PLACE OF PILGRIMAGE. 201 



Of the friends, I may mention many were 

 Americans of the United States : a noble 

 fellowship, and may we not hope a pledge of 

 enduring union? Now let us hasten away. 

 That house within its garden, which we are 

 passing, is the Eectory, where the poet lived 

 two years, between his leaving Allan Bank and 

 his taking up his residence at Kydal Mount. 



AMICUS. That Rydal Mount in its beauty so 

 fit for a poet's living residence, as the spot 

 where he lies interred is for his grave ! What 

 a place of pilgrimage it will be, and his grave 

 too, to all true admirers of genuine poetry and 

 beautiful nature ! The road you have brought 

 me, seems to me, as it were a via sacra, full of 

 memorabilia and of a worthy kind and pleasure- 

 able in reflection. 



PISCATOR. I cannot say so without reserve. 

 Before we ascended the hill leading to the 

 " Wishing-Grate," where the rock has been broken 

 up in working a quarry, a spot of wildness and 

 confusion in its littered heaps of stones and 

 neglected culture, a spot, the ground being 

 common, where many a tramping party has 

 spent the night, and crime has been committed^ 

 I can tell nothing of but evil ; the locality 



