This, though placed in Devon instead of Somerset, accurately describes Wordsworth's pleasant nook there; but the Quantock walks are more strikingly like.

In Coleridge's poem of Fears in Solitude, a noble-hearted poem, these hills, and one of these very dells, are described with equal graphic truth and affection.

Here, buried in summer beauty from the world, in this green and delicious oratory, he lay and poured out those finely human thoughts on war and patriotism, which enrich this poem; which closes with a descriptive view of these hills, the wide prospects from them, and of little quiet Stowey lying at their feet.

Stowey, like all other places where remarkable men have lived, even but a few years ago, impresses us with a melancholy sense of rapid change, of the swift flight of human life. There is the little town, there ascend beyond it the green slopes and airy range of the Quantock hills, scattered with masses of woodland, which give a feeling of deep solitude. But where is the poet, who used here to live, and there to wander and think? Where is his friend Poole? All are gone, and village and country are again resigned to the use of simple and little-informed people, who take poets for spies and dark traitors. The little town is vastly like a continental one. It consists of one street, which at an old market-cross diverges into two others, exactly forming an old-fashioned letter Y. The houses are, like continental ones, white, and down the street rolls a little full stream, quite in the fashion of a foreign village, with broad flags laid across to get at the houses. It stands in a particularly agreeable, rich, and well wooded country, with the range of the Quantock hills, at some half-mile distance, and from them a fine view of the sea and the Welsh coast, on the other side of the Bristol Channel.

The house in which Thomas Poole used to live, and where Coleridge and his friend had a second home, is about the center of the village. It is a large, old-fashioned house, with pleasant garden, and ample farmyard, with paddocks behind. It is now inhabited by a medical man and his sister, who do all honor to the memory of Coleridge, and very courteously allow you to see the house. The lady obligingly took me round the garden, and pointed out to me the windows of the room overlooking it, where so many remarkable men used to assemble.

Mr. Poole, who was a bachelor and a magistrate, died a few years ago, leaving behind him the character of an upright man, and a genuine friend to the poor. On his monument in the church is inscribed, that he was the friend of Coleridge and Southey.

The cottage inhabited by Coleridge is the last on the left hand going out toward Allfoxden. It is now, according to the very common and odd fate of poets' cottages, a Tom and Jerry shop. Moore's native abode is a whisky-shop; Burns's native cottage is a little public-house; Shelley's house at Great Marlowe is a beer-shop; it is said that a public-house has been built on the spot where Scott was born, since I was in that city; Coleridge's house here is a beer-shop. Its rent was but seven pounds a-year, and it could not be expected to be very superb. It stands close to the road, and has nothing now to distinguish it from any other ordinary pot-house. Where Coleridge sat penning the Ode to the Nightingale, with its

which the printer, by a very natural association, but to his infinite consternation, converted into

sat, when I entered, a number of country fellows, and thought their ale more sweet than any poet's or nightingale's low notes. Behind the house, however, there were traces of the past pleasantness, two good, large gardens, and the old orchard where Coleridge sat on the apple-tree, "crooked earthward;" and while Charles Lamb and his sister went to ascend the hills and gaze on the sea, himself detained by an accident, wrote his beautiful lines, "This Lime-tree Bower, my prison," including this magnificent picture:—

The woman in the house,—her husband was out in the fields,—and her sister, had neither of them heard of such a thing as a poet. When I asked leave to see the house and garden, on account of a gentleman who had once lived there, "Yes," said the landlady, quite a young woman, "a gentleman called one day, some time ago, and said he wished to drink a glass of ale in this house, because a great man had lived in it."

"A great man, did he say? Why, he was a poet."

"A poet, sir! what is that?"

"Don't you know what a poet is?"

"No, sir."

"But you know what a ballad singer is?"

"Oh, yes; to be sure."

"Well, a poet makes ballads and songs, and things of that kind."

"Oh, lauks-o'me! why the gentleman said it was a great man."

"Well, he was just what I tell you—a poet—a ballad maker, and all that. Nothing more, I assure you."

"Good lauk-a-me! how could the gentleman say it was a great man! Is it the same man you mean, think you?"

"Oh! no doubt of it. But let me see your garden."

The sister went to show it me. There were, as I have said, two gardens, lying high above the house, so that you could see over part of the town, and, in the other direction, the upland slopes and hills. Behind the garden was still the orchard, in which Coleridge had so often mused. Returning toward the house, the remains of a fine bay-tree caught my attention, amid the ruins of the garden near the house, now defaced with weeds, and scattered with old tubs and empty beer barrels.

"That," said I, "was once a fine bay-tree."

"Ay, that was here when we came."

"No doubt of it. That poet planted it, as sure as it is there. That is just one of those people's tricks. Where they go they are always planting that tree."

"Good Lord! do they? What odd men they must be!" said the young woman.

Such is the intelligence of the common people of the west, and in many other parts of England. Is it any wonder that the parents of these people took Coleridge for a spy, and Wordsworth for a dark traitor? But these young women were very civil, if not very enlightened. As I returned through the house, the young landlady, evidently desirous to enter into further discourse, came smiling up, and said, "It's very pleasant to see relations addicting to the old place." Not knowing exactly what she meant, but supposing that she imagined I had come to see the house because the poet was a relation of mine, I said, "Very; but I was no relation of the poet's."

