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their adventures. My brother, active, lively, and almost as strong as ever on a mountain top; Jones, fat and roundabout and rosy, and puffing and panting while he climbs the little hill from the road to our house. Never was there a more remarkable contrast; yet time seems to have strengthened the attachment of the native of Cambrian mountains to his Cumbrian friend."

Of personal and domestic matters in 1832 there is little to record. On June 25 Wordsworth wrote from Moresby to Professor Hamilton:*

"My dear sister has been languishing more than seven months in a sick-room, nor dare I or any of her friends entertain a hope that her strength will ever be restored." In the same letter he says of Coleridge: "He and my beloved sister are the two beings to whom my intellect is most indebted, and they are now proceeding, as it were pari passu, along the path of sickness-I will not say towards the grave, but I trust towards a blessed immortality. It was not my intention to write so seriously; my heart is full, and you must excuse it. . . . A fortnight ago I came hither to my son and daughter, who are living a gentle, happy, quiet, and useful life together. My daughter Dora is also with us. . . . A week ago Mr. W. S. Landor, the poet and author of Imaginary Conversations' (which probably have fallen in your way) appeared here. We had never met before, though several letters had passed between us, and as I had not heard that he was in England, my gratification in seeing him was heightened by surprise. We passed a day together at the house of my friend Mr. Rawson, on the banks of Wast-Water. His conversation is lively and original, his learning great, though he will not allow it, and his laugh the heartiest I have heard for a long time."

To Crabb Robinson he wrote on July 21, from Rydal Mount:

"You will grieve to hear that your invalid friend, my dear sister, never quits her room but for a few minutes, and we think is always weakened by the exertion. She is, however, God be praised, in a contented and happy state of mind. . . Yesterday I was on the top of

Letters of the Wordsworth Family," II. 497.

Helvellyn with my friend Mr. Julius Hare of Trinity College, Dr. Arnold, Master of Rugby - as keen a reformer as yourself, or any other dissenting Tory... Once I was upon this summit with Sir Humphry Davy and Sir Walter Scott; and many times have I trod it with my nearest and dearest relations and friends, several of whom are gone-and others going to their last abode. But I have touched upon too melancholy a string. Life is at best but a dream, and in times of political commotion it is too often crowded with ghostly images. God preserve us all!"

The death of Scott, on September 21, deepened, and in part justified, if anything could justify, this gloom. Some compensation for the loss of old friends came with the settlement of Dr. Thomas Arnold and his family at Fox How, less than a mile from Rydal Mount. With them was established a close intimacy, destined to last until the close of Wordsworth's life.

The prospect of living near the Wordsworths was one of the chief inducements that led to the purchase of Fox How, as may be seen from the following letter from Dr. Arnold to J. T. Coleridge from Rugby, April 5, 1832:*

"Our intercourse with the Wordsworths was one of the brightest spots of all; nothing could exceed their friendliness, and my almost daily walks with him were things not to be forgotten. Once, and once only, we had a good fight about the Reform Bill, during a walk up Greenhead Ghyll to see the unfinished Sheepfold recorded in Michael.' But I am sure that our political disagreement did not at all interfere with our enjoyment of each other's society; for I think that in the great principles of things we agreed very entirely, and only differed as to the τὰ καθ ̓ ἕκαστα. We are thinking of buying or renting a place at Grasmere or Rydal, to spend our holidays at constantly, for not only are the Wordsworths and the scenery a very great attraction, but, etc., etc."

H. W. Pickersgill, the artist, stayed ten days at Rydal Mount this summer, and painted a portrait of Words

* Stanley's "Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold," I. 280.

From the drawing by Pickersgill, in the Combination Room of St. John's College, Cambridge. Reproduced with the permission of the Master and Fellows of the College.

[Vol. II., p. 372

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worth for St. John's College, Cambridge. Dora wrote on September 27:*

"Ten more pleasant days were never passed. The garret was our studio, our lowly cottage not affording a light sufficiently high for a painter in any other corner. And here we received all our company, whomsoever they might be, Mr. Pickersgill not caring how full the room was. He, too, when you know him, is a most interesting person, so completely wrapped up in his pictures. And you may well imagine how grateful we feel to him for giving us such a picture of such a father. But enough; I am forgetting that everyone cannot care about this said poet quite as much as his daughter does."

On May 30, 1833, Crabb Robinson wrote in his Diary:

"I went with Mrs. Aders to Pickersgill's, to see his portrait of Wordsworth. It is in every respect a fine picture, except that the artist has made the disease in Wordsworth's eyes too apparent. The picture wants an oculist."

"Letters of the Wordsworth Family," II. 503.