but rather
increase my ardour. In the mean time, I went to Llangollen Vale, by way of
initiating myself in the mysteries of natural scenery; and I must say I
was enchanted with it. I had been reading Coleridge's description of
England, in his fine _Ode on the Departing Year_, and I applied it, _con
amore_, to the objects before me. That valley was to me (in a manner) the
cradle of a new existence; in the river that winds through it, my spirit
was baptised in the waters of Helicon!

I returned home, and soon after set out on my journey with unworn heart
and untired feet. My way lay through Worcester and Gloucester, and by
Upton, where I thought of Tom Jones and the adventure of the muff. I
remember getting completely wet through one day, and stopping at an inn (I
think it was at Tewkesbury) where I sat up all night to read Paul and
Virginia. Sweet were the showers in early youth that drenched my body, and
sweet the drops of pity that fell upon the books I read! I recollect a
remark of Coleridge's upon this very book, that nothing could shew the
gross indelicacy of French manners and the entire corruption of their
imagination more strongly than the behaviour of the heroine in the last
fatal scene, who turns away from a person on board the sinking vessel,
that offers to save her life, because he has thrown off his clothes to
assist him in swimming. Was this a time to think of such a circumstance? I
once hinted to Wordsworth, as we were sailing in his boat on Grasmere
lake, that I thought he had borrowed the idea of his _Poems on the Naming
of Places_ from the local inscriptions of the same kind in Paul and
Virginia. He did not own the obligation, and stated some distinction
without a difference, in defence of his claim to originality. Any the
slightest variation would be sufficient for this purpose in his mind; for
whatever _he_ added or omitted would inevitably be worth all that any one
else had done, and contain the marrow of the sentiment.--I was still two
days before the time fixed for my arrival, for I had taken care to set out
early enough. I stopped these two days at Bridgewater, and when I was
tired of sauntering on the banks of its muddy river, returned to the inn,
and read Camilla. So have I loitered my life away, reading books, looking
at pictures, going to plays, hearing, thinking, writing on what pleased me
best. I have wanted only one thing to make me happy; but wanting that,
have wanted every thing!

I arr