No Cumberland, that Edmund, the Saxon | make a fair literature in themselves. other modern poet has awakened so rev- But while we rested there, it appeared to me that there were some analogies between Dunmail Raise and Rydal Mount, and the two kings with whom they are associated. James Russell Lowell has spoken of the realm of the poet as "Wordsworthshire." He did indeed create such a shire, but it is extinct with him. In place of the humble stones which mark the resting-place of the last King of Cumberland, the cairn of Wordsworth is piled high with polished praises, tributes of poets, memorials that THE WORDSWORTH GRAVES, GRASMERE CHURCH-YARD. DUNMAIL RAISE. I am not sure but that this impression may be read upon the precious stone added to the wondrous cairn of Wordsworth by Matthew Arnold: "Time may restore us, in his course, Goethe's sage mind and Byron's force; Sing him thy best, for few or none Hear thy voice right, now he is gone." That is a fine phrase and true, "Wordsworth's healing power." He came to a generation whose whole heart was faint. His own eyes had been seared by the French Revolution; he had returned from Paris to England with his enthusiasm for liberty chilled, and his hope for humanity nearly dead. A generation of thinkers was driven into reaction and solitude by the Revolution and the Napoleonic reaction that followed. These measurably re vived in contact with nature, and it was Wordsworth who taught them how to distill from the fair earth a healing balm more soothing than the opium with which some of them had tried to still their heart-pains. Some passed a lifetime in being healed, but others grew strong while yet in their prime, and these found that the great life could not be lived in Wordsworth's mountain-and-lake cure. About fifty years ago Carlyle and Emerson were walking together over the hills near Craigenputtoch; and then they sat down on a crag, and "looked down into Wordsworth's country." Such is Emerson's phrase, unconsciously significant. The two young men were, indeed, looking from a farther tableland of thought and purpose back upon the beautiful solitudes through which they had been guided by their spiritual fathers. They were destined to summon thought and poetry from that afternoon-land of bowers and reveries, and make them friends and leaders of humanity. When Emerson was presently visiting Wordsworth, his admiration at the poet's "rare elevation" was followed by surprise at "the hard limits of his thought." Wordsworth had come to his "Raise": he could only a little understand Coleridge, thought Carlyle insane, and Goethe wicked; he had reached the boundary of his kingdom, which had to pass to Malcolm. It is doubtful whether any thinker of equal culture will ever again feel a passion for the beauty of inanimate nature like that which Wordsworth felt, or so strangely repeat the emotions under which ancient nature-worship grew. The earth and air around him were so populous with the creations of his imagination, these being exalted to the stature of the exceptionally grand natural objects amid which he dwelt, that man and his affairs became petty, paltry, vulgar, in the presence of his majestic images. Yet, after all, a large part of nature is human nature. Words worth once invited Charles Dickens to visit him at Rydal Mount, praising the glories of that region. The novelist declined, and had something to say for the glories of London. "The wonder of these sights impels me into night walks about her crowded streets, and I often shed tears in the rustling Strand from fullness of joy at so much life. All these emotions must be strange to you: so are your rural emotions strange to me." Wordsworth was not without human sympathy and benevolence; it was his hope and aim to console, to bless, to uplift, and encourage hearts and minds; but he thought of these as individuals undergoing the checkered experiences of existence; the conception of universal humanity, progressive, triumphant, was a blossoming plant which the French Revolution tore by the root from his heart and brain. A primrose by the river's brim could give him more tears in his old age than anything that concerned the masses of mankind. One need not therefore mourn that Wordsworth's cairn marks an extinct Wordsworthshire, while he rejoices that such a pure and saintly mind and character brought the chrism for the generation in which we live, by which it is consecrated to truth and virtue. "He found us when the age had bound Beautiful and polished as Rothay can smooth them be the stones laid on Wordsworth's cairn; white, too, as purified in Truth's well! So add I mine, small though it be, with reverence and gratitude; and so journey onward. There are tempting by-ways all around us here; heights, vales, streams, not only picturesque in themselves, but from behind which rise shades noble or curious, faces that hold us with their glittering eye, and will tell us their story. They are so many that I am reminded of the rustic Cumberlander who bore along this road the specimens collected by a geologist. He found them heavy, emptied them ming Thirlmere, welcomed by moving lights and ringing bells, and hear preparations made for a murdered bride, who still keeps there her ghostly nuptials. We can only nod to Lord Clifford, of Threkeld, who never learned to read or write, was for twenty-four years a shepherd boy, yet learned so much astronomy that he brought a noble fame to his estates when he came to them. Next to the greatness of Wordsworth comes the grandeur of Helvellyn. The second mountain of England in height, it is the most impressive in appearance, and one does not wonder that it was the Holy Hill of the first inhabitants of this region. Ferguson thinks it was anciently El-Velin, that is, the Hill of Veli, or Baal. This mountain was one of the "high places" on which flamed the sacred fires, whose successors still light up some nooks and corners of this region. It is probable, however, that their name, "Baal-fires," or "Belfires," represents a Christian denunciation of them. It is possible still to find country | folk who drive diseased cattle through the fire; and Miss Martineau found an instance where a considerate farmer, having driven his stock through a need fire, made his wife pass through also, she being as valuable as his ox or his ass. Many are the traces of ancient religion left in the names of this region; e. g., Rissen Scar (that is, the Giant's Steep); Scratch Meal Scar (Skratti being the Norse demon, our Old Scratch, and Mella being a female of the same character); Glenderaterra (valley of the demon of execution). Thirlmere (which Robert Ferguson, M.P., of Carlisle, a learned explorer of these subjects, believes was originally Thorolfsmere) breaks upon the sight beyond Helvellyn, and mirrors a long range of lofty steeps and cragsFisher Crag, Raven Crag-so wonderful that we need not wonder that the Lake poets make this their trysting-place. "The Rock of Names," midway between Keswick and Rydal, bears the initials of some of those who met there: W. W.; M.H. (Mary Hutchinson); D. W. (Dorothy Wordsworth); S. T. C. (Coleridge); J. W. (John Wordsworth); S. H. (Sarah Hutchinson). Wordsworth has described how they cut their initials, and the rock is still fulfilling his request: "Fail not thou, loved Rock, to keep Thy charge when we are laid asleep." Beyond this region, awful in its grandeur, and so invested with names and traditions of that stern Scandinavian worship of the elements which made the pedestal for Wordsworth's adoration, we pass Castle Rock, the fairy castle of Scott's 'Bridal of Triermain;" we visit "Wytheburn City," which has three or four houses and its church, which will just seat its score of citizens; then we emerge from the ancient world as our eyes look though the vale of St. John to 66 the Christian spires of Keswick. It is interesting to remember LOWER RYDAL FALLS. that the holy fires which lit up these hills | in pagan times were continued in Christian WYTHEBURN CHURCH. times as St. John fires they are still, wherever kindled, seen on St. John's Eveand this vale has in it a remarkable circle of the kind called "Druidic," the name being only a term for our ignorance of their meaning. The original solar meaning may linger on "St. Sunday's Crag," as a peak is now called. As we skirt St. John's Vale, and draw near to Keswick, we find |