"No! and yet you come to see the house; and perhaps you have come a good way?"

"Yes, from London."

"From London! what, on purpose?"

"Yes, entirely on purpose."

Here the amazement of herself, her sister, and the men drinking, grew astoundingly. "Ah!" I added, "he was a great man—a very great man—he was a particular friend of Mr. Poole's."

"Oh, indeed!" said they. "Ay, he must have been a gentleman, then, for Mr. Poole was a very great man, and a justice."

Having elevated the character of Coleridge from that of a poet into the friend of a justice of the peace, I considered that I had vindicated his memory, and took my leave.

In September, 1798, Coleridge quitted Stowey and England, in company with Wordsworth, for a tour in Germany. His two wealthy friends, Thomas and Josiah Wedgwood, the great Staffordshire potters, had settled on him £150 a-year, for life, which, with other slight means, enabled him to undertake this journey, with Wordsworth and his sister. The Wedgwoods were Unitarians, and now looked on Coleridge as the great champion of the cause, for he preached at Taunton and other places in the chapels of that denomination; and in his journey on account of the Watchman, had done so in most of the large manufacturing towns, entering the pulpit in a blue coat and white waistcoat, that not a rag of the woman of Babylon might be seen on him. These are his own words, in his Biographia Literaria. Thomas Wedgwood either died long before Coleridge, and so the annuity died with him, or he might have withdrawn his moiety when Coleridge ceased to fulfill his religious hopes: it did, however, cease; but the £75 from Josiah Wedgwood was paid punctually to the day of his death.

From this journey to Germany we may date a great change in the tone of Coleridge's mind. He became more metaphysical, and a thorough Kantist. From this period, there can be no doubt, on looking over his poems, that his poetry suffered from the effects of his philosophy. But to this journey we owe, also, the able translation of Wallenstein, which was then a new production—the original being published only on the eve of Coleridge's return to England, September, 1799, and the translation appearing in 1800. In Coleridge's own account of this tour, the description of the ascent of the Brocken is one of the most living and graphic possible. Having gone over the ground myself, the whole scene, and feeling of the scene, has never since been revived by any thing which I have read, in any degree, like the account of Coleridge. In that, too, is to be found the same story of their rude treatment at an inn in Hesse, which is given in the article on Wordsworth.

On Coleridge's return to England, he settled in London for a time, and brought out his translation of Wallenstein, which was purchased by the Messrs. Longman, on the condition that the English version, and Schiller's play in German, should be published simultaneously. Coleridge now engaged to execute the literary and political department of the Morning Post, to which Southey, Wordsworth, and Lamb were also contributors. In this situation he was accused by Mr. Fox, under the broad appellation of the Morning Post, but with allusion to his articles, of having broken up the peace of Amiens, and renewing the war. It was a war, said Fox, produced by the Morning Post. His strictures on Bonaparte occasioned that tyrant to select him for one of the objects of his vengeance, and to issue an order for his arrest when in Italy. Coleridge, on quitting the Morning Post, went to reside near his friends Southey and Wordsworth. He was much at the houses of each. In 1801, he regularly took a house at Keswick, thinking, like his two great friends, to reside there permanently. The house, if not built for him, was expressly finished for him by a then neighbor, Mr. Jackson; but it was soon found that the neighborhood of the lakes was too damp for his rheumatic habit. In 1803, his health was so much worse, that it was considered necessary for him to seek a warmer climate; and he accepted an invitation from his friend Mr., and since Sir John Stoddart, to visit him at Malta, which he accepted. Here he acted for some time as public secretary of the island. In 1805 he returned, not much benefited by his sojourn. He came back through Italy, and at Rome saw Allston, the American painter, and Tieck, the German poet. It was on this occasion that he was warned of the order of Bonaparte to arrest him; and hastening to Leghorn with a passport furnished him by the Pope, was carried out to sea by an American captain. At sea, however, they were chased by a French vessel, which so alarmed the American that he compelled Coleridge to throw all his papers overboard, by which all the fruits of his literary labors in Rome were lost.

On his return to England he again went to the lakes, but this time was more with Wordsworth than with Southey. Wordsworth was at this time living at Grasmere, and we have a humorous account of Coleridge, in his "Stanzas in my pocket copy of Thomson's Castle of Indolence," as "the noticeable man with large gray eyes." In another place Wordsworth has, in one line descriptive of him there, given us one of the most beautiful portraitures of a poet dreamer,—

"The brooding poet with the heavenly eyes."

At Grasmere he planned The Friend, Wordsworth and some other of his friends furnishing a few contributions. From this period till 1816 he appears to have been fluctuating between the Lakes, London, and the west of England. In 1807 we find him at Bristol; and then at Stowey again, at Mr. Poole's. It was at this time that De Quincey sought an interview with him. He went to Stowey, did not meet with Coleridge, but stayed two days with Mr. Poole; and describes him and his house thus:—"A plain-dressed man, in a rustic, old-fashioned house, amply furnished with modern luxuries, and a good library. Mr. Poole had traveled extensively, and had so entirely dedicated himself to his humbler fellow-countrymen, who resided in his neighborhood, that for many miles round he was the general arbiter of their disputes, the guide and counselor of their daily life; beside being appointed executor and guardian to his children by every third man who died in or about the town of Nether Stowey."

