eam,' &c.]. I reached Barnard Castle about half-past ten.
Between eight and nine evening I reached Eusemere.' [_Memoirs_, i. pp.
181-2.]

116. *_The Poet and the caged Turtle-dove_. [XXVI.]

Rydal Mount, 1830. This dove was one of a pair that had been given to my
daughter by our excellent friend Miss Jewsbury, who went to India with
her husband Mr. Fletcher, where she died of cholera. The dove survived
its mate many years, and was killed, to our great sorrow, by a
neighbour's cat that got in at the window and dragged it partly out of
the cage. These verses were composed extempore, to the letter, in the
Terrace Summer-house before spoken of. It was the habit of the bird to
begin cooing and murmuring whenever it heard me making my verses. [In
pencil on opposite page--Dora.]

117. *_A Wren's Nest_. [XXVII.]

In Dora's Field, 1833: Rydal Mount. This nest was built as described, in
a tree that grows near the pool in Dora's field next the Rydal Mount
Garden.

118. *_Love lies bleeding_. [XXVIII.]

It has been said that the English, though their country has produced so
many great poets, is now the most unpoetical nation in Europe. It is
probably true; for they have more temptation to become so than any other
European people. Trade, commerce, and manufactures, physical science and
mechanic arts, out of which so much wealth has arisen, have made our
countrymen infinitely less sensible to movements of imagination and
fancy than were our forefathers in their simple state of society. How
touching and beautiful were in most instances the names they gave to our
indigenous flowers, or any other they were familiarly acquainted with!
Every month for many years have we been importing plants and flowers
from all quarters of the globe, many of which are spread through our
gardens, and some, perhaps, likely to be met with on the few commons
which we have left. Will their botanical names ever be displaced by
plain English appellations which will bring them home to our hearts by
connection with our joys and sorrows? It can never be, unless society
treads back her steps towards those simplicities which have been
banished by the undue influence of towns spreading and spreading in
every direction, so that city life with every generation takes more and
more the lead of rural. Among the ancients, villages were reckoned the
seats of barbarism. Refinement, for the most part false, increases the
desire to accumulate wealth; and, while th