In the year 1810, Wordsworth wrote an introduction to, and edited the text of, a folio volume entitled, “Select Views in Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Lancashire;” by the Rev. Joseph Wilkinson, which were afterwards printed in his volume of “Sonnets on the River Duddon,” and still later, as a separate publication. This introduction and text consisted of a description of the Lake Country, which is finer than anything of the kind existing, if we except the delicate and beautiful picture-writing of Gray, the poet, who visited this district in October 1767. And here end the chief incidents in the personal and literary life of Wordsworth, up to the time of his removal to Rydal Mount. RYDAL MOUNT. I must here borrow the only picture which I find in Dr. Wordsworth’s “Memoirs,”--viz., that of the poet’s residence, which I transcribe from vol. I., p. 19. “The house stands on the sloping summit of a rocky hill, called Nab’s Scar. It has a southern aspect. In front of it is a small semicircular area of grey gravel, fringed with shrubs and flowers, the house forming the diameter of the circle. From this area is a descent of a few stone steps southward, and then a gentle ascent to a grassy mound. Here let us rest a little.--At your back is the house; in front, a little to the left of the horizon, is Wansfell, on which the light of the evening sun rests, and to which the poet has paid a grateful tribute in two of his sonnets:-- ‘Wansfell! this household has a favoured lot, Living with liberty on thee to gaze.’ Beneath it the blue smoke shews the place of the town of Ambleside. In front is the lake Windermere, shining in the sun; also in front, but more to the right, are the fells of Loughrigg, on which the poet’s imagination pleased to plant a solitary castle: ‘Ærial rock, whose solitary brow From this low threshold daily meets the sight.’ Looking to the right, in the garden, is a beautiful glade, overhung with rhododendrons, in beautiful leaf and bloom. Near them is a tall ash-tree, in which a thrush has sung for hours together, during many years. Not far from it is a laburnum, in which the osier cage of the doves was hung. Below, to the west, is the vegetable garden, not planted off from the rest, but blended with it by parterres of flowers and shrubs. Returning to the platform of grey gravel before the house, we pass under the shade of a fine sycamore, and ascend to the westward by fourteen steps of stones, about nine feet long, in the interstices of which grow the yellow flowering poppy, and the wild geranium, or Poor Robin, ‘Gay With his red stalks, upon a sunny day,’