De Quincey followed Coleridge to Bridgewater, and found him thus:—"In Bridgewater I noticed a gateway, standing under which was a man, corresponding to the description given me of Coleridge, whom I shall presently describe. In height he seemed to be five feet eight inches; in reality he was about an inch and a half taller, though, in the latter part of life, from a lateral curvature in the spine, he shortened gradually from two to three inches. His person was broad and full, and tended even to corpulence; his complexion was fair, though not what painters technically style fair, because it was associated with black hair; his eyes were large and soft in their expression; and it was by a peculiar appearance of haze or dimness which mixed with their light, that I recognized my object. This was Coleridge. I examined him steadily for a moment or more, and it struck me that he neither saw myself, nor any other object in the street. He was in a deep revery; for I had dismounted, made two or three trifling arrangements at the inn door, and advanced close to him, before he seemed apparently conscious of my presence. The sound of my voice announcing my name first awoke him. He stared, and for a moment seemed at a loss to understand my purpose, or his own situation, for he repeated rapidly a number of words which had no relation to either of us. There was no mauvaise honte in his manner, but simple perplexity, and an apparent difficulty in recovering his position among daylight realities. This little scene over, he received me with a kindness of manner so marked that it might be called gracious."

Mr. De Quincey then tells us that Coleridge was at this moment domesticated with a most amiable and enlightened family, descendants of Chubb, the philosophic writer; and that walking out in the evening with Coleridge, in the streets of Bridgewater, he never saw a man so much interrupted by the courteous attentions of young and old.

In 1809 we find him again at the Lakes; in 1810 he left them again with Mr. Basil Montague, and remained some time at his house. In 1811 he was visiting at Hammersmith with Mr. Morgan, a common friend of himself and Southey, whose acquaintance they had made at Bristol; and here he delivered a course of lectures on Shakspeare and Milton. While still residing with Mr. Morgan, his Tragedy of Remorse was brought upon the stage at Drury-lane, at the instance of Lord Byron, then one of the managing committee, with admirable success. After this he retired to the village of Calne, in Wiltshire, with his friend Morgan, partly to be near Lisle Bowles; where he arranged and published his Sibylline Leaves, and wrote the greater part of the Biographia Literaria. He also dedicated to Mr. Morgan the Zapolya, which was offered to Mr. Douglas Kinnaird, for Drury-lane, and declined. The effect of this refusal Coleridge has noticed in some lines at the end of the Biographia Literaria, quoted from this very play:—

In 1816, he took refuge under the roof of Mr. Gillman, the surgeon, at Highgate, where he continued till his death. The motive for his going to reside with this gentleman was, that he might exercise a salutary restraint upon him as it regarded the taking of opium. His rheumatic pains had first led him to adopt the use of this insidious drug; and it had, as usual, in time, acquired so much power over him as to render his life miserable. He became the victim of its worst terrors, and so much its slave, that all his resolutions and precautions to break the habit, he regularly himself defeated. At one time, a friend of his hired a man to attend him everywhere, and to sternly refuse all his solicitations for, or attempts to get opium; but this man he cheated at his pleasure. He would send the man on some trifling errand, while on their walks, turn into a druggist's shop, and secure a good stock of the article. Mr. Gillman, who had only himself and wife in his family, was recommended to him as the proper man to exercise a constant, steady, but kindly authority over him in this respect. Coleridge, at the first interview, was so much delighted with the prospect of this house, that he was impatient to get there, and came very characteristically with Christabel in his hand, to send to his host. With the Gillmans Coleridge continued till his death; and his abode here is too well known to need much mention of it. Here he held a species of soirée, at which numbers of persons were in the habit of attending to listen to his extraordinary conversations, or rather monologues. Those who heard him on these occasions used to declare, that you could form no adequate idea of the intellect of the man, till you had also heard him. Yet, by some strange neglect, or some wish of his own, these extraordinary harangues were never taken down; which, if they merited the praises conferred on them, is a loss to the world, as well as to his full fame.

The house which Mr. Gillman occupied is now occupied by a Mr. Brendon. There is nothing remarkable about the house except its view. Coleridge's room looked upon a delicious prospect of wood and meadow, with a gay garden full of color under the window. When a friend of his first saw him there, he said he thought he had taken his dwelling-place like an abbot. There he cultivated his flowers, and had a set of birds for his pensioners, who came to breakfast with him. He might be seen taking his daily stroll up and down near Highgate, with his black coat and white locks, and a book in his hand; and was a great acquaintance of the little children. He loved, says the same authority, to read great folios, and to make old voyages with Purchas and Marco Polo; the seas being in good visionary condition, and the vessel well stocked with botargoes.

  FELICIA HEMANS.

If the lives of our poets had been written with the same attention to the placing of their abodes as clearly before you as that of Mrs. Hemans has been, both by Mr. Chorley and by her own sister, it might have saved me some thousand of miles of travel to visit and see them for myself.

