small bed of potherbs, and its borders and patches of flowers for
Sunday posies, with sometimes a choice few too much prized to
be plucked; an orchard of proportioned size; a cheesepress, often
supported by some tree near the door; a cluster of embowering
sycamores for summer shade, with a tall fir through which the
winds sing when other trees are leafless; the little rill or
household spout murmuring in all seasons,--combine these
incidents and images together, and you have the representative
idea of a mountain cottage in this country--so beautifully
formed in itself, and so richly adorned by the hand of Nature."

These brief descriptions may suffice to indicate the general
character of a district which in Wordsworth's early days had a
distinctive unity which he was the first fully to appreciate, which
was at its best during his long lifetime, and which has already
begun to disappear. The mountains had waited long for a full
adoration, an intelligent worship. At last "they were enough beloved."
And if now the changes wrought around them recall too often the
poet's warning, how

All that now delights thee, from the day
On which it should be touched, shall melt, and melt away,--

yet they have gained something which cannot be taken from them. Not
mines, nor railways, nor monster excursions, nor reservoirs, nor
Manchester herself, "toute entiere a sa proie attachee," can deprive
lake and hill of Wordsworth's memory, and the love which once they
knew.

Wordsworth's life was from the very first so ordered as to give him