saw a light before us, which we at first 
 thought was the moon, then lime-kilns ; but when we drove 
 into the market-place it proved a large bonfire, with lads 
 dancing round it, which is a sight I dearly love. The inn 
 was like an illuminated house — every room full. We asked 
 the cause, and were told by the girl that it was ' Mr John 
 Bell's birthday, that he had heired his estate.' The landlady 
 was very civil. She did not recognise the despised foot- 
 travellers. We rode on in the dark, and reached Leeming 
 Lane at eleven o'clock. . . . 
 
 " The next morning we set off at about half -past eight 
 o'clock. It was a cheerful, sunny morning. . . . We had 
 a few showers, but when we came to the green fields of 
 Wensley, the sun shone upon them all, and the Ure in its 
 many windings glittered as it flowed along under the green 
 slopes of Middleham Castle. Mary looked about for her 
 friend Mr Place, and thought she had him sure on the con- 
 trary side of the vale from that on which we afterwards 
 found he lived. We went to a new built house at Leyburn, 
 the same village where William and I had dined on our 
 road to Grasmere two years and three-quarters ago, but 
 not the same house. The landlady was very civil, giving 
 us cake and wine, but the horses being out we were 
 detained at least two hours, and did not set off till two 
 o'clock. We paid for thirty-five miles, i.e., to Sedburgh, 
 but the landlady did not encourage us to hope to get 
 beyond Hawes. . . . When we passed through the village of 
 Wensley my heart melted away, with dear recollections — 
 the bridge, the little waterspout, the steep hill, the church. 
 They are among the most vivid of my own inner visions, for 
 they were the first objects that I saw after we were left to 
 ourselves, and had turned our whole hearts to Grasmere as 
 a home in which we were to rest. The vale looked most
 
 DOROTHY Wordsworth's journal. 355 
 
 beautiful each way. To the left the bright silver stream 
 inlaid the flat and very green meadows, winding like a 
 serpent. To the right, we did not see it so far, it was lost 
 among trees and little hills. I could not help observing, as 
 we went along, how much more varied the prospects of 
 Wensley Dale are in the summer time than I could have 
 thought possible in the winter. This seemed to be in great 
 measure owing to the trees being in leaf, and forming groves 
 and screens, and thence little openings upon recesses and 
 concealed retreats, which in winter only made a part of the 
 one great vale. The beauty of the summer time here as 
 much excels that of the winter, as the variety (owing to the 
 excessive greenness) of the fields, and the trees in leaf half 
 concealing, and — where they do not conceal — softening the 
 hard bareness of the limey white roofs. One of our horses 
 seemed to grow a little restive as we went through the first 
 village, a long village on the side of a hill. It grew worse 
 and worse, and at last we durst not go on any longer. We 
 walked a while, and then the post boy was obliged to take 
 the horse out, and go back for another. We seated ourselves 
 again snugly in the post-chaise. The wind struggled about 
 us and rattled the window, and gave a gentle motion to the 
 chaise, but we were warm and at our ease within. Our 
 station was at the top of a hill, opposite Bolton Castle, the 
 Ure flowing beneath. William has since written a sonnet 
 on this our imprisonment. Hard was thy durance, poor 
 Queen Mary ! compared with ours. ... * 
 
 " We had a sweet ride till we came to a public-house on 
 the side of a hill, where we alighted and walked down to 
 see the waterfalls. The sun was not set, and the woods 
 and fields were spread over with the yellow light of evening, 
 
 * This sonnet ■was not thought worthy of being preserved. See vol. ii., 
 p. 303.
 
 356 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 which made their greenness a thousand times more green. 
 There was too much water in the river for the beauty of 
 the falls, and even the banks were less interesting than in 
 winter. Nature had entirely got the better in her struggles 
 against the giants who first cast the mould of these works ; 
 for, indeed, it is a place that did not in winter remind one 
 of God, but one could not help feeling as if there had been 
 the agency of some ' mortal instruments,' which Nature had 
 been struggling against without making a j)erfect conquest. 
 There was something so wild and new in this feeling, know- 
 ing, as we did in the inner man, that God alone had laid 
 his hand upon it, that I could not help regretting the want 
 of it ; besides, it is a pleasure to a real lover of Nature to 
 give winter all the glory he can, for summer will make its 
 own way, and speak its own praises. We saw the pathway 
 which William and I took at the close of evening, the path 
 leading to the rabbit warren where we lost ourselves. Sloe 
 farm, with its holly hedges, was lost among the green hills 
 and hedgerows in general, but we found it out, and were 
 dad to look at it afrain. William left us to seek the 
 waterfalls. . . . 
 
 " At our return to the inn, we found new horses and a 
 new driver, and we went on nicely to Hawes, where we 
 arrived before it was quite dark. . . . We rose at six o'clock 
 — a rainy morning. . . . There was a very fine view about 
 a mile from Hawes, where we crossed a bridge ; bare and 
 very green fields with cattle, a glittering stream, cottages, 
 a few ill-grown trees, and high hills. The sun shone now. 
 Before we got upon the bare hills, there was a hunting 
 lodge on our right, exactly like Greta Hill, with fir planta- 
 tions about it. We were very fortunate in the day, gleams 
 of sunshine, passing clouds, that travelled with their shadows 
 below them. Mary was much pleased with Garsdale. It 
 was a dear place to William and me. We noted well the
 
 DOEOTHY WOKDSWORTH's JOURNAL. 357 
 
 pubKc house (Garsdale Hall) where we had baited, . . . 
 and afterwards the mountain which had been adorned by- 
 Jupiter in his glory when we were here before. It was mid- 
 day when we reached Sedbergh, and market day. We were 
 in the same room where we had spent the evening together 
 in our road to Grasmere. We had a pleasant ride to Kendal, 
 where we arrived at two o'clock. The day favoured us. M. 
 and I went to see the house where dear Sara had lived. . . . 
 I am always glad to see Stavely ; it is a place I dearly love 
 to think of — the first mountain village that I came to with 
 William when we first began our pilgrimage together. . . . 
 Nothing particular occurred till we reached Ing's chapel. 
 The door was open, and we went in. It is a neat little 
 place, with a marble floor and marble communion table, with 
 a painting over it of the last supper, and Moses and Aaron 
 on each side. The woman told us that ' they had painted 
 them as near as they could by the dresses as they are 
 described in the Bible,' and gay enough they are. The 
 marble had been sent by Eichard Bateman from Leghorn. 
 The woman told us that a man had been at her house a few 
 days before, who told her he had helped to bring it down 
 the Ked Sea, and she believed him gladly ! . . . We . . . 
 arrived at Grasmere at about six o'clock on Wednesday 
 evening, the 6th of October 1802. ... I cannot describe 
 what I felt. . . . We went by candle light into the garden, 
 and were astonished at the growth of the brooms, Portugal 
 laurels, &c., &c., &c. The next day, Thursday, we unpacked 
 the boxes. On, Friday, 8th, . . . Mary and I walked first 
 upon the hill-side, and then in John's Grove, then in view of 
 Eydal, the first walk that I had taken with my sister. 
 
 "Monday, 11th. — A beautiful day. We walked to the 
 Easedale hills to hunt waterfalls. William and ]\Iary left 
 me sitting on a stone on the solitary mountains, and went to
 
 358 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Easeclale tarn. . , . The approach to the tarn is very 
 beautiful. We expected to have found Coleridge at home, 
 but he did not come till after dinner. He was well, but did 
 not look so. 
 
 "Tuesday, 12th October. — We walked with Coleridge 
 to Rydal. 
 
 " Wednesday, IStJi. — Set forwards with him towards 
 Keswick, and he prevailed us to go on. We consented, Mrs 
 C. not being at home. The day was delightful. . . . 
 
 " Thursday, l^^th. — We went in the evening to Calvert's. 
 Moonlight. Stayed supper. 
 
 "Saturday, 16th. — Came home, Mary and I. William 
 returned to Coleridge before we reached Nadel Fell. Mary 
 and I had a pleasant walk. The day was very bright ; the 
 people busy getting in their corn. Reached home at about 
 five o'clock. . . . 
 
 "Sunday, 1*7 th. — We had thirteen of our neighbours to 
 tea. William came in just as we began tea. 
 
 "30th October. — William is gone to Keswick. Mary 
 went with him to the top of the Raise. She is returned, 
 and is now sitting near me by the fire. It is a breath- 
 less, grey day, that leaves the golden woods of autumn 
 quiet in their own tranquillity, stately and beautiful in their 
 decaying. The lake is a perfect mirror. 
 
 "Saturday, SOth October. — William met Stoddart at the 
 bridge at the foot of Legberthwaite dale. . . . They surprised 
 us by their arrival at four o'clock in the afternoon. . . . 
 After tea, S. read Chaucer to us. 
 
 " Monday, 3 1st October. — . . . William and S. went to 
 Keswick. Mary and I walked to the top of the hill and 
 looked at Eydal. I was much affected when I stood upon 
 the second bar of Sara's gate. The lake was perfectly still.
 
 DOROTHY WOEDSWORTH's JOURNAL. 359 
 
 the sun slione on hill and vale, the distant birch trees looked 
 like large golden flowers. Nothing else in colour was distinct 
 and separate, but all the beautiful colours seemed to be 
 melted into one another, and joined together in one mass, 
 so that there were no differences, though an endless variety, 
 when one tried to find it out. The fields were of one sober 
 yellow brown. . . . 
 
 "Tuesday, 2nd Novemler. — William returned from Keswick. 
 
 "Friday, 5th. — , . . I wrote to Montagu, . . . and sent 
 off letters to Miss Lamb and Coleridge. 
 
 " Sunday, ^th. — Fine weather. Letters from Coleridge 
 that he was gone to London. Sara at Penrith. I wrote to 
 Mrs Clarkson. William began to translate Ariosto. 
 
 "Monday, 8th. — A beautiful day. William got to work 
 again at Ariosto, and so continued all the morning, though 
 the day was so delightful that it made my very heart long 
 to be out of doors, and see and feel the beauty of the 
 autumn in freedom. The trees on the opposite side of the 
 lake are of a yellow brown, but there are one or two trees 
 opposite our windows (an ash tree, for instance) quite green, 
 as in spring. The fields are of their winter colour, but the 
 island is as green as ever it was. . . . William is writing 
 out his stanzas from Ariosto. . . . The evening is quiet. 
 Poor Coleridge ! Sara is at Keswick, I hope. ... I have 
 read one canto of Ariosto to-day. 
 
 " 24<th Deccmhcr. — Christmas Eve. William is now 
 sitting by me, at half-past ten o'clock. I have been 
 . . . repeating some of his sonnets to him, listening to his 
 own repeating, reading some of Milton's, and the Allegro 
 and Fenseroso. It is a quick, keen frost. . . . Coleridge 
 came this morning with Wedgwood. We all turned out 
 . . . one by one, to meet him. He looked well. We had to
 
 360 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 tell him of the birth of his little girl, born yesterday morn- 
 ing at six o'clock. William went with them to Wytheburn 
 in the chaise, and M. and I met W. on the Eaise. It was 
 not an unpleasant morning. . . . The sun shone now and 
 then, and there was no wind, but all things looked cheerless 
 and distmct ; no meltings of sky into mountains, the moun- 
 tains like stone work wrought up with huge hammers. 
 Last Sunday was as mild a day as I ever remember. . . . 
 Mary and I went round the lakes. There were flowers of 
 various kinds — the topmost bell of a fox-glove, geraniums, 
 daisies, a buttercup in the water (but this I saw two or 
 three days before), small yellow flowers (I do not know 
 their name) in the turf. A large bunch of strawberry 
 blossoms. ... It is Christmas Day, Saturday, 25th Decem- 
 ber 1802. I am thirty-one years of age. It is a dull, 
 frosty day. 
 
