CHAPTER VI.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH AND ROBERT SOUTHEY..

THAT night-the first of my personal intercourse with Wordsworth-the first in which I saw him face to facewas (it is little, indeed, to say) memorable: it was marked by a change even in the physical condition of my nervous system. Long disappointment-hope for ever baffled (and why should it be less painful because self-baffled?) -vexation and self-blame, almost self-contempt, at my own want of courage to face the man whom of all men I yearned to behold-these feelings had impressed upon my nervous sensibilities a character of irritation, restlessness, eternal self-dissatisfaction, which were gradually gathering into a distinct, well-defined type, that would, but for youth -almighty youth-have shaped itself into some nervous complaint, wearing symptoms sui generis. To this result things tended; but in one hour all passed away. It was gone, never to return. The spiritual being whom I had anticipated-for, like Eloisa,

"My fancy framed him of th' angelic kind

Some emanation of th' all-beauteous mind "

this ideal creature had at length been seen-seen with fleshly eyes; and now, if he did not cease for years to wear

something of a glory about his head, yet it was no longer as a being to be feared-it was as Raphael, the "affable" angel, who conversed on the terms of man with man.

About four o'clock, it might be, when we arrived. At that hour, in November, the daylight soon declined; and, in an hour and a half, we were all collected about the tea-table. This, with the Wordsworths, under the simple rustic system of habits which they cherished then, and for twenty years after, was the most delightful meal in the day; just as dinner is in great cities, and for the same reason—because it was prolonged into a meal of leisure and conversation. That night I found myself, about eleven at night, in a pretty bedroom, about fourteen feet by twelve. Much I feared that this might turn out the best room in the house; and it illustrates the hospitality of my new friends, to mention that it was. Early in the morning I was awakened by a little voice, issuing from a little cottage bed in an opposite corner, soliloquising in a low tone. I soon recognised the words, "Suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead, and buried;" and the voice I easily conjectured to be that of the eldest amongst Wordsworth's children, a son, and at that time about three years old. He was a remarkably fine boy in strength and size, promising (which has in fact been realised) a more powerful person, physically, than that of his father. Miss Wordsworth I found making breakfast in the little sitting-room. No urn was there; no glittering breakfast service; a kettle boiled upon the fire, and everything was in harmony with these unpretending arrangements. I rarely had seen so humble a ménage and contrasting the dignity of the man with this honourable poverty, and this courageous avowal of it, his utter absence of all effort to disguise the simple truth of

the case, I felt my admiration increased. This, thought I to myself, is, indeed, in his own words,

"Plain living, and high thinking."

This is, indeed, to reserve the humility and the parsimonies of life for its bodily enjoyments, and to apply its lavishness and its luxury to its enjoyments of the intellect. So might Milton have lived; so Marvel. Throughout the day which was rainy-the same style of modest hospitality prevailed. Wordsworth and his sister-myself being of the party-walked out in spite of the rain, and made the circuit of the two lakes, Grasmere, and its dependency Rydal a walk of about six miles. On the third day, Mrs Coleridge having now pursued her journey northward to Keswick, and having, at her departure, invited me, in her own name as well as Southey's, to come and see them, Wordsworth proposed that we should go thither in company, but not by the direct route-a distance of only thirteen miles: that route we were to take in our road homeward; our outward bound journey was to be by way of Ulleswater-a circuit of forty-three miles.

On the third morning after my arrival in Grasmere, I found the whole family, except the two children, prepared for the expedition across the mountains. I had heard of no horses, and took it for granted that we were to walk; however, at the moment of starting, a cart-the common farmer's cart of the country-made its appearance; and the driver was a bonny young woman of the vale. Accordingly, we were all carted along to the little town, or large village, of Ambleside-three and a half miles distant. Our style of travelling occasioned no astonishment; on the contrary, we met a smiling salutation wherever we appeared Miss Wordsworth being, as I observed, the

person most familiarly known of our party, and the one who took upon herself the whole expenses of the flying colloquies exchanged with stragglers on the road. What struck me with most astonishment, however, was the liberal manner of our fair driver, who made no scruple of taking a leap, with the reins in her hand, and seating herself dexterously upon the shafts of the cart. From Ambleside -and without one foot of intervening flat ground-begins to rise the famous ascent of Kirkstone; after which, for three long miles, all riding in a cart drawn by one horse becomes impossible. The ascent is computed at three miles, but is, probably, a little more. In some parts it is almost frightfully steep; for the road being only the original mountain track of shepherds, gradually widened and improved from age to age (especially since the era of tourists began), is carried over ground which no engineer, even in Alpine countries, would have viewed as practicable. ascending, this is felt chiefly as an obstruction, and not as a peril, unless where there is a risk of the horses backing; but, in the reverse order, some of these precipitous descents are terrific and yet, once in utter darkness, after midnight, and the darkness irradiated only by continual streams of lightning, I was driven down this whole descent, at a full gallop, by a young woman—the carriage being a light one, the horses frightened, and the descents, at some critical parts of the road, so literally like the sides of a house, that it was difficult to keep the fore wheels from pressing upon the hind legs of the horses. The innkeepers of Ambleside, or Lowwood, will not mount this formidable hill without four horses. The leaders you are not required to take beyond the first three miles; but, of course, they are glad if you will take them on through the whole stage to Patterdale; and, in that case, there is a

In

real luxury at hand for those who enjoy velocity of motion. The descent into Patterdale is above two miles; but such is the propensity for flying down hills in Westmoreland, that I have found the descent accomplished in about six minutes, which is at the rate of eighteen miles an hour; the various turnings of the road making the speed much more sensible to the traveller. The pass, at the summit of this ascent, is nothing to be compared in sublimity with the pass under Great Gavel from Wastdalehead; but it is solemn, and profoundly impressive. At a height so awful as this, it may be easily supposed that all human dwellings have been long left behind: no sound of human life, no bells of churches or chapels, ever ascend so far. And, as is noticed in Wordsworth's fine verses upon this memorable pass, the only sound that, even at noonday, disturbs the sleep of the weary pedestrian, is that of the bee murmuring amongst the mountain flowers—a sound as ancient

"As man's imperial front, and woman's roseate bloom."

This way, and (which, to the sentiment of the case, is an important point) this way, of necessity, and not simply in obedience to a motive of convenience, passed the Roman legions; for it is a mathematic impossibility that any other route could be found for an army nearer to the eastward of this pass than by way of Kendal and Shap; nearer to the westward, than by way of Legberthwaite and St John's Vale (and so by Threlkeld to Penrith). Now, these two roads are twenty-five miles apart; and, since a Roman cohort was stationed at Ambleside (Amboglana), it is pretty evident that this cohort would not correspond with the more northerly stations by either of these remote routes— having immediately before it this direct though difficult