117. *_A Wren’s Nest_. [XXVII.]

In Dora’s Field, 1833:  Rydal Mount.  This nest was built as described, in a tree that grows near the pool in Dora’s field next the Rydal Mount Garden.

118. *_Love lies bleeding_. [XXVIII.]

It has been said that the English, though their country has produced so many great poets, is now the most unpoetical nation in Europe.  It is probably true; for they have more temptation to become so than any other European people.  Trade, commerce, and manufactures, physical science and mechanic arts, out of which so much wealth has arisen, have made our countrymen infinitely less sensible to movements of imagination and fancy than were our forefathers in their simple state of society.  How touching and beautiful were in most instances the names they gave to our indigenous flowers, or any other they were familiarly acquainted with!  Every month for many years have we been importing plants and flowers from all quarters of the globe, many of which are spread through our gardens, and some, perhaps, likely to be met with on the few commons which we have left.  Will their botanical names ever be displaced by plain English appellations which will bring them home to our hearts by connection with our joys and sorrows?  It can never be, unless society treads back her steps towards those simplicities which have been banished by the undue influence of towns spreading and spreading in every direction, so that city life with every generation takes more and more the lead of rural.  Among the ancients, villages were reckoned the seats of barbarism.  Refinement, for the most part false, increases the desire to accumulate wealth; and, while theories of political economy are boastfully pleading for the practice, inhumanity pervades all our dealings in buying and selling.  This selfishness wars against disinterested imagination in all directions, and, evils coming round in a circle, barbarism spreads in every quarter of our island.  Oh, for the reign of justice! and then the humblest man among us would have more peace and dignity in and about him than the highest have now.

119. *_Rural Illusions_. [XXV.]

Rydal Mount, 1832.  Observed a hundred times in the grounds at Rydal
Mount.

120. *_The Kitten and the falling Leaves_. [XXXI.]

1805.  Seen at Town-End, Grasmere.  The elder bush has long since disappeared; it hung over the wall near the cottage, and the kitten continued to leap up, catching the leaves as here described.  The infant was Dora.

121. The Waggoner. [XXXIII.]

DEDICATION.

                        ’In Cairo’s crowded streets
    The impatient Merchant, wondering, waits in vain,
    And Mecca saddens at the long delay.’

    THOMSON.

    To CHARLES LAMB, ESQ.

    MY DEAR FRIEND,