No poem of Wordsworth's is more minutely connected with the lake land than this. The route described is over White Moss Common (middle road) through Wytheburn, St. John's Vale, to Keswick.

Three other poets have dealt with some aspects of this route of Benjamin: Gray in his Journal in the Lakes, Scott, in "The Bridal of Triermain," and Matthew Arnold in "Resignation."

"Several years after the event that forms the subject of the Poem, in company with my friend, the late Mr. Coleridge, I happened to fall in with the person to whom the name of Benjamin is given. Upon our expressing regret that we had not, for a long time, seen upon the road either him or his wagon, he said, 'They could not do without me; and as to the man who was put in my place, no good could come out of him; he was a man of no ideas.'

"The fact of my discarded hero's getting the horses out of a great difficulty with a word, as related in the poem, was told me by an eyewitness." W. W.

CANTO FIRST. Line 3. the buzzing dor-hawk, etc. When the Poem was first written the note of the bird was thus described:

"The Night-hawk is singing his frog-like tune,
Twirling his watchman's rattle about - "

but from unwillingness to startle the reader at the outset by so bold a mode of expression, the passage was altered as it now stands. W. W.

Line 34. Now he leaves the lower ground. Takes the road over White Moss Common.

Line 53. Dove and Olive-bough. The sign which used to hang from Dove Cottage when it was a public house.

Line 88. Swan. The public house on the right of the road leading from Dove Cottage to Dunmail Raise.

Line 90. painted. Of this sign Wordsworth wrote in 1819, "This rude piece of self-taught art (such is the progress of refinement) has been supplanted by a professional production."

Line 168. Helm-crag. A mountain of Grasmere, the broken summit of which presents two figures, full as distinctly shaped as that of the famous Cobbler near Arroquhar in Scotland. W. W.

On the terrace at Under Lancrigg, Helm Crag, Wordsworth composed most of "The Prelude."

Line 209. pile of stones. on the Raise.

Still to be seen

CANTO SECOND. Line 1. modest House of prayer. This chapel still stands opposite Nags Head Inn.

Line 22. Cherry Tree. This still stands, but is no longer used as a public house.

Line 30. Merry-night. A term well known in the North of England, as applied to rural festivals where young persons meet in the evening for the purpose of dancing. W. W.

Line 97. fiddle's squeak. At the close of each strathspey, or jig, a particular note from the fiddle summons the Rustic to the agreeable duty of saluting his partner. W. W.

CANTO THIRD. Line 28. Can any mortal clog, etc. After the line, "Can any mortal clog come to her," followed in the MS. an incident which has been kept back. Part of the suppressed verses shall here be given as a gratification of private feeling, which the well-disposed reader will find no difficulty in excusing. They are now printed for the first time.

"Can any mortal clog come to her?
It can:.

But Benjamin, in his vexation,
Possesses inward consolation;

He knows his ground, and hopes to find
A spot with all things to his mind,
An upright mural block of stone,
Moist with pure water trickling down.
A slender spring; but kind to man
It is, a true Samaritan;

Close to the highway, pouring out
Its offering from a chink or spout;
Whence all, howe'er athirst, or drooping
With toil, may drink, and without stooping.
Cries Benjamin, Where is it, where?
Voice it hath none, but must be near,'
A star, declining towards the west,
Upon the watery surface threw
Its image tremulously imprest,

That just marked out the object and withdrew,
Right welcome service!

ROCK OF NAMES

Light is the strain, but not unjust
To Thee, and thy memorial trust
That once seemed only to express
Love that was love in idleness;
Tokens, as year hath followed year
How changed, alas, in character!

For they were graven on thy smooth breast
By hands of those my soul loved best;
Meek women, men as true and brave
As ever went to a hopeful grave:
Their hands and mine, when side by side
With kindred zeal and mutual pride,
We worked until the Initials took
Shapes that defied a scornful look. —
Long as for us a genial feeling
Survives, or one in need of healing,
The power, dear Rock, around thee cast,
Thy monumental power, shall last
For me and mine! O thought of pain,
That would impair it or profane!
Take all in kindness then, as said
With a staid heart but playful head;

This stone was preserved from spoliation by the care of Nature; for by the water which came from a little rill on the mountain side the face became covered with moss and lichens so as to conceal the initials. When the city of Manchester gained possession of Thirlmere, and was about to convert it into a reservoir, the rock would have been submerged by the rising water of the lake when it became dammed up, but for the thoughtfulness of Canon Rawnsley, who removed it to higher ground beside the new road.

CANTO FOURTH. Line 17. murmuring Greta. In the vale of St. John.

Line 19. Raven-crag. On the western side of Thirlmere.

Line 21. Ghimmer-crag. The crag of the ewe lamb. W. W. This is not easily determined, as no crag now bears that name. think it is Fisher Crag.

