joyment of exercise, it seems very natural that Wordsworth should have composed most of his verses out of doors, and that he should have heard, with evident satisfaction, the reply of his maid-servant to one who requested to see his study, when opening the door of one of the rooms, she said, 'this is where master keeps his books; his study is out of doors'. * And seldom was he alone in that capacious study, his sister being ever ready, in sunshine or in storm, to contemplate with him the great volume which lay open before them, and to enliven their progress with her conversation.

'Where'er my footsteps turned,

Her voice was like a hidden bird that sang'.

The Hon. Mr. Justice Coleridge, describing an excursion with Wordsworth, speaks of his trudging (and justifies the use of the word as denoting his bold way of walking), his trudging before, clad in plaid jacket and waistcoat, and with a green gauze shade over his eyes. On this occasion he pointed out the precipitous mountain which overhangs Easedale Tarn, and told them how he and his sister, when coming from Langdale, which lies on the other side, by some cause became separated, and a fog coming on, she became bewildered but fortunately sat down and waited. In a short time it began to clear, and as objects gradually emerged from obscurity, she discovered that she had halted, as it were, providentially; being on the very verge of the precipice.

To this out-door method of pursuing his studies,

*His gardener and fac-totum, James, being asked what plants throve best at Rydal, answered, 'Laurels': but this was only a chance hit, as the querist had to inform him of the significance of his reply.

Wordsworth attributed the general state of good health which he enjoyed, in spite of a highly nervous temperament. The act of composition always aggravated any ailment under which he might be suffering. An inflammation of the eyes, to which he was liable, would subside as soon as he desisted from his favourite pursuit, even though he occupied the leisure thus obtained in visiting picture galleries. And he mentions a wound in his foot which yielded only to the same treatment, maintaining its state of irritation when the poetic fervour was indulged in, but healing when he submitted to a temporary idleness.

The self-consuming energies of the brain are said to have been very conspicuous both in Wordsworth and his sister, giving them a premature appearance of age, and in the case of the former deeply furrowing his countenance. Wordsworth reports a personal anecdote in proof of this. He was travelling by a stage-coach, and seated outside amongst half-a-dozen fellow passengers. One of these, an elderly man, said to Wordsworth, upon some anticipations which they had been mutually discussing of changes likely to take place, 'Ay, ay, a dozen years will show us strange sights, but you and I can hardly expect to see them'. 'How so'? said Wordsworth, 'How so, my friend, how old do you take me to be'? 'Oh! I beg pardon’, said the other; 'I meant no offence - but what-'looking at Wordsworth more attentively— 'you'll never see threescore again, I reckon'. And upon his appealing to all the other passengers for an opinion, the motion passed (nem. con.) that their companion was rather over than under sixty. Upon this, he told them the literal truth, —that he had not yet accomplished his thirty-ninth year. As Wordsworth lived into his 81st year, it is

plain that this premature expression of age, does not necessarily argue any real decay.

Wordsworth's walking powers were remarkable, and he used to narrate with glee, how, on one occasion, after rain, when showing some of the beauties of the neighbourhood to a gentleman fresh from Eastern travel, he expressed a hope that he enjoyed the companionship of the bounding, joyous, foaming streams around, 'No'! was the pompous reply, 'I think they are not to be compared, in delightful effect, with the silent solitude of the Arabian Desert'. Wordsworth's mountain blood was roused at this, and slyly eyeing his Oriental friend, and perceiving that he was encumbered with boots and a thick great coat, he expressed his regret that he did not like what he had seen, but proposed to show him what would be more to his taste; then, striding away, he led him from crag to crag, hill to vale, and vale to hill, till he was obliged to desist for fear of having to carry his spent companion home.

The distance between Rydal and Keswick, about 15 miles, was too great to admit of frequent intercourse between Wordsworth and Southey, but they occasionally mustered their forces, and met on neutral ground for a picnic, or other pleasurable purpose. The most note-worthy of these social gatherings occurred on Monday, 21st August, 1815, in honour of the battle of Waterloo. We quote Southey's description of it. He is writing to his brother Henry, who was married on that day. 'Monday, the 21st of August, was not a more remarkable day in your life, than it was in that of that of my neighbour Skiddaw, who is a much older personage. The weather served for our bonfire, and never, I believe, was such an assembly on such a spot. To my utter astonishment, Lord Sunderlin rode up, and

Lady S., who had endeavoured to dissuade me from going as a thing too dangerous, joined the walking party. Wordsworth, with his wife, sister, and eldest boy, came over on purpose. James Boswell* arrived that morning at the Sunderlins. Edith, the Senhora + Edith May, and Herbert, were my convoy, with our three maid-servants, some of our neighbours, some adventurous Lakers, and Messrs. Tag, Rag, and Bobtail, made up the rest of the assembly. We roasted beef and boiled plum-puddings there; sung' God save the King 'round the most furious body of flaming tarbarrels that I ever saw, drank a huge bowl of punch, fired cannon at every health, with three times three, and rolled large blazing balls of turpentine down the steep side of the mountain. The effect was grand beyond imagination. We formed a huge circle round the most intense light, and behind us was an immeasurable arch of the most intense darkness, for our bonfire fairly put out the moon'.

Perhaps to this scene we may trace some of the imagery in 'The Curse of Kehama'. This, for instance, in Canto XIV, v. 4 :

'O silent night, how have they startled thee
With brazen trumpet's blare;

And thou, O Moon! whose quiet light serene
Filleth wide heaven, and bathing hill and wood,
Spreads o'er the peaceful valley like a flood,
How have they dimm'd thee with the torches' glare,
Which round yon moving pageant flame and flare,
As the wild rout, with deafening song and shout,
Fling their long flashes out,

That, like infernal lightnings, fill the air'.

* Son of the Boswell of Johnsonian celebrity. + Miss Barker, a lady with whom Southey became acquainted at Cintra.

'The only mishap which occured will make a famous anecdote in the life of a great poet, if James Boswell, after the example of his father, keepeth a diary. When we were craving for the punch, a cry went forth that the kettle had been knocked over with all the boiling water! Colonel Barker, as Boswell named the Senhora, from her having had the command on this occasion, immediately instituted a strict enquiry to discover the culprit, on a suspicion that it might have been done in mischief; water being, as you know, a commodity not easily replaced on the summit of Skiddaw. The persons about the fire declared it was one of the gentlemen they did not know his name, but he had a red cloak on, they pointed him out in the circle. The red cloak (a maroon one of Edith's) identified him ; Wordsworth had got hold of it, and was equipped like a Spanish Don, by no means the worst figure in the company. He had committed the fatal faux pas, and thought to slink off undiscovered. But as soon as, in my enquiries for punch, I learnt his guilt from the Senhora, I went round to all our party and communicated the discovery, and getting them about him, punished him by singing a parody, which they all joined in ;

"'Twas you Sir that kicked the kettle down,
Twas you Sir, 'twas you".

The consequences were that we took all the cold water on the summit to supply our loss. Our myrmidons, Messrs. Rag and Co., had therefore none for their grog, and you, who are physician to the Middlesex Hospital, are doubtless acquainted with the manner in which alcohol acts upon the nervous system. All our torches were lit at once by this mad company, and our way down the hill was marked by a track of fire, from flam