solitary forests, and penetrating into the most obscure villages. I have heard him relate that coming late, accompanied by his sister and Coleridge, into a desolate German hamlet, in Hesse Cassel,-and wretched places they are often, as every one knows who has had to seek rest or refreshment in them, they were refused admittance, and thought they must have to pass the night in the open street. Knocking, however, pretty determinedly at the door of the village inn, the landlord, as if provoked by being disturbed, suddenly rushed out upon them, and fell upon them with a huge cudgel, so that they considered themselves in great personal danger, as well they might at that time of day, when the visits of foreigners were not very common; and not only were the common village publicans very boorish, but, if we are to believe the hand-books of the traveling handicrafts, many a foul murder was committed in those obscure places for the stranger's purse and knapsack. Neither Wordsworth nor Coleridge, however, were destined to be extinguished in that manner. They succeeded in defending themselves, in making their way into the house, and by appealing to them as Christian people, whose duty it was to entertain, and not abuse strangers, they secured a night's lodging, such as it was. Coleridge relates the anecdote somewhat differently in his Biographia Literaria. He says, the rudeness of the landlord within, was seconded by a rabble without. That the travelers could get neither supper, coffee, nor beds; and finally, asking for some bundles of straw to sleep upon, these possibly might have been granted, but that he, Coleridge, happened to ask impatiently, if there were no Christians left in Hesse Cassel; which so incensed them, that being reported in the street, the rabble rushed in and expelled them from the house, by hurling the burning brands from the hearth at them; and that they bivouacked where they could; Coleridge passing his night under a furz bush, well punctured by its thorns. You may find many traces of Wordsworth's wanderings

thus in his poems, particularly in vol. iii., and also in vol. iv., where he very characteristically narrates the adventures of a fly on a cold winter's day, as it traverses the stove before which he sat warming himself.

Before going abroad he lived some time in Dorsetshire and Somersetshire. It is probable that he made the acquaintance of Coleridge at Cambridge. Coleridge had now become connected with Southey and Lovell, two Bristol men, and was in a great measure located there. The spirit of poetry had revived again after a long period of mere imitation; and by these circumstances three of the chief leaders of literary reform were thus brought together. Southey was a Bristol man, Coleridge was a Devonshire man, Wordsworth a Cumberland man; but here they were drawn together, and Bristol for a time seemed as though it were to have the honor of becoming a sort of western Athens. But Bristol itself had no sympathy with any literary spirit. It is one of those places that have the singular fortune to produce great men, though it never cherishes them. It produced Chatterton, and let him perish; it produced Southey, and let him go away to rear the fabric of his fame where he pleased. The spirit of trade, and that not in its most adventurous or liberal character, was and is the spirit of Bristol. By a wretched and penny-wise policy, even of trade, it has allowed Gloucester, at many miles' distance from the sea, to become a great port at its expense; by the same spirit it has created Liverpool; and whoever now sees its wretched docks coming up into the middle of the town, instead of stretching, business-like and compactly, along the banks of the Avon, its dusty and unwatered streets, and altogether dingy and sluggish appearance, feels at once, that not even the poetry of trade can flourish there. Yet Bristol had the honor thrust upon it, of issuing to the world the first productions of Wordsworth, Southey, and Coleridge. Joseph Cottle, the author of Alfred, an epic poem, whom Byron so mercilessly handled,

grafting upon him the name of his brother Amos, for the sake of more ludicrous effect-Joseph Cottle was a bookseller here, and became the patron of those three young, aspiring, but far from wealthy young men.

