Miss Hutchinson. . . . My brother and Dora were at Keswick for four days last week. Southey is in his usual good spirits, happy in his various employments. Sara Coleridge is busy correcting proofs; she has translated a book from the French, either written by the Chevalier Bayard, or by some other person concerning him and his times, I know not which. Cuthbert Southey is a clever boy, and I hope it will please God to preserve him for the comfort and delight of his poor father, whose loss seemed irreparable when Herbert (then his only son) died. Mrs. Coleridge, Mrs. Southey, and the rest of the family are well. . . . My brother has not yet looked at the Recluse; he seems to feel the task so weighty that he shrinks from beginning with it, yet knows that he has now no time to loiter if another great work is to be accomplished by him. I say another, for I consider the Excursion as one work, though the title-page tells that it is but a part of one that has another title. . . . I hardly think my brother will stir away from Rydal next summer; yet he sometimes hints at going into Ireland, and says when he does go he will take me along with him. But we have all been such wanderers during the last twelve months, that the pleasantest thought at present is that of being gathered together at home, and all quietly enjoying ourselves. There is no country that suffers so little as this in bad weather, none that has so much of beauty (and more than beauty) in the winter season; and at Rydal Mount especially we are favoured, having the sun right before our windows both at his rising and setting. My brother, who is famous for providing opportunities for his friends to do him a service, desires me to ask you to be so good as to inquire what is the present price of shares in the Rock Insurance."

Again, on July 2, 1825, she wrote to Robinson, urging him to come to Rydal Mount, and Scotland. She then spoke of "a much grander scheme they had in view, for which all our

savings must be heaped up-no less than spending a whole winter in Italy, and a whole summer in moving about from place to place, in Switzerland and elsewhere, not neglecting the Tyrol. John Wordsworth will have finished at Oxford at the close of the year '26, and we talk, if it can be accomplished, of setting out in the spring of '27, and in our day-dreams you always make one of the company. I really speak seriously; such is our plan. But even supposing life, health, and strength are continued to us, there will still be difficulties-the Stamp Office, the house, home, and other concerns to be taken care of, etc. None of these difficulties, however, appear to be insurmountable; so you must go to the Highlands, on purpose to come back by this road to plan with my brother, to give us estimates of expenses, and to enable us to settle a hundred things. My brother fancies that he might almost make the journey cost nothing by residing two years abroad; but that is too long a period to enter into the first scheme, especially for a Government Agent."

I

In November 8th of the same year she added:have stayed at home all summer, and have had an agreeable lot, and the weather has been better than was ever known, and I have had health and strength to allow me to take long walks, which (especially upon the mountains) are as delightful to my feelings as ever in my younger days. My sister has been ten weeks absent. She accompanied Mrs. Thomas Hutchinson to Harrogate, stayed some time there, and met her husband and sister at Sir G. Beaumont's."

At this stage we may as well follow Dorothy Wordsworth's subsequent journeys in 1826. Early in February she left Rydal, and went to visit her brother and his family in their new home at Brinsop Court, Herefordshire. She wrote thence to Crabb Robinson, on the 25th of February :-"Here I arrived yesterday week, having parted from my brother and his daughter at Kendal just ten days before. I halted a few

days at Manchester with Miss Jewsbury, the authoress of Phantasmagoria, etc., and was even more pleased with her at home than abroad. Her talents are extraordinary; and she is admirable as a daughter and sister, and has besides many valuable friends, to some of whom I was introduced. From Manchester I came by way of Worcester, and the delightful Hills of Malvern, to Hereford, where I was met by Mrs. Wordsworth's sister. Brinsop Court is six miles from Hereford, the country rich, and climate good-far less rain than we have in Westmoreland; but, as I have always said, our compensations do much more than make amends, our dry roads, where, after the heaviest shower, one can walk with comfort, -and, above all, our mountains and lakes, which are just as beautiful, just as interesting, in winter as in summer. Brinsop Court is, however, even now no cheerless spot; and flowers in the hedges and blossoms, in the numerous orchards, will soon make it gay. Our fireside is enlivened by four fine wellmanaged children and cheerful friends, and Mrs. Hutchinson is one of the most pleasing and excellent of women, the sister of our good friend Thomas Monkhouse.