Felicia Dorothea Browne, the future poetess, bearing the familiar name of Mrs. Hemans, was born in Duke-street, Liverpool, on the 25th of September, 1793. The house is still pointed out to strangers, but has nothing beside this event to give it a distinction from other town-houses. Her father was a considerable merchant, a native of Ireland. There seems to have been a particular connection with the state of Venice, for her mother was descended from an old Italian family. Her father was the Imperial and Tuscan Consul at Liverpool. The old name of Mrs. Hemans's maternal ancestry is said to have been Veniero, but had got corrupted to the German name of Wagner. Mrs. Hemans was the fifth of seven children, one of whom died in infancy. Before she was seven years old, her father, having suffered losses in trade, retired from business, and settled at Gwrych, near Abergele, in Denbighshire, close to the sea, in a large, old, solitary mansion, shut in by a range of rocky mountains. Here the family resided nine years, so that the greater and more sensitive part of her girlhood was passed here. She was sixteen when they removed. Here, then, the intense love of nature and of poetry, which distinguished her, grew and took its full possession of her. How strong this attachment to the beauty and fresh liberty of nature had become by her eleventh year, was shown by the restraint which she felt in passing a winter in London at that age, with her father and mother, and her intense longing to be back. Her rambles on the shore, and among the hills; her wide range through that old house, with a good library, and the companionship of her brothers and sisters, were all deeply calculated to call forth the spirit of poetry in any heart in which it lay. Her elder sister died; and she turned for companionship to her younger sister, since her biographer, and her younger brother, Claude Scott Browne, who also died young. Her two elder brothers, who with her younger sister only remain, became officers in the army; and this added a strong martial tendency to the spirit of her genius. Her mother, who was a very noble-minded and accomplished woman, bestowed great care on her education, and her access to books filled her mind with all the food that the young and poetical heart craves for. The Bible and Shakspeare were her two great books; and the traces of their influence are conspicuous enough in the genuine piety and the lofty imagery of her writing. She used to read Shakspeare among the branches of an old apple-tree. In this secret retreat, and in the nut-wood, the old arbor and its swing, the post-office tree—a hollow tree, where the family put letters for each other, the pool where they launched their little ships, used to be referred to by her as belonging to a perfect elysium of childhood. She was fond of dwelling on "the strange creeping awe with which the solitude and stillness of Gwrych inspired her." It had the reputation of being haunted—another spur to the imaginative faculty. There was a tradition of a fairy grayhound, which kept watch at the end of the avenue, and she used to sally forth by moonlight to get a sight of it. The seashore was, however, her favorite resort; and one of her biographers states, that it was a favorite freak of hers, when quite a child, to get up of a summer night, when the servants fancied her safe in bed, and, making her way to the water side, indulge in a stolen bathe. The sound of the ocean, and the melancholy sights of wreck and ruin which follow a storm, are said to have made an indelible impression upon her mind, and gave their coloring and imagery—

"A sound and a gleam of the moaning sea,"

to many of her lyrics. In short, a situation can not be imagined, more certain to call forth and foster all the elements of poetry than this of the girlhood of Mrs. Hemans. To the forms of nature, wild, lonely, and awful, the people, with their traditions, their music, and their interesting characteristics, added a crowning spell. The young poetess was rapidly springing in this delightful wilderness into the woman. She is described by her sister, at fifteen, as "in the full glow of that radiant beauty which was destined to fade so early. The mantling bloom of her cheeks was shaded by a profusion of natural ringlets, of a rich, golden brown; and the ever varying expression of her brilliant eyes gave a changeful play to her countenance, which would have made it impossible for any painter to do justice to it."

According to all accounts, at this period she was one of the most lovely and fascinating creatures imaginable; she was at once beautiful, warm-hearted, and enthusiastic. Her days had been spent in wandering through mountain and glen, and along the sea-shore, with her brothers and sister, or in brooding over the pages of Froissart and Shakspeare. Her mind was full of visions of romance, her heart of thrilling sensibilities; and at this moment the feeling of martial glory came to add a new enthusiasm to her character. Her two elder brothers were in the army, and one was fighting in Spain. There were many poetic and chivalrous associations with this country, which now were felt by her with double force, and which turned all her heart and imagination in this direction. In this critical hour a young officer, who was visiting in the neighborhood, was introduced to the family, and her fate was decided. It was Captain Hemans. The hero of the hour, he became completely so when he also set sail for Spain. It was natural for so enthusiastic and poetic a damsel to contemplate him as a warrior doing battle for the deliverance of that land of Gothic and of Moorish romance, in the most delusive coloring. When he returned, it was to become her husband in an ill-fated marriage.

In the mean time, in 1809, and when she was about seventeen, her family quitted Gwrych, so long her happy home. Since then the greater part of the house has been pulled down, and a baronial-looking castle has arisen in its stead, the seat of Mr. Lloyd Bamford Hesketh. Bronwylfa, near St. Asaph, in Flintshire, became the residence of her family. Here she lived for about three years, or till 1812, when Captain Hemans returned, and they were married. For a short time she lived with her husband at Daventry, when they returned to Bronwylfa, where they lived till 1818, or about six years, the whole period of their married life that they lived together. From that time till the death of Mrs. Hemans, seventeen years more, they lived apart—she in Wales, England, and Ireland, he in Italy.

