LIFE AT ELLEKAY. 101 



About the same time he took an excursion into Scotland. Be- 

 fore starting, he addressed De Quincey as follows : — 



" My dear De Quincey : — I am obliged to leave this to-morrow 

 for Glasgow. I therefore trouble you with this note in case you 

 should think of coming over during my absence. I expect to re- 

 turn to Elleray in a few days, yet there is an uncertainty attending 

 every motion of mine, and possibly of yours also. If you are ready 

 for a start, I will go with you to-morrow on foot through Kentmere 

 and Hawesdale to Penrith, and on Monday you can easily return by 

 Ulleswater to Grasmere. The fine weather may induce you.* If 

 you feel a wish to look at Glasgow and Edinburgh, would you take 

 a trip with me on the top of the coach ? I will pledge myself to 

 return with you within eight days. If so, or if you agree to the 

 first plan only, my pony or horse is with my servant who carries 

 this, and you can come here upon it. I hope you will do so. 

 There is no occasion for wardrobe. I take nothing with me, and 

 we can get a change of linen. The expense will be small to us. 



" Tours ever affectionately, 



"John Wilson. 



" Elleray, Saturday, 1809." 



Of this pedestrian excursion we have a glimpse in the biographi- 

 cal notice of his friend John Finlay, with whom they spent a few 

 hours at Moffat.f 



I now come to speak of his poetry, and I am fortunately enabled, 

 from the preservation of his letters to his friend Mr. John Smith, 

 the Glasgow publisher, to give some account of his first publication, 

 for which the materials should otherwise have been wanting. The 

 first trace I find in MS. of poems afterwards published is in the year 

 1807. A small note-book contains a considerable number of son- 

 nets, composed in the autumn of that year, a selection from which 

 appeared among the miscellaneous pieces appended to The Isle of 

 Palms. His commonplace-books contain the whole of the latter 



* The proposal to walk over so much ground proclaims De Quincey to have been no -weak pe- 

 destrian. Although he was a man considerably under height and slender of form, he was capable 

 of undergoing great fatigue, and took constant exercise. The very fact of his being a walking 

 companion of Wilson's speaks well for his strength, which was not unfrequeritly taxed when 

 such a tryst was kept. Perhaps, in later years, of the two men he preserved his activity more 

 entirfi. 



t Blackwood, vol. li., p. 188. 



