be treated by ecclesiastics with respect, from prudence and necessity. I remembeing much pleased, some years ago, at Castle, the rural seat of the See of Carwith a style of garden and architecture h, if the place had belonged to a wealthy an, would no doubt have been swept away. arsonage house generally stands not far the church; this proximity imposes faable restraints, and sometimes suggests an ting union of the accommodations and ancies of life with the outward signs of y and morality. With pleasure I recall to 1 a happy instance of this in the residence n old and much-valued Friend in Oxford e. The house and church stand parallel each other, at a small distance; a circular n, or rather grass-plot, spreads between m; shrubs and trees curve from each side the dwelling, veiling, but not hiding, the reh. From the front of this dwelling no part he burial-ground is seen; but as you wind the side of the shrubs towards the steeple1 of the church, the eye catches a single, all, low, monumental headstone, moss-grown, king into and gently inclining towards the th. Advance, and the churchyard, popus and gay with glittering tombstones, opens on the view. This humble and beautiful age called forth a tribute, for which see the inet entitled "A Parsonage in Oxfordshire," CO2. W. W. par SONNET XXXII. This is still continued in iny churches in Westmoreland. It takes ace in the month of July, when the floor of e stalls is strewn with fresh rushes; and nce it is called the Rush-bearing." W. W. It is now observed at Grasmere as a Chilen's Festival. See Canon Rawnsley, Life and ature at the English Lakes, "Rushbearing." SONNET XXXV. Line 10. Teaching us to fort them or forgive. This is borrowed from au fecting passage in Mr. George Dyer's history f Cambridge. W. W. SONNET XXXVII. Lines 2-5. had we, like em, endured, etc. See Burnet, who is unsually animated on this subject; the east ind, so anxiously expected and prayed for, as called the "Protestant wind." W. W. SONNET XXXIX. This and the following reer to the church to be erected by Sir George Beaumont at Coleorton. SONNET XL. Line 9. Yet will we not coneal, etc. The Lutherans have retained the Cross within their churches: it is to be regretted that we have not done the same. W. W. SONNETS XLIII.-XLV. Unless one has passed some time in the presence of England's noble castles and inspiring cathedrals, one is apt to wonder at the place they occupy in the literature and the life of her people. Wordsworth, in reverencing King's College Chapel, - the noblest and most inspiring structure ever erected for collegiate worship, has yielded to the spell of this human past. The history of this magnificent chapel, the last of the thoroughly medi æval structures erected at Cambridge, is exceedingly interesting. SONNET XLVI. Line 5. Or like the Alpine Mount, etc. Some say that Monte Rosa takes its name from a belt of rock at its summit- -8 very unpoetical and scarcely a probable supposition. W. W. This series of Sonnets, while containing many poems of the first quality, is of less distinction than any other owing partly to the fact, as Wordsworth himself pointed out, "that there is unavoidably in all History, except as it is a mere suggestion, something that enslaves the fancy.' Page 647. FAREWELL LINES. Lamb wrote Wordsworth in 1822: "I grow ominously tired of official confinement. Thirty years have I served the Philistines, and my neck is not subdued to the yoke." In March, 1825, he received his pension and the next year he settled at Enfield, where he wrote to Wordsworth: How I look down on the slaves and drudges of the world! Its inhabitants are a vast cotton-web of spin - spin - spinners! O the carking cares! O the money-grabbers! Sempiternal muck-worms." Page 630. "SCORN NOT THE SONNET." It is not often that criticism is presented to us in the form of the highest poetry and condensed into fourteen lines. This sonnet alone is sufficient to vindicate Wordsworth's claim to mastery in this form of poetry; for in it we have history enriched with the finest touches of the imagination, and transmitted in diction pure and strong, while the music varies from the most powerful animation to the softest cadences of metrical harmony. Page 651. RECOLLECTION OF THE PORTRAIT OF KING HENRY EIGHTH, TRINITY LODGE, CAMBRIDGE, The statue stands over King's Gateway to the Great Court of Trinity College. Page 651. "WHILE ANNA'S PEERS AND EARLY