The year which I past at Corston

had been a mournful one for my mother. She lost my sweet little sister Louisa

during that time, & being after a while persuaded to accompany Miss Tyler to London, where she had never before been, they were recalled by the tidings of my grandmothers sudden death.

Miss Tyler had found it expedient to brexx break up her establishment at Bath, & pass some time in visiting among her friends. She now took up her abode at Bedminster, till family affairs were settled, & till she could determine where & how to fix herself. Thither also I was sent while my father was looking out for another school at which to place me.

I have so many vivid feelings connected with this house at Bedminster, that if it had not been in a vile neighbourhood

I believe th my heart would have been set upon purchasing it & fixing my abode there, where the happiest days of my childhood were past. My grandfather

built it (about the year 1740 I suppose) & had made it what was then thought a thoroughly commodious & good house, for one in his rank of life. It stood upon a bye road <in a lane> some 200 yards from the begx great western road. You ascended by several <semi-circular> steps into what was called the fore court, but was in fact a flower garden, with a broad pavement from the gate to the porch. That porch was in great part lined as well as covered, with jessamine; & many a time have I sate there with my poor sisters,

threading the fallen blossoms upon grass-stalks. It opened into a little hall, paved with diamond-shaped stx flags, on the right hand was the parlour, which had a black brown or black boarded floor & a Lis covered with a Lisbon mat, & a handsome time piece over the fire place. On the left was the best-kitchen, in which the family alway lived. The best-kitchen is an apartment which <that> in now belongs to other days, & is now no longer to be seen except in houses which <having> remained unaltered for the last half century, are inhabited by persons a degree lower in society than their former possessors. The <one> which I am now calling to mind after an interval of forty years, was a chearful room, with an air of such country comfort about it, that my little heart was always gladdened when I entered it, during my grandmothers life. It had a stone floor, which I believe distinguished <was the chief distinction between> a best-kitchen from & a parlour. The furniture consisted of <a clock> a large oval oak table, with two flaps, over which three or four fowling-pieces had their place, a round tea table of cherry-wood, Windsor-chairs of the same, & two large armed ones of that easy make (of all makes it is the easiest) – in one of which my grandmother always sate. On one side of the fire place the china was displayed in a beaufet <(that is a cupboard with glass doors)>, on the other were cupboards <closets> for articles less sight ornamental but more in use. There were some old maps against The sides of the room, which were wainscotted, were ornamented with some old maps, & these with a long looking glass <in a white frame> over the fire place <& a tall one between the windows, both in white frames>. The windows looked into the fore court, & were as chearful & fragrant in the season of flowers, as xx roses & jessamine which grew luxuriantly without could make them. There was a passage between this apartment & the kitchen, long enough to admit of a large airy pantry, & a larder on the left hand, the windows of both opening into the yard <barton>,

 as did those of the kitchen; here there was a rack well furnished with bacon, & a misseltoe bush always suspended in the middle of the cieling.

The Green Room (which was my Uncle Edwards)

was over the parlour. Over the hall there was a smaller apartment which had been my Grandfathers office, & still contained his desk & his pigeon-holes. – I remember it well, & the large patterned dark flock paper <with its faded ground.> The yellow Room over the best kitchen was the visitors room, – & this my mother occupied whenever she slept there. There was no way to my Grandmothers <(the Blue)> room (over the kitchen) but thro this, & an intervening passage where on the left, was a store-room. The Blue Room looked had a dark & dim thorough light, one window looking into the barton, the other into a paved <back> court. The Squire

slept in the garret, – his room was on one side, – the servants on the other, & there was a large open space between, at the top of the stairs, used for lumber & stores

An old fashioned birds-eye view, half picture, half plan would explain all this more intelligibly I fear than my description can do, & if I had the skill I should delight in tracing one; – my memory would effectually serve. If I have made myself understood you will perceive that the house had txxx front xxxxx xxx paved court formed a square with the house. Behind both was a piece of waste ground left for the passage of carts from the barton to the orchard; but considerably wider than was necessary for the purpose. It was neatly kept in grass, with a good wide path from the xxxx court to the kitchen garden. This was large & excellently stocked. It was walled off from the waste ground by a low wall about breast high surmounted with white rails, as far as the range of outhouses, – the back of these was covered with fruit trees – the green gages I remember were particularly excellent, one side was walled, – the other separated by a hedge from the lane leading to the orchard, – from which the garden was divided at the bottom.*

<I have called it a kitchen garden because that name was given it, but it was ornamental as well as useful, with grass walks, espaliers, & a profusion of fine flowers. The side of the house in the fore court also was covered with an apricot tree, so that every luxury of this kind which an English sun can ripen was there in abundance.> Just by the gate orchard gate was a fine barberry bush, & the peculiar odour of its blossoms is still fresh in my remembrance .*

<X – Wordsworth has no sense of smell. Once, & only once in his life, the dormant power awakened, it was by a bed of stocks in full blossom, at a house which he inhabited in Dorsetshire, some five & twenty years ago,

& he says it was like a vision of Paradise to him, but it lasted only a few minutes, & the faculty has continued torpid from that time. The fact is remarkable in itself, & would be worthy of notice, even if it did not relate to a man of whom posterity will desire to know all that can be remembered. He has often expressed to me his regret for this privation. I on the contrary possess the sense in such acuteness that I can remember an odour, & call up the ghost of one that is departed. – But I must return to the barberry-bush. It stood at the entrance of a potatoe garden which had been taken from the orchard. The orchard was still of considerable size.>

At the bottom of the orchard was <a broad wet ditch with> a little drawbridge, leading into the fields, thro which was the pleasantest way to Church,

& to Bristol. It was just one mile to Church & two to my fathers house in Wine Street.

