was the greatest event in the unfolding of his own mind. He found in them " an absolute revelation of untrodden worlds, teeming with power and beauty, as yet unsuspected amongst men." So deep did they sink into his over-sensitive soul that for several years he could not bring himself to inquire the names of their authors from persons who might easily have told him. He dreaded any contamination of the sacred subject by mere casual or unsympathetic remarks. At length, on May 31, 1803, having learned Wordsworth's name and address, he wrote him an appreciative letter, which drew from the poet a kind reply on July 29, with an invitation to visit Grasmere. This answer seems not to have reached the ardent young admirer until many months later, when the correspondence was reopened. Wordsworth made an appointment to receive him in London in April, 1807, but the plan failed. In his wonderful but extremely diffuse and ecstatic chapter on Wordsworth, in" Literary Reminiscences," De Quincey tells that he " twice undertook a long journey for the express purpose of paying his respects," ""twice advanced as far as the Lake of Coniston, which is about eight miles from the church of Grasmere," but, he says, "catching one hasty glimpse of this loveliest of landscapes, I retreated like a guilty thing, for fear I might be surprised by Wordsworth, and then returned faint-heartedly to Coniston, and so to Oxford, re infectâ. This was in 1806. And thus far, from mere excess of nervous distrust in my own powers for sustaining a conversation with Wordsworth, I had, for nearly five years, shrunk from a meeting for which, beyond all things under heaven, I longed." Who has not had an experience which, though perhaps with a less notable object, resembled De Quincey's? At length the way was opened by the ever-helpful Thomas Poole, who enters from time to time in the story of these lives like Apollo on the ringing plains of Troy, giving help in time of need. In the summer of 1807 De Quincey appeared at Nether Stowey with a letter of introduction to Poole from Cottle. His purpose was to Coleridge, who had recently been staying there. H

1807]

DE QUINCEY AT GRASMERE

163

found Poole himself worth seeing, and they went together over the grounds of Alfoxden talking of Wordsworth. Coleridge he discovered in the neighbouring town of Bridgwater, standing under a gateway and gazing about him. De Quincey's picture of this scene is immortal:

"In height he might seem to be about five feet eight: (he was, in reality, about an inch and a half taller, but his figure was of an order which drowns the height;) his person was broad and full, and tended even to corpulence; his complexion was fair, though not what painters technically call fair because it was associated with black hair; his eyes were large and soft in their expression; and it was from the peculiar appearance of haze or dreaminess, which mixed with their light, that I recognized my object. This was Coleridge. I examined him steadfastly for a minute or more; and it struck me that he saw neither myself nor any other object in the street."

Towards the end of October, Mrs. Coleridge and her children, who were at Bristol, desiring to return to Keswick, De Quincey offered to share with her the expense of a post-chaise and to accompany them to the north. He has given a vivid account of his sensations when they were descending the hill from the summit of White Moss, and came all at once," at an abrupt turn of the road, in sight of a white cottage, with two solemn yew-trees breaking the glare of its white walls." With an extremity of language which appears less violent in its context than in a quotation, he says: " Never before or since can I reproach myself with having trembled at the approaching presence of any creature that is born. of woman, excepting only, for once or twice in my life, woman herself." Wordsworth came out to greet Mrs. Coleridge.

"I therefore," continues De Quincey," stunned almost with the actual catastrophe so long anticipated and so long postponed, mechanically went forward into the ouse. A little semi-vestibule between two doors preced the entrance into what might be considered the Incipal room of the cottage. It was an oblong square, n above eight and a half feet high, sixteen feet long,

and twelve broad; very prettily wainscotted from the floor to the ceiling with dark polished oak, slightly embellished with carving. One window there was a perfect and unpretending cottage window, with little diamond panes, embowered, at almost every season of the year, with roses; and, in the summer and autumn, with a profusion of jessamine and other fragrant shrubs. From the exuberant luxuriance of the vegetation around it, and from the dark hue of the wainscotting, this window, though tolerably large, did not furnish a very powerful light to one who entered from the open air. However, I saw sufficiently to be aware of two ladies just entering the room from a doorway opening upon a little staircase. The foremost, a tall young woman, with the most winning expression of benignity upon her features that I had ever beheld, made a slight curtsey, and advanced to me with so frank an air that all embarrassment must have fled in a moment, before the native goodness of her manner. This was Mrs. Wordsworth."

She was fair, "of sweetness all but angelic, of simplicity the most entire."

"Her words were few. In reality, she talked so little that Mr. Slave-Trade Clarkson used to say of her that she could only say God bless you!' Certainly her intellect was not of an active order, but, in a quiescent, reposing, meditative way, she appeared always to have a genial enjoyment from her own thoughts.

De Quincey maintains stoutly that the poem, "She was a phantom of delight," was really written about her. After further details of a most ecstatic description, he continues:

Immediately behind her moved a lady, much shorter, much slighter, and perhaps, in all other respects, as different from her in personal characteristics as could be wished, for the most effective contrast. Her face was of Egyptian brown '; rarely, in a woman of English birth, had I seen a more determinate gipsy tan. Her eyes were not soft, as Mrs. Wordsworth's, nor were they fierce or bold; but they were wild and startling, and hurried in their motion. Her manner was warm and even ardent; her sensibility seemed constitutionally deep; and some subtle fire of impassioned intellect apparently burned within her, which, being alternately pushed r