Wordsworth first resided at Racedown in Dorsetshire, where Coleridge visited him. When Coleridge went to settle at Stowey, Wordsworth also removed to Allfoxden, about five miles farther down, near the Bristol Channel. Here his secluded habits gave rise to some ludicrous circumstances, annoying enough, however, to drive him out of the neighborhood. He was deep in the composition of poetry. He had a Tragedy on the anvil, a poem called Salisbury Plain, never yet published, and Peter Bell, beside his Lyrical Ballads, which last Cottle brought out while he was here. He sought the deepest solitude, and here, if anywhere, he could find it. Allfoxden house is situated at the very extremity of the Quantock hills, and within about a mile and a quarter of the Bristol Channel. As you advance from Stowey, the Quantock hills run along at some little distance on your left hand. They are of the character of downs, open and moorland on the top, and with great masses of wood here and there on their slopes. The country on your right is level, rich, and well wooded. On arriving near Allfoxden, you turn abruptly to the left, and winding about through a woody lane, and passing through a little hamlet, you begin to feel as if you were going quite out of the world of mankind. You are at the foot of the hills, and a thick wood terminates your way. But through this wood you have to pass to find the house where Wordsworth had hidden himself. Passing into this wood at a gate, you find yourself in a most Druidical gloom. The wood is of well grown, tall, and thickly growing oak; filled still closer with hollies, which were once underwood, but which have shot up, and emulated the very oaks themselves in altitude. They are unquestionably among the loftiest hollies in England. Altogether the mass of wood is dense, the scene is shadowy, the ground is strewn with its brown carpet of fallen leaves. As you advance, on your right hand you catch a sound of water, and pursuing it you find it issues from the bottom of a deep narrow glen or dean, which no doubt gives the name to the place—All fox den, or glen of all the foxes. This glen is a very poetical feature of the place, and especially attractive to a man in Wordsworth's then turn of mind, which led him to the deepest seclusion for the sake of abstraction. Tall trees soar up from its sides, and meet above; some of them have fallen across, dashed down by the wind. Wild plants grow luxuriantly below; woodbines and other creepers climb and cling from bough to bough; and the pure and crystal water hurries along over its gravelly bed, beneath this mass of shade and overhanging banks, with a merry music to the neighboring sea.
Leaving this glen, you hold on through the wood to the left, and soon emerge into a park, inclosed by hills and woods, where a good country-house looks out toward the sea. It is one of the most secluded, and yet pleasantly secluded, houses in England. Around it sweep the hills, scattered with fine timber, beneath which reposes a herd of deer, and before it stretches the sea at a little distance. The house is somewhat raised above the level of the valley, so as to catch the charming view of the lands, woods, and outspread waters below. To the left, near the coast, you catch a view of the walls of St. Audrey, the seat of Sir Peregrine Ackland, pleasingly assuring you that you are not quite cut off from humanity. Below the house lies a sunny flower-garden, and, behind, the ascending lawn is enriched by finely disposed masses of trees; among them some enormous old oaks, and elms of noblest growth. There are two elms, growing close together, of remarkable size and height, beneath which a seat is placed, commanding a view of the park and sea; and just below it a fine, well grown larch, which used to be a very favorite tree of the poet. Under these trees he used to sit, and read and compose; and no man could have coveted a more congenial study. Here originated or took form many of his lyrical ballads.
If you ascend the park, you find yourself, after a good, stout climb, on the open hills. One summit after another, covered with clumps of Scotch firs, allures you to ascend, till at length you find yourself far from any abode, on the high moorland hills, amid a profound, but a glorious solitude. Fine glens, with glittering streams, and here and there a lonely cottage sending up its quiet smoke, run among these hills, and extensive tracts of woodland offer you all the charms of forest seclusion. The hills which range along behind Stowey cease here, and were the great haunt of Coleridge and Wordsworth. They might, if they pleased, extend their rambles over them, from the abode of the one to that of the other. We find numerous evidences of their haunting of these hills, among their poems. The ballad of The Thorn is said to be derived hence. Coleridge mentions their name occasionally. He has a poem to a brook among the Quantock hills; and the opening of his Fears in Solitude, written in 1798, when he was at Stowey, is most descriptive of their scenery:—
"A green and silent spot amid the hills,
A small and silent dell! O'er stiller place
No singing skylark ever poised herself.
The hills are heathy, save that swelling slope,
Which hath a gay and gorgeous covering on,
All golden with the never bloomless furz,
Which now blooms most profusely; but the dell,