d proceeded
to Haweswater. It is a fine lake, entirely unspoilt by bad taste. On one
side the bank rises high and steep, and is well clothed with wood; on
the other it is bare and more sloping. Wordsworth conveyed a personal
interest in it to me, by telling me that it was the first lake which my
uncle[237] had seen on his coming into this country: he was in company
with Wordsworth and his brother John. Wordsworth pointed out to me
somewhere about the spot on the hill-side, a little out of the track,
from which they first saw the lake; and said, he well remembered how his
face brightened, and how much delight he appeared to feel. Yesterday
morning we returned to this place. We called on our way and took our
luncheon at Hallsteads, and also called at Paterdale Hall. At both it
was gratifying to see the cordial manner of W.'s reception: he seemed
loved and honoured; and his manner was of easy, hearty, kindness to
them.

[237] See _Memoirs_, vol. i. pp. 147-8.

My tour with him was very agreeable, and I wish I could preserve in my
memory more of his conversation than I shall be able to do. I was
anxious to get from him anecdotes of himself and my uncle, and of their
works. He told me of himself, that his first verses were a Popian copy
written at school on the 'Pleasure of Change;' then he wrote another on
the 'Second Centenary of the School's Foundation;' that he had written
these verses on the holidays, and on the return to school; that he was
rather the poet of the school. The first verses from which he remembered
to have received great pleasure, were Miss Carter's 'Poem on Spring,' a
poem in the six-line stanza, which he was particularly fond of, and had
composed much in, for example, 'Ruth.' He said there was some foundation
in fact, however slight, for every poem he had written of a narrative
kind; so slight indeed, sometimes, as hardly to deserve the name; for
example, 'The Somnambulist' was wholly built on the fact of a girl at
Lyulph's Tower being a sleep-walker; and 'The Water Lily,' on a ship
bearing that name. 'Michael' was founded on the son of an old couple
having become dissolute and run away from his parents; and on an old
shepherd having been seven years in building up a sheepfold in a
solitary valley: 'The Brothers,' on a young shepherd, in his sleep,
having fallen down a crag, his staff remaining suspended midway. Many
incidents he seemed to have drawn from the narration of Mrs. Wordsworth,
or his siste