But to resume Lloyd's history. Being so desperately in love with Miss P—— n, and his parents being rich, why should he not have married her? Why, I know not. But some great obstacles arose; and, I presume, on the side of Miss P—— n's friends; for, actually, it became necessary to steal her away; and the person in whom Lloyd confided for this delicate service was no other than Southey. A better choice he could not have made. Had the lady been Helen of Greece, Southey would not have had a thought but for the honour and interests of his confiding friend.
Having thus, by proxy, run away with his young wife, and married her, Lloyd brought her to Cambridge. It is a novel thing in Cambridge, though not altogether unprecedented, for a student to live there with a wife. This novelty Lloyd exhibited to the University for some time; but then, finding the situation not perfectly agreeable to the delicate sensibilities of his young wife, Lloyd removed, first, I think, to Penrith; and, after some changes, he settled down at Brathay, from which, so long as he stayed on English ground—that is, for about fifteen or sixteen years—he never moved. When I first crossed his path at the Lakes, he was in the zenith of the brief happiness that was granted to him on earth. He stood in the very centre of earthly pleasures; and, that his advantages may be easily estimated, I will describe both himself and his situation.
First, then, as to his person: he was tall and somewhat clumsy—not intellectual so much as benign and conciliatory in his expression of face. His features were not striking, but they expressed great goodness of heart; and latterly wore a deprecatory expression that was peculiarly touching to those who knew its cause. His manners were free from all modes of vulgarity; and where he acquired his knowledge I know not (for I never heard him claim any connexion with people of rank), but a knowledge he certainly had of all the conventional usages amongst the higher circles, and of those purely arbitrary customs which mere good sense and native elegance of manner are not, of themselves, sufficient to teach. Some of these he might have learned from the family of the Bishop of Llandaff; for with the ladies of that family he was intimate, especially with the eldest daughter, who was an accomplished student in that very department of literature which Lloyd himself most cultivated, viz. all that class of works which deal in the analysis of human passions, or attempt to exhibit the development of human character, in relation to sexual attachments, when placed in trying circumstances. Lloyd corresponded with Miss Watson in French; the letters, on both sides, being full of spirit and originality; the subjects generally drawn from Rousseau's "Heloise" or his "Confessions," from "Corinne," from "Delphine," or some other work of Madame de Stael. For such disquisitions Lloyd had a real and a powerful genius. It was really a delightful luxury to hear him giving free scope to his powers for investigating subtle combinations of character; for distinguishing all the shades and affinities of some presiding qualities, disentangling their intricacies, and balancing, antithetically, one combination of qualities against another. Take, for instance, any well-known character from the drama, and pique Lloyd's delicate perception of differences by affecting to think it identical with some other character of the same class—instantly, in his anxiety to mark out the features of dissimilitude, he would hurry into an impromptu analysis of each character separately, with an eloquence, with a keenness of distinction, and a felicity of phrase, which were perfectly admirable. This display of familiarity with life and human nature, in all its masqueradings, was sometimes truly splendid. But two things were remarkable in these displays. One was, that the splendour was quite hidden from himself, and unperceived amidst the effort of mind, and oftentimes severe struggles, in attempting to do himself justice, both as respected the thoughts and the difficult task of clothing them in adequate words; he was as free from vanity, or even from complacency in reviewing what he had effected, as it is possible for a human creature to be. He thought, indeed, slightly of his own power; and, which was even a stronger barrier against vanity, his displays of this kind were always effective in proportion to his unhappiness; for unhappiness it was, and the restlessness of internal irritation, that chiefly drove him to exertions of his intellect; else, and when free from this sort of excitement, he tended to the quiescent state of a listener; for he thought everybody better than himself. The other point remarkable in these displays was (and most unfavourable, of course, it proved to his obtaining the reputation they merited), that he could succeed in them only before confidential friends, those on whom he could rely for harbouring no shade of ridicule towards himself or his theme. Let but one person enter the room of whose sympathy he did not feel secure, and his powers forsook him as suddenly as the buoyancy of a bird that has received a mortal shot in its wing. Accordingly, it is a fact that neither Wordsworth nor Coleridge ever suspected the amount of power which was latent in Lloyd; for he firmly believed that both of them despised him. Mrs. Lloyd thought the same thing. Often and often she has said to me, smiling in a mournful way—"I know too well that both Wordsworth and Coleridge entertain a profound contempt for my poor Charles." And, when I combated this notion, declaring that, although they might (and probably did) hold very cheap such writers as Rousseau and Madame de Stael, and, consequently, could not approve of studies directed so exclusively to their works, or to works of the same class, still that was not sufficient to warrant them in undervaluing the powers which Mr. Lloyd applied to such studies. To this, or similar arguments, she would reply by simply shaking her head, and then sink into silence.
But the time was fast approaching when all pains of this kind, from supercilious or well-founded disparagement, were to be swallowed up in more awful considerations and fears. The transition was not a long one from the state of prosperity in which I found Lloyd about 1807-10 to the utter overthrow of his happiness, and, for his friends, the overthrow of all hopes on his behalf. In the three years I have assigned, his situation seemed luxuriously happy, as regarded the external elements of happiness. He had, without effort of his own, an income, most punctually remitted from his father, of from £1500 to £1800 per annum. This income was entirely resigned to the management of his prudent and excellent wife; and, as his own personal expenses, separate from those of his family, were absolutely none at all, except for books, she applied the whole either to the education of her children, or to the accumulation of all such elegances of life about their easy unpretending mansion as might soothe her husband's nervous irritations, or might cheer his drooping spirits with as much variety of pleasure as a mountainous seclusion allowed. The establishment of servants was usually limited to six—one only being a man-servant—but these were well chosen: and one or two were confidential servants, tried by long experience. Rents are always low in the country for unfurnished houses; and, even for the country, Low Brathay was a cheap house; but it contained everything for comfort, nothing at all for splendour. Consequently, a very large part of their income was disposable for purposes of hospitality; and, when I first knew them, Low Brathay was distinguished above every other house at the head of Windermere, or within ten miles of that neighbourhood, by the judicious assortment of its dinner parties, and the gaiety of its soirées dansantes. These parties were never crowded; poor Lloyd rarely danced himself; but it gladdened his benevolent heart to see the young and blooming floating through the mazes of the dances then fashionable, whilst he sat by, looking on, at times, with pleasure from his sympathy with the pleasure of others; at times pursuing some animated discussion with a literary friend; at times lapsing into profound reverie. At some of these dances it was that I first saw Wilson of Elleray (Professor Wilson), in circumstances of animation, and buoyant with youthful spirits, under the excitement of lights, wine, and, above all, of female company. He, by the way, was the best male dancer (not professional) I have ever seen; and this advantage he owed entirely to the extraordinary strength of his foot in all its parts, to its peculiarly happy conformation, and to the accuracy of his ear; for, as to instruction, I have often understood from his family that he never had any. Here also danced the future wife of Professor Wilson, Miss Jane P——,[164] at that time the leading belle of the Lake country. But, perhaps, the most interesting person in those parties, from the peculiarity of her situation, was Mrs. Lloyd herself, still young, and, indeed, not apparently exceeding in years most of her unmarried visitors; still dancing and moving through cotillons, or country dances, as elegantly and as lightly as the youngest of the company; still framing her countenance to that expression of cheerfulness which hospitality required; but stealing for ever troubled glances to the sofa, or the recess, where her husband had reclined himself, dark foreboding looks, that saw but too truly the coming darkness which was soon to swallow up every vestige of this festal pleasure. She looked upon herself and her children too clearly as a doomed household; and such, in some sense, they were. And, doubtless, to poor Lloyd himself, it must a thousandfold have aggravated his sufferings—that he could trace, with a steady eye, the continual growth of that hideous malady which was stealing over the else untroubled azure of his life, and with inaudible foot was hastening onwards for ever to that night in which no man can work, and in which no man can hope.