 "... On Thursday, 30th December, I went to Keswick. 
 William rode before me to the foot of the hill nearest K. 
 There we parted close to a little watercourse, which was 
 then noisy with water, but on my return a dry channel. 
 . . . We stopped our horse close to the ledge, opposite a 
 tuft of primroses, three flowers in full blossom and a bud. 
 They reared themselves up among the green moss. We 
 debated long whether we should pluck them, and at last left 
 them to live out their day, which I was right glad of at my 
 return the Sunday following ; for there they remained, un- 
 injured either by cold or wet. I stayed at Keswick over 
 New Year's Day, and returned on Sunday, the 2nd January. 
 . . . William was alarmed at my long delay, and came to 
 within three miles of Keswick, . . . Coleridge stayed with 
 us till Tuesday, January 4th. W. and I . . . walked with 
 him to Ambleside. We parted with him at the turning of 
 the lane, he going on horseback to the top of Kirkstone. 
 On Thursday Gth, C. returned, and on Friday, the 7th, he
 
 DOKOTHY Wordsworth's journal. 361 
 
 and Sara went to Keswick. W. accompanied tliem to the 
 foot of Wytlieburn. ... It was a gentle day, and wlien 
 William and I returned home just before sunset, it was a 
 heavenly evening. A soft sky was among the hills, and a 
 summer sunshine above, and blending with this sky, for it 
 was more like sky than clouds ; the turf looked warm and 
 soft. 
 
 "Monday, January lOtli, 1803. — I lay in bed to have a 
 drench of sleep till one o'clock. Worked [all day. . . . 
 Ominously cold. 
 
 " Tuesday, January 11th. — A very cold day, . . . but the 
 blackness of the cold made us slow to put forward, and we did 
 not walk at all. Mary read the Prologue to Chaucer's tales 
 to me in the morning. William was working at his poem 
 to C. Letter from Keswick and from Taylor on William's 
 marriage. C. poorly, in bad spirits. . . . Eead part of The 
 KnigMs Talc with exquisite delight. Since tea Mary has 
 been down stairs copying out Italian poems for Stuart. 
 William has been working beside me, and here ends this 
 imperfect summary. . . ."
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 TOUR IN SCOTLAND : JOHN WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Dorothy Wordsworth's BecoUedions of a Tour made in 
 Scotland, a.d. 1803, begins thus: "William and I parted 
 from Mary on Svmday afternoon, August 16, 1803; and 
 William, Coleridge, and I left Keswick on Monday morn- 
 ing." Mrs Wordsworth was unable to accompany them. 
 
 Wordsworth in the Fenwick notes said, " Coleridge was at 
 that time in bad spirits, and somewhat too much in love 
 with his own dejection." They started on an Irish car, with 
 a horse that, sometimes backed them into ditches, that re- 
 fused to go on, and had to be led by one of the party ; their 
 equipage suggesting some " pedlars astir," or a company of 
 very primitive travellers indeed. It was a jolting uncomfort- 
 able car ; but what cared they ? They wished to get into 
 a new country, into contact with Nature, in her free wild 
 aspects, and to study her amongst solitudes sublimer than 
 those of Cumberland. 
 
 A daily record of that delightful journey was kept by 
 Dorothy Wordsworth, and was given to the world some 
 fourteen years ago, under the editorial care of a kindred 
 spirit, the most sympathetic student of Wordsworth that 
 Scotland has known, the late Principal Shairp.* It is quite 
 unnecessary to give any extracts from a book so well known, 
 and so justly prized. Pieaders of it will see how much more 
 
 * See the BecoUedions of a Tour made in Scotland, a.d. 1803, by Dorothy 
 Wordswoith.
 
 TOUR IN SCOTLAND. 363 
 
 finished the daily jottings are than those in the Grasmere 
 Journals of the two previous years. In point of form 
 and style, and literary merit, it is a link between the Dove 
 Cottage and the Continental Journals of Dorothy Words- 
 worth. 
 
 Wordsworth himself, however, memorialized his Scottish 
 tour of 1803 in a series of poems (see vol. ii., pp. 326-379), 
 several of which have a magical charm of their own ; while 
 this Journal of his sister has distinct " historic value," as 
 Principal Shairp remarks in his admirable prefatory note. 
 He calls attention to the " absolute sincerity " of the Journal, 
 " the single-minded endeavour to set down precisely the things 
 they saw and heard and felt, while moving on their quiet 
 way." Again, as Principal Shairp says, " it marks the state 
 of Scotland, and the feeling with which the most finely- 
 gifted Englishman came to it seventy years since, at a time 
 before the flood of English interest and ' tourism ' had set 
 in across the border." * Coming after Burns' poetry, but 
 before Scott's romances had been written, it has an addi- 
 tional interest. Other things in it, on which the editor very 
 justly remarks, are these : the absence of all effort at fine 
 writing, the perception of the deep interest and dignity that 
 Man gives to Nature, and Nature gives to Man, and the 
 appreciation of aspects of Nature unlike that of the Cumbrian 
 hills and vales ; although, as a matter of course, there was 
 special delight in tracing the resemblance of scene to scene — 
 a thing in which almost all travellers rejoice. The sister's 
 Journal must be read as a whole, and must be read along 
 with the brother's poems on the tour, in order that both 
 may be adequately understood. The following is the briefest 
 abstract of the route taken. 
 
 First week. — From Keswick they went by Hesket-New- 
 
 * See Preface, p. xxxv.
 
 364 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 market, and Rose Castle Carlisle, across Solway Moss to 
 Annan, and Dumfries, to Burns' Grave, then to Ellisland, on 
 by Thornhill, Wanlocliliead, and Leadhills to Crawfordjohn, 
 Lanark, and the Falls of Clyde. Second lueck. — To Hamil- 
 ton, Bothwell, Glasgow, Dumbarton, Loch Lomond, Tarbert, 
 Inversnaid, Loch Katrine, and the Trossachs. Third ivecJc. 
 — To Arrochar (where Coleridge left them), up Glen Croe 
 to Inveraray, Loch Awe, Kilchurn, by Loch Etive and Loch 
 Linnhe to BallachuUish, through Glencoe to King's House, 
 and Inveroram. Fourth week. — To Tyndrum, Killin, Ken- 
 more, by Aberfeldy to Blair Athole, Killicrankie, Dunkeld, 
 and through the Sma' Glen to Crieff and Callander. Fifth 
 week. — Again to the Trossachs, Loch Lomond, Eob Ptoy's 
 Grave, Loch Lubnaig, and by Stirling to Edinburgh, Roslin, 
 and to Peebles. The Sixth week (which in some respects 
 was the most interesting of all) closed with a visit to 
 Walter Scott, " the wizard of the north," not yet on his 
 throne of power, but, like Wordsworth himself, in the 
 glorious "morning of his prime." 
 
 Coleridge left the Wordsworths at Arrochar in the hope 
 of walking off a fit of gout. In a letter to Sir George 
 Beaumont (September 22, 1803) he said, "I walked 263 
 miles in eight days, in the hope of forcing the disease into 
 the extremities ; and so strong am I that I could undertake 
 at this present time to walk fifty miles a-day for a week 
 together." He added, " I left Wordsworth and his sister at 
 Loch Lomond. I was so ill that I felt myself a burthen on 
 them, and the exercise was too much for me, and yet not 
 enough. I sent my clothes, &c., forward to Edinburgh, and 
 walked myself to Glencoe, and so on as far as CuUen, then 
 back again to Inverness, and thence over that most desolate 
 and houseless country by Aviemore, Dalnacardoch, Dal- 
 whinnie, Tummel Bridge, Kenmore, to Perth, with various 
 digressions and mountain climbings. At the Bridge of the
 
 TOUR IN SCOTLAND. 365 
 
 Sark, which divides England from Scotland, I determined to 
 write to you. At the foot of Loch Ketterin, under the 
 agitation of delight produced by the Trossachs, I began a 
 letter to you, but my fits became so violent and alarming 
 that I was truly incapable of doing more than taking a few 
 notes in my pocket-book. At Fort William, on entering the 
 public house I fell down in an hysterical fit, with long and 
 loud weeping, to my own great metaphysical amusement, and 
 the unutterable consternation and heboozlcment of the land- 
 lord, his wife children, and servants, who all gabbled Gaelic 
 to each other, and sputtered out short-winded English to me 
 in a strange style. So much ' all about myself.' I will 
 send you my whole tour in the course of the ensuing fort- 
 night, in two or three successive letters." * 
 
 In writino- to Sir GeorQ-e Beaumont, on his return to 
 Grasmere, on the 14th October, Wordsworth said of Cole- 
 ridge, " I am sure the solitary part of his tour did him the 
 most service." 
 
 Two days later, writing to Sir Walter Scott, t he said — 
 
 Grasmere, Oct. 16, 1803. 
 " We had a delightful journey home, delightful weather, 
 and a sweet country to travel through. We reached our 
 little cottage in high spirits, and thankful to God for all his 
 bounties. My wife and child were both well ; and, as I need 
 not say, we had all of us a happy meeting. . . . We passed 
 Branxholme (your Branxholme, we supposed) about four 
 miles on this side of Hawick. It looks better in your poem 
 than in its present realities. The situation, however, is de- 
 lightful, and makes amends for an ordinary mansion. The 
 whole of the Teviot, and the pastoral steeps about Mosspaul, 
 pleased us exceedingly. The Esk, below Langholm, is a 
 
 * See McworiaU of Colcorton, vol. i., p. 8, 9. 
 t See Lookhart'a Life of Scott, vol. ii., p. 165.
 
 3(J6 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 delicious river, and we saw it to great advantage. We did 
 not omit noticing Johnnie Armstrong's Keep ; but his hang- 
 ing-place, to our great regret, we missed. We were, indeed, 
 most truly sorry that we could not have you along with us 
 into Westmoreland. The country was in its full glory ; the 
 verdure of the valleys, in which we are so much superior to 
 you in Scotland, but little tarnished by the weather ; and 
 the trees putting on their most beautiful looks. My sister 
 was quite enchanted ; and we often said to each other, 
 ' What a pity Mr Scott is not with us ! ' . . . I had the 
 pleasure of seeing Coleridge and Southey at Keswick last 
 Sunday. Southey, whom 1 never saw much of before, I 
 liked much. He is very pleasant in his manner, and a man 
 of great reading in old books, poetry, chronicles, memoirs, 
 &c., particularly Spanish and Portuguese. . . . My sister 
 and I often talk of the happy days that we spent in your 
 company. Such things do not occur often in life. If we 
 live, we shall meet again. That is my consolation, when I 
 think of these things. Scotland and England sound like 
 division, do what we can ; but we really are but neighbours, 
 and if you were no further off, and in Yorkshire, we should 
 think so. Farewell ! God prosper you, and all that belongs 
 to you ! Your sincere friend — for such I will call myself, 
 though slow to use a word of such solemn meaning to any 
 
 one W. WORDSWOKTH." 
 
