near three thousand-in that time; namely, four books, and a third of another, of the poem which I believe I mentioned to you on my own early life. I am at present in the seventh book of this work, which will turn out far longer than I ever dreamt of. It seems a frightful deal to say about myself, and, of course, will never be published (during my lifetime, I mean) till another work has been written and published, of sufficient importance to justify me in giving my own history to the world. I pray God to give me life to finish these works, which I trust will live, and do good; especially the one to which that I have been speaking of as so far advanced is only supplementary. Farewell. Remember me kindly to Mr Rogers, and believe me, with best regards from my wife and sister, and with the greatest esteem and respect on my part, yours sincerely,

"W. WORDSWORTH."

CHAPTER XX.

LATER YEARS IN DOVE COTTAGE.

THE earlier half of Wordsworth's life is much more easily divided into chapters, which correspond with his movements from place to place, than the later half of it, when he was a constant resident in the land he has made illustrious by his poems, except during visits to friends, and excursions in Britain or the Continent. After he took up his abode at Grasmere, the most significant thing in his life was the quiet development of his poetic genius along its selected and somewhat secluded pathway. Add to this frequent visits to London, and to such places as Coleorton in Leicestershire, and Brinsop Court in Hereford, to Lowther or to Cambridge, the tours he made in Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and the Continent of Europe, which he afterwards memorialised in his poems, the issue of successive volumes of these poems-inappreciative notices, and hostile criticism giving place, by slow degrees, to recognition and to famethe arrival of friends and visitors to his household, his walks and conversations with these friends in the district of the Lakes, the work (increasingly laborious) of his office as distributor of stamps for the counties of Westmoreland and Cumberland, his interest in gardening, and the practical assistance he gave to his friends in laying out their gardengrounds, the part he took in local county politics, and the usual incidents, the joys and sorrows of domestic life, through a long, and on the whole a very tranquil career.

Shortly before he started on his first Scottish tour, his

eldest son, John, was born, on June 18th, 1803.

His

eldest daughter, Dorothy (or Dora, as she was called, to distinguish her from her aunt Dorothy), was born on the 16th of August 1804, her mother's birthday. A second son, Thomas, was born on the 16th of June 1806; another daughter, Catherine, on the 6th September 1808; and the third son, William, on the 12th of May 1810. Many allusions to his children occur throughout the poems, especially to Dora, whose picture is drawn in The Longest Day and in The Triad.

For detailed information as to the circumstances under which the poems were composed, and the years to which they belong, readers of this Life must refer to the notes in the earlier volumes of the edition. The chronological table is, unfortunately, not quite accurate; information, obtained since it was compiled, having led me to change some dates.* Incidents referred to in these (and in Miss Fenwick's) notes may be further illustrated, however, by letters, and memoranda of various kinds. It is with a view of illustrating the poems, by exhibiting what manner of man the poet was, rather than of giving a critical estimate of either, that these memoranda are brought together.

A special interest attaches to Wordsworth's relations to the more eminent of his contemporaries in literature. During the Scottish tour of 1803 he made the acquaintance of Walter Scott.

"It was in the September of this year that Scott first saw Wordsworth. Their common acquaintance, Stoddart, had so often talked of them to each other, that they met as if they had not been strangers; and they parted friends.

* The errors in the chronological table of this edition, and others which survive in the subsequent table given in the Transactions of "The Wordsworth Society," are corrected in the volume of Selections from Wordsworth by members of that Society, which will be published this autumn.

Mr and Miss Wordsworth had just completed that tour in the Highlands, of which so many incidents have been immortalised, both in the poet's verse, and in the hardly less poetical prose of his sister's diary. On the morning of the 17th of September, having left their carriage at Rosslyn, they walked down the valley to Lasswade, and arrived there before Mr and Mrs Scott had risen. We were received,' Mr Wordsworth has told me, 'with that frank cordiality which, under whatever circumstances I afterwards met him, always marked his manners; and, indeed, I found him then in every respect-except perhaps that his animal spirits were somewhat higher-precisely the same man that you knew him in later life; the same lively, entertaining conversation, full of anecdote, and averse from disquisition; the same unaffected modesty about himself; the same cheerful and benevolent and hopeful views of man and the world. He partly read and partly recited, sometimes in an enthusiastic style of chant, the first four cantos of The Lay of the Last Minstrel; and the novelty of the manners, the clear picturesque descriptions, and the easy, glowing energy of much of the verse, greatly delighted me.'

After this he walked with the tourists to Rosslyn, and promised to meet them in two days at Melrose.

The night

before they reached Melrose they slept at the little quiet inn of Clovenford, where, on mentioning his name, they were received with all sorts of attention and kindness, the landlady observing that Mr Scott, 'who was a very clever gentleman,' was an old friend of the house, and usually spent a good deal of time there during the fishing season; but, indeed, says Mr Wordsworth, 'wherever we named him, we found the word acted as an open sesame; and I believe, that in the character of the Sheriff's friends, we might have counted on a hearty welcome under any roof in the Border county.'

He met them at Melrose on the 19th, and escorted them through the Abbey, pointing out all its beauties, and pouring out his rich stores of history and tradition. They then dined, and spent the evening together at the inn; but Miss Wordsworth observed that there was some difficulty about arranging matters for the night, 'the landlady refusing to settle anything until she had ascertained from the Sheriff himself that he had no objection to sleep in the same room with William.' Scott was thus far on his way to the Circuit Court at Jedburgh, in his capacity of Sheriff, and there his new friends again joined him; but he begged that they would not enter the court, for,' said he, 'I really would not like you to see the sort of figure I cut there.' They did see him casually, however, in his cocked hat and sword, marching in the judges' procession to the sound of one cracked trumpet, and were then not surprised that he should have been a little ashamed of the whole ceremonial. He introduced to them his friend William Laidlaw, who was attending the court as a juryman, and who, having read some of Wordsworth's verses in the newspaper, was exceedingly anxious to be of the party, when they explored at leisure, all the law-business being over, the beautiful valley of the Jed, and the ruins of the Castle of Ferniehurst, the original fastness of the noble family of Lothian. The grove of stately ancient elms about and below the ruin was seen to great advantage in a fine, grey, breezy autumnal afternoon; and Mr Wordsworth happened to say, 'What life there is in trees!' 'How different,' said Scott, 'was the feeling of a very intelligent young lady, born and bred in the Orkney Islands, who lately came to spend a season in this neighbourhood! She told me nothing in the mainland scenery had so much disappointed her as woods and trees. She found them all so dead and lifeless, that she could never help pining after the eternal motion and variety of the ocean.