At the time of Captain Hemans's first acquaintance with her, or in 1808, she was already an avowed poetess, having not only written much verse, but having already published a volume. While they lived together, though called upon to care for a rapidly increasing family—for at the time of Captain Hemans's departure for Italy he was the father of five boys—she still pursued her studies, and wrote and published her poems. In 1812 appeared, Domestic Affections and other Poems; and soon after, Tales and Historic Scenes. After her husband's departure she continued her writing with undaunted fortitude. In 1819 she contended for the prize for a poem on Sir William Wallace, and bore it away from a host of competitors. In 1820 she published The Skeptic; and the following year she won another prize from the Royal Society of Literature, for the best poem on Dartmoor. From this time Mrs. Hemans may be said to be fairly before the public; and her fame, from year to year, continued steadily to advance. There is something admirable in the manner in which Mrs. Hemans, as a deserted wife, her father also now being dead, and at such a distance from the literary world, marched on her way, and at every step won some fresh ground of honor. During this period she made a firm and fatherly friend of Dr. Luxmore, the Bishop of St. Asaph, and, at his house, became acquainted with Reginald Heber. Her sister returning from a visit to Germany, where one of her brothers then was, brought with her a store of German books, and a great enthusiasm about German literature. This opened up to her a new field of intellectual life, and produced a decided effect on her poetic tone and style. From the hour of Mrs. Hemans's acquaintance with the German literature you perceive that she had discovered her own forte, and a new life of tenderness and feeling was manifest in all she wrote. She became an almost constant writer in Blackwood's and Colburn's Magazines. Schiller, Goethe, Körner, and Tieck—how sensibly is the influence of their spirit felt in The Forest Sanctuary; how different was the tone of this to all which had gone before! The cold classical model was abandoned, the heart and the fancy spoke out in every line, warm, free, solemn, and tenderly thoughtful. She dared the stage, in The Vespers of Palermo; and though the tragedy was cruelly used in London, she bore up bravely against the unkindness, and was afterward rewarded by a reception of it in Edinburgh, as cordially rapturous, and which brought her the friendship of Sir Walter Scott.

In 1825, Mrs. Hemans made another remove, though but a short one. The house in which she lived at Bronwylfa had been purchased by her elder brother, who came to live in it; and she, with her mother, sister, and her children, removed about a quarter of a mile, to Rhyllon, yet in full view of the old house. This house at Rhyllon is described as being a tall, staring, brick building, almost destitute of trees, of creepers on the walls, or of shrubbery; while Bronwylfa, on the contrary, was a perfect bower of roses, peeping, says her sister, like a bird's nest out of the foliage in which it was embosomed. "In spite, however," continues the same sisterly biographer, "of the unromantic exterior of her new abode, the earlier part of Mrs. Hemans's residence at Rhyllon may, perhaps, be considered as the happiest of her life; as far, at least, as the term happiness could ever be fitly applied to any period of it later than childhood. The house, with all its ugliness, was large and convenient; the view from the windows beautiful and extensive; and its situation, on a fine green slope, terminating in a pretty woodland dingle, peculiarly healthy and cheerful. Never, perhaps, had she more thorough enjoyment of her boys than in witnessing and often joining in their sports, in those pleasant, breezy fields, where the kites soared so triumphantly, and the hoops trundled so merrily, and where the cowslips grew as cowslips never grew before. An atmosphere of home soon gathered round the dwelling; roses were planted, and honeysuckles trained; and the rustling of the solitary poplar near the window was taken to her heart, like the voice of a friend. The dingle became a favorite haunt, where she would pass many dream-like hours of enjoyment with her books, and her own sweet fancies, and her children playing around her. Every tree and flower, and tuft of moss that sprung amid its green recesses, was invested with some individual charm by that rich imagination, so skilled in

Here, on what the boys would call "mamma's sofa,"—a little grassy mound under her favorite beech-tree—she first read The Talisman, and has described the scene with a loving minuteness, in her Hour of Romance.

Many years after, in the sonnet, To a distant Scene, she addresses, with a fond yearning, this well remembered haunt—

How many precious memories has she hung round the thought of the cowslip, that flower, with its "gold coat," and "fairy favors," which is, of all others, so associated with the "voice of happy childhood," and was, to her, ever redolent of the hours when her

"Heart so leapt to that sweet laughter's tune!"

Another favorite resort was the picturesque old bridge over the Clwyd; and when her health admitted of more aspiring achievements, she delighted in roaming to the hills; and the announcement of a walk to Cwm, a remote little hamlet, nestled in a mountain hollow amid very lovely sylvan scenery, about two miles from Rhyllon, would be joyously echoed by her elated companions, to whom the recollection of those happy rambles must always be unspeakably dear. Very often, at the outset of these expeditions, the party would be reinforced by the addition of a certain little Kitty Jones, a child from a neighboring cottage, who had taken an especial fancy to Mrs. Hemans, and was continually watching her movements. This little creature never saw her without at once attaching itself to her side, and confidingly placing its tiny hand in hers. So great was her love for children, and her repugnance to hurt the feelings of any living creature, that she never would shake off this singular appendage, but let little Kitty rejoice in her "pride of place," till the walk became too long for her capacity, and she would quietly fall back of her own accord.

