Give my kindest love, and my sister's, to D. and yourself. And a kiss from me to little Barbara Lewthwaite.* Thank you for liking my play !†

C. L."

With all the charms of Grasmere and Rydal, it will be seen, from a letter which Coleridge sent to Humphrey Davy in 1801, that Wordsworth at least entertained the idea of migrating across to Keswick; and the reason Coleridge gives is worthy of note. William Calvert (Raisley's brother) had an ardent desire to begin the study of chemistry, along with Wordsworth and Coleridge, and offered the former his house at Windy Brow, Keswick (in which Wordsworth had stayed in 1794); and Coleridge tells Davy that Wordsworth felt his acceptance of the offer would not only bring him nearer to Greta Hall, but would enable him to "have an intellectual pursuit less closely connected with deep passion than poetry." This points to the wearing out of nervous. energy, by exclusive devotion to his poetic work, of which we have so many evidences in his sister's Journal.

The following is Coleridge's letter to Davy:

February 3, 1801.‡

". . . A gentleman resident here, his name Calvert, an idle, good-hearted, and ingenious man, has a great desire to commence fellow-student with me and Wordsworth in Chemistry. He is an intimate friend of Wordsworth's, and he has proposed to W. to take a house which he (Calvert) has nearly built, called Windy Brow, in a delicious situation, scarce half a mile from Greta Hall, the residence of S. T. Coleridge, Esq., and so for him (Calvert) to live with

* See the poem, The Pet Lamb.

+ The Letters of Charles Lamb. By Thomas Noon Talfourd, vol. i., pp.

212-215.

‡ See the Fragmentary Remains of Sir Humphrey Davy, Bt. Ed. by John Davy, M.D., pp. 86, 87.

them, i.e., Wordsworth and his sister. In this case he means to build a little laboratory, &c. Wordsworth has

not quite decided, but is strongly inclined to adopt the scheme, because he and his sister have before lived with. Calvert on the same footing, and are much attached to him: because my health is so precarious, and so much injured by wet, and his health, too, is like little potatoes, no great things, and therefore Grasmere (thirteen miles from Keswick) is too great a distance for us to enjoy each other's society, without inconvenience, as much as it would be profitable for us both and likewise because he feels it more necessary for him to have some intellectual pursuit less closely connected with deep passion than poetry, and is of course desirous, too, not to be so wholly ignorant of knowledge so exceedingly important. However, whether Wordsworth come or no, Calvert and I have determined to begin and go on. Calvert is a man of sense and some originality, and is, besides, what is well called a handy man. He is a good practical mechanic, &c., and is desirous to lay out any sum of money that is necessary. -God bless you, my dear

Davy! and your ever affectionate friend,

S. T. COLERIDGE."

THE unpublished canto of Wordsworth's autobiographical poem will fitly precede any extracts from the Journals of 1800 and subsequent years, as it is the Poet's own record of his "Home at Grasmere."

The introduction to The Recluse was not only kept back by him during his lifetime, but was omitted by his representatives-with what must be regarded as true critical insight-when The Prelude was published in 1850. As a whole, it is not equal to The Prelude; certain passages are very inferior, but there are others that posterity will cherish, and cannot willingly let die. It was probably a conviction of its inequality and inferiority that led Wordsworth to give selected extracts from this canto to the world in his own lifetime. Two passages were given in his Guide to the District of the Lakes; another-a description of the flight and movement of birds-was published in 1827, and subsequent editions, under the title of Water Fowl; while the Bishop of Lincoln published other two passages in the Memoirs of his uncle, beginning respectively

and

"On Nature's invitation do I come,"

"Bleak season was it, turbulent and wild."

Although these five short passages have been already printed in this edition, it will be better now to reproduce the whole of the as yet unpublished canto as it stands, than to mutilate it by omitting a few lines already familiar to the readers of Wordsworth. Future editors may find it desirable to make "selections" from this canto, but in this

edition the "Home at Grasmere " will stand untouched, and The MS. heading is

without comment.

Once to the verge of yon steep barrier came
A roving school-boy; what the Adventurer's age
Hath now escaped his memory---but the hour,
One of a golden summer holiday,

He well remembers, though the year be gone.
Alone and devious from afar he came;
And, with a sudden influx overpowered
At sight of this seclusion, he forgot

His haste, for hasty had his footsteps been
As boyish his pursuits; and, sighing said,
"What happy fortune were it here to live!.
And, (if a thought of dying, if a thought
Of mortal separation, could intrude
With paradise before him), here to die!"
No prophet was he, had not even a hope,
Scarcely a wish, but one bright pleasing thought,
A fancy in the heart of what might be

The lot of others, never could be his.

The station whence he looked was soft and green,

Not giddy yet aerial, with a depth

Of vale below, a height of hills above.
For rest of body, perfect was the spot,

All that luxurious nature could desire,

And not feel motions there? He thought of clouds

That sail on winds, of breezes that delight

To play on water, or in endless chase.

Pursue each other through the yielding plain

Of grass or corn, over and through and through, In billow after billow, evermore

Disporting.

Nor unmindful was the Boy
Of sunbeams, shadows, butterflies and birds,
Of fluttering Sylphs, and softly-gliding Fays,
Genii, and winged Angels that are Lords.
Without restraint of all which they behold.
The illusion strengthening as he gazed, he felt
That such unfettered liberty was his,
Such power and joy; but only for this end,
To flit from field to rock, from rock to field,
From shore to island, and from isle to shore,
From open ground to covert, from a bed
Of meadow-flowers into a tuft of wood,
From high to low, from low to high, yet still
Within the bound of this high concave; here
Must be his home, this Valley be his world.

Since that day forth the place to him-to me (For I who live to register the truth

Was that same young and happy being) became
As beautiful to thought, as it had been,
When present, to the bodily sense; a haunt
Of pure affections, shedding upon joy

A brighter joy; and through such damp and gloom
Of the gay mind, as ofttimes splenetic youth
Mistakes for sorrow darting beams of light
That no self-cherished sadness could withstand:
And now 'tis mine, perchance for life, dear Vale,
Beloved Grasmere (let the Wandering Streams
Take up, the cloud-capped hills repeat, the Name),
One of thy lowly dwellings is my Home.

And was the cost so great? and could it seem An act of courage, and the thing itself.

A conquest? who must bear the blame? sage man