Coleridge had made the acquaintance of a Mr. Thomas Poole, of Nether Stowey, a gentleman of some property, and a magistrate. Mr. Poole was a friend of the two great brother potters, Josiah and Thomas Wedgeworth, of Staf fordshire; he introduced Coleridge to them, and eventually they settled on him an annuity of £150 a-year. Poole invited Coleridge to come down to Stowey to see him, and after his marriage prevailed on him to go and live in Stowey. The Wedgewoods were accustomed also to visit Mr. Poole; and the same causes drew Wordsworth and Southey occasionally down there. Thus Bristol ceased to be the general rendezvous of this new literary coterie, and the solitudes of Somersetshire received them. People have often wondered what induced this poetical brotherhood to select a scene so far out of the usual haunts of literary men, so inferior to Wordsworth's own neighborhood, as Stowey and its vicinity. These are the circumstances. It was Mr. Poole and cheapness which had a deal to do with it. Poole drew Coleridge, Coleridge and the dreams of Pantisocracy drew most of the others. Wordsworth, I believe, never speculated on the exclusive happiness of following the plough on the banks of the Susquehannah; but the whole of the corps had made the discovery that true poetry was based on nature, and that it was to be found only by looking into their own minds, and into the world of nature around them. They therefore sought, not cities, but solitude, where they could at once read, reflect, and store up that treasury of imagery, full of beauty and truth, which should be reproduced, woven into the living tissue of their own thought and passion, as poetry of a new, startling, and high order. To this life of country seclusion Wordsworth and Southey adhered, from choice, all their after-lives.

Wordsworth first resided at Racedown in Dorsetshire, where Coleridge visited him. When Coleridge went to settle at Stowey, Wordsworth also removed to Allfoxden, about five miles farther down, near the Bristol Channel. Here his secluded habits gave rise to some ludicrous circumstances, annoying enough, however, to drive him out of the neighborhood. He was deep in the composition of poetry. He had a Tragedy on the anvil, a poem called Salisbury Plain, never yet published, and Peter Bell, beside his Lyrical Ballads, which last Cottle brought out while he was here. He sought the deepest solitude, and here, if anywhere, he could find it. Allfoxden house is situated at the very extremity of the Quantock hills, and within about a mile and a quarter of the Bristol Channel. As you advance from Stowey, the Quantock hills run along at some little distance on your left hand. They are of the character of downs, open and moorland on the top, and with great masses of wood here and there on their slopes. The country on your right is level, rich, and well wooded. On arriving near Allfoxden, you turn abruptly to the left, and winding about through a woody lane, and passing through a little hamlet, you begin to feel as if you were going quite out of the world of mankind. You are at the foot of the hills, and a thick wood terminates your way. But through this wood you have to pass to find the house where Wordsworth had hidden himself. Passing into this wood at a gate, you find yourself in a most Druidical gloom. The wood is of well grown, tall, and thickly growing oak; filled still closer with hollies, which were once underwood, but which have shot up, and emulated the very oaks themselves in altitude. They are unquestionably among the loftiest hollies in England. Altogether the mass of wood is dense, the scene is shadowy, the ground is strewn with its brown carpet of fallen leaves. As you advance, on your right hand you catch a sound of water, and pursuing it you find it issues from the bottom of a deep narrow glen or dean,

which no doubt gives the name to the place-All fox den, or glen of all the foxes. This glen is a very poetical feature of the place, and especially attractive to a man in Wordsworth's then turn of mind, which led him to the deepest seclusion for the sake of abstraction. Tall trees soar up from its sides, and meet above; some of them have fallen across, dashed down by the wind. Wild plants grow luxuriantly below; woodbines and other creepers climb and cling from bough to bough; and the pure and crystal water hurries along over its gravelly bed, beneath this mass of shade and overhanging banks, with a merry music to the neighboring sea.

Leaving this glen, you hold on through the wood to the left, and soon emerge into a park, inclosed by hills and woods, where a good country-house looks out toward the sea. It is one of the most secluded, and yet pleasantly secluded, houses in England. Around it sweep the hills, scattered with fine timber, beneath which reposes a herd of deer, and before it stretches the sea at a little distance. The house is somewhat raised above the level of the valley, so as to catch the charming view of the lands, woods, and outspread waters below. To the left, near the coast, you catch a view of the walls of St. Audrey, the seat of Sir Peregrine Ackland, pleasingly assuring you that you are not quite cut off from humanity. Below the house lies a sunny flower-garden, and, behind, the ascending lawn is enriched by finely disposed masses of trees; among them some enormous old oaks, and elms of noblest growth. There are two elms, growing close together, of remarkable size and height, beneath which a seat is placed, commanding a view of the park and sea; and just below it a fine, well grown larch, which used to be a very favorite tree of the poet. Under these trees he used to sit, and read and compose; and no man could have coveted a more congenial study. Here originated or took form many of his lyrical ballads.