Those who only know the neighborhood of St. Asaph from traveling along its highways, can be little aware how much delightful scenery is attainable within walks of two or three miles' distance from Mrs. Hemans's residence. The placid beauty of the Clwyd, and the wilder graces of its sister stream, the Elwy, particularly in the vicinity of "Our Lady's Well," and the interesting rocks and caves at Cefu, are little known to general tourists; though, by the lovers of her poetry, it will be remembered how sweetly she had apostrophized the

"Fount of the chapel, with ages gray;"

and how tenderly, amid far different scenes, her thoughts reverted to the

This is a peep into the daily life of the poetess, which is worth a whole volume of ordinary biography. We see her here amid the lonely magnificence of nature; yet, at the same time, surrounded by those affectionate ties that make the only real society on earth. The affectionate mother, the beloved brother and sister, the buoyant hearts and voices of her own children. We see that there and then she was and must be happy. We see how wise was that instinctive love that drew the poetic heart from the flattering and worshiping things of the city, to dwell apart with God, with nature, and with family affection. What has all the society of ordinary city and literary life to equal that? The throng of drawing-rooms, where people stand and look at each other, and remain strangers as much as if they were sundered by half the globe! Nay, it is not half a globe, it is a whole world of fast succeeding engagements; dissipations that beget indifference; flittings of the eye from face to face, and of the ear from gossip to gossip, where neither eye nor ear ever finds any power or wish for rest, but the heart yawns in insufferable weariness, if decorum keep the mouth shut. It is this dreary world which is thrust between man and man, and kills at once time and enjoyment. What has such a life, with all its petty scandals, and bitterness, and foul criticisms, and rankling jealousies, to compare with the breezy mountain, and the blue sky soaring high above; with the gray ruin, and the rushing river; with the dell and its whispering leaves, soothing down the mind to a peaceful consciousness, in which thoughts of eternity steal into it, and come forth again to the eternal page?

It is a deep consolation to know that the teachers and refiners of men do sometimes enjoy a life thus heavenly, and repose at once on the gracious bosom of nature, and on those of long tried and beloved friends. Such was, for a time, the life of Mrs. Hemans here. For a time the elements of happiness seemed daily to augment themselves. Her younger brother, a man of a most genial nature, and his amiable wife, came from service in Canada, and settled down among them. The circle of affinity and social pleasure seemed complete; but time rapidly causes a change upon the completest combinations of earth. In rapid succession death and sorrow fell on the house of her elder brother; her mother sickened and died; her younger brother was called to an appointment in Ireland, and her sister was married, and was withdrawn to a distance. The fatal inroad was made into the circle of happiness; and from that time Mrs. Hemans began to contemplate quitting the scene of so many years' sojourn. She made a visit to Liverpool, which ended in her concluding to quit Wales, and settle there, for more congenial society and the education of her children. One of her last pleasures in Wales was the enjoyment of the society of Miss Jewsbury, who passed part of the summer and autumn of 1828 in the neighbourhood of St. Asaph.

For about thirty years she had resided in Wales; the bulk of her life; for she was but about six years of age when her family went to reside there; and she survived her departure from it only the same number of years. The whole of her existence, therefore, excepting that twelve years, was spent in her favorite Wales. For the short remainder of her life she seemed rather a wanderer in the earth than a settled resident. She was at Liverpool, at the Lakes, in Scotland, in Ireland; and there, finally, seldom long in one place.

Her choice of Liverpool seemed to be determined by the consideration of education already mentioned, and by the desire to be near two families to which she was much attached,—those of Mrs. Lawrence, of Wavertree-hall, and the Chorleys, of Liverpool. She took a house in the village of Wavertree, a little apart from the road. It must have been a dreary change from the fine, wild, congenial scenery of North Wales, to the flat, countryless neighborhood of Liverpool. Nothing, surely, but the sense of maternal duty could have made such a change endurable to a mind like Mrs. Hemans's. This residence has been described by the author of Pen and Ink Sketches, who, though some of his relations have been much called in question, seems, in this instance, to have stated the simple facts. "The house," he says, "was one of a row, or terrace, as it was called, situated on the high-road, from which it was separated only by the foot-way, and a little flower-garden, surrounded by a white-thorn hedge. I noticed that all the other houses on either side of it were unadorned with flowers; they had either grass lawns or a plain gravel surface; some of them even grew cabbages and French beans,—hers alone had flowers.

"I was shown into a very small apartment, but every thing about it indicated that it was the home of genius and taste. Over the mantle-piece hung a fine engraving of William Roscoe, author of the Lives of the De Medici, with a presentation line or two in his own handwriting. The walls were decorated with prints and pictures, and on the mantle-shelf were some models in terra cotta, of Italian groups. On the table lay casts, and medallions, and a portfolio of choice prints and water-color drawings."

The writer was first received by Miss Jewsbury, who happened to be there, and whom he truly describes as one of the most frank and open-hearted creatures possible. He then adds:—

"It was not long before the poetess entered the room. She held out her hand and welcomed me in the kindest manner, and then sat down opposite to me, first introducing Miss Jewsbury. I can not well conceive a more exquisitely beautiful creature than Mrs. Hemans was; none of the portraits or busts I have ever seen do her justice, nor is it possible for words to convey to the reader any idea of the matchless, yet serene beauty of her expression. Her glossy, waving hair was parted on her forehead, and terminated on the sides in rich and luxuriant auburn curls. There was a dove-like look in her eyes, and yet a chastened sadness in their expression. Her complexion was remarkably clear, and her high forehead looked as pure and spotless as Parian marble. A calm repose, not unmingled with melancholy, was the characteristic expression of the face; but when she smiled, all traces of sorrow were lost, and she seemed to be but 'a little lower than the angels,'—fitting shrine for so pure a mind!"

