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The Reader, I am sure, will thank me for the above quotation, which, though from a strange book, is one of the finest passages of modern English prose.-W. W. (1814).

Page 149.

'Tis, by comparison, an easy task
Earth to despise, etc.

It may

See, upon this subject, Baxter's most interesting review of his own opinions and sentiments in the decline of life. be found (lately reprinted) in Dr. Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biography.-W. W. (1814).

Page 152.

Alas! the endowment of immortal Power,

Is matched unequally with custom, time, etc.

This subject is treated at length in the Ode, Intimations of Immortality.-W. W. (1814).

Page 156.

Knowing the heart of man is set to be, etc.

The passage quoted from Daniel is taken from a poem addressed to the Lady Margaret, Countess of Cumberland, and the two last lines, printed in Italics, are by him translated from Seneca. The whole Poem is very beautiful. I will transcribe four stanzas from it, as they contain an admirable picture of the state of a wise Man's mind in a time of public commotion.

Nor is he moved with all the thunder-cracks
Of tyrant's threats, or with the surly brow

Of Power, that proudly sits on others' crimes;

Charged with more crying sins than those he checks.
The storms of sad confusion that may grow

Up in the present for the coming times,
Appal not him; that hath no side at all,

But of himself, and knows the worst can fall.

Although his heart (so near allied to earth)
Cannot but pity the perplexed state
Of troublous and distressed mortality,
That thus make way unto the ugly birth
Of their own sorrows, and do still beget
Affliction upon Imbecility;

Yet seeing thus the course of things must run,
He looks thereon not strange, but as fore-done.

And whilst distraught ambition compasses,
And is encompassed, while as craft deceives,
And is deceived: whilst man doth ransack man,
And builds on blood, and rises by distress;
And th' Inheritance of desolation leaves
To great-expecting hopes: He looks thereon,
As from the shore of peace, with unwet eye,
And bears no venture in Impiety.

Thus, Lady, fares that man that hath prepared

A rest for his desires; and sees all things

Beneath him; and hath learned this book of man,
Full of the notes of frailty; and compared

The best of glory with her sufferings:

By whom, I see, you labour all you can

To plant your heart! and set your thoughts as near
His glorious mansion as your powers can bear.

Page 221.

Or rather, as we stand on holy earth,
And have the dead around us.

(1814.)

Leo.

You, Sir, could help me to the history
Of half these graves?

Priest.

For eight-score winters past,

With what I've witnessed, and with what I've heard,
Perhaps I might;

By turning o'er these hillocks one by one,

We two could travel, Sir, through a strange round;
Yet all in the broad highway of the world.

See the Author's poem of The Brothers, published in the "Lyrical Ballads," in the year 1800.-W. W. (1814).

Page 233.

And suffering Nature grieved that one should die.

Southey's Retrospect.-W. W. (1814).

Page 233.

And whence that tribute? wherefore these regards?

The sentiments and opinions here uttered are in unison with those expressed in the . . . Essay upon Epitaphs, which was

furnished by me for Mr. Coleridge's periodical work, The Friend; and as they are dictated by a spirit congenial to that which pervades this and the two succeeding books, the sympathising reader will not be displeased to see the Essay here annexed. *-W. W. (1814).

Page 236.

And spires whose silent finger points to heaven.'

An instinctive taste teaches men to build their churches in flat countries with spire-steeples, which as they cannot be referred to any other object, point as with silent finger to the sky and stars, and sometimes, when they reflect the brazen light of a rich though rainy sunset, appear like a pyramid of flame burning heaven-ward. See The Friend, by S. T. Coleridge, No. 14, p. 223.-W. W. (1814).

Page 308.

That sycamore, which annually holds
Within its shade, as in a stately tent.

This Sycamore oft musical with Bees;
Such Tents the Patriarchs loved.

S. T. Coleridge.-W. W. (1814).

(It is in his Inscription for a fountain on a Heath.—ED.)

66

Page 323.

Perish the roses and the flowers of kings.

The Transit gloria mundi" is finely expressed in the Introduction to the Foundation-charters of some of the ancient Abbeys. Some expressions here used are taken from that of the Abbey of St. Mary's, Furness, the translation of which is as follows:

"Considering every day the uncertainty of life, that the roses and flowers of Kings, Emperors, and Dukes, and the crowns and palms of all the great, wither and decay; and that all things, with an uninterrupted course, tend to dissolution and death: I therefore," etc.-W. W. (1814).

* In this edition, it finds a more appropriate place in the Prose Works. -ED.

Page 331.

-Earth has lent

Her waters, Air her breezes.

In treating this subject, it was impossible not to recollect, with gratitude, the pleasing picture, which, in his Poem of The Fleece, the excellent and amiable Dyer has given of the influences of manufacturing industry upon the face of this Island. He wrote at a time when machinery was first beginning to be introduced, and his benevolent heart prompted him to augur from it nothing but good. Truth has compelled me to dwell upon the baneful effects arising out of an ill-regulated and excessive application of powers so admirable in themselves.— W. W. (1814).

Page 363.

Binding herself by statute.

The discovery of Dr. Bell affords marvellous facilities for carrying this into effect; and it is impossible to over-rate the benefit which might accrue to humanity from the universal application of this simple engine under an enlightened and conscientious government.-W. W. (1814).

APPENDIX

NOTE A

(See p. 2)

THE grave of James Patrick, -the pedlar whose character and habits gave rise to "The Wanderer" of The Excursion,— may still be seen in the church-yard within the town of Kendal. The following extract from the Papers, Letters, and Journals of William Pearson, edited by his widow, and printed in London, in 1863, for private circulation, refers to Patrick. "He" (i.e. William Pearson) "sometimes went to Kendal on Sundays, in order to worship with Unitarians, in the old Presbyterian meeting-house. This quiet secluded building, though situated in the heart of the town, is overshadowed by trees, beneath which rest many worthies of departed times: one of whom, James Patrick, was the prototype of 'The Wanderer' of The Excursion. A plain mural slab, outside the east wall of the chapel-which was his spiritual home-bears the following inscription :

NEAR THIS PLACE ARE BURIED

JOHN PATRICK OF Barnard Castle,

WHO DIED MAY 10TH, 1753, AGED 51 YEARS;
MARGARET, THE DAUGHTER

OF JAMES AND MARY PATRICK,

WHO DIED NOVEMBER 26TH, 1767, IN HER INFANCY;
JAMES PATRICK of Kendal,

WHO DIED MARCH 2D, 1787, AGED 71 YEARS.

"When staying in Kendal, with his friend Mr. Thomas Cookson, Mr. Wordsworth himself was an occasional worshipper, along with the family, at this chapel; and thus became acquainted with the minister, the Reverend John Harrison, and

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