destroyed this interesting relic of remote ages for some vulgar purpose. The fact, so far as concerns Thomas Wilkinson, is mentioned in the note on a sonnet on 'Long Meg and her Daughters.'] SPADE! with which Wilkinson hath tilled his lands, I press thee, through the yielding soil, with pride. Rare master has it been thy lot to know; Health, meekness, ardour, quietness secure.1 Here often hast Thou heard the Poet sing Who shall inherit Thee when death has laid If he be one that feels, with skill to part Thou monument of peaceful happiness! Health, quiet, meekness, ardour, hope secure. 1807. 2 1815. More noble than the noblest warrior's sword. 1807. He will not dread with Thee a toilsome day- 1 His thrift thy uselessness will never scorn; An heir-loom in his cottage wilt thou be: High will he hang thee up, well pleased to adorn Thomas Wilkinson of Yanwath, the friend of Wordsworth and the subject of these verses, deserves more than a passing note. He was a man Whom no one could have passed without remark. One of the old race of Cumbrian statesmen-men who owned, and themselves cultivated, small bits of land (see note on Michael and The Brothers in appendix to Volume II.) he was Wordsworth's senior by nineteen years, and lived on a patrimonial farm of about forty acres, on the banks of the Emont,-the stream which, flowing out of Ullswater, divides Cumberland from Westmoreland. He was a Friend, and used to travel great distances to attend religious conferences, or to engage in philanthropic work,-on one occasion, riding on his pony from Yanwath to London, to the Yearly Meeting of the Friends; and, on another, walking the 300 miles to town, in eight days, for the same purpose. A simple, genuine nature; serene, refined, hospitable, naïve, and humorous withal; a quaint original man, with a true eye for Nature, a keen relish for rural life (especially for gardening) and a happy knack of characterization, whether he undertook descriptions of scenery in the course of his travels, or narrated the incidents which befell him in the way. This is how he writes of his farm, and his work upon it :-"We have at length some traces of spring (6th April 1784); the primrose under the hedge begins to open her modest flower, the buds begin to swell, and the birds to build; yet we have still a wide horizon, the mountain tops resign not their snows. The happiest season of the year with me is now commencing-I mean that in which I am at the plough; my horses pace slowly on before, the larks sing above my head, and the furrow falls at my side, and the 1 1836. With Thee he will not dread a toilsome day. 1807. 2 1836. His powerful Servant, his inspiring Mate. 1807. face of Nature and my own mind seem to wear a sweet and cheerful tranquillity." The following extract shows the interest which he took in the very implements of his industry, and may serve as an illustration of Wordsworth's stanzas on his "spade." Eighth month, 16th, 1789. Yesterday I parted without regret from an old acquaintance-I set by my scythe for this year. I have often this season seen the dark blue mountains before the sun, and his rising embroider them with gold. I have had many a good sleep in the shade among fragrant grass and refreshing breezes, and though closely engaged in what may be thought heavy work, I was sensible of the enjoyments of life with uninterrupted health." In the closing years of the last century, when the spirit of patriotic ardour was so thoroughly roused in England by the restlessness of France and the ambition of Napoleon, he lived on at his pastoral farm, "busy with his husbandry." In London, he made the acquaintance of Edmund Burke; and Thomas Clarkson, the philanthropist,— whose labours for the abolition of the slave trade are matter of history, --became his intimate friend, and was a frequent visitor at Yanwath. Clarkson afterwards bought an estate near to Wilkinson's home, on the shores of Ullswater, where he built a house, and named it Eusemere, and there the Wordsworths were not infrequent guests. (See note to The Daffodils, p. 7 of this volume.) Wordsworth stayed at Yanwath for two days in 1806. The "Tours to the British Mountains, with the Descriptive Poems of Lowther and Emont Vale" (London, 1824), have been referred to in the note to The Solitary Reaper, one of the poems in the "Memorials of a Tour in Scotland, 1803" (see Vol. II., p. 347). It is an interesting volume-the prose much superior to the verse— and might be reprinted with advantage. Wilkinson was urged repeatedly to publish his Tour through the Highlands, but he always declined, and it was printed at last without his knowledge, by some one to whom he had lent his MS. "Mon Wilkinson's relations to Wordsworth are alluded to in the note to The Solitary Reaper. He is occasionally referred to in Miss Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal of January and March 1802, e.g. :day, 12th March.