It was so painful to Charles Lloyd, naturally, to talk much about his bodily sufferings, and it would evidently have been so unfeeling in one who had no medical counsels to offer, if, for the mere gratification of his curiosity, he had asked for any circumstantial account of its nature or symptoms, that I am at this moment almost as much at a loss to understand what was the mode of suffering which it produced, how it operated, and through what organs, as any of my readers can be. All that I know is this:—For several years—six or seven, suppose—the disease expressed itself by intense anguish of irritation; not an irritation that gnawed at any one local spot, but diffused itself; sometimes causing a determination of blood to the head, then shaping itself in a general sense of plethoric congestion in the blood-vessels, then again remoulding itself into a restlessness that became insupportable; preying upon the spirits and the fortitude, and finding no permanent relief or periodic interval of rest, night or day. Sometimes Lloyd used robust exercise, riding on horseback as fast as he could urge the horse forward; sometimes, for many weeks together, he walked for twenty miles, or even more, at a time; sometimes (this was in the earlier stages of the case) he took large doses of ether; sometimes he used opium, and, I believe, in very large quantities; and I understood him to say that, for a time, it subdued the excess of irritability, and the agonizing accumulation of spasmodic strength which he felt for ever growing upon him, and, as it were, upon the very surface of his whole body. But all remedies availed him nothing; and once he said to me, when we were out upon the hills—"Ay, that landscape below, with its quiet cottage, looks lovely, I dare say, to you: as for me, I see it, but I feel it not at all; for, if I begin to think of the happiness, and its various modes which, no doubt, belong to the various occupants, according to their ages and hopes, then I could begin to feel it; but it would be a painful effort to me; and the worst of all would be when I had felt it; for that would so sharpen the prospect before me, that just such happiness, which naturally ought to be mine, is soon on the point of slipping away from me for ever." Afterwards he told me that his situation internally was always this: it seemed to him as if on some distant road he heard a dull trampling sound, and that he knew it, by a misgiving, to be the sound of some man, or party of men, continually advancing slowly, continually threatening, or continually accusing him; that all the various artifices which he practised for cheating himself into comfort, or beguiling his sad forebodings, were, in fact, but like so many furious attempts, by drum and trumpets, or even by artillery, to drown the distant noise of his enemies; that, every now and then, mere curiosity, or rather breathless anxiety, caused him to hush the artificial din, and to put himself into the attitude of listening again; when, again and again, and so he was sure it would still be, he caught the sullen and accursed sound, trampling and voices of men, or whatever it were, still steadily advancing, though still perhaps at a great distance. It was too evident that derangement of the intellect, in some shape, was coming on; because slight and transient fits of aberration from his perfect mind had already, at intervals, overtaken him; flying showers, from the skirts of the clouds, that precede and announce the main storm. This was the anguish of his situation, that, for years, he saw before him what was on the road to overwhelm his faculties and his happiness. Still his fortitude did not wholly forsake him, and, in fact, proved to be far greater than I or others had given him credit for possessing. Once only he burst suddenly into tears, on hearing the innocent voices of his own children laughing, and of one especially who was a favourite; and he told me that sometimes, when this little child took his hand and led him passively about the garden, he had a feeling that prompted him (however weak and foolish it seemed) to call upon this child for protection; and that it seemed to him as if he might still escape, could he but surround himself only with children. No doubt this feeling arose out of his sense that a confusion was stealing over his thoughts, and that men would soon find this out to be madness, and would deal with him accordingly; whereas children, as long as he did them no harm, would see no reason for shutting him up from his own fireside, and from the human face divine.
It would be too painful to pursue the unhappy case through all its stages. For a long time, the derangement of poor Lloyd's mind was but partial and fluctuating; and it was the opinion of Professor Wilson, from what he had observed, that it was possible to recall him to himself by firmly opposing his delusions. He certainly, on his own part, did whatever he could to wean his thoughts from gloomy contemplation, by pre-occupying them with cheerful studies, and such as might call out his faculties. He translated the whole of Alfieri's dramas, and published his translation. He wrote and printed (but did not publish) a novel in two volumes; my copy of which he soon after begged back again so beseechingly that I yielded; and so, I believe, did all his other friends: in which case no copy may now exist. All, however, availed him not; the crisis so long dreaded arrived. He was taken away to a lunatic asylum; and, for some long time, he was lost to me as to the rest of the world. The first memorial I had of him was a gentleman, with his hair in disorder, rushing into my cottage at Grasmere, throwing his arms about my neck, and bursting into stormy weeping—it was poor Lloyd!
