ntend to learn the language; therefore that could be no
objection. However, I am very glad I did not go, because you had left
Paris (I see) before I could have set out. I believe Stoddart promising
to go with me another year prevented that plan. My next scheme (for to
my restless, ambitious mind London was become a bed of thorns) was to
visit the far-famed peak in Derbyshire, where the Devil sits, they say,
without breeches. _This_ my purer mind rejected as indelicate. And my
final resolve was a tour to the Lakes. I set out with Mary to Keswick,
without giving Coleridge any notice; for my time, being precious, did
not admit of it. He received us with all the hospitality tality in the
world, and gave up his time to show us all the wonders of the country.
He dwells upon a small hill by the side of Keswick, in a comfortable
house, quite enveloped on all sides by a net of mountains,--great
floundering bears and monsters they seemed, all couchant and asleep. We
got in in the evening, travelling in a post-chaise from Penrith, in the
midst of a gorgeous sunshine, which transmuted all the mountains into
colors, purple, etc. We thought we had got into fairy-land. But that
went off (as it never came again; while we stayed, we had no more fine
sunsets); and we entered Coleridge's comfortable study just in the dusk,
when the mountains were all dark, with clouds upon their heads. Such an
impression I never received from objects of sight before, nor do I
suppose that I can ever again. Glorious creatures, fine old fellows,
Skiddaw, etc. I never shall forget ye, how ye lay about that night, like
an intrenchment; gone to bed, as it seemed for the night, but promising
that ye were to be seen in the morning. Coleridge had got a blazing fire
in his study, which is a large, antique, ill-shaped room, with an
old-fashioned organ, never played upon, big enough for a church, shelves
of scattered folios, an AEolian harp, and an old sofa, half-bed, etc.;
and all looking out upon the last fading view of Skiddaw and his
broad-breasted brethren. What a night! Here we stayed three full weeks,
in which time I visited Wordsworth's cottage, where we stayed a day or
two with the Clarksons (good people and most hospitable, at whose house
we tarried one day and night), and saw Lloyd. The Wordsworths were gone
to Calais. They have since been in London, and passed much time with us;
he has now gone into Yorkshire to be married. So we have seen Keswick,
Grasmer