Our late Laureate, William Wordsworth, exhibited great taste in his small garden at Rydal Mount.  He said of himself—­very truly though not very modestly perhaps,—­but modesty was never Wordsworth’s weakness—­that nature seemed to have fitted him for three callings—­that of the poet, the critic on works of art, and the landscape-gardener.  The poet’s nest—­(Mrs. Hemans calls it ’a lovely cottage-like building’[037])—­is almost hidden in a rich profusion of roses and ivy and jessamine and virginia-creeper.  Wordsworth, though he passionately admired the shapes and hues of flowers, knew nothing of their fragrance.  In this respect knowledge at one entrance was quite shut out.  He had possessed at no time of his life the sense of smell.  To make up for this deficiency, he is said (by De Quincey) to have had “a peculiar depth of organic sensibility of form and color.”

Mr. Justice Coleridge tells us that Wordsworth dealt with shrubs, flower-beds and lawns with the readiness of a practised landscape-gardener, and that it was curious to observe how he had imparted a portion of his taste to his servant, James Dixon.  In fact, honest James regarded himself as a sort of Arbiter Elegantiarum.  The master and his servant often discussed together a question of taste.  Wordsworth communicated to Mr. Justice Coleridge how “he and James” were once “in a puzzle” about certain discolored spots upon the lawn.  “Cover them with soap-lees,” said the master.  “That will make the green there darker than the rest,” said the gardener.  “Then we must cover the whole.”  “That will not do,” objects the gardener, “with reference to the little lawn to which you pass from this.”  “Cover that,” said the poet.  “You will then,” replied the gardener, “have an unpleasant contrast with the foliage surrounding it.”

Pope too had communicated to his gardener at Twickenham something of his own taste.  The man, long after his master’s death, in reference to the training of the branches of plants, used to talk of their being made to hang “something poetical”.

It would have grieved Shakespeare and Pope and Shenstone had they anticipated the neglect or destruction of their beloved retreats.  Wordsworth said, “I often ask myself what will become of Rydal Mount after our day.  Will the old walls and steps remain in front of the house and about the grounds, or will they be swept away with all the beautiful mosses and ferns and wild geraniums and other flowers which their rude construction suffered and encouraged to grow among them.  This little wild flower, Poor Robin, is here constantly courting my attention and exciting what may be called a domestic interest in the varying aspect of its stalks and leaves and flowers.”  I hope no Englishman meditating to reside on the grounds now sacred to the memory of a national poet will ever forget these words of the poet or treat his cottage and garden at Rydal Mount as some of Pope’s countrymen have treated the house and grounds at Twickenham.[038] It would be sad indeed to hear, after this, that any one had refused to spare the Poor Robins and wild geraniums of Rydal Mount.  Miss Jewsbury has a poem descriptive of “the Poet’s Home.”  I must give the first stanza:—­