...

She writes thus on her brother's fortune as an author :"My brother hitherto has been most fortunate. While people are suffering losses on all sides, he has wholly escaped. I shall remain in Herefordshire till May, if nothing unforeseen happens. My brother talks of meeting me in North Wales, and going with me to the top of Snowdon; but I do not much depend on his being able to leave home. At all events, the time of his coming will be governed by the time of the general election."

April of the same.

You may carve out

To Robinson, Wordsworth wrote in year-"Do not go on to the Continent. a much more interesting tour by taking the best part of North Wales-and our glorious country!-on your way to Ireland, and return from the North, having seen the Giant's Causeway,

by Staffa and Iona, to us. Your account of your own sister is very melancholy; but let us bear in mind that to the really pious no affliction comes amiss. A religion like hers is worth all the other knowledge in the world a thousand times told. As to Italy, it seems to fly from me and mine, as it did from Æneas and his companions of old."

In August, he sent, by his daughter Dora, the following advice to Robinson as to a journey in Wales :-" From Llanberis mount Snowdon, and descend to Dolbarden Inn in the Vale of Llanberis, and by the lake to the romantic village of Cwm-y-Glo, whence to Carnarvon, Bangor, and Holy Head for Ireland; this will have shown you most of the finest things in N. and S. Wales; but with the exception, observe, of Conway Castle-a most magnificent thing-and the whole line of the great road to Ireland from Llangollen, including Capel Curig to Bangor, which would leave your knowledge of N. W. very imperfect."

After leaving Brinsop, Dorothy Wordsworth went with Miss Jewsbury to Leamington, Warwick, and Ashby, and walked out to Coleorton. She kept a Journal as usual, in which there is the same minute chronicle of weather changes, and daily ongoings. She tells us of the books she read at Coleorton, where she spent much time in reading to the Beaumonts The Fairy Queen, old plays, Diderot's éloge on Richardson, As You Like It, Hamlet, etc. This is a sample

of her jottings:-"The sun rose like a golden ball, flashing light to the west, clouds followed, and a little rain. Walked with Lady Beaumont to the quarry, lingered in the winter garden, and read Hamlet.”

She returned to Rydal in October 1826.

In the autumn of the same year, Henry Crabb Robinson paid a visit to Rydal Mount, after his tour in Ireland, and he writes thus of a walk which he took with Wordsworth on October 6th:-"It was over Loughrigg Fell, by Loughrigg

Tarn, down to Grasmere Lake, and back by Rydal Water. It was during this morning's walk that I ascertained the cause of the superiority of the English lake scenery over that of Killarney. It lies in the broken surface of the sides of the mountains, whence arises a magical display of colours, ever mixed and ever changing. The summits of the mountains of Killarney are as finely varied as possible, but the sides are smooth, little diversified by crags, or by various herbage, though frequently wooded. In this morning's walk nothing could surpass the various play of colours, and the wild variety of the scenery, yet the day was by no means fine, though agreeable. . . . Wordsworth showed me the field he has purchased, on which he means to build, should he be compelled to leave the Mount. He also pointed

out to my notice the beautiful spring, a description of which is to be an introduction to a portion of his great poem, containing a poetical view of water as an element in the composition of our globe."

In the narrative of the Life of Alaric Watts, by his son, published in 1884, there are many minute details in reference to Wordsworth and Coleridge, and several of their letters to Watts. It is thus that the son, Alaric Alfred Watts, describes his father's first acquaintance with Wordsworth :

"The success of my father's negotiations on behalf of Miss Jewsbury, as detailed in a former chapter, was naturally communicated by her to her kind friend and well-wisher, Mr. Wordsworth, whose acquaintance my parents made at this time through her introduction. This circumstance, coupled with some expressions of his readiness to be of any service to the poet, in relation to literary matters in London, led to his being favoured with another commission of a similar nature,

* See Alaric Watts, vol. i. pp. 235-242.