based upon pure gossip, as he cites no authorities, and did not himself
make Coleridge's acquaintance till six years afterwards. This, however,
is at least certain, that his gloomy accounts of his own health begin
from a period at which his satisfaction with his new abode was still as
fresh as ever. The house which he had taken, now historic as the
residence of two famous Englishmen, enjoyed a truly beautiful situation
and the command of a most noble view. It stood in the vale of
Derwentwater, on the bank of the river Greta, and about a mile from the
lake. When Coleridge first entered it, it was uncompleted, and an
arrangement was made by which, after completion, it was to be divided
between the tenant and the landlord, a Mr. Jackson. As it turned out,
however, the then completed portion was shared by them in common, the
other portion, and eventually the whole, being afterwards occupied by
Southey. In April 1801, some eight or nine months after his taking
possession of Greta Hall, Coleridge thus describes it to its future
occupant:--

"Our house stands on a low hill, the whole front of which
is one field and an enormous garden, nine-tenths of which is a nursery
garden. Behind the house is an orchard and a small wood on a steep
slope, at the foot of which is the river Greta, which winds round and
catches the evening's light in the front of the house. In front we have
a giant camp--an encamped army of tent-like mountains which, by an
inverted arch, gives a view of another vale. On our right the lovely
vale and the wedge-shaped lake of Bassenthwaite; and on our left
Derwentwater and Lodore full in view, and the fantastic mountains of
Borrowdale. Behind is the massy Skiddaw, smooth, green, high, with two
chasms and a tent-like ridge in the larger. A fairer scene you have not
seen in all your wanderings."