with religious friends, in the service of humanity.  His admiration of genius in every department did him much honour.  Through his connection with the family in which Edmund Burke was educated, he became acquainted with that great man, who used to receive him with great kindness and condescension; and many times have I heard Wilkinson speak of those interesting interviews.  He was honoured also by the friendship of Elizabeth Smith, and of Thomas Clarkson and his excellent wife, and was much esteemed by Lord and Lady Lonsdale, and every member of that family.  Among his verses (he wrote many), are some worthy of preservation; one little poem in particular, upon disturbing, by prying curiosity, a bird while hatching her young in his garden.  The latter part of this innocent and good man’s life was melancholy.  He became blind, and also poor, by becoming surety for some of his relations.  He was a bachelor.  He bore, as I have often witnessed, his calamities with unfailing resignation.  I will only add, that while working in one of his fields, he unearthed a stone of considerable size, then another, and then two more; and observing that they had been placed in order, as if forming the segment of a circle, he proceeded carefully to uncover the soil, and brought into view a beautiful Druid’s temple, of perfect, though small dimensions.  In order to make his farm more compact, he exchanged this field for another, and, I am sorry to add, the new proprietor destroyed this interesting relic of remote ages for some vulgar purpose.  The fact, so far as concerns Thomas Wilkinson, is mentioned in the note on a sonnet on ‘Long Meg and her Daughters.’

433. *_A Night Thought_. [XV.]

These verses were thrown off extempore upon leaving Mr. Luff’s house at Fox Ghyll one evening.  The good woman is not disposed to look at the bright side of things, and there happened to be present certain ladies who had reached the point of life where youth is ended, and who seemed to contend with each other in expressing their dislike of the country and the climate.  One of them had been, heard to say she could not endure a country where there was ‘neither sunshine nor cavaliers.’ [In pencil on opposite page—­Gossip.]

434. *_An Incident characteristic of a favourite Dog_. [XVI.]

This dog I knew well.  It belonged to Mrs. Wordsworth’s brother, Mr. Thomas Hutchinson, who then lived at Sockburn-on-the-Tees, a beautiful retired situation, where I used to visit him and his sisters before my marriage.  My sister and I spent many months there after my return from Germany in 1799.

435. Tribute to the Memory of the same Dog. [XVII.]

Was written at the same time, 1805.  The dog Music died, aged and blind, by falling into a draw-well at Gallow Hill, to the great grief of the family of the Hutchinsons, who, as has been before mentioned, had removed to that place from Sockburn.

436. Fidelity. [XVIII.]