put in, in a happy-go-lucky way. now?'

'Had he a loud laugh,

'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 hoine with him. Not a very

1

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

quiet in their public life; full of affection in their simple home life; so it seems the poet and his wife lived and died. Thought a deal of for the fact that accounts were strictly met at the tradesmen's shops, they were thought more of because they were ever ready to hear the cry of the suffering, and to enter the doors of those ready to perish.

I do not think I have been able to tell the world anything new about the poet or his surroundings. But the man who hedn't a bit of fish in him, and was no mountaineer,' seems to have been in the eyes of the people always at his studies; and that because he couldn't help it, because it was his hobby,' for sheer love, and not for money. This astonished the industrious money-loving folk, who could not understand the doing work for 'nowt,' and perhaps held the poet's occupation in somewhat lighter esteem, just because it did not bring in a deal o' brass to the pocket.' I think it is very interesting, however, to notice how the woman part of the Rydal Mount family seemed to the simple neighbourhood to have the talent and mental ability; and there must have been, both about Dorothy Wordsworth and the poet's daughter Dora, a quite remarkable power of inspiring the minds of the poor with whom they came in contact, with a belief in their intellectual faculties and brightness and cleverness. If Hartley Coleridge was held by some to be Wordsworth's helper, it was to Dorothy he was supposed by all to turn if ivver he was puzzelt.' The women had 'the wits, or best part of 'em,'this was proverbial among the peasantry, and, as having been an article of rural faith, it has been established out of the mouths of all the witnesses it has been my lot to call."

APPENDIX IV.

WORDSWORTH'S VIEW OF EDUCATION AND ITS
METHODS.

Ir seems advisable to place Wordsworth's views on Education in an appendix, rather than in a chapter in the body of this work, as it was a subject he frequently referred to, on which he wrote elaborately as far back as 1806, and which he discussed almost to the close of his life.

From letters written at Allan Bank to his friend Wrangham (afterwards Archdeacon Wrangham) in 1808, it is obvious that the subject had a singular fascination to him and comparing these letters with subsequent ones, and especially with his speech at Bowness in 1836, it will be seen that, as the child was father to the man, so was the man in middle life to the sage approaching his threescore years and ten. These letters also show Wordsworth; in the capacity of moral analyst and critic of character, as well as a student of human nature and of social forces, under an interesting light; and it is noteworthy that the second letter was called forth in answer to a request that he would give his friend some idea on "education as a national object."

"GRASMERE, June 5, 1808.

"I am writing from a window which gives me a view of a little boat, gliding quietly about upon the surface of our basin of a lake. I should like to be in it, but what could I do with such a vessel in the heart of the Atlantic Ocean? As this boat would be to that navigation, so is my letter to the subject upon which you would set me afloat. . . . As far as my own observation goes, which has been mostly employed upon agricultural persons in thinly-peopled districts, I cannot find that there is much disposition

to read among the labouring classes, or much occasion for it. Among manufacturers and persons engaged in sedentary employments, it is, I know, very different. The labouring man in agriculture generally carries on his work either in solitude or with his own family-with persons whose minds he is thoroughly acquainted with, and with whom he is under no temptation to enter into discussions, or to compare opinions. He goes home from the field, or the barn, and within and about his own house he finds a hundred little jobs, which furnish him with a change of employment which is grateful and profitable; then comes supper, and bed. This for week-days. For Sabbaths, he goes to church, with us, often, or mostly, twice a-day; and on this day the mistress of the house almost always teaches the children to read, or, as they express it, hears them a lesson; or if not thus employed, they visit their neighbours, or receive them in own houses as they drop in, and keep up by the hour a slow and familiar chat.

This kind of life, of which I have seen much, and which I know would be looked upon with little complacency by many religious persons, is peaceable, and as innocent as (the frame of society and the practices of government being what they are) we have a right to expect; besides, it is much more intellectual than a careless observer would suppose. One of our neighbours, who lives as I have described, was yesterday walking with me, and as we were pacing on, talking about indifferent matters, by the side of a brook, he suddenly said to me, with great spirit and a lively smile, 'I like to walk where I can hear the sound of a beck!' (the word, as you know, in our dialect for a brook). I cannot but think that this man, without being conscious of it, has had many devout feelings connected with the appearances which have presented themselves to him in his employment as a shepherd, and that the pleasure of his heart at that moment was an acceptable offering to the Divine Being.