One of the old race of Cumbrian "Statesmen"--men who owned, and themselves cultivated, small bits of land (see Wordsworth's letter on _The Brothers_ and _Michael_, vol. ii. p. 234)--he was Wordsworth's senior by nineteen years, and lived on a patrimonial farm of about forty acres, on the banks of the Emont,--the stream which, flowing out of Ullswater, divides Cumberland from Westmoreland. He was a Friend, and used to travel great distances to attend religious conferences, or engage in philanthropic work,--on one occasion riding on his pony from Yanwath to London, to the yearly meeting of the Friends; and, on another, walking the 300 miles to town, in eight days, for the same purpose. A simple, genuine nature; serene, refined, hospitable, naïve, and humorous withal; a quaint original man, with a true eye for Nature, a keen relish for rural life (especially for gardening) and a happy knack of characterization, whether he undertook descriptions of scenery in the course of his travels, or narrated the incidents which befell him on the way. This is how he writes of his farm, and his work upon it:--"We have at length some traces of spring (6th April 1784); the primrose under the hedge begins to open her modest flower, the buds begin to swell, and the birds to build; yet we have still a wide horizon, the mountain tops resign not their snows. The happiest season of the year with me is now commencing--I mean that in which I am at the plough; my horses pace slowly on before, the larks sing above my head, and the furrow falls at my side, and the face of Nature and my own mind seem to wear a sweet and cheerful tranquillity."