or of much changing what is unsuitable to his disposition, I do not think he will be unhappy; I am sure I think he ought not to be miserable. While he imagined he had any

thing to hope for, no wonder that his perpetual disappointments made him so! But suppose him once reconciled to that one great want, an utter want of sympathy, I believe he may live in peace and quiet.

Mrs C. has many excellent

and I believe she would have

qualities, as you observe, . . made an excellent wife to many persons. Coleridge is as little fitted for her as she for him, and I am truly sorry for her. When we meet you at Coleorton, I trust we shall have been with Coleridge long enough to know what comfort he is likely to have. In the meantime, I will say no more on this distressing subject, unless some change should happen much for the better or the worse. I hope everything from the effect of my brother's conversation upon Coleridge's mind; and bitterly do I regret that he did not at first go to London to meet him, as I think he might have roused him up, and preserved him from much of the misery that he has endured. We think that nothing will prevent our accepting your kind offer; for it is plain that Coleridge does not wish us to go to Keswick, as he has not replied to that part of William's letter in which he spoke of our plans for the winter. We shall, therefore, prepare ourselves to be ready to set off at any time that you shall appoint. . . .”

Settled at Coleorton for the winter, Wordsworth wrote thus to Sir George:

"Nov. 10, 1806.

You know that at Grasmere the high mountains conceal from us in a great measure the splendour of a western sky at sunset. We have often regretted this, and we congratulated ourselves that evening on the opportunity which our present comparatively flat situation would give us of enjoying a sight from which we had long been excluded. We have had

one or two fine evenings since, but nothing like that first, which was, I think, the most magnificent I ever beheld. . . .

We have not yet rambled much about. Once I have been at the fir-wood with Miss Hutchinson, once at the pool with M. W., and once had a long walk with my sister about the house and in the kitchen garden. Your new building and its immediate neighbourhood improve upon me much. I am particularly pleased with the spot a discovery since your departure-which Lady Beaumont has chosen, I conjecture, for a winter garden. It will be a delightful place. By the by, there is a pleasing paper in the Spectator (in the 7th vol., No. 477) upon this subject. The whole is well worth reading, particularly that part which relates to the winter garden. He mentions hollies and hornbean as plants which his place is full of. The horn-bean I do not know, but the holly I looked for in Lady B.'s ground, and could not find. For its own beauty, and for the sake of the hills and crags of the North, let it be scattered here in profusion. It is of slow growth, no doubt, but not so slow as generally supposed; and then it does grow, and somebody, we hope, will enjoy it. Among the barbarisers of our beautiful Lake region, of those who bring and those who take away, there are few whom I have execrated more than an extirpator of this beautiful shrub, or rather tree-the holly. This worthy, thank Heaven! is not a native, but he comes from far; and his business is to make bird-lime, and so down go these fair creatures of Nature wherever he can find them. (You know probably that bird-lime is made of the bark of the holly.) I would also plant yew, which is of still slower growth. One thought struck me too relating to the grounds, which I will mention. I should not be for planting many forest trees about the house, by the side of those which are already at their full growth; when I planted at all there, I should rather choose thickets of underwood, hazels, wild roses, honey

suckle, hollies, thorns, and trailing plants, such as travellers' joy, &c. My reason, in addition to the beauty of these, is that they would never be compared with the grown-up trees, whereas young trees of the same kind, will, and must, appear insignificant. Observe my remark only applies to placing these young trees by the side of the others; where there is an open space of any size it does not hold.

Miss Hutchinson and I were at church yesterday. We were pleased with the singing; and I have often heard a far worse parson-I mean as to reading. His sermon was, to be sure, as village sermons often are, very injudicious.

I don't know that I ever heard in a country pulpit a sermon that had any special bearing on the condition of the majority of the audience. I was sorry to see at Coleorton few middleaged men, or even women; the congregation consisted almost entirely of old persons, particularly old men, and boys and girls. . . I have talked much chit-chat. I have chosen to do this rather than give way to my feelings, which were powerfully called out by your affecting and beautiful letter. I will say this, and this only, that I esteem your friendship one of the best gifts of my life. I and my family owe much to you and Lady Beaumont. I need not say that I do not mean any additions to our comfort or happiness.

indebted to soul.

I speak of soul In a day or two I mean to send a sheet of my intended volume to the press; it would give me pleasure to desire the printer to send you the sheets as they are struck off if you could have them free of expense. There is no forming a true estimate of a volume of small poems by reading them all together; one stands in the way of the other. They must either be read a few at once, or the book must remain some time by one, before a judgment can be made of the quantity of thought and feeling and imagery it contains, and what, and what variety of moods of mind, it can either impart, or is suited to.

My sister is writing to Lady Beaumont, and will tell her how comfortable we are here, and everything relating thereto. Alas! we have had no tidings of Coleridge-a certain proof that he continues to be very unhappy. Farewell my dear friend.—Most faithfully and affectionately yours,

WM. WORDSWORTH."

The following is part of Dorothy Wordsworth's letter to Lady Beaumont :

"COLEORTON, Friday, 15th November. MY DEAR FRIEND,-We like the place more and more every day, for every day we find fresh comfort in having a roomy house. The sitting-room, where by the fireside we have seen some glorious sunsets, we far more than like—we already love it. These sunsets are a gift of our new residence, for shut up as we are among the mountains in our small deep valley, we have but a glimpse of the glory of the evening through one gap called the Dunmail Gap, the inverted arch which you pass through in going to Keswick. On Wednesday evening my brother and I walked backwards and forwards under the trees near the hall just after the sun was gone down, and we felt as if we were admitted to a new delight. From the horizon's edge to a great height the sky was covered with rosy clouds, and I cannot conceive anything more beautiful and glorious and solemn than this light seen through the trees, and the majestic trees themselves; and afterwards, when we went lower down, and had the church spire and your new house backed by the west, they had a very fine effect. We continued to walk till the sky was gloomy all over, and two lights (we supposed from coal-pits) on the hill opposite to the hall, where the grove stands whither you want to decoy the rooks, were left to shine with full effect, and they looked very wild. Mr Craig has planted honeysuckles beside the pillars at the

door. . . . We have requested him to plant some of the clematis or travellers' joy, a plant which is very beautiful, especially by moonlight in winter, grows rapidly, and makes a delicious bower. What above all things I delight in is the piece of ground you have chosen for your winter garden; the hillocks and slopes, and the hollow shape of the whole, will make it a perfect wilderness when the trees get up. My brother works very hard at his poems, preparing them for the press. Miss Hutchinson is the transcriber.

She also orders dinner, and attends to the kitchen; so that the labour being so divided we have all plenty of leisure. . . . I do not understand anything by that line of Michael Angelo but this, that he, seeing in the expression and light of her eye so much of the divine nature, that is, receiving from thence such an assurance of the divine nature being in her he felt therefrom a more confirmed belief or sentiment or sensation of the divinity of his own, and was thereby purified.

I have kept back from speaking of Coleridge, for what can I say? We have had no letter, though we have written again. You shall hear of it when he writes to us."

On the 17th November, Dorothy wrote again to Lady Beaumont :

I do not know what to say to you about

ridge. We have had four letters from him, and in all he speaks with the same steadiness of his resolution to separate from Mrs C., and she has fully agreed to it, and consented that he should take Hartley and Derwent, and superintend their education, she being allowed to have them at the holidays. I say she has agreed to the separation, but in a letter which we have received to-night he tells us that she breaks out into outrageous passions, and urges continually that one argument (in fact the only one which has the least effect upon her mind), that this person, and that person, and everybody will