All readers of Wordsworth, on either side the Atlantic, believe that they know that cottage, (described in the fifth book of the “Excursion,”) with its little orchard, and the moss house, and the tiny terrace behind, with its fine view of the lake and the basin of mountains.  There the brother and sister lived for some years in a very humble way, making their feast of the beauty about them.  Wordsworth was fond of telling how they had meat only two or three times a week; and he was eager to impress on new-comers—­on me among others—­the prudence of warning visitors that they must make up their minds to the scantiest fare.  He was as emphatic about this, laying his finger on one’s arm to enforce it, as about catching mice or educating the people.  It was vain to say that one would rather not invite guests than fail to provide for them; he insisted that the expense would be awful, and assumed that his sister’s and his own example settled the matter.  I suppose they were poor in those days; but it was not for long.  A devoted sister Dorothy was.  Too late it appeared that she had sacrificed herself to aid and indulge her brother.  When her mind was gone, and she was dying by inches, Mrs. Wordsworth offered me the serious warning that she gave whenever occasion allowed, against overwalking.  She told me that Dorothy had, not occasionally only, but often, walked forty miles in a day to give her brother her presence.  To repair the ravages thus caused she took opium; and the effect on her exhausted frame was to overthrow her mind.  This was when she was elderly.  For a long course of years, she was a rich household blessing to all connected with her.  She shared her brother’s peculiarity of investing trifles with solemnity, or rather, of treating all occasions alike (at least in writing) with pedantic elaboration; but she had the true poet’s, combined with the true woman’s nature; and the fortunate man had, in wife and sister, the two best friends of his life.

The Wordsworths were the originals of the Lake coterie, as we have seen.  Born at Cockermouth, and a pupil at the Hawkeshead school, Wordsworth was looking homewards when he settled in the District.  The others came in consequence.  Coleridge brought his family to Greta Hall, near Keswick; and with them came Mrs. Lovell, one of the three Misses Fricker, of whom Coleridge and Southey had married two.  Southey was invited to visit Greta Hall, the year after the Wordsworths settled at Grasmere; and thus they became acquainted.  They had just met before, in the South; but they had yet to learn to know each other; and there was sufficient unlikeness between them to render this a work of some time and pains.  It was not long before Southey, instead of Coleridge, was the lessee of Greta Hall; and soon after Coleridge took his departure, leaving his wife and children, and also the Lovells, a charge upon Southey, who had no more fortune than Coleridge, except in the inexhaustible wealth of a heart, a will,