 The following is a reminiscence by Samuel Eogers of his 
 meeting the Wordsworths and Coleridge in the course of 
 the tour of 1803:— 
 
 " Early in the present century, I set out on a tour in 
 Scotland, accompanied by my sister ; but an accident which 
 happened to her prevented us from going as far as we had 
 intended. During our excursion we fell in with Words- 
 worth, Miss Wordsworth, and Coleridge, who were, at the
 
 TOUR IN SCOTLAND. 367 
 
 same time, making a tour in a vehicle that looked very like 
 a cart. Wordsworth and Coleridge were entirely occupied 
 in talking about poetry ; and the whole care of looking out 
 for cottages, where they might get refreshment and pass the 
 night, as well as of seeing their poor horse fed and littered, 
 devolved upon Miss Wordsworth. She was a most delight- 
 ful person — so full of talent, so simple-minded, and so 
 modest ! If I am not mistaken, Coleridge proved so imprac- 
 ticable a travelling-companion, that Wordsworth and his 
 sister were at last obliged to separate from him. During 
 that tour they met with Scott. . . . 
 
 " I do, indeed, regret that Wordsworth has printed only 
 fragments of his sister's ' Journal ' ; it is most excellent, and 
 ought to have been published entire. . . . Wordsworth, 
 perhaps, appears to most advantage in a sonnet, because its 
 strict limits prevent him from running into that wordiness 
 to which he is somewhat prone. Don't imagine, from what 
 I have just said, that I mean to disparage Wordsworth : he 
 deserves all his fame." * 
 
 In the same Recollections, from which this extract is taken, 
 Eogers says : — 
 
 " I once read Gray's Ode to Adversity to Wordsworth, 
 and at the line — 
 
 ' And leave us leisure to be good,' 
 
 Wordsworth exclaimed, 'I am quite sure that is not original; 
 Gray could not have hit upon it,' " p. 38.t 
 
 From the Grasmere Journal of 1800, it will be seen that 
 John Wordsworth, the sailor brother, spent the most of that 
 year at Dove Cottage, " a cherished visitant," who not only 
 
 * Recollections of the Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers. Second edition, 
 pp. 207-209. 
 
 t It occurs in one of the Odes of John Oldham, 
 
 " And know 1 have not yet the leisure to be good."
 
 dG8 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 understood his brother's vocation, but was himself " a silent 
 poet." They had seldom met since their school days at 
 Hawkshead. John was only one year and eight months 
 younger than William, who describes his brother in The 
 
 Hecluse as 
 
 " A never resting Pilgrim of the Sea." 
 
 (See p. 251.) Now they were thrown together for months, 
 in the most delightful way. They used ■ to fish in the 
 streams and tarns ; or John would take mountain walks with 
 Dorothy, and — in the garden and orchard — spend happy 
 industrious hours, in reading, listening, or working. He had 
 taken with him to sea, as a boy, a genuine love of Nature ; 
 and the imaginative second-sight, which marks the poet, 
 was quickened -in him during that winter to an unusual 
 degree, while a tie of deep natural affection united the sister 
 to the brothers. It was his intention — after securing a com- 
 petency at sea — to retire, and settle at Grasmere ; not only 
 that he might be near his family, but might devote any 
 surplus means he had to their assistance. He had just been 
 appointed to a post in the vessel Abergavenny. The 
 brothers walked — on Michaelmas Day 1800 — to Grisdale 
 tarn, and there parted ; John going on to Penrith, and 
 William returning to Grasmere. Memorial verses followed, 
 in which John was the central thought. One of the poems, 
 " on the naming of places," tells us of the severe winter that 
 followed John's departure ; and when, in spring, the snows 
 dissolved, and William could return to his favourite haunt 
 in the Fir-grove, he found " a hoary pathway traced between 
 the trees," — a track which, he discovered, had been worn by 
 Ms brother's feet, pacing there, as he used to do on the deck 
 of his vessel, " unwearied and alone." Henceforward, that 
 particular grove was known in the Wordsworth household 
 as " Brother's Grove " or " John's Grove." 
 
 John stayed some time at Penrith, but joined his ship
 
 JOHN WOKDSWORTH. 369 
 
 on a voyage to the East, in the spring of 1801. Before he 
 sailed, he wrote the following words to a friend, on his 
 brother's poems : — 
 
 " I do not think that William's poetry will become popu- 
 lar, for some time to come. It does not suit the present 
 taste. I was in company, the other evening, with a gentle- 
 man, who had read The Cumberland Beggar. 'Why,' says 
 he, ' tliis is very pretty ; but you may call it anything but 
 poetry.' The truth is, few people read poetry ; they hiiy it 
 for the name, read about twenty lines ; and if the language is 
 very fine, they are content with praising the whole. Most 
 of William's poetry improves upon the sceond, third, or fourth 
 reading. Now, people in general are not sufficiently interested 
 to try a second reading."* 
 
 In another letter, he said : " The poems will become 
 popular in time, but it will be ly degrees. The fact is, there 
 are not a great many persons that will be pleased with them 
 at first ; but, those that are pleased with them, will be pleased 
 in a high degree, and they will he jpeople of sense : and this 
 will have weight ; and then people who neither understand, 
 nor wish to understand, them, will praise them." 
 
 Again he said : " My brother's poetry has a great deal to 
 struggle against ; but I hope it will overcome all : it 
 is certainly founded ujjon Nature, and that is the test 
 foundation." 
 
 To his sister he wrote from Portsmouth, on board the 
 Ahergavenmj, A'pril 22, 1801: "We have the finest ship 
 in the fleet : nobody can tell her from a 74-gun ship. The 
 Bengal fleet have sailed with a fine breeze. ... I thank 
 you for the poems which you have copied for me. I always 
 liked the preface to Peter Bell, and would be obliged to you 
 if you could send it to me. ... As for the Lyrical Ballads, 
 
 * See Memoir>>, vol. i., p. 283. 
 IX. 2 A
 
 370 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 / do not give myself the smallest conecrn cibout them. ... I 
 am certain they must sell. I shall write to you again before 
 we sail." 
 
 John Wordsworth went to China, taking with him 
 Anderson's Poets, to read on the voyage. On his return, 
 in 1802, he sent this book down to William at Grasmere, 
 asking; him, at the same time, what books he recommended 
 for a new voyage, that would last for sixteen months. In 
 whatever way he had tried to better his fortune during the 
 previous voyage, it had evidently not succeeded ; and so he 
 started once more, on what he hoped might be his last 
 voyage. Wordsworth replied (probably in a letter to their 
 brother Richard, with whom John lived in London), " Tell 
 John, when he buys Spenser, to purchase an edition which 
 has his State of Ireland in it. This is in prose. Milton's 
 sonnets (transcribe all this for John) I think manly and 
 dignified compositions, distinguished by simplicity and unity 
 of object and aim, and undisfigured by false or vicious 
 ornaments. . . . They have an energetic and varied flow 
 of sound, crowding into narrow room more of the combined 
 effect of rhyme and blank verse, than can be done by any 
 other kind of verse I know of. The sonnets of Milton 
 which I like best are those To Cyriac Skinner, on Ids Blind- 
 ness, CajJtain or Colonel, Massacre of Piedmont, Cromwell 
 (except two last lines), Fairfax, &c." 
 
 John sailed from England early in 1803, and returned to 
 London towards the close of 1804. This had not been, any 
 more than the last, a commercially successful voyage : but 
 he was now appointed captain of the ship, and — as he had 
 to start again almost immediately — he could not go down to 
 Westmoreland during his short stay in London. The ship, 
 Abergavenny, left London in February 1805 ; but, owing, 
 it was said, to the carelessness of the pilot they had on 
 board, was wrecked off the Bill of Portland, three miles
 
 JOHN WOKDSWORTH. 871 
 
 from shore, and went clown, 270 persons perishing with it. 
 An account of the shipwreck, and a letter on her brother's 
 character, from Dorothy Wordsworth to Miss Pollard, will 
 be found in vol. iii., p. 52, of this edition. 
 
 A few additional details may be given here. The vessel 
 struck a rock at 5 p.m., but was got afloat at half-past seven. 
 The captain tried to run her on the Weymouth sands, but 
 she was waterlogged, and, in spite of constant pumping, she 
 sank at eleven o'clock. With great prudence, the captain 
 would not allow the long-boat to be sent off, as without her 
 they could not have succeeded in running the ship aground. 
 He remained perfectly calm, and was washed overboard as 
 the vessel sank ; and, though an excellent swimmer, he could 
 not battle with the sea, exhausted as he was by six hours of 
 anxiety and toil. 
 
 Numerous references to John Wordsworth occur through- 
 out the poems. The Brothers, The Character of the Happy 
 Warrior, the stanzas on Peclc Castle in a Storm, one of the 
 poems on Tlie Daisy, and the special Elecjiac Stanzas — either 
 allude to him, or were specially written upon him. The ship 
 went down on the 5 th of February, but the body of the 
 captain was not found until the 20 th of March. 
 
 " Six weeks beneath the moving sea 
 He lay in shuuber quietly, 
 Unforced by wind or wave 
 To quit the ship. . . . 
 And then they found him at her side 
 And bore him to the grave." 
 
 The day after its recovery, the body was interred in the 
 churchyard at Wyke ; the funeral arrangements being 
 undertaken by Mr Fowell Buxton of Belfield. There seems 
 to be no monument in the cliurchyard showing tlie exact 
 spot where he lies. In Kelly's Dorset, there is a statement 
 that " in the graveyard of Wyke Eegis are several stones 
 bearing inscriptions to persons shipwrecked on this coast."
 
 372 LIFE OF WORDSWOKTH. 
 
 The rector of Wyke Regis writes to me that his clerk — who 
 has been long in the parish — reports a tradition that the 
 captain of the Abergavenny was buried on the east side of the 
 church porch, Dr Cradock told me that the poet preferred 
 a grave in the churchyard to burial in a church. 
 
 As mentioned in vol. iii. of this edition, pp. 50-53, the 
 Wordsworth Society erected a small memorial to John 
 "Wordsworth, in 1881, at the parting-place of the brothers, 
 close to Grisdale Tarn. 
 
 The following fragments of letters from William Words- 
 worth to Sir George Beaumont, to Eichard Sharpe, and 
 others, refer to their common loss : — 
 
 " To Sir Geoege Beaumont, Baet, 
 
 " Grasmere, Feb. 11, 1805. 
 " My Deae Feiend — . , . I write to you from a house of 
 mourning. My poor sister, and my wife who loved him 
 almost as we did (for he was one of the most amiable of 
 men), are in miserable affliction, which I do all in my power 
 to alleviate ; but Heaven knows I want consolation myself. 
 I can say nothing higher of my ever-dear brother, than that 
 he was worthy of his sister, who is now weeping beside me, 
 and of the friendship of Coleridge ; meek, affectionate, 
 silently enthusiastic, loving all quiet things, and a poet in 
 every thing but words. 
 
