80 MEMOIR OF JOHN WILSON. 



jessamine, clematis, and honeysuckle. A trellised entrance, cluster- 

 ing with wild roses, led to the chief part of the dwelling. Beyond 

 the dining-room windows was the entrance to the kitchen and other 

 parts of the house, only differing from the first door in being made 

 of the dark blue slate of the country, and unadorned by roses. 

 The bedroom windows to the front, peeped out from their natural 

 festoons unshaded by other curtains, while the cottage was pro- 

 tected by a fine old sycamore-tree that, standing on a gentle emi- 

 nence, sent its spreading branches and umbrageous foliage far over 

 the roof, just leaving room enough for the quaint, picturesque chim- 

 neys to send their curling smoke into the air.* The little cottage 

 lay beneath the shelter of a well-wooded hill, that gave a look of 

 delightful retirement and comfort to its situation ; a poet's home it 

 might well be called. The lofty peaks of the Langdale Pikes ever 

 greeted the eye, in the dark shadows of evening or glittering be- 

 neath a noonday sun ; and Windermere as seen from Elleray was 

 seen best — every point and bay, island and cove, lay there un- 

 veiled. Perhaps in the clearing away of mist in early morning the 

 scene was most refreshing, as bit by bit a dewy green cluster of 

 trees appears, and then a gleam of water, with some captive cloud 

 deep set in its light, a mountain base, or far-ofi" pasture, the well- 

 defined colors of rich middle-distance creating impatience for a per- 

 fect picture ; when all at once the obscuring vapors passed away, 

 and the whole landscape was revealed. 



Although this picturesque cottage remained the dwelling-house 

 till 1825, my father began to build in the year 1808 a mansion of 

 more elegant proportions, after plans of his own. We may gather 

 some idea of what these plans were by referring to his ideal descrip- 

 tion of Buchanan Lodge. The whole tenement was to be upon the 

 ground flat. " I abhor stairs," said he, " and there can be no peace 

 in any mansion where heavy footsteps may be heard over head. 

 Suppose three sides of a square. You approach the front by a fine 

 serpentine avenue, and enter slap-bang through a wide glass-door 



*0f this sycamore he often spoke. "Never in this well-wooded world," soliloquized the poet, 

 " not even in the days of the Druids, could there have been such another tree ! It would be easier 

 to suppose two Shaksperes. Yet I have heard people say it is far from being a large tree. A 

 small one it cannot be, with a house in its shadow — an unawakened house that looks as if it were 

 dreaming. True, 'tis but a cottage, a Westmoreland cottage. But then it has several roofs shelv- 

 ing away there in the lustre of loveliest lichens ; each roof with its own assortment of doves and 

 pigeons preening their pinions in the morning pleasance. Oh, sweetest and shadiest of all syca- 

 mores, we love thee beyond all other trees!" 