PLAYMATES TREAD." See "Liberty," line 2. Page 652. To ROTHA Q Line 9. See Matthew Arnold, "Memorial Verses." "Keep fresh the grass upon his grave, O Rotha, with thy living wave! Sing him thy best! for iew or none Hears thy voice right, now he is gone." Page 653. IN THE WOODS OF RYDAL This Sonnet, as Poetry, explains itself, the scene of the incident having been a w wood, it may be doubted, as a point of na history, whether the bird was aware that a attentions were bestowed upon a huma even a living creature. But a Redbreast perch upon the foot of a gardener at work, alight on the handle of the spade when hist is half upon it - this I have seen. And my own roof I have witnessed affecting stances of the creature's friendly visits to chambers of sick persons, as described in a verses to the Redbreast, page 768. One of th welcome intruders used frequently to roost a nail in the wall, from which a pieture La hung, and was ready, as morning came, to F his song in the hearing of the Invalid, wh been long confined to her room. These atta ments to a particular person, when marked continued, used to be reckoned ominous; b the superstition is passing away. W. W. Line 1. Redbreast. The MS. title of the pa was "To a Redbreast." Jemima, the dau ter of Edward Quillinan. See Lines 021 Portrait." Page 653. CONCLUSION. TO This may be addressed either to his siste Dorothy or to his daughter Dora. Line 3. public life. See Sonnets on Indepe dence and Liberty, edited by Stopford Bro. 1828 Page 654. THE TRIAD. Line 36. Lucida! Edith Southey. Line 90. youngest, ete. Dora Wordswer "There is truth in the sketch of Dora," se Sara Coleridge," poetic truth, though such a none but a poet-father would have seen." Line 174. eldest born. Sara Coleridge. Page 658. THE WISHING-GATE DESTROTE "In the Vale of Grasmere, by the side of the old high-way leading to Ambleside, is a which, time out of mind, has been called the Wishing-gate." Having been told, upon what I thong good authority, that this gate had been d stroyed, and the opening, where it hung, wall up, I gave vent immediately to my feelings i these stanzas. But going to the place some time after, I found, with much delight, my favourite unmolested. W. W. A gate still stands in the old place, and from the inscriptions cut upon it one would judg that "Hope" still rules there. "Beside the wishing gate which so they name. age 660. ON THE POWER OF SOUND. he student of Wordsworth is everywhere ressed with his exquisite sensitiveness to its and sounds. The eye and the ear are royal avenues through which the world of tter reaches the world of mind. 1829 The most important event of this year was rdsworth's visit to Sir William Hamilton in land. Miss Eliza M. Hamilton (Sir William's er), who assisted in entertaining Wordsrth, wrote of him: "I think it would be te impossible for any one who had once en in Wordsworth's company ever again think anything he has written silly." Page 664. Line 2. , p. 651. LIBERTY. Anna. See "While Anna's peers," Line 8: living Well. In "Dora's Field," ydal. Lines 103, 104. Sabine farm... Blandusia's ring. See Horace's Odes, "Beatus Ille," id O Fons Bandusiæ." Line 140. Shall with a thankful tear, etc. here is now, alas! no possibility of the aneipation, with which the above Epistle conudes, being realised: nor were the verses ever en by the Individual for whom they were innded. She accompanied her husband, the ev. Wm. Fletcher, to India, and died of holera, at the age of thirty-two or thirty-three ears, on her way from Shalapore to Bombay, eeply lamented by all who knew her. Her enthusiasm was ardent, her piety steadast; and her great talents would have enabled er to be eminently useful in the difficult path f life to which she had been called. The opinon she entertained of her own performances, iven to the world under her maiden name, fewsbury, was modest and humble, and, inleed, far below their merits; as is often the ase with those who are making trial of their Dowers, with a hope to discover what they are best fitted for. In one quality, viz. quickness in the motions of her mind, she had, within the range of the Author's acquaintance, no equal. W. W. Page 672. THE RUSSIAN FUGITIVE. Peter Henry Bruce, having given in his entertaining Memoirs the substance of this Tale, affirms that, besides the concurring reports of others, he had the story from the lady's own mouth. The Lady Catherine, mentioned