Notebook 1 of the Rydal Journals (DCMS 104.1, 11 December 1824–9 December 1825)

 

[List of expenditures inside front cover]

(1)

This short ledger lists DW’s purchases during one or more of her trips to Kendal in 1825.

Mr H’s hams

(2)

One of several Kendal butchers with a surname starting with H. On the ensuing line, DW records paying 3 pounds, 12 shillings, and 4½ pence for these hams; the other entries on this page are in shillings and pence.


3 – 12 – 4 ½                     
Miss Greenhow for D

 

(3)

An item for Dora likely bought from Ann Greenhow, a family friend from Kendal whose shop specialized in wrappers, twine, and other packaging products (see WG, 8 June 1822).

11 – 6                     
Blank silk for Dr &                     
Ws handkerchief

(4)

DW’s brothers: Dr. Christopher Wordsworth (1774–1846), Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and WW.

– – 11 – 3                     
Scissors 2 – 6                     
Turnpikes &c 1 – –                     
Miss Chamberlayne

(5)

Likely the Kendal dressmaker Ann Chamberlain.

7 – 6

Figure 1. Inside front cover and first page of DCMS 104.1

[December 1824]

Wednesday December 1st, 1824                     
Ground thinly covered with snow. Snow showers – rain – hail. Walk before dinner,

(6)

The day’s main meal, typically eaten between 2:00 and 4 P.M. GJ suggests that, at least two decades earlier, the Wordsworths typically dined closer to 2:00 P.M. (60).

with M[ary] & W[illiam]. After to Mr Carr’s – – still hail-showers – frosty moonlight returning with Mr & Mrs Carr. Fine clouds day & night

Thursday 2nd 

 

Bright morning. Hills & valley white – With Mary at Mr Elliotts

(7)

Ivy Cottage, the house at the bottom of Rydal Hill which the Elliotts’ had recently vacated.

– very cold there [–] walk first with W – then alone under Crags

(8)

Nab Scar, the promontory roughly a mile northwest of Rydal Mount.

in Sun & after Dinner with Wm – –

Friday 3rd                     
Still hard frost – not cloudless – threating snow – – Bottle wine

(9)

Raisin wine (as clarified in ensuing entry).

– With Wm to Ambleside after dinner

Saturday 4th                     
Clear frost – Bottled Raisin wine – Dined at 2 – Wm at Grasmere meeting

(10)

WW attended several village meetings that winter, voicing opposition to a plan to enclose common lands in Grasmere and Loughrigg (Letters, 4:304, 8:187–90).

– Walk with Willy to Ambleside – in wood by Scandal.

(11)

Scandale Fell, roughly a mile northeast of Rydal.

Mr & Mrs Carr to tea

(12)

Usually taken between 5:00 and 6:00 P.M. during this period.

Sunday 5th                     
Very bright morning – Alpine Lights on hills – Ambleside Church – Hartley Coleridge to dinner – Mr Marshall called – all day bright – glorious moon – burr

(13)

A halo or circle of light.

round it yesterday –

Monday 6th Decr                     
Thaw – heavy rain – clears before 4 – Walk on Terrace

(14)

The 250-foot-long path WW built at Rydal Mount for exercising, composing poetry, and looking out over Rydal Water. In January 1825, he expressed regret to Lord Lonsdale for having been away when he had called, saying he “should have liked much to show [him] the view from the garden and Terrace of Rydal Mount, which are universally admired” (Letters, 4:305–06).

– amber Clouds – To Ambleside with [B?] & Dora – Full Moon, tip toe, on dark Cloud – lost again – Rose by Candle light – W. too late for Coach

(15)

For his and Dora’s trip to Keswick (see next entry), where he stayed with the Southeys and she stayed (as MW reported) with “the solitary Mother of her friend Mary Calvert, who was married last Autumn” (WLL / Wordsworth, Mary / 1 / 64).

Tuesday 7th                     
Dull morning – a little rain – went to Mrs Elliotts – letters from Wales

(16)

From Hindwell, the Radnorshire home of MW’s brother Tom Hutchinson and his wife, Mary.

&c – Jos. goes by Coach

(17)

Apparently a servant who helped manage the family’s animals. In the Kent’s Bank Mercury, the satirical newspaper Jane Jewsbury and Dora produced in July 1825, “Lord Chancellor Joseph” watches over the turkeys, ducks, chickens, and poney [or pony?] of “Queen Dora” (WLMS A / Jewsbury, Maria Jane / 52). Then, in October, Dora reported that those of her birds who had “escaped having their necks turned about are well—but Joe has the entire management of them—I only take care that food is provided” (LDW, 28; see also Letters, 4:339).

– Wm & D follow on horseback – Showers – yellow brightness to the South – walk on Terrace. Stormy ride to Keswick . . .

Wednesday 8th                     
Windy & showery – nay out –. After dinner walked to Quary

(18)

The slate quarry at White Moss, roughly a mile west of Rydal.

with Mary – no rain – –Fanny Wilson.

(19)

Likely a charitable visit, and possibly to the Fanny who worked for the Wordsworths in 1812 (Letters, 3:4–5; 8:129). DW would visit her twice more in the weeks ahead.

Letter from Dr W.

(20)

DW’s brother Christopher.

Thursday 9th                     
Fine morning – sunshine, but soon a hail shower – All day showery & cold – wrote to Miss Horrocks

(21)

Sarah Horrocks (1792–1868), whose younger sister Jane was married to MW’s cousin Tom Monkhouse. Two months previously, the Monkhouses had gone to Torquay on the Devon coast hoping that the sea air would restore Tom’s health. After joining them, Miss Horrocks dutifully kept the Wordsworths apprised of his condition (Letters, 4:291).

– a little rain going to Ambleside with M. [–] call at Mrs North’s[,] Mrs Carlton’s,

(22)

Mary Carleton (née Chambers, 1777–1839), a once-genteel Irish widow who lived at Oak Bank in Ambleside. Her family had fled to the Lakes in 1814, when her husband, John, was caught embezzling public funds in his capacity as a Dublin alderman (“Alderman John Carleton, a Bankrupt,” Saunders’s News-Letter [Dublin], 16 February 1815).

Miss Knott’s, Thomas Troughton.

(23)

Thomas Troughton (1791–1860), an Ambleside bookseller and stationer who moonlighted as a wholesale tea dealer and operator of a small circulating library.

Bright frost at 11-

Friday 10th                     
Very keen bright frost – – continuous – only hazy in the afternoon – Bottled wine – Miss M[ary] Dowling to dinner – Rainy night –

Saturday 11th                     
Misly

(24)

Drizzling.

rain – walked with M & Willy to Fox Ghyll

(25)

Calling on Margaret De Quincey, who, in her husband’s absence, had just delivered her fifth child. After this visit, DW seems to have updated Mrs. Luff on the De Quinceys’ timeline for quitting Fox Ghyll (see Letters, 4:282–83, 317–18).

– wrote Mrs Luff. Heavy rain at Keswick – Wm & Dora cannot come on horseback – arrive in Coach. J[ohn] W[ordsworth] arrives.

(26)

Home from university for the holidays. Alarmed by a typhus outbreak in Oxford, WW and MW persuaded him not to return until after Easter (LMW, 121; Letters, 4:292, 298).

Sunday 12th –Very warm & mild – All at Church but Dora & Willy – They at Ambleside. Called at Col. Campbell’s – very wet returning.

Monday 12th [13 th]

(27)

After dating consecutive entries the 12th, DW’s numbering would be off by one for the next week.


Very dark morning – – Breakfast at 8.

(28)

Noted because this was an hour earlier than was typical during this period.

Rain all day – – wrote letters – walk on Terrace, while Wm & J[ohn] go to Ambleside – dark night

Tuesday 13th [14th]                     
Very rainy – all day [–] Began Dante

(29)

The Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), a long-time favorite of DW. Numerous entries in the RJ record her reading him, and her undated notebook DCMS 119 includes copious notes on his life and works.

Wednesday 14th [15th]                     
Rain! Rain! I went to Miss Dowling’s &c – Chaises going – Mr Cooper very ill

(30)

James Cooper, an Ambleside woolen manufacturer who would pass away in late February 1825 (obit. in WG, 5 March 1825).

– starlight at 11- & frost

Thursday 15th [16th]                     
Beautiful rose-coloured sky – Mild morning – no frost [–] Fox Ghyll with W at ½ past 1 [–] Mrs Carlton – Rain comes on Terrace – wet evening.

Friday 16th [17th]                     
Rainy morning – not heavy. Peggy Wilkinson

(31)

Formerly the Wordsworths’ maid at Dove Cottage, Peggy Wilkinson (b. 1784) now was Samuel Tillbrook’s housekeeper at Ivy Cottage.

– Dante – Walk on Terrace after dinner 2 hours – a little Rain – Coach Lamps – Mrs Robinsons to supper

(32)

A light meal typically eaten at 9:00 or 10:00 P.M.

Saturday 17th [18th]                     
very Dark morning – misly rain – Misling at G[rasmere] [–] Mr Harrison

(33)

Anthony Harrison (1773–1827), a former schoolmate of WW who in adulthood had become a Penrith attorney, an amateur poet, and an agent for Lord Lonsdale.

&c – – wet all day –

Sunday 19th Wm to Lowther [–] I in Chaise to Ambleside

(34)

After spending the night at RM, Harrison drove WW to Lowther (21 miles northeast of Rydal, near Penrith), dropping off DW in Ambleside en route. WW was traveling to visit his ailing friend Rev. James Clarke Satterthwaite, a local Tory power-broker and ally of Lord Lonsdale (Letters, 4:304; LMW, 120–21).

– Mr Carr’s – Rain all day

Monday 20th                     
Bright sunrise – rain comes on – with M to Ivy Cot, & Scandale Hill – Cold – sleety – hail & rain all day. Lightning as [ ] [–] later rain

Tuesday 21st                     
Fresh snow on mountains [–] Fine morning – Blue sky & large clouds – heavy rain comes on – Party at Betty’s

(35)

Likely Betty Dawson (see note for 18 January below).

– Hail showers &c &c

Wednesday 22nd                     
Dark morning – after breakfast on Terrace – And the rest of the day – Rain, sleet, &c, &c – fierce wind [–] frosty night

Thursday 22nd                     
Sudden keen frost – very bright – Wm expected – walk to Ambleside with John [–] Dora MrBarber’s

Friday 24                     
No frost – sunshine – – at Mr E[lliott]’s with Julia

(36)

The Wordsworths’ 14-year-old relative spent the holidays at RM (WLL / Wordsworth, Dora / 1 / 6).

– Wm arrives

(37)

Returning from his five-day visit to Lowther.

–

Christmas Day

(38)

Also DW’s fifty-third birthday.

 

Storm – wind rain flood – Chapel opened – Water falls

(39)

The Christmas Day opening of the new chapel Lady Ann le Fleming had erected in Rydal was spoiled by torrential rain. Dora wrote, “I never was out in such a storm, nor does my Father ever remember experiencing so violent a one” (WLL / Wordsworth, Dora / 1 / 6). WW groused of the new chapel that “the cost . . . much exceeded what was needful” but conceded that “when time has softened down the exterior a little it will prove a great ornament to the Village” (Letters, 4:301). MW considered it “a great monument to the Village,” despite “all the blunders that have been made by the ignorance of the B…

– cards

Monday [Sunday] 26th                     
Very dark – very wet morning – Party at Mr Robinson’s – Just fair for our walk thither [–] Mrs Carr in Chaise

Tuesday [Monday] 27th                     
Fine day – rather frosty – Mr Douglass

(40)

Likely the tenant of the Hardens who, by DW’s report, fled the area in early 1825 after being exposed for “swindling tricks” (Letters, 4:340).

– Mrs Elliotts [–] Moonlight walk

(41)

Not necessarily late at night, as the sun sets in Rydal at 3:53 P.M. on 27 December.

to Ambleside very fine –

Wednesday [Tuesday] 28th                     
Frosty – fine sun-rise – clear sky – To Fox Ghyll & Ambleside [–] Rain comes on in the evening, after walk on Terrace

Thursday [Wednesday] 29th – not frosty but fine day – rather windy – Rain at night

Friday [Thursday] 30th 

 

William’s tooth drawn

(42)

The first of several dental extractions recorded in the RJ.

– Rainy morning – Fair to Mr Carr’s to dinner – very windy & very warm

[January 1825]

New years day 

– Fine morning – to Church. To Mr Robinson’s. Mr J[ackson]

(43)

The young minister spent the holidays at RM (WLL / Wordsworth, Mary / 1 / 64).

& Miss Hodson

(44)

Possibly a misspelling of Hodgson, of whom there were many in or near Ambleside.

call – very wet afternoon

Sunday 2nd                     
Strong cold wind – I went to Grasmere Church. Rain in showers, in returning. Mary Kirby

(45)

Mary Kirkby (née Holme, b. 1793), a housemaid of Samuel Barber who, with her husband away working in Cornwall, was preparing to give birth to her second child (WLL / Wordsworth, Dora / 1 / 6; LSH, 367–68).

– Wet night

Monday 3rd                     
Very Rainy all day – – clear night – Mr R’s Twins born

(46)

With the birth of these fraternal twins, Ann and John, the Robinsons had three children under the age of 18 months.

– – Mr Carr to dinner &c.

Tuesday 4th                      
Mary at Grasmere [–] I wrote letters for Wm.

(47)

Among these was a lengthy letter to their brother Christopher (Letters, 4:296).

– to Miss Dowlings before dinner – dry cold wind – frosty night [–] very clear

Wednesday 5th                     
Beautiful frosty day [–] Sunny – Mrs Hardens with Wm & over Loughrigg – Reading. [Madam Casper?]

Thursday 6th                     
Dull morning – frosty – Calgarth & Troutbeck – Rain comes on – Detained in Troutbeck – Darkness – dull moonlight [–] misty rain

Friday 7th Janry, 1825                     
Rain & Mist – Clears in afternoon – after Dinner I walked to Grasmere – Met W & Mr Robinson – Bright frosty night.

Saturday 8th                     
Bright sun – inclining to frost – Walk with W & M to Fox Ghyll – thro wood – on Terrace. . .

Sunday 9th – Lovely day at Grasmere – clear & bright – silvery Fogs on Rydal hills &c – Wm Green preached

(48)

As no one with this name is known to have held a clerical living in the region at the time, this may refer to Daniel Green (1798–1829), a son of John and Molly Green of Grasmere who had graduated from Cambridge in 1823 and would spend a year as perpetual curate of Langdale before his tragic death in 1829 (see Letters, 4:218n and entry for 27 July 1825).

– afternoon Rydal church[,] at Mrs Robinsons & walk on Terrace – clear there [–] Fogs below remind me of Rigi & Lenzberg.

(49)

DW had visited these mountains in central Switzerland during her Continental tour of 1820. The 4 August entry in her travel diary reads, “ Lenzburg. . . . At six o'clock we caught a glimpse of the castle walls glittering in sunshine, a hopeful sign, and we set forward through the fog” (JDW, 2:95). Fifteen days later, she recorded reaching the “Top of Rigi” but made no mention of fog (2:160–68).

Monday [10 Jan.] – Grey & rather foggy – mending stockings &c – Called with Mary at Mrs Scambler’s & Miss Dowlings (no rain)

Tuesday 11th                     
Wm went to Cockermouth

(50)

DW’s and WW’s birthplace and childhood home, 28 miles northwest of Rydal. WW’s four-day trip was likely connected to his responsibilities as Distributor of Stamps.

– Lovely sunshine comes out after grey morning – I to Fanny Wilson’s,

(51)

See note for 8 December above.

Mrs Green’s,

(52)

Anne Green (née Bamford, 1784–1833) of Ambleside, whose late husband, William, had been a prominent local landscape artist.

Mary Kirby’s

(53)

See note for 2 January above.

Wednesday 12th                     
Fine bright day – a little frosty . . . I walked to Stone Man

(54)

Regional term for a cairn (or pile of stones) marking a trail or summit.

&c on Loughrigg – Callers – Mrs Scambler to tea

Thursday 13th                     
Grey & mild – a little soft Rain – with Mary to Ambleside – Mrs Carr’s – Mrs Green’s – Mr Courtnay

(55)

Philip Courtenay (1785–1842), a London attorney with literary interests who often provided WW with legal and financial advice (Letters, 4:121–22, 309; Courtenay, “Notes”).

. . .

N.B. Since Monday 1 Book of Dante per day

(56)

See note for 14 December above.

Friday 14th                     
Grey morning – soft rain [–] walk with M. to Fox Ghyll – very warm

Saturday 15th                     
All day rain – Wm comes from Cockermouth

Sunday 16th                     
Very rainy – Church at Rydal – not cold

Monday 17                     
Sunny morning – yet slight showers – opened Mr E’s windows

(57)

With the Elliotts having vacated Ivy Cottage upon the end of their lease, MW and DW had been caring for the empty house as a favor to their friends or its owner, Samuel Tillbrook. Their principal task seems to have been opening the windows each morning to air it out, as MW mentioned on 10 December, “I must now be off to close the windows – for the sun very, very soon leaves that gem of a Cottage & the frosty air will do it no good” (WLL / Wordsworth, Mary / 1 / 64).

[–] Called at P Kirby’s,

(58)

Presumably a relation of Mary Kirkby (see note for 2 January).

Betty Dawsons

(59)

Possibly the Betty whom DW described in 1806 as “a very good-tempered girl and an excellent servant” and “always ready to do [Dora] a service, or indeed any of the children” (Letters, 2:106).

– Old Woman fallen down stairs [–] after tea, beautifully bright – Miss J[ane] Dowling calls – D[ora] at Mr North’s– Wm & I walked to Ambleside – gentle Rain then – & a wet night – Letter from Sara better news

(60)

Since mid-October SH had been in Torquay helping to nurse her cousin Tom Monkhouse, who apparently had taken a temporary turn for the better (LSH, 290–93; note for 9 December above).

Tuesday 18th                     
Very rainy – very dark – clears – windy & rather cold – – walk with Julia & Mr R. to John [Hesters?] – Betty Dixon – handsome present

(61)

Betty Dixon (née Slee, 1801–65), a working woman of Grasmere, and her husband, Edward (1789–1830), had just welcomed their third child, Dinah. The “handsome present” was therefore likely a baby gift.

Wednesday 19th                     
Very wet – not cold [–] Mr Carrs Dinner – to Ambleside alone in evening – dark & dusty – no rain –

Thursday 20th wet morning – with Mr R to Mr Douglass’s

(62)

See note for 27 December above.

– windy – snowing – cold – at Mr Elliotts

Friday 21st –                     
hail showers – rain showers. After dinner 2 hours on Terrace & at Mr E[lliott]’s

(63)

Closing the windows at Ivy Cottage (see note for 17 January above).

– – Reading [Burke?] [ ] at this time

Saturday 22nd                     
Bright frosty morning [–] walked with Mr R. – by Fox Ghyll, to field above Mr Jackson’s

(64)

William Jackson’s late father, Thomas (1758–1821), supplemented his income as Curate of Langdale and Rector of Grasmere by owning a farm in Langdale.

– Enchanting sunny view

Sunday 23rd                     
very bright day [–] at Rydal Church – with Miss E[liza] D[owling] after dinner to Ambleside –

Monday 24th                     
Gloomy frost – D at Mr Barbers – with Wm & Willy to Grasmere [–] Skates carried

(65)

Since boyhood WW had been an avid skater. Shortly before he turned 60 in 1830, DW reported that her brother was “still the crack skater on Rydal Lake” (Letters, 5:191).

[–] Ice would not bear – Snow at Night

Tuesday 25th                     
Deep snow – sunshine [–] Frost – with John to Ambleside after dinner – called at Mr Carr’s –

Wednesday 26th                     
Snow again – William to Low Wood – I to Ambleside [–] Thaw & rain –

Thursday 27th – – rain

Friday 28th – a fine day

Saturday 29th Rainy – I went to Kendal

(66)

DW spent 29 January through 15 February in Kendal with the Cooksons. In a 13 February letter to Joanna Hutchinson, she explained, “It was a fortnight yesterday since I came to Kendal, intending to stay but a week, however my kind Friends have been so unwilling to part with me that, having no particular object to call me home, I could not refuse” (Letters, 4:315).

