The advantage and the happiness of this visit to the north, determined her the next summer to pay a visit to the Lakes. Here she took up her abode for a fortnight with Wordsworth, at Rydal Mount, and there so charmed was she with the country, and so much did her health need the quiet refreshment of rural retirement, that she took for the remainder of the summer a small cottage overlooking Windermere, called Dove's Nest. But quiet as the spot appeared, secluded as it is, it was a great mistake to suppose that a woman of any reputation could escape the inroads of the Tourist Vandals so near Ambleside, and Lowood. If any one wants to set up for a lion or lioness, let him or her go and take a cottage in the Lake country: there they will be lionized to their heart's content. There, in the height of summer, the whole region is alive with tourists and idlers, who are all on the lookout for any novelty; and a literary creature is a fascinating monster, more _piquant_ to the tribe than badger or fox to the old race of Nimrods. If I heard of a literary person settling at the Lakes, I should at once say, that person is anxious to be lionized. But this was not the case with Mrs. Hemans. To avoid all such notoriety, she never, after her reputation was spread, would visit London; she sought for peace, but here she could not find it. "The soothing and healthful repose which had been so thoroughly and thankfully appreciated," says her sister, "was, alas! not destined to be of long continuance." Subsequent letters speak of the irruption of parties hunting for lions in Dove's Nest; of a renewal of "the Album persecution;" of an absolute mail storm of letters and papers, threatening "to boil over the drawer to which they were consigned;" till at last the despairing conclusion is come to, that "one might as well hope for peace in the character of a shadowless man as of a literary woman." The inundation was irresistible and overwhelming; in August she fled in desperation, and again made a journey into Scotland.