Dove Cottage has now been purchased for the nation and for posterity, as Shakespeare's home at Stratford was secured. It is to the Rev. Stopford Brooke and his brother, Mr. William Brooke of Dublin, that the entire credit of this is due. The proposal had been made long ago, but no steps were taken to realise it. As far back as 1862, it was thought of, and in 1876 Dr. Cradock and I went over the house, with a view to see what would require to be done to it in the event of its purchase. Later, Mr. Rawnsley took up the idea. It was brought forward at meetings of the Wordsworth Society, but Mr. Rawnsley's later idea was to secure Greta Hall, Keswick, the house of Coleridge and Southey, also classic ground, and make it a sort of Valhalla for memorials of the poets of the Lake Country. In 1884 it was examined carefully, with this end in view, but the difficulty of raising funds was insuperable. At last Mr. Brooke and his brother visited the district of Grasmere in 1889, and, after inspecting the cottage and the surrounding places memorialised in the poems, made up his mind that it should be secured "for those who love English poetry all over the world." He wrote to the owner, who offered to sell it for £650; and a Committee was formed to carry out the project. A sum of nearly 1000 was soon raised, and the cottage and its garden purchased. The property is to be conveyed to a Board of Trustees, who will appoint an Executive Committee of Management.

Mr. Brooke has written an excellent little book on Dove Cottage, in which he has managed, with rare skill, to weave into his pages almost every point of interest in Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, and to vivify the whole.

The following passages from that Journal contain their very best commentary.

“June 2, 1800.—I sat a long time to watch the

hurrying waves" (on Rydal), "and to hear the regularly irregular sound of the dashing waters. The waves round about the little island seemed like a dance of spirits that rose out of the water, round its small circumference of shore.

"July 26.-The lake was now most still, and reflected the yellow, blue, purple, and grey colours of the sky. We heard a strange sound in the Bainriggs wood as we were floating on the waters: it seemed in the wood, but it must have been above it, for presently we saw a raven very high above us. It called out, and the dome of the sky seemed to echo the sound. It called again and again as it flew onwards, and the mountains gave back the sound, seeming as if, from their centre, a musical, bell-like answering to the bird's hoarse voice. We heard both the call of the bird, and the echo, after we could see him no longer.

"October II. Walked up Green-head Gill in search of a sheepfold.1 The colour of the mountain, soft, and rich with orange fern; the cattle pasturing upon the hill tops; kites sailing in the sky above our heads; sheep bleating, and feeding in the water courses, scattered over the mountains. They come down to feed, in the little green islands in the beds of the torrents, and so may be swept away. The sheepfold is falling away. It is built nearly in the form of a heart unequally divided. Looked down the brook, and saw the drops rise upwards and sparkle in the air at the little falls. The higher sparkled the tallest.

"Nov. 24.—We heard the wind everywhere about us as we went along the lane. We were stopped at once at the distance of fifty yards from our favourite birch-tree. It was yielding to the gusty wind with all its tender twigs. The sun shone upon it,

1 Michael's sheepfold.

and it glanced in the wind like a flying sun-shiny shower. It was a tree in shape, with stem and branches, but it was like a spirit of water. The sun went in, and it resumed its purplish appearance, the twigs still yielding to the wind, but not so visibly to us. The other birch-trees that were near it looked brighter and cheerful, but it was a creature by its own self amongst them.

"Feb. 23, 1801.-We walked to the top of the hill, then to the bridge. The sykes1 made a sweet sound everywhere; and in the twilight that little one above Mr. Oliff's house, a ghostly, white serpent line, made a sound most distinctly heard of itself. 23rd.—When we came out of our doors, the thrush was singing upon the topmost of the smaller branches of the ash tree at the top of the orchard. How long it had been perched I cannot tell, but we heard its dear voice in the orchard all the day through, along with a cheerful undersong made by our winter friends the robins. We went to John's Grove, and sate, looking at the fading landscape. The lake, though the objects on the shore were fading, seemed brighter than when it is perfect day, and the island, pushed itself upwards, distinct and large. There was a sweet, sea-like sound in the trees above our heads.

66

April 29.-We went to John's Grove. William and I lay in the the trench under the fence, he with eyes shut, listening to the waterfall and the birds. There was now one waterfall above another-it was a sound of waters in the air-the voice of the air. We were unseen by one another. We thought it would be so sweet thus to be in the grave, to hear the peaceful sounds of the earth, and just to know that our dear friends are near. The lake was still : there was a boat out. Silver How reflected with

1 Small streams, almost runlets.

delicate purple and yellowish hues, as I have seen spar: lambs on the island, and running races together by the dozen in the round field near us. As I lay down on the grass, I observed the glittering silver line on the ridge of the backs of the sheep, owing to their situation respecting the sun, which made them look beautiful, but with something of strangeness, like animals of another kind, as if belonging to a more splendid world.

May 6.-We have put the finishing stroke to our bower, and here we are sitting in the orchard. It is one o'clock. We are sitting upon a seat under the wall, which I found my brother building up when I came to him. He had intended that it should have been done before I came. It is a nice, cool, shady spot. The small birds are singing, lambs bleating, cuckoos calling, the thrush sings by fits; Thomas Ashburnam's axe is going quietly, without passion, in the orchard; hens are cackling, flies humming, the women talking together at their doors, plum and pear trees are in blossom, apple trees greenish, the opposite woods green, the crows are cawing, we have heard ravens, the ash trees are in blossom, birds flying all about us, the stitchwort is coming out, there is our budding lychnis, the primroses are passing their prime, celandine, violets, and wood-sorrel for ever more, little geraniums and pansies on the wall. The moon a perfect boat, a silver boat; the birch tree all over green in small leaf, more light and elegant than when it is full out. It bent to the breezes as if for the love of its own delightful motions. Sloethorns and hawthorns in the hedges."

These are samples of the wonderful Grasmere Journal of Dorothy Wordsworth, for a fuller idea of which readers of this book must be referred to the first volume of the Life of William Wordsworth, by the present writer, published in 1889.

CHAPTER IV.

GRASMERE, ETC.

THE poems that most naturally recur to one's memory, in thinking of Wordsworth as the interpreter of Grasmere, are those in that exquisite series of seven On the Naming of Places. In an "advertisement" to this series, Wordsworth said: "By persons resident in the country and attached to rural objects, many places will be found unnamed or of unknown name, where little incidents must have occurred, or feelings been experienced, which will have given to such places a private and peculiar interest. From a wish to give some sort of record to such incidents, and renew the gratification of such feelings, Names have been given to Places by the author and some of his friends, and the following poems written in consequence."

While the third, fourth, sixth, and seventh of these "places" are easily identified, I think it possible that the poet did not wish the other three to be known with absolute accuracy. In reference to the second-entitled To Joanna—when walking with some friends, and asked to name the rock referred to, he gave an evasive answer. They were passing Butterlip How at the time, and he replied, "Any place that will suit; that as well as any other." I cannot think that he made his answer vague and his note dictated to Miss Fenwick still vaguer with the view of "puzzling posterity;" but