Some

Line 37. Nathdale Fell. The ridge, High Rigg, between Naddle Vale and that of St. John's.

Line 43. Threlkeld-hall. The part of this not in ruins is used as a farmhouse.

Line 61. Castrigg. Castlerigg, the ridge between Naddle Vale and Keswick.

and poet. It is this truth, revealed not so much to the eye of reason as to the eye of the soul, which renders the life of men and of nations divine.

Page 342. THE HORN OF EGREMONT CASTLE.

The scene of this poem is the old castle near the town of Egremont, on the river Eden, not far from St. Bees.

"This story is a Cumberland tradition. I have heard it also related of the Hall of Hutton John, an ancient residence of the Hudlestons, in a sequestered valley upon the river Dacor." W. W.

Page 345. "YES, IT WAS THE MOUNTAIN ECHO."

The relative position of the mountains in the district renders the production of echoes a common one. To one rowing upon Grasmere or Rydal Lake the voice is repeated with great variety; while the echoes from the blasting at the quarries remind one of the cannonading effect of thunder in our own Catskills.

Often while on Loughrigg Fells have I heard the voice of the cuckoo from across Rydal Mere. The terrace along the side of Loughrigg is one of the favorite walks. No stone is to be found bearing Dorothy's name, and it is well that it is safe from the hand of the Philistine who has marred so many of these memorials.

The note of liberty as developing under restraint is a common one in Wordsworth's poetry. See "Ode to Duty."

Sir Henry Taylor says: "It may be noted that self-repetition is almost invariably incident to men of genius and constitutes a great element of their power."

Page 346. PERSONAL TALK.

Wordsworth found a new use for the sonnet, and turned its force into fresh channels. While others had addressed several sonnets to the same person, no one until his time had so united a series that, while each sonnet was complete in itself, it at the same time formed a stanza of a larger poem. The four following, entitled "Personal Talk," illustrate this unity, evolution, and completeness.

Wordsworth's domestic life was one of the brightest in the history of literary genius. Free, joyous, and contented in his cottage home

Page 352. LINES COMPOSED AT GRASMERE. Line 10. Importuna e grave salma." MICHAEL ANGELO. W. W.

Line 17. A Power, etc. Charles James Fox, Minister of Foreign Affairs, succeeded William Pitt. He died Sept. 13, 1806.

The description in the first stanza is extremely accurate, for in any of the vales of the district the effect of a sudden shower, even, is such as to produce a unison of voices from the becks, while the position of the mountains causes the sounds to be reverberated, as mentioned in a previous note.

Page 352. NOVEMBER 1806.

46

Lines 13, 14. Danger which they fear, and

honour which they understand not." Words in Lord Brooke's Life of Sir P. Sidney. W. W.

Page 353. ODE, INTIMATIONS OF IMMOR

TALITY.

To those familiar with Wordsworth's work before this date, the philosophy of this Ode will seem what in truth it is, the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge." The two moods in which the poet is represented are but a reflection of what we have so often seen in his poetry, the relation of the soul to sense, and the possibility that the former may forget its celestial birth. The subject of the poem-the origin, development, and destiny of the human soul-has seldom been absent from his poetry, but the treatment is in striking contrast to his former methods. The total effect is perhaps the grandest in the literature of the century, so that the term inspired is not forced when applied to the poet who could produce such a result.

66

66

The chief value of the poem arises from the fact that it never descends to the plane of mere argument; it ever keeps on the high ground of the essential identity of our childish instincts and our enlightened reason. The deepest truths of the soul cannot be argued, they must be lived. In the first four stanzas we have the experience of our common humanity. Doomed as we are to go in company with fear and sor row, - miserable train," - how are we to prevent ourselves from "wronging" the joy of the life that is about us? The poet, in the next four stanzas, answers the question by reviewing the history of the soul, and tracing the steps by which it reached that stage. He finds that it is because the soul has become centred in the seen and the temporal, and has thus lost its glory and its beauty; it has wellnigh_destroyed its spiritual vision. In the concluding stanzas he shows us that this may be regained, and that the melancholy fear may be subdued by a return to those simple ways in which our childhood walked. We must become as little children in this life of the soul, and by blending early intuition and mature reason we shall be able to see into the life of things. Thus it is that the poet teaches better science than the scientist, better philosophy than the philosopher, and better religion than the priest. Every line of the poem is worthy of the closest study.

Lines 67-76. Ruskin cites these lines in Modern Painters, "Ideas of Infinity," as revealing the work of one whose authority is almost without appeal on all questions relating to the influence of external things upon the pure human soul."

In October, 1806, the Wordsworths and Sara Hutchinson left Dove Cottage for Coleorton, Leicestershire, to spend the winter at a farmhouse of Sir George Beaumont. While there, Wordsworth planned the grounds of Coleorton Hall and wrote many poems which forever associate him with the historic place. Here Scott and Coleridge visited him. On hearing "The Prelude " recited to him here.

