Morning journal and courier., 1890-11-01
THE FLEETING SHOW.


of the Rev. w. Smithson; Judge Rose,
son of the Rev Samuel Rose.
THE FLEETING SHOW.
Some of Its Facts and Fancies.
Written for the JOURNAL AND CoURIER.l
DOVE COTTAGE.
A delightfully."- written brochure by Rev.
Stopford Brooke of London is being sold
in England for the purpose of adding to
the fund for purchasing Dove Cottage, the
little home at Grasmere where Words
worth lived with his sister Dorothy, to
which in 1902 he brought his bride, and
where four of their five children were
born. The house was once way-side inn
was also called "Town End" being the
last of the cluster of buildings which in
Wordsworth's time made up the hamlet of
Grasmere.
1t was most lovely and picturesque re-
treat, in beautiful valley, the lake,
with it's "solemn ark-like island" its little
bays and wild sylvan margin feathered to
the edge with flowers and ferns, lay just
before it; behind it, with a vast and seem
ingly never ending series of ascents, Great
Rigg rose to the height of more than
three thousand feet. "a lovely land
scarcely rock, or slope Of grass, or sheep
fed nook of which had not heard Words
worth murmuring his poems"
The rooms Of the house were small as
those of a laborer's cottage, but they re-
mained here until the nest grew too mar
row for them. They had at first barely
enough to live upon. Dorothy, with all
her genius, did servants work. William,
''thrilled incessantly with the glory of the
universe, able to shape all he felt into
song" chopped the wood and titled the
garden, and Mary, that bsnignant, silent
creature, of whom it was alleged that she
| could only say sGod bless you'll" cared for
| the little brood who frolicked about or
| slept in cradle OF clothes basket beside the
| kitchen fire.
Here was plain living and high thinking,
happiness born of abiding affection, good
books, good society and increasing honor,
"yet the life was as simple, as settled in
round of daily duties as that of any shep-
herd in the dale. And out of it arose
new poetry, power which will draw after
| it forever the hearts of men, voice which
| always calls us to live with those great
laws which never grow old, for an immor-
| tai God is in them"
| To this peaceful little home came John
Wordsworth, "a silent poet" who loved
the cottage and helped to furnish it and to
| make the garden; Thomas Clarkson, the
abolitionist, to whom Wordsworth ad-
dressed a sonnet when the bill for the
abolition of the slave trade was passed; !;
Humphrey Davy, gracious and playful;
De Quincy, who lived in this house for
twenty years after the Wordsworth's left
|, it, with his five thousand books, and, un-
| fortunately, his opium; here came Southey
and Lloyd and Sir George Beaumont; Wal
ter Scott brought his wife for visit, and
with Davy and Wordsworth climbed to the
top of Helvellyn, where they
Stood rejoicing as if earth were free
From sorrow like the sky above our heads.
And here, too, Coleridge used often to
visit, striding over the hills with a sack
full of books and bunch of
mountain ash in his hands, or bringing his
little son Hartley to romp with young
John and Dora Wordsworth; these were
the friends whom they delighted to enter
tain and with whom they rambled about
the lovely valley, or toiled up the nights,
or in the orchard or by the freside, read
together or conversed of noble and beauti-
full things.
Many of Wordsworth's finest poems were
written during his nine years. tenancy of
Dove cottage, the "Ode to Duty" '"rhe
Happy Warrior" ''The Daffodils," to
which his wife added the two lines that
|
most of the series of sonnets, '"The
Cuckoo" the "Robin and the Butterfly -
'sThe Green Linnet," and many other
poems of nature inspired by home happi-
ness and the beautiful surroundings;
i Michael" the whole of the prelude
and much of ''The Excursion" at which he
worked morning after morning, and all
the lovely band of poems on ''The Naming
of Places" Almost every poem published
in the second volume of Lyrical Ballads
were written here, and it was here thai
he received the printed volume. The ode
'Tntimations of Immortality" was beguI
if not completed in this house, 'alon,
enough to hallow its walls forever" i
was the time in fact of his best effort
when poems sprang as it were from hi,
lips with that speed and force which be
longed to the poetry of Burns and Keats
1t was during visit to Grasmere tina
Mr.. Brooke conceived the idea of buyin,
the cottage and fitting it up, to be secured
forever, as Shakespeare's birthplace is Sc
, cured, for the possession of those VIII,
love English poety all over the world.
is proposed to purchase, at the offered pric
of 1850, the cottage and adjoining field
The rooms are to be arranged as durin,
, Wordsworth's occupation, and fitted vi
with the books, furniture and other me
MORALS of the past; the garden is to be re
t what they were and their very position i
known from Dorothy's journals; the fiel,
be set with trees and shrubbery, and tn
| little arbor where he used to write rebuilt
, When this is done it is thought that ther
will be enough money received from visit
ors to support the place and keep it in OF
Q der, as thousands of visitors pass through
8 Grasmere every year, sometimes three o
I four hundred day during tn
season, and the greater numbe
= of these travellers come to visit the hom
g and the haunts of Wordsworth. Ryds
n Mount, where he lived for thiIty-seve
years, has not the romantic interest al
tached to this home of his youth and i:
h moreover, vigorously shut against the pull
O lic There is really no place intimatel
associated with the poet, which is oper
l. except the churchyard where he is buried
" The proposition to make Dove cottage
i Memorial house is meeting with favor i
" this country as well as in England 1t
hoped that the best assistance will com,
in small subscriptions, from the large bod
d of men and women to whom Wordsworth
It poetry has been "in the noises, sicknei
"a and trouble of life, quiet and healing an
! strength" and, as says Mr.. E. A. Horto
10 in the Boston Herald, eff each one WI
rt has found in the poet gain of mind or
t. lift of feeling, an increase of life th
ae springs from admiration, wonder, Sill
plicity and hope, should remit somethir
10 the result would be astonishing"
MORE MNEMoNIcs.
Does it perplex you to name at once Il
10 keyof musical composition, failing
rs recognize the signature, and do you ther
ae fore count the number of fats or shar
io in the signature and announce that it
y written in two sharps or four flats, as t
oi case may bes This is not exactly "spea
mt ing by the book" There is no key of ty
he sharps, but there is key of D, and t
No signature indicating this relationship
=. tones consists of two sharps. One mig
''s as well be precise, even if not professicn'
cy and there is simple method of mel
,st orizing these signatures which is probah
Of not to be found in the books.
- Seven is q magical number. In lege
at and history, and holy writ we find it us
is repeatedly To the Jew it symbolic
perfection, the Greek considered it
cred number, the Egyptians, the ancie