Is your building going on?  I was mortified that the sweet little valley, of which you spoke some time ago, was no longer in the possession of your family:  it is the place, I believe, where that illustrious and most extraordinary man, Beaumont the Poet, and his brother, were born.  One is astonished when one thinks of that man having been only eight-and-twenty years of age, for I believe he was no more, when he died.  Shakspeare, we are told, had scarcely written a single play at that age.  I hope, for the sake of poets, you are proud of these men.

Lady Beaumont mentioned some time ago that you were painting a picture from ‘The Thorn:’  is it finished?  I should like to see it; the poem is a favourite with me, and I shall love it the better for the honour you have done it.  We shall be most happy to have the other drawing which you promised us some time ago.  The dimensions of the Applethwaite one are eight inches high, and a very little above ten broad; this, of course, exclusive of the margin.

I am anxious to know how your health goes on:  we are better than we had reason to expect.  When we look back upon this Spring, it seems like a dreary dream to us.  But I trust in God that we shall yet ’bear up and steer right onward.’

Farewell.  I am, your affectionate friend,

W. WORDSWORTH.

My sister thanks Lady Beaumont for her letter, the short one of the other day, and hopes to be able to write soon.  Have you seen Southey’s ‘Madoc’?  We have it in the house, but have deferred reading it, having been too busy with the child.  I should like to know how it pleases you.[27]

[27] Memoirs, vol. i. pp. 305—­8.  G.

* * * * *

PORTRAIT OF COLERIDGE:  ‘THE EXCURSION’ FINISHED:  SOUTHEY’S MADOC; &c.

Letter to Sir George H. Beaumont, Bart.

Grasmere, June 3d. 1805.

MY DEAR SIR GEORGE,

I write to you from the moss-hut at the top of my orchard, the sun just sinking behind the hills in front of the entrance, and his light falling upon the green moss of the side opposite me.  A linnet is singing in the tree above, and the children of some of our neighbours, who have been to-day little John’s visitors, are playing below equally noisy and happy.  The green fields in the level area of the vale, and part of the lake, lie before me in quietness.  I have just been reading two newspapers, full of factious brawls about Lord Melville and his delinquencies, ravage of the French in the West Indies, victories of the English in the East, fleets of ours roaming the sea in search of enemies whom they cannot find, &c. &c. &c.; and I have asked myself more than once lately, if my affections can be in the right place, caring as I do so little about what the world seems to care so much for.  All this seems to me, ’a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’  It is pleasant in such a mood