 " We did not love him as a brother merely, but as a man 
 of original mind, and an honour to all about him. Oh ! dear 
 friend, forgive me for talking thus. . . . We have had no 
 tidings of Coleridge. I tremble for the moment when he is 
 to hear of my brother's death ; it will distress him to the heart, 
 and his poor body cannot bear sorrow. He loved my 
 brother, and he knows how we at Grasmere loved him. — 
 Your affectionate friend, W. Woedswoeth."
 
 JOHN WORDSWORTH. 373 
 
 Nine days later he wrote — 
 
 " Grasmere, Feb. 20, 1805. 
 
 "... Let me again mention my beloved brother. It is 
 now just five years since — after a separation of fourteen 
 years (I may call it a separation, for we only saw him four 
 or five times, and by glimpses) — he came to visit his sister 
 and me in this cottage, and passed eight blessed months 
 with us. He was then waiting for the command of the ship 
 to which he was appointed when he quitted us. As you 
 will have seen, we had little to live upon, and he as little 
 (Lord Lonsdale being then aKve). But he encouraged me to 
 persist, and to keep my eye steady on its object. He would 
 work for me (that was his language), for me and his sister ; 
 and I was to endeavour to do something for the world. He 
 went to sea, as commander, with this hope ; his voyage was 
 very unsuccessful, he having lost by it considerably. Wlien 
 he came home, we chanced to be in London, and saw hun. 
 ' Oh ! ' said he, ' I have thought of you, and nothing but you, 
 if ever of myself, and my bad success, it was only on your 
 account.' He went again to sea a second time, and also was 
 unsuccessful ; still with the same hopes on our account, though 
 then not so necessary, Lord Lowther having paid the money. 
 Lastly came the lamentable voyage, which he entered upon, 
 full of expectation, and love to his sister and myself, and my 
 wife, whom, indeed, he loved with all a brother's tenderness. 
 This is the end of his part of the agreement — of his efforts 
 for my welfare ! God grant me life and strength to fulfil 
 mine ! I shnll never forget him, — never lose sight of him. 
 There is a bond between us yet, the same as if he were living, 
 nay, far more sacred, calling upon me to do my utmost, as 
 he to the last did his utmost to live in honour and worthi- 
 ness. . . . He was heard by one of the surviving officers 
 giving orders, with all possible calmness, a very little before 
 the ship went down ; and when he could remain at liis post
 
 374 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 no longer, then, and not till then, he attempted to save liim- 
 self. I knew this would be so, but it was satisfactory for 
 me to have it confirmed by external evidence. Do not 
 think our grief unreasonable. Of all human beings whom I 
 ever knew, he was the man of the most rational desires, the 
 most sedate habits, and the most perfect self-command. He 
 was modest and gentle, and shy even to disease ; but this 
 was wearing off. In every thing his judgments were sound 
 and original ; his taste in all the arts — music and poetry in 
 particular (for these he, of course, had had the best oppor- 
 tunities of being familiar with) — was exquisite ; and his eye 
 for the beauties of nature was as fine and delicate as ever 
 poet or painter was gifted with, in some discriminations — 
 owing to his education and way of life — far superior to any 
 person's I ever knew. But, alas ! what avails it ? It was 
 the will of God that he should be taken away. 
 
 " I trust in God that I shall not want fortitude ; but my 
 loss is great and irreparable. 
 
 " Your most affectionate friend, 
 
 " W. WOEDSWOETH." 
 
 Again — 
 
 " Grasmere, March 12, 1805. 
 
 "... A thousand times have I asked myself, as your 
 tender sympathy led me to do, ' why was he taken away ? ' 
 and I have answered the question as you have done. In 
 fact, there is no other answer which can satisfy, and lay the 
 mind at rest. Why have we a choice, and a will, and a 
 notion of justice and injustice, enabling us to be moral 
 agents ? Why have we sympathies that make the best of 
 us so afraid of inflicting pain and sorrow, which yet we see 
 dealt about so lavishly by the supreme Governor ? Why
 
 JOHN WORDSWORTH. 375 
 
 should our notions of right towards each other, and to all 
 sentient beings within our influence, differ so widely from 
 what appears to be his notion and rule, if every tiling ivcre 
 to end here ? Would it not be blasphemy to say that, upon 
 the supposition of the thinking principle being destroyed hy 
 death, however inferior we may be to the great Cause and 
 Euler of things, we have more of love in our nature than He 
 has ? The thought is monstrous ; and yet, how to get rid 
 of it, except upon the supposition of another and a better 
 world, I do not see. As to my departed brother, who leads 
 our minds at present to these reflections, he walked all his 
 life, pure among many impure. Except a little hastiness of 
 temper, when anything was done in a clumsy or bungling 
 manner, or when improperly contradicted upon occasions of 
 not much importance, he had not one vice of his profession. 
 I never heard an oath, or even an indelicate expression or 
 allusion, from liim in my life. His modesty was equal to 
 that of the purest woman. In prudence, in meekness, in 
 self-denial, in fortitude, in just desires, and elegant and 
 refined enjoyments, with an entire simplicity of manners, 
 life, and habit, he was all that could be wished for in man ; 
 strong in health, and of a noble person, with every hope 
 about him that could render life dear ; thinking of, and 
 living only for, others — and we see what has been his 
 end ! So good must be better ; so high must be destined to 
 be higher. 
 
 "A few minutes before the ship went down, my brother 
 was seen talking with the first mate, with apparent cheer- 
 fulness ; and he was standing on the hen-coop, which is the 
 point from which he could overlook the whole ship, the 
 moment she went down, dying, as he had lived, in the very 
 place and point where his duty stationed him. I must beg 
 your pardon for detaining you so long on this melancholy
 
 376 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 subject ; and yet it is not altogether melancholy, for what 
 nobler spectacle can be contemplated than that of a virtuous 
 man with a serene countenance in such an overwhelming 
 situation ? . . . He was of a meek and retired nature, 
 loving all quiet things. — I remain, dear Sir George, your 
 most affectionate friend, W. Woedsworth." 
 
 The following letter to Southey was written the day after 
 Wordsworth heard of his loss : — 
 
 " Tuesday Evening, Grasmere, 1805. 
 
 " We see nothing here that does not remind us of our 
 dear brother ; there is nothing about us (save the children, 
 w^hom he had not seen) that he has not known and loved. 
 
 " If you could bear to • come to this house of mourning 
 to-morrow, I should be for ever thankful. We weep much 
 to-day, and that relieves us. As to fortitude, I hope I shall 
 show that, and that all of us will show it in a proper time, 
 in keeping down many a silent pang hereafter. But grief 
 will, as you say, and must, have its course ; there is no 
 wisdom in attempting to check it under the circumstances 
 which we are all of us in here. 
 
 " I condole with you, from my soul, on the melancholy 
 account of your own brother's situation ; God grant you may 
 not hear such tidings ! Oh ! it makes the heart groan, that, 
 with such a beautiful world as this to live in, and such a 
 soul as that of man's is by nature and gift of God, that we 
 should go about on such errands as we do, destroying and 
 laying waste ; and ninety-nine of us in a hundred never 
 easy in any road that travels towards peace and quietness. 
 And yet, what virtue and what goodness, what heroism and 
 courage, what triumphs of disinterested love everywhere, 
 and human life, after all, what it is ! Surely this is not to 
 be for ever, even on this perishable planet ! Come to us
 
 JOHN WORDSWORTH. o7 / 
 
 to-morrow, if you can ; your conversation, I know, will do 
 
 me good. 
 
 "All send best remembrances to you all. — Your affec- 
 tionate friend, W. Wordsworth." 
 
 To Eichard Sharpe, in London, he wrote — 
 
 " Grasmere, March 19, 1805. 
 
 "My Dear Friend, — You have often been in my thoughts 
 lately, and I have often thought of writing to you, but my 
 heart failed me. No doubt your thoughts, too, must fre- 
 quently have turned this way. I lialf hoped you might 
 have learned something concerning the ship, or my brother's 
 conduct, which you might deem consolatory enough to 
 encourage you to write to us. I have now and then, in 
 my distress, turning here and turning there, a thought 
 of this kind ; and then I said to myself, what can he write, 
 or what can anybody write to us ? 
 
 " Poor, blind creatures that we are ! how he hoped and 
 struggled, and we hoped and struggled, to procure him this 
 voyage. He wrote to us from Portsmouth, in the highest 
 spirits, and then came those dismal tidings ! Oh, my dear 
 friend, no words can express the anguish which we have 
 endured. Our brother was the pride and delight of our 
 hearts : never present to our minds but as an object of hope 
 and pleasure ; we had no expectation in life a thousand part 
 so pleasing as that of his coming to live among us the life 
 he loved, and reap the reward of his long privations. 
 
 " I will not speak of him now, but if you and I ever see 
 each other again, you will permit me to tell you what he 
 was, and how he loved those that were about me, and what 
 it was his wish to have done for us. I am afraid you will 
 find us much changed when you come again to Grasmere.
 
 378 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 My sister has been stricken to the heart, and looks dismally 
 ill ; but I hope time will calm us. Let us see you this 
 summer, if possible. We shall make a little tour into 
 Scotland, if we can muster courage ; but alas ! every plan 
 and scheme at this time only presents to us variety of 
 sorrow. . . . — Your sincere friend, 
 
 "W. WOEDSWORTH." 
 
 From the following letter to C. W. W. "VVynn, it will 
 be seen how Southey felt on hearing of John Wordsworth's 
 death : — 
 
 " April 3, 1805. 
 "Deae Wynn, — I have been grievously shocked this 
 evening by the loss of the Abergavenny, of which Words- 
 worth's brother was captain. Of course the news came 
 flying up to us from all quarters, and it has disordered me 
 from head to foot. At such circumstances, I believe we 
 feel as much for others as for ourselves ; just as a violent 
 blow occasions the same pain as a wound, and he who breaks 
 his shin feels as acutely at the moment as the man whose 
 leg is shot off. In fact, I am writing to you merely because 
 this dreadful shipwreck has left me utterly unable to do 
 anything else. It is the heaviest calamity Wordsworth has 
 ever experienced, and in all probability I shall have to com- 
 mmiicate it to him, as he will very likely be here before the 
 tidings can reach him. What renders any near loss of the 
 kind so peculiarly distressing is, that the recollection is 
 perpetually freshened when any like event occurs, by tlie 
 mere mention of shipwreck, or the sound of the wind. Of 
 all deaths it is the most dreadful, from the circumstances of 
 terror wliich accompany it. . . . God bless you ! 
 
 " R. S." * 
 
 * The Life and Correspondfnce. of Robert Southey. Edited by Rev. 
 Charles Cuthbert Southey. Vol. ii., p. 321.
 
 JOHN" WORDSWORTH. 379 
 
 It was thus that Dorothy Wordsworth wrote to Mrs 
 Marshall : — 
 
 "Grasmere, March 16, 1805. 
 
