described their route through Belgium and Germany. Of Heidelberg he said: "A noble situation at the point where the Neckar issues from steep lofty hills into the plain of the Rhine." Of their journey in the Bernese Oberland he said :—

"This journey led us over high ground, and for fifteen leagues along the base of the loftiest Alps, which reared their bare or snow-clad ridges and pikes, in a clear atmosphere, with fleecy clouds now and then settling upon and gathering round them. We heard and saw several avalanches; they are announced by a sound like thunder, but more metallic and musical. This warning naturally makes one look about, and we had the gratification of seeing one falling, in the shape and appearance of a torrent or cascade of foaming water, down the deep-worn crevices of the steep or perpendicular granite mountains. Nothing can be more awful than the sound of these cataracts of ice and snow thus descending, unless it be the silence which succeeds. The elevations from which we beheld these operations of nature, and saw such an immense range of primitive mountains stretching to the east and west, were covered with rich pasturage and beautiful flowers, among which was an abundance of the monkshood, a flower which I had never seen but in the trim borders of our gardens, and which here grew not so much in patches as in little woods or forests, towering above the other plants. At this season the herdsmen are with their cattle in still higher regions than those which we have trod, the herbage where we travelled being reserved till they descend in the autumn.

We have visited the Abbey of Engelberg, not many leagues from the borders of the Lake of Lucerne. The tradition is, that the site of the abbey was appointed by angels, singing from a lofty mountain that rises from the plain of the valley, and which, from having been thus honoured, is called Engelberg, or the Hill of the Angels. It is a glorious position for such beings, and I should have thought myself repaid for the

trouble of so long a journey by the impression made upon my mind, when I first came in view of the vale in which the Convent is placed, and of the mountains that enclose it. The light of the sun had left the valley, and the deep shadows spread over it heightened the splendour of the evening light, and spread upon the surrounding mountains, some of which had their summits covered with pure snow; others were half hidden by vapours rolling round them; and the rock of Engelberg could not have been seen under more fortunate circumstances, for masses of cloud glowing with the reflection of the rays of the setting sun were hovering round it, like choirs of spirits preparing to settle upon its venerable head.

To-day we quit this place to ascend the mountain Righi."

He asked Lord Lonsdale to write to him to Berne, where he hoped to be five weeks later; . . . "and may I beg that you will not omit to mention Westmoreland politics."

On the 7th October he again wrote to Lord Lonsdale from Paris, and gave an account of their subsequent wanderings in Switzerland, Italy, and France. Of Paris he said :"Nothing which I have seen in this city has interested me at all like the Jardin des Plantes, with the living animals, and the Museum of Natural History which it includes. Scarcely could I refrain from tears of admiration at the sight of this apparently boundless exhibition of the wonders of the creation. The statues and pictures of the Louvre affect me feebly in comparison. The exterior of Paris is much changed since I last visited it in 1792. I miss many ancient buildings, particularly the Temple, where the poor king and his family were so long confined. That memorable spot, where the Jacobin Club was held, has also disappeared. Nor are the additional buildings always improvements; the Pont des Arts, in particular, injures the view from the Pont Neuf greatly; but in these things public convenience is the main point..

Reference must be made to vol. vi. of this work for other extracts from Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal of the Tour across the Alps into Italy, and back to Switzerland, returning to England by Paris, as well as for partial extracts from Mrs. Wordsworth's Journal, and the Memorial Poems themselves.

On their return to England, they spent some time in London. On the 18th November, H. C. Robinson writes:

"Wordsworth in excellent mood. His improved and improving mildness and tolerance must very much conciliate all who know him.

Monday, 20.—I was glad to accompany the Wordsworths to the British Museum; and we had but a hurried survey of the antiquities. I did not perceive that Wordsworth enjoyed the Elgin Marbles much, but he is a still man, when he does enjoy himself, and by no means ready to talk of his pleasures, except to his sister. We could hardly see the statues. The Memnon, however, seemed to interest him very much. I think that his enjoyment of works of art is very much in proportion to their subserviency to poetical illustration. I doubt whether he feels the beauty of mere form."