Yes, it was indeed poor Lloyd, a fugitive from a madhouse, and throwing himself for security upon the honour and affection of one whom, with good reason, he supposed confidentially attached to him. Could there be a situation so full of interest or perplexity? Should any ill happen to himself, or to another, through his present enlargement—should he take any fit of vindictive malice against any person whom he might view as an accomplice in the plans against his own freedom—and probably many persons in the neighbourhood, medical and non-medical, stood liable to such a suspicion—upon me, I felt, as the abettor of his evasion, would all the blame settle. And unfortunately we had, in the recent records of this very vale, a most awful lesson, and still fresh in everybody's remembrance, of the danger connected with this sort of criminal connivance, or passive participation in the purposes of maniacal malignity. A man, named Watson, had often and for years threatened to kill his aged and inoffensive mother. His threats, partly from their own monstrosity, and from the habit of hearing him for years repeating them without any serious attempt to give them effect—partly also from an unwillingness to aggravate the suffering of the poor lunatic, by translating him out of a mountaineer's liberty into the gloomy confinement of an hospital—were treated with neglect; and at length, after years of disregarded menace, and direct forewarning to the parish authorities, he took an opportunity (which indeed was rarely wanting to him) of killing the poor gray-headed woman by her own fireside. This case I had before my mind; and it was the more entitled to have weight with me when connected with the altered temper of Lloyd, who now, for the first time in his life, had dropped his gentle and remarkably quiet demeanour, for a tone, savage and ferocious, towards more than one individual. This tone, however, lurked under a mask, and did not come forward, except by fits and starts, for the present. Indeed his whole manner wore the appearance of studied dissimulation, from the moment when he perceived that I was not alone. In the interval of years since I had last seen him (which might have been in 1816) my own marriage had taken place; accordingly, on turning round and seeing a young woman seated at the tea-table, where heretofore he had been so sure of finding me alone, he seemed shocked at the depth of emotion which he had betrayed before a stranger, and anxious to reinstate himself in his own self-respect, by assuming a tone of carelessness and indifference. No person in the world could feel more profoundly on his account than the young stranger before him, who in fact was not a stranger to his situation and the excess of his misery. But this he could not know; and it was not, therefore, until we found ourselves alone, that he could be prevailed upon to speak of himself, or of the awful circumstances surrounding him, unless in terms of most unsuitable levity.
One thing I resolved, at any rate, to make the rule of my conduct towards this unhappy friend, viz. to deal frankly with him, and in no case to make myself a party to any plot upon his personal freedom. Retaken I knew he would be, but not through me; even a murderer in such a case (i.e. the case of having thrown himself upon my good faith) I would not betray. I drew from him an account of the immediate facts in his late escape, and his own acknowledgment that even now the pursuit must be close at hand; probably, that his recaptors were within a few hours' distance of Grasmere; that he would be easily traced. That my cottage furnished no means of concealment, he knew too well; still in these respects he was not worse off in Grasmere than elsewhere; and, at any rate, it might save him from immediate renewal of his agitation, and might procure for him one night of luxurious rest and relaxation, by means of conversation with a friend, if he would make up his mind to stay with us until his pursuers should appear; and them I could easily contrive to delay, for at least one day and night, by throwing false information in their way, such as would send them on to Keswick at least, if not to Whitehaven, through the collusion of the very few persons who could have seen him enter my door. My plan was simple and feasible: but, somehow or other, and, I believe, chiefly because he did not find me alone, nothing I could say had any weight with him; nor would he be persuaded to stay longer than for a little tea. Staying so short a time, he found it difficult to account for having ever come. But it was too evidently useless to argue the point with him; for he was altered, and had become obstinate and intractable. I prepared, therefore, to gratify him according to his own plan, by bearing him company on the road to Ambleside, and (as he said) to Brathay. We set off on foot: the distance to Ambleside is about three and a half miles; and one-third of this distance brought us to an open plain on the margin of Rydalmere, where the road lies entirely open to the water. This lake is unusually shallow, by comparison with all its neighbours; but, at the point I speak of, it takes (especially when seen under any mode of imperfect light) the appearance of being gloomily deep: two islands of exquisite beauty, but strongly discriminated in character, and a sort of recess or bay in the opposite shore, across which the shadows of the hilly margin stretch with great breadth and solemnity of effect to the very centre of the lake,—together with the very solitary character of the entire valley, on which (excluding the little hamlet in its very gorge or entrance) there is not more than one single house,—combine to make the scene as impressive by night as any in the Lake country. At this point it was that my poor friend paused to converse, and, as it seemed, to take his leave, with an air of peculiar sadness, as if he had foreseen (what in fact proved to be the truth) that we now saw each other for the final time. The spot seemed favourable to confidential talk; and here, therefore, he proceeded to make his heart-rending communication: here he told me rapidly the tale of his sufferings, and, what oppressed his mind far more than those at this present moment, of the cruel indignities to which he had been under the necessity of submitting. In particular, he said, that a man of great muscular power had instructions to knock him down whenever he made any allusion to certain speculative subjects which the presiding authorities of the asylum chose to think connected with his unhappy disease. Many other brutalities, damnable and dishonouring to human nature, were practised in this asylum, not always by abuse of the powers lodged in the servants, but by direct authority from the governors; and yet it had been selected as the one most favourable to a liberal treatment of the patients; and, in reality, it continued to hold a very high reputation.
Great and monstrous are the abuses which have been detected in such institutions, and exposed by parliamentary interference, as well as by the energy of individual philanthropists; but it occurs to one most forcibly, that, after all, the light of this parliamentary torch must have been but feeble and partial, when it was possible for cases such as these to escape all general notice, and for the establishment which fostered them to retain a character as high as any in the land for enlightened humanity. Perhaps the paramount care in the treatment of lunatics should be directed towards those appliances, and that mode of discipline, which is best fitted for restoring the patient finally to a sane condition; but the second place in the machinery of his proper management should be reserved for that system of attentions, medical or non-medical, which has the best chance of making him happy for the present; and especially because his present happiness must always be one of the directest avenues to his restoration. In the present case, could it be imagined that the shame, agitation, and fury, which convulsed poor Lloyd, as he went over the circumstances of his degradation, were calculated for any other than the worst effects upon the state and prospects of his malady? By sustaining the tumult of his brain, they must, almost of themselves, have precluded his restoration. At the side of that quiet lake he stood for nearly an hour repeating his wrongs, his eyes glaring continually, as the light thrown off from those parts of the lake which reflected bright tracts of sky amongst the clouds fitfully illuminated them, and again and again threatening, with gestures the wildest, vengeance the most savage upon those vile keepers who had so abused any just purposes of authority. He would talk of little else; apparently he could not. A hollow effort he would make