1845] BOYHOOD 141
tual powers he showed afterwards. From Foxhow and Rotha Cottage we constantly visited Wordsworth and his dear old wife at Rydal Mount, and we walked with him to the Rydal Falls. He always talked a good deal about himself and his own poems; and I have a sense of his being not vain, but conceited. I have been told since, in confirmation of this, that when Milton's watch — preserved somewhere—was shown to him, he instantly and involuntarily drew out his own watch, and compared, not the watches, but the poets. The " severe creator of immortal things," as Landor called him, read us some of his verses admirably,1 but I was too young at this time to be interested in much of his conversation, unless it was about the wild-flowers, to which he was devoted, as I was. I think that at Keswick we also saw Southey, but I clo not remember him, though 1 remember his (very ugly) house very well. In returning south we saw Chester, and paid a visit to an old cousin of my mother's, —" Dosey (Theodosia) Leigh,"" who had many quaint sayings. In allusion to her own maiden state, she would often complacently quote the old Cheshire proverb, " Bout's bare but it \s yezzy." 2 While at Chester, though I forget how, I first became conscious how difficult the having Esther Maurice for an aunt would make everything in life to me. I was, however, at her wedding in November at Reading.
The winter of 1844-45 was the first of many
1 I)e Quincy says that Wordsworth was the only poet he ever met who could do this, and certainly it is my experience.
2 To be without (a husband) is bare but it's easy.s till eleven. Then go out till a quarter-past eleven. Then lessons till 12, go a walk till 2 dinner.liked this expedition and scram-is a safe punishment for naughtiness, more safe, I think, than giving a reward for goodness. c If you are naughty I must punish you,' is often a necessary threat: but it is not good to hold out ad (J<><1 to forgive him for !*'in^ so nau^Imhr- and the most attractive in Florence. thru