on of one
of the finest collections of autographs in England. He showed me the
signature of John Bunyan; the original manuscript of one of Sir Walter
Scott's novels; the original of Burns' poem addressed to the parasite
on a lady's bonnet, which contained the famous lines:

"Oh wad some power the giftie gie us
To see our sel's as others see us,"

besides several other manuscripts by the same poet, and also the
autograph of a challenge sent by Byron to Lord Brougham for alleged
insult, a fact to which no reference has been made in Byron's biography.
From Liverpool, with my friends Professor Renwick and Professor
Cuningham, I set out on a journey to the lakes of England. We reached
Bowness, on Lake Windermere, in the evening. The next morning we went up
to Elleray, the country residence of Professor Wilson ("Christopher
North"), who, unfortunately, was absent in Edinburgh. We hired a boatman
to row us through exquisitely beautiful Windermere, and in the evening
reached the Salutation Inn, at the foot of the lake. My great interest
in visiting Ambleside was to see the venerable poet, Wordsworth, who
lived about a mile from the village. I happened, just before supper, to
look out of the window of the traveller's room and espied an old man in
a blue cloak and Glengarry cap, with a bunch of heather stuck jauntily
in the top, driving by in a little brown phaeton from Rydal Mount.
"Perhaps," thought I to myself, "that may be the patriarch himself," and
sure enough it was. For, when I inquired about Mr. Wordsworth, the
landlord said to me, "A few minutes ago he went by here in his little
carriage." The next morning I called upon him. The walk to his cottage
was delightful, with the dew still lingering in the shady nooks by the
roadside, and the morning songs of thanksgiving bursting forth from
every grove. At the summit of a deeply shaded hill I found "Rydal Mount"
cottage. I was shown, at once, into the sitting-room, where I found him
with his wife, who sat sewing beside him. The old man rose and received
me graciously. By his appearance I was somewhat startled. Instead of a
grave recluse in scholastic black, whom I expected to see, I found an
affable and lovable old man dressed in the roughest coat of blue with
metal buttons, and checked trousers, more like a New York farmer than an
English poet. His nose was very large, his forehead a lofty dome of
thought, and his long white locks hung over his stooping shoulders; his