Sunday 30th – Rainy – I not well.

Some fine days clear – frost – snow – & flood

(67)

A summary of the weather between 30 January and 15 February.

[February 1825]

Remained at Kendal till Tuesday 15th February– mizzling rain in cart with Edwin

(68)

The Cooksons’ nine-year-old son. DW had reported to Joanna Hutchinson that “if weather be tolerable, Edwin is to go with me to Rydal. . . . He is a proud child at the thought of his journey. He says to me two or three times every day—‘I am going with you to Rydal!’ and talks of the Waterfalls and all that he is to see” (Letters, 4:316).

Wednesday 16th very fine & bright [–] warm

Thursday 17th – very wet – Mrs Luff came

Friday 18th – Lovely bright day

Saturday 19th mild gloom – I walked to Grasmere – round Lake – wrote to Mrs Campbell & Mrs Elliott

Sunday 20th – very bright & fine

Monday 21st – Lovely day – sunny – Morris’s funeral

(69)

Possibly Robert Morris of Rydal, whose widow, Anne (1740–1843), would live to 103 (Preston Chronicle, 18 Nov. 1843). Later RJ notebooks imply they lived at the foot of Rydal Hill.

– wrote to Sara – Tillbroke – Miss Horrocks

(70)

See note for 9 December above.

Tuesday 22nd                     
Fine grey warm day – walked with M. to Mrs [Tresway?], Mrs Harding’s,

(71)

Both unidentified.

&c &c – Mary’s tooth drawn

Wednesday 23rd                     
Grey and cold. To Mr Carrs [–] Market [–] Mrs Luff’s alone

Thursday 24th                     
– grey & cold but no wind – no rain since Tuesday week – with Mary to Mrs Luffs & Fox Ghyll – Miss E[liza] D[owling] to dinner – Miss Knott – Mrs Huddleston

(72)

Either the Wordsworths’ Rydal neighbor Margaret Huddleston (née Bownas, 1760–1843) or Elizabeth Huddleston (née Fleming, 1753–1830), an elderly aunt of Lady Ann le Fleming whom she hoped to install at RM in the Wordsworths’ stead (Letters, 4:412n, 416–17).

– met Wm & walk on Terrace . . . not well soon to bed. Began Dante again

(73)

See note for 14 December above.

Friday 25th –Cold & grey – D & W to Calgarth – I to Mr Carr’s evening.

Saturday 26th Snow – with Willy to Mrs Luff’s to tea

Sunday 27th – Sunshine – Snow falling in Flakes – – Starlight & frost

Monday 28th                     
– very cold – snow again [–] Received the tidings of our dear Friend T Monkhouse’s death (on Saturday 26th at Clifton[)]

(74)

DW would convey her grief more fully in a letter written twelve days later (Letters, 4:324–26).

[March 1825]

Tuesday 1st March                     
very cold – snow covering hills & fields – walked to Fox Ghyll [–] Mrs L[uff] there

Wednesday 2nd                     
Thick snow – & snow till afternoon – walk on Terrace after dinner – again snow

Thursday 3rd                     
– Snow still falling – – walk on Terrace after dinner – – & now (12 o’clock) a thick covering – trees all white –

Friday 4th More snow – and frosty clear night [–] walk on Terrace

Saturday 5th Lovely sunshine – dazzling hills – a skin of Ice on Rydal Lake – long walk on Terrace

Sunday 6th – Cold Thaw & Rain

Monday 7th – Dull Thaw – Bright Evening – Mr Southey arrives – No Snow at Keswick

(75)

A weather report courtesy of Robert Southey, who was making a long-delayed visit to RM (Letters, 4:324).

– sate on Shore of Lake on Saturday –

Tuesday 8th –Slow dull Thaw

Wednesday 9th –Wet & dull [–] Still warm – John does not get off.

(76)

Her nephew would instead leave the next day for Whitehaven, where he would stay with his friend William Jackson until Easter (Letters, 4:316).

Thursday 10th –John goes – mild & dull – small, soft rain – The Carrs to dinner & Mr R[obinson]

Friday 11th mild pleasant day –

Saturday 12th – very fine – warm but coldish in the evening.

Sunday 13th – cold & rainy [–] Mrs Luff – In afternoon, I drank tea with her

Monday 14th                     
Sunny morning – very cold – breakfasted with Mr L

(77)

Possibly intended “Mrs L” (for Mrs. Luff).

– to Ambleside, about Hartley’s will – grey cold afternoon – walk in garden – on Terrace – Birkhag field.

(78)

Birk Hagg, a wood just north of Rydal.

Mrs E[lliott]’s with D[ora]. Thermom. at freezing point

(79)

One of two such measurements in Notebook 1, the other being a barometer reading logged on 10 October below.

Tuesday 15th                     
Bleak cold morning – snow begins –

Wednesday 16th                     
Still gloomy & cold, but pleasant walking [–] Mrs Harden’s with M. [–] Mrs D

(80)

Possibly the Dowlings, with “Mrs” signifying the plural “Misses.”

&c

Thursday 17 – Bright & cold – very pleasant – Mr Barbers [–] New Road &c (all.)

(81)

“All” of the family from RM apparently walked to Mr. Barber’s home via the newly opened road between Rydal and Grasmere, which was on the valley floor rather than the fells above.

Willy’s accident.

(82)

Apparently minor, as this “accident” is never again referenced below or in surviving letters.

Friday 18th – Snow – – Fox Ghyll [–] Terrace &c

Saturday 19 – Bright, cold – busy in gardens

Sunday 20th                     
Very Bright – Bishops Ladies at Chapel

(83)

Presumably Dorothy Watson, widow of the late Bishop of Llandaff, and her daughters visiting from Calgarth.

– walk after with W & M on new Road [–] beautiful Evening

Monday 21                     
Again fine – – not quite so sunny – & coldish air but very pleasant at Grasmere with Mrs Luff & walk

Tuesday [22 Mar.] delightful in morning but Grey at noon – Grasmere with Mrs Luff & Aggy

(84)

Likely Agnes (“Aggy”) Ashburner, the hard-luck daughter of the Wordsworths’ former Town End neighbors Thomas and Peggy Ashburner (see GJ, 41). MW wrote in 1810, “Poor Aggy Ashburner is in the same situation as her sisters without having any hope of being made an honest woman of. . . . As to Aggy’s self she has I find little feeling about it—she is, which I never knew before, only a half-wit—poor Soul” (WLMS / G / 1 / 2 / 7). In the intervening fifteen years, the Wordsworths had occasionally employed her to do odd jobs (Letters, 3:15, 79).

& walk with W & M.

Wednesday [23 Mar.] – very bright – air not warm – clear – delightful [–] Mrs Blakeney’s Sale

(85)

Having sold Fox Ghyll to Mrs. Luff and turned out the De Quinceys, Margaret Blakeney (1764–1828) held a multi-day sale of furnishings from the house. Decades later, Thomas De Quincey would characterize such sales as highlights of the Westmorland social calendar for rich and poor alike. Besides offering free liquor (customarily at the seller’s expense) and occasional bargains, these events facilitated reunions between old acquaintances separated either by “real distance” or the “virtual distance” created “by difficult tracts of hilly country” (“Recollections of Grasmere,” 571). For another live…

– I called at Miss Knott’s after Tea – good news.

(86)

Presumably concerning an improvement in this chronically ill friend’s health.

Lovely Crescent Moon & one Star at the Tip – exquisitely bright – Mr R. with me

Thursday 24th                     
Colder air – very bright – Second Sale Mrs B[lakeney’]s – after Tea with Mary to Ambleside

Friday 25th                     
Dullish in the morning – Then very Bright – The Askews call

(87)

The family of Rev. Henry Askew (1766–1852), Rector of Greystoke (near Penrith) and squire of Glenridding House in Patterdale. The Wordsworths knew the Askews through the Marshalls, their current neighbors at Ullswater, and Mrs. Luff, their one-time neighbor in Patterdale (LSH, 36, 46; Letters, 2:192–93, 5:726). Another connection was through Ann Dowling Carr, who, prior to taking a teaching position in Ambleside, had served as the Askews’ governess from 1809–11 (LSH, 133).

– After dinner with Wm & M. to Fox Ghyll – met Mrs Luff to tea [–] [Hired?] her servant

Saturday 26th                     
Still very fine – Sauntered much – with Mr R after dinner to Fanny Wilson’s

(88)

See note for 8 December above.

Sunday 27th – still fine – Grasmere Church with D[ora] – Hartley C to dinner – with Wm. to Grasmere Hill – home by moonlight – air warmer – very fine – beautiful sunset

Monday 28th – Very fine

Tuesday 29th – The same – always cold in the mornings – & all-day Sun

Wednesday 30th – Fine, but a little cloudy – Mrs C[oleridge] & Sara

(89)

The Coleridges’ 23-year-old daughter. DW reported on 4 May that “Mrs Coleridge and Sara went home 10 days ago after 3 weeks and 3 days happy stay – They both enjoyed themselves much” (Letters, 4:346). For Sara’s account of their stay, see WLMS A / Coleridge, Sara / 9.

arrive – very fine evening – walk on W[est] side of R[ydal] over Bridge & on new Road –

[April 1825]

Thursday April 1st Very fine – walk with W – on White Moss – new Road home

Friday 2nd Still fine –

Saturday 3rd –                     
Never [seemed?] sunshine – I with Sara & W, after dinner – White Moss

Sunday 4 (Easter) Wm, M, & D. to Church

Monday 5 Lovely day – walk alone to Grasmere – after Tea – most calm & beautiful – Sir Rd Fleming’s

(90)

Sir Richard le Fleming (1791–1857), a cousin of the family of Rydal Hall who had succeeded Thomas Jackson as Rector of Grasmere in 1822 and moved into the rectory that had been the Wordsworths’ home from 1811–13. Soon after Sir Richard’s arrival in Grasmere, DW had bluntly reported, “He has given us 3 excellent sermons and two very bad ones—we fear the good are exhausted” (Letters, 4:149).

Tuesday 6 – Again very fine & hot – To Ambleside – Mr Tillbroke’s linen

(91)

Presumably connected to DW and MW’s role as temporary caretakers of Ivy Cottage (see note for 17 January above)

Wednesday 7th –The same

Thursday 8th April D[itt]o

Friday 9th –as fine as ever

Saturday 10th –a little gloom at night – a few Drops of Rain. Starlight

Sunday 11th –very bright – to Grasmere Church with W – Cold in the Evening

Monday 12                      
Rain – cold – –

Tuesday [13 Apr.] – a little Rain – snow on hills

Wednesday [14 Apr.]                     
Cold & Dry – sunny – To Mrs Harden’s with Mrs C[oleridge] &c – Mrs P’s Sale

(92)

Another moving or estate sale (see note for 23 March above).

[–] Jane Harden to tea

(93)

The Hardens’ 18-year-old daughter.

Thursday [15 Apr.]                     
a little Rain. Miss E[liza] D[owling] to tea . . .

Friday [16 Apr.] a little rain

Saturday [17 Apr.] dry & cold –

Sunday 18th April –                     
Sunny & cold air

Monday 19th –Dry –

Tuesday 20th – The same & sunny – sharp air

Wednesday 21st                     
at Low Wood with Wm [–] Mild Rain – warm air

Thursday [22 Apr.] –                     
Very fine clear air [–] sunshine . . .

Friday [23 Apr.] –                     
Cold – – a little sun

Saturday [24 Apr.] cold & dry – Mrs Coleridge left us.

N B. all last week, no downright Rain – but much refreshing downfall, till the cold sets in. Showery weather from the 21st April till now

(94)

1 May, when she resumed her journal.

– Never all-day rain, & often delightful – half- sunny day or more . . .

[May 1825]

May 1st – fine morning – Mrs & Miss Barlow

(95)

The first explicit mention in the RJ of the new occupants of The Wood who for the next three years would be integral members of the Wordsworths’ social set.

to dinner – Rain in afternoon – a little colder

Monday 2nd – Busy with Mrs Robinson &c &c – – still raining

Tuesday 3rd – Cold, with rain, & intervals of Dry [–] wrote to Sara,

(96)

Likely SH, who was in the West Midlands assisting Tom and Mary Hutchinson with their move from Hindwell to Brinsop Court.

Miss Cookson,

(97)

Elizabeth, the 26-year-old daughter of the Kendal Cooksons.

Mrs Elliott – letter from Miss Horrocks.

(98)

See note for 9 December above.

Wednesday 4th – Rain again, not heavy

Thursday 5th – Rain – air close

(99)

Humid and stuffy.

– – Thunder on air

Friday 6th – very close, & hot – thunder showers – head-ache [–] wrote letters. Letters to Coleridge &c.

(100)

The letter is apparently lost, but a 4 May letter survives in which DW forwards Coleridge’s request for a favor from their mutual friends the Clarksons (Letters, 4:344–45).

Violent thunder elsewhere [–] man killed on Lane

(101)

The 10 May issue of the CP reported that this “terrific storm of thunder and lightning” had caused widespread destruction but makes no mention of human fatalities.

Saturday 7th – Very hot & close [–] Heavy showers in afternoon – fair morn – clears and we walk to Grasmere.

Sunday 8th – Showery, cool again – – walk with Wm to Grasmere – & Spring-cottage

(102)

Mrs. Luff’s temporary residence in Loughrigg while Fox Ghyll was being remodeled.

– and after tea with Mrs Luff to Fox Ghy[ll]

Monday 9th – very bright & clear – light air – Mr Pearson spending day – Ruins pulled down

(103)

William Pearson (1780–1856), a native of Crosthwaite (between Kendal and Windemere) who in 1822 quit his job as a Manchester bank and began a second career as a farmer at Borderside, the property he had bought near his childhood home (Pearson, Papers, 14–45). An early and ardent admirer of WW, he sought out the Wordsworths’ acquaintance after returning to the area and soon bonded with them over their shared interests in poetry, fell-walking, and regional history (see Letters, 4:143, 385, 430). On this visit, he apparently told them about some local ruin having been “pulled down.”

– Mrs Luff at Whitehaven

––––––––––––

All the week neglected Diary. Only one wet day. Books arranged &c &c

Sunday 15th May – very fine & bright – I went to Grasmere Church –

Monday 16th –grey & cool [–] Even[ing] at Mrs Barlow’s

All the Rest of the week as fine as possible – bright Sun – but a little cold nights & mornings.

Friday (i e – yesterday) May 20th                     
– spent with Wm in going to Dun-mail Rays[,] he intending to go to Keswick – courage failed & came under Helm, &c – & visit Larch Grove Waterfall

(104)

After turning back at Dunmail Raise—the pass five miles northwest of Rydal that divides the vales of Grasmere and Thirlmere—DW and WW walked beneath Helm Crag and on through Thomas King’s larch groves at The Hollens. A day later, Dora reported that her father and aunt “started yesterday but when they got to the top of the Raise my Father found himself ‘too weak’ to proceed. They spent the day in the Fields of Grasmere and reached home to a latish Tea” (Letters, 4:351 [misdated in Letters as 28 May rather than 21 May]).

Saturday 21st                     
Busy at Ivy Cot, & with Letters – no reading this week – all bustle in two houses – Carpets made &c &c – Beautiful Day – Miss Eliza Dowling & 6 young Ladies

(105)

A group of girls from the Dowlings’ school that included Julia Myers (Letters, 4:352).

Sunday 22nd – Whitsunday

(106)

English equivalent of Pentecost, the religious holiday celebrated seven weeks after Easter. Writing to SH on this same day, DW exuded, “Spring-time is as delightful as the beginning, and Rydal more beautiful than ever. – Lilacs, Laburnums, and Roses all in full bloom” (Letters, 4:353).

– at Grasmere Church – no communicants but Robert Newton & myself

(107)

A communicant is a worshipper who receives Holy Communion, or the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Robert Newton was a long-time Grasmere inn-keeper who appears frequently in the GJ (see 172n.). DW’s report of the dismal turn-out on this holy day corresponds with WW’s complaint earlier in the year that “in this Country . . . there is a sad want of zeal among Members” of the Established Church (Letters, 4:301).

– very fine day. Came home over Crags – Mrs Harden &c at Rydal – seen at a distance

Monday 23rd                     
Very fine [–] cleaning study. Mrs Cookson & 3 children, Mr C[ookson], Miss C[ookson] & Miss Jewsberry arrived

(108)

The arrival of these guests marked the beginning of what DW would call “the most bustling summer ever remembered” (Letters, 4:392), when the Wordsworths hosted the array of guests listed in the rear of Notebook 1. Hearing reports of these Rydal adventures from afar, an envious SH remarked that “they seem to be enjoying themselves – & executing some scheme of ‘particular pleasure’ . . . every day” (LSH, 305).

– – various walks & inviting after a stop to Dust & Labour among the Books – Much pleased with young Ladies – struck with Miss J.

(109)

The entire family at RM was enchanted with the 25-year-old poet Jane Jewsbury, who within a few short months went from a virtual stranger to a family favorite and Dora’s “dearest friend” (see LSH, 305; LDW, 22–28).

Rain in the night –

Tuesday 24th                     
Rather cloudy morning. Wm with the party at Stock Gill

(110)

Stock Ghyll Force, a striking waterfall in a ravine east of Ambleside.

&c. M. & I putting up Books – washing carpet – threatening sky but no rain in afternoon – –

Wednesday 25th – Rainy morning – clears & we go to Langdale &c

(111)

The party apparently followed a route that, from the 1822 edition onwards, WW recommended in his Guide to the Lakes: “From Ambleside is a charming excursion, by Skelwith-fold and Colwith-force up Little Langdale, Blea Tarn, Dungeon-ghyll waterfall (if there be time) and down Great Langdale.”

– Fair day – Mr Wilson

(112)

John Wilson (1785–1854, DNB), the increasingly eminent poet, lead writer at Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, and Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. Among WW’s earliest disciples, Wilson bought the Elleray estate near Bowness in his early twenties largely for its proximity to his literary icon. For a decade thereafter the Wilsons and Wordsworths enjoyed a close bond, but it was severely strained after Wilson began publishing alternately admiring and satirical Blackwood’s articles on the “Lake Poets” in 1817. Wilson’s inclusion in this outing therefore marked a rare mom…

– met all Langdale – Thompson & Family

(113)

Apparently a Langdale resident connected to the new Elterwater Gunpowder Co., as he would provide WW and DW a tour of the facility on 11 June (see below).

– no doors open at Dungeon Ghyll – dined in the Barn

(114)

Likely at Millbeck Farm, near Dungeon Ghyll Force. In her 1855 guide to the region, Harriet Martineau advised, “From [the Millbeck] farmhouse, where travellers can make a good meal of farmhouse fare, there is one thing to be done without doubt; – to visit Dungeon Ghyll. . . . Strangers who arrive untired generally go to the Ghyll while their ham and eggs are preparing” (Complete Guide, 146).

– – Fine day on the whole but with showers – Langdale pike seen through a veil of mist.

Thursday 26th May                     
Dined with the Party at Brummar Head – Poor Marys tooth drawn – I at Easedale Tarn

(115)

Brimmer Head farm is midway between Grasmere and Easedale Tarn, the small mountain lake two miles northwest of the village.

with Miss Cookson.

Friday 27th                     
At Troutbeck & Bowness

(116)

Hamlet on Windermere’s eastern shore that had already become a hub for local tourism.

– Cold air, very bright – Rain comes on, & Snow on the mountains

Saturday May 28th                     
Mr Cookson dines here – Young ones stay

(117)

Presumably the younger Cookson children.

– – Fine moonlight – a little rain in afternoon

Sunday 29th                     
air cold – fine morning – Rain in afternoon – walk with Miss Cookson in Garden & on West Terrace.

(118)

The terrace WW had recently completed between the reading hut at the top of the garden and the western edge of the property.

