ld not be squabbling. However, it seems
you have no intention of a quite immediate move, and we can speak
farther of it." I readily consented to do whatever seemed feasible
to help him out of his difficulties, which existed, however, as I
perceived, much more in his own mind than in actual fact. I thought
a brief holiday in the solitude within which I was then located would
probably be helpful in restoring a tranquil condition of mind, and as
his brother, Mr. Scott, Mr. Watts, Mr. Shields, and other friends in
London, were of a similar opinion, efforts were made to induce him
to undertake the journey which he had been the first to think of.
His oldest friend, Mr. Madox Brown (whose presence would have been as
valuable now as it had proved to be on former occasions), was away at
Manchester, and remained there throughout the time of his last illness.
His moods at this time were too variable to be relied upon three days
together, and so I find him writing:

Many thanks for the information as to your Shady Vale, which
seems a vision--a distant one, alas!--of Paradise. Perhaps I
may reach it yet.... I am now thinking of writing another
ballad-poem to add at the end of my volume. It is romantic,
not historical I have a clear scheme for it and believe your
scenery might help me much if I could get there. When you
hear that scheme, you will, I believe, pronounce it
precisely fitted to the scenery you describe as now
surrounding you. That scenery I hope to reach a little
later, but meantime should much like to see you in London
and return with you.

The proposed ballad was to be called _The Orchard Pits_ and was to be
illustrative of the serpent fascination of beauty, but it was never
written. Contented now to await the issue of events, he proceeded to
write on subjects of general interest:

Keats (page 154, vol. i., of Houghton's Life, etc.) mentions
among other landscape features the Vale of St. John. So you
may think of him in the neighbourhood as well as (or, if you
like, rather than) Wordsworth.

I have been reading again Hogg's Shelley. S. appears to have
been as mad at Keswick as everywhere else, but not madder;--
that he could not compass.

At this juncture some unlooked-for hitch in the arrangements then
pending for the sale of the _Dante's Dream_ to the Corporation of
Liverpool rendered my presence in London inevitable, and