George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor
George Hillard, Ed.

[434] peculiarly sonorous recitative. The drive of fifteen miles and the visit seemed short, and soon after my return home I rejoined him at Rydal Mount and passed an extremely agreeable evening with him again, which he again ended by accompanying me back to Ambleside by a beautiful moonlight.

September 3.—Mrs. Fletcher and her daughter came to breakfast with us; and though she is sixteen years older than she was when I saw her last, she is as interesting as ever, by her talent and enthusiasm. When we drove from Ambleside she accompanied us to Wordsworth's, where we passed a couple of hours very agreeably. He showed us quite over his pretty grounds and through his favorite walks, where he has composed so much of his poetry,. . . . and went with us to the picturesque waterfall in Lady Le Fleming's grounds. . . . . His daughter was on her sofa, very intelligent and pleasing, her animation not impaired by her debility; and his younger son, whose education is not completed, is an agreeable, kind-hearted young man, forming, with their venerable father and excellent, gentle, matronly mother, a group which leaves such a kindly and harmonious impression on the mind as we are always glad to cherish there. . . . Bidding farewell to the Wordsworths and the Fletchers, we drove on to Keswick.

Keswick, September 3.—We came here by invitation to pass the evening with Southey, but we accepted the invitation with some hesitation, for Mrs. Southey has been several months hopelessly deranged, and is supposed now to be sinking away. . .. . He received us very kindly, but was much moved when he showed me his only son, and reminded me that I had last seen him hardly three weeks old, in his cradle in the same room. . . . .

Southey was natural and kind, but evidently depressed, much altered since I saw him fifteen years ago, a little bent, and his hair quite white. He showed me the materials for his edition of Cowper and the beginning of the Life; the last work, he says, he shall ever do for the booksellers. Among the materials was the autograph manuscript of ‘John Gilpin,’ and many letters .. . . . He read us, too, about three cantos of his ‘Oliver Newman,’—the poem on American ground,—some of it fine, but the parts intended to be humorous in very bad taste. He showed me as many curious and rare manuscripts and books as I could look at, and told me that he means now to finish his history of Portugal and Portuguese literature; and if possible write a history of the Monastic Orders. If he does the last, it will be bitter enough. He says he has written no ‘Quarterly Review’