The writer says, that he, some time after, paid a second visit to Wavertree. "Some time I stood before the well remembered house. The little flower-garden was no more—but rank grass and weeds sprung up luxuriously; the windows were, many of them, broken; the entrance-gate was off its hinges; the vine in front of the house trailed along the ground, and a board, with 'This house to let' upon it, was nailed on the door. I entered the deserted garden, and looked into the little parlor—once so full of taste and elegance; it was gloomy and cheerless. The paper was spotted with damp, and spiders had built their webs in the comers. Involuntarily I turned away; and during my homeward walk mused upon the probable home and enjoyments of the two gifted creatures I had formerly seen there. Both were now beyond the stars; and as I mused on the uncertainty of human life, I exclaimed, with the eloquent Burke,—'What shadows we are, and what shadows, alas, do we pursue!'"

Spite of the warm and congenial friends Mrs. Hemans had at Liverpool, she soon found that it was not the location for her. She had lost all that her mind and heart had been accustomed to sustain themselves upon in a beautiful country; her hopes of educational advantages were not realized, and she was subjected to all the annoying interruptions which celebrity has to endure from idle curiosity, without any of its attendant advantages. To fly the evils and regain some of her old pleasures, she in 1829 made a journey into Scotland, to visit her friends Mr. Hamilton and his lady, at Chiefswood, near Abbotsford. This, of course, brought her into immediate contact with Sir Walter Scott. She was invited to Abbotsford, and the great minstrel showed her over his estate, and through the classic beauty of all that border-land fame which must from her early years have been regions of deepest romance to a mind like hers. The particulars of this visit, so cheering and delightful to her whole nature, are to be found in the biography written by her sister. She was, of course, received in Edinburgh with the cordial hospitality characteristic of that capital, and which was sure to be shown with double extent, in consequence of her great fame, and the pleasure which every one had derived from her productions. During this visit she was introduced, among other distinguished people, to Mrs. Grant, of Laggan; Lord Jeffery; Captain Basil Hall; Mr. Alison; Kirkpatrick Sharpe; Baron Hume; Sir Robert Liston, and the old literary veteran, Henry Mackenzie.

The advantage and the happiness of this visit to the north, determined her the next summer to pay a visit to the Lakes. Here she took up her abode for a fortnight with Wordsworth, at Rydal Mount, and there so charmed was she with the country, and so much did her health need the quiet refreshment of rural retirement, that she took for the remainder of the summer a small cottage overlooking Windermere, called Dove's Nest. But quiet as the spot appeared, secluded as it is, it was a great mistake to suppose that a woman of any reputation could escape the inroads of the Tourist Vandals so near Ambleside, and Lowood. If any one wants to set up for a lion or lioness, let him or her go and take a cottage in the Lake country: there they will be lionized to their heart's content. There, in the height of summer, the whole region is alive with tourists and idlers, who are all on the lookout for any novelty; and a literary creature is a fascinating monster, more piquant to the tribe than badger or fox to the old race of Nimrods. If I heard of a literary person settling at the Lakes, I should at once say, that person is anxious to be lionized. But this was not the case with Mrs. Hemans. To avoid all such notoriety, she never, after her reputation was spread, would visit London; she sought for peace, but here she could not find it. "The soothing and healthful repose which had been so thoroughly and thankfully appreciated," says her sister, "was, alas! not destined to be of long continuance." Subsequent letters speak of the irruption of parties hunting for lions in Dove's Nest; of a renewal of "the Album persecution;" of an absolute mail storm of letters and papers, threatening "to boil over the drawer to which they were consigned;" till at last the despairing conclusion is come to, that "one might as well hope for peace in the character of a shadowless man as of a literary woman."

The inundation was irresistible and overwhelming; in August she fled in desperation, and again made a journey into Scotland.

Mrs. Hemans had three of her boys with her at Dove's Nest, and they enjoyed the place to perfection. It was just the place for boys to be turned loose in; and with fishing, sketching, and climbing the hill above the Nest, they were in elysium. Her own health, however, was so far undermined now, that she complains in her letter she can not follow them as she would, but that she is more a child in heart than any of them. Her own description of the Dove's Nest is this: "The house was originally meant for a small villa, though it has long passed into the hands of farmers; and there is in consequence an air of neglect about the little demesne, which does not at all approach desolation, and yet gives it something of attractive interest. You see everywhere traces of love and care beginning to be effaced; rose-trees spread into wildness; laurels darkening the windows with too luxuriant branches; and I can not help saying to myself, 'Perhaps some heart like my own in its feelings and suffering, has here sought refuge and repose.' The ground is laid out in rather an antiquated style, which, now that nature is beginning to reclaim it from art, I do not at all dislike. There is a little grassy terrace immediately under the window, descending to a small court with a circular grass plat, on which grows one tall white rose-tree. You can not imagine how I delight in that fair, solitary, neglected-looking tree. I am writing to you from an old-fashioned alcove in the little garden, round which the sweet-brier and moss-rose trees have completely run wild; and I look down from it upon lovely Windermere, which seems at this moment even like another sky, so truly is our summer cloud and tint of azure pictured in its transparent mirror."

