1836. September.  Wednesday 21.—­Wordsworth and I started in my carriage for Lowther, crossed Kirkstone to Paterdale, by Ulleswater, going through the Glenridding Walks,[236] and calling at Hallsteads.  We reached the castle time enough before dinner for him to give me a walk.

[236] I remember well, asking him if we were not trespassing on private pleasure-grounds here.  He said, no; the walks had, indeed, been inclosed, but he remembered them open to the public, and he always went through them when he chose.  At Lowther, we found among the visitors, the late Lord W——­; and describing our walk, he made the same observation, that we had been trespassing; but Wordsworth maintained his point with somewhat more warmth than I either liked, or could well account for.  But afterwards, when we were alone, he told me he had purposely answered Lord W——­ stoutly and warmly, because he had done a similar thing with regard to some grounds in the neighbourhood of Penrith, and excluded the people of Penrith from walking where they had always enjoyed the right before.  He had evidently a pleasure in vindicating these rights, and seemed to think it a duty.  J.T.C.

After luncheon, on Thursday 22d, we had an open carriage, and proceeded to Haweswater.  It is a fine lake, entirely unspoilt by bad taste.  On one side the bank rises high and steep, and is well clothed with wood; on the other it is bare and more sloping.  Wordsworth conveyed a personal interest in it to me, by telling me that it was the first lake which my uncle[237] had seen on his coming into this country:  he was in company with Wordsworth and his brother John.  Wordsworth pointed out to me somewhere about the spot on the hill-side, a little out of the track, from which they first saw the lake; and said, he well remembered how his face brightened, and how much delight he appeared to feel.  Yesterday morning we returned to this place.  We called on our way and took our luncheon at Hallsteads, and also called at Paterdale Hall.  At both it was gratifying to see the cordial manner of W.’s reception:  he seemed loved and honoured; and his manner was of easy, hearty, kindness to them.

[237] See Memoirs, vol. i. pp. 147-8.

My tour with him was very agreeable, and I wish I could preserve in my memory more of his conversation than I shall be able to do.  I was anxious to get from him anecdotes of himself and my uncle, and of their works.  He told me of himself, that his first verses were a Popian copy written at school on the ‘Pleasure of Change;’ then he wrote another on the ‘Second Centenary of the School’s Foundation;’ that he had written these verses on the holidays, and on the return to school; that he was rather the poet of the school.  The first verses from which he remembered to have received great pleasure, were Miss Carter’s ‘Poem on Spring,’ a poem in the six-line stanza, which he was particularly fond of, and had composed much in, for example, ‘Ruth.’