It was very seldom indeed that my Grandmother went to Bristol. I do but <scarcely> recollect ever to have seen her there. The extent of her walks was to Church, which she never missed, unless the weather absolutely confined her to the house: she was not able to go attend the evening service also, on account of the distance; but in the morning she was constant, & always in time, – for if she were not there before the absolution she used to say that she ought as well have sta remained at home. At other times she rarely went out of her own premises. <Neighbours of her own rank, there were none within her reach.> Her husbands acquaintances had died off, & she had made no new ones since his death. Her greatest happiness was to have my mother there <with some of the young fry, & we on our> who on her part had no pleasure so great as that of a visit to Bedminster. It was indeed <for my mother as well as for us an advantage beyond all price> a great comfort to have this quiet country house <home> at so easy a distance, – a house too abounding <as it did> with all country comforts. Bedminster itself was an ugly, dirty <poor, populous> village, – many of the inhabitants being colliers. But the coal pits were in a different part of the parish, & the house was at a sufficient distance from all annoyances.

There was no beauty of situation, but great comfort: the view was merely to a field & cottage (belonging to the property) just a crx on the other side the lane, with a on a rising ground, but the little world within was our own. And to me it was quite a different world from that in which I lived at other times. My fathers house was in one of the busyest & noisyest streets of Bristol, – & of course had no outlet. At Bath I was under perpetual restraint, – but here there was <I had> all wholesome liberty, all wholesome indulgence, all wholesome enjoyments, & the delight which I there learnt to take in rural sights & sounds has grown up with me, & continues unabated to this day.

My chief amusement was in the garden where I found endless entertainment in the flowers & in observing insects. I had little fondness for any boyish sports, & less expertness in them, – my Uncles Edward & William used to reproach xxx me with this sometimes, saying they never saw such a boy.*

<One <schoolboys> art however they taught me, which I have never read of, nor seen practised elsewhere, – it was that of converting a marble into a Black Witch, & thereby making it lucky. You know that if a marble be put in the fire it makes a good detonating ball, – I have sacrificed many a one so to frighten the cook. But if the marble were <be> wrapt up in brown paper (perhaps any paper might do as well) with some suet, or dripping round about it, it will not explode while the fat is burning, & when you take it out from the fire it is as black as jet> A botanist or entomologist would have found me an apt pupil in those years, & perhaps if I had fallen in with one, I might perhaps at this day have been classifying mosses, & writing upon the natural history of xxxxxxx snails or cockchafers instead of recording the events of the Peninsular War.

I had discovered that snails seal up their shells in winter, & that ants make their way into the cockchafer thro an aperture in the breast, & eat out its inside while it is yet alive. This gave me a great dislike to the ants <which even the delightful papers about them in the Guardian did not overcome>.

Two curious facts concerning these insects I well remember, – they spoilt the produce of some of our best currant trees one year, the trees were trained against a wall, these insects walked over them (I cannot tell why – but probably after the aphides) <whom as Kirby & Spence tell us

they regularly milked & thus they> imparted so rank a smell to the fruit that it could not be eaten. The ants were very numerous that season, & this occasioned a war upon them. They made a high way thro the porch, along the interstices of the flag-stones <the right of path as you may suppose was not acquiesced in,> & when this road was as full as Cheapside at noon day boiling water was poured upon it. The bodies however all disappeared in a few hours, – carried away as we supposed, by their comrades; but we know that xx some insects have are marvellously retentive of life, & I have sometimes suspected that an Ant may derive no more injury from being boiled, than a fly from being bottled in Madeira, or a snail from <having its head cut off or> from lying seven years in a collectors cabinet. – Of the latter fact, (which was already authenticated)

my neighbour M^r Fryer of Ormathwaite,

had proof the other day.

The house was sold after her death, as soon as a purchaser could be found for it, – there being no longer the means for supporting it. Her loss was deeply felt by the two sons who lived with her, – & indeed it was fatal to their happiness, for happy hitherto they had been, according to their own sense of enjoyment. The Squire was sent to board in a village on the coast of the Bristol Channel, called Worle, – & Edward Tyler who was very capable of business, took a Clerks place at Bristol. But their stay was gone, – they had & eventually I have no doubt that both their lives were shortened by the consequences

A merchant who was engaged in the Slave Trade, Randolph

by name bought the house. Some years afterwards he sold it to M^r Gee of Locks Mill,

who had property in the neighbourhood; & almost as soon as the sale had been completed, Gee died, & Randolph hung himself. The widow Randolph

then applied to Gees son,

expressing her desire to retain the property, & appealing to his feelings. Accordingly he cancelled the deeds, – & soon discovered that he had been called upon to do this because M^rs Randolph found she could get a larger price from a Lady <M^rs Cox>

who had taken a fancy to the house. I heard this lately from Gee, whom chance has brought to settle at the Lakes. M^rs Cox still resides there. I went to look at the place tw some twenty years ago, – it was a good deal altered, – bow-windows had been thrown out in the front, & a gazebo erected in the roof. After viewing about the front as much as I could without being thought impertinent, I got fxx made my way round into the fields, & saw that the drawbridge was still in existence. Twice since I have seen the gazebo since from the window of a stage coach, & this is probably the last view I shall ever have of a place so dear to me. Th Even the recollections of it will soon be confined to myself, – for my Uncle, & my Aunt Mary are now the only living persons who partake them.