now and then, when his story had apparently reached its close, to sustain the topics of ordinary conversation; but in a minute he had relapsed into the one subject which possessed him. In vain I pressed him to return with me to Grasmere. He was now, for a few hours to come, to be befriended by the darkness; and he resolved to improve the opportunity for some purpose of his own, which, as he showed no disposition to communicate any part of his future plans, I did not directly inquire into. In fact, part of his purpose in stopping where he did had been to let me know that he did not wish for company any further. We parted; and I saw him no more. He was soon recaptured; then transferred to some more eligible asylum; then liberated from all restraint; after which, with his family, he went to France; where again it became necessary to deprive him of liberty. And, finally, in France it was that his feverish existence found at length a natural rest and an everlasting liberty; for there it was, in a maison de santé, at or near Versailles, that he died (and I believe tranquilly), a few years after he had left England. Death was indeed to him, in the words of that fine mystic, Blake the artist, a "golden gate"—the gate of liberation from the captivity of half a life; or, as I once found the case beautifully expressed in a volume of poems a century old, and otherwise poor enough, for they offered nothing worth recollecting beyond this single line, in speaking of the particular morning in which some young man had died—
Charles Lloyd never returned to Brathay after he had once been removed from it; and the removal of his family soon followed. Mrs. Lloyd, indeed, returned at intervals from France to England, upon business connected with the interests of her family; and, during one of those fugitive visits, she came to the Lakes, where she selected Grasmere for her residence, so that I had opportunities of seeing her every day, for a space of several weeks. Otherwise, I never again saw any of the family, except one son, an interesting young man, who sought most meritoriously, by bursting asunder the heavy yoke of constitutional inactivity, to extract a balm for his own besetting melancholy from a constant series of exertions in which he had forced himself to engage for promoting education or religious knowledge amongst his poorer neighbours. But often and often, in years after all was gone, I have passed old Brathay, or have gone over purposely after dark, about the time when, for many a year, I used to go over to spend the evening; and, seating myself on a stone, by the side of the mountain river Brathay, have staid for hours listening to the same sound to which so often Charles Lloyd and I used to hearken together with profound emotion and awe—the sound of pealing anthems, as if streaming from the open portals of some illimitable cathedral; for such a sound does actually arise, in many states of the weather, from the peculiar action of the river Brathay upon its rocky bed; and many times I have heard it, of a quiet night, when no stranger could have been persuaded to believe it other than the sound of choral chanting—distant, solemn, saintly. Its meaning and expression were, in those earlier years, uncertain and general; not more pointed or determined in the direction which it impressed upon one's feelings than the light of setting suns: and sweeping, in fact, the whole harp of pensive sensibilities, rather than striking the chord of any one specific sentiment. But since the ruin or dispersion of that household, after the smoke had ceased to ascend from their hearth, or the garden walks to re-echo their voices, oftentimes, when lying by the river side, I have listened to the same aerial saintly sound, whilst looking back to that night, long hidden in the frost of receding years, when Charles and Sophia Lloyd, now lying in foreign graves, first dawned upon me, coming suddenly out of rain and darkness; then—young, rich, happy, full of hope, belted with young children (of whom also most are long dead), and standing apparently on the verge of a labyrinth of golden hours. Musing on that night in November, 1807, and then upon the wreck that had been wrought by a space of fifteen years, I would say to myself sometimes, and seem to hear it in the songs of this watery cathedral—Put not your trust in any fabric of happiness that has its root in man or the children of men. Sometimes even I was tempted to discover in the same music a sound such as this—Love nothing, love nobody, for thereby comes a killing curse in the rear. But sometimes also, very early on a summer morning, when the dawn was barely beginning to break, all things locked in sleep, and only some uneasy murmur or cock-crow, at a faint distance, giving a hint of resurrection for earth and her generations, I have heard in that same chanting of the little mountain river a more solemn if a less agitated admonition—a requiem over departed happiness, and a protestation against the thought that so many excellent creatures, but a little lower than the angels, whom I have seen only to love in this life—so many of the good, the brave, the beautiful, the wise—can have appeared for no higher purpose or prospect than simply to point a moral, to cause a little joy and many tears, a few perishing moons of happiness and years of vain regret! No! that the destiny of man is more in correspondence with the grandeur of his endowments, and that our own mysterious tendencies are written hieroglyphically in the vicissitudes of day and night, of winter and summer, and throughout the great alphabet of Nature! But on that theme—beware, reader! Listen to no intellectual argument. One argument there is, one only there is, of philosophic value: an argument drawn from the moral nature of man: an argument of Immanuel Kant's. The rest are dust and ashes.
Passing onwards from Brathay, a ride of about forty minutes carries you to the summit of a wild heathy tract, along which, even at noonday, few sounds are heard that indicate the presence of man, except now and then a woodman's axe in some of the many coppice-woods scattered about that neighbourhood. In Northern England there are no sheep-bells; which is an unfortunate defect, as regards the full impression of wild solitudes, whether amongst undulating heaths or towering rocks: at any rate, it is so felt by those who, like myself, have been trained to its soothing effects upon the hills of Somersetshire—the Cheddar, the Mendip, or the Quantock—or any other of those breezy downs which once constituted such delightful local distinctions for four or five counties in that south-west angle of England. At all hours of day or night, this silvery tinkle was delightful; but, after sunset, in the solemn hour of gathering twilight, heard (as it always was) intermittingly, and at great varieties of distance, it formed the most impressive incident for the ear, and the most in harmony with the other circumstances of the scenery, that, perhaps, anywhere exists—not excepting even the natural sounds, the swelling and dying intonations of insects wheeling in their vesper flights. Silence and desolation are never felt so profoundly as when they are interrupted by solemn sounds, recurring by uncertain intervals, and from distant places. But in these Westmoreland heaths, and uninhabited ranges of hilly ground, too often nothing is heard except occasionally the wild cry of a bird—the plover, the snipe, or perhaps the raven's croak. The general impression is, therefore, cheerless; and the more are you rejoiced when, looking down from some one of the eminences which you have been gradually ascending, you descry, at a great depth below,[166] the lovely lake of Coniston. The head of this lake is the part chiefly interesting, both from the sublime character of the mountain barriers, and from the intricacy of the little valleys at their base.
On a little verdant knoll, near the north-eastern margin of the lake, stands a small villa, called Tent Lodge, built by Colonel Smith, and for many years occupied by his family. That daughter of Colonel Smith who drew the public attention so powerfully upon herself by the splendour of her attainments had died some months before I came into the country.[167] But yet, as I was subsequently acquainted with her family through the Lloyds (who were within an easy drive of Tent Lodge), and as, moreover, with regard to Miss Elizabeth Smith herself, I came to know more than the world knew—drawing my knowledge from many of her friends, but especially from Mrs. Hannah More, who had been intimately connected with her: for these reasons, I shall rehearse the leading points of her story; and the rather because her family, who were equally interested in that story, long continued to form part of the Lake society.
