CHAPTER XXIL

ALLAN BANK, AND COLERIDGE.

BEFORE they finally left Coleorton William and Mary Wordsworth went up to London for a month, in the spring of 1807; Dorothy remaining in Leicestershire with Sarah Hutchinson and the children. They went back to Coleorton in the early summer, accompanied by Sir Walter Scott; and the entire household seem to have left the Midlands, and returned to Grasmere at the beginning of autumn, in the same year. I incline to think that Wordsworth visited the Craven district of Yorkshire, during the late summer of 1807, on his way from Coleorton to Westmoreland. In the advertisement to The White Doe, he tells us that he visited the country that surrounds Bolton Abbey during that summer; and it is unlikely that he went to it from Coleorton, and returned there again. Shortly after his arrival at Grasmere in autumn he went with Mrs Wordsworth on a visit to his birthplace, Cockermouth.

On their return to Grasmere, Dorothy wrote to her friend Mrs Marshall, who had been in Scotland, taking nearly the same route as the Wordsworths did in 1803. Referring to that memorable tour she said:

"September 1807.

We did not ascend Ben Lomond, but I would have liked to have done it very much; although it is not particularly a pleasure to me to see those places with which I am familiar reduced as on a map below me. I think there is no sensa

tion more elevating to the heart, and to the imagination than what we take in, in viewing distant mountains, plains, hills, valleys, towns, or seas from some superior eminence. I do not wonder that you were disappointed with Glencroe, passing it on a sunny morning, and with expectations of something tremendous or terrible. It may be sublime under certain accidents of weather, but can never, I think, be tremendous or terrible; and I think the glen itself is unjustly treated, when such epithets are used in describing it. It is a wild and solitary spot, where you feel that you are in Scotland; black cattle were the only living things, except birds and sheep, that we saw in travelling through it. . . .

The effect of the first view of Inveraray (in combination with the broad expanse of water, fishing-boats, hills, and distant mountains, and afterwards with the castle and bridges) is very impressive and beautiful. The sun was shining on the water when we first came in view of this prospect; and it made a distinct impression upon my mind of festive gaiety which I shall never forget.. Loch Tay, though a very pretty place to live beside, is (except at Killin and Taymouth) an insipid scene to visit. It is greatly inferior in beauty to all our lakes, and not equal in grandeur, I think, to the most insignificant of them. . . . I cannot agree with you in admiring the cathedral at Melrose more. than the chapel at Roslin. As far as it goes, as a whole, the chapel at Roslin appeared to me to be perfection, most beautiful in form, and of entire simplicity. Melrose has no

doubt been a much grander place; but, as a whole, at present it produces little effect. The minute sculpture is excessively beautiful; but oh! how much more delight have I in the remembrance of Bolton in its retired valley, and the venerable Kirkstall.

William and Mary spent twelve days at Ullswater, and returned with Sir George and Lady Beaumont, who stayed

a week at Grasmere; and two days after their departure, William and Mary set forward again upon a tour to Wastdale, Ennerdale, Whitehaven, Cockermouth, &c. . . .

W. and M. have just returned (September 19th). They were at Cockermouth, our native place, you know; and the terrace walk that you have heard me speak of many a time, with the privet hedge, is still full of roses, as it used to be thirty years ago! Yes, I remember it for more than thirty years. Oh! how the time rolls along; yet, if it were not for dates, and other artificial helps to memory, I should forget that I am not as young as when you were married, for I feel no bodily difference"

Writing again to Mrs Marshall, a month later, Dorothy Wordsworth said:

"GRASMERE, October 18, 1807.

I cannot express how much pleasure my brother has already received from Dr Whitaker's books, though they have only been two days in his possession. Almost the whole time he has been greedily devouring the history of Craven; and (what is of more importance) he has found all the information which he wanted for the possession of his plan. I have great pleasure in thinking that you may receive gratification from the poem which William is writing. I will not tell you the subject of it, that you may not anticipate anything. In the meantime (but that is a foolish plan, for it may be many months before the poem he is now writing is finished, and many more before it is published) in the meantime I have prevailed upon him to let me transcribe a short one, which he wrote about a month ago, on the story of young Romelli and the Strid; which, as it may remind you of the day we passed together at Bolton, I hope you will read with pleasure." [She quotes," What is good for a bootless bene?" &c., and adds a request to Mrs M. to read this poem to Dr Whitaker when she sees him.] "My brother

has made great use of Mr Marshall's observations on planting, with which he has been greatly pleased, as they coincide with his own previous ideas of what should be. He recommends every one to plant larches on their high rocky grounds, and oak, ash, &c., &c., on their richer and low grounds. . . . Lady Beaumont is very busy planting and laying out the grounds at Coleorton." *

Remaining little more than two months at Grasmere, Wordsworth left Westmoreland on November 30th, on a visit to his wife's relatives,-the Hutchinsons,-at Stockton-on-Tees; Mrs Wordsworth having gone there three weeks previously with her sister Joanna from Penrith. It was a sort of farewell visit, the Hutchinsons being about to leave the county of Durham. These frequent migrations from Grasmere show that Dove Cottage had become an almost uninhabitable abode for such a family.

Writing to Lady Beaumont in the winter of 1807, Dorothy Wordsworth said:

"I cannot but admire the fortitude, and wonder at the success, with which he has laboured, in that one room, common to all the family, to all visitors, and where the children frequently play beside him."

It was the want of sufficient accommodation in Dove Cottage, and his wish to be of use to Coleridge, that led him to move about so much at this time.

At Stockton he composed the half of The White Doe of Rylstone. They all returned to Grasmere, however, on the Wednesday before Christmas 1807. How long Wordsworth remained at home that winter I find it difficult to say.

From an undated letter of Miss Wordsworth's to Lady

Writing to Mrs Marshall on the 26th July 1812, and referring to her record of the tour in Scotland, Dorothy Wordsworth said, "By-the-bye, its title is not properly a Journal, or Tour, but 'Recollections of a Tour in Scotland.'"

Beaumont, written, I think, early in 1808, I infer that his movements depended a good deal on those of Coleridge. She writes:

"Poor Coleridge! I have deferred speaking of him to the last, for I have nothing good to say. We have been exceedingly distressed by the two letters which we have had from him, and still more by an account that came from Keswick; insomuch that my brother was only prevented by his own illness from setting off to London. He wrote to Coleridge requesting an immediate answer, and also wrote to Miss Lamb to desire her to go to him, and see exactly how he is, and inform us; and upon the nature of her answer and Coleridge's, it will depend whether my brother goes to London or not. His object will be to attend upon Coleridge as long as he (Coleridge) is obliged to stay in London, or to see that he is likely to be attended to, and to prevail upon him, as soon as he is at liberty, to come into the north."

Again, on the 23rd February 1808, she wrote to Mrs Marshall:

"We have had such alarming accounts of the state of our poor friend Coleridge's health, that my brother has determined to go up to London to see him, and if he be strong enough, to endeavour to persuade him to return to this country. He had engaged to deliver a course of lectures at the Royal Institution, and having got through two (as we have heard from others, to the great delight of the listeners) he has been obliged to give up the attempt. He himself told us that he got through the last with the utmost fear and difficulty. My brother leaves home tomorrow. . . . Our spirits are greatly depressed by this sad news. Coleridge himself thinks that he cannot live many months; but we hope that he looks on the worst side of his condition, and that my brother's presence may be of service to him."