by him at the termination of a newly-planted avenue," began thus:

Ye Lime-trees, ranged before this hallowed Urn,
Shoot forth with lively power at Spring's return;
And be not slow a stately growth to rear
Of pillars, branching off from year to year,

Till they have learned to frame a darksome aisle ;
That may recall to mind that awful Pile

Where Reynolds, 'mid our country's noblest dead,
In the last sanctity of fame is laid.

These "lime-trees," planted eighty years ago, now form "a stately growth of pillars," "a darksome aisle," as described in the lines; and the "urn" remains where it was placed in 1807, at the end of the avenue.

The last of the inscriptions set up at Coleorton was written by Wordsworth in 1811, during a morning walk with his sister from Brathay to Grasmere, and sent by her to Lady Beaumont. It was cut in stone at the end of a terrace walk, at right angles to the avenue of lime-trees, overlooking the garden, where it is still to be seen, lichencovered and weather-worn.

Perhaps the most interesting poem, however, connected with Coleorton is the sonnet which Wordsworth addressed to Lady Beaumont in 1807, and which he published that year. It requires no comment.

Lady! the songs of spring were in the grove
While I was shaping beds for winter flowers,
While I was planting green unfading bowers,
And shrubs to hang upon the warm alcove,
And sheltering wall; and still, as fancy wove
The dream, to time and nature's blended powers
I gave this paradise for winter hours,

A labyrinth, lady! which your feet shall rove.
Yes! when the sun of life more feebly shines,
Becoming thoughts, I trust, of solemn gloom.
Or of high gladness you shall hither bring;
And these perennial bowers and murmuring pines
Be gracious as the music and the bloom
And all the mighty ravishment of spring.

In 1815 Wordsworth inscribed the first collected edition of his Poems to Sir George, with the following Epistle Dedicatory:

"MY DEAR SIR GEORGE,-Accept my thanks for the permission given me to dedicate these Poems to you. In addition to a lively pleasure derived from general considerations, I feel a particular satisfaction; for, by inscribing them with your name, I seem to myself in some degree to repay, by an appropriate honour, the great obligation which I owe to one part of the Collection-as having been the means of first making us personally known to each other. Upon much of the remainder, also, you have a peculiar claim,— for some of the best pieces were composed under the shade of your own groves, upon the classic ground of Coleorton; where I was animated by the recollection of those illustrious Poets of your Name and Family, who were born in that neighbourhood; and, we may be assured, did not wander with indifference by the dashing stream of Grace Dieu, and among the rocks that diversify the forest of Charnwood. Nor is there any one to whom such parts of this Collection as have been inspired or coloured by the beautiful country from which I now address you, could be presented with more propriety than to yourself-who have composed so many admirable Pictures from the suggestions of the same scenery. Early in life, the sublimity and beauty of this region excited your admiration; and I know that you are bound to it in mind by a still strengthening attachment.

Wishing and hoping that this Work may survive as a lasting memorial of a friendship, which I reckon among the blessings of my life, I have the honour to be, my dear Sir George, yours most affectionately and faithfully,

RYDAL MOUNT, WESTMORELAND,

February 1, 1815."

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

Sir George's own work as a landscape artist is referred to in this dedication. An early picture of his suggested one of Wordsworth's most characteristic poems, viz., the stanzas on Peele Castle in a Storm. The small oil-painting still hangs in the picture-gallery at Coleorton, and to all who see it there, and remember to what it gave rise, it will recall

The light that never was on sea or land,

The consecration, and the Poet's dream.

Another of the poems, suggested by a picture mainly a cloud-scene, from the neighbourhood of Coleorton-painted by Sir George, and sent to Wordsworth, begins

Praised be the Art whose subtle power could stay

Yon Cloud, and fix it in that glorious shape.

Illustrations of The White Doe of Rylstone, of The Thorn, of Lucy Gray, and of Peter Bell were also drawn by Sir George Beaumont, and engraved in several editions of Wordsworth's poems.*

*

"Cole

While reference must be made to the volume of orton Letters" for what cannot be appropriately restated here, a few extracts from Wordsworth's earlier letters may be given, and one or two of his later ones reprinted in full.

Coleridge had shown Wordsworth Sir George's letter, conveying to him the Applethwaite property, before he started on his Scottish tour in 1803. Wordsworth, however, allowed eight weeks to elapse without acknowledging it. He explained this in a letter, written on the 14th of October, from the positive suffering which letter-writing always gave him; a disorder of nerve and of digestion, "which made his aversion from writing little less than madness." He had often begun and as often desisted, and contented himself with "breathing forth solitary thanksgivings"

*

They occur in the edition of 1815 (in both volumes), in the edition of 1820 (in each of the four volumes), in the first quarto edition of The White Doe, and the original octavo of Peter Bell.

during his tour. "I do not know from what cause it is, but during the last three years I have never had a pen in my hand for five minutes, before my whole frame becomes one bundle of uneasiness; a perspiration starts out all over me, and my chest is oppressed in a manner which I cannot describe." He explained in this letter the reasons which would prevent his transferring his abode to Keswick: "The state of my own affairs, and still more the improbability of Mr Coleridge's continuing in the country. The writings are at present in my possession, and what I should wish is, that I might be considered at present as steward of the land, with liberty to lay out the rent in planting, or any other improvement which might be thought advisable, with a view to building upon it. And if it should be out of my power to pitch my own tent there, I would then request that you would give me leave to restore the property to your own hands, in order that you might have the opportunity of again presenting it to some worthy person who might be so fortunate as to be able to make that pleasant use of it which it was your wish that I should have done."

My impression is that Wordsworth had begun to see that the close proximity of the two households-strong and intense as were the ties that bound them-would not be an unmixed benefit. Wordsworth had a singular shrewdness in his diagnosis of character, and while he was the truest of friends, the barriers that separate the nearest and friendliest of households were not hidden from his eye. In many things he and Coleridge differed, in habit, in temperament, and in mode of life; and letters exist which show that these differences found occasional expression. Had they lived close at hand, Wordsworth, or the members of his family, might have had more to do, in the way of mediation and advice, than they cared to have, in the affairs of the Coleridge household.

On the 1st of August 1805, Wordsworth wrote thus from Grasmere to Sir George

I do not know whether my sister has written since we had another account of Coleridge, I am sorry I cannot say from him. He was at Leghorn, with a friend, on their way to England: so that we still continue to look for him daily. He had lost all his papers; how we are not told. This grieves and vexes me much; probably (but it is not on this account-his loss being I daresay irreparable-that I am either much vexed or grieved) a large collection of the poems is gone with the rest; among others five books of the Poem upon my own Life, but of all these I have copies. He, I am afraid, has none of his old writings.

Within this last month I have returned to The Recluse, and have written 700 additional lines. Should Coleridge return, so that I might have some conversation with him on the subject, I should go on swimmingly.

We have been very little interrupted with tourist company this summer, and, of course, being for the most part well, have enjoyed ourselves much. I am now writing in the moss-hut, which is my study, with a heavy thunder shower pouring down before me. It is a place of retirement for the eye (though the public road glimmers through the apple-trees a few yards below), and well suited to my occupations. I cannot, however, refrain from smiling at the situation in which I sometimes find myself here; as, for instance, the other morning when I was calling some lofty notes out of my harp, chanting of shepherds, and solitude, &c., I heard a voice (which I knew to be a male voice, whose also it was) crying out from the road below, in a tone exquisitely effeminate, Santez, santez, apportez, apportez; vous ne le ferez pas, venez donc Pandore, venez, venez.' Guess who this creature could be thus speaking to his lap