eyes presented a singular, half closed appearance. We entered at once
into a delightful conversation. He made many inquiries about Irving,
Mrs. Sigourney and our other American authors, and spoke, with great
vehemence, in favor of an international copyright law. He said that at
one time he had hoped to visit America, but the duties of a small office
which he held (Distributer of Stamps), and upon which he was partly
dependent, prevented the undertaking. He occasionally made a trip to
London to see the few survivors of the friends of his early days, but he
told me that his last excursion had proved a wearisome effort. His
library was small but select. He took down an American edition of his
works, edited by Professor Reed, and told me that London had never
produced an edition equal to it. When I was about to leave, the good old
poet got his broad slouched hat and put on his double purple glasses to
protect his eyes, and we went out to enjoy the neighboring views. We
walked about from one point to another and kept up a lively
conversation. He displayed such a winning familiarity that, in the
language of his own poem, we seemed

"A pair of friends, though I was young,
And he was seventy-four."

From the rear of his court-yard he showed me Rydal Water, a little lake
about a mile long, the beautiful church, and beyond it, Grassmere, and
still further beyond, Helvelyn, the mountain-king with a retinue of a
hundred hills. I might have spent the whole day in delightful
intercourse with the old man, but my fellow-travellers were going, and I
could make no longer inroads upon their time. When we returned to the
door of his cottage, he gave me a parting blessing; he picked a small
yellow flower and handed it to me, and I still preserve it in my
edition of his works, as a relic of the most profound and the most
sublime poet that England has produced during the nineteenth century I
know of but one other living American who has ever visited Wordsworth at
Rydal Mount.

After passing through Keswick, where the venerable poet Southey was
still lingering in sadly failing intelligence, we reached Carlisle the
same evening. From Carlisle we took the mail-coach for Edinburgh by the
same route over which Sir Walter Scott was accustomed to make his
journeys up to London. The driver, who might have answered to Washington
Irving's description, pointed out to me Netherby Hall, the mansion of
the Grahams, on "Cannobie lea," over whi