 ". . . It does me good to weep for him, and it does 
 me good to find that others weep, and I bless them for it. 
 ... It is with me, when I write, as when I am walking 
 out in this vale, once so full of joy ; I can turn to no 
 object that does not remind me of our loss. I see nothing 
 that he would not have loved and enjoyed. . . . My con- 
 solations rather come to me in gusts of feeling than are the 
 quiet growth of my mind. I know it will not always be 
 so. The time will come when the liaht of the settino; sun 
 upon these mountain tops will be as heretofore a pure joy ; 
 not the same gladness, that can never be, but yet a joy even 
 more tender. It will soothe me to know how happy he 
 would have been could he have seen the same beautiful 
 spectacle. . . . He was taken away in the freshness of his 
 manhood : pure he was, and innocent as a child. Never 
 human being was more thoroughly modest, and his courage 
 I need not speak of. He was ' seen speaking with apparent 
 cheerfulness to the first mate a few minutes before the ship 
 went down ; ' and when nothing more could be done, he 
 said, ' the will of God be done.' I have no doubt when he 
 felt that it was out of his power to save his life he was as 
 calm as before, if some thought of what we should endure 
 did not awaken a pang. ... He loved solitude, and he re- 
 joiced in society. He would wander alone amongst these 
 hills with his fishing-rod, or led on by the mere pleasure of 
 walking, for many hours ; or he would walk with W. or me, 
 or both of us, and was continually pointing out — with a 
 gladness which is seldom seen Ijut in very young people — 
 something which perhaps would have escaped our observa- 
 tion ; for he had so fine an eye that no distinction was un- 
 noticed by him, and so tender a feeling that he never noticed
 
 880 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 anything in vain. Many a time has he called out to me at 
 evening to look at the moon or stars, or a cloudy sky, or this 
 vale in the quiet moonlight ; but the stars and moon were 
 his chief delight. He made of them his companions when 
 at sea, and was never tired of those thoughts which the 
 silence of the night fed in him. Then he was so happy by 
 the fireside. Any little business of the house interested 
 him. He loved our cottage. He helped us to furnish it, 
 and to make the garden. Trees are growing now which he 
 planted. ... He stayed with us till the 29 th of Septem- 
 ber, having come to us about the end of January. During 
 that time Mary Hutchinson, now Mary Wordsworth, stayed 
 with us six weeks. John used to walk with her every- 
 where, and they were exceedingly attached to each other ; 
 and so my poor sister mourns with us, not merely because 
 we have lost one who was so dear to William and me, but 
 from tender love to John and an intimate knowledge of him. 
 Her hopes as well as ours were fixed on John. ... I can 
 think of nothing but of our departed brother, yet I am very 
 tranquil to-day. I honour him, and love him, and glory in 
 his memory. . . ."
 
 CHAPTEE XVIII 
 
 FRAGMENTS OF VEESE : CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 Numerous fragments of verse, more or less unfinished, occur 
 in the Grasmere Journals, written by Dorothy Wordsworth. 
 One of these, which is broken up into irregular fragments, 
 and very incomplete, is evidently part of the material which 
 was written about the old Cumbrian shepherd Michael, the 
 successive alterations of which are so faithfully recorded else- 
 where in the Journal (see pp. 274-278, and compare vol. ii., 
 p. 144). It has a special topographical interest, from its 
 description of Helvellyn and its spring, the fountain of the 
 mists, and the stones on the summit. On other grounds 
 there is much in this fragment that gives it a title to rank 
 with the published poem of Michael, and passages in The 
 Excursion and The Prelude. On the outside leather cover 
 of the MS. book there is written, "May to Dec. 1802." 
 The following lines come first : — 
 
 " There is a shapeless crowd of unhewn stones 
 That lie together, some in heaps, and some 
 In lines, that seem to keep themselves alive 
 In the last dotage of a dying form. 
 At least so seems it to a man who stands 
 In such a lonely place." 
 
 These are followed by a few lines, some of which were 
 afterwards used in The PrcliLcle (see book vii., vol. iii., p. 
 280):— 
 
 " ShaU he who gives his days to low pursuits, 
 Amid the undistinguishable crowd 
 Of cities, 'mid the same eternal flow
 
 382 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Of the same objects, melted and reduced 
 To one identity, by differences 
 That have no law, no meaning, and no end, 
 Shall he feel yearning to those lifeless forms, 
 And shall we think that Nature is less kind 
 To those, who all day long, through a long life, 
 Have walked within her sight ? It cannot be. 
 
 Mary Wordsworth, Dorothy Wordsworth, William 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 Sat. Eve., 20 past 6, May 29." 
 
 Other fragments follow less worthy of preservation. Then 
 the passage, which occurs in the xiii. book of The Prelude, 
 beginning — 
 
 " There are who think that strong affection, love," 
 (see vol. vii., p. 382), with one or two variations from the 
 final text, which were not improvements. 
 
 Five lines on Helvellyn, afterwards included in the 
 3fusings near Aqiiapendente (see vol. viii., p. 36), come next. 
 The fragments referring to Michael are written down, 
 probably just as the brother dictated them to his sister, and 
 would be — if not unintelligible — certainly without any literary 
 connection or unity, were they printed in the order in which 
 they occur. I have, therefore, slightly transposed them to 
 give something like continuity to the whole. It remains, of 
 course, a torso. He says — 
 
 " I will relate a tale for those who love 
 To lie beside the lonely mountain brooks, 
 And hear the voices of the winds and flowers. 
 
 It befell 
 At the first falling of the autumnal snows. 
 Old Michael and his son one day went forth 
 In search of a stray sheep. It was the time 
 When from the heights our shepherds drive their flocks
 
 FRAGMENTS OF VERSE : CORRESPONDENCE. 383 
 
 To gather all their mountain family 
 
 Into the homestalls, ere they send them back 
 
 There to defend themselves the winter long. 
 
 Old Michael for this purpose had driven down 
 
 His flock into the vale, but as it chanced, 
 
 A single sheep was wanting. They had sought 
 
 The straggler during all the previous day 
 
 All over their own pastures, and beyond. 
 
 And now at sunrise, sallying forth again, 
 
 Far did they go that morning : with their search 
 
 Beginning towards the south, where from Dove Crag 
 
 (111 home for bird so gentle), they looked down 
 
 On Deep-dale-head, and Brother's water (named 
 
 From those two Brothers that were drowned therein) ; 
 
 Thence northward did they pass by Arthur's seat. 
 
 And Fairfield's highest summit, on the right 
 
 Leaving St Sunday's Crag, to Grisdale tarn 
 
 They shot, and over that cloud-loving hill. 
 
 Seat- Sandal, a fond lover of the clouds ; 
 
 Thence up Helvellyn, a superior mount, 
 
 With prospect underneath of Striding edge, 
 
 And Grisdale's houseless vale, along the brink 
 
 Of sheep-cot-cove, and those two other coves. 
 
 Huge skeletons of crags which from the coast 
 
 Of old Helvellyn spread their arms abroad 
 
 And make a stormy harbour for the winds. 
 
 Far went these shepherds in their devious quest. 
 
 From mountain ridges peej)ing,as they passed 
 
 Down into every nook ; . , . , 
 
 and many a sheep 
 On height or bottom * did they see, in flocks 
 Or single. And altliough it needs must seem 
 Hard to believe, yet could they well discern 
 
 * Bottom is a common Cumbrian word for valley.
 
 384 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Even at the utmost distance of two miles, 
 
 (Sucli strength of vision to the shepherd's eye 
 
 Doth practice give), that neither in the flocks 
 
 Nor in the single sheep was what they sought. 
 
 So to Helvellyn's eastern side they went, 
 
 Down looking on that hollow, where the pool 
 
 Of Thirlmere flashes like a warrior's shield 
 
 His light high up among the gloomy rocks, 
 
 With sight of now and then a straggling gleam 
 
 On Armath's* pleasant fields. And now they came. 
 
 To that high spring which bears no human name, 
 
 As one unknown by others, aptly called 
 
 The fountain of the mists. The father stooped 
 
 To drink of the clear water, laid himself 
 
 Flat on the ground, even as a boy might do. 
 
 To drink of the cold well. When in lilvc sort 
 
 His son had drunk, the old man said to him 
 
 That now he might be proud, for he that day 
 
 Had slaked his thirst out of a famous well, 
 
 The highest fountain known on British land. 
 
 Thence, journeying on a second time, they passed 
 
 Those small flat stones, which, ranged by traveller's hands 
 
 In cyphers on Helvellyn's highest ridge. 
 
 Lie loose on the bare turf, some half-o'ergrown 
 
 By the grey moss, but not a single stone 
 
 Unsettled by a wanton blow from foot 
 
 Of shepherd, man or boy. They have respect 
 
 For strangers who have travelled far perhaps. 
 
 For men who in such places, feeling there 
 
 The grandeur of the earth, have left inscribed 
 
 Their epitaph, which rain and snow 
 
 And the strong wind have reverenced. 
 
 * Armboth, on the western side of Thirlmere.
 
 FEAGMENTS OF VERSE: COKRESPONDENCE. 385 
 
 Though often thus industriously they passed 
 Whole hours with but small interchange of speech, 
 Yet were there times in which they did not want 
 Discourse both wise and pleasant, shrewd remarks 
 Of moral prudence, clothed in images 
 Lively and beautiful, in rural forms. 
 That made their conversation fresh and fair 
 As is a landscape ; and the shepherd oft 
 "Would draw out of liis heart the mysteries 
 An4 admirations that were there, of God 
 And of his works : or, yielding to the bent 
 Of his peculiar humour, would let loose 
 His tongue, and give it the wind's freedom ; then, 
 Discoursing in remote imaginations, strong- 
 Conceits, devices, plans, and schemes. 
 Of alterations human hands might make 
 Among the mountains, fens which might be drained, 
 Mines opened, forests planted, and rocks split, 
 The fancies of a solitary man." * 
 
 Then follow four pages of Miss Wordsworth's Journal 
 (May 4th and 5th, 1802); and then, irregularly written, 
 and with numerous erasures, the remainder of these un- 
 published lines. 
 
 * All doubt as to these fragments being originally intended to form 
 part of Michael is set at rest by a letter from Wordsworth to Thomas 
 Poole, of Nether Stowey, written from Grasmere on the 9th of Ajaril ISOl, 
 in which he gives first some new lines to be added to Michael, at pp. 210 
 and 211 of vol. ii. of the Lyrical Ikdlads (ed. 1800) ; to which letter 
 Dorothy Wordsworth added the postscript, " My brother has written the 
 following lines, to be inserted page 20G, after the ninth line — 
 
 ' Murmur with the sound of summer flies ; '" 
 and tlien follow — 
 
 "Though in these occupations they would pass 
 Whole hours," &c., 
 as printed above, with only one or two variations of text. 
 IX. 2 B
 
 386 LIFE OF WORDSWOETH. 
 
 " At length the boy 
 Said, ' Eather 'tis lost labour ; with your leave 
 I will go back and range a second time 
 The grounds which we have hunted through before.' 
 . So saying, homeward, down the hill the boy 
 Sprang like a gust of wind : [* and with a heart 
 Brimful of glory said within himself, 
 ' I know where I shall find him, though the storm 
 Have driven him twenty miles.' 
 For ye must know] that though the storm 
 Drive one of those poor creatures miles and miles, 
 If he can crawl, he will return again 
 To his own hills, the spots where when a lamb 
 He learned to pasture at his mother's side. 
 Bethinking him of this, again the boy 
 Pursued his way toward a brook, whose course 
 Was through that unfenced track of mountain ground 
 Wliich to his father's little farm belonged, 
 The home and ancient birthright of their flock. 
 Down the deep channel of the stream he went. 
 Prying through every nook. Meanwhile the rain 
 Began to fall upon the mountain tops. 
 Thick storm, and heavy, which for three hours' space 
 Abated not ; and all that time the boy 
 Was busy in his search, until at length 
 He spied the sheep upon a plot of grass, 
 An island in the brook. It was a place 
 Remote and deep, piled round with rocks, where foot 
 Of man or beast was seldom used to tread. 
 But now, when everywhere the summer grass 
 Began to fail, this sheep by hunger pressed 
 
 * Erased version.
 
