The Express.
London, England, 1859-01-20 00:00:00

She was a phsatotz of delight,

and some things in the next few pegs' look like it ;
but for the greater part of the poet's life it was cer-
tainly believed by some who ought to know that
that wonderful description related to another, who
flitted beforehis imagination in earlier days than those
in which he discovered the aptitude of Mary
Hutchinson to his own needs. The last stanza is
very like her; and her husband's sonnet to the
painter of her portrait in old age discloses to us bow
the first stanza might be so also, in days beyond the
ken of the existing generation. Of bar early sorrows,
in the loss of two children and a beloved sister who
was domesticated with the family, there are pro-
, bably no living witnesses. It will never be for-
gotten by any who saw it how the late dreary train
of afflictions sou met. For many years Words-
worth's sister Dorothy was a melancholy charge.
Mrs. Wordsworth was wont to warn any rash en-
thusiasts for mountain walking by the spectacle
before them. The adoring sister would never fail
her brother; and she destroyed her health, and then
her reason, by exhausting walks, and wrong reme-
dies for the consequences. Forty miles in a
day eras not a singular feat of Dorothy's.
During the long years of this devoted creature's help-
lessness she was tended with admirable cheerfulness
and good sense. Thousands of Lake tourists moat
remember the locked garden gate when Mies Words-
worth was taking the air, and the garden chair
going round and round the terrace, with the ema-
ciated little woman in it, who occasionally called
out to strangers, and amused them with her clever
sayings. She outlived the beloved Doty, Words-
worth's only surviving daughter. After the lingering
illness of that daughter (Mrs. Quillinan) the mother
encountered the dresriest portion, probably, of her
life. Her aged husband used to spend the long
winter evenings in grief and tears—week after week,
month after month. Neither of them had eyes for
reading. He could not be comforted. She, who
carried as tender a maternal heart as ever beat, had
to bear her own grief and his too. She grew
whiter and smaller, so as to be greatly
changed in a few months but this was
the only expression of what she endured, and
be did not discover it. When he too left her it
was seen how disinterested had been her trouble.
When his trouble hail ceased, she toe was relieved.
She followed his coffin to the sacred corner of
Grasmere churchyard, where lsv now all those who
had once made her home. She joined the household
guests on their return from the funeral, and made
tea u usual. And this was the disinterested spirit
which carried her through the last few years, till she
had just reached the ninetieth. Even then, she had
strength to combat disease for many days. Several
times she rallied and relapsed ; and she was fall of
alacrity of mind and body as long as exertion of any
kind was possible. There were many eager to render
all duty and love—her two sone, nieces, arid friends,
and a whole sympatbisiog neighbourhood.
The question commonly asked by visitors to that
corner of Grasmere churchyard was—where would
she be laid when the time came, the space was so
completely filled. The cluster of stones told of the
little children who died a long lifetime ago ; of the
sisters Sarah Hutchinson and Dorothy Wordsworth,
and of Mr. Quillinan, and his two wives, Dora lying
between her husband and father, and seeming to
occupy her mother's rightful place. And Hartley
Coleridge lies next the family group; and others
press closely round. There is room, however. The
large grey stone which bears the name of William
Wordsworth has ample space left for another inscrip-
tion ; and the grave beneath has ample spies also
for his faithful life.companion.
Not one is left now of the eminent persons who
rendered that cluster of valleys so eminent as it has
bus. Dr. Arnold went firat in the vigour of his,