towards the close, is the famous Catherine, then bearing that name as the acknowledged Wife of Peter the Great. W. W. Page 682. "IN THESE FAIR VALES HATH MANY A TREE." Inscription intended for the stone in the grounds at Rydal Mount. The inscription still remains upon the stone. Page 683. ELEGIAC MUSINGS. Lady Beaumont died in 1829. Wordsworth visited Coleridge in November, 1830. On leaving Coleridge, he went to Cambridge, and on his way thither composed this poem. From Cambridge he wrote Sir William Rowan Hamilton, saying: "Thirty-seven miles did I ride in one day through the worst of storms; and what was my recourse? Writing verses to the memory of my departed friend, Sir George Beaumont." 1831 Page 684. THE PRIMROSE OF THE ROCK. We walked in the evening to Rydal. Coleridge and I lingered behind. We all stood to look at the Glow-worm Rock - -a primrose that grew there, and just looked out on the road from its own sheltered bower." - DOROTHY WORDSWORTH, 1802. The rock still remains. Page 685. YARROW REVISITED. There seems to be a deep significance in the fact that this time the two poets did not linger on the braes and bens, but about the mouldering ruin of Newark; we can see in it the effect of the thought that this was probably the last meeting of the two. The fear that Scott would not be able to revive his strength, even upon Warm Vesuvio's vine-clad slopes," oppresses Wordsworth and colors the whole poem. These forebodings proved too true. This was not only their last meeting, but it was Scott's last visit to the Vale of Yarrow and the scenes he loved so dearly. "On the 22d," says Mr. Lockhart, "these two great poets, who had through life loved each other and appreciated each other's genius more than infirm spirits ever did either of them, spent the morning together in a visit to Newark. Hence the last of the three poems by which Wordsworth has connected his name to all time with the most romantic of Scottish streams. Page 687. ON THE DEPARTURE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT FROM ABBOTSFORD, NAPLES. FOR There is no finer tribute of one great poet to another than is found in this poem, Page 689. THE TROSACHS. This poem has often been cited as the triumph of the pure style. Page 692. HIGHLAND HUT. This sonnet describes the exterior of a Highland hut, as often seen under a morning or evening sunshine. To the authoress of the "Address to the Wind," and other poems, in this volume, who was my fellow-traveller in this tour, I am indebted for the following extract from her journal, which accurately describes, under particular circumstances, the beautiful appearance of the interior of one of these rude habitations. On our return from the Trosachs the evening began to darken, and it rained so heavily that we were completely wet before we had come two miles, and it was dark when we landed with our boatman, at his hut upon the banks of Loch Katrine. I was faint from cold: the good woman had provided, according to her promise, a better fire than we had found in the morning; and, indeed, when I had sat down in the chimney-corner of her smoky biggin, I thought I had never felt more comfortable in my life: a pan of coffee was boiling for us, and having put our clothes in the way of drying, we all sat down thankful for a shelter. We could not prevail upon our boatman, the master of the house, to draw near the fire, though he was cold and wet, or to suffer his wife to get him dry clothes till she had served us, which she did most willingly, though not very expeditiously. A Cumberland man of the same rank would not have bad such a notion of what was fit and right in his own house, or, if he had, one would have accused him of servility; but in the Highlander it only seemed like politeness (however erroneous and painful to us), naturally growing out of the dependence of the inferiors of the clan upon their laird; he did not, however, refuse to let his wife bring out the whisky bottle for his refreshment, at our request. She keeps a dram,' as the phrase is: indeed, I believe there is scarcely a lonely house by the wayside, in Scotland, where travellers may not be accommodated with a dram. We asked for sugar, butter, barley-bread, and milk: and, with a smile and a stare more of kindness than wonder, she replied, Ye 'll get that,' bringing each article separately. We caroused our cups of coffee, laughing like children at the strange atmosphere