 FRAGMENTS OF VERSE : CORRESPONDENCE. 387 
 
 Had left his fellows, made liis way alone 
 
 To the green plot of pasture in the brook. 
 
 Before the boy knew well what he had seen 
 
 He leapt upon the island, with proud heart, 
 
 And with a shepherd's joy. Immediately 
 
 The sheep sprang forward to the further shore, 
 
 And was borne headlong by the roaring flood. 
 
 At this the boy looked round him, and his heart 
 
 Fainted with fear. Thrice did he turn his face 
 
 To either bank, nor could he summon up 
 
 The courage that was needful to leap back 
 
 'Cross the tempestuous torrent ; so he stood 
 
 A prisoner on the island, not without 
 
 More than one thought of death, and his last hour. 
 
 Meantime the father had returned alone 
 
 To his own home, and now at the approach 
 
 Of evening he went forth to meet his son, 
 
 Nor could he guess the cause for which the boy 
 
 Had stayed so long. The shepherd took his way 
 
 Up his own mountain grounds, where, as he walked 
 
 Along the steep that overhung the brook. 
 
 He seemed to hear a voice, which was again 
 
 Eepeated, like the whistling of a kite. 
 
 At this, not knowing why — as often-times 
 
 The old man afterwards was heard to say — 
 
 Down to the brook he went, and tracked its course 
 
 Upwards among the o'erhanging rocks ; nor 
 
 Had he gone far ere he espied the boy 
 
 Right in the middle of the roaring stream. 
 
 Without distress or fear the shepherd heard 
 
 The outcry of his son : he stretched his staff 
 
 Towards him, bade him leap, which word scarce said 
 
 The boy was safe."
 
 388 LIFE OF WORDSWOETH. 
 
 Of Michael again it is said — 
 
 " No doubt if you iu terms direct had asked 
 Whether he loved the mountains, true it is 
 That with blunt repetition of your words 
 He might have stared at you, and said that they 
 Were frightful to behold, but had you then 
 Discoursed with him 
 Of his own business, and the goings on 
 Of earth and sky, then truly had you seen 
 That in his thoughts there were obscurities, 
 Wonder, and admiration, things that wrought 
 Not less than a religion in his heart. 
 And if it was his fortune to converse 
 With any who could talk of common things 
 In an unusual way, and give to them 
 Unusual aspects, or by questions apt 
 Wake sudden recognitions, that were like 
 Creations in the mind (and were indeed 
 Creations often), then when he discoursed 
 Of mountain sights, tliis untaught shepherd stood 
 Before the man with whom he so conversed 
 And looked at him as with a poet's eye. 
 But speaking of the vale in which he dwelt. 
 And those bare rocks, if you had asked if he 
 For other pastures would exchange the same 
 And dwell elsewhere, 
 
 you then had seen 
 At once what spirit of love was in liis heart." 
 
 There are also written in this MS. book some of the 
 stanzas of Ruth (see vol. ii., p. 187), with a few variations 
 of text, and the hitherto unpublished stanza from the same 
 poem. Thereafter the Grasmere Journal is resumed.
 
 FRAGMENTS OF VERSE I CORRESPONDENCE. 389 
 
 Tlie following fragments are also extracted from the mis- 
 cellaneous jottings of these Journals : — 
 
 "Along the mazes of this song I go 
 As inward motions of the wandering thought 
 Lead me, or outward circumstance impels. 
 Thus do I urge a never-ending way 
 Year after year, with many a sleep between. 
 Through joy and sorrow ; if my lot be joy 
 More joyful if it be with sorrow sooth'd. " 
 
 " The rains at length have ceas'd, the winds are still'd. 
 The stars shine brightly between clouds at rest, 
 And as a cavern is with darkness fiU'd, 
 The vale is by a mighty sound possess'd." 
 
 " Witness thou 
 The dear companion of my lonely walk, 
 My hope, my joy, my sister, and my friend. 
 Or somethincf dearer still, if reason knows 
 A dearer thought, or in the heart of love 
 There be a dearer name." 
 
 The following has a later date, but may be given here : — 
 
 To THE Evening Stak over Grasmere Water, July 1806. 
 
 " The Lake is thine. 
 The mountains too are thine, some clouds there are. 
 Some little feeble stars, but all is thine. 
 Thou, thou art king, and sole proprietor. 
 
 A moon among her stars, a mighty vale, 
 
 Fresh as the freshest field, scoop'd out, and green 
 
 As is the sreenest billow of the sea.
 
 390 LIFE OF WORDS^YORTH. 
 
 The multitude of little rocky hills, 
 Eocky or green, that do like islands rise 
 From the flat meadow lonely there." 
 
 In Miss "Wordsworth's Journal mention is made (p. 322) 
 of a letter received from John AVilson, and of her brother's 
 reply to it. This letter is interesting as one of the very 
 earliest appreciative notices of the Lyrical Ballads. It does 
 honour to Wilson's insight and sympathy, — he was only 
 seventeen years of age at the time — and it is altogether 
 too memorable to be omitted from Wordsworth's life.* 
 
 " My Dear Sir, — You may perhaps be surprised to see 
 yourself addressed in this manner by one who never had 
 the happiness of being in company with you, and whose 
 knowledge of your character is drawn solely from the 
 perusal of your poems. But, sir, though I am not person- 
 ally acquainted with you, I may almost venture to affirm 
 that the qualities of your soul are not unknown to me. In 
 your poems I discovered such marks of delicate feeling, 
 such benevolence of disposition, and such knowledge of 
 human nature, as made an impression on my mind that 
 nothing will ever efface ; and while I felt my soul refined 
 by the sentiments contained in them, and filled with those 
 delightful emotions which it would be almost impossible to 
 describe, I entertained for you an attachment made up of 
 love and admiration. Eeflection upon that delight which I 
 enjoyed from reading your poems, will ever make me regard 
 you with gratititude ; and the consciousness of feeling those 
 emotions you delineate makes me proud to regard your 
 character with esteem and admiration. ... To receive a 
 letter from you would afford me more happiness than any 
 occurrence in this world, save the happiness of my friends, 
 
 * See Christopher yorth : a Memoir of John Wilson. Compiled by Mrs 
 Gordon. Vol. i., chap, ii., pp. 39-4S.
 
 FRAGMENTS OF AVERSE : CORRESPONDENCE. 391 
 
 and greatly enhance the pleasure I receive from reading 
 your Lyrical Ballads. ... To you, sir, mankind are in- 
 debted for a species of poetry, which will continue to afford 
 pleasure while respect is paid to virtuous feelings, and 
 while sensibility continues to povir forth tears of rapture. 
 The flimsy ornaments of language, used to conceal meanness 
 of thought and want of feeling, may for a short time capti- 
 vate the ignorant and unwary ; but true taste will discover 
 the imposture, and expose the authors of it to merited con- 
 tempt. The real feelings of human nature, expressed in 
 simple and forcible language, will, on the contrary, please 
 those only who are capable of entertaining them, and in 
 proportion to the attention which we pay to the faithful 
 delineation of such feelings, will be the enjoyment derived 
 from them. That poetry, therefore, which is the language 
 of nature, is certain of immortality, provided circumstances 
 do not occur to pervert the feelings of humanity, and 
 occasion a complete revolution in the government of the 
 mind. 
 
 That your poetry is the language of Nature, in my 
 opinion admits of no doubt. Both the thoughts and ex- 
 pressions may be tried by that standard. You have seized 
 upon those feelings that most deeply interest the heart, and 
 that also come within the sphere of common observation. 
 You do not write merely for the pleasure of philosophers 
 and men of improved taste, but for all who think, for all 
 who feel. If we have ever known the happiness arising 
 from parental or fraternal love ; if we have ever known that 
 delightful sympathy of soul connecting persons of different 
 sex ; if we have ever dropped a tear at the death of friends, 
 or grieved for the misfortunes of others ; if, in short, we 
 have ever felt the more amiable emotions of human nature, 
 it is impossible to read your poems without being greatly 
 interested, and frequently in rax)tures. Your sentiments,
 
 392 LIFE OF WORDSWOETH. 
 
 feelings, and thoughts are therefore exactly such as ought to 
 constitute the subject of poetry, and cannot fail of exciting 
 interest in every heart. But, sir, your merit does not solely 
 consist in delineating the real features of the human mind 
 under those different aspects it assumes when under the 
 influence of various passions and feelings ; you have, in a 
 manner truly admirable, explained a circumstance, very 
 important in its effects upon the soul when agitated, that 
 has indeed been frequently alluded to, but never generally 
 adopted by any author in tracing the progress of emotions — 
 I mean that wonderful effect which the appearances of ex- 
 ternal nature have upon the mind when in a state of strong 
 feeling. We must all have been sensible that, when under 
 the influence of grief, IsTature, when arrayed in her gayest 
 attire, appears to us dull and gloomy, and that, when our 
 hearts bound with joy, her most deformed prospects seldom 
 fail of pleasing. This disposition of the mind to assimilate 
 the appearances of external Nature to its own situation, is a 
 fine subject for poetical allusion, and in several poems you 
 have employed it with a most electrifying effect. But you 
 have not stopped here, you have shown the effect which the 
 qualities of external nature have in forming the human 
 mind, and have presented us with several characters whose 
 particular bias arose from that situation in wliich they were 
 planted with respect to the scenery of nature. This idea is 
 inexpressibly beautiful, and though, T confess, that to me it 
 appeared to border upon fiction when I first considered it, 
 yet at tliis moment I am convinced of its foundation 
 in Nature, and its great importance in accounting for various 
 phenomena in the human mind. It serves to explain those 
 diversities in the structure of the mind, which have baffled 
 all the ingenuity of philosophers to account for. It serves 
 to overturn the theories of men who have attempted to write 
 on human nature without a knowledge of the causes that
 
 FEAGMENTS OF VERSE : CORRESPONDENCE. 393 
 
 affect it, and who have discovered greater eagerness to show 
 their own subtlety than arrive at the acquisition of truth. 
 May not the face of external nature through different 
 quarters of the globe account for the dispositions of different 
 nations ? May not mountains, forests, plains, groves, and 
 lakes, as much as the temperature of the atmosphere, or the 
 form of government, produce important effects upon the 
 human soul ; and may not the difference subsisting between 
 the former of these in different countries produce as much 
 diversity among the inhabitants as any varieties among the 
 latter ? The effect you have shown to take place in 
 particular cases so much to my satisfaction, most certainly 
 may be extended so far as to authorise general inferences. 
 This idea has no doubt struck you ; and I trust that, if it 
 be founded on Nature, your mind, so long accustomed to 
 philosophical investigation, will perceive how far it may 
 be carried, and what consequences are likely to result 
 from it. 
 