On my first becoming acquainted with Miss Smith's pretensions, it is very true that I regarded them with but little concern; for nothing ever interests me less than great philological attainments, or at least that mode of philological learning which consists in mastery over languages. But one reason for this indifference is, that the apparent splendour is too often a false one. They who know a vast number of languages rarely know any one with accuracy; and, the more they gain in one way, the more they lose in another. With Miss Smith, however, I gradually came to know that this was not the case; or, at any rate, but partially the case; for, of some languages which she possessed, and those the least accessible, it appeared, finally, that she had even a critical knowledge. It created also a secondary interest in these difficult accomplishments of hers, to find that they were so very extensive. Secondly, That they were pretty nearly all of self-acquisition. Thirdly, That they were borne so meekly, and with unaffected absence of all ostentation. As to the first point, it appears (from Mrs. H. Bowdler's Letter to Dr. Mummsen, the friend of Klopstock)[168] that she made herself mistress of the French, the Italian, the Spanish, the Latin, the German, the Greek, and the Hebrew languages. She had no inconsiderable knowledge of the Syriac, the Arabic, and the Persic. She was a good geometrician and algebraist. She was a very expert musician. She drew from nature, and had an accurate knowledge of perspective. Finally, she manifested an early talent for poetry; but, from pure modesty, destroyed most of what she had written, as soon as her acquaintance with the Hebrew models had elevated the standard of true poetry in her mind, so as to disgust her with what she now viewed as the tameness and inefficiency of her own performances. As to the second point—that for these attainments she was indebted, almost exclusively, to her own energy,—this is placed beyond all doubt by the fact that the only governess she ever had (a young lady not much beyond her own age) did not herself possess, and therefore could not have communicated, any knowledge of languages, beyond a little French and Italian. Finally, as to the modesty with which she wore her distinctions, that is sufficiently established by every page of her printed works, and her letters. Greater diffidence, as respected herself, or less willingness to obtrude her knowledge upon strangers, or even upon those correspondents who would have wished her to make a little more display, cannot be imagined. And yet I repeat that her knowledge was as sound and as profound as it was extensive. For, taking only one instance of this, her Translation of Job has been pronounced, by Biblical critics of the first rank, a work of real and intrinsic value, without any reference to the disadvantages of the translator, or without needing any allowances whatever. In particular, Dr. Magee, the celebrated writer on the Atonement, and subsequently a dignitary of the Irish Church—certainly one of the best qualified judges at that time—describes it as "conveying more of the character and meaning of the Hebrew, with fewer departures from the idiom of the English, than any other translation whatever that we possess." So much for the scholarship; whilst he rightly notices, in proof of the translator's taste and discretion, that "from the received version she very seldom unnecessarily deviates": thus refusing to disturb what was, generally speaking, so excellent and time-hallowed for any dazzling effects of novelty; and practising this forbearance as much as possible, notwithstanding novelty was, after all, the main attraction upon which the new translation must rest.
The example of her modesty, however, is not more instructive than that of her continued struggle with difficulties in pursuing knowledge, and with misfortunes in supporting a Christian fortitude. I shall briefly sketch her story:—She was born at Burnhall, in the county of Durham, at the latter end of the year 1776. Early in 1782, when she had just entered her sixth year, her parents removed into Suffolk, in order to be near a blind relation, who looked with anxiety to the conscientious attentions of Mrs. Smith in superintending his comforts and interests. This occupation absorbed so much of her time that she found it necessary to obtain the aid of a stranger in directing the studies of her daughter. An opportunity just then offered of attaining this object, concurrently with another not less interesting to herself, viz. that of offering an asylum to a young lady who had recently been thrown adrift upon the world by the misfortunes of her parents. They had very suddenly fallen from a station of distinguished prosperity; and the young lady herself, then barely sixteen, was treading that path of severe adversity upon which, by a most singular parallelism of ill fortune, her young pupil was destined to follow her steps at exactly the same age. Being so prematurely called to the office of governess, this young lady was expected rather to act as an elder companion, and as a lightener of the fatigues attached to their common studies, than exactly as their directress. And, at all events, from her, who was the only even nominal governess that Miss Smith ever had, it is certain that she could have learned little or nothing. This arrangement subsisted between two and three years, when the death of their blind kinsman allowed Mr. Smith's family to leave Suffolk, and resume their old domicile of Burnhall. But from this, by a sudden gleam of treacherous prosperity, they were summoned, in the following year (June, 1785) to the splendid inheritance of Piercefield—a show-place upon the river Wye, and, next after Tintern Abbey and the river itself, an object of attraction to all who then visited the Wye.
A residence on the Wye, besides its own natural attraction, has this collateral advantage, that it brings Bath (not to mention Clifton and the Hot Wells) within a visiting distance for people who happen to have carriages; and Bath, it is hardly necessary to say, besides its stationary body of polished and intellectual residents, has also a floating casual population of eminent or interesting persons, gathered into this focus from every quarter of the empire. Amongst the literary connexions which the Piercefield family had formed in Bath was one with Mrs. Bowdler and her daughter—two ladies not distinguished by any very powerful talents, but sufficiently tinctured with literature and the love of literature to be liberal in their opinions. And, fortunately (as it turned out for Miss Smith), they were eminently religious: but not in a bigoted way; for they were conciliating and winning in the outward expression of their religious character; capable of explaining their own creed with intelligent consistency; and, finally, were the women to recommend any creed by the sanctity and the benignity of their own lives. This strong religious bias of the two Bath ladies operated in Miss Smith's favour by a triple service. First of all, it was this depth of religious feeling, and, consequently, of interest in the Scriptures, which had originally moved the elder Mrs. Bowdler to study the Hebrew and the Greek, as the two languages in which they had been originally delivered. And this example it was of female triumph over their difficulties, together with the proof thus given that such attainments were entirely reconcilable with feminine gentleness, which first suggested to Miss Smith the project of her philological studies; and, doubtless, these studies, by the constant and agreeable occupation which they afforded, overspread the whole field of her life with pleasurable activity. "From the above-mentioned visit," says her mother, writing to Dr. Randolph,[169] and referring to the visit which these Bath ladies had made to Piercefield—"from the above-mentioned visit I date the turn of study which Elizabeth ever after pursued, and which I firmly believe the amiable conduct of our guests first led her to delight in." Secondly, to the religious sympathies which connected these two ladies with Miss Smith was owing the fervour of that friendship which afterwards, in their adversity, the Piercefield family found more strenuously exerted in their behalf by the Bowdlers than by all the rest of their connexions. And, finally, it was this piety and religious resignation, with which she had been herself inoculated by her Bath friends, that, throughout the calamitous era of her life, enabled Miss Elizabeth Smith to maintain her own cheerfulness unbroken, and greatly to support the failing fortitude of her mother.
This visit of her Bath friends to Piercefield—so memorable an event for the whole subsequent life of Miss Smith—occurred in the summer of 1789; consequently, when she was just twelve and a half years old. And the impressions then made upon her childish, but unusually thoughtful, mind, were kept up by continual communications, personal or written, through the years immediately succeeding. Just two and a half years after, in the very month when Miss Smith accomplished her fifteenth year, upon occasion of going through the rite of Confirmation, according to the discipline of the English Church, she received a letter of religious counsel—grave, affectionate, but yet humble—from the elder Mrs. Bowdler, which might almost have been thought to have proceeded from a writer who had looked behind the curtain of fate, and had seen the forge at whose fires the shafts of Heaven were even now being forged.
