Sir George's own work as a landscape artist is referred to in this dedication. An early picture of his suggested one of Wordsworth's most characteristic poems, viz., the stanzas on Peele Castle in a Storm. The small oil-painting still hangs in the picture-gallery at Coleorton, and to all who see it there, and remember to what it gave rise, it will recall The light that never was on sea or land, The consecration, and the Poet's dream. Another of the poems, suggested by a picture-mainly a cloud-scene, from the neighbourhood of Coleorton-painted by Sir George, and sent to Wordsworth, begins Praised be the Art whose subtle power could stay Illustrations of The White Doe of Rylstone, of The Thorn, of Lucy Gray, and of Peter Bell were also drawn by Sir George Beaumont, and engraved in several editions of Wordsworth's poems. * While reference must be made to the volume of "Coleorton Letters" for what cannot be appropriately restated here, a few extracts from Wordsworth's earlier letters may be given, and one or two of his later ones reprinted in full. Coleridge had shown Wordsworth Sir George's letter, conveying to him the Applethwaite property, before he started on his Scottish tour in 1803. Wordsworth, however, allowed eight weeks to elapse without acknowledging it. He explained this in a letter, written on the 14th of October, from the positive suffering which letter-writing always gave him; a disorder of nerve and of digestion, "which made his aversion from writing little less than madness.' He had often begun and as often desisted, and contented himself with "breathing forth solitary thanksgivings " * They occur in the edition of 1815 (in both volumes), in the edition of 1820 (in each of the four volumes), in the first quarto edition of The White Doe, and the original octavo of Peter Bell. during his tour. "I do not know from what cause it is, but during the last three years I have never had a pen in my hand for five minutes, before my whole frame becomes one bundle of uneasiness; a perspiration starts out all over me, and my chest is oppressed in a manner which I cannot describe." He explained in this letter the reasons which would prevent his transferring his abode to Keswick: “The state of my own affairs, and still more the improbability of Mr Coleridge's continuing in the country. The writings are at present in my possession, and what I should wish is, that I might be considered at present as steward of the land, with liberty to lay out the rent in planting, or any other improvement which might be thought advisable, with a view to building upon it. And if it should be out of my power to pitch my own tent there, I would then request that you would give me leave to restore the property to your own hands, in order that you might have the opportunity of again presenting it to some worthy person who might be so fortunate as to be able to make that pleasant use of it which it was your wish that I should have done." My impression is that Wordsworth had begun to see that the close proximity of the two households-strong and intense as were the ties that bound them-would not be an unmixed benefit. Wordsworth had a singular shrewdness in his diagnosis of character, and while he was the truest of friends, the barriers that separate the nearest and friendliest of households were not hidden from his eye. In many things he and Coleridge differed, in habit, in temperament, and in mode of life; and letters exist which show that these differences found occasional expression. Had they lived close at hand, Wordsworth, or the members of his family, might have had more to do, in the way of mediation and advice, than they cared to have, in the affairs of the Coleridge household. On the 1st of August 1805, Wordsworth wrote thus from Grasmere to Sir George "I do not know whether my sister has written since we had another account of Coleridge, I am sorry I cannot say from him. He was at Leghorn, with a friend, on their way to England: so that we still continue to look for him daily. He had lost all his papers; how we are not told. This grieves and vexes me much; probably (but it is not on this account-his loss being I daresay irreparable-that I am either much vexed or grieved) a large collection of the poems is gone with the rest; among others five books of the Poem upon my own Life, but of all these I have copies. He, I am afraid, has none of his old writings. Within this last month I have returned to The Recluse, and have written 700 additional lines. Should Coleridge return, so that I might have some conversation with him on the subject, I should go on swimmingly. We have been very little interrupted with tourist company this summer, and, of course, being for the most part well, have enjoyed ourselves much. I am now writing in the moss-hut, which is my study, with a heavy thunder shower pouring down before me. It is a place of retirement for the eye (though the public road glimmers through the apple-trees a few yards below), and well suited to my occupations. I cannot, however, refrain from smiling at the situation in which I sometimes find myself here; as, for instance, the other morning when I was calling some lofty notes out of my harp, chanting of shepherds, and solitude, &c., I heard a voice (which I knew to be a male voice, whose also it was) crying out from the road below, in a tone exquisitely effeminate, Santez, santez, apportez, apportez; vous ne le ferez pas, venez donc Pandore, venez, venez.' Guess who this creature could be thus speaking to his lap It is one of dog, in the midst of our venerable mountains? two nondescripts who have taken the cottage for the summer which we thought you might occupy, and who go about, parading the valley, in all kinds of fantastic dresses, green leather caps, turkey half-boots, jackets of fine linen, or long dressing-gowns, as suits them. Now you hear them in the roads; now you find them lolling in this attire, book in hand, by a brook side. Then they pass your window in their curricle,-to-day the horses tandem-wise, and tomorrow abreast, or on horseback, as suits their fancies. One of them we suspect to be painted, and the other, though a pale-cheeked puppy, is surely not surpassed by his blooming brother. If you come you will see them, and I promise you they will be a treat to you. We still think it possible that we may winter at Coleorton, but we shrink from the thought of going so far without seeing you, and if we procure a house in this neighbourhood we certainly shall. We are the more willing to be kept in a state of suspense as long as Coleridge is unarrived. . . . -Farewell, yours most affectionately, W. WORDSWORTH." The next letter is a long one, but it may be quoted more fully. It reveals Wordsworth as landscape gardener, and adviser as to the laying out of grounds, rather than as poet, and it was doubtless the expectation of being able to help the Beaumonts in this way, in connection with the improvements going on at Coleorton, that led Wordsworth to accept their offer of the use of the farm-house during the following winter. "GRASMERE, October 17th, 1805. MY DEAR SIR GEORGE,-I was very glad to learn that you had room for me at Coleorton, and far more so that your health was so much mended. Lady Beaumont's last letter to my sister has made us wish that you were fairly through your present engagements with workmen and builders, and, as to improvements, had smoothed over the first difficulties, and gotten things into a way of improving themselves. I do not suppose that any man ever built a house, without finding in the progress of it obstacles that were unforeseen, and something that might have been better planned; things teasing and vexatious when they come, however the mind may have been made up at the outset to a general expectation of the kind. With respect to the grounds, you have there the advantage of being in good hands, namely, those of Nature; and, assuredly, whatever petty crosses from contrariety of opinion or any other cause you may now meet with, these will soon disappear, and leave nothing behind but satisfaction and harmony. Setting out from the distinction made by Coleridge which you mentioned that your house will belong to the country, and not the country be an appendage to your houseyou cannot be wrong. Indeed, in the present state of society, I see nothing interesting either to the imagination or the heart, and, of course, nothing which true taste can approve, in any interference with Nature, grounded upon any other principle. In times when the feudal system was in its vigour, and the personal importance of every chieftain might be said to depend entirely upon the extent of his landed property and rights of seignory; when the king, in the habits of people's minds, was considered as the primary and true proprietor of the soil, which was granted out by him to different lords, and again by them to their several tenants under them, for the joint defence of all; there might have been something imposing to the imagination in the whole face of a district, testifying, obtrusively even, its dependence upon its chief. Such an image would have been in the spirit of the society, implying power, grandeur, military state, and security; and, less directly, in the person of the chief, high birth, and knightly education and accomplishments; in short, |