This place was presented to me by Sir George Beaumont with a view to the erection of a house upon it, for the sake of being near to Coleridge, then living, and likely to remain, at Greta Hall near Keswick. The severe necessities that prevented this arose from his domestic situation. This little property, with a considerable addition that still leaves it very small, lies beautifully upon the banks of a rill that gurgles down the side of Skiddaw, and the orchard and other parts of the grounds command a magnificent prospect of Derwent Water, and of the mountains of Borrowdale and Newlands. Many years ago I gave the place to my daughter. from hour to hour, from day to day: I would fain hope, however, not more flagrantly or in a worse way than most of my tuneful brethren. But these last words are in a wrong strain. We should be rigorous to ourselves and forbearing, if not indulgent, to others, and, if we make comparisons at all, it ought to be with those who have morally excelled us. "Jam non consilio bonus, sed more eò perductus, ut non tantum rectè facere possim, sed nisi rectè facere non possim." STERN Daughter of the Voice of God! From vain temptations dost set free; And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity! Me this unchartered freedom tires; Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear To humbler functions, awful Power! 50 And in the light of truth thy Bondman let me live! The young man whose death gave occasion to this poem was named Charles Gough, and had come early in the spring to Paterdale for the sake of angling. While attempting to cross over Helvellyn to Grasmere he slipped from a steep part of the rock where the ice was not thawed, and perished. His body was discovered as is told in this poem. Walter Scott heard of the accident, and both he and I, without either of us knowing that the other had taken up the subject, each wrote a poem in admiration of the dog's fidelity. His contains a most beautiful stanza : "How long didst thou think that his silence was slum ber, When the wind waved his garment how oft didst thou start." I will add that the sentiment in the last four lines of the last stanza in my verses was uttered by a shepherd with such exactness, that a traveller, who afterwards reported his account in print, was induced to question the man whether he had read them, which he had not. A BARKING Sound the Shepherd hears, He halts- and searches with his eyes And now at distance can discern The Dog is not of mountain breed; Nor is there any one in sight All round, in hollow or on height; Nor shout, nor whistle strikes his ear; It was a cove, a huge recess, That keeps, till June, December's snow; ΤΟ INCIDENT CHARACTERISTIC OF A FAVOURITE DOG 1805. 1807 This Dog I knew well. It belonged to Mrs. Wordsworth's brother, Mr. Thomas Hutchinson, who then lived at Sockburn on the Tees, a beautiful retired situation where I used to visit him and his sisters before my marriage. My sister and I spent many months there after our return from Germany in 1799. ON his morning rounds the Master He hath comrades in his walk; |