of Elleray and Hartley Coleridge. I'se seen him many a time taking him out arm i̇' arm for a talking. But he was specially friendly with Professor. I mind one time when we was driving, me and Mrs Wudsworth and Miss Wudsworth, to Kendal, and Professor Wilson was superintending making o' a bye-road up by Elleray there, and he was in his slippers. Nowt wud do but Wudsworth must git down, and fall to talkin', and we went on; but he didn't come, and Mrs Wudsworth said, "Ye mun drive on; he'll pick us up at Kendal no knowing what's got him, now Professor is wi' 'im." Well, well, she was right. For after putting up at Kendal, who should walk in but Wudsworth and Professor wi'out ony shoes to his feet neäther, for Wilson was in his slippers, and 'ad walk'd hisself to his stockin' feet, and left best part of his stockin' on road an' a', far enuff before they got to Kendal.'

'But it was strange,' I said again in a suggestive way, 'that Mr Wordsworth should be so well "acquaint" with Professor Wilson, for he was a great cock-fighting and wrestling man, was he not, in his day?'

'Ay, ay, biggest hereabout,' my old friend replied. 'It's queer, but it was along o' his study, ye kna. Wudsworth was never no cock-fighter nor wrestler, no gaming man at all, and not a hunter, and as for fishing he hedn't a bit o' fish in him, hedn't Wudsworth-not a bit of fish in him.'

'I have read in his books,' said I, 'things that make me feel he was kind to dumb animals.'

'Naay, naay,' my friend broke in, 'Wudsworth was no dog fancier; and as for cats, he couldn't abide them; and he didn't care for sheep, or horses, a deal, but if he was fond of onything, it was of li'le ponies. He was a man of fancies, ye kna. It was a fancy of his. He was fond of li'le ponies, nivver rode a horse in his life, nivver.'

'But he went over a deal of ground in his time. Was

he always on his feet?' I said.

'He went a deal over more ground nor ever he saw, for he went a deal by night, but he was a man as took notice, ye kna, never forgit what he saw, and he went slow.'

'But,' said I, 'how did he cover so much ground; was he never on wheels?'

'Ay, ay, wheels, to be sure, he druv a' times, ye kna, in cart. He, and Mrs Wudsworth, and Dorothy and me, we went a deal by cart Penrith way, and Borradale and Keswick way, and Langdale way at times.'

'What sort of a cart?' I inquired.

'Dung cart, to be sure. Just a dung cart, wi' a seatboard in front, and bit of bracken in t' bottom, comfortable as owt. We cud go that away for days, and far enuff. Ye knaw in them days tubs wasn't known. Low-wood was nobbut a cottage, and there was never abuv six or seven ponies for hiring at Ambleside.

Tubs we ca' the covered

carriages, tubs wasn't known in these parts. But happen there was a tub or two at Kendal.'

'And you must have gone precious slowly,' I said.

'Ay, ay, slow enough, but that was Mr Wudsworth's fancy, and he'd git in and go along, and then he'd git down into t' road and walk a bit, and mak a bit, and then he git oop and hum a bit to himself, and then he stop and have a look here and there for a while. He was a man as noticed a deal stones and trees, very partic'lar about trees, or a rock wi' ony character in it. When they cut down coppy woods in these parts they mostly left a bit of the coppy just behint wall to hide it for him, he was a girt judge in such things, and noticed a deal.'

'And would he,' I asked, 'tell you as you jogged along in the cart, which mountain he was fondest of, or bid you look at the sunset ?'

Ay, ay, times he would say, "Now isn't that beautiful?" and times he would hum on to himself. But he wasn't a

I've

man as would give a judgment again' ony mountain. heard girt folks 'at come to the Mount say, "Now, Mr Wudsworth, we want to see finest mountain in t' country,' and he would say, "Every mountain is finest." Ay, that's what he would say.'

