GRASMERE LAKE

A SKETCH, BY A COCKNEY!^{* -- CLICK HERE TO VIEW ENGRAVING}

Certainly when one is young, one is taught a great deal of useful knowledge; why it is called useful, I can't tell; it has never been of any use to me: but among other things which I then learnt by heart, is a piece of ancient history. Plato ordained that poetry should not be permitted in his republic. I wish I had lived under such a well-regulated government, I had not then been the victim of an over-excited imagination. Some persons have had their happiness destroyed by their wives; others by their children; others, a still more numerous class, by their creditors. Mine has been destroyed by poetry. Oh! that I had never read Cowper's Task, or Thomson's Seasons; or that the days of my youth would return, attended by my present experience, or they would be no good to me. The truth is, that I am an unfortunate individual smitten with

"The sacred loves of nature and of song."

Not that I ever wrote verses; I respected them too much, to dream of attaining unto them myself. No, I merely read them at every leisure moment; was never without a book in ;my pocket; and, resolved to practise their precepts at my earliest convenience, the country became

"My hope by day, my dream by night."

I never passed through the Strand, without repeating

"Oh, for a home in some vast wilderness!

A boundless contiguity of shade,

Where noise of human suffering or guilt

Might never reach me more."

I never drove out in my gig on a Sunday, and saw a cottage with a green door, a pear-tree nailed against the wall, and French-beans growing naturally in the garden, without wishing,

"Oh, that some home like this for me would smile!"

My taste for the beauties of nature, as pointed out by the poets, showed itself even in the arrangements of my shop window. I always whispered to myself and I watched the graceful ribbons mimic some gay parterre,

"Such beauties does Flora disclose,

When she smiles on the banks of the Tweed."

Red ribbons always suggested,

"The rose, which here unfolds

Her paradise of leaves."

And white satin was like

"The lady-lily, paler than the moon."

At length, my brother died. I should have been sorry, ,only he left me a legacy. A house in the country was worth "fifty thousand brothers." I flung aside my blue gauzes, and thought of violets,

"Which come before the swallow dares, and take

The winds of March with beauty."

I folded up my maize silks, and thought of the yellow daffodil,

"Bending its image o'er the watery clearness,

Wooing its own sad beauty into nearness."

I dismissed my foulards, intent on those radiant foulards of the garden:

"Tulips, that every shade of colour wear."

"The harvest of a quiet eye,

That sleeps and broods on its own heart."

"My banks they are furnished with bees,

Whose murmur invites one to sleep."

"Oh solitude! where are the charms

That sages have seen in thy face?"

I lean day after day over the little gate of my garden, and the lane in my Sister Anne; I keep asking it, "Is any body coming?" and I only get the same answer as the unfortunate heroine in Blue Beard,

"'Tis the sun that shines bright, and the grass that grows green."

I would sell my house, but no one will buy it; and besides, there is such a thing as shame in the world: I wish I had not said so much about my happiness on leaving London. People ought to be grateful: I have done a great deal for the poets; is there not one among them to do something for me? I entreat them to recollect that I have read them, which is a great deal; I have bought them, which is still more; and I have reduced their theory to practice, which is most of all. They owe me a recompense, and I have a plan in my head. I want one of them to come and commit suicide in my garden, and leave a paper behind requesting to be interred in that very spot. He might assign any reason his imagination suggested, and I would take care that religious attention should be paid to his last wish; indeed, it is for that I desire his death. He shall be buried under my fine old apple-tree: think how beautiful the pink and white blossoms will strew his grave in spring! and I will plant over it my finest double violets, with a succession of polyanthuses and pinks; besides going to the expense of a handsome table in white marble; or I would not even grudge an urn, with a veiled figure, like that on the lid of a black teapot, weeping over it. My house would then be put down in the guide-books, and all travellers informed "that it would be very desirable for them to go a little out of their way, to see the beautiful monument erected to the memory of the well-known and unfortunate Mr. , so celebrated for his genius, his misfortunes, and his death." I might then hope to see a little company. I would keep a book in the summer-house for them to write their names and reminiscences, also some of Bramah's patent pens, and an inkstand. Moreover, if the worshippers of talent should bring their provisions with them, (pic-nics, I am told, are common among the ruins of Rome,) they should be welcome to the use of the grass-plot; and I would lend them glasses, and knives and forks, articles which being indispensable, are always forgotten on such occasions: when it rains, which it usually does on all parties of pleasure, they should also be indulged in the use of my two parlours, with the passage between them.

Nota bene, Visitors are at liberty to take what flowers they might want to strew over the grave.