31st October 1824

Took a walk got some branches of the spindle tree with its pink-colord berrys that shine beautifully in the pale sun found for the first time 'the herb true love' or 'one berry' in Oxey Wood brought a root home to set in my garden—lookd into the 2 Vols of Sermons from Lord Radstock the texts are well selected & the sermons are plain & sensibly written they are in my mind much superior to Blairs popular Sermons & that is not going great lengths in their praise for Blairs are quiet & cold & his study seems more in the eloquence & flow of Style then in the doctrine of religion for the language is beautiful but it is studied like Dr Johnson's musical periods

30th October 1824

Recievd a present of 2 Volumes of Sermons On the Doctrines & Practice of Christianity from Lord Radstock he is one of my best friends & not of much kin with the world. The chrysanthemums are just opening their beautiful double flowers I have 6 sorts this year the claret-coloured the buff the bright yellow the paper-white the purple & the rose-coloured lost one—the chocolate or coffee-color—promisd more from Milton

29th October 1824

Read some poems of Wordsworth his 'Lucy Gray' or Solitude 'The Pet Lamb' 'We are Seven' the Oak & broom 'the Eglantine & the Fountain' Two April Mornings are some of my greatest favourites When I first began to read poetry I dislikd Wordworth because I heard he was dislikd & I was astonishd when I lookd into him to find my mistaken pleasure in being delighted & finding him so natural & beautiful in his 'White Doe of Rylstone" there is some of the sweetest poetry I ever met with tho full of his mysteries.

28th October 1824

Wrote a letter to Mrs Gilchrist read some passages in Shakespear turnd over a few leaves of Knox's Essays- read Bacon's essay on the idea of a compleat garden divided into every month of the year in which the flowers bloom what beautiful Essays these are I take them up like Shakespear & read them over & still find plenty to entertain me & new thoughts that strike me as if for the first time

27th October 1824

I have been much stuck with some passages in the Poems of Aaron Hill with many happy expressions & original images I have inserted a few of them in Appendix he seems to struggle to free his ideas from the turnpike hackney-isms of sounding rhymes & tinkling periods then in fashion for most of the rhymers of that day seem to catch their little inspirations from Pope.

26th October 1824

Recievd a letter from Allan Cunningham— looked into Pope I know not how it is but I cannot take him up often or read him long together the uninterrupted flow of the verses wearys the ear there are some fine passages in the 'Essay on Man' the Pastorals are nicknamed so for daffodils breathing flutes beachen bowls silver crooks purling brooks & such like everlasting singsong does not make pastorals. His prologue to the Satires is good but that celebrated Epitaph on Gay ends burlesquely.

25th October 1824

Old Shepherd Newman dyed this morning an old tenant of the fields & the last of the old shepherds the fields are now left desolate & his old haunts look like houses disinhabited the fading woods seem mourning in the autumn wind how often hath he seen the blue skye the green fields & woods & the season's changes now he sleeps unconscious of all what a desolate mystery doth it leave round the living mind the end of Gray's 'Elegy' might well be applied to this tenant of the fields—'Oft have we seen him'