[236] I remember well, asking him if we were not trespassing on private pleasure-grounds here. He said, no; the walks had, indeed, been inclosed, but he remembered them open to the public, and he always went through them when he chose. At Lowther, we found among the visitors, the late Lord W——; and describing our walk, he made the same observation, that we had been trespassing; but Wordsworth maintained his point with somewhat more warmth than I either liked, or could well account for. But afterwards, when we were alone, he told me he had purposely answered Lord W—— stoutly and warmly, because he had done a similar thing with regard to some grounds in the neighbourhood of Penrith, and excluded the people of Penrith from walking where they had always enjoyed the right before. He had evidently a pleasure in vindicating these rights, and seemed to think it a duty. J.T.C.
[237] See Memoirs, vol. i. pp. 147-8.
[238] You could not walk with him a mile without seeing what a loving interest he took in the play and working of simple natures. As you ascend Kirkstone from Paterdale, you have a bright stream leaping down from rock to rock, on your right, with here and there silent pools. One of Wordsworth's poor neighbours worked all the week over Kirkstone, I think in some mines; and returning on Saturday evenings, used to fish up this little stream. We met him with a string of small trout. W. offered to buy them, and bid him take them to the Mount. 'Nay,' said the man, 'I cannot sell them, Sir; the little children at home look for them for supper, and I can't disappoint them.' It was quite pleasant to see how the man's answer delighted the Poet. J.T.C.
[239] This old road was very steep, after the fashion of former days, crossing the hill straight over its highest point. A new cut had been made, somewhat diminishing the steepness, but still leaving it a very inconvenient and difficult ascent. At length another alteration was made, and the road was carried on a level round the foot of the hill. My friend Arnold pointed these out to me, and, quizzing my politics, said, the first denoted the old Tory corruption, the second bit by bit, the third Radical Reform. J.T.C.
[240] See Poems on the naming of Places.
[241] Poems founded on the Affections.
[242] I cannot fill the blank. J.T.C.
[243] I used the word trudging at the time; it denoted to me his bold way of walking. J.T.C.
[244] Memoirs, ii. 300-15.
[245] See Memoirs, ii. 246.
[246] Ibid. ii. 329-32.
[247] The close of Lady Richardson's 'Reminiscences' here in the Memoirs is not given, as being more fully introduced under December 1841, p. 438. The repetition of the same sentiments in 1843, however, is noticeable. For a vivid and sweetly toned paper on Wordsworth by Lady Richardson—based on the Memoirs—see Sharpe's London Magazine for March 1853, pp. 148-55. G.
[248] But see Memorials of Italy, 'Sonnets on Roman Historians.'
[249] Mrs. Fletcher.
[250] See the Sonnet and Letters on the Furness Railway (vol. ii. p. 321). G.
[251] On another occasion, I believe, he intimated a desire that his works in Prose should be edited by his son-in-law, Mr. Quillinan. (Memoirs, ii. 466.)
[252] Memoirs, ii. 437-66.
[253] Iliad, i. 260.
[254] Ibid. iii. 156.
[255] Aen. viii. 352.
[256] Ibid. iv. 455.
[257] If I remember right, it is in the third line,
a strange blunder, for Buchanan must have read Horace's,
a hundred times.
[258] This paragraph was communicated by Mr. H.C. Robinson.
[259] Page 174 (vol. i.), where Milton speaks of the evils suffered by a nation,' unless men more than vulgar, bred up in the knowledge of ancient and illustrious deeds, conduct its affairs.'
[260] Paradise Regained, iv. 431.
[261] 1. 37:
[262] Thomson's 'Summer,' 980:
[263] See vol. i. pp. 340-8. G.
[264] Memoirs, ii. pp. 467-80.
[265] Memoirs, ii. 467-83.
[266] Dr. Whewell. G.
[267] Extract of a letter to a friend, by Rev. R.P. Graves, M.A., formerly of Windermere, now of Dublin: Memoirs, pp. 288-90.
[268] Memoirs, ii. 483-500.
[269] Afterwards Father Faber of the Oratory. His 'Sir Launcelot' abounds in admirable descriptions.
[270] 'For us the stream of fiction ceased to flow' (Dedicatory Stanzas to 'The White Doe of Rylstone').
[271] See his Sonnet on the seat of Dante, close to the Duomo at Florence (Poems of Early and Late Years).
[272] 'Evening Voluntary.'
[273] A Song of Faith, Devout Exercises, and Sonnets (Pickering). The Dedication closed thus: 'I may at least hope to be named hereafter among the friends of Wordsworth.'
[274] See our Index, under Shelley, G.
[275] 'Diary of Sir Walter Scott,' Life, by Lockhart, as before, vol. ix. pp. 62-3.
[276] The Greville Memoirs. A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV. and King William IV. By the late Charles C.F. Greville, Esq., Clerk of the Council to those Sovereigns. Edited by Henry Reeve, Registrar of the Privy Council. 3 vols. 8vo, fourth edition, 1875. Vol. ii. p. 120.
[277] This first mention of Alfoxden in the 'Notes and Illustrations of the Poems' leads the Editor to record here the title-page of a truly delightful privately-printed volume, by the Rev. W.L. Nichols, M.A., Woodlands: The Quantocks and their Associations (1873), 41 pp. and Appendix, xxxii, pp. A photograph of 'Wordsworth's glen, Alfoxden' (p. 6) is exquisite. G.