During Wordsworth's Tour on the Continent his brother Christopher was promoted from the Rectory of Lambeth to the Mastership of Trinity College, Cambridge. On his return the poet remained a fortnight in London-November 9th to 23d; and during that time he saw Coleridge, the Lambs, Moore, Rogers, Kenyon, Talfourd, Sharp, and many others. It was a time of much and varied literary fellowship. The following are some of Thomas Moore's reminiscences of Wordsworth. They exhibit him alike in his weakness and his strength. His complaint of Bryon's plagiarism-however true-was unworthy of Wordsworth; but his remarks on the slight knowledge of poetry that existed amongst the public "men of the time," and

VOL. III.

D

the causes of it, were perhaps more true than was understood by Moore, who reported them.

"October 23d, 1820.* .. Lady Mary told me that Wordsworth, who has returned within the last fortnight from Switzerland and Milan, was making inquiries after me, and wished to see me.

A

October 24th, 1820. . . Called upon Wordsworth. young Frenchman came in, and it was amusing to hear him and Wordsworth at cross purposes upon the subject of Athalie; Wordsworth saying he did not wish to see it acted, as it would never come up to the high imagination he had formed in reading it, of the prophetic inspiration of the priests, etc., etc.; and the Frenchman insisting that in acting alone could it be properly enjoyed-that is to say, in the manner it was acted now; for he acknowledged that till the corps de ballet came to its aid, it was very dull, even on the stage,―une action morte.

...

25th October 1820. . . . Wordsworth rather dull. I see he

is a man who does not understand the give and take of

conversation.

27th October 1820.-Wordsworth came at half-past eight, and stopped to breakfast. Talked a good deal. Spoke of Byron's plagiarism from him; the whole third canto of Childe Harold founded on his style and sentiments. The feeling of natural objects which is there expressed, not caught by B. from nature herself, but from him (Wordsworth), and spoiled in the transmission. Tintern Abbey the source of it all; from which same poem too the celebrated passage about Solitude, in the first canto of Childe Harold, is (he said) taken, with this difference, that what is naturally expressed by him, has been worked by Bryon into a laboured and antithetical sort of

Memoirs, Journal, and Correspondence of Thomas Moore. Edited by the Right Hon. Lord John Russell, M.P.

declamation. Spoke of the Scottish novels. Is sure they are Scott's. When I mentioned the abundance of them, as being rather too great for one man to produce, he said that great fertility was the characteristic of all novelists and story-tellers. Richardson could have gone on for ever; his Sir Charles Grandison was, originally, in thirty volumes. Instanced Charlotte Smith, Madame Cottin, etc. etc. Scott, since he was a child, accustomed to legends, and to the exercise of the story-telling faculty, sees nothing to stop him as long as he can hold a pen. Spoke of the very little real knowledge of poetry that existed now; so few men had time to study. For instance, Mr. Canning; one could hardly select a cleverer man; and yet, what did Mr. Canning know of poetry? what time had he, in the busy political life he had led, to study Dante, Homer, etc., as they ought to be studied, in order to arrive at the true principles of taste in works of genius. Mr. Fox, indeed, towards the latter part of his life, made leisure for himself, and took to improving his mind; and, accordingly, all his later public displays bore a greater stamp of wisdom and good taste than his early ones. Mr. Burke alone was an exception to this description of public men: by far the greatest man of his age; not only abounding in knowledge himself, but feeding, in various directions, his most able contemporaries; assisting Adam Smith in his Political Economy, and Reynolds in his Lectures on Painting. Fox, too, who acknowledged that all he had ever learned from books was nothing to what he had derived from Burke.* I walked with Wordsworth to the Tuileries he goes off to-morrow."

In the Letters, Conversations, and Recollections of S. T. Coleridge, published anonymously in 1836, but edited by T. Allsop, there are some interesting allusions to Wordsworth

"There is much justice in these remarks of Mr. Wordsworth," adds Lord John Russell, the editor of Moore's Journal.