belongs to a London banker, purchased, as I
suppose, with a view to building on it. It is a lovely spot for a house,
with delicious views of the lake and church, Easedale, Helm Crag, &c. I
have seen no place, I think, on which I should so much like to build my
retreat.

[242] I cannot fill the blank. J.T.C.

[243] I used the word _trudging_ at the time; it denoted to me his bold
way of walking. J.T.C.

_October 16th_.--Since church, we have taken our last walk with
Wordsworth. M. was mounted on Dora W.'s pony. He led us up on Loughrigg,
round to the Tarn, by the back of Loughrigg to the foot of Grasmere
Lake, and so home by this side of Rydal; the weather warm and fine, and
a lovely walk it was. The views of the mountains, Langdale Way, the Tarn
itself and its banks, and the views on Grasmere and Rydal Waters, are
almost beyond anything I have seen, even in this country.

He and Mrs. W. came this evening to bid us farewell. We parted with
great, I believe mutual, regret; certainly they have been kind to us in
a way and degree which seemed unequivocally to testify good liking to
us, and them it is impossible not to love. The more I have seen of
Wordsworth, the more I admire him as a poet and as a man. He has the
finest and most discriminating feeling for the beauties of Nature that I
ever witnessed; he expresses himself in glowing and yet manly language
about them. There is much simplicity in his character, much _naivete_,
but it is all generous and highly moral.[244]

[244] _Memoirs_, ii. 300-15.

* * * * *

(_c_) RECOLLECTIONS OF TOUR IN ITALY, BY H.C. ROBINSON.

Oct. 18. 1850.

MY DEAR SIR,

I feel quite ashamed, I assure you, of sending you the Itinerary of my
journey with Mr. Wordsworth, so poorly accompanied as it must be, and
the more, because Mr. Wordsworth seems to have thought that I might be
able to make a contribution to your work worth your acceptance. At the
same time, I am much relieved by recollecting that he himself cared
nothing for the connection which a place might have with a great poet,
unless an acquaintance with it served to illustrate his works. He made
this remark in the Church of St. Onofrio at Rome, where Tasso lies
buried. The place which, on this account, interested him more than any
other on the journey was _Vaucluse_, while he cared nothing for Arezzo,
which claims to be the place of Petrarch's birth. Indeed, a priest on