Letter from William Wordsworth, Coleorton, to Lady Beaumont Beaumont, 1806 December : autograph manuscript.

Setting forth his very detailed plans for her Winter Garden; thanking her for the opportunity to work on the garden and describing, at length and in detail, his plans; quoting eight lines from Thomson's Ode on Solitude beginning with "Oh" let me pierce thy secret cell," and ending with "Then shield me in the woods again;" organizing his explanation of the plans with descriptions of each section, the walls, the views, and the plant species both inside and outside the garden walls; saying "The Place is to be consecrated to Winter, and I have only spoken of it in that point of view, confining myself to the time when the deciduous trees are not in leaf. But it would also be a delightful retreat from the summer Sun. We think in this climate only of evergreens as a shelter from the cold, but they are chiefly natives of hot climates, and abound most there. The woods of Africa are full of them. A word before I conclude. I have only given the Garden two settled Inhabitants, the pair of Fishes in the pool; but, in the early spring, Bees, much more attended to in the stillness of that season, would murmur round the flowers and blossoms, and all the winter long it would be enlivened by Birds which would resort thither for covert;" transcribing six lines of Burns' poem "The vision" beginning with the line "'And wear though this'--she solemn said," ending with "In light away"; adding "I am sensible that I have written a very pretty Romance in this Letter, and when I look at the ground in its present state and think of what it must continue to be, for some years, I am afraid you will call me an Enthusiast and a Visionary. I am willing to submit to this, as I am seriously convinced that if proper pains were taken to select healthy and vigorous plants, and to forward their growth less than six years would transform it into something that might be looked at with pleasure. Fifty would make it a paradise. O! that I could convert my little Dorothy into a Fairy to realise the whole in half a day;" commending Mr. Craig for the help he has been to him and the work he is doing on other parts of the grounds; closing with a transcription of a seven line passage from Mr. Graham's "Birds of Scotland" beginning with "The hawthorn there," and ending with "The dying rose"; adding, "My dear Lady Beaumont, I have now written you the longest Letter I ever wrote in my life, heaven forbid that I should often draw so largely upon the patience of my friends."