'But I have been told that his voice was very deep,' I

As an illustration of the last anecdote, I may quote some unpublished lines of Wordsworth's, written on reading a sentence in the Stranger's Book at "the Station,' on the western side of the lake of Windermere, opposite Bowness. Their poetic merit is slight or nil; but they illustrate the honesty and directness of the writer's mind in its attitude to Nature. The Stranger's Book at "the Station" contained the following:

"Lord and Lady Darlington, Lady Vane, Miss Taylor, and Captain Stamp pronounce this Lake superior to Lac de Geneve, Lago de Como, Lago Maggiore, L'Eau de Zurich, Loch Lomond, Loch Katerine, or the Lakes of Killarney."

On seeing the above, Wordsworth wrote:

My Lord and Lady Darlington,

I would not speak in snarling tone;

Nor to you, good Lady Vane,
Would I give one moment's pain;
Nor Miss Taylor, Captain Stamp,
Would I your flights of memory cramp.
Yet, having spent a summer's day
On the green margin of Loch Tay,
And doubled (prospect ever bettering)
The mazy reaches of Loch Katerine,
And more than once been free at Luss,
Loch Lomond's beauties to discuss,
And wished, at least, to hear the blarney
Of the sly boatmen of Killarney,

And dipped my hand in dancing wave

Of Eau de Zurich, Lac Genéve,

And bowed to many a major domo

On stately terraces of Como,

And seen the Simplon's forehead hoary
Reclined on Lago Maggiore

At breathless eventide at rest

On the broad water's placid breast..

I, not insensible, Heaven knows,

To all the charms this Station shows,

Must tell you, Captain, Lord, and Ladies,

For honest worth one poet's trade is,

That your praise appears to me
Folly's own hyperbole.

put in, in a happy-go-lucky way. Had he a loud laugh,

now?'

་

'I don't remember he ever laughed in his life, he'd smile times or two. Ay, ay, his voice was deep one; but I remember at family prayers in t' morning he'd read a bit of the Scripture to us, and he was a very articulate, partic❜lar good reader, was Mr Wudsworth, always had family prayer in the morning, and went to church wi' prayer-book under his arm, very reg'lar once upon the Sunday, he did.' My friend added, He was quite a serious-minded man, and a man of moods.'

Here ended my talk with the old retainer at the Mount. But I was not allowed to go off until I had seen and handled the old-fashioned candle lantern by which, as my kind informant put it, the poet' did a deal of his study upo' the roads after dark.'

And so must end my plain unvarnished tale. I leave my indulgent readers to form their own conclusions; merely suggesting that the collected evidence points to a simple plainness and homeliness of life such as remains indelibly impressed upon the men of Westmoreland, whose own lives are less simple in these latter days, when ostentation and vulgar pride of wealth in a class above them have climbed the hills and possessed the valleys.

The testimony of the witnesses I have been fortunate enough to bring before you seems to agree in depicting Wordsworth as he painted himself, a plain man, continually murmuring his undersong as he passed along by brook and woodland, pacing the ground with uplifted eye, but so retired, that even the North country peasant, who does even yet recognise the social differences of class and caste that separate and divide 'the unknown little from the unknowing great,' was unable to feel at home with him. 'Not a very

companionable man at the best of times' was their verdict. But I think all the while these dalesmen seem to have felt that if the poet was not of much count as a worldly-wise farm or shepherd authority, nor very convivial and free and easy as li'le Hartley was, nor very athletic and hearty as Professor Wilson, there was a something in the severe-faced, simply habited man'as said nowt to nobody' that made him head and shoulders above the people, and bade them listen and remember when he spoke, if it was only on the lopping of a tree or the build of a chimney-stack.

He

was a man of a very practical eye, and seemed to see everything,' was the feeling.

And turning from the poet to his wife, whilst one can see how the household need of economy in early Town End days gave her to the last the practical power of household management that had almost passed into a proverb, one can see also how true was that picture of the

Being breathing thoughtful breath,

A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command.

'He never knawed, they say, what he was wuth, nor what he had in the house.' She did it all. Then, too, it is touching to notice how deep and true the constant love between man and wife was seen to be, how truly companions for life they were, and that, too, in the eyes of a class of people who never saw that

Beauty born of murmuring sound

Had passed into her face,

and half marvelled that the spirit wed with spirit was so marvellously closer than fleshly bond to flesh.

Upright, the soul of honour, and for that reason standing high with all; just to their servants; well-meaning and