"Farewell sweet babes! Upon a mother's breast
Ye pass'd life's hour of fretfulness and pain:
Death bids you on his colder bosom rest,
Herald of bliss;—unutterable gain!
His touch was life!—in robes of triumph drest,
Sinless and spotless now—a Saviour's death
The fountain opened—washed from every stain
Each spirit, ere its last faint quivering breath—
As o'er its eyeballs burst eternal day,
Left its first cherub smile to linger on its clay."
A third infant was laid beside them in 1832, and there now repose his own loved and most precious remains, and to these last, as to those for whom they were originally intended, may the closing lines be applied. The smile last seen on that beloved face is one with which it may well awake on the morning of the resurrection.
Mr. Roby visited the English Lakes that year. A manuscript book of notes and sketches remains, and both pen and pencil attest the quickness and correctness of the observer. On ordinary objects he looked with an eye practised in gaining general information, and on Nature with that of the artist. In looking over the sketches one cannot but remark how very little change years have made in that district. Not only the majestic objects of Nature, the accessories of man's placing also, stood then precisely as they do now. The Druid's Circle near Keswick seems the only exception; the fir trees which then waved their dark branches above the grey stones are gone. Grange, reposing at the foot of Borrowdale, with its beautiful bridge, dark clear stream, and everlasting mountains a close back-ground. The Bowder stone[B], its ladder and cottage, and the sharply-defined perpendicular strata rising above all, are unchanged. The sketches of a quarter of a century ago might be those of last year. The very buildings seem identically the same in every part. Nature stamped them picturesque as they were set down in her sacred recesses, and they have not dared to throw off the spell. A few extracts from the note-book will exemplify the style of observation. The aspect of the district; the manners of its inhabitants; individual peculiarities whatever of men or things; natural productions, and above all, the ever-varying forms of beauty, with which nature in such a region clothes herself,—none of these escaped his observant and admiring eye.
"Kendal, Aug. 21. 1827.
"Dialect. Kendal mode of calling a person up, 'Shoot on him there.' First view of Windermere. Writing on Inn Windows—This perishable and frail tablet more durable than man's existence. Mountains—The same outline, the same aspect has met the eye of man for thousands of years.... On the Lake—View from the north side of Curwen's Island, light and shadow disposed as if according to art—broad lights upon the rich colours. Corn-fields &c. near—summits of hills dark blue, cutting against the sky, angular and sharp. Island follows the universal law—north by west, rugged and mountainous; south, undulating and flat."
Grasmere was at that time the abode of the gifted and excentric Hartley Coleridge. He was standing at Jonathan's door when the tourists drove up. They soon made acquaintance with him, and it was not long ere they were deep in discussion on the subject of Kant's Philosophy, the Rosicrucian System, &c. &c.
"The repose of Grasmere; pleasures of retirement. No pleasure but to those who possess an innate repose and a mind full of susceptibilities for these beautiful impressions. The bold dragoon and his wife, who took a house here about three months since, for seven years,—are now heartily tired of it. Confounding of phrases—to say a man is a genius, great mistake—rather say a man has genius, or rather genius has him. Often disappointed in our approach to 'reputed geniuses.' A clever man not always a man of genius. Idiom and dialect diffused over a man's very form and face, habits, and character. Tone of voice acquired by contact. Strong voices of the females generally in the north. Quite a literary air about Grasmere. Proof sheets lying about the public-house. Hartley Coleridge engaged in writing the article 'Poetry' in the 'Encyclopedia Metropolitana.'" The notice of Grasmere concludes with a then unpublished song by H. Coleridge—"'I have lived, and I have loved,'" with the autograph of the Poet.
"Keswick Lake. Sun-set. Colour of the mountains blue, a band between the fiery sky, and the fiery reflection in the lake. Cloudy morning. Skiddaw still has his night-cap on. Clearing towards seven, determine to mount. Pass Skiddaw's cub, Latrigg. Hills tumbled about in great disorder, compared to a large painted sheet of canvass thrown down horizontally and propped up in different places underneath with pointed sticks of various lengths. Eye soon accustoming itself to the size of objects thereby diminishing their bulk to its own previous conceptions. Every now and then obliged to find an object, of a known size, in order to feel the vast dimensions of these objects of unknown magnitude.... Gaining the summit, an envious cloud sweeping round the hill. Double echoes apparently from grouse shooters. Cloud rapidly approaches, falls between us and the distant prospect like a curtain. Completely enveloped. Sit down wrapped in my cloak under the lee-side of a huge heap of stones, and wait in expectation of the cloud clearing off for nearly an hour. Quietly read 'Otley's Guide,' Geology of the Mountains. Symptoms of a break in the cloud, mist still continues. Guide relates the dangers and perils of ascents and descents in a mist, even to those well acquainted with the path.... During these amusing and exhilarating narratives the mist breaks in partial openings—Wonderful bursts of prospect through the clouds. Solway Frith—the Sea—Wigton, Cockermouth, Bassenthwaite Lake. A vessel on the Solway, by telescope, a brig.
"Hermitage near Derwentwater Lake. Major Pocklington built and endowed it for any person who would live there in entire seclusion, locked up for seven years; after this apprenticeship he might, if he thought proper, have his liberty, and an annuity of 100l. a year. No one has yet been found to fulfil this engagement, and the place built twenty or thirty years ago.
"Borrowdale. Lead mine on very steep hill. Gryphite lies in sops. Old levels worked out. At fault; cannot yet find any; trying near the summit of the hill. Immense productiveness at times. Supposed to have been once in a state of fusion. Evident marks of this. No date of its discovery. Tradition tells us, that a tree being blown down bared the first vein. Used for marking sheep only in all probability at the first. Maps of the county might be printed on pocket-handkerchiefs. Dine at Rossthwaite: another party arrive, folly of not being content with what the house affords....