The following is an extract from a letter of Dorothy Wordsworth’s to Lady Beaumont at Coleorton, dated “14th August,” probably in 1808: 

“We reached Cambridge at half-past nine.  In our way to the Inn we stopped at the gate of St. John’s College to set down one of our passengers.  The stopping of the carriage roused me from a sleepy musing, and I was awe-stricken with the solemnity of the old gateway, and the light from a great distance within streaming along the pavement.  When they told me it was the entrance to ‘St. John’s’ College, I was still more affected by the gloomy yet beautiful sight before me, for I thought of my dearest brother in his youthful days passing through that gateway to his home, and I could have believed that I saw him there even then, as I had seen him in the first year of his residence.  I met with Mr. Clarkson at the Inn, and was, you may believe, rejoiced to hear his voice at the coach door.  We supped together, and immediately after supper I went to bed, and slept well, and at 8 o’clock next morning went to Trinity Chapel.  There I stood for many minutes in silence before the statue of Newton, while the organ sounded.  I never saw a statue that gave me one hundredth part so much pleasure—­but pleasure, that is not the word, it is a sublime sensation—­in harmony with sentiments of devotion to the Divine Being, and reverence for the holy places where He is worshipped.  We walked in the groves all the morning and visited the Colleges.  I sought out a favourite ash tree which my brother speaks of in his poem on his own life—­a tree covered with ivy.  We dined with a fellow of Peter-House in his rooms, and after dinner I went to King’s College Chapel.  There, and everywhere else at Cambridge, I was even much more impressed with the effect of the buildings than I had been formerly, and I do believe that this power of receiving an enlarged enjoyment from the sight of buildings is one of the privileges of our later years.  I have this moment received a letter from William....”

Ed.

* * * * *

NOTE V.—­“THE MEETING-POINT OF TWO HIGHWAYS”

(See p. 353, ‘The Prelude’, book xii. l. 293)

The following extract from a letter of Mr. Rawnsley’s casts important light on a difficult question of localization.  Dr. Cradock is inclined now to select the Outgate Crag, the second of the four places referred to by Mr. Rawnsley.  But the first may have been the place, and the extract which follows will show how much is yet to be done in this matter of localizing poetical allusions.

“As to

’the crag,
That, from the meeting-point of two highways
Ascending, overlooked them both, far stretched,’

there seems to be no doubt but that we have four competitors for the
honour of being the place to which the poet: 

’impatient for the sight
Of those led palfreys that should bear them home’