Just twelve months from the date of this letter, in the very month when Miss Elizabeth Smith completed her sixteenth year, the storm descended upon the house of Piercefield. The whole estate, a splendid one, was swept away by the failure (as I have heard) of one banking-house; nor were there recovered, until some years after, any slender fragments of that estate. Piercefield was, of course, sold; but that was not the heaviest of her grievances to Miss Smith. She was now far advanced upon her studious career; for it should be mentioned, as a lesson to other young ladies of what may be accomplished by unassisted labour, that, between the ages of thirteen and twenty-one, all her principal acquisitions were made. No treasure, therefore, could, in her eyes, be of such priceless value as the Piercefield library; but this also followed the general wreck: not a volume, not a pamphlet, was reserved; for the family were proud in their integrity, and would receive no favours from the creditors. Under this scorching test, applied to the fidelity of friends, many, whom Mrs. Smith mentions in one of her letters under the name of "summer friends," fled from them by crowds: dinners, balls, soirées—credit, influence, support—these things were no longer to be had from Piercefield. But more annoying even than the fickle levity of such open deserters, was the timid and doubtful countenance, as I have heard Mrs. Smith say, which was still offered to them by some who did not relish, for their own sakes, being classed with those who had paid their homage only to the fine house and fine equipages of Piercefield. These persons continued, therefore, to send invitations to the family; but so frigidly that every expression manifested but too forcibly how disagreeable was the duty with which they were complying, and how much more they submitted to it for their own reputation's sake than for any kindness they felt to their old friends. Mrs. Smith was herself a very haughty woman, and it maddened her to be the object of condescensions so insolent and so reluctant.
Meantime, her daughter, young as she was, became the moral support of her whole family, and the fountain from which they all drew consolation and fortitude. She was confirmed in her religious tendencies by two circumstances of her recent experience: one was that she, the sole person of her family who courted religious consolations, was also the sole person who had been able to maintain cheerfulness and uniform spirits: the other was that, although it could not be truly said of all their worldly friends that they had forsaken them, yet of their religious friends it could be said that not one had done so; and at last, when for some time they had been so far reduced as not to have a roof over their heads, by one of these religious friends it was that they were furnished with every luxury as well as comfort of life, and in a spirit of such sisterly kindness as made the obligation not painful to the proudest amongst them.
It was in 1792 that the Piercefield family had been ruined; and in 1794, out of the wrecks which had been gathered together, Mr. Smith (the father of the family) bought a commission in the army. For some time the family continued to live in London, Bath, and other parts of England; but, at length, Mr. Smith's regiment was ordered to the west of Ireland; and the ladies of his family resolved to accompany him to head-quarters. In passing through Wales (May, 1796) they paid a visit to those sentimental anchorites of the last generation whom so many of us must still remember—Miss Ponsonby and Lady Eleanor Butler (a sister of Lord Ormond), whose hermitage stood near to Llangollen, and, therefore, close to the usual Irish route, by way of Holyhead. On landing in Ireland, they proceeded to a seat of Lord Kingston—a kind-hearted, hospitable Irishman, who was on the old Piercefield list of friends, and had never wavered in his attachment. Here they stayed three weeks. Miss Smith renewed, on this occasion, her friendship with Lady Isabella King, the daughter of Lord Kingston; and a little incident connected with this visit gave her an opportunity afterwards of showing her delicate sense of the sacred character which attaches to gifts of friendship, and showing it by an ingenious device that may be worth the notice of other young ladies in the same case. Lady Isabella had given to Miss Smith a beautiful horse, called Brunette. In process of time, when they had ceased to be in the neighbourhood of any regimental stables, it became matter of necessity that Brunette should be parted with. To have given the animal away, had that been otherwise possible, might only have been delaying the sale for a short time. After some demur, therefore, Miss Smith adopted this plan: she sold Brunette, but applied the whole of the price, 120 guineas, to the purchase of a splendid harp. The harp was christened Brunette, and was religiously preserved to the end of her life. Now, Brunette, after all, must have died in a few years; but, by translating her friend's gift into another form, she not only connected the image of her distant friend, and her sense of that friend's kindness, with a pleasure and a useful purpose of her own, but she conferred on that gift a perpetuity of existence.
At length came the day when the Smiths were to quit Kingston Lodge for the quarters of the regiment. And now came the first rude trial of Mrs. Smith's fortitude, as connected with points of mere decent comfort. Hitherto, floating amongst the luxurious habitations of opulent friends, she might have felt many privations as regarded splendour and direct personal power, but never as regarded the primary elements of comfort, warmth, cleanliness, convenient arrangements. But on this journey, which was performed by all the party on horseback, it rained incessantly. They reached their quarters drenched with wet, weary, hungry, forlorn. The quartermaster had neglected to give any directions for their suitable accommodation—no preparations whatever had been made for receiving them; and, from the luxuries of Lord Kingston's mansion, which habit had made so familiar to them all, the ladies found themselves suddenly transferred to a miserable Irish cabin—dirty, narrow, nearly quite unfurnished, and thoroughly disconsolate. Mrs. Smith's proud spirit fairly gave way, and she burst out into a fit of weeping. Upon this, her daughter Elizabeth (and Mrs. Smith herself it was that told the anecdote, and often she told it, or told others of the same character, at Lloyd's), in a gentle, soothing tone, began to suggest the many blessings which lay before them in life, and some even for this evening.
"Blessings, child!"—her mother impatiently interrupted her. "What sort of blessings? Irish blessings!—county of Sligo blessings, I fancy. Or, perhaps, you call this a blessing?" holding up a miserable fragment of an iron rod, which had been left by way of poker, or rather as a substitute for the whole assortment of fire-irons. The daughter laughed; but she changed her wet dress expeditiously, assumed an apron; and so various were her accomplishments that, in no long time, she had gathered together a very comfortable dinner for her parents, and, amongst other things, a currant tart, which she had herself made, in a tenement absolutely unfurnished of every kitchen utensil.
