Rawnsley, and deals with such
reminiscences of Wordsworth as still linger among the peasantry of
Westmoreland. Mr. Rawnsley grew up, he tells us, in the immediate
vicinity of the present Poet-Laureate's old home in Lincolnshire, and had
been struck with the swiftness with which,

As year by year the labourer tills
His wonted glebe, or lops the glades,

the memories of the poet of the Somersby Wold had 'faded from off the
circle of the hills'--had, indeed, been astonished to note how little
real interest was taken in him or his fame, and how seldom his works were
met with in the houses of the rich or poor in the very neighbourhood.
Accordingly, when he came to reside in the Lake Country, he endeavoured
to find out what of Wordsworth's memory among the men of the Dales still
lingered on--how far he was still a moving presence among them--how far
his works had made their way into the cottages and farmhouses of the
valleys. He also tried to discover how far the race of Westmoreland and
Cumberland farm-folk--the 'Matthews' and the 'Michaels' of the poet, as
described by him--were real or fancy pictures, or how far the characters
of the Dalesmen had been altered in any remarkable manner by tourist
influences during the thirty-two years that have passed since the Lake
poet was laid to rest.

With regard to the latter point, it will be remembered that Mr. Ruskin,
writing in 1876, said that 'the Border peasantry, painted with absolute
fidelity by Scott and Wordsworth,' are, as hitherto, a scarcely injured
race; that in his fields at Coniston he had men who might have fought
with Henry V. at Agincourt without being distinguished from any of his
knights; that he could take his tradesmen's word for a thousand pounds,
and need never latch his garden gate; and that he did not fear
molestation, in wood or on moor, for his girl guests. Mr. Rawnsley,
however, found that a certain beauty had vanished which the simple
retirement of old valley days fifty years ago gave to the men among whom
Wordsworth lived. 'The strangers,' he says, 'with their gifts of gold,
their vulgarity, and their requirements, have much to answer for.' As
for their impressions of Wordsworth, to understand them one must
understand the vernacular of the Lake District. 'What was Mr. Wordsworth
like in personal appearance?' said Mr. Rawnsley once to an old retainer,
who still lives not far from Rydal Mount. 'He was a ugly-faaced man, and
a mean liver,' was the answer; but all that was really meant was that he
was a man of marked features, and led a very simple life in matters of
food and raiment. Another old man, who believed that Wordsworth 'got
most of his poetry out of Hartley,' spoke of the poet's wife as 'a very
onpleasant woman, very onpleasant indeed. A close-fisted woman, that's
what she was.' This, however, seems to have been merely a tribute to
Mrs. Wordsworth's admirable housekeeping qualities.

The first person interviewed by Mr. Rawnsley was an old lady who had been
once in service at Rydal Mount, and was, in 1870, a lodging-house keeper
at Grasmere. She was not a very imaginative person, as may be gathered
from the following anecdote:--Mr. Rawnsley's sister came in from a late
evening walk, and said, 'O Mrs.