 Your poems, sir, are of very great advantage to the 
 world, from containing in them a system of philosophy that 
 regards one of the most curious subjects of investigation, 
 and, at the same time, one of the most important. But 
 your poems may not be considered merely in a philosophical 
 light, or even as containing refined and natural feelings ; 
 they present us with a body of morality of the purest kind. 
 They represent the enjoyment resulting from the cultivation 
 of the social affections of our nature ; they inculcate a con- 
 scientious regard to the rights of our fellow-men ; tliey show 
 that every creature on the face of the earth is entitled in 
 some measure to our kindness. They prove that in every 
 mind, however depraved, there exist some qualities deserving 
 our esteem. They point out the proper way to happiness. 
 They show that such a thing as perfect misery does not 
 exist. They flash on our souls convictions of immortality.
 
 394 LIFE OF WORDS WOETH. 
 
 Considered, therefore, in this view. Lyrical Ballads is, to use 
 your own words, the book which I value next to my Bible ; 
 and though I may, perhaps, never have the happiness of 
 seeing you, yet I will always consider you as a friend, who 
 has, by his instructions, done me a service which it never 
 can be in my power to repay. Your instructions have 
 afforded me inexpressible pleasure ; it will be my own fault 
 if I do not reap from them much advantage. 
 
 I have said, sir, that in all your poems you have adhered 
 strictly to natural feelings, and described what comes within 
 the range of every person's observation. It is from follow- 
 ing out this plan that, in my estimation, you have surpassed 
 every poet both of ancient and modern times. But to 
 me it appears that in the execution of this design you have 
 inadvertently fallen into an error, the effects of which are, 
 however, exceedingly trivial. No feeling, no state of mind 
 ought, in my opinion, to become the subject of poetry, that 
 does not please. Pleasure may, indeed, be produced in 
 many ways, and by means that at first sight appear cal- 
 culated to accomplish a very different end. Tragedy of 
 the deepest kind produces pleasure of a high nature. To 
 point out the causes of this would be foreign to the purpose. 
 
 But we may lay this down as a general rule, that no 
 description can please where the sympathies of our soul are 
 not excited, and no narration interest where we do not enter 
 into the feelings of some of the parties concerned. On this 
 principle, many feelings which are undoubtedly natural, are 
 improper subjects of poetry, and many situations, no less 
 natural, incapable of being described so as to produce the 
 grand effect of poetical composition. Tliis, sir, I would 
 apprehend, is reasonable, and founded on the constitution of 
 the human mind. There are a thousand occurrences happen- 
 ing every day which do not in the least interest an uncon- 
 cerned spectator, though they no doubt occasion various
 
 FRAGMENTS OF VERSE : CORRESPONDENCE. 395 
 
 emotions in the breast of those to whom they immediately 
 relate. To describe these in poetry would be improper. 
 
 IN'ow, sir, I think that in several cases you have fallen 
 into this error. You have described feelings with which I can- 
 not sympathize, and situations in which I take no interest. 
 I know that I can relish your beauties, and that makes me 
 think that I can also perceive your faults. But in this 
 matter I have not trusted wholly to my own judgment, but 
 heard the sentiments of men whose feelings I admired, and 
 whose understanding I respected. In a few cases, then, I 
 think that even you have failed to excite interest. In the 
 poem entitled ' The Idiot Boy,' your intention, as you 
 inform us in your preface, was to trace the maternal passion 
 through its more subtle windings. This design is no doubt 
 accompanied with much difficulty, but, if properly executed, 
 cannot fail of interesting the heart. But, sir, in my opinion, 
 the manner in which you have executed this plan has frus- 
 trated the end you intended to produce by it ; the affection 
 of Betty Toy has nothing in it to excite interest. It ex- 
 hibits merely the effects of that instinctive feeling inherent 
 in the constitution of every animal. The excessive fondness 
 of the mother disgusts us, and prevents us from sympathiz- 
 ing with her. We are unable to enter into her feelings ; 
 we cannot conceive ourselves actuated by the same feelings, 
 and consequently take little or no interest in her situation. 
 The object of her affection is indeed her son, and in that 
 relation much consists, but then he is represented as totally 
 destitute of any attachment towards her ; the state of his 
 mind is represented as perfectly deplorable, and, in short, to 
 me it appears almost unnatural, that a person in a state of 
 complete idiotism should excite the warmest feelings of attach- 
 ment in the breast even of his mother. This much I know, 
 that among all the people ever I knew to have read this 
 poem, I never met one who did not rise rather displeased
 
 •396 LIFE OF WORDSWOKTH. 
 
 from the perusal of it, and the only cause I could assign for 
 it was the one now mentioned. This inability to receive 
 pleasure from descriptions such as that of ' The Idiot Boy ' 
 is, I am convinced, founded upon established feehngs 
 of human nature, and the principle of it constitutes, 
 as I daresay you recollect, the leading feature of Smith's 
 theory of moral sentiments. I therefore think that in 
 the choice of this subject you have committed an error. 
 
 You never deviate from nature ; in you that would be 
 impossible ; but in this case you have delineated feelings 
 which, though natural, do not please, but wliich create a 
 certain degree of disgust and contempt. With regard to 
 the manner in wliich you have executed your plan, I think 
 too great praise cannot be bestowed upon your talents. You 
 have most admirably delineated the idiotism of the boy's 
 mind, and the situations in which you place him are per- 
 fectly calculated to display it. The various thoughts that 
 pass through the mother's mind are highly descriptive of 
 her foolish fondness, her extravagant fears, and her ardent 
 hopes. The manner in which you show how bodily suffer- 
 ings are frequently removed by mental anxieties or plea- 
 sures, in the description of the cure of Betty Foy's female 
 friend, is excessively well managed, and serves to establish 
 a very curious and important truth. In short, everything 
 you proposed to execute has been executed in a masterly 
 manner. The fault, if there be one, lies in the plan, not in 
 the execution. This poem we heard recommended as one 
 in your best manner, and accordingly it is frequently read 
 in this belief. The judgment formed of it is, consequently, 
 erroneous. Many people are displeased with the perform- 
 ance ; but they are not careful to distinguish faults in the 
 plan from faults in the execution, and the consequence is 
 that they form an improper opinion of your genius. In 
 reading any composition, most certainly the pleasure we
 
 FRAGMENTS OF VERSE : CORRESPONDENCE. 397 
 
 receive arises almost wholly from the sentiment, thoughts, 
 and descriptions contained in it. A secondary pleasure arises 
 from admiration of those talents requisite to the production 
 of it. In reading ' The Idiot Boy,' all persons who allow 
 themselves to think must admire your talents, but they 
 regret that they have been so employed, and while they 
 esteem the author, they cannot help being displeased with 
 his performance. I have seen a most excellent painting of 
 an idiot, but it created in me inexpressible disgust. I 
 admired the talents of the artist, but I had no other source 
 of pleasure. The poem of ' The Idiot Boy ' produced upon 
 me an effect in every respect similar. I find that my 
 remarks upon several of your other poems must be reserved 
 for another letter. If you think this one deserves an 
 answer, a letter from Wordsworth would be to me a trea- 
 sure. If your silence tells me that my letter was beneath 
 your notice, you will never again be troubled by one whom 
 you consider as an ignorant admirer. But, if your mind be 
 as amiable as it is reflected in your poems, you will make 
 allowance for defects that age may supply, and make a 
 fellow-creature happy by dedicating a few moments to the 
 instruction of an admirer and sincere friend. 
 
 John Wilson." 
 
 " Professor Jardine's College, Glasgow, 
 Mth May 1802. 
 
 "William Wordsworth, Esq., 
 
 Ambleside, Westmoreland, England." 
 
 Wordsworth received this letter on the 31st of May; 
 and, as we find from his sister's Journal, he began a 
 reply to it on the 5th June. "Next day," she adds, "we 
 were writing the letter to John Wilson," from which it 
 seems to have been a joint production. This reply to 
 Wilson is evidently the letter with which the late Bisliop
 
 398 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 of Lincoln concluded the eighteenth chapter of his uncle's 
 Memoirs. The Bishop did not indicate to whom the letter 
 was addressed ; but the internal evidence is unmistakable. 
 
 " My Dear Sir, — Had it not been for a very amiable 
 modesty you could not have imagined that your letter 
 could give me any offence. It was on many accounts 
 highly grateful to me. I was pleased to find that I had 
 given so much pleasure to an ingenuous and able mind, 
 and I further considered the enjoyment which you had 
 had from my Poems as an earnest that others might be 
 delighted with them in the same or a like manner. It is 
 plain from your letter that the pleasure which I have given 
 you has not been blind or unthinking; you have studied 
 the poems, and prove that you have entered into the spirit 
 of them. They have not given you a cheap or vulgar 
 pleasure ; therefore I feel that you are entitled to my 
 kindest thanks for having done some violence to your 
 natural diffidence in the communication which you have 
 made to me. 
 
 There is scarcely any part of your letter that does not 
 deserve particular notice ; but partly from some constitu- 
 tional infirmities, and partly from certain habits of mind, 
 I do not write any letters unless upon business, not even 
 to my dearest friends. Except during absence from my 
 own family I have not written five letters of friendship 
 during the last five years. I have mentioned this in order 
 that I may retain your good opinion, should my letter be 
 less minute than you are entitled to expect. You seem 
 to be desirous of my opinion on the influence of natural 
 objects in forming the character of Nations. This cannot 
 be understood without first considering their influence upon 
 men in general, first, with reference to such objects as are 
 common to all countries ; and, next, such as belong ex-
 
 FRAGMENTS OF VERSE : CORRESPONDENCE. 399 
 
 clusively to any particular country, or in a greater degree to 
 it than to another. Now it is manifest that no human 
 being can be so besotted and debased by oppression, penury, 
 or any other evil which inhumanises man, as to be utterly 
 insensible to the colours, forms, or smell of flowers, the 
 [voices*] and motions of birds and beasts, the appearances of 
 the sky and heavenly bodies, the genial warmth of a fine 
 day, the terror and uncomfortableness of a storm, &c., &c. 
 How dead soever many full-grown men may outwardly 
 seem to these things, all are more or less affected by them ; 
 and in childhood, in the first practice and exercise of their 
 senses, they must have been not the nourishers merely, but 
 often the fathers of their passions. There cannot be a doubt 
 that in tracts of country where images of danger, melancholy, 
 grandeur, or loveliness, softness, and ease prevail, that they 
 will make themselves felt powerfully in forming the char- 
 acters of the people, so as to produce an uniformity of 
 national character, where the nation is small and is not 
 made up of men who, inhabiting different soils, climates, &c., 
 by their civil usages and relations materially interfere with 
 each other. It was so formerly, no doubt, in the Highlands 
 of Scotland ; but we cannot perhaps observe much of it in 
 our own island at the present day, because, even in the most 
 sequestered places, by manufactures, traffic, religion, law, in- 
 terchange of inhabitants, &c., distinctions are done away, which 
 would otherwise have been strong and obvious. This complex 
 state of society does not, however, prevent the characters of 
 individuals from frequently receiving a strong bias, not merely 
 from the impressions of general nature, but also from local 
 objects and images. But it seems that to produce these 
 effects, in the degree in which we frequently find them to be 
 
 * Parts of this letter have been torn, and words have been lost ; some of 
 which were conjecturally supplied by the poet's nephew, and are printed 
 between brackets.
 