in which we were: the smoke came in gusts, and spread along the walls; and above our heads in the chimney (where the hens were roosting) it appeared like clouds in the sky. We laughed and laughed again, in spite of the smarting of our eyes, yet had a quieter pleasure in observing the beauty of the beams and rafters gleaming between the clouds of smoke: they had been crusted over and varnished by many winters, till, where the firelight fell upon them, they had become as glossy as black rocks, on a sunny day, cased in ice. When we had eaten our supper we sat about half an homa think I never felt so deeply the bless hospitable welcome and a warm fire. Tem of the house repeated from time to the we should often tell of this night when w to our homes, and interposed praises of Lam lake, which he had more than once, wh were returning in the boat, ventured ta was bonnier than Loch Lomond. O panion from the Trosachs, who, it appa was an Edinburgh drawing-master go ing the vacation, on a pedestrian tour t O'Groat's House, was to sleep in the ban my fellow-travellers, where the man sila had plenty of dry hay. I do not believe the hay of the Highlands is ever very dry this year it had a better chance than us or dry, however, the next morning they they had slept comfortably. When I ve bed, the mistress, desiring me to g attended me with a candle, and assured a that the bed was dry, though not sic as been used to.' It was of chaff; there wete others in the room, a cupboard and two ch upon one of which stood milk in wooden vani covered over. The walls of the house we stone unplastered; it consisted of three p ments, the cow-house at one end, the kitar or house in the middle, and the spence other end; the rooms were divided. no the rigging, but only to the beginning d roof, so that there was a free passage for and smoke from one end of the house to other. I went to bed some time before the res the family; the door was shut between us. they had a bright fire, which I could not but the light it sent up amongst the var rafters and beams, which crossed each othe in almost as intricate and fantastic a maT as I have seen the under-boughs of a beech-tree withered by the depth of sh above, produced the most beautiful effect th can be conceived. It was like what I sho suppose an underground cave or temple to with a dripping or moist roof, and the mot light entering in upon it by some means other; and yet the colours were more those of melted gems. I lay looking up t the light of the fire faded away, and the and his wife and child had crept into their be at the other end of the room; I did not s much, but passed a comfortable night; fur bed, though hard, was warm and clean: unusualness of my situation prevented me fr sleeping. I could hear the waves beat agains the shore of the lake; a little rill close to t door made a much louder noise, and, when sat up in my bed, I could see the lake throw an open window-place at the bed's head. A to this, it rained all night. I was less oc by remembrance of the Trosachs, beautiful they were, than the vision of the High hut, which I could not get out of my head; thought of the Faery-land of Spenser, and whe I had read in romance at other times; and then what a feast it would be for a Lo Pantomime-maker could he but transplant it ury-lane, with all its beautiful colours!" S. W. W. Page 692. BOTHWELL CASTLE. Line 4. Once on those steeps I roamed. The llowing is from the same MS., and gives an -count of the visit to Bothwell Castle here alded to: "It was exceedingly delightful to enter thus expectedly upon such a beautiful region. he castle stands nobly, overlooking the Clyde. hen we came up to it. I was hurt to see that ower-borders had taken place of the natal overgrowings of the ruin, the scattered ones, and wild plants. It is a large and grand le of red freestone, harmonising perfectly with e rocks of the river, from which, no doubt, it as been hewn. When I was a little accustomed the unnaturalness of a modern garden, I could ot help admiring the excessive beauty and luxriance of some of the plants, particularly the arple-flowered clematis, and a broad-leafed reeping plant without flowers, which scrambled p the castle wall, along with the ivy, and pread its vine-like branches so lavishly that it eemed to be in its natural situation, and one ould not help thinking that, though not selflanted among the ruins of this country, it must