Coleridge wrote that pathetic poem "To a Gentleman." Sir George Beaumont was an artist of repute and a lover of letters. His intimate and helpful relations to Wordsworth and Coleridge will be found recorded in Memorials of Coleorton.

Page 356. THOUGHT OF A BRiton on the SUBJUGATION OF SWITZERLAND.

In 1802 Napoleon crushed out the liberties of Switzerland, in 1807 he was master of Europe, and was making gigantic preparations to invade England.

Page 356. To THOMAS CLARKSON, ON THE FINAL PASSING OF THE BILL FOR THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE.

Clarkson's work began when he selected his subject for his Latin essay at St. John's College, Cambridge: "Anne liceat invitos in servitutem dare?" From that time he devoted himself to the abolition of the slave trade. The most powerful opposition arose against him, and not until the accession of Fox, in 1806, did the cause gain advantage in Parliament; in March, 1807, the Government declared the slave trade illegal.

Clarkson lived from 1795 to 1806 at Eusmere, 'near Ullswater, where the Wordsworths were frequent guests.

Page 357. THE MOTHER'S Return.

The Fenwick note here is incorrect, as the poem was written at Coleorton by Dorothy, when Wordsworth and Mary were in London.

66

"Mrs. Wordsworth has a strong impression that The Mother's Return' was written at Coleorton, where Miss Wordsworth was then staying with the children, during the absence of the former." W. W.

Page 358. To LADY BEAUMONT.

Many memorials of Wordsworth's skill as a landscape artist are to be seen in the grounds at Coleorton.

Page 358.

"THOUGH NARROW BE THAT OLD MAN'S CARES."

Line 10. Seven Whistlers. A kind of weird sisters, according to the old tradition.

Line 12. Gabriel's Hounds. Alluding to the cry of wild geese when in flight, which sounds like a pack of beagles in full cry.

Page 359. SONG AT THE FEAST OF BROUGHAM CASTLE.

Henry Lord Clifford, etc., who is the subject of this Poem, was the son of John Lord Clifford, who was slain at Towton Field, which John Lord Clifford, as is known to the reader of English history, was the person who after the battle of Wakefield slew, in the pursuit, the young Earl of Rutland, son of the Duke of York, who had fallen in the battle, "in part of revenge" (say the Authors of the History of Cumberland and Westmoreland); "for the

Earl's Father had slain his." A deed which worthily blemished the author (saith Speed); but who, as he adds, "dare promise any thing temperate of himself in the heat of martial fury? chiefly, when it was resolved not to leave any branch of the York line standing; for so one maketh this Lord to speak." This, no doubt, I would observe by the bye, was an action sufficiently in the vindictive spirit of the times, and yet not altogether so bad as represented; "for the Earl was no child, as some writers would have him, but able to bear arms, being sixteen or seventeen years of age, as is evident from this (say the Memoirs of the Countess of Pembroke, who was laudably anxious to wipe away, as far as could be, this stigma from the illustrious name to which she was born), that he was the next Child to King Edward the Fourth, which his mother had by Richard Duke of York, and that King was then eighteen years of age: and for the small distance betwixt her children, see Austin Vincent, in his Book of Nobility, p. 622, where he writes of them all." It may further be observed, that Lord Clifford, who was then himself only twenty-five years of age, had been a leading man and commander two or three years together in the army of Lancaster, before this time; and, therefore, would be less likely to think that the Earl of Rutland might be entitled to mercy from his youth. — But, independent of this act, at best a cruel and savage one, the Family of Clifford had done enough to draw upon them the vehement hatred of the House of York: so that after the Battle of Towton there was no hope for them but in flight and concealment. Henry, the subject of the Poem, was deprived of his estate and honours during the space of twenty-four years; all which time he lived as a shepherd in Yorkshire, or in Cumberland, where the estate of his Father-in-law (Sir Lancelot Threlkeld) lay. He was restored to his estate and honours in the first year of Henry the Seventh. It is recorded that, "when called to Parliament, he behaved nobly and wisely; but otherwise came seldom to London or the Court; and rather delighted to live in the country, where he repaired several of his Castles, which had gone to decay during the late troubles." Thus far is chiefly collected from Nicholson and Burn; and I can add, from my own knowledge, that there is a tradition current in the village of Threlkeld and its neighbourhood, his principal retreat, that in the course of his shepherd-life he had acquired great astronomical knowledge. I cannot conclude this note without adding a word upon the subject of those numerous and noble feudal Edifices, spoken of in the Poem, the ruins of some of which are, at this day, so great an ornament to that interesting country. The Cliffords had always been distinguished for an honourable pride in these Castles; and we have seen that, after the wars of York and Lancaster, they were rebuilt; in the civil wars of Charles the First they were again laid waste, and again restored almost to their former mag

