In conclusion, I must mention the special kindness of the late Mrs. Wordsworth, the daughter-in-law of the poet, and of Mr. Gordon Wordsworth his grandson, in granting free access to all the Journals and MSS. they possessed, and now possess. Without their aid the publication of these volumes would have been impossible. WILLIAM KNIGHT. I DOROTHY WORDSWORTH'S JOURNAL WRITTEN AT ALFOXDEN FROM 20TH JANUARY TO 22ND MAY 1798 DOROTHY WORDSWORTH'S JOURNAL, WRITTEN AT ALFOXDEN IN 1798[2] [Footnote 2: In the original MS. there is no title. The above is a descriptive one, given by the editor.--ED.] Alfoxden, _January 20th 1798_.--The green paths down the hill-sides are channels for streams. The young wheat is streaked by silver lines of water running between the ridges, the sheep are gathered together on the slopes. After the wet dark days, the country seems more populous. It peoples itself in the sunbeams. The garden, mimic of spring, is gay with flowers. The purple-starred hepatica spreads itself in the sun, and the clustering snow-drops put forth their white heads, at first upright, ribbed with green, and like a rosebud when completely opened, hanging their heads downwards, but slowly lengthening their slender stems. The slanting woods of an unvarying brown, showing the light through the thin net-work of their upper boughs. Upon the highest ridge of that round hill covered with planted oaks, the shafts of the trees show in the light like the columns of a ruin. _21st._ Walked on the hill-tops--a warm day. Sate under the firs in the park. The tops of the beeches of a brown-red, or crimson. Those oaks, fanned by the sea breeze, thick with feathery sea-green moss, as a grove not stripped of its leaves. Moss cups more proper than acorns for fairy goblets. _22nd._--Walked through the wood to Holford. The ivy twisting round the oaks like bristled serpents. The day cold--a warm shelter in the hollies, capriciously bearing berries. Query: Are the male and female flowers on separate trees? _23rd._--Bright sunshine, went out at 3 o'clock. The sea perfectly calm blue, streaked with deeper colour by the clouds, and tongues or points of sand; on our return of a gloomy red. The sun gone down. The crescent moon, Jupiter, and Venus. The sound of the sea distinctly heard on the tops of the hills, which we could never hear in summer. We attribute this partly to the bareness of the trees, but chiefly to the absence of the singing of birds, the hum of insects, that noiseless noise which lives in the summer air.[3] The villages marked out by beautiful beds of smoke. The turf fading into the mountain road. The scarlet flowers of the moss. [Footnote 3: Compare Keats, _Miscellaneous Poems_-- There crept A little noiseless noise amongst the leaves Born of the very sigh that silence heaves. ED. And Coleridge, _The Æolian Harp_--