The rest of the description is in the fifth book of “The Excursion.” On the north side of the nave is a tablet to Wordsworth which contains a portrait by Woolner with an appreciative inscription underneath. Out from the gloomy church we pass into the sunshine and, whether we have read his poetry or not, visit the sheltered corner under the yew-trees where a simple slate slab bears the plain inscription, and nothing more, “William Wordsworth, 1850,” “Mary Wordsworth, 1858,”--a tombstone in keeping with his simplicity of character and freedom from all that pertained to artificiality. The yew-trees were brought [Illustration: Grasmere Church On the banks of the River Rothay.] across the lake from Loughrigg Tarn and planted here under Wordsworth’s own directions. Hartley Coleridge, the genial-hearted and brilliant son of the author of “The Ancient Mariner,” is buried a few yards away under the more elaborate headstone with a circular top. The picturesque hamlet itself contains little of interest beyond perhaps the fact that the palatial but comfortable Rothay Hotel was originally built by the late Lord Cadogan, and was his home for many years. After the church, no doubt Dove Cottage claims attention. It was here that Wordsworth lived from 1799 to 1808, and to it he brought his bride, Mary Hutchinson, in 1802. De Quincey also occupied it for many years after Wordsworth left it; indeed it may safely be said that no other cottage has been visited by so many brilliant literary and artistic people of bygone times. The names of Sir Walter Scott, the Coleridges, Southey, Charles Lamb, Humphrey Davy, Charles Lloyd, Ruskin, Christopher North, Matthew Arnold and many others rise unbidden to the mind as one stands at the back door and gazes upwards to the summer house above the little rock-garden which Wordsworth designed, aided by his gentle sister Dorothy. This little natural rock-garden has been immortalized in the following farewell lines, written when the poet was leaving it for an absence of two months--his honeymoon:-- “Farewell, thou little nook of mountain ground, Thou rocky corner in the lowest stair Of that magnificent temple which doth bound One side of our whole vale with grandeur rare. Sweet garden-orchard, eminently fair, The loveliest spot that man hath ever found, Farewell! we leave thee to Heaven’s peaceful care, Thee and the cottage which thou dost surround.” Dove Cottage has now been purchased by a number of Wordsworth’s admirers and is preserved as a permanent memorial. The quaint rooms contain many priceless relics of the Lakes Poets; much of the furniture is as Wordsworth and his sister used it and, to a person with even the most superficial knowledge of their writings, a visit must prove of absorbing interest.