In the autumn of this year (1796), they returned to England; and, after various migrations through the next four years, amongst which was another and longer visit to Ireland in 1800, they took up their abode in the sequestered vale of Patterdale. Here they had a cottage upon the banks of Ulleswater; the most gorgeous of the English lakes, from the rich and ancient woods which possess a great part of its western side; the sublimest, as respects its mountain accompaniments, except only, perhaps, Wastdale; and, I believe, the largest; for, though only nine miles in length, and, therefore, shorter by about two miles than Windermere, it averages a greater breadth. Here, at this time, was living Mr. Clarkson—that son of thunder, that Titan, who was in fact the one great Atlas that bore up the Slave-Trade Abolition cause—now resting from his mighty labours and nerve-shattering perils. So much had his nerves been shattered by all that he had gone through in toil, in suffering, and in anxiety, that, for many years, I have heard it said, he found himself unable to walk up stairs without tremulous motions of his limbs. He was, perhaps, too iron a man, too much like the Talus of Spenser's "Faerie Queene,"[170] to appreciate so gentle a creature as Miss Elizabeth Smith. A more suitable friend, and one who thoroughly comprehended her, and expressed his admiration for her in verse, was Thomas Wilkinson of Yanwath, a Quaker, a man of taste, and of delicate sensibility. He wrote verses occasionally; and, though feebly enough as respected poetic power, there were often such delicate touches of feeling, such gleams of real tenderness, in some redeeming part of each poem, that even Wordsworth admired and read them aloud with pleasure. Indeed Wordsworth has addressed to him one copy of verses, or rather to his spade, which was printed in the collection of 1807, and which Lord Jeffrey, after quoting one line, dismissed as too dull for repetition.[171]
During this residence upon Ulleswater (winter of 1800) it was that a very remarkable incident befell Miss Smith. I have heard it often mentioned, and sometimes with a slight variety of circumstances; but I here repeat it from an account drawn up by Miss Smith herself, who was most literally exact and faithful to the truth in all reports of her own personal experience. There is, on the western side of Ulleswater, a fine cataract (or, in the language of the country, a force), known by the name of Airey Force; and it is of importance enough, especially in rainy seasons, to attract numerous visitors from among "the Lakers." Thither, with some purpose of sketching, not the whole scene, but some picturesque features of it, Miss Smith had gone, quite unaccompanied. The road to it lies through Gobarrow Park; and it was usual, at that time, to take a guide from the family of the Duke of Norfolk's keeper, who lived in Lyulph's Tower—a solitary hunting lodge, built by his Grace for the purposes of an annual visit which he used to pay to his estates in that part of England. She, however, thinking herself sufficiently familiar with the localities, had declined to encumber her motions with such an attendant; consequently she was alone. For half an hour or more, she continued to ascend: and, being a good "cragswoman," from the experience she had won in Wales as well as in northern England, she had reached an altitude much beyond what would generally be thought corresponding to the time. The path had vanished altogether; but she continued to pick out one for herself amongst the stones, sometimes receding from the force, sometimes approaching it, according to the openings allowed by the scattered masses of rock. Pressing forward in this hurried way, and never looking back, all at once she found herself in a little stony chamber, from which there was no egress possible in advance. She stopped and looked up. There was a frightful silence in the air. She felt a sudden palpitation at her heart, and a panic from she knew not what. Turning, however, hastily, she soon wound herself out of this aerial dungeon; but by steps so rapid and agitated, that, at length, on looking round, she found herself standing at the brink of a chasm, frightful to look down. That way, it was clear enough, all retreat was impossible; but, on turning round, retreat seemed in every direction alike even more impossible. Down the chasm, at least, she might have leaped, though with little or no chance of escaping with life; but on all other quarters it seemed to her eye that at no price could she effect an exit, since the rocks stood round her in a semi-circus, all lofty, all perpendicular, all glazed with trickling water, or smooth as polished porphyry. Yet how, then, had she reached the point? The same track, if she could hit that track, would surely secure her escape. Round and round she walked; gazed with almost despairing eyes; her breath became thicker and thicker; for path she could not trace by which it was possible for her to have entered. Finding herself grow more and more confused, and every instant nearer to sinking into some fainting fit or convulsion, she resolved to sit down and turn her thoughts quietly into some less exciting channel. This she did; gradually recovered some self-possession; and then suddenly a thought rose up to her, that she was in the hands of God, and that He would not forsake her. But immediately came a second and reproving thought—that this confidence in God's protection might have been justified had she been ascending the rocks upon any mission of duty; but what right could she have to any providential deliverance, who had been led thither in a spirit of levity and carelessness? I am here giving her view of the case; for, as to myself, I fear greatly that, if her steps were erring ones, it is but seldom indeed that nous autres can pretend to be treading upon right paths. Once again she rose; and, supporting herself upon a little sketching-stool that folded up into a stick, she looked upwards, in the hope that some shepherd might, by chance, be wandering in those aerial regions; but nothing could she see except the tall birches growing at the brink of the highest summits, and the clouds slowly sailing overhead. Suddenly, however, as she swept the whole circuit of her station with her alarmed eye, she saw clearly, about two hundred yards beyond her own position, a lady, in a white muslin morning robe, such as were then universally worn by young ladies until dinner-time. The lady beckoned with a gesture and in a manner that, in a moment, gave her confidence to advance—how she could not guess; but, in some way that baffled all power to retrace it, she found instantaneously the outlet which previously had escaped her. She continued to advance towards the lady, whom now, in the same moment, she found to be standing upon the other side of the force, and also to be her own sister. How or why that young lady, whom she had left at home earnestly occupied with her own studies, should have followed and overtaken her filled her with perplexity. But this was no situation for putting questions; for the guiding sister began to descend, and, by a few simple gestures, just serving to indicate when Miss Elizabeth was to approach and when to leave the brink of the torrent, she gradually led her down to a platform of rock, from which the further descent was safe and conspicuous. There Miss Smith paused, in order to take breath from her panic, as well as to exchange greetings and questions with her sister. But sister there was none. All trace of her had vanished; and, when, in two hours after, she reached her home, Miss Smith found her sister in the same situation and employment in which she had left her; and the whole family assured her that she had never stirred from the house.
In 1801, I believe it was that the family removed from Patterdale to Coniston. Certainly they were settled there in the spring of 1802; for, in the May of that spring, Miss Elizabeth Hamilton—a writer now very much forgotten, or remembered only by her "Cottagers of Glenburnie," but then a person of mark and authority in the literary circles of Edinburgh[172]—paid a visit to the Lakes, and stayed there for many months, together with her married sister, Mrs. Blake; and both ladies cultivated the friendship of the Smiths. Miss Hamilton was captivated with the family; and, of the sisters in particular, she speaks as of persons that, "in the days of paganism would have been worshipped as beings of a superior order, so elegantly graceful do they appear, when, with easy motion, they guide their light boat over the waves." And of Miss Elizabeth, separately, she says, on another occasion,—"I never before saw so much of Miss Smith; and, in the three days she spent with us, the admiration which I had always felt for her extraordinary talents, and as extraordinary virtues, was hourly augmented. She is, indeed, a most charming creature; and, if one could inoculate her with a little of the Scotch frankness, I think she would be one of the most perfect of human beings."
