Wordsworth died in 1850, the year before I was born. He and my
grandfather were much attached to each other--"old Coleridge," says my
grandfather, "inoculated a little knot of us with the love of
Wordsworth"--though their politics were widely different, and the poet
sometimes found it hard to put up with the reforming views of the
younger man. In a letter printed in Stanley's _Life_ my grandfather
mentions "a good fight" with Wordsworth over the Reform Bill of 1832, on
a walk to Greenhead Ghyll. And there is a story told of a girl friend of
the family who, once when Wordsworth had been paying a visit at Fox How,
accompanied him and the Doctor part of the way home to Rydal Mount.
Something was inadvertently said to stir the old man's Toryism, and he
broke out in indignant denunciation of some views expressed by Arnold.
The storm lasted all the way to Pelter Bridge, and the girl on Arnold's
left stole various alarmed glances at him to see how he was taking it.
He said little or nothing, and at Pelter Bridge they all parted,
Wordsworth going on to Rydal Mount, and the other two turning back
toward Fox How. Arnold paced along, his hands behind his back, his eyes
on the ground, and his companion watched him, till he suddenly threw
back his head with a laugh of enjoyment.--"What _beautiful_ English the
old man talks!"

The poet complained sometimes--as I find from an amusing passage in the
letter to Mr. Howson quoted below, that he could not see enough of his
neighbor, the Doctor, on a mountain walk, because Arnold was always so
surrounded with children and pupils, "like little dogs" running round
and after him. But no differences, great or small, interfered with his
constant friendship to Fox How. The garden there was largely planned by
him during the family absences at Rugby; the round chimneys of the house
are said to be of his design; and it was for Fox How, which still
possesses the MS., that the fine sonnet was written, beginning--