 400 LIFE OF WOEDSWORTH. 
 
 produced, there must be a peculiar sensibility of original 
 organisation combining with moral accidents, as is exhibited 
 in The Brothers and in Ruth. I mean, to produce this in a 
 marked degree ; not that I believe that any man was ever 
 brought up in the country without loving it, especially in his 
 better moments, or in a district of particular grandeur or 
 beauty without feeling some stronger attachment to it on 
 that account than he would otherwise have felt. I include, 
 you will observe, in these considerations, the influence 
 of climate, changes in the atmosphere and elements, and the 
 labours and occupations which particular districts require. 
 
 You begin what you say upon the Idiot Boy, with this 
 observation, that nothing is a fit subject for poetry which 
 does not please. But here follows a question, Does not 
 please whom ? Some have little knowledge of natural 
 imagery of any kind, and, of course, little relish for it ; 
 some are disgusted with the very mention of the words 
 pastoral poetry, sheep or shepherds. Some cannot tolerate a 
 poem with a ghost or any supernatural agency in it ; others 
 would shrink from an animated description of the pleasures 
 of love, as from a thing carnal and libidinous. Some cannot 
 bear to see delicate and refined feelings ascribed to men in 
 low conditions in society, because their vanity and self-love 
 tell them that these belong only to themselves, and men 
 Kke themselves in dress, station, and way of life ; others 
 are disgusted with the naked language of some of the most 
 interesting passions of men, because either it is indelicate, 
 or gross, or vulgar. Many fine ladies could not bear 
 certain expressions in The Mother and The Thorn, and, as in 
 the instance of Adam Smith, — who, we are told, could not 
 endure the ballad of Clym of the Clough, — because the author 
 had not written like a gentleman. Then there are pro- 
 fessional and national prejudices for evermore. Some take 
 no interest in the description of a particular passion or
 
 FRAGMENTS OF VERSE : CORRESPONDENCE. 401 
 
 quality, as love of solitariness, we will say, genial activity 
 of fancy, love of nature, religion, and so forth, because they 
 have [little or] nothing of it in themselves ; and so on 
 without end. I return then to [tlie] question ; ' Please whom ? 
 or what ? I answer, Human Nature as it has been [and ever] 
 will be. But, where are we to find the best measure of 
 this ? I answer, from within ; by stripping our own 
 hearts naked, and by looking out of ourselves to those 
 men who lead the simplest lives, and most according 
 to Nature ; men who have never known false refinements, 
 wayward and artificial desires, false criticisms, effeminate 
 habits of thinking and feeling or who, having known these 
 things, have outgrown them. This latter class is the most 
 to be depended upon, but it is very small in number. 
 
 People in our rank in life are perpetually falling into one 
 sad mistake, namely, that of supposing that Human Nature 
 and the persons they associate with are one and the same 
 thing. Whom do we generally associate with ? Gentlemen, 
 persons of fortune, professional men, ladies, persons who 
 can afford to buy, or can easily procure books of half-a- 
 guinea price, hot-pressed, and printed upon superfine paper. 
 These persons are, it is true, a part of Human Nature, but 
 we err lamentably if we suppose them to be fair repre- 
 sentatives of the vast mass of human existence. And yet 
 few ever consider books but with reference to their power 
 of pleasing these persons, and men of a higlier ranlc ; few 
 descend lower, among cottages and fields, and among 
 children. A man must have done this habitually before 
 his judgment upon The Idiot Boy would be in any way 
 decisive with me. I hioio I liave done this myself 
 habitually ; I wrote the poem with exceeding delight and 
 pleasure, and whenever I read it I read it with pleasure. 
 You have given me praise for having reflected faitlifully in 
 ray poems tlie feelings of Inniuiu nature. I would fain 
 IX. 2 c
 
 402 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 hope that I have done so. But a great Poet ought to do 
 more than this ; he ought, to a certain degree, to rectify 
 men's feelings, to give them new compositions of feeling, to 
 render their feelings more sane, pure, and permanent, in 
 short, more consonant to Nature, that is, to Eternal Nature, 
 and the great moving spirit of things. He ought to travel 
 before men occasionally, as well as at their sides. I may 
 illustrate this by a reference to natural objects. What 
 false notions have prevailed from generation to generation 
 of the true character of the nightingale. As far as my 
 Friend's poem, in the Lyrical Ballads, is read, it will con- 
 tribute greatly to rectify these. You will recollect a 
 passage in Cowper, where, speaking of rural sounds, he 
 
 says, 
 
 And even the boding Owl 
 That hails the rising moon has charms for me. 
 
 Cowper was passionately fond of natural objects, yet 
 you see he mentions it as a marvellous thing that he 
 could connect pleasure with the cry of the owl. In 
 the same poem he speaks in the same manner of that 
 beautiful plant, the gorse ; making in some degree an 
 amiable boast of his loving it, ' unsightly ' and unsmooth 
 as it is. There are many aversions of this kind, which, 
 though they may have some foundation in nature, have 
 yet so slight a one, that — though they may have prevailed 
 hundreds of years — a philosopher will look upon them 
 as accidents. So with respect to many moral feelings, 
 either of love or dislike. What excessive admiration was 
 paid in former times to personal prowess and military 
 success ; it is so with the latter even at the present day, 
 but surely not nearly so much as heretofore. So with 
 regard to birth, and innumerable other modes of sentiment, 
 civil and religious. But you will be inclined to ask by 
 this time how all this applies to The Idiot Boy. To this
 
 FKAGMENTS OF VERSE : CORRESPONDENCE. 403 
 
 I can only say that the loathing and disgust which many 
 people have at the sight of an idiot, is a feeling which, 
 though having some foundation in human nature, is not 
 necessarily attached to it in any virtuous degree, but is 
 owing iu a great measure to a false delicacy, and, if I may 
 say it without rudeness, a certain want of comprehensive- 
 ness of thinking and feeling. Persons in the lower classes 
 of society have little or nothing of this. If an idiot is born 
 in a poor man's house, it must be taken care of, and cannot 
 be boarded out as it would be by gentlefolks, or sent to a 
 public or private receptacle for such unfortunate beings. 
 
 I have often applied to idiots, in my own mind, that 
 sublime expression of scripture that ' their life is hidden 
 vjith God.' They are worshipped, probably from a feeling 
 of this sort, in several parts of the East. Among the 
 Alps, where they are numerous, they are considered, I 
 believe, as a blessing to the family to which they belong. 
 I have, indeed, often looked upon the conduct of fathers 
 and mothers of the lower classes of society toward idiots as 
 a great triumph of the human heart. It is there that 
 we see the strength, disinterestedness, and grandeur of 
 love ; nor have I ever been able to contemplate an object 
 that calls out so many excellent and virtuous sentiments 
 without finding it liallowed thereby, and having something 
 in me which bears down before it, like a deluge, every feeble 
 sensation of disgust and aversion. 
 
 There are, in my opinion, several important mistakes 
 in the latter part of your letter. These refer both to 
 the Boy and the Mother. I must content myself simply 
 with observing that it is probable that the principal 
 cause of your dislike to this particular poem lies in the 
 word Idiot. If there had been any such word in our 
 language to which we had attached passion, as lack-wit, 
 half-wit, witless, &c., I should have certainly employed
 
 404 LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 it in preference ; but there is no such word. Observe (this 
 is entirely in reference to this particular poem), my Idiot is 
 not one of those who cannot articulate : 
 
 Wlidher in cunning or in joy, 
 
 And then Jiis words were not a few, &c. 
 
 and the last speech at the end of the poem. The ' Boy ' 
 whom I had in my mind was by no means disgusting in 
 his appearance, quite the contrary ; and I have known 
 several with imperfect faculties, who are handsome in their 
 persons and features. There is one, at present, within a 
 mile of my own house, remarkably so, though [he has some- 
 tliing] of a stare and vacancy in his countenance. A friend 
 of mine, knowing that some persons had a dislike to the 
 poem, such as you have expressed, advised me to add a 
 stanza, describing the person of the Boy [so as] entirely to 
 separate him in the imagination of my readers from that 
 class of idiots who are disgusting in their persons ; but the 
 narration in the poem is so rapid and impassioned, that I 
 could not find a place in which to insert the stanza without 
 checking the progress of it, and [so leaving] a deadness 
 upon the feeling. This poem has, I know, frequently pro- 
 duced the same effect as it did upon you, and your friends ; 
 but there are many also to whom it affords exquisite delight, 
 and who, indeed, prefer it to any other of my poems. This 
 proves that the feelings there delineated are such as men 
 may sympathise with. Tliis is enough for my purpose. It 
 is not enough for me as a Poet, to delineate merely such 
 feelings as all men do sympathise with ; but it is also 
 highly desirable to add to these others, such as all men may 
 sympathise with, and such as there is reason to believe 
 they would be better and more moral beings if they did 
 sympathize. 
 
 I conclude with regret, because I have not said one
 
 FRAGMENTS OF VEESE : CORRESPONDENCE. 405 
 
 half of [what I intended] to say. ... I must, however, again 
 give you my warmest thanks for your kind letter. I shall 
 be happy to hear from you again : and do not think it un- 
 reasonable that I should request a letter from you, when I 
 feel that the answer which I may make to it will not 
 perhaps be above three or four lines. Tliis I mention to 
 you with frankness, and you will not take it ill after 
 what I have before said of my remissness in writing letters. 
 — I am, dear Sir, with great respect, Yours sincerely, 
 
 W. WOKDSWORTH." 
 
 EDINBURGH : TUUNIiULL AND SPEARS, I'KINTERS.
 
 EERATA IN VOLUME I. 
 
 P. 7, 1. 9. ' Eeid,' ' Mason,' should he ' Eeed,' ' Masson.' 
 Pp. 28, 144, 146, 150. ' Baron,' should be ' Barrou.' 
 P. 117, 1. 4. ' Burnet,' should be * Burnett.' 
 P. 117, 1. 5. ' Macintosh,' should be ' Mackintosh.' 
 P. 123, 1. 32. ' JVevj Monthly Magazine^ shoidd he ' newly started 
 series of the Monthly/ Magazine.^ 
 P. 145, 1. 11. ' General Peachey,' should be ' Lord Somerville.' 
 P. 225, 1. 11. ' Skakespearian,' shotdd be ' Shakespearian.' 
 P. 259, 1. 17. ' 1880,' shoidd be '1800.' 
 P. 221, 1. 14. ' May 1801,' should be ' July 1800.' 
 P. 221, 1. 17. ' July,' should be ' September.' 
 P. 335, 1. 29. ' Mr,' should be ' Mrs.'