This cottage is, in fact, a very simple affair. It is regularly let by the people, farmers, who live in one end of it, and who have now built another house near it with farm buildings. It stands, perhaps, at half the elevation of Professor Wilson's house at Elleray, and not at such a distance from Windermere, and nearer to Lowood inn than to Ambleside. A considerable wild wood ascends above it to the top of the rocky hills; and it seems, indeed, to have had its place cut out of the front of the wood for it. You can ascend from Lowood by a steep, straight carriage road, all bordered with laurels luxuriantly grown, and overshadowed by forest trees; or you may, if coming from Ambleside, ascend a foot-path, which is by far the most charming way. Yes, a very charming way it is—a regular wild wood walk, reminding you of many of those in Germany. It is narrow, and overhung with hazels; at the time of my visit full of nuts, in abundant and large clusters. Here water is running by the wayside, clear, and in fleet abundance. The wood opens its still solitudes, ever and anon; and far above you the rocks are seen lifting themselves into the heavens in a gray silence. This wood walk goes on and on, bordered with wild flowers, and odorous with the scent of meadow-sweet, till you arrive in about half-a-mile at the cottage.

This consists of but four rooms in front; two little sitting-rooms, and two bedrooms over them. It is a little white battlemented affair, with a glass door. The woman of the house pointed out to me the chamber, that on the right hand as you face the house, at which Mrs. Hemans, she said, used to write; and which commands a fine view of the lake and its encircling hills.

The woman is a regular character. She was very violent against steam, railroads, and all sorts of new-fangled things. She wondered what parliament was about that they did not stop the steam. "What are your Sir Robert Peels, your Grahams, and your Stanleys good for, if they can not stop the steam?" She would make them sit, if she could have her way, till they did some good; for they had done none yet. She almost preferred O'Connell to them, for he did get master of the queen!

"You seem to be a great radical," I said.

"Nay, nay!" she replied; "I'm naw radical. I stick fast to the church; but I am a great politic! And what will all those navies do when the railways are all made? What is to become of the poor boatmen when there are nothing but steamers?"

"Well, but has not Mr. Wordsworth written against the railroads?"

"Ay, he may write; but there's more nor Mister Wordsworth nowadays. People are got too clever now; and if he writes there's twenty ready to write against him."

All the time that the woman was getting on in this style, she had a sort of smile on her face as if she was merely talking for talking's sake; and, as she proceeded, she led the way to show me the garden, which is a very pleasant little retirement, looking down the hill, and toward Lowood upon the lake, and far across to its distant shores and mountains. We then passed into a second garden, at the top of which is the alcove mentioned by Mrs. Hemans. It is in the wall, arched above, and whitewashed within, and with seats set round, and a most luxuriant Ayrshire rose climbing and mantling it about, high and thick. Here, said the woman, Mrs. Hemans sat in fine weather, generally to write. At the lower end of the garden stood the tall white rose-tree which Mrs. Hemans so much admired. From this the landlady plucked a flower, and begged me to send it to my wife; as well as a number of moss-roses growing about, which she said Mrs. Hemans admired; but not so much as this white rose. The strange woman, unpolished, but evidently full of strong independent feeling, and keen spirit of observation, was also as evidently possessed of tender feelings too. She declared it often made her melancholy to see that rose-tree and that alcove.

"Ah, poor thing!" said she, "it was a pity she did not open her situation sooner; but she did not open her heart enough to her rich relations, who were very fond of her. It was anxiety, sir; it was anxiety, you may depend on it. To maintain five boys, and edicate 'em with one pen, it was too much, you are sure. Ay, I have thought a deal more of her since, than I did at the time; and so many ladies come here, and wished she had but opened her situation sooner, for when government did something for her, it was too late!"

"Did she seem quite well here?"

"Oh, yes; she seemed pretty well; and she had three of her children with her: and well behaved, nice children they were. Charles, they tell me, is turned Catholic, and Henry is gone abroad, and Claude is dead. Who could have believed it, when they were all so merry here! Poor thing! if she had but made known her situation—it was wearing her away. Mr. Graves, who was the tutor to the boys, and is now rector of Bowness, came here with the boys when she went to Dublin, and she was to come back, and be with me by the year; and then the boys could have been still with Mr. Graves, for he got the living just then. He always comes to tell me when he hears any thing about them—and her husband is dead too, I hear."

Such was the woman's information; and there may be more truth in it than we would like to believe. There can be no doubt that Mrs. Hemans taxed all her strength and power to maintain her family. It is not to be believed but that her brothers and sister, who were well off, did all she would allow them to do; but we know the honorable pride of a truly noble mind—not to be burdensome when it can itself do its own work. How sensitive and shrinking it is! That Mrs. Hemans, in her praiseworthy endeavor to furnish the means of her boys' education, did overtax herself, and was obliged to write more than either her inclination or her true fame prompted, we have the evidence of herself, in one of her very last letters to her friend, Mrs. Lawrence. "You know into how rugged a channel the poor little stream of my life has been forced, and through what rocks it has wrought its way; and it is now longing for repose in some still valley. It has ever been one of my regrets that the constant necessity of providing sums of money, to meet the exigences of the boys' education, has obliged me to waste my mind in what I consider mere desultory effusions: