sentence seemed faultless. No one could have listened to his talk for five minutes, even on ordinary topics, without perceiving that he was a remarkable man. Not that he was brilliant; but there was sustained vigour, and that mode of expression which denotes habitual thoughtfulness. When the clock struck four, I thought it time for me to

go. Wordsworth told me to say to his friends in America, that he and his wife were well; that they had had a great grief of late, in the loss of their only daughter, which he supposed they would never get over. This explained, as I have already mentioned, the sadness of his manner.

He walked out into the entry with me, and then asked me to go again into the dining-room, to look at an oak chest or cabinet he had there-a piece of old furniture curiously carved. It bore a Latin inscription, which stated that it was made 300 years ago, for William Wordsworth, who was the son of, &c. &c., giving the ancestors of said William for many generations, and ending, 'on whose souls may God have mercy.' This Wordsworth repeated twice, and in an emphatic way, as he read the inscription. It seemed to me that he took comfort in the religious spirit of his ancestors, and that he was also adopting the solemn ejaculation for himself. There was something very impressive in his manner.

We then went out together on the lawn, and stood for a while to enjoy the views, and he pulled open the shrubbery or hedge in places, that I might see to better advantage. He accompanied me to the gate, and then said if I had a few minutes longer to spare he would like to show me the waterfall which was close by-the lower fall of Rydal. I gladly assented. The few minutes I was to devote to the falls extended to three quarters of an hour. One of the

questions Wordsworth asked me at this time was, What age do men reach in America? He wished to know whether the average of life was longer with us than in England. It was a natural question for an old man.

Wordsworth seemed to have much pleasure in exhibiting this beautiful retreat, described in one of his earlier poems, The Evening Walk.

As we returned together he walked very slowly, occasionally stopping when he said anything of importance; and again I noticed that looking into remote space, of which I have already spoken. His eyes, though not glistening, had yet in them the fire which betokened the greatness of his genius. This no painter could represent, and this it was which gave to his countenance its high intellectual expression.

'There

Hartley Coleridge he spoke of with affection. is a single line,' he added, 'in one of his father's poems which I consider explains the after-life of the son. He is speaking of his own confinement in London, and then says,

But thou, my child, shalt wander like a breeze.

Of Southey he said that he had had the misfortune to outlive his faculties. His mind, he thought, had been weakened by long watching by the sick bed of his wife, who had lingered for years in a very distressing state.

I happened to have in my pocket the small volume of selections, which you made some years ago.* * I produced it, and asked at the same time if he had ever seen it. He replied he had not. He took it with evident interest, turned to the title-page, which he read, with its motto. He began the preface then, in the same way. But here I

* Poems from the Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, selected by Henry Reed: Leavitt & Co., N.Y.

must record a trifling incident, which may yet be worth noting. We were standing together in the road, Wordsworth reading aloud, as I have said, when a man accosted us asking charity-a beggar of the better class. Wordsworth, scarcely looking off the book, thrust his hands into his pockets, as if instinctively acknowledging the man's right to beg by this prompt action. He seemed to find nothing, however; and he said, in a sort of soliloquy, 'I have given to four or five, already, to-day,' as if to account for his being then unprovided.

He made but little comment on your notice of him. Occasionally he would say, as he came to a particular fact, 'That's quite correct;' or, after reading a quotation from his own works, he would add, 'That's from my writings.' These quotations he read in a way that much impressed me; it seemed almost as if he was awed by the greatness of his own power, the gifts with which he had been endowed. It was a solemn time to me, this part of my interview; and to you, my friend, it would have been a crowning happiness to stand, as I did, by his side on that bright summer day, and thus listen to his voice. I thought of his long life; that he was one who had felt himself from early youth 'a dedicated spirit, singled out for holy services'—one who had listened to the teachings of Nature, and communed with his own heart in the seclusion of those beautiful vales, until his thoughts were ready to be uttered for the good of his fellow-men. And there had come back to him offerings of love, and gratitude, and reverent admiration, from a greater multitude than had ever before paid their homage to a living writer; and these acknowledgments have been for benefits so deep and lasting, that words seem but a poor return.

He walked with me as far as the main road to Ambleside,

.. and so we parted. I went on my way, happy in the recollection of this, to me, memorable interview. My mind was in a tumult of excitement, for I felt that I had been in the familiar presence of one of the noblest of our race; and this sense of Wordsworth's intellectual greatness had been with me during the whole interview. I may speak, too, of the strong perception of his moral elevation which I had at the same time. No word of unkindness had fallen from him. He seemed to be living as if in the presence of God by habitual recollection. A strange feeling, almost of awe, had impressed me while I was thus with him.

Believing that his memory will be had in honour in all coming time, I could not but be thankful that I had been admitted to intimate intercourse with him then, when he was so near the end of life. -Believe me, my dear friend, Yours faithfully,

ELLIS YARNALL.”

APPENDIX III.

REMINISCENCES OF THE WESTMORELAND PEASANTRY.

PART of the following Reminiscences of Wordsworth amongst the Peasantry of Westmoreland, by the Rev. H. D. Rawnsley, was read at a meeting of "The Wordsworth Society" in London in 1882, and the whole paper was published in the Transactions of that Society in 1884. These reminiscences were gathered by Mr Rawnsley in 1881-2, and, as they refer to the later years of the poet's life, they would naturally have found a place in the third volume of this work. For reasons explained in the preface, however, they are placed in an appendix to this volume. Those who wish to study the continuity of Wordsworth's life, and to note the effect he produced on his contemporaries of every class,

in its natural order of development, should reserve the perusal of this appendix till they have read volume III.

Having grown up in the immediate vicinity of the present Poet-Laureate's old home in Lincolnshire, I had been struck with the swiftness with which,

As year by year the labourer tills

His wonted glebe, or lops the glades,

the memories of the poet of the Somersby Wold had faded 'from off the circle of the hills.' I had been astonished to note how little real interest was taken in him or his fame, and how seldom his works were met with in the houses of the rich or poor in the very neighbourhood.

It was natural that, coming to reside in the Lake Country, I should endeavour to find out what of Wordsworth's memory among the men of the Dales still lingered on,how far he was still a moving presence among them,-how far his works had made their way into the cottages and farm-houses of the valleys.

But if a certain love of the humorous induced me to enter into or follow up conversations with the few still living among the peasants who were in the habit of seeing Wordsworth in the flesh, there was also a genuine wish to endeavour to find out how far the race of Westmoreland and Cumberland farm-folk-the Matthews' and the 'Michaels' of the poet as described by him-were real or fancy pictures, or how far the characters of the dalesmen had been altered in any remarkable manner by tourist influences during the thirty-two years that have passed since the aged poet was laid to rest.

For notwithstanding the fact that Mr Ruskin, writing in 1876, had said that the Border peasantry (painted with absolute fidelity by Scott and Wordsworth)' are, as hitherto, a scarcely injured race,-that in his fields at Coniston he