-The ground covered with snow. Walked to T. Wilkinson's and sent for letters. The woman brought me one from Wm. 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." The following are extracts from letters of Wilkinson to Miss Mary Leadbeater of Ballintore :-"Yanwath, 15. 2. 1801.—I had lately a young Poet seeing me that sprang originally from the next village. He has left the College, turned his back on all preferment, and settled down contentedly among our Lakes, with his Sister and his Muse. He writes in what he conceives to be the language of Nature in opposition to the finery of our present poetry. He has published two volumes of Poems, mostly of the same character. His name is William Wordsworth." In a letter, dated 29. 1. 1809, the following occurs :"Thou hast wished to have W. Wordsworth's Lines on my Spade, which I shall transcribe thee. I had promised Lord Lonsdale to take him to Lowther, when he came to see me, but when we arrived he was gone to shoot moor-game with Judge Sutton. William and I then returned, and wrought together at a walk I was then forming, which gave birth to his Verses." The expression "sprung from the next village" might not be intended to mean that he was born there; or, if it did, the fact that Wordsworth's mother was a native of Penrith, and his own visits to that town, might account for the mistake of one who had made no minute enquiry as to the poet's birthplace. He was born at Cockermouth. Compare an interesting account of Thomas Wilkinson, by Mary Carr, reprinted from the Friends Quarterly Examiner, 1882. This Poem was placed by Wordsworth amongst those of "Sentiment and Reflection."-ED. [Grasmere, Town-end. It is remarkable that this flower coming out so early in the spring as it does, and so bright and beautiful, and in such profusion, should not have been noticed earlier in English verse. What adds much to the interest that attends it, is its habit of shutting itself up and opening out according to the degree of light and temperature of the air.] In pencil on opposite page [Has not Chaucer noticed it?] THERE is a Flower, the lesser Celandine, That shrinks, like many more, from cold and rain; When hailstones have been falling, swarm on swarm, Oft have I seen it muffled up from harm, In close self-shelter, like a Thing at rest. But lately, one rough day, this Flower I passed And recognised it, though an altered form, * Common Pilewort. 1807. I stopped, and said with inly-muttered voice, "It doth not love the shower, nor seek the cold: The sunshine may not cheer it, nor the dew ;1 Stiff in its members, withered, changed of hue." To be a Prodigal's Favourite-then, worse truth, O Man, that from thy fair and shining youth With the last stanza compare this verse from The Fountain- And yet the wiser mind Mourns less for what age takes away Than what it leaves behind. Compare also the other two poems on the same flower, vol. ii. pp. 269, 272. This one was classed by Wordsworth amongst the "Poems referring to the Period of Old Age.”—ED. AT APPLETHWAITE, NEAR KESWICK. Comp. 1804. Pub. 1845. [This was presented to me by Sir George Beaumont, with a view to the erection of a house upon it, for the sake of being near to Coleridge, then living, and likely to remain, at Greta Hall, near Keswick. The severe necessities that prevented this arose from his domestic situation. This little property, with a considerable addition that still leaves it very small, lies beautifully upon the banks of a rill that gurgles down the side of Skiddaw; and the orchard and other parts of the grounds command a magnificent prospect of Derwent Water, the mountains of Borrowdale and Newlands. Not many years ago I gave the place to my daughter.] In pencil on opposite page in Mrs Quillinan's handwriting['Many years ago, Sir, for it was given when she was a frail feeble monthling.'] 1 1827. The sunshine may not bless it, nor the dew; 1807. |