nificence by the celebrated Lady Anne Clifford, Countess of Pembroke, etc. Not more than twenty-five years after this was done, when the estates of Clifford had passed into the Family of Tufton, three of these Castles, namely, Brough, Brougham, and Pendragon, were demolished, and the timber and other materials sold by Thomas Earl of Thanet. We will hope that, when this order was issued, the Earl had not consulted the text of Isaiah, 58th chap., 12th verse, to which the inscription placed over the gate of Pendragon Castle by the Countess of Pembroke (I believe his Grandmother), at the time she repaired that structure, refers the reader:-"And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in. The Earl of Thanet, the present possessor of the Estates, with a due respect for the memory of his ancestors, and a proper sense of the value and beauty of these remains of antiquity, has (I am told) given orders that they shall be preserved from all depredations. W. W.

Lines 1-4. Brougham Castle is situated on the river Emont, about one mile and a half from Penrith. It is now in ruins. During the last half of the sixteenth century the castle was neglected, and it suffered much as Furness Abbey has suffered, the stone of which has been used for dwellings. Brave and bonny Cumberland during the Border Wars and the Wars of the Roses erected castle after castle, many ruins of which now stand, grim historians of the political life of those days. See "Prelude," vi. 190-220.

Line 7. From first battle of St. Albans, 1455, to battle of Bosworth, 1485. Line 13. The marriage of Henry VII. with Elizabeth of York.

Line 27. Earth helped him with the cry of blood. This line is from "The Battle of Bosworth Field," by Sir John Beaumont (brother to the Dramatist), whose poems are written with much spirit, elegance, and harmony, and have deservedly been reprinted lately in Chalmers's Collection of English Poets. W. W.

Line 36. Skipton. Castle in Yorkshire comprised in the estates of the Cliffords, deserted while the Peasant Lord was attainted. When the dissolution of the Monasteries was followed by insurrection the dispossessed Heads were finally repulsed at Skipton by the Earl of Northumberland.

Its

Line 40. Pendragon. Another of the castles of the Cliffords, near the source of the river Eden, Cumberland, destroyed in 1685. origin is ascribed to Uther Pendragon, the mighty Briton who withstood so long the rayages of the ruthless Saxons. Tradition says he tried to alter the course of the river to better fortify this castle, but failed.

"Let Uther Pendragon do what he can,
The river Eden will run as it ran."

Lines 44, 45. Brough Castle on the Hillbeck

stream, which flows into the Eden, and is probably older than the Norman Conquest. Lines 46, 47. And she, etc. Appleby Castle, a ruin since 1565.

Line 54. The mother of Henry Lord Clifford was Margaret, daughter of Lord Vesci. Line 73. Carrock's side. Not far from Castle Sowerby, Cumberland.

Lines 89-92. Mosedale, etc. The vale of Mosedale is north of Blencathara (Saddleback), a mountain not far from Keswick. Glenderamakin rises on the high ground not far from Saddleback.

Lines 94-100. Sir Lancelot Threlkeld concealed the boy on his estates in Cumberland. In "The Waggoner" we have:

--

"And see beyond that hamlet small
The ruined towers of Threlkeld Hall.
There at Blencathara's rugged feet,
Sir Lancelot gave a safe retreat
To noble Clifford."

The hall is now a ruin, save one portion used as a farmhouse.

Line 122. fish. It is imagined by the people of the country that there are two immortal Fish, inhabitants of this Tarn, which lies in the mountains not far from Threlkeld. - Blencathara, mentioned before, is the old and proper name of the mountain vulgarly called Saddleback. W. W.

Lines 142-145. These lines have a genuine epic ring, and reflect the life of the time-a time filled with the prejudices, the passions, and the pomp of war. The Northern Heights seem to have contributed their full share toward all these. In 1584 we find that Cumberland and Westmoreland furnished "Eight thousand three hundred and fifty horsemen, archers, and billmen." The Kendal men are mentioned with honor at the battle of Flodden

"There are the bows of Kentdale bold Who fierce will fight and never flee." Wordsworth's Muse loves to range

"Where untroubled peace and concord dwells," and seldom does she lead him into the fields of chivalry and romance. In but two instances do we have subjects which would permit of the full epic treatment.

In this poem he does not dwell, as Scott would have done, upon the mustering of the forces, the description of the leaders, the shock of battle, and the deeds of prowess, but upon those qualities of the Shepherd Lord which distinguish him as a man and by which he was endeared to all. The treatment is subjective rather than objective; and in its rapid movement from the jubilate at the opening, through the various phases of family fortune, to the slowly moving, meditative stanzas at the close, the poem is representative of that variety of form and feeling of which Wordsworth was master. This is, I take it, what Coleridge means when he says:

From no contemporary writer could so