els, or narrated the incidents which befell him
on the way. This is how he writes of his farm, and his work upon
it:--"We have at length some traces of spring (6th April 1784); the
primrose under the hedge begins to open her modest flower, the buds
begin to swell, and the birds to build; yet we have still a wide
horizon, the mountain tops resign not their snows. The happiest season
of the year with me is now commencing--I mean that in which I am at the
plough; my horses pace slowly on before, the larks sing above my head,
and the furrow falls at my side, and the face of Nature and my own mind
seem to wear a sweet and cheerful tranquillity."

The following extract shows the interest which he took in the very
implements of his industry, and may serve as an illustration of
Wordsworth's stanzas on his "spade." "Eighth month, 16th, 1789.
Yesterday I parted without regret from an old acquaintance--I set by my
scythe for this year. I have often this season seen the dark blue
mountains before the sun and his rising embroider them with gold. I have
had many a good sleep in the shade among fragrant grass and refreshing
breezes, and though closely engaged in what may be thought heavy work, I
was sensible of the enjoyments of life with uninterrupted health." In
the closing years of the last century, when the spirit of patriotic
ardour was so thoroughly roused in England by the restlessness of France
and the ambition of Napoleon, he lived on at his pastoral farm, "busy
with his husbandry." In London, he made the acquaintance of Edmund
Burke; and Thomas Clarkson, the philanthropist,--whose labours for the
abolition of the slave trade are matter of history,--became his intimate
friend, and was a frequent visitor at Yanwath. Clarkson afterwards
bought an estate near to Wilkinson's home, on the shores of Ullswater,
where he built a house, and named it Eusemere, and there the Wordsworths
were not infrequent guests. (See the note to the poem beginning "I
wandered lonely as a cloud," vol. iii. p. 5.) Wordsworth stayed at
Yanwath for two days in 1806. The _Tours to the British Mountains, with
the Descriptive Poems of Lowther and Emont Vale_ (London, 1824), have
been referred to in the note to _The Solitary Reaper_, vol. ii. p. 399,
one of the poems in the "Memorials of a Tour in Scotland, 1803." It is
an interesting volume--the prose much superior to the verse--and might
be reprinted with advantage. Wilkinson was urged repeatedly to publish