From this time there is a break of many years, when the enclosure received another member of the younger generation. Miss Rotha Quillinan, named after the murmuring river, by the banks of which her life was spent, died on the 1st February, 1876. She was the younger daughter of Mr. Quillinan, and, apart from the subsequent relationship, had been an object of especial interest to the poet as his god-daughter. He wrote the following lines in her album :—

"Rotha, my Spiritual Child! this head was gray
When at the sacred font for thee I stood:
Pledged till thou reach the verge of womanhood,
And shalt become thy own sufficient stay;
Too late, I feel, sweet Orphan! was the day
For steadfast hope the contract to fulfil;
Yet shall my blessing hover o'er thee still,
Embodied in the music of this Lay,

Breathed forth beside the peaceful mountain Stream,
Whose murmur soothed thy languid Mother's ear
After her throes, this Stream of name more dear
Since thou dost bear it- -a memorial theme

For others; for thy future self, a spell

To summon fancies out of Time's dark cell."

Her surviving sister still resides in the charming retreat at the foot of Loughrigg Fell, overlooking the vale of Ambleside, which had so long been the home. of both.

The latest addition to the group was made so lately as the year 1883, when Mr. William Wordsworth, the last surviving son of the poet, was added to the number.

There is, however, one more grave, which, though not within the enclosure, lies close behind it, and claims our notice. Hartley Coleridge, the eldest son of his more distinguished father, was for many years a familiar figure in the neighborhood where he now rests. As a child, quiet, intelligent, and promising; as a youth, encouraging the hope that he was gifted with a genius which would lead to a career of no ordinary character; as a collegian, fulfilling the bright hopes of his friends, and attaining signal distinction;

- his subsequent history affords one more instance of the fact that the greatest genius may by one failing be crippled, and the brightest promise be never followed by its full fruition. But this is not the place to recount his story. His published poems show that he inherited no small portion of his father's poetic ability. In his subsequently rather aimless life, he endeared himself not a little to the sympathetic inhabitants of the vale by his gentle, warm-hearted, and loving disposition. He was passionately fond of children, and would hardly pass through the village without taking a little one into his arms. For his father's sake, as well as his own, he was a favorite with the Wordsworths. It was by Mrs. Wordsworth, the friend of his infancy, that in his fifty-third year his relatives were summoned to his dying bed; and by Wordsworth himself (a year before his own death) his last resting-place was chosen. "Let him lie by us," said the aged poet, "he would have wished it;" adding to the sexton, "keep the ground for us we are old people, and it cannot be for long."

The following sonnet may be given as a specimen of Hartley Coleridge's poetry, the closing line not inaptly expressing the prayerful attitude with which he approached the eternal future.

"SHE LOVED MUCH.

"She sat and wept beside His feet. The weight
Of sin oppressed her heart; for all the blame,
And the poor malice of the worldly shame,
To her was past, extinct, and out of date;
Only the sin remained — the leprous state.
She would be melted by the heat of love,
By fires far fiercer than are blown to prove
And purge the silver ore adulterate.

She sat and wept, and with her untressed hair
Still wiped the feet she was so blest to touch;
And He wiped off the soiling of despair

From her sweet soul, because she loved so much.

I am a sinner, full of doubts and fears,
Make me a humble thing of love and tears."

CHAPTER XVIII.

M1

POEMS.

ISS WORDSWORTH did not write much poetry. The few pieces she has left behind, though not of the highest order, are sufficient to show that had she devoted herself to it, she might have attained distinction. She was so devoted to her brother that she did not attempt for herself an independent position. She preferred to find subjects for the more skilful pen of her brother, and to act as his amanuensis. The poems that she did write, and which have been published with those of her brother, are worthy of a place here. The first of these, written in 1805, is

"THE COTTAGER TO HER INFANT.

(Suggested to Miss Wordsworth when watching one of the Poet's Children.)

"The days are cold, the nights are long,

The north wind sings a doleful song;

Then hush again upon my breast;

All merry things are now at rest,
Save thee, my pretty Love!

"The kitten sleeps upon the hearth,

The crickets long have ceased their mirth;

There's nothing stirring in the house
Save one wee, hungry, nibbling mouse,
Then why so busy thou?

"Nay! start not at that sparkling light;
'Tis but the moon that shines so bright
On the window pane, bedropped with rain :
Then, little Darling! sleep again,

And wake when it is day."

The following (written in 1806) has been described by Charles Lamb as masterly :—

"ADDRESSED TO A CHILD (DURING A BOISTEROUS WINTER EVENING).

"What way does the Wind come? What way does he go? He rides over the water, and over the snow;

Through wood and through vale; and o'er rocky height
Which the goat cannot climb, takes his sounding flight;
He tosses about in every bare tree,

As, if you look up, you plainly may see;

But how he will come, and whither he goes,
There's never a scholar in England knows.

He will suddenly stop in a cunning nook,

And ring a sharp 'larum ; — but, if you should look,
There's nothing to see but a cushion of snow
Round as a pillow, and whiter than milk,
And softer than if it were covered with silk.
Sometimes he'll hide in the cave of a rock,
Then whistle as shrill as the buzzard cock;
Yet seek him, - and what shall you find in the place?
Nothing but silence and empty space;
Save, in a corner, a heap of dry leaves,

That he's left, for a bed, to beggars or thieves!