About four years had been delightfully passed in Coniston. In the summer of 1805 Miss Smith laid the foundation of her fatal illness in the following way, according to her own account of the case to an old servant, a very short time before she died:—"One very hot evening, in July, I took a book, and walked about two miles from home, when I seated myself on a stone beside the lake. Being much engaged by a poem I was reading, I did not perceive that the sun was gone down, and was succeeded by a very heavy dew, till, in a moment, I felt struck on the chest as if with a sharp knife. I returned home, but said nothing of the pain. The next day being also very hot, and every one busy in the hay-field, I thought I would take a rake, and work very hard to produce perspiration, in the hope that it might remove the pain; but it did not." From that time, a bad cough, with occasional loss of voice, gave reason to suspect some organic injury of the lungs. Late in the autumn of this year (1805) Miss Smith accompanied her mother and her two younger sisters to Bristol, Bath, and other places in the south, on visits to various friends. Her health went through various fluctuations until May of the following year, when she was advised to try Matlock. Here, after spending three weeks, she grew worse; and, as there was no place which she liked so well as the Lakes, it was resolved to turn homewards. About the beginning of June, she and her mother returned alone to Coniston: one of her sisters was now married; her three brothers were in the army or navy; and her father almost constantly with his regiment. Through the next two months she faded quietly away, sitting always in a tent,[173] that had been pitched upon the lawn, and which remained open continually to receive the fanning of the intermitting airs upon the lake, as well as to admit the bold mountain scenery to the north. She lived nearly through the first week of August, dying on the morning of August 7; and the circumstances of her last night are thus recorded by her mother:—"At nine she went to bed. I resolved to quit her no more, and went to prepare for the night. Turpin [Miss Smith's maid] came to say that Elizabeth entreated I would not stay in her room. I replied—'On that one subject I am resolved; no power on earth shall keep me from her; so, go to bed yourself.' Accordingly, I returned to her room; and, at ten, gave her the usual dose of laudanum. After a little time, she fell into a doze, and, I thought, slept till one. She was uneasy and restless, but never complained; and, on my wiping the cold sweat off her face, and bathing it with camphorated vinegar, which I did very often in the course of the night, she thanked me, smiled, and said—'That is the greatest comfort I have.' She slept again for a short time; and, at half past four, asked for some chicken broth, which she took perfectly well. On being told the hour, she said, 'How long this night is!' She continued very uneasy; and, in half an hour after, on my inquiring if I could move the pillow, or do anything to relieve her, she replied, 'There is nothing for it but quiet.' At six, she said, 'I must get up and have some mint tea.' I then called for Turpin, and felt my angel's pulse: it was fluttering; and by that I knew I should soon lose her. She took the tea well. Turpin began to put on her clothes, and was proceeding to dress her, when she laid her head upon the faithful creature's shoulder, became convulsed in the face, spoke not, looked not, and in ten minutes expired."
She was buried in Hawkshead churchyard, where a small tablet of white marble is raised to her memory, on which there is the scantiest record that, for a person so eminently accomplished, I have ever met with. After mentioning her birth and age (twenty-nine), it closes thus:—"She possessed great talents, exalted virtues, and humble piety." Anything so unsatisfactory or so commonplace I have rarely known. As much, or more, is often said of the most insipid people; whereas Miss Smith was really a most extraordinary person. I have conversed with Mrs. Hannah More often about her; and I never failed to draw forth some fresh anecdote illustrating the vast extent of her knowledge, the simplicity of her character, the gentleness of her manners, and her unaffected humility. She passed, it is true, almost inaudibly through life; and the stir which was made after her death soon subsided. But the reason was that she wrote but little! Had it been possible for the world to measure her by her powers, rather than her performances, she would have been placed, perhaps, in the estimate of posterity, at the head of learned women; whilst her sweet and feminine character would have rescued her from all shadow and suspicion of that reproach which too often settles upon the learned character when supported by female aspirants.
The family of Tent Lodge continued to reside at Coniston for many years; and they were connected with the Lake literary clan chiefly through the Lloyds and those who visited the Lloyds; for it is another and striking proof of the slight hold which Wordsworth, &c., had upon the public esteem in those days, that even Miss Smith, with all her excessive diffidence in judging of books and authors, never seems, by any one of her letters, to have felt the least interest about Wordsworth or Coleridge; nor did Miss Hamilton, with all her esprit de corps and acquired interest in everything at all bearing upon literature, ever mention them in those of her letters which belong to the period of her Lake visit in 1802; nor, for the six or seven months which she passed in that country, and within a short morning ride of Grasmere, did she ever think it worth her while to seek an introduction to any one of the resident authors.
Yet this could not be altogether from ignorance that such people existed; for Thomas Wilkinson, the intimate and admiring friend of Miss Smith, was also the friend of Wordsworth; and, for some reason that I never could fathom, he was a sort of pet with Wordsworth. Professor Wilson and myself were never honoured with one line, one allusion from his pen; but many a person of particular feebleness has received that honour. Amongst these I may rank Thomas Wilkinson. Not that I wish to speak contemptuously of him; he was a Quaker, of elegant habits, rustic simplicity, and with tastes, as Wordsworth affirms, "too pure to be refined."[174] His cottage was seated not far from the great castle of the Lowthers; and, either from mere whim—as sometimes such whims do possess great ladies—whims, I mean, for drawing about them odd-looking, old-world people, as piquant contrasts to the fine gentlemen of their own society—or because they did really feel a homely dignity in the plain-speaking "Friend," and liked, for a frolic, to be thou'd and thee'd—on some motive or other, at any rate, they introduced themselves to Mr. Wilkinson's cottage; and I believe that the connexion was afterwards improved by the use they found for his services in forming walks through the woods of Lowther, and leading them in such a circuit as to take advantage of all the most picturesque stations. As a poet, I presume that Mr. Wilkinson could hardly have recommended himself to the notice of ladies who would naturally have modelled their tastes upon the favourites of the age. A poet, however, in a gentle, unassuming way, he was; and he, therefore, is to be added to the corps litteraire of the Lakes, and Yanwath to be put down as the advanced post of that corps to the north.
Two families there still remain which I am tempted to gather into my group of Lake society—notwithstanding it is true that the two most interesting members of the first had died a little before the period at which my sketch commences; and the second, though highly intellectual in the person of that particular member whom I have chiefly to commemorate, was not, properly speaking, literary, and, moreover, belongs to a later period of my own Westmoreland experience—being, at the time of my settlement in Grasmere, a girl at a boarding-school. The first was the family of the Sympsons, whom Mr. Wordsworth has spoken of, with deep interest, more than once. The eldest son, a clergyman, and, like Wordsworth, an alumnus of Hawkshead school, wrote, amongst other poems, "The Vision of Alfred." Of these poems Wordsworth says that they "are little known; but they contain passages of splendid description; and the versification of his 'Vision' is harmonious and animated." This is much for Wordsworth to say; and he does him even the honour of quoting the following illustrative simile from his description of the sylphs in motion (which sylphs constitute the machinery of his poem); and, probably, the reader will be of opinion that this passage justifies the praise of Wordsworth. It is founded, as he will see, on the splendid scenery of the heavens in Polar latitudes, as seen by reflection in polished ice at midnight.