Fine moonlight night – moon on River –

Monday 30th                     
Mrs Smith arrives

(119)

WW and DW’s second cousin Mary Wordsworth Smith (1780–1867), who, since the combat death of her first husband, Capt. William Peake, in 1813, had married William Proctor Smith (Letters, 5:111n.). In 1829 DW observed that Mrs. Smith was like her younger sister Dorothy Wordsworth Harrison “in sweetness of temper etc., but has had the advantage of being much in good company, and has a stronger understanding” (Letters, 5:128).

– finest day – I with Miss Cookson over hills & to Skelwyth Fold

(120)

4 miles south of Rydal, on the opposite side of Loughrigg.

– Mrs S[mith] here on return.

Tuesday 31st                     
Ladies depart. Still very fine weather – bright yet cool – with Mrs S & Miss C to Ambleside – Ladies depart – much regretted – Party to Tea – various walks in fields &c – Mrs Harrison & party to Tea – fine moonlight on Windermere

(121)

Possibly seen from an upper room at RM.

[June 1825]

Wednesday June 1st                     
Very wet morning – Mrs Smith departs – all day rain [–] In evening, walked with W to Ambleside [–] very wet – again began with Dante this morning

(122)

See note for 14 December above.

Thursday 2nd                     
Great flood – – walk to Fox Ghyll – D[ora] to Langdale [–] frightened a little by the high water . . . I walked to Ambleside after tea – – to seek lodgings for Miss D.

(123)

DW’s typical shorthand for Mary Dowling, but, given that she and her sisters already lived in Ambleside, “Miss D” here likely refers to the Miss Dawson mentioned below on 22 and 27 June.

Friday 3rd                     
– Showery – went with M to Water head

(124)

Cluster of homes and inns at the southern end of Ambleside and northern edge of Windermere.

& Brathay – met Wm Jackson – & Cousin D

(125)

Dorothy Wordsworth Harrison.

&c . . . Dora at Keswick – – Young party with Willy at Mr Robinson’s

Saturday June 4th                     
very heavy showers – called on Webbers,

(126)

A family vacationing in Rydal. Dora reported on 28 May, “The Webbers’ Servants come on Monday and themselves on Wednesday. They must be Grandees for Mrs W said in a note to Margarite ‘I shall send over the Butler to order in coals etc.’” (Letters, 4:352).

Harrisons, Mrs Scambler[,] Mrs Carr – Wm J[ackson] to tea – Reading Excursion

(127)

With help from his wife and sister, WW had begun work on a new edition of his book-length poem from 1814. On 28 May, DW wrote that WW and MW “have had a hard tug at the Excursion, and have gone through with it. I begin tomorrow to read it over” (Letters, 4:354).

Sunday June 5th                     
Rainy morning – clears in afternoon – Harrisons to Tea.

Monday [6 June] – Cold but fair. D[ora] rode to Kendal.

(128)

Visiting the Cooksons, especially their eldest daughter, Elizabeth.

– Rainy evening – Tea at Col. Campbell’s

Tuesday 7th June                     
Mr Jackson dined here – unpacking Tea &c

Wednesday 8                     
Unpacking again. M busy with curtains. I at Ambleside – – Wet night [–] could not go to Miss Knotts

Thursday 9th –                     
Very fine bright day – on Nab Scar with Miss Yarker.

(129)

Likely Sarah Yarker (b. 1806), eldest daughter of Joseph, a customs collector from Ulverston (see note for 6 July below).

Webbers[,] Mr Maltby,

(130)

Likely Mrs. Elliott’s eldest brother Thomas Maltby (1763–1837), visiting from London.

Mr B[enson] H[arrison], Miss Barlow[,] Mr Fraser

(131)

Possibly Robert Murray Fraser, who in the late 1820s lived at Lakefield near Windermere.

to Tea.

Friday 10th                     
Fine warm day – calling [–] shirts – Bamford calls

(132)

Likely Robert Walker Bamford (1796–1838), an Ambleside native who, after a stint teaching school in Grasmere (where his pupils included the nine-year-old John Wordsworth), had become an inspector of schools near Durham (Letters, 3:7, 349).

–. Read Excursion out of doors [–] Letter from Mr R

(133)

Henry Crabb Robinson (1775–1867, DNB), the London attorney who had become a close friend and regular correspondent of DW. The two were actively planning a sequel to their Continental tour of 1820 (see Letters, 4:372).

– D returning from Kendal – Mrs Carr to tea – supper with Mrs Luff

Saturday 11th                     
Lovely day – with Wm at Thompsons in Langdale Powder Mills

(134)

See note for 25 May.

– Loughrigg

Sunday 12th – very hot [–] dined at Mr Robinsons – – Cold caught with heat in Langdale – To bed at 8.

All this week, hot & splendid weather till Wednesday 15th                     
Now going to Kendal

(135)

A week-long visit to help nurse the Cooksons’ ailing daughter Elizabeth (Letters, 4:372).

– Very bright hot weather till Monday – then cold & dry after a little Rain on Sunday night –

Friday [17 June] – went with Mrs C[ookson] to Helsing & Levens Park – home by Canal

(136)

Helsington is a village seven miles south of the Cooksons’ home in Staveley; Levens Hall is two miles farther south. The Lancaster-to-Kendal Canal by which they returned was completed in 1819.

– Lovely night

Saturday [18 June]                      
–to Burton with James

(137)

Accompanying the Cooksons’ 21-year-old son to Burton-in-Kendal, 16 miles south of Staveley.

Sunday [19 June] to Hawes Bridge

(138)

Picturesque crossing of the River Kent at southern limits of Kendal.

and Tuesday the 21st of June–                      
came home with James – Cold & rather gloomy – walked thro’ my Lady’s Woods.

(139)

Lady Wood, a grove east of Rydal near White Moss.

Wednesday 22nd                     
To Ambleside with James – cold & threatening Rain – called on Miss Dawson

(140)

Unidentified woman with whom the Wordsworths regularly socialized in coming months. DW’s consistently calling her “Miss Dawson” signals that she was of more genteel stock than the various Dawsons employed over the years at Dove Cottage and RM (whom, in keeping with custom, DW consistently identifies by first name).

. . . & Mrs Luff – & again at night at Ambleside. John arrived from Oxford [–] disappointed of Sara –

(141)

Returning home from Oxford, John had planned to meet SH in Herefordshire so they might travel the rest of the way together. But this arrangement was abandoned because SH felt she should remain at Brinsop until her brother’s family had settled into their new home (Letters, 4:374; LSH, 305).

Thursday 23rd                     
Packet from Lancaster – all morning reading it – & other jobs

(142)

DW’s description of reading this packet as a “job” suggests it may have pertained to WW’s duties as Distributor of Stamps.

– Sunny but cold [–] sate under Crags – Frenchman

(143)

Unidentified, but possibly one of the men referenced in a 31 August letter where Dora reports, “my Father is now with two French Gentlemen just arrived, on the mount – they dine with us today – Sir W. Scott introduced them” (LDW, 25).

called & the Watsons.

Friday 24th                     
Wrote various letters [–] D. was to have come from the Wood

(144)

Where she would have been visiting her new acquaintance Fanny Barlow.

– A Rainy afternoon keeps her. It is very cold & dark – now at 9 o’clock – tired with letter-writing – Miss J[ewsberry], Sara, Miss Cookson, Mrs Johnson[,]

(145)

Mary Johnson (née Tabrum, b. 1793), wife of Rev. William Johnson (1784–1864), a former Grasmere curate and schoolteacher who, after being introduced by WW to the educational reformer Dr. Andrew Bell, became a leading light in the National Education movement. Johnson apparently met his future wife through this movement, as, prior to their December 1822 marriage, she had helped her father run a school in Middlesex that conformed with Bell’s “Madras System” (Bell, Mutual Tuition, 129). DW came to know the new Mrs. Johnson during her and WW’s May 1824 visit to London (Letters, 4:261, 265; marriage…

Miss Barker

(146)

Mary Barker (1780–1853), DW’s former walking companion who had moved to France in 1819.

&c –

Saturday 25 – Letter from Miss B.

(147)

Likely Mary Barker, to whom DW had written the previous day.

Showery. D comes home – sunny gleams – –

Sunday 26th                     
Cold & showery. At Mrs Carrs to Tea, with Carlyles’

(148)

Possibly the Carlisle-based painter and poet Robert Carlyle (1773–1825) and one or more of his sisters or nieces. A Miss Carlyle of Carlisle appears in several family letters, with SH listing her among Miss Dowling’s former pupils in 1818 (LSH, 133), MW forwarding some “Cumberland news” she gleaned from her in October 1825 (LMW, 123), and WW writing to her in 1831 to ask for housing leads in Carlisle for Willy (Letters, 5:416). After Robert Carlyle’s unexpected death later that summer (on 20 August), his obituary noted that he had “long been familiar to the public as a successful cultivator of…

Monday 27th                     
Fine day – Carlyles’ call & Miss Dawson – On Loughrigg Fell with W. Langdale Pikes like a Tall mountain

(149)

WW and DW gazed westward from the summit of Loughrigg at the Langdale Pikes.

– very fine – Moon – but cloudy.

Tuesday 28th                     
Miss Carlyle to dinner [–] walk & Sketches

(150)

A further hint that these were the artistic Carlyles from Carlisle, as sketching was not an activity DW typically did on her own.

– home with her at night – D poorly – brought home medicine, & drowsy [–] clear sky[,] vapours rise

Wednesday 29                     
Still cold. Henry H

(151)

Henry Hutchinson (1769–1839), MW and SH’s bachelor brother, who, having retired from a life at sea, had leased a summer home on Coniston Water (see 5 July below).

arrives – showery – walk to Fox Ghyll – call on Miss King

(152)

An old friend of Mrs. Luff visiting Fox Ghyll (see Letters, 3:126).

Thursday 30th                     
Mrs Luff & Miss K[ing] at Kendal – Fine day – but a shower or Two – – Tea at Mrs Campbell’s with Miss Dawson

[July 1825]

Friday, 1st July                     
Very fine day – Carlyles at Langdale – Hay strewn & shown

(153)

See 4 July entry below and other accounts of haymaking in Rydal (LDW, 60; LMW, 92; and LSH, 240).

Saturday [2 July]                     
Lovely day – walk on Loughrigh with Henry H[utchinson] after dinner – Fright with the Cow

(154)

Twenty-three years earlier, DW had confessed in the GJ that “Every horned cow puts me in terror” (62; see also 108).

– very warm. Let fire out.

Sunday July 3rd                     
Fine day – not so warm – fine after Tea – Carlyles call [–] to Church –

Monday 4th                     
Fine day [–] very busy – hay in – Made curtains for D’s bed – M r Carr’s after Tea.

[Ulverston and the Cartmel Peninsula]

Tuesday 5th

(155)

The ensuing chronicle of DW’s four-day excursion to the Cartmel Peninsula is by far the most detailed section of Notebook 1. For the journey’s initial eight-mile leg RM to Coniston village, DW traveled by cart with WW, MW, Letitia Luff, Eliza Dowling, and a Miss Woodville. Then, while the rest of the party continued on by cart, DW and Henry Hutchinson (whom they met in Coniston) traveled five miles by foot and boat to his summer rental on Coniston Water. Thereafter details about her travel companions are fuzzy, but at least WW and MW appear to have accompanied her on the ten-mile cart ride to …


– at ½ past 10 set off in Cart to Coniston – took up M[ary] at Mrs Luff’s – Miss E Dowling & Miss Woodville

(156)

Possibly an advanced student or fellow teacher of Eliza Dowling from the girls’ school in Ambleside.

in Road – cool, & rather dull – sun breaks out– fine lights on hills . . . I walked from Church Coniston

(157)

The town’s new parish church, St. Andrew’s, which was consecrated in 1819.

– the rest in cart . . . Met Mr H

(158)

Henry Hutchinson (see note for 29 June).

in field – despairing of us & going to set off to Torver

(159)

Hamlet two miles south of Coniston on the western shore of Coniston Water.

– Dined in Boat . . . Middle of Lake least interesting – but in lower part, right shore very pleasing – varied with little rocks. Banks & wood – – Party waiting at Mr H’s summer house. Enchanting view up Lake – & backwards to the foot . . . like a little peaceful soft lake – with verdant fields – farm house – hay makers. Standing on Mr H’s Rocky peninsula (cut into an Island)

(160)

Henry’s rental home seems to have been on Fir’s Island (also Knott’s Island). Situated midway down Coniston Water’s eastern shore, it is an island when the lake is high but otherwise a peninsula.

– thought of Trossachs – & compared the contrasts here to those between Lochs Katherine & Vennache

(161)

DW had visited Lochs Katrine and Venachar in the Trossachs of central Scotland in 1803, recording her impressions in JDW, 1: 274–75, 365–66, and 378–79.

– pleasant Ride to Ulverston thro fertile, woody[,] peopled valley – River Crake – Iron foundry – Mr Penny’s house (Mr Machael’s – Penny Bridge).

(162)

From Fir’s Island, they rode by cart to the foot of Coniston Water and then followed the River Crake past the iron foundries at Nibthwaite and Penny Bridge before reaching Penny Bridge Hall. Upon the death of William Penny (1708–88) this estate had passed to his daughter Isabel Machell (née Penny, 1737–1827) and her husband, John (1736–1820) (Bardsley, Chronicles, 118–22).

Noble oaks darkening road – fine trees – rich meadows. Reach Lund between 7- & 8- – hospitality of old Mrs Harrison – 13 Gd children.

(163)

The Lund was Benson Harrison’s family estate just east of Ulverston. His recently widowed mother, Mary Harrison (née Benson, 1756–1839), was apparently the proud grandmother of thirteen.

Wednesday 6th

(164)

On the trip’s second day, DW and her companions stayed in the vicinity of Ulverston, confining their wanderings to a six-mile round-trip excursion to Conishead Priory. Over the decade prior, most surviving ruins of this twelfth-century monastery had been cleared away amid the construction of the neo-gothic manor that DW found so architecturally incoherent.

All walk to Priory Grounds – – fine trees – long walks in grassy hollow – – winter more agreeable here – Huntsmans Lodge

(165)

Likely the gatehouse outside the Priory.

– deep deep gloom – cattle shrouded– silver crescent horns – revealing form & notion of the dark bodies of the cattle – unintelligible building – – Conservatory

(166)

One 1830 guidebook singled out the “tastefully constructed” conservatory at Conishead Priory, noting that “its rich Gothic windows, with stained glass, and the ivy which covers the front, give it the appearance of a chapel” (Baines, Companion to the Lakes, 232).

[–] Chapel [rich?] – one part Flemish, but not so [rich?] – another gothist – 2 fine Flemish Chimneys – on a wee wee Building out of taste – – Charming refreshment on shore – sit & [saunter?] – party with [kettle?] &c – Discover little Brook – travelling through the sands whose Birthplace we had marked, & its girdle of water-plants – – Ulverston Church very pretty

(167)

The parish church St. Mary’s, constructed in the mid-sixteenth century but renovated and enlarged in the early nineteenth century.

– home thro hot Lanes – – Party in the evening – Wm and I to Ulverston with Mrs Ireland

(168)

Likely the Wordsworths’ twice-widowed cousin Anne “Nancy” Ireland (née Wordsworth, 1771–1840). Neither of her marriages—first to her much older cousin Rev. Charles Favell (1740–1807) and then to Rev. James Ireland (1772–1822)—had produced offspring.

& Miss Yarker – – Mrs Y. in bad health

(169)

Miss Eleanor Yarker (1796–1872), eldest daughter of John (1771–1823) and Elizabeth Yarker (née Kendall, 1774–1825), was preparing for her 2 August wedding to Rev. John Barton (Star [London], 29 Aug. 1825). Before his unexpected death in January 1823, John Yarker had been an Ulverston wine and spirits merchant and friend of Benson Harrison. The widowed and ailing Mrs. Yarker would herself pass away five months after DW and WW’s visit (obits. in WG, 26 October 1823, 19 November 1825, 22 July 1843).

– her busy daughters sitting with her – Dismal visit to Mrs. B.

(170)

Unidentified.

Tears and lamentation – melancholy old age.

Thursday 7th

(171)

This day’s ambitious itinerary included a ten-mile coach ride along the eastern coast of the Furness Peninsula to Piel Island, a boat trip across the Leven estuary to the Cartmel Sands, a four-mile hike across Cartmel Peninsula to Kents Bank, and, finally, an eight-mile ramble northward to Newby Bridge, the village near the foot of Windermere where she spent the night. This and subsequent entries suggest DW traveled to Kents Bank with MW—who would be joined there by WW and her children in ensuing weeks—before journeying north by herself.

– Rose at 6 – Departed from Lund at ½ past 7 – waited with Mrs H[arrison]

(172)

Either Benson’s mother or wife.

for Coach – only one inside one out place.

(173)

One unoccupied seat outside the coach and one within.

– Lovely morning – Lights on hills [–] clear air – mountains very grand – verdant spots below – – wheels through deep water seeming not to move below streaky water, dull golden sands – – Piel Castle

(174)

A fourteenth-century fortress on Piel Island built by the monks of Furness Abbey to protect the peninsula from attack by sea. For the Wordsworths it had particular associations, as George Beaumont’s painting of the castle had inspired the “Elegaic Stanzas” that WW wrote upon the 1805 death of their brother John.

– Sailor in Coach – heard Crash & saw fall of part of ruin – – Land at Webster’s (Quarry Flat)

(175)

Quarry Flat was an old sandstone mine just inland from the Cartmel Sands. The adjacent home they visited belonged to the first family of Cumbrian architects, Francis Webster (1767–1827) and his son George (1797–1864, DNB). The Wordsworths knew George through his first major commission, the recently completed chapel in Rydal.

– house unpromising – no view – closed up windows – very neat kitchen – kind woman – but saw at once in no state for us – Friendly talk – Cloth spread for new butter & churn milk – refused, & went on – – Lad called from gazing thro prospect glass

(176)

A hand-held telescope.

to guide us to Holker . . . Delightful park [–] old place pretty, under hills – large but not handsome white house. – Two noble sycamores in front – – & one other shorn like a Bush at top – very large – Civil house-keeper

(177)

Situated just northwest of Quarry Flat, Holker Hall had been in the Cavendish family since the late eighteenth century. When their masters were not in residence, housekeepers at stately homes were often permitted to offer tours to genteel visitors for a modest fee.

– Finest pictures gone – – 1 Claude, not fine, left – – Sir Peter Lely’s Ladies – – & other portraits & pretty little Landscapes a few – Head of John Bunyan

(178)

Much of the impressive art collection at Holker Hall, including the Bunyan portrait DW saw, would be destroyed in an 1871 fire. Among the works that were saved were Sir Peter Lely’s Lady Cleveland in Mourning and two of the family’s four “Claudes,” or paintings by the celebrated seventeenth-century landscape artist Claude Lorraine (Stockdale, Annales Caermoelenses, 424–32).

– Thence to Cark – Dusty hot vulgar Village – then Flukborough the like (called at Inn arrayed about water) . . . on to Allisthwaite in pretty dell

(179)

From Holker Hall, they went south a mile and a half to the inn at Flookburgh, passing through the village of Cark, and then traveled three miles east to Allithwaite. DW’s aside about calling at the inn appears as a footnote rather than a parenthesis in the original.

– Ivied wall – 2 old halls – one with a turret or birl.

(180)

The “2 old halls” are Boarbank Hall and Wraysholme Tower, the latter being a fifteenth-century fortress with multiple turrets, one resembling a protuberance, or burl.

Climb hill to Mortal Man

(181)

The Allithwaite branch of Troutbeck’s renowned “Mortal Man” pub. After the death of its proprietor in 1826, the colorful obituary read: “At Allithwaite, Mrs. Sarah Birkett, innkeeper, and formerly of Troutbeck, famous for brewing fine ale. On her sign-post is written these words: ‘O mortal man, that live’st by bread, / How comes thy nose to be so red? / Thou silly ass, that look’st so pale, / ’Tis red with Sarah Birkett’s ale’” (WG, 11 Nov. 1826).

. . . Thence on to Kent Bank but turn aside – to prospect hill – Turret – descend to Kents Bank – Charming hill – – Flowers [–] turf – sheep [–] stones worn away . . . through little orchard – civil men – Call at Inn – Take lodging – Dine – – on to Grange – charming Italian scenery – pretty houses [–] gardens. Elder Bushes . . . Liddle pretty village in dell

(182)

From Kents Bank, DW went two miles up the coast of the Cartmel Peninsula to Grange-over-Sands. Then she cut inland and journeyed two miles north to the “pretty village” of Lindale.

– Discovered chapel – – embosomed in Trees – but before this a fine view – – from hill – over sands, & Castle head

(183)

A Georgian country house built in 1778 for the industrialist John Wilkinson.

discovered on plain – woody mount – pleasure paths – think of Belagio

(184)

DW had visited the celebrated resort on Lake Como in Italy in 1820 (see JDW, 2:216, 219–20).

– A little way from Liddle discover well on side of road – Entrance arched – rather lintelled over with old ash stem – – Roof arched with stone – green with moss . . . Ling with Adder’s Tongue fern

(185)

A species of fern whose stalk resembles a snake’s tongue.

& Geranium – descend by steps – 8 – broken with age – 3 niches. What gent has this been dedicated – Inquire of woman – – never noticed it – of Boys – Oh yes! – What do they call it[,] what name has it[?] Oh! it’s Dicky Grayson Well. . . . Why so? – Perhaps he made it – Does he live there now? Nay he’s sellt up – It must be very auld – Ay, says Boy I remember it a long time – (he not more than 16) – Companion Rolling in Dust like an Ass of the desart – Can & [cripling?] Birket

(186)

The lad had apparently been sampling Sarah Birkett’s famous local brew (see note earlier in entry).

– On through woody valley; but on side of hill – – Still woody country – Parts very populous – Farm houses picturesque – Reach Newby Bridge about 8 – after Tea strolled up & down River – the dark figure of an Angler standing on the slippery slope of the Weir

(187)

A barrier or dam in a river.

– that with its whiteness brought out the lower part of the man’s figure – Could not see the pipe in his mouth, but discovered that he was smoking by a thin small volume of vapour in the air, which was faintly reflected in the smooth water above the Weir – Soon to bed & paid Bill intending to rise early – Charge for both 3/6

(188)

Presumably for both food and lodging.

– & very much obliged for a Shilling over –

Portion of the 7 July 1825 entry in DCMS 104.1.

Figure 2. Portion of the 7 July 1825 entry in DCMS 104.1

Friday July 8th

(189)

The trip’s final day began with a seven-mile early morning ramble up the western shore of Windermere from Newby Bridge to Far Sawrey. From there DW took the Windermere ferry to Bowness and went two miles north to Troutbeck, where she had breakfast and lunch with the Barlows before walking five miles to RM, which she reached in late afternoon.


a very fine morning – Rose at ½ past 4 – off at 5 minutes past 5 – Returned to seek W’s glove– Shady cool lane – – House to Right (supposed Mr Townley’s) a naked, yellow Front, & hugged in on each side, by choked up plantations

(190)

Looking across the narrow foot of Windermere from its western shore, DW observed William Townley’s newly renovated estate, Town Head, and the sprawling larch plantations that the late Bishop Watson had built above it on Gummers How. The Wordsworths had long bemoaned the rise of industrial-scale timber farms in the area, with WW railing against these “vegetable manufactories” in all five editions of his Guide to the Lakes published between 1810 and 1835 (see Mason, “Larches”).

– pretty green prospect – white church on the hill – among coppice woods – – – Stock Park & Mr Lewthwaites

(191)

Stott (not Stock) Park (two miles north of Newby Bridge), the seat of John Lewthwaite (1770–1849).

– Low underwoods . . . Fine & numerous yew trees on the steeps near Stock Park – Low Graithwaite in style of Rydal Mount

(192)

House three miles north of Newby Bridge that, as DW suggests, resembles RM both in its size and its roughcast exterior.

– Fine Larches – & other fine trees – But all hereabouts buried & chill with woods & Mr Sands’s worst of all – spoiled plantations

(193)

A scion of one of the region’s oldest families, Myles Sandys (1758–1839) of Graithwaite Hall had followed Bishop Watson’s lead in establishing larch plantations throughout his lands to the west of Windermere. DW’s complaint echoes a remark WW added to the 1822 edition of Guide about “the view . . . near the [Windermere] Ferry ha[ving] suffered much from Larch plantations.”

– Dull traveling compared with the cottaged & farm-housed valley last night – through woods – all belonging to Gentlemen – – Noble view after Graithwaite – Storrs Clock strikes 7-

(194)

From the opposite shore of Windermere, DW heard the bell of St. Martin’s Church near Storrs Hall.

– Ferried over Lake – when I observed to Boatsman that all the Land was divided among the Gentry, & that it was more chearful, when scattered over with houses, he replied “aye it is more christian-like – Its like a wilderness[”] – “a genteel wilderness” says W m

(195)

Apparently recollected from conversation, as this phrase does not appear in WW’s published works.

. . . at Mrs Barlow’s at 10 [–] Breakfast & Luncheon

(196)

While breakfast was a full meal, luncheon was typically a light snack eaten around noon.

– home at 4 with Miss B[arlow] – – wrote to Miss J[ewsbury], to Mary

(197)

Likely informing MW (with whom she had parted the prior afternoon at Kents Bank) of her safe arrival.

–

[Rydal]

Saturday – 9th July.                     
very hot – & bright – wrote to Mrs Coleridge – – Sought spectacles two hours. . . . Read Madam Genlis

(198)

First published in English in 1825, Memoirs of the Countess de Genlis vividly recounted the atrocities of the French Revolution and the aristocratic debauchery preceding it. DW was immediately captivated, writing in a letter of 2 July, “I am deep in Madame de Genlis’s life – a hundred times more entertaining than the best of our now-a-days novels – and how much more surprizing!” (Letters, 4:375).

[–] Made wine

(199)

See entries for 3, 4, and 10 December above.

– – Wm at Tea at Mr Webber’s

(200)

See note for 4 June above.

– They called in morning –

Sunday 10th –Very hot – Thunder storm in church & flood – – Barlows & Miss Dawson

(201)

See note for 22 June above.

to dinner – Mr Wilkinson & mother

(202)

Unidentified, as there were numerous Wilkinsons in the region.

to Tea & all night. Dora very poorly.

Monday 11th                     
Fine day – but still thundery – To Ambleside with Wilkinsons – Odd Jobs for D. &c all day, & at night to Ambleside again [–] Tea with Mrs Carr – consult about D – wrote letters

Tuesday 12th                     
Rose at 4 – John & D. go to Ulverston. Warm breezy morning – – cloudy afternoon – threatening of Thunder [–] wrote to Sara, Mrs Cookson[,] Mary –. Allan Bank to Tea.

(203)

With the Campbells.

Reached home at ¼ before 11 – Good news of Dora –

Wednesday 13th                     
All day heavy rain. Wm at Low Wood – with Justices – Mr Gould

(204)

Unidentified, but possibly an attorney or magistrate visiting the area for the Lancaster assizes (see Letters, 4:392).

– I walked to Ambleside stifled with heat

Thursday 14th                     
Rainy morning – Clears up – very fine – but sultry[.] Barlows & Mr Bailey

(205)

Likely Frances Barlow’s older brother Samuel Bayley (1779–1857), a prominent Manchester banker and cotton merchant.

to Tea

Friday 15th July –                     
Fine morning – sunshine but sultry – cloudy afternoon [–] heavy rain– damage in walks repaired

Saturday 16th                     
Fine morning – but sultry – Rainy afternoon – – clears beautifully – Lovely Evening – walk with Wm on Terrace – Ruby Lights on Lake –

Sunday 17th                     
Very hot – Barlows – & pew quite full – Mrs Maltby

(206)

Presumably the wife of Mrs. Elliott’s brother Thomas Maltby (see note for 9 June above), as her other surviving brother, Edward, had lost his wife in May.

to tea [–] loveliest evening ever seen –

Monday 18th clear and intensely hot – packing

(207)

For the ensuing day’s trip to Kents Bank.

– making Jelly – &c &c. Mrs de Quincey at night

(208)

After vacating Fox Ghyll in the spring, Margaret De Quincey and her children had moved in with her father at The Nab in Rydal. This entry refutes Gittings and Manton’s contention that DW unfeelingly ignored Thomas De Quincey’s plea that, in his absence, she attend to his depressed and possibly suicidal wife (G&M, 241, 246).

Tuesday 19th

(209)

Despite having made the round-trip journey to the Cartmel Peninsula less than two weeks earlier (see 5–8 July), DW chose to escort WW, Dora, and Willy to their holiday home at Kents Bank, where, over the next six weeks, they would be joined by Jane Jewsbury, Frances and Fanny Barlow, SH, and various members of the Southey and Cookson families. Apparently responsible for managing affairs at RM while others were away, DW spent just one night at Kents Bank before making the 23-mile journey home the following day.

– Up, 10 minutes before 4 – off to Kents Bank before 5– wet meadows – clear air – very hot – at Kents Bank ½ past one –. Dora improved – all but me bathe – unpack, arrange &c &c. To bed after Dinner. Ladies arrive from Lancaster to tea.

(210)

Jane Jewsbury and possibly one or more of her sisters or friends.

Climb hill – Mountains hazy – ruffling Breeze – On return heard of a thunder storm at Ambleside & Rydal – – not a Drop of rain with us at K[ents] B[ank]

Wednesday 20th – very hot – I depart at ½ past 5- – changes to cold – dull and grey – soaking road – Mrs Barlows past 10 – home at 12

(211)

DW seems to have made the 23-mile trip from Kents Bank to Rydal in six and a half hours (including a brief stop at the Barlows’ home in Troutbeck).

Thursday 21st                     
agreeable coolness – Learned at Mrs Barlows of heavy thunder shower here on Tuesday –Boiling preserves – letter-writing &c all day – called at Mrs Luff’s – Mrs B[arlow’]s, Mr Webbers

(212)

See note for 4 June above.

– John at Mrs Harden’s Dance [–] Invitation to Wood

(213)

The Wood, the Barlows’ home in Troutbeck.

before breakfast – Mr Jackson from Harrowgate

(214)

Fashionable spa town north of Leeds.

Friday 22nd –                     
Still cool, & clear [–] busy all day – letters – Jelly – & after dinner with Barlows to Grasmere, & walk with John to Ambleside

Saturday 23rd                     
Beautiful day – Jelly – – – – Rush-bearing

(215)

The ancient Westmorland tradition in which, on the Saturday nearest 20 July, village girls gather rushes and flowers from the hills, march in procession to the parish church, and strew them about the altar, pews, and floor (which, at least in Grasmere, was not paved until 1840) (Armitt, The Church, 218–20). In William Hone’s popular Every-day Book of the 1820s, a traveler who witnessed this rite in Grasmere reported, “In the procession I observed the ‘Opium Eater’ [Thomas De Quincey], Mr. Barber, an opulent gentleman residing in the neighbourhood, Mr. and Mrs. Wordsworth, Miss [Dorothy] Wordsw…

– various letters – Mr Yates called

(216)

Likely Anthony Yeates (1743–1837) of Collinfield near Kendal, the head of one of the region’s wealthiest families (see Letters, 4:550, obit. in Yorkshire Gazette, 18 Feb. 1837).

Sunday 24th                     
Cool pew – [singers?] removed

(217)

Obscure, but likely connected to the rush-bearing rites.

– No company but Mrs Luff in afternoon, & J[ohn] & I drank tea with her – – Catechism

(218)

A section of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.

&c, & bed at ½ past 10 [–] Miss J’s Gazette

(219)

Presumably reading poems Jane Jewsbury had recently published in the Manchester Gazette, the principal venue for her early work.

– Mr Yates calls again.

Monday 25th –                     
Same clear delightful heat – John to Kents Bank – Tea with Miss Dawson [–] walk up Stock-gill

(220)

Ravine and waterfall above Ambleside.

– beauteous Evening – John returns

(221)

He apparently made the 45-mile round-trip journey to and from Kents Bank in a single day, suggesting he rode rather than walked.

Tuesday 26th                     
John off to Keswick – finished preserves – wrote to Mary & Mrs C.

(222)

Likely her friend and regular correspondent Catherine Clarkson (née Buck, 1772–1856), wife of the renowned abolitionist Thomas Clarkson.

Letter from Sara –Mr Wm Jackson calls – Campbells – Miss Knott – go with her past Lords’ Oak

(223)

A renowned tree that grows from a wall alongside the road between Rydal and Ambleside.

– Meet Robinsons [–] walk with them – Christening fixed

(224)

While this seems to imply this ceremony was for the Robinsons’ new-born twins, parish registers show them having already been christened in Grasmere on 5 January. Regardless, DW records this christening occurring a week later, on 2 August.

– Loveliest of nights [–] moonlight – Called on Mrs Luff in her Bed-room – past 10

Wednesday 27th                     
Danl. Green called – Mr Waterhouse & Mr Hoyle.

(225)

Daniel Green was a Grasmere native who became Perpetual Curate of Langdale in 1828 (see note for 9 January above). The other callers to RM may have been John Waterhouse (1773–1847), a Halifax gentleman who had married a niece of DW’s “Aunt” Elizabeth Rawson, and Rev. Charles Hoyle (1773–1848), a Wiltshire vicar who had earned minor acclaim for his epic poems based on Biblical tales (see Letters, 5:224n).

Thus occupied & tying preserves

(226)

Tying down the lid with a string was a common method for sealing preserves.

all the Morning – John from K[eswick] with Barlows to Tea.

(227)

John’s increasingly frequent appearances in the company of the Barlows may reflect his budding romantic interest in Fanny, whom he would pursue until her engagement to another prospective clergyman in late 1827.

– Out of doors – Lovely night [–] Tillbroke arrives

(228)

Although Edward Quillinan still held the lease to Ivy Cottage, Tillbrook apparently arranged to stay at his vacation house while in Rydal, for SH reported on 7 August that “Till & his fellow Tutor are at the Ivy Cottage with which he is charmed” (WLL / Hutchinson, Sara / 2 / 110a).

Thursday 28th – Rose at 6 – Mrs Carr called – Again the same delightful weather – Col Campbell with party – after call on Tillbroke – Miss Dawson to Tea – Tillbroke & Gentlemen, & Mrs Luff – Walk to Ambleside with Miss D[awson] [–] Supper at Mr R[obinson]’s – Moonlight [–] too warm & pleasant to go to Bed.

Friday 29th                     
Shelled pease while Mary was cleaning – Lloyd called

(229)

Likely Charles Lloyd (1775–1839, DNB), erstwhile “Lake Poet” and inhabitant of Old Brathay, returning to his former haunts. Before leaving the area in 1813 amid Charles’s mental breakdown, the Lloyds had been close to the Wordsworths, especially after Charles’s sister Priscilla (1781–1815) married WW and DW’s brother Christopher in 1804. The two poets had fallen out in 1821, however, after Charles’s table talk about WW’s miserliness and hypocrisy was quoted in an unflattering essay by William Hazlitt (see LMW, 83–84n).

– Tea out of doors with John. Walked to Mrs Luffs with Tillbrook & John – most beautiful night

Sat. 30th–Sund. 31st –The month closes amid the same fine weather – very hot – Mrs Luff to Tea – various visitors – letters

[August 1825]

Monday 1st                      
Still very hot.

Tuesday 2nd                     
Christening-day

(230)

See note for 26 July above.

[–] fine [–] showers in morning – Fine afternoon.

Wednesday 3rd – Heavy rain.

Thursday 4 Showery

Friday 5th – The same – Sara H. arrives

(231)

SH had spent two years away from Rydal, dividing her time between France, the Midlands, and the South of England. Two days after returning, she wrote, “This place is more beautiful than ever, but there is great want of the axe & pruning knife. The Trees have grown so much that we are quite shut out from any prospect” (WLL / Hutchinson, Sara / 2 / 110a).

– & Mr Parrin

(232)

Likely Robert Perrin, editor of the Carlisle Patriot (see Letters, 4:460, 469).

– John goes to the Balloon.

(233)

Thousands flocked to Kendal Castle on 5 August for a widely advertised balloon launch by England’s foremost aeronaut, Charles Green. The flight ended up being cancelled because of a slight wind, leading the WG to deem the entire event a hoax (“The Balloon!!!,” 6 August 1825).

[Jumps two months to October 1825]

Friday, October 7th                     
Since the day of Sara Hutchinson’s arrival (August 5th), I have not written a word – – weather was then broken – – Mrs Hutchinson

(234)

Mary Hutchinson (née Monkhouse, 1787–1858), a cousin of MW and SH who in 1812 had married their brother Tom. Fatigued by her family’s move from Hindwell to Brinsop, this frequently ill relation spent much of late 1825 with the Wordsworths, first at Kents Bank, then at Rydal, and finally (with MW) at Harrowgate Spa.

and the party came from Kent’s Bank on Monday, 15th August – a few days of cold weather. Afterwards very fine & very hot – for some time – Consecration &c &c

(235)

Eight months after opening its doors (see 25 December above), St. Mary’s Chapel in Rydal was consecrated on 27 August by the Bishop of Chester. Reflecting the general excitement surrounding this banner day in village history, SH wrote on 7 August of the “grand doings” planned for the consecration day and provided further details in her sketch diary for August 1825 (WLL / Hutchinson, Sara / 2 / 110a; WLMS H / 1 / 6 / 2).

– Mr Canning [–] Sir Walter Scott

(236)

Another highlight of the summer was the gala hosted by John Bolton of Storrs Hall in late August in honor of the former prime minister and Tory icon George Canning (1770–1827). Attendees included the writer Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832, DNB), his son-in-law John Gibson Lockhart (recently named the new editor of the Quarterly Review), and the lapsed Wordsworthian John Wilson (see note for 25 May). Afterwards the Wordsworths hosted these men of letters at RM, Dora sent Jane Jewsbury a wickedly satirical recap (LDW, 23–25).

– I went to Hallsteads – returned to consecration with C. Marshall

(237)

After a week at Hallsteads, the Ullswater home of her old friends the Marshalls, DW was accompanied on her journey home by their 22-year-old daughter Cordelia (Letters, 4:392).

. . . Broken weather since Mary W. went to Harrowgate with Mrs H . . . Many fine days – but mostly damp oppressive heat – a plague of caterpillars in gardens –

Now (October 7th) It will be a month on Monday since M.W. went to H[arrogate]. They are all now on their way southward – Mrs Luff to London,

(238)

To attend to her dangerously ill friend Lady Maria Farquhar (Letters, 4:388, 392).

John to Oxf., the rest to Coleorton.

(239)

The household at RM scattered in the fall, with John returning to Oxford and SH and WW leaving for Coleorton, the Leicestershire estate of the Beaumonts, where they were joined by MW and Mary Hutchinson (arriving from Harrowgate) (Letters, 4:392).

Miss Honeyman has been here a week.

The party off yesterday [Thursday 6 Oct.] at 4 o’clock – a little rain, but pleasant day, & not so very hot – – John Cookson & Miss Fothergill

(240)

Likely a member of the Fothergill family who, along with the Cooksons, were prominent members of the Unitarian congregation in Kendal.

met Miss H[oneyman] & me on road to Ambleside – turned back. Waterfalls

(241)

Presumably the waterfall on the grounds of Rydal Hall.

– Luncheon &c &c – & off before dinner – – Went down to visit Harrisons wife

(242)

Probably Catherine Harrison, wife of WW’s old friend Anthony (see note for 17 December above), rather than “Cousin Dorothy” (whom DW is unlikely to have described so stiffly).

& J Carter

(243)

John Carter (1796–1863), a family employee since 1813 who had risen from handling odd jobs to serving as WW’s chief clerk in the stamp distributorship (see Letters, 8:152, 3:83). Carter’s dream of becoming a clergyman would be shattered two months later, when, as reported by WW, the Bishop of Chester reiterated his policy “not to ordain any who have not been from the first educated for the ministry, i.e. those who have followed other business” (Letters, 4:413).

& Robinsons before Tea – then set to at the Hardens, by fire side.

October 7th                      
Soft grey morning – hopeful for Langdale but heavy rain set in, & now (at 10 o’clock) is falling pell-mell. Clears in the afternoon – brisk wind & sunshine. Miss H[oneyman] & I walked to Grasmere . . . called at Mr Barbers, M Fishers,

(244)

Mary Fisher (née Dawson, 1777–1854), a former servant of the Wordsworths who had become a cherished friend. Since marrying in 1817, she and her cobbler husband, John Fisher Jr., had lived at Sykeside, his parents’ cottage in Town End, Grasmere.

Mrs De Q’s &c. Comet at night

(245)

The Hampshire Chronicle of 10 October included a detailed report from the Gosport Observatory concerning this “new comet,” which was first faintly visible on 28 September but could be seen with the naked eye on the evening of 7 October.

– Joe & Willy quarrel – Joe off

(246)

Possibly the servant at RM referenced above on 7 December.

8th                     
Fine morning – at 7- parted up for Windermere – Rain comes on – & continues (heavy) all day – Tom Robinson arrives from Leizöuly

(247)

Home on shore leave—possibly from Lezoulien, a French village near the Brittany coast—Charles Robinson’s younger brother had come to Ambleside via Harrowgate, where MW reported meeting this “beau” in early October (LMW, 122). As DW obliquely documents through the rest of Notebook 1, during this stay in the Lakes the 31-year-old officer developed a romantic interest in his distant cousin Dora.

– I go with him to tea below – still rains – home with me to supper – Murray drowned

(248)

Obscure.

Sunday 9th                     
T[om] R[obinson] to breakfast [–] Letter from Miss Jewsbury – The party left Marshalls’ on Tuesday morning – Heavy rain comes on at Church – continuous & in afternoon I walked past Scandale Bridge

(249)

Crossing of Scandale Beck midway between Rydal and Ambleside.

with Mrs Carr [–] Miss H[oneyman], T[om] R[obinson] & D gone to waterfall

Monday 10th                     
Heavy rain in afternoon. Mr R & Leonard E

(250)

Leonard Edmunds (1802–87), 23-year-old son of the Ambleside solicitor John Edmunds and a childhood friend of John Wordsworth. In 1833 he would receive a crown appointment as Clerk of the Patents (Carlisle Journal, 2 September 1833).

to dinner – I at Ambleside in morning with Miss H – wrote to Mr T& Mrs C about house

(251)

Most likely to Samuel Tillbrook and Catherine Clarkson (see note for 26 July above), possibly with news that the Wordsworths might need to find a new home when their lease at RM expired.

[–] Rise in Weather glass

(252)

An early barometer, also known as a storm glass. Introduced ca. 1780. These popular, if rather unreliable, instruments consisted of a slender glass tube containing a chemical mixture that purportedly crystalized and rose as a storm approached.

[–] wrote Mrs Marshall

Tuesday 11th                     
Very fine afternoon – Mr F Fleming

(253)

Rev. Fletcher Fleming (1795–1876), a relative of Lady Diana le Fleming whom she installed as the first curate of Rydal Chapel. His father, John, was WW’s closest school friend in Hawkshead and grew up to become curate of Bowness and heir to the Rayrigg estate on Windermere. After the younger Rev. Fleming’s inaugural sermon in Rydal, Dora declared him to be “a Treasure in these parts where, as my Father says, we are so ill parson’d” (WLL / Wordsworth, Dora / 1 / 6).

& Miss Dawson

(254)

See note for 22 June.

call – walk with Miss H to Grasmere – Carters & Mr Fox

(255)

Jane Carter (née Fell, 1768–1832), a twice-widowed Quaker from Ulverston, had recently moved into Dale End, a farmhouse on the western shore of Grasmere. The other “Carter” at Mr. Barber’s was presumably Sarah Hustler (1800–82), Mrs. Carter’s eldest daughter from her first marriage. The two women were joined by Charles Fox (1797–1878), a Cornwall Quaker whom Sarah would marry on 20 December (see Letters, 5:344; WLL / Wordsworth, Dora / 1 / 49).

at Mr Barbers – cross water.

[Coniston, Newby Bridge, and Windemere]

Wednesday 12th

(256)

On the first day of DW and Mary Honeyman’s three-day excursion through regions south of Rydal, they rode by cart to Coniston (nine miles southwest of Rydal), where they apparently spent the night (possibly at the summer home of Henry Hutchinson that DW visited on 5 July).


In cart to Coniston with Miss H – clear cool air – hazy mountains yet sunshine below – – Heavy shower at night

Thursday 12th [13th]

(257)

After spending Thursday morning on Coniston Water, DW and Miss Honeyman met Tom Robinson and Dora and then rode 13 miles south to Backbarrow and, from there, a mile and a half miles northeast to their inn at Newby Bridge.

Lovely morning – out on Lake – – D. & T R arrive to dinner – We depart after – Infernal Regions of Backbarrow – Raging River – altogether awful

(258)

As described by Thomas West, Backbarrow is the site where the River Leven “falls with great rapidity for the space of two miles, dashing its waters against the rugged rocks, . . . forming several cascades” (Antiquities of Furness, 36). The awe-inspiring or, in DW’s words, “awful” effect of the crashing river had long made it a popular destination for devotees of the natural sublime.

– Immense illuminated Piles [–] Supper & bed at Newby Bridge

Friday 13th [14th]

(259)

From Newby Bridge, the party ill-advisedly (as DW would have it) ignored the ominous weather and hired a sail-boat to take them up Windermere’s western shore to Claife Heights, a viewing station popularized by West, Gilpin, and other late eighteenth-century travel writers. Afterward they crossed the lake to Bowness and either walked or rode the final seven miles to Rydal.

– very fine morning – Rain comes on – stormy Fury – foolish Sail-Boat – Hat lost . . . Rainy journey [–] no views at Station – very fine after Bowness –

[Rydal]

Saturday 15th                     
Bright morning – showers . . . . & showery afternoon – prepare to go to Low Wood – meet the Mackintoshes

(260)

With evident relief, DW reported on 18 October that the eminent Scottish jurist, politician, and historian Sir James Mackintosh (1765–1832) and one of his daughters—likely Frances Emma Elizabeth (1800–89)—had been the “last of our Lakers” during “the most bustling summer ever remembered.” Having known him since at least 1812, she observed, “Sir James looks wonderfully well, considering the wearing life he has led—politics—law—India—house of Commons wrangling!” (Letters, 4:392–93; see also 3:45 and 4:388).

at Waterfall –

Sunday 16th                     
Showery – but pleasant. Mackintoshes to Luncheon [–] T. Robinson[,] Mr Barber to Tea

Monday 17th                     
Cold & showery – to Mrs Luffs – wrote to Coleorton

(261)

Home of the Beaumonts, where WW and MW were currently staying.

– & Mrs L. & the Robinsons to Tea and Cards

Tuesday 18th                     
Very rainy [–] wrote to Mrs Clarkson

(262)

Catherine Clarkson (see note for 26 July above).

. . . Miss H[oneyman] left us in the Evening – Stormy walk – and all to Tea at Mr Robinsons [–] very heavy rain at night

Wednesday 19                     
Dora was to have gone to Coniston

(263)

Presumably to see her uncle Henry Hutchinson.

– no horse for Mr R – All walked to Ambleside – Julia

(264)

Julia Myers.

to dinner – very bright & cold but tremendous rain at night [–] Julia stays – Anne poorly unknown to us

(265)

The Wordsworths’ maid Anne Dawson.

Thursday 20th                     
Very cold – very clear – mountains snowy – Fern bright – smooth-topped white hills – very like alps – green treey ridge below. Dora & T R to Coniston. Before dinner I called on Mr de Q

(266)

After an 18-month absence, Thomas De Quincey had joined his family at The Nab in Rydal.

. . . Mrs Barlow & Miss Walker

(267)

Likely Sarah Walker of Manchester (b. 1788), whose sister Harriet Bayley (née Walker, 1782–1846) was married to Frances Barlow’s brother.

in returning – dined with us, & Miss Honeyman

(268)

Mary Honeyman had left RM two days earlier to stay with another friend in the area but continued to see DW regularly over the coming week.

– Miss Nelson

(269)

Unidentified.

to tea – I went to Ambleside – paid Mr Ladyman

(270)

Joseph Ladyman (1790–1862), proprietor of the Salutation Inn in Ambleside.

. . . Clear moonlight night – read Life of Charles

(271)

Likely Dr. John Lingard’s new biography of Charles I, published in 1825 as Vol. 10 of his monumental History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans.

– Willy busy for his journey

(272)

To Coniston (as the ensuing entry clarifies), apparently to join Dora and Tom Robinson.

Friday 21st                     
Willy off to Coniston before breakfast – Cold and clear – The Southeys arrive in chaise

(273)

The Southeys’ teenaged daughters, Bertha and Kate, stayed at RM from 21 October–11 November.

– Stormy and rain comes on [–] Mary came home

(274)

Given that MW would remain at Coleorton for another four weeks, this most likely refers to Mary Hutchinson, who, as SH reported on 24 October, had arrived safely at Brinsop “to the great joy of all her family” (LSH, 308).

Saturday 22nd                     
a lovely bright day – warm – in sun – clear air [–] walk with Southeys to Ambleside – Mr Carr visits Anne

(275)

A house call to the Wordsworths’ ailing servant (see 19 October).

– Miss Honeyman to dinner & Tea.

Sunday 23rd mild Rain – Mr Barber comes at dinner time – walk with him after Church – Splendid sky – purple & ruby hues, in sky & lake – Emerald Isle

(276)

Presumably referencing a viridescent island on Grasmere or Rydal Water rather than Ireland.

[–] Gipsies on hill

(277)

The Vagrancy Act of 1824 and other recent laws were already reducing the number of Roma (or “gypsy”) encampments in rural England (Cressy, Gypsies, 148–51). While WW had been less than sympathetic toward these “Wild outcasts of society” in his 1807 poem “Gypsies,” DW reported to William Pearson in 1830 that “every member of this family” was captivated by the lore he had gathered from his “vagrant neighbours” (Letters, 5:220).

–

Monday 23rd [24th]                     
Fine Day – walked to Ambleside –

Tuesday 24th [25 th]                     
Very fine – Miss Honeyman to dinner

[Kendal]

Wednesday 25th [26 th]                     
Charming day for Kendal

(278)

DW spent 26–29 October in Kendal helping to nurse the Cooksons’ chronically ill daughter Elizabeth.

– Rain at night.

Thursday 26 [27]                     
cold & damp – rainy afternoon

Friday 28th                     
a lovely bright day – warm like spring –

Saturday 29                     
– Fine afternoon [–] stormy ride in Gig but pleasant with John Cookson – Left Elizabeth, as I found her, – poorly.

[Rydal]

Sunday 30th                     
Very rainy – fierce wind – went with D to see the Elliotts. Hartley to Tea &c

Monday 31st                     
Very fine morning – with Bertha

(279)

Bertha Southey.

to Low Wood &c – – Robinsons to Tea & cards

[November 1825]

Tuesday, Novr 1st                     
Lovely mild morning. Rain comes on – Hartley to Dinner – Cards – T[om] R[obinson] – they stayed till ½ past 10

Wednesday 2nd                     
Blustering morning – walk on Terrace – sunny gleam – Fine colouring seen from Field – Cherry-trees &c – – T R here [–] has very bad cold – Cards again

Thursday 3rd                     
very rainy & stormy – never out but at Mr Robinsons in the Evening, & in the morning with B & K

(280)

Bertha and Kate Southey.

at Waterfalls –

Friday 4th                     
One of the loveliest of days [–] Walked with B & K to Low Wood. Came home in Chaise with Mr R returning from Miss H K.

(281)

Charlotte Robinson’s younger sister Henrietta Kearsley (1800–84), visiting from York. On 8 October, Dora would vent to Jane Jewsbury about having “to be very courteous & civil to a complete young Lady who does not like this country, who talks to me of nothing but balls & routs & concerts & Officers of the 7th Hussars &c &c—and tells me that I know not the pleasure of such amusements . . . — this Young Lady is sister to Mrs Robinson who you admired so much—her name is Henrietta Kearsley from York very pretty but very insipid” (LDW, 27 [misdated there as September 1825]).

– The Autumn, till Tuesday or Wednesday, [Dull?] & monotonous – now beautified beyond [expression?]. T. R. ill – Cards by ourselves – at night D & I called on Mr de Q.

Saturday 5th                     
Dull & wet – alas the Bonfire!

(282)

The traditional Guy Fawkes’ Day bonfire, imperiled that year by rain.

No walk – But Dora had

Sunday 6th                     
Blustery showers – Mr Barber came to Dinner – I walked with him by Fox Ghyll to Ambleside – called at Miss Dowling’s

Monday 7th                     
Bright morning – closes in – Snow – Rain [–] sleet – Anne arrives

(283)

Likely their housemaid Anne Dawson, who apparently stayed with relatives while recovering from the illness mentioned on 19 and 22 October.

– walk only on Terrace – Sunny Bursts through the Day.

Tuesday 8th                     
very cold – snow – sleet [–] walk in heavy rain

Wednesday [9 Nov.] blustery – ground covered with snow.

Thursday 10th                     
Hard frost – fierce wind – Southeys did not get off

(284)

Bertha and Kate returned to Keswick the next day, after the weather had cleared.

– Fetched Julia from Ambleside – Miss Pritchards – gay cloaks [–] immense Bonnets

(285)

Presumably details from a soiree at the Loughrigg home of the Wordsworths’ long-time neighbor Laetitia Pritchard (1756–1827). A few years earlier, Sara Coleridge wrote a lively account of a similar gathering hosted by Miss Pritchard (LSH, 182–83).

Friday 11th                     
Southeys off – fine frosty day – snow mountain very grand – walked with Dora & Mr T. Robinson by Fox Ghyll to Ambleside. Willy poorly – when we came home.

Saturday 12th                     
The loveliest of bright days [–] to Ambleside for Willy – ill on Sofa – – sun shining[,] blinds down . . . Mr Barber come ask me to walk after dinner – could not. Dora stayed so long on her ride

(286)

Possibly a rare case of DW griping about a family member, as she seems to suggest that Dora’s almost daily outings with Tom Robinson were starting to inconvenience others.

–

Sunday 13th                     
very cold – very dull & rainy afternoon – walked in rain to Grasmere.

Monday 14th                     
Robinsons to tea [–] a beautiful day – sunny & bright – garden clearing – to Mrs de Quinceys

Tuesday 15                     
The same lovely weather – I walked with D – She made calls – Willy rode with Mr Barber – cards at 8 o’ night – Mr & Mrs R. –

Wednesday 16th Novr                     
Sara H arrived

(287)

Returning from Coleorton, where she, WW, and MW had been since early October. Concerning their staggered arrivals back in Rydal, SH explained that all three “left Coleorton on the 9th—William in a ‘ Pone shase’ (which I bought at Ashby) with our Matlock Poney—and Mary & I by Coach—He arrived at Manchester a day after us, and we remained there, together, on a visit to Miss Jewsbury until Monday when we proceeded, by our several conveyances, homewards and all arrived here safe & sound” (LSH, 309–10).

– showery day

Thursday 17th                     
very stormy [–] Wm & M. arrived

Friday 18th – Rainy – walked only on Terrace.

Saturday 19                     
Fine clean air – a shower or two – Rode in Cart with new poney

(288)

WW and SH had bought this horse on a day-trip from Coleorton to Matlock and, as detailed in the previous note, SH purchased the cart at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, the market town near the Beaumonts’ estate (LSH, 308).

with Willy –

Sunday 20 very wet – [ ] at Mr Robinsons – walked an hour in rain on Terrace with D – & alone

Monday [21 Nov.] – stormy wind – showers – Dr [Ninian?] in Evening – Walk with W & T[om] R[obinson] – Mr de Q. –

Tuesday 22nd –                     
Showery – Fine walk on Terrace by moonlight with W & T R

Wednesday 23rd                     
T R departs [–] showers

Thursday 24th                     
Walked with Wm round by Skelwith Bridge

(289)

Hamlet three and a half miles south of Rydal on the other side of Loughrigg.

– various Calls

Friday 25th                     
Rain again – at night very heavy –

Saturday 26th                     
Still rainy & blustery

Sunday 27th                     
– Snow showers – Hail – Sunshine – Wm & M and Willy at Grasmere Church – walk with Mrs Carr

[December 1825]

All this week neglected – cold and stormy – – walk every Day –

Saturday 3rd William Park’s Funeral

(290)

Margaret De Quincey’s grandfather William Park (1740–1825). His family had farmed The Nab since the mid-17th century, and he personally had held the lease since 1778 (Armitt, Rydal, 352–60; obit. in WG, 10 Dec. 1825).

– snow on ground – foggy –

Sunday 4th – Cold – snow on ground – –

Monday 5th – very bright – sloppy roads – snow on ground – walked to Brathay with M – W followed

Tuesday 6th                     
Snow almost gone – Walked to Elter Water

(291)

Toponym for a small lake and adjacent village three miles southwest of Rydal in Langdale.

– Wm & Mr de Q– Mr Huddleston

(292)

Likely Andrew Fleming Huddleston (1796–1861) of Hutton John near Penrith, who, despite having inherited his family estate upon his father’s passing in 1822, remained employed by the East India Co. in Madras. Temporarily back in England, he would in ensuing weeks help the Wordsworths secure a one-year extension on their lease by persuading his elderly mother, Elizabeth (1753–1830), to decline her niece Lady Ann le Fleming’s offer to install her at RM in their stead (Letters, 4:416–17;LMW, 121).

– misty but pleasant

Wednesday 7th                     
To Wood in Cart with D – back with Willy – very pleasant – Rain in evening.

Thursday 8th – Lovely day – & rosy sunset – – I not well. The Rest with Mr Barber planning new house

(293)

With their future at RM still uncertain, various family members began sketching home designs in case they opted to build (LSH, 318).

– He dines –

Friday 9th – Dull rainy morning – [Brewing?] –

[Bible verses listed upside-down at rear of Notebook 1]

2nd Chap Philippians 6 verse

(294)

Philippians 2:6: “[Jesus Christ], Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God” (this and subsequent quotations are from the King James Version).


Colossians 1st Chap 12 v.

(295)

Colossians 1:12: “Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.”


4th Chap 13 v.

(296)

Colossians 4:13: “For I [Paul] bear him [the believer Epaphras] record, that he hath a great zeal for you, and them that are in Laodicea, and them in Hierapolis.”


1 Tim. 3 C. 16 v

(297)

1 Timothy 3:16: “And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.”


Heb 1 C. v. 8.

(298)

Hebrews 1:8: “But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.”

Heb 4 C. v 16

(299)

Hebrews 4:16: “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”


Heb 6 C. V 4.

(300)

Hebrews 6:4–6: “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost.”

– C. 9 Covenants

(301)

Hebrews 9 expostulates on how the “first covenant” (the Law of Moses) was fulfilled through the death of Jesus Christ.


Now faith is the substance                      
of things hoped for, the evidence                      
of things not seen Chap 11.

(302)

Hebrews 11:1.


Job 28th Chaptr

(303)

Job 28 focuses on the pursuit of wisdom, concluding (in verse 28), “And unto man he [God] said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.”

– The [Work?]                     
30th Chaptr

(304)

In the chapter, Job contrasts his former honor with his present degradation and anticipates finding comfort in death.


Leviathan 41

(305)

Job 41 begins, “Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down? Canst thou put an hook into his nose? or bore his jaw through with a thorn?”


Psalm 6 – complaint

(306)

In this psalm’s sixth verse, the psalmist writes, “I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears.”


8 – Gods Glory

(307)

Psalm 8:3–5: “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor.”


15 – 19 – 23 – 24 – 25 27–31                     
38–39–41 55 57 63–68                     
71 – 77 – 84 – 90

(308)

Additional Psalms that DW seems to have found especially inspirational.
Figure 3: Scripture list on last page of Notebook 1

Figure 3. Scripture list on last page of Notebook 1

[List of “1825 Visitors this spring & summer” (inside rear cover)]

Mrs Coleridge & S

(309)

Sara Coleridge.

– Mrs Hutchinson

(310)

Mary Monkhouse Hutchinson, visiting from Herefordshire.


Mrs Ellwood – Miss Whelpdale

(311)

Jane Ellwood (née Whelpdale, 1779–1855), a Penrith widow and close friend of SH, and her sister Elizabeth Whelpdale (b. 1786).

– Strickland                      
Cookson

(312)

William Strickland Cookson (1801–77), 24-year-old son of the Kendal Cooksons.

– Miss Jewsbury – Miss Cookson                      
Mr Quillinan

(313)

Edward Quillinan (1791–1851, DNB), former army officer and future husband of Dora Wordsworth who had befriended the Wordsworths after moving to Rydal in 1821 to live near his literary idol, WW. Since his wife’s tragic death in 1822, Quillinan and his two young daughters had lived in London and Kent, but he made a brief visit in the summer of 1825 to attend the consecration of Rydal Chapel (WLL / Hutchinson, Sara / 2 / 110a).

– Miss Honeyman                      
Mrs Barlow – Miss Barlow

Notes

1. This short ledger lists DW’s purchases during one or more of her trips to Kendal in 1825. [back]
2. One of several Kendal butchers with a surname starting with H. On the ensuing line, DW records paying 3 pounds, 12 shillings, and 4½ pence for these hams; the other entries on this page are in shillings and pence. [back]
3. An item for Dora likely bought from Ann Greenhow, a family friend from Kendal whose shop specialized in wrappers, twine, and other packaging products (see WG, 8 June 1822). [back]
4. DW’s brothers: Dr. Christopher Wordsworth (1774–1846), Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and WW. [back]
5. Likely the Kendal dressmaker Ann Chamberlain. [back]
6. The day’s main meal, typically eaten between 2:00 and 4 P.M. GJ suggests that, at least two decades earlier, the Wordsworths typically dined closer to 2:00 P.M. (60). [back]
7. Ivy Cottage, the house at the bottom of Rydal Hill which the Elliotts’ had recently vacated. [back]
8. Nab Scar, the promontory roughly a mile northwest of Rydal Mount. [back]
9. Raisin wine (as clarified in ensuing entry). [back]
10. WW attended several village meetings that winter, voicing opposition to a plan to enclose common lands in Grasmere and Loughrigg (Letters, 4:304, 8:187–90). [back]
11. Scandale Fell, roughly a mile northeast of Rydal. [back]
12. Usually taken between 5:00 and 6:00 P.M. during this period. [back]
13. A halo or circle of light. [back]
14. The 250-foot-long path WW built at Rydal Mount for exercising, composing poetry, and looking out over Rydal Water. In January 1825, he expressed regret to Lord Lonsdale for having been away when he had called, saying he “should have liked much to show [him] the view from the garden and Terrace of Rydal Mount, which are universally admired” (Letters, 4:305–06). [back]
15. For his and Dora’s trip to Keswick (see next entry), where he stayed with the Southeys and she stayed (as MW reported) with “the solitary Mother of her friend Mary Calvert, who was married last Autumn” (WLL / Wordsworth, Mary / 1 / 64). [back]
16. From Hindwell, the Radnorshire home of MW’s brother Tom Hutchinson and his wife, Mary. [back]
17. Apparently a servant who helped manage the family’s animals. In the Kent’s Bank Mercury, the satirical newspaper Jane Jewsbury and Dora produced in July 1825, “Lord Chancellor Joseph” watches over the turkeys, ducks, chickens, and poney [or pony?] of “Queen Dora” (WLMS A / Jewsbury, Maria Jane / 52). Then, in October, Dora reported that those of her birds who had “escaped having their necks turned about are well—but Joe has the entire management of them—I only take care that food is provided” (LDW, 28; see also Letters, 4:339). [back]
18. The slate quarry at White Moss, roughly a mile west of Rydal. [back]
19. Likely a charitable visit, and possibly to the Fanny who worked for the Wordsworths in 1812 (Letters, 3:4–5; 8:129). DW would visit her twice more in the weeks ahead. [back]
20. DW’s brother Christopher. [back]
21. Sarah Horrocks (1792–1868), whose younger sister Jane was married to MW’s cousin Tom Monkhouse. Two months previously, the Monkhouses had gone to Torquay on the Devon coast hoping that the sea air would restore Tom’s health. After joining them, Miss Horrocks dutifully kept the Wordsworths apprised of his condition (Letters, 4:291). [back]
22. Mary Carleton (née Chambers, 1777–1839), a once-genteel Irish widow who lived at Oak Bank in Ambleside. Her family had fled to the Lakes in 1814, when her husband, John, was caught embezzling public funds in his capacity as a Dublin alderman (“Alderman John Carleton, a Bankrupt,” Saunders’s News-Letter [Dublin], 16 February 1815). [back]
23. Thomas Troughton (1791–1860), an Ambleside bookseller and stationer who moonlighted as a wholesale tea dealer and operator of a small circulating library. [back]
24. Drizzling. [back]
25. Calling on Margaret De Quincey, who, in her husband’s absence, had just delivered her fifth child. After this visit, DW seems to have updated Mrs. Luff on the De Quinceys’ timeline for quitting Fox Ghyll (see Letters, 4:282–83, 317–18). [back]
26. Home from university for the holidays. Alarmed by a typhus outbreak in Oxford, WW and MW persuaded him not to return until after Easter (LMW, 121; Letters, 4:292, 298). [back]
27. After dating consecutive entries the 12th, DW’s numbering would be off by one for the next week. [back]
28. Noted because this was an hour earlier than was typical during this period. [back]
29. The Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), a long-time favorite of DW. Numerous entries in the RJ record her reading him, and her undated notebook DCMS 119 includes copious notes on his life and works. [back]
30. James Cooper, an Ambleside woolen manufacturer who would pass away in late February 1825 (obit. in WG, 5 March 1825). [back]
31. Formerly the Wordsworths’ maid at Dove Cottage, Peggy Wilkinson (b. 1784) now was Samuel Tillbrook’s housekeeper at Ivy Cottage. [back]
32. A light meal typically eaten at 9:00 or 10:00 P.M. [back]
33. Anthony Harrison (1773–1827), a former schoolmate of WW who in adulthood had become a Penrith attorney, an amateur poet, and an agent for Lord Lonsdale. [back]
34. After spending the night at RM, Harrison drove WW to Lowther (21 miles northeast of Rydal, near Penrith), dropping off DW in Ambleside en route. WW was traveling to visit his ailing friend Rev. James Clarke Satterthwaite, a local Tory power-broker and ally of Lord Lonsdale (Letters, 4:304; LMW, 120–21). [back]
35. Likely Betty Dawson (see note for 18 January below). [back]
36. The Wordsworths’ 14-year-old relative spent the holidays at RM (WLL / Wordsworth, Dora / 1 / 6). [back]
37. Returning from his five-day visit to Lowther. [back]
38. Also DW’s fifty-third birthday. [back]
39. The Christmas Day opening of the new chapel Lady Ann le Fleming had erected in Rydal was spoiled by torrential rain. Dora wrote, “I never was out in such a storm, nor does my Father ever remember experiencing so violent a one” (WLL / Wordsworth, Dora / 1 / 6). WW groused of the new chapel that “the cost . . . much exceeded what was needful” but conceded that “when time has softened down the exterior a little it will prove a great ornament to the Village” (Letters, 4:301). MW considered it “a great monument to the Village,” despite “all the blunders that have been made by the ignorance of the Builders” (LMW, 120). Less equivocally, DW rejoiced that Rydal was “beautified by our new Chapel which is a great comfort to us” Letters, 4:396). [back]
40. Likely the tenant of the Hardens who, by DW’s report, fled the area in early 1825 after being exposed for “swindling tricks” (Letters, 4:340). [back]
41. Not necessarily late at night, as the sun sets in Rydal at 3:53 P.M. on 27 December. [back]
42. The first of several dental extractions recorded in the RJ. [back]
43. The young minister spent the holidays at RM (WLL / Wordsworth, Mary / 1 / 64). [back]
44. Possibly a misspelling of Hodgson, of whom there were many in or near Ambleside. [back]
45. Mary Kirkby (née Holme, b. 1793), a housemaid of Samuel Barber who, with her husband away working in Cornwall, was preparing to give birth to her second child (WLL / Wordsworth, Dora / 1 / 6; LSH, 367–68). [back]
46. With the birth of these fraternal twins, Ann and John, the Robinsons had three children under the age of 18 months. [back]
47. Among these was a lengthy letter to their brother Christopher (Letters, 4:296). [back]
48. As no one with this name is known to have held a clerical living in the region at the time, this may refer to Daniel Green (1798–1829), a son of John and Molly Green of Grasmere who had graduated from Cambridge in 1823 and would spend a year as perpetual curate of Langdale before his tragic death in 1829 (see Letters, 4:218n and entry for 27 July 1825). [back]
49. DW had visited these mountains in central Switzerland during her Continental tour of 1820. The 4 August entry in her travel diary reads, “ Lenzburg. . . . At six o'clock we caught a glimpse of the castle walls glittering in sunshine, a hopeful sign, and we set forward through the fog” (JDW, 2:95). Fifteen days later, she recorded reaching the “Top of Rigi” but made no mention of fog (2:160–68). [back]
50. DW’s and WW’s birthplace and childhood home, 28 miles northwest of Rydal. WW’s four-day trip was likely connected to his responsibilities as Distributor of Stamps. [back]
51. See note for 8 December above. [back]
52. Anne Green (née Bamford, 1784–1833) of Ambleside, whose late husband, William, had been a prominent local landscape artist. [back]
53. See note for 2 January above. [back]
54. Regional term for a cairn (or pile of stones) marking a trail or summit. [back]
55. Philip Courtenay (1785–1842), a London attorney with literary interests who often provided WW with legal and financial advice (Letters, 4:121–22, 309; Courtenay, “Notes”). [back]
56. See note for 14 December above. [back]
57. With the Elliotts having vacated Ivy Cottage upon the end of their lease, MW and DW had been caring for the empty house as a favor to their friends or its owner, Samuel Tillbrook. Their principal task seems to have been opening the windows each morning to air it out, as MW mentioned on 10 December, “I must now be off to close the windows – for the sun very, very soon leaves that gem of a Cottage & the frosty air will do it no good” (WLL / Wordsworth, Mary / 1 / 64). [back]
58. Presumably a relation of Mary Kirkby (see note for 2 January). [back]
59. Possibly the Betty whom DW described in 1806 as “a very good-tempered girl and an excellent servant” and “always ready to do [Dora] a service, or indeed any of the children” (Letters, 2:106). [back]
60. Since mid-October SH had been in Torquay helping to nurse her cousin Tom Monkhouse, who apparently had taken a temporary turn for the better (LSH, 290–93; note for 9 December above). [back]
61. Betty Dixon (née Slee, 1801–65), a working woman of Grasmere, and her husband, Edward (1789–1830), had just welcomed their third child, Dinah. The “handsome present” was therefore likely a baby gift. [back]
62. See note for 27 December above. [back]
63. Closing the windows at Ivy Cottage (see note for 17 January above). [back]
64. William Jackson’s late father, Thomas (1758–1821), supplemented his income as Curate of Langdale and Rector of Grasmere by owning a farm in Langdale. [back]
65. Since boyhood WW had been an avid skater. Shortly before he turned 60 in 1830, DW reported that her brother was “still the crack skater on Rydal Lake” (Letters, 5:191). [back]
66. DW spent 29 January through 15 February in Kendal with the Cooksons. In a 13 February letter to Joanna Hutchinson, she explained, “It was a fortnight yesterday since I came to Kendal, intending to stay but a week, however my kind Friends have been so unwilling to part with me that, having no particular object to call me home, I could not refuse” (Letters, 4:315). [back]
67. A summary of the weather between 30 January and 15 February. [back]
68. The Cooksons’ nine-year-old son. DW had reported to Joanna Hutchinson that “if weather be tolerable, Edwin is to go with me to Rydal. . . . He is a proud child at the thought of his journey. He says to me two or three times every day—‘I am going with you to Rydal!’ and talks of the Waterfalls and all that he is to see” (Letters, 4:316). [back]
69. Possibly Robert Morris of Rydal, whose widow, Anne (1740–1843), would live to 103 (Preston Chronicle, 18 Nov. 1843). Later RJ notebooks imply they lived at the foot of Rydal Hill. [back]
70. See note for 9 December above. [back]
71. Both unidentified. [back]
72. Either the Wordsworths’ Rydal neighbor Margaret Huddleston (née Bownas, 1760–1843) or Elizabeth Huddleston (née Fleming, 1753–1830), an elderly aunt of Lady Ann le Fleming whom she hoped to install at RM in the Wordsworths’ stead (Letters, 4:412n, 416–17). [back]
73. See note for 14 December above. [back]
74. DW would convey her grief more fully in a letter written twelve days later (Letters, 4:324–26). [back]
75. A weather report courtesy of Robert Southey, who was making a long-delayed visit to RM (Letters, 4:324). [back]
76. Her nephew would instead leave the next day for Whitehaven, where he would stay with his friend William Jackson until Easter (Letters, 4:316). [back]
77. Possibly intended “Mrs L” (for Mrs. Luff). [back]
78. Birk Hagg, a wood just north of Rydal. [back]
79. One of two such measurements in Notebook 1, the other being a barometer reading logged on 10 October below. [back]
80. Possibly the Dowlings, with “Mrs” signifying the plural “Misses.” [back]
81. “All” of the family from RM apparently walked to Mr. Barber’s home via the newly opened road between Rydal and Grasmere, which was on the valley floor rather than the fells above. [back]
82. Apparently minor, as this “accident” is never again referenced below or in surviving letters. [back]
83. Presumably Dorothy Watson, widow of the late Bishop of Llandaff, and her daughters visiting from Calgarth. [back]
84. Likely Agnes (“Aggy”) Ashburner, the hard-luck daughter of the Wordsworths’ former Town End neighbors Thomas and Peggy Ashburner (see GJ , 41). MW wrote in 1810, “Poor Aggy Ashburner is in the same situation as her sisters without having any hope of being made an honest woman of. . . . As to Aggy’s self she has I find little feeling about it—she is, which I never knew before, only a half-wit—poor Soul” (WLMS / G / 1 / 2 / 7). In the intervening fifteen years, the Wordsworths had occasionally employed her to do odd jobs (Letters, 3:15, 79). [back]
85. Having sold Fox Ghyll to Mrs. Luff and turned out the De Quinceys, Margaret Blakeney (1764–1828) held a multi-day sale of furnishings from the house. Decades later, Thomas De Quincey would characterize such sales as highlights of the Westmorland social calendar for rich and poor alike. Besides offering free liquor (customarily at the seller’s expense) and occasional bargains, these events facilitated reunions between old acquaintances separated either by “real distance” or the “virtual distance” created “by difficult tracts of hilly country” (“Recollections of Grasmere,” 571). For another lively account of Westmorland moving sales, see DW’s 11 Sep. 1813 letter to SH (Letters, 3:109–10). [back]
86. Presumably concerning an improvement in this chronically ill friend’s health. [back]
87. The family of Rev. Henry Askew (1766–1852), Rector of Greystoke (near Penrith) and squire of Glenridding House in Patterdale. The Wordsworths knew the Askews through the Marshalls, their current neighbors at Ullswater, and Mrs. Luff, their one-time neighbor in Patterdale (LSH, 36, 46; Letters, 2:192–93, 5:726). Another connection was through Ann Dowling Carr, who, prior to taking a teaching position in Ambleside, had served as the Askews’ governess from 1809–11 (LSH, 133). [back]
88. See note for 8 December above. [back]
89. The Coleridges’ 23-year-old daughter. DW reported on 4 May that “Mrs Coleridge and Sara went home 10 days ago after 3 weeks and 3 days happy stay – They both enjoyed themselves much” (Letters, 4:346). For Sara’s account of their stay, see WLMS A / Coleridge, Sara / 9. [back]
90. Sir Richard le Fleming (1791–1857), a cousin of the family of Rydal Hall who had succeeded Thomas Jackson as Rector of Grasmere in 1822 and moved into the rectory that had been the Wordsworths’ home from 1811–13. Soon after Sir Richard’s arrival in Grasmere, DW had bluntly reported, “He has given us 3 excellent sermons and two very bad ones—we fear the good are exhausted” (Letters, 4:149). [back]
91. Presumably connected to DW and MW’s role as temporary caretakers of Ivy Cottage (see note for 17 January above) [back]
92. Another moving or estate sale (see note for 23 March above). [back]
93. The Hardens’ 18-year-old daughter. [back]
94. 1 May, when she resumed her journal. [back]
95. The first explicit mention in the RJ of the new occupants of The Wood who for the next three years would be integral members of the Wordsworths’ social set. [back]
96. Likely SH, who was in the West Midlands assisting Tom and Mary Hutchinson with their move from Hindwell to Brinsop Court. [back]
97. Elizabeth, the 26-year-old daughter of the Kendal Cooksons. [back]
98. See note for 9 December above. [back]
99. Humid and stuffy. [back]
100. The letter is apparently lost, but a 4 May letter survives in which DW forwards Coleridge’s request for a favor from their mutual friends the Clarksons (Letters, 4:344–45). [back]
101. The 10 May issue of the CP reported that this “terrific storm of thunder and lightning” had caused widespread destruction but makes no mention of human fatalities. [back]
102. Mrs. Luff’s temporary residence in Loughrigg while Fox Ghyll was being remodeled. [back]
103. William Pearson (1780–1856), a native of Crosthwaite (between Kendal and Windemere) who in 1822 quit his job as a Manchester bank and began a second career as a farmer at Borderside, the property he had bought near his childhood home (Pearson, Papers, 14–45). An early and ardent admirer of WW, he sought out the Wordsworths’ acquaintance after returning to the area and soon bonded with them over their shared interests in poetry, fell-walking, and regional history (see Letters, 4:143, 385, 430). On this visit, he apparently told them about some local ruin having been “pulled down.” [back]
104. After turning back at Dunmail Raise—the pass five miles northwest of Rydal that divides the vales of Grasmere and Thirlmere—DW and WW walked beneath Helm Crag and on through Thomas King’s larch groves at The Hollens. A day later, Dora reported that her father and aunt “started yesterday but when they got to the top of the Raise my Father found himself ‘too weak’ to proceed. They spent the day in the Fields of Grasmere and reached home to a latish Tea” (Letters, 4:351 [misdated in Letters as 28 May rather than 21 May]). [back]
105. A group of girls from the Dowlings’ school that included Julia Myers (Letters, 4:352). [back]
106. English equivalent of Pentecost, the religious holiday celebrated seven weeks after Easter. Writing to SH on this same day, DW exuded, “Spring-time is as delightful as the beginning, and Rydal more beautiful than ever. – Lilacs, Laburnums, and Roses all in full bloom” (Letters, 4:353). [back]
107. A communicant is a worshipper who receives Holy Communion, or the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Robert Newton was a long-time Grasmere inn-keeper who appears frequently in the GJ (see 172n.). DW’s report of the dismal turn-out on this holy day corresponds with WW’s complaint earlier in the year that “in this Country . . . there is a sad want of zeal among Members” of the Established Church (Letters, 4:301). [back]
108. The arrival of these guests marked the beginning of what DW would call “the most bustling summer ever remembered” (Letters, 4:392), when the Wordsworths hosted the array of guests listed in the rear of Notebook 1. Hearing reports of these Rydal adventures from afar, an envious SH remarked that “they seem to be enjoying themselves – & executing some scheme of ‘particular pleasure’ . . . every day” (LSH, 305). [back]
109. The entire family at RM was enchanted with the 25-year-old poet Jane Jewsbury, who within a few short months went from a virtual stranger to a family favorite and Dora’s “dearest friend” (see LSH, 305; LDW, 22–28). [back]
110. Stock Ghyll Force, a striking waterfall in a ravine east of Ambleside. [back]
111. The party apparently followed a route that, from the 1822 edition onwards, WW recommended in his Guide to the Lakes: “From Ambleside is a charming excursion, by Skelwith-fold and Colwith-force up Little Langdale, Blea Tarn, Dungeon-ghyll waterfall (if there be time) and down Great Langdale.” [back]
112. John Wilson (1785–1854, DNB), the increasingly eminent poet, lead writer at Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, and Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. Among WW’s earliest disciples, Wilson bought the Elleray estate near Bowness in his early twenties largely for its proximity to his literary icon. For a decade thereafter the Wilsons and Wordsworths enjoyed a close bond, but it was severely strained after Wilson began publishing alternately admiring and satirical Blackwood’s articles on the “Lake Poets” in 1817. Wilson’s inclusion in this outing therefore marked a rare moment of rapprochement between the former friends. [back]
113. Apparently a Langdale resident connected to the new Elterwater Gunpowder Co., as he would provide WW and DW a tour of the facility on 11 June (see below). [back]
114. Likely at Millbeck Farm, near Dungeon Ghyll Force. In her 1855 guide to the region, Harriet Martineau advised, “From [the Millbeck] farmhouse, where travellers can make a good meal of farmhouse fare, there is one thing to be done without doubt; – to visit Dungeon Ghyll. . . . Strangers who arrive untired generally go to the Ghyll while their ham and eggs are preparing” (Complete Guide, 146). [back]
115. Brimmer Head farm is midway between Grasmere and Easedale Tarn, the small mountain lake two miles northwest of the village. [back]
116. Hamlet on Windermere’s eastern shore that had already become a hub for local tourism. [back]
117. Presumably the younger Cookson children. [back]
118. Another terrace WW had built at RM, this one at the property’s far western edge. [back]
119. WW and DW’s second cousin Mary Wordsworth Smith (1780–1867), who, since the combat death of her first husband, Capt. William Peake, in 1813, had married William Proctor Smith (Letters, 5:111n.). In 1829 DW observed that Mrs. Smith was like her younger sister Dorothy Wordsworth Harrison “in sweetness of temper etc., but has had the advantage of being much in good company, and has a stronger understanding” (Letters, 5:128). [back]
120. 4 miles south of Rydal, on the opposite side of Loughrigg. [back]
121. Possibly seen from an upper room at RM. [back]
122. See note for 14 December above. [back]
123. DW’s typical shorthand for Mary Dowling, but, given that she and her sisters already lived in Ambleside, “Miss D” here likely refers to the Miss Dawson mentioned below on 22 and 27 June. [back]
124. Cluster of homes and inns at the southern end of Ambleside and northern edge of Windermere. [back]
125. Dorothy Wordsworth Harrison. [back]
126. A family vacationing in Rydal. Dora reported on 28 May, “The Webbers’ Servants come on Monday and themselves on Wednesday. They must be Grandees for Mrs W said in a note to Margarite ‘I shall send over the Butler to order in coals etc.’” (Letters, 4:352). [back]
127. With help from his wife and sister, WW had begun work on a new edition of his book-length poem from 1814. On 28 May, DW wrote that WW and MW “have had a hard tug at the Excursion, and have gone through with it. I begin tomorrow to read it over” (Letters, 4:354). [back]
128. Visiting the Cooksons, especially their eldest daughter, Elizabeth. [back]
129. Likely Sarah Yarker (b. 1806), eldest daughter of Joseph, a customs collector from Ulverston (see note for 6 July below). [back]
130. Likely Mrs. Elliott’s eldest brother Thomas Maltby (1763–1837), visiting from London. [back]
131. Possibly Robert Murray Fraser, who in the late 1820s lived at Lakefield near Windermere. [back]
132. Likely Robert Walker Bamford (1796–1838), an Ambleside native who, after a stint teaching school in Grasmere (where his pupils included the nine-year-old John Wordsworth), had become an inspector of schools near Durham (Letters, 3:7, 349). [back]
133. Henry Crabb Robinson (1775–1867, DNB), the London attorney who had become a close friend and regular correspondent of DW. The two were actively planning a sequel to their Continental tour of 1820 (see Letters, 4:372). [back]
134. See note for 25 May. [back]
135. A week-long visit to help nurse the Cooksons’ ailing daughter Elizabeth (Letters, 4:372). [back]
136. Helsington is a village seven miles south of the Cooksons’ home in Staveley; Levens Hall is two miles farther south. The Lancaster-to-Kendal Canal by which they returned was completed in 1819. [back]
137. Accompanying the Cooksons’ 21-year-old son to Burton-in-Kendal, 16 miles south of Staveley. [back]
138. Picturesque crossing of the River Kent at southern limits of Kendal. [back]
139. Lady Wood, a grove east of Rydal near White Moss. [back]
140. Unidentified woman with whom the Wordsworths regularly socialized in coming months. DW’s consistently calling her “Miss Dawson” signals that she was of more genteel stock than the various Dawsons employed over the years at Dove Cottage and RM (whom, in keeping with custom, DW consistently identifies by first name). [back]
141. Returning home from Oxford, John had planned to meet SH in Herefordshire so they might travel the rest of the way together. But this arrangement was abandoned because SH felt she should remain at Brinsop until her brother’s family had settled into their new home (Letters, 4:374; LSH, 305). [back]
142. DW’s description of reading this packet as a “job” suggests it may have pertained to WW’s duties as Distributor of Stamps. [back]
143. Unidentified, but possibly one of the men referenced in a 31 August letter where Dora reports, “my Father is now with two French Gentlemen just arrived, on the mount – they dine with us today – Sir W. Scott introduced them” (LDW, 25). [back]
144. Where she would have been visiting her new acquaintance Fanny Barlow. [back]
145. Mary Johnson (née Tabrum, b. 1793), wife of Rev. William Johnson (1784–1864), a former Grasmere curate and schoolteacher who, after being introduced by WW to the educational reformer Dr. Andrew Bell, became a leading light in the National Education movement. Johnson apparently met his future wife through this movement, as, prior to their December 1822 marriage, she had helped her father run a school in Middlesex that conformed with Bell’s “Madras System” (Bell, Mutual Tuition, 129). DW came to know the new Mrs. Johnson during her and WW’s May 1824 visit to London (Letters, 4:261, 265; marriage notice in St. James’s Chronicle, 24 December 1822). [back]
146. Mary Barker (1780–1853), DW’s former walking companion who had moved to France in 1819. [back]
147. Likely Mary Barker, to whom DW had written the previous day. [back]
148. Possibly the Carlisle-based painter and poet Robert Carlyle (1773–1825) and one or more of his sisters or nieces. A Miss Carlyle of Carlisle appears in several family letters, with SH listing her among Miss Dowling’s former pupils in 1818 (LSH, 133), MW forwarding some “Cumberland news” she gleaned from her in October 1825 (LMW, 123), and WW writing to her in 1831 to ask for housing leads in Carlisle for Willy (Letters, 5:416). After Robert Carlyle’s unexpected death later that summer (on 20 August), his obituary noted that he had “long been familiar to the public as a successful cultivator of the fine arts, as a poet, and for his general literary acquirements” and claimed that “the productions of his pencil are to be found in the houses of almost all the local gentry” (Durham County Advertiser, 3 Sep. 1825). [back]
149. WW and DW gazed westward from the summit of Loughrigg at the Langdale Pikes. [back]
150. A further hint that these were the artistic Carlyles from Carlisle, as sketching was not an activity DW typically did on her own. [back]
151. Henry Hutchinson (1769–1839), MW and SH’s bachelor brother, who, having retired from a life at sea, had leased a summer home on Coniston Water (see 5 July below). [back]
152. An old friend of Mrs. Luff visiting Fox Ghyll (see Letters, 3:126). [back]
153. See 4 July entry below and other accounts of haymaking in Rydal (LDW, 60; LMW, 92; and LSH, 240). [back]
154. Twenty-three years earlier, DW had confessed in the GJ that “Every horned cow puts me in terror” (62; see also 108). [back]
155. The ensuing chronicle of DW’s four-day excursion to the Cartmel Peninsula is by far the most detailed section of Notebook 1. For the journey’s initial eight-mile leg RM to Coniston village, DW traveled by cart with WW, MW, Letitia Luff, Eliza Dowling, and a Miss Woodville. Then, while the rest of the party continued on by cart, DW and Henry Hutchinson (whom they met in Coniston) traveled five miles by foot and boat to his summer rental on Coniston Water. Thereafter details about her travel companions are fuzzy, but at least WW and MW appear to have accompanied her on the ten-mile cart ride to the Lund, Benson Harrison’s family home in Ulverston, where they spent the night. [back]
156. Possibly an advanced student or fellow teacher of Eliza Dowling from the girls’ school in Ambleside. [back]
157. The town’s new parish church, St. Andrew’s, which was consecrated in 1819. [back]
158. Henry Hutchinson (see note for 29 June). [back]
159. Hamlet two miles south of Coniston on the western shore of Coniston Water. [back]
160. Henry’s rental home seems to have been on Fir’s Island (also Knott’s Island). Situated midway down Coniston Water’s eastern shore, it is an island when the lake is high but otherwise a peninsula. [back]
161. DW had visited Lochs Katrine and Venachar in the Trossachs of central Scotland in 1803, recording her impressions in JDW, 1: 274–75, 365–66, and 378–79. [back]
162. From Fir’s Island, they rode by cart to the foot of Coniston Water and then followed the River Crake past the iron foundries at Nibthwaite and Penny Bridge before reaching Penny Bridge Hall. Upon the death of William Penny (1708–88) this estate had passed to his daughter Isabel Machell (née Penny, 1737–1827) and her husband, John (1736–1820) (Bardsley, Chronicles, 118–22). [back]
163. The Lund was Benson Harrison’s family estate just east of Ulverston. His recently widowed mother, Mary Harrison (née Benson, 1756–1839), was apparently the proud grandmother of thirteen. [back]
164. On the trip’s second day, DW and her companions stayed in the vicinity of Ulverston, confining their wanderings to a six-mile round-trip excursion to Conishead Priory. Over the decade prior, most surviving ruins of this twelfth-century monastery had been cleared away amid the construction of the neo-gothic manor that DW found so architecturally incoherent. [back]
165. Likely the gatehouse outside the Priory. [back]
166. One 1830 guidebook singled out the “tastefully constructed” conservatory at Conishead Priory, noting that “its rich Gothic windows, with stained glass, and the ivy which covers the front, give it the appearance of a chapel” (Baines, Companion to the Lakes, 232). [back]
167. The parish church St. Mary’s, constructed in the mid-sixteenth century but renovated and enlarged in the early nineteenth century. [back]
168. Likely the Wordsworths’ twice-widowed cousin Anne “Nancy” Ireland (née Wordsworth, 1771–1840). Neither of her marriages—first to her much older cousin Rev. Charles Favell (1740–1807) and then to Rev. James Ireland (1772–1822)—had produced offspring. [back]
169. Miss Eleanor Yarker (1796–1872), eldest daughter of John (1771–1823) and Elizabeth Yarker (née Kendall, 1774–1825), was preparing for her 2 August wedding to Rev. John Barton (Star [London], 29 Aug. 1825). Before his unexpected death in January 1823, John Yarker had been an Ulverston wine and spirits merchant and friend of Benson Harrison. The widowed and ailing Mrs. Yarker would herself pass away five months after DW and WW’s visit (obits. in WG, 26 October 1823, 19 November 1825, 22 July 1843). [back]
170. Unidentified. [back]
171. This day’s ambitious itinerary included a ten-mile coach ride along the eastern coast of the Furness Peninsula to Piel Island, a boat trip across the Leven estuary to the Cartmel Sands, a four-mile hike across Cartmel Peninsula to Kents Bank, and, finally, an eight-mile ramble northward to Newby Bridge, the village near the foot of Windermere where she spent the night. This and subsequent entries suggest DW traveled to Kents Bank with MW—who would be joined there by WW and her children in ensuing weeks—before journeying north by herself. [back]
172. Either Benson’s mother or wife. [back]
173. One unoccupied seat outside the coach and one within. [back]
174. A fourteenth-century fortress on Piel Island built by the monks of Furness Abbey to protect the peninsula from attack by sea. For the Wordsworths it had particular associations, as George Beaumont’s painting of the castle had inspired the “Elegaic Stanzas” that WW wrote upon the 1805 death of their brother John. [back]
175. Quarry Flat was an old sandstone mine just inland from the Cartmel Sands. The adjacent home they visited belonged to the first family of Cumbrian architects, Francis Webster (1767–1827) and his son George (1797–1864, DNB). The Wordsworths knew George through his first major commission, the recently completed chapel in Rydal. [back]
176. A hand-held telescope. [back]
177. Situated just northwest of Quarry Flat, Holker Hall had been in the Cavendish family since the late eighteenth century. When their masters were not in residence, housekeepers at stately homes were often permitted to offer tours to genteel visitors for a modest fee. [back]
178. Much of the impressive art collection at Holker Hall, including the Bunyan portrait DW saw, would be destroyed in an 1871 fire. Among the works that were saved were Sir Peter Lely’s Lady Cleveland in Mourning and two of the family’s four “Claudes,” or paintings by the celebrated seventeenth-century landscape artist Claude Lorraine (Stockdale, Annales Caermoelenses, 424–32). [back]
179. From Holker Hall, they went south a mile and a half to the inn at Flookburgh, passing through the village of Cark, and then traveled three miles east to Allithwaite. DW’s aside about calling at the inn appears as a footnote rather than a parenthesis in the original. [back]
180. The “2 old halls” are Boarbank Hall and Wraysholme Tower, the latter being a fifteenth-century fortress with multiple turrets, one resembling a protuberance, or burl. [back]
181. The Allithwaite branch of Troutbeck’s renowned “Mortal Man” pub. After the death of its proprietor in 1826, the colorful obituary read: “At Allithwaite, Mrs. Sarah Birkett, innkeeper, and formerly of Troutbeck, famous for brewing fine ale. On her sign-post is written these words: ‘O mortal man, that live’st by bread, / How comes thy nose to be so red? / Thou silly ass, that look’st so pale, / ’Tis red with Sarah Birkett’s ale’” (WG, 11 Nov. 1826). [back]
182. From Kents Bank, DW went two miles up the coast of the Cartmel Peninsula to Grange-over-Sands. Then she cut inland and journeyed two miles north to the “pretty village” of Lindale. [back]
183. A Georgian country house built in 1778 for the industrialist John Wilkinson. [back]
184. DW had visited the celebrated resort on Lake Como in Italy in 1820 (see JDW, 2:216, 219–20). [back]
185. A species of fern whose stalk resembles a snake’s tongue. [back]
186. The lad had apparently been sampling Sarah Birkett’s famous local brew (see note earlier in entry). [back]
187. A barrier or dam in a river. [back]
188. Presumably for both food and lodging. [back]
189. The trip’s final day began with a seven-mile early morning ramble up the western shore of Windermere from Newby Bridge to Far Sawrey. From there DW took the Windermere ferry to Bowness and went two miles north to Troutbeck, where she had breakfast and lunch with the Barlows before walking five miles to RM, which she reached in late afternoon. [back]
190. Looking across the narrow foot of Windermere from its western shore, DW observed William Townley’s newly renovated estate, Town Head, and the sprawling larch plantations that the late Bishop Watson had built above it on Gummers How. The Wordsworths had long bemoaned the rise of industrial-scale timber farms in the area, with WW railing against these “vegetable manufactories” in all five editions of his Guide to the Lakes published between 1810 and 1835 (see Mason, “Larches”). [back]
191. Stott (not Stock) Park (two miles north of Newby Bridge), the seat of John Lewthwaite (1770–1849). [back]
192. House three miles north of Newby Bridge that, as DW suggests, resembles RM both in its size and its roughcast exterior. [back]
193. A scion of one of the region’s oldest families, Myles Sandys (1758–1839) of Graithwaite Hall had followed Bishop Watson’s lead in establishing larch plantations throughout his lands to the west of Windermere. DW’s complaint echoes a remark WW added to the 1822 edition of Guide about “the view . . . near the [Windermere] Ferry ha[ving] suffered much from Larch plantations.” [back]
194. From the opposite shore of Windermere, DW heard the bell of St. Martin’s Church near Storrs Hall. [back]
195. Apparently recollected from conversation, as this phrase does not appear in WW’s published works. [back]
196. While breakfast was a full meal, luncheon was typically a light snack eaten around noon. [back]
197. Likely informing MW (with whom she had parted the prior afternoon at Kents Bank) of her safe arrival. [back]
198. First published in English in 1825, Memoirs of the Countess de Genlis vividly recounted the atrocities of the French Revolution and the aristocratic debauchery preceding it. DW was immediately captivated, writing in a letter of 2 July, “I am deep in Madame de Genlis’s life – a hundred times more entertaining than the best of our now-a-days novels – and how much more surprizing!” (Letters, 4:375). [back]
199. See entries for 3, 4, and 10 December above. [back]
200. See note for 4 June above. [back]
201. See note for 22 June above. [back]
202. Unidentified, as there were numerous Wilkinsons in the region. [back]
203. With the Campbells. [back]
204. Unidentified, but possibly an attorney or magistrate visiting the area for the Lancaster assizes (see Letters, 4:392). [back]
205. Likely Frances Barlow’s older brother Samuel Bayley (1779–1857), a prominent Manchester banker and cotton merchant. [back]
206. Presumably the wife of Mrs. Elliott’s brother Thomas Maltby (see note for 9 June above), as her other surviving brother, Edward, had lost his wife in May. [back]
207. For the ensuing day’s trip to Kents Bank. [back]
208. After vacating Fox Ghyll in the spring, Margaret De Quincey and her children had moved in with her father at The Nab in Rydal. This entry refutes Gittings and Manton’s contention that DW unfeelingly ignored Thomas De Quincey’s plea that, in his absence, she attend to his depressed and possibly suicidal wife (G&M, 241, 246). [back]
209. Despite having made the round-trip journey to the Cartmel Peninsula less than two weeks earlier (see 5–8 July), DW chose to escort WW, Dora, and Willy to their holiday home at Kents Bank, where, over the next six weeks, they would be joined by Jane Jewsbury, Frances and Fanny Barlow, SH, and various members of the Southey and Cookson families. Apparently responsible for managing affairs at RM while others were away, DW spent just one night at Kents Bank before making the 23-mile journey home the following day. [back]
210. Jane Jewsbury and possibly one or more of her sisters or friends. [back]
211. DW seems to have made the 23-mile trip from Kents Bank to Rydal in six and a half hours (including a brief stop at the Barlows’ home in Troutbeck). [back]
212. See note for 4 June above. [back]
213. The Wood, the Barlows’ home in Troutbeck. [back]
214. Fashionable spa town north of Leeds. [back]
215. The ancient Westmorland tradition in which, on the Saturday nearest 20 July, village girls gather rushes and flowers from the hills, march in procession to the parish church, and strew them about the altar, pews, and floor (which, at least in Grasmere, was not paved until 1840) (Armitt, The Church, 218–20). In William Hone’s popular Every-day Book of the 1820s, a traveler who witnessed this rite in Grasmere reported, “In the procession I observed the ‘Opium Eater’ [Thomas De Quincey], Mr. Barber, an opulent gentleman residing in the neighbourhood, Mr. and Mrs. Wordsworth, Miss [Dorothy] Wordsworth, and Miss Dora Wordsworth. Wordsworth is the chief supporter of these rustic ceremonies” (3:277–78). Two years earlier WW had celebrated this tradition in “Rural Ceremony,” the fourteenth sonnet in Part III of his Ecclesiastical Sketches. [back]
216. Likely Anthony Yeates (1743–1837) of Collinfield near Kendal, the head of one of the region’s wealthiest families (see Letters, 4:550, obit. in Yorkshire Gazette, 18 Feb. 1837). [back]
217. Obscure, but likely connected to the rush-bearing rites. [back]
218. A section of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. [back]
219. Presumably reading poems Jane Jewsbury had recently published in the Manchester Gazette, the principal venue for her early work. [back]
220. Ravine and waterfall above Ambleside. [back]
221. He apparently made the 45-mile round-trip journey to and from Kents Bank in a single day, suggesting he rode rather than walked. [back]
222. Likely her friend and regular correspondent Catherine Clarkson (née Buck, 1772–1856), wife of the renowned abolitionist Thomas Clarkson. [back]
223. A renowned tree that grows from a wall alongside the road between Rydal and Ambleside. [back]
224. While this seems to imply this ceremony was for the Robinsons’ new-born twins, parish registers show them having already been christened in Grasmere on 5 January. Regardless, DW records this christening occurring a week later, on 2 August. [back]
225. Daniel Green was a Grasmere native who became Perpetual Curate of Langdale in 1828 (see note for 9 January above). The other callers to RM may have been John Waterhouse (1773–1847), a Halifax gentleman who had married a niece of DW’s “Aunt” Elizabeth Rawson, and Rev. Charles Hoyle (1773–1848), a Wiltshire vicar who had earned minor acclaim for his epic poems based on Biblical tales (see Letters, 5:224n). [back]
226. Tying down the lid with a string was a common method for sealing preserves. [back]
227. John’s increasingly frequent appearances in the company of the Barlows may reflect his budding romantic interest in Fanny, whom he would pursue until her engagement to another prospective clergyman in late 1827. [back]
228. Although Edward Quillinan still held the lease to Ivy Cottage, Tillbrook apparently arranged to stay at his vacation house while in Rydal, for SH reported on 7 August that “Till & his fellow Tutor are at the Ivy Cottage with which he is charmed” (WLL / Hutchinson, Sara / 2 / 110a). [back]
229. Likely Charles Lloyd (1775–1839, DNB), erstwhile “Lake Poet” and inhabitant of Old Brathay, returning to his former haunts. Before leaving the area in 1813 amid Charles’s mental breakdown, the Lloyds had been close to the Wordsworths, especially after Charles’s sister Priscilla (1781–1815) married WW and DW’s brother Christopher in 1804. The two poets had fallen out in 1821, however, after Charles’s table talk about WW’s miserliness and hypocrisy was quoted in an unflattering essay by William Hazlitt (see LMW, 83–84n). [back]
230. See note for 26 July above. [back]
231. SH had spent two years away from Rydal, dividing her time between France, the Midlands, and the South of England. Two days after returning, she wrote, “This place is more beautiful than ever, but there is great want of the axe & pruning knife. The Trees have grown so much that we are quite shut out from any prospect” (WLL / Hutchinson, Sara / 2 / 110a). [back]
232. Likely Robert Perrin, editor of the Carlisle Patriot (see Letters, 4:460, 469). [back]
233. Thousands flocked to Kendal Castle on 5 August for a widely advertised balloon launch by England’s foremost aeronaut, Charles Green. The flight ended up being cancelled because of a slight wind, leading the WG to deem the entire event a hoax (“The Balloon!!!,” 6 August 1825). [back]
234. Mary Hutchinson (née Monkhouse, 1787–1858), a cousin of MW and SH who in 1812 had married their brother Tom. Fatigued by her family’s move from Hindwell to Brinsop, this frequently ill relation spent much of late 1825 with the Wordsworths, first at Kents Bank, then at Rydal, and finally (with MW) at Harrowgate Spa. [back]
235. Eight months after opening its doors (see 25 December above), St. Mary’s Chapel in Rydal was consecrated on 27 August by the Bishop of Chester. Reflecting the general excitement surrounding this banner day in village history, SH wrote on 7 August of the “grand doings” planned for the consecration day and provided further details in her sketch diary for August 1825 (WLL / Hutchinson, Sara / 2 / 110a; WLMS H / 1 / 6 / 2). [back]
236. Another highlight of the summer was the gala hosted by John Bolton of Storrs Hall in late August in honor of the former prime minister and Tory icon George Canning (1770–1827). Attendees included the writer Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832, DNB), his son-in-law John Gibson Lockhart (recently named the new editor of the Quarterly Review), and the lapsed Wordsworthian John Wilson (see note for 25 May). Afterwards the Wordsworths hosted these men of letters at RM, Dora sent Jane Jewsbury a wickedly satirical recap (LDW, 23–25). [back]
237. After a week at Hallsteads, the Ullswater home of her old friends the Marshalls, DW was accompanied on her journey home by their 22-year-old daughter Cordelia (Letters, 4:392). [back]
238. To attend to her dangerously ill friend Lady Maria Farquhar (Letters, 4:388, 392). [back]
239. The household at RM scattered in the fall, with John returning to Oxford and SH and WW leaving for Coleorton, the Leicestershire estate of the Beaumonts, where they were joined by MW and Mary Hutchinson (arriving from Harrowgate) (Letters, 4:392). [back]
240. Likely a member of the Fothergill family who, along with the Cooksons, were prominent members of the Unitarian congregation in Kendal. [back]
241. Presumably the waterfall on the grounds of Rydal Hall. [back]
242. Probably Catherine Harrison, wife of WW’s old friend Anthony (see note for 17 December above), rather than “Cousin Dorothy” (whom DW is unlikely to have described so stiffly). [back]
243. John Carter (1796–1863), a family employee since 1813 who had risen from handling odd jobs to serving as WW’s chief clerk in the stamp distributorship (see Letters, 8:152, 3:83). Carter’s dream of becoming a clergyman would be shattered two months later, when, as reported by WW, the Bishop of Chester reiterated his policy “not to ordain any who have not been from the first educated for the ministry, i.e. those who have followed other business” (Letters, 4:413). [back]
244. Mary Fisher (née Dawson, 1777–1854), a former servant of the Wordsworths who had become a cherished friend. Since marrying in 1817, she and her cobbler husband, John Fisher Jr., had lived at Sykeside, his parents’ cottage in Town End, Grasmere. [back]
245. The Hampshire Chronicle of 10 October included a detailed report from the Gosport Observatory concerning this “new comet,” which was first faintly visible on 28 September but could be seen with the naked eye on the evening of 7 October. [back]
246. Possibly the servant at RM referenced above on 7 December. [back]
247. Home on shore leave—possibly from Lezoulien, a French village near the Brittany coast—Charles Robinson’s younger brother had come to Ambleside via Harrowgate, where MW reported meeting this “beau” in early October (LMW, 122). As DW obliquely documents through the rest of Notebook 1, during this stay in the Lakes the 31-year-old officer developed a romantic interest in his distant cousin Dora. [back]
248. Obscure. [back]
249. Crossing of Scandale Beck midway between Rydal and Ambleside. [back]
250. Leonard Edmunds (1802–87), 23-year-old son of the Ambleside solicitor John Edmunds and a childhood friend of John Wordsworth. In 1833 he would receive a crown appointment as Clerk of the Patents (Carlisle Journal, 2 September 1833). [back]
251. Most likely to Samuel Tillbrook and Catherine Clarkson (see note for 26 July above), possibly with news that the Wordsworths might need to find a new home when their lease at RM expired. [back]
252. An early barometer, also known as a storm glass. Introduced ca. 1780. These popular, if rather unreliable, instruments consisted of a slender glass tube containing a chemical mixture that purportedly crystalized and rose as a storm approached. [back]
253. Rev. Fletcher Fleming (1795–1876), a relative of Lady Diana le Fleming whom she installed as the first curate of Rydal Chapel. His father, John, was WW’s closest school friend in Hawkshead and grew up to become curate of Bowness and heir to the Rayrigg estate on Windermere. After the younger Rev. Fleming’s inaugural sermon in Rydal, Dora declared him to be “a Treasure in these parts where, as my Father says, we are so ill parson’d” (WLL / Wordsworth, Dora / 1 / 6). [back]
254. See note for 22 June. [back]
255. Jane Carter (née Fell, 1768–1832), a twice-widowed Quaker from Ulverston, had recently moved into Dale End, a farmhouse on the western shore of Grasmere. The other “Carter” at Mr. Barber’s was presumably Sarah Hustler (1800–82), Mrs. Carter’s eldest daughter from her first marriage. The two women were joined by Charles Fox (1797–1878), a Cornwall Quaker whom Sarah would marry on 20 December (see Letters, 5:344; WLL / Wordsworth, Dora / 1 / 49). [back]
256. On the first day of DW and Mary Honeyman’s three-day excursion through regions south of Rydal, they rode by cart to Coniston (nine miles southwest of Rydal), where they apparently spent the night (possibly at the summer home of Henry Hutchinson that DW visited on 5 July). [back]
257. After spending Thursday morning on Coniston Water, DW and Miss Honeyman met Tom Robinson and Dora and then rode 13 miles south to Backbarrow and, from there, a mile and a half miles northeast to their inn at Newby Bridge. [back]
258. As described by Thomas West, Backbarrow is the site where the River Leven “falls with great rapidity for the space of two miles, dashing its waters against the rugged rocks, . . . forming several cascades” (Antiquities of Furness, 36). The awe-inspiring or, in DW’s words, “awful” effect of the crashing river had long made it a popular destination for devotees of the natural sublime. [back]
259. From Newby Bridge, the party ill-advisedly (as DW would have it) ignored the ominous weather and hired a sail-boat to take them up Windermere’s western shore to Claife Heights, a viewing station popularized by West, Gilpin, and other late eighteenth-century travel writers. Afterward they crossed the lake to Bowness and either walked or rode the final seven miles to Rydal. [back]
260. With evident relief, DW reported on 18 October that the eminent Scottish jurist, politician, and historian Sir James Mackintosh (1765–1832) and one of his daughters—likely Frances Emma Elizabeth (1800–89)—had been the “last of our Lakers” during “the most bustling summer ever remembered.” Having known him since at least 1812, she observed, “Sir James looks wonderfully well, considering the wearing life he has led—politics—law—India—house of Commons wrangling!” (Letters, 4:392–93; see also 3:45 and 4:388). [back]
261. Home of the Beaumonts, where WW and MW were currently staying. [back]
262. Catherine Clarkson (see note for 26 July above). [back]
263. Presumably to see her uncle Henry Hutchinson. [back]
264. Julia Myers. [back]
265. The Wordsworths’ maid Anne Dawson. [back]
266. After an 18-month absence, Thomas De Quincey had joined his family at The Nab in Rydal. [back]
267. Likely Sarah Walker of Manchester (b. 1788), whose sister Harriet Bayley (née Walker, 1782–1846) was married to Frances Barlow’s brother. [back]
268. Mary Honeyman had left RM two days earlier to stay with another friend in the area but continued to see DW regularly over the coming week. [back]
269. Unidentified. [back]
270. Joseph Ladyman (1790–1862), proprietor of the Salutation Inn in Ambleside. [back]
271. Likely Dr. John Lingard’s new biography of Charles I, published in 1825 as Vol. 10 of his monumental History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans. [back]
272. To Coniston (as the ensuing entry clarifies), apparently to join Dora and Tom Robinson. [back]
273. The Southeys’ teenaged daughters, Bertha and Kate, stayed at RM from 21 October–11 November. [back]
274. Given that MW would remain at Coleorton for another four weeks, this most likely refers to Mary Hutchinson, who, as SH reported on 24 October, had arrived safely at Brinsop “to the great joy of all her family” (LSH, 308). [back]
275. A house call to the Wordsworths’ ailing servant (see 19 October). [back]
276. Presumably referencing a viridescent island on Grasmere or Rydal Water rather than Ireland. [back]
277. The Vagrancy Act of 1824 and other recent laws were already reducing the number of Roma (or “gypsy”) encampments in rural England (Cressy, Gypsies, 148–51). While WW had been less than sympathetic toward these “Wild outcasts of society” in his 1807 poem “Gypsies,” DW reported to William Pearson in 1830 that “every member of this family” was captivated by the lore he had gathered from his “vagrant neighbours” (Letters, 5:220). [back]
278. DW spent 26–29 October in Kendal helping to nurse the Cooksons’ chronically ill daughter Elizabeth. [back]
279. Bertha Southey. [back]
280. Bertha and Kate Southey. [back]
281. Charlotte Robinson’s younger sister Henrietta Kearsley (1800–84), visiting from York. On 8 October, Dora would vent to Jane Jewsbury about having “to be very courteous & civil to a complete young Lady who does not like this country, who talks to me of nothing but balls & routs & concerts & Officers of the 7th Hussars &c &c—and tells me that I know not the pleasure of such amusements . . . — this Young Lady is sister to Mrs Robinson who you admired so much—her name is Henrietta Kearsley from York very pretty but very insipid” (LDW, 27 [misdated there as September 1825]). [back]
282. The traditional Guy Fawkes’ Day bonfire, imperiled that year by rain. [back]
283. Likely their housemaid Anne Dawson, who apparently stayed with relatives while recovering from the illness mentioned on 19 and 22 October. [back]
284. Bertha and Kate returned to Keswick the next day, after the weather had cleared. [back]
285. Presumably details from a soiree at the Loughrigg home of the Wordsworths’ long-time neighbor Laetitia Pritchard (1756–1827). A few years earlier, Sara Coleridge wrote a lively account of a similar gathering hosted by Miss Pritchard (LSH, 182–83). [back]
286. Possibly a rare case of DW griping about a family member, as she seems to suggest that Dora’s almost daily outings with Tom Robinson were starting to inconvenience others. [back]
287. Returning from Coleorton, where she, WW, and MW had been since early October. Concerning their staggered arrivals back in Rydal, SH explained that all three “left Coleorton on the 9th—William in a ‘ Pone shase’ (which I bought at Ashby) with our Matlock Poney—and Mary & I by Coach—He arrived at Manchester a day after us, and we remained there, together, on a visit to Miss Jewsbury until Monday when we proceeded, by our several conveyances, homewards and all arrived here safe & sound” (LSH, 309–10). [back]
288. WW and SH had bought this horse on a day-trip from Coleorton to Matlock and, as detailed in the previous note, SH purchased the cart at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, the market town near the Beaumonts’ estate (LSH, 308). [back]
289. Hamlet three and a half miles south of Rydal on the other side of Loughrigg. [back]
290. Margaret De Quincey’s grandfather William Park (1740–1825). His family had farmed The Nab since the mid-17th century, and he personally had held the lease since 1778 (Armitt, Rydal, 352–60; obit. in WG, 10 Dec. 1825). [back]
291. Toponym for a small lake and adjacent village three miles southwest of Rydal in Langdale. [back]
292. Likely Andrew Fleming Huddleston (1796–1861) of Hutton John near Penrith, who, despite having inherited his family estate upon his father’s passing in 1822, remained employed by the East India Co. in Madras. Temporarily back in England, he would in ensuing weeks help the Wordsworths secure a one-year extension on their lease by persuading his elderly mother, Elizabeth (1753–1830), to decline her niece Lady Ann le Fleming’s offer to install her at RM in their stead (Letters, 4:416–17;LMW, 121). [back]
293. With their future at RM still uncertain, various family members began sketching home designs in case they opted to build (LSH, 318). [back]
294. Philippians 2:6: “[Jesus Christ], Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God” (this and subsequent quotations are from the King James Version). [back]
295. Colossians 1:12: “Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.” [back]
296. Colossians 4:13: “For I [Paul] bear him [the believer Epaphras] record, that he hath a great zeal for you, and them that are in Laodicea, and them in Hierapolis.” [back]
297. 1 Timothy 3:16: “And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.” [back]
298. Hebrews 1:8: “But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.” [back]
299. Hebrews 4:16: “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” [back]
300. Hebrews 6:4–6: “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost.” [back]
301. Hebrews 9 expostulates on how the “first covenant” (the Law of Moses) was fulfilled through the death of Jesus Christ. [back]
302. Hebrews 11:1. [back]
303. Job 28 focuses on the pursuit of wisdom, concluding (in verse 28), “And unto man he [God] said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.” [back]
304. In the chapter, Job contrasts his former honor with his present degradation and anticipates finding comfort in death. [back]
305. Job 41 begins, “Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down? Canst thou put an hook into his nose? or bore his jaw through with a thorn?” [back]
306. In this psalm’s sixth verse, the psalmist writes, ““I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears.” [back]
307. Psalm 8:3–5: “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor.” [back]
308. Additional Psalms that DW seems to have found especially inspirational. [back]
309. Sara Coleridge. [back]
310. Mary Monkhouse Hutchinson, visiting from Herefordshire. [back]
311. Jane Ellwood (née Whelpdale, 1779–1855), a Penrith widow and close friend of SH, and her sister Elizabeth Whelpdale (b. 1786). [back]
312. William Strickland Cookson (1801–77), 24-year-old son of the Kendal Cooksons. [back]
313. Edward Quillinan (1791–1851, DNB), former army officer and future husband of Dora Wordsworth who had befriended the Wordsworths after moving to Rydal in 1821 to live near his literary idol, WW. Since his wife’s tragic death in 1822, Quillinan and his two young daughters had lived in London and Kent, but he made a brief visit in the summer of 1825 to attend the consecration of Rydal Chapel (WLL / Hutchinson, Sara / 2 / 110a). [back]
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Notebook 1 of the Rydal Journals (DCMS 104.1, 11 December 1824–9 December 1825) © 2023 by Romantic Circles, Dorothy Wordsworth, and Nicholas Mason is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 

Introduction to Dorothy Wordsworth's Lake District
Michelle Levy, Nicholas Mason, Paul Westover
Editorial Philosophies and Guidelines
Michelle Levy, Nicholas Mason, Paul Westover
Abbreviations for Commonly Used Names and Sources
Michelle Levy, Nicholas Mason, Paul Westover
Introduction to First Notebook of the Grasmere Journal
Michelle Levy
Diplomatic Transcription of the First Grasmere Journal Notebook (DCMS 20)
Dorothy Wordsworth
Introduction to "Excursion on the Banks of Ullswater" (1805)
Paul Westover
Reading Text of "Excursion on the Banks of Ullswater"
Dorothy Wordsworth
Version A of "Ullswater Excursion": DCMS 51 (1805)
Dorothy Wordsworth
Version B of "Ullswater Excursion": Coleorton Manuscript
Dorothy Wordsworth
Version C of “Ullswater Excursion”: Guide to the Lakes (1823)
Dorothy Wordsworth
Two Letters Related to "Ullswater Excursion"
Dorothy Wordsworth
Introduction to “A Narrative concerning George & Sarah Green of the Parish of Grasmere, addressed to a Friend” (DCMS 64)
Michelle Levy
Diplomatic Transcription of the Greens Narrative (DCMS 64)
Dorothy Wordsworth
William Wordsworth on the Greens
William Wordsworth
Introduction to "Excursion up Scawfell Pike"
Paul Westover
Reading Text of "Excursion up Scawfell Pike"
Dorothy Wordsworth
Version A of "Scawfell Excursion" (DCMS 51)
Dorothy Wordsworth
Version B of "Scawfell Excursion": The Kenyon Transcript (1819)
Dorothy Wordsworth
Version C of "Scawfell Excursion": Wordsworth's Guide to the Lakes (1822)
William Wordsworth
Overview of the Rydal Journals
Nicholas Mason
Introduction to Notebook 1 of the Rydal Journals (DCMS 104.1, 11 December 1824—9 December 1825)
Nicholas Mason
Index of Key People and Places in Rydal Journals Notebook 1 (DCMS 104.1, 1824–1825)
Nicholas Mason
Notebook 1 of the Rydal Journals (DCMS 104.1, 11 December 1824–9 December 1825)
Dorothy Wordsworth
Introduction to Notebook 15 of the Rydal Journals (DCMS 118.5, 4 October 1834—19 April 1835, 4 November 1835)
Nicholas Mason
Index of Key People in Notebook 15 of the Rydal Journals DCMS 118.5 (1834–1835)
Nicholas Mason
Notebook 15 of the Rydal Journals (DCMS 118.5, 4 October 1834–19 April 1835; 4 November 1835)
Dorothy Wordsworth
Biographical Index
Michelle Levy, Nicholas Mason, Paul Westover
General Bibliography
Michelle Levy, Nicholas Mason, Paul Westover
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