region: the "Lakers," as they were called, were then in their glory. A
rare coterie, indeed, it was that was gathered together along the banks
of Windermere. Though they are now no more, yet is their memory so
linked to these scenes that thousands of fond pilgrims still visit
these placid waters to throw one glance upon the home of genius, the
birthplace of great thoughts. Here Wilson was in his element. His soul
feasted itself on the wondrous charms of Nature, and held high converse
with the master-minds of literature. There was quite enough to satisfy
the cravings even of his multiform spirit. He soon came to know, and to
be on terms of greater or less intimacy with, Coleridge, Wordsworth, De
Quincey, Southey, the celebrated Bishop Watson, of the See of Llandaff,
Charles Lloyd, and others,--then the _genii loci_. It may be remembered
that his admiration for Wordsworth was already of long standing, his
boyish enthusiasm having led him, when at Glasgow, to send his tribute
of praise to the author of the "Lyrical Ballads." Some fifteen to twenty
years later,--in one of the numbers of the "Noctes,"--his admiration for
the poet had temporarily cooled somewhat. Then was its aphelion, and
soon it began to return once more toward its central sun. It must have
been transient spleen which dictated such sentences as these:--

"_Tickler_. Wordsworth says that a great poet must be great in all
things.

"_North_. Wordsworth often writes like an idiot; and never more so than
when he said of Milton, 'His soul was like a star, and dwelt apart!' For
it dwelt in tumult, and mischief, and rebellion. Wordsworth is, in all
things, the reverse of Milton,--a good man, and a bad poet.

"_Tickler_. What! that Wordsworth whom Maga cries up as the Prince of
Poets?