A brief notice of the movements of the household at Allan Bank, from 1810 till they left it as a residence, may conclude this chapter. In March, while Coleridge was absent at Keswick, Sarah Hutchinson-who had for five years been an almost constant inmate in the successive homes of the Wordsworth family-left them, to live with her brother, in his new farm of Hindwell in Radnorshire. In the autumn Wordsworth paid another visit to Coleorton, to Hagley, and the Leasowes, and then to his friend Mr Price, at Foxley, in Herefordshire. The precise time of De Quincey's seven months' visit to Wordsworth I have been unable to ascertain, but it is certain that he and Coleridge were guests together at Allan Bank—that "large house with plenty of room," as Wordsworth described it to Mr Stuart of The Courier newspaper, when inviting him to come north. In the Edinburgh Literary Gazette De Quincey gives the following account of his first meeting with John Wilson, at Allan Bank :

"At the time I speak of, both Mr Coleridge and myself were on a visit to Mr Wordsworth; and one room on the ground floor, designed for a breakfasting-room, which commands a sublime view of the three mountains-Fairfield, Arthur's Chair, and Seat Sandal (the first of them within about 400 feet of the highest mountains in Great Britain)

-was then occupied by Mr Coleridge as a study. On this particular day, the sun having only just set, it naturally happened that Mr Coleridge-whose nightly vigils were long-had not yet come down to breakfast; meantime, and until the epoch of the Coleridgian breakfast should arrive, his study was lawfully disposable to profaner uses. Here, therefore, it was, that, opening the door hastily in quest of a book, I found seated, and in earnest conversation, two gentlemen: one of them my host, Mr. Wordsworth,

at that time about thirty-seven or thirty-eight years old; the other was a younger man by good sixteen or seventeen years, in a sailor's dress, manifestly in robust health, fervidus juventa, and wearing upon his countenance a powerful expression of ardour and animated intelligence, mixed with much good nature. 'Mr Wilson of Elleray,' delivered as the formula of introduction, in the deep tones of Mr Wordsworth, at once banished the momentary surprise I felt on finding an unknown stranger where I had expected nobody, and substituted a surprise of another kind."

During the spring of 1810 the Wordsworths became aware that they must leave Allan Bank in the following year, and they found it difficult to hear of any fit residence in the vale; although they were not loathe to remove, since they had been much annoyed (as at Dove Cottage formerly) by smoky chimneys. In May, however, they found they could get the Parsonage, opposite the Church, and concluded a bargain for it a year in advance. Dorothy Wordsworth wrote thus about it

"You will be rejoiced to hear that we shall not be forced to leave Grasmere Vale. We are to have the parsonage house, which will be made a very comfortable dwelling before we enter upon it, which will be next year at this time. But oh my dear friend, this place-the wood behind it and the rocks, the view of Easedale from them, the lake, and church, and village on the other sideis sweeter than paradise itself."

In the Parsonage they found that they had "at least one sitting-room clear of smoke in all winds." In August 1810, they went down to a cottage near Bootle, on the coast of Cumberland, for sea air, chiefly for the sake of their children. The incidents in this journey-and they were numerous-are described in the Epistle to Sir George

Beaumont. (See vol. iv. p. 248.) The change did not do much for the restoration of the children. They both died in the following year; Catherine on the 4th of June, while her mother was absent at Hindwell, in Radnorshire, and Thomas on the 1st of December 1812. They were buried in Grasmere Churchyard. On the daughter's tombstone are the words, "Suffer the little children to come unto me, for of such is the Kingdom of God." On the boy's is an inscription which will be found in vol. viii. p. 34, of this edition.

These two successive bereavements led the Wordsworths to quit the Parsonage, as soon as they possibly could; and they went, as we shall see, to Rydal Mount, in the spring of 1813.

In June 1812 Dorothy Wordsworth wrote thus to Mrs Marshall of her niece Catherine :-" She was the sweetest, mildest tempered child, the most loving, entirely free from all bad passions. It seemed as if she had not the seed of any evil in her."

Of Thomas, she wrote to Miss Threlkeld, at Halifax, in the following terms,

January 19th, 1813.

..

He

You remember him, a lovely child, with a heavenly sweetness in his countenance which he preserved to the last, an innocence as pure as at the day of his birth. Thomas was, of all the children, that one who caused us the least of pain, and who gave us the purest delight. was affectionate, sweet-tempered, ardent in the pursuit of learning, invariably doing his duty without effort, or interference on the part of others, and above all had a simplicity which was his own, an infantine innocence which marked him as not of this world."

And to Mrs Marshall, she wrote on the same subject, 24th January 1813

"My heart is full of the sweet image of him whom I shall see no more. At times, when I muse on a future life, . . the child becomes spiritualized to my mind. I wish I could have such musings more frequently, and longer; but alas! the image of the boy disturbs me, and I weep again. Time, I know, will soften this, but as long as I have breath and life, thy grave, beloved child! will be remembered by me with pensive sadness. . . . At times I think my brother looks ten years older since the death of Thomas. We shall not remain more than two months, or ten weeks longer, in this house; and you must come and see us when we get to the other. It is a place that, ten years ago, if I could have dreamed it would ever be ours, I would almost have danced with joy."

Part of another letter of Dorothy Wordsworth's to Henry Crabb Robinson refers to the children thus:

. . . They are sweet wild creatures. John is thoughtful with his wildness; Dorothy alive, active, and quick; Thomas innocent and simple as a new-born Babe. John had no feeling but of bursting joy when he saw me. We had delightful weather when I first got home, but on the fourth morning Dorothy roused me from my sleep with 'It is time to get up, Aunt, it is a blasty morning, it does blast so!' and the next morning, not more encouraging to me, she says, 'It is a haily morning, it hails so hard!' You must know our house stands on a hill exposed to all hails and blasts, and the cold seemed to cut me through and through."

CHAPTER XXV.

WORDSWORTH AND COLERIDGE; MISUNDERSTANDING AND

RECONCILEMENT.

DURING the years in which Wordsworth lived in the Grasmere parsonage, he had other trials than the loss of his children. Repeated reference has been made, both to the strength of the tie that bound him to Coleridge, -the almost unique character of their friendship-and to the differences that separated them on many points. Readers of the previous chapters, detailing the life at Alfoxden and Dove Cottage, do not need to be reminded of the former element; but the latter, which led to some misunderstanding, and almost separated the friends for two years, must also be referred to. It is, indeed, a matter of public notoriety, from the allusions to it in Henry Crabb Robinson's Diary and Reminiscences (see vol. i. p. 484), and (although in a concealed way) in Allsop's Letters of Coleridge. It cannot, therefore, be passed entirely over, either in a Life of Wordsworth or of Coleridge, and buried in the oblivion in which it might otherwise have rested. But in what I shall now say of it, while simply stating the facts that have come to my knowledge, I think I shall not give pain to anyone.

It is a very curious illustration from literary history of the

Little rift within the lute,

That by and by will make the music mute,

and of the singular way in which a wholly baseless misreading of a phrase, or misconstruction of a remark