In this Vale of Meditation [’Glen Mywr’] my friend Jones resided, having been allowed by his Diocesan to fix himself there without resigning his living in Oxfordshire.  He was with my wife and daughter and me when we visited these celebrated ladies, who had retired, as one may say, into notice in this vale.  Their cottage lay directly in the road between London and Dublin, and they were, of course, visited by their Irish friends as well as innumerable strangers.  They took much delight in passing jokes on our friend Jones’s plumpness, ruddy cheeks, and smiling countenance, as little suited to a hermit living in the Vale of Meditation.  We all thought there was ample room for retort on his part, so curious was the appearance of these ladies, so elaborately sentimental about themselves and their caro Albergo, as they named it in an inscription on a tree that stood opposite, the endearing epithet being preceded by the word Ecco! calling upon the saunterer to look about him.  So oddly was one of these ladies attired that we took her, at a little distance, for a Roman Catholic priest, with a crucifix and relics hung at his neck.  They were without caps; their hair bushy and white as snow, which contributed to the mistake.

218. Sonnet XI.  In the Woods of Rydal.

This Sonnet, as Poetry, explains itself, yet the scene of the incident having been a wild wood, it may be doubted, as a point of natural history, whether the bird was aware that his attentions were bestowed upon a human, or even a living creature.  But a Redbreast will perch upon the foot of a gardener at work, and alight on the handle of the spade when his hand is half upon it.  This I have seen.  And under my own roof I have witnessed affecting instances of the creature’s friendly visits to the chambers of sick persons, as described in the verses to the Redbreast [No. 83].  One of these welcome intruders used frequently to roost upon a nail in the wall, from which a picture had hung, and was ready, as morning came, to pipe his song in the hearing of the invalid, who had been long confined to her room.  These attachments to a particular person, when marked and continued, used to be reckoned ominous; but the superstition is passing away.

219. *_Sonnet_ XIII.  ‘While Anna’s peers,’ &c.

This is taken from the account given by Miss Jewsbury of the pleasure she derived, when long confined to her bed by sickness, from the inanimate object on which this Sonnet turns.

220. *_Sonnet_ XV.  ‘Wait, prithee wait,’ &c.

The fate of this poor dove, as described, was told to me at Brinsop
Court by the young lady to whom I have given the name of Lesbia.

221. *_Sonnet_ XVI.  ‘Unquiet childhood,’ &c.

The infant was Mary Monkhouse, the only daughter of our friend and cousin Thomas Monkhouse.

222. *_Sonnet_ XVII.  ‘Such age how beautiful!’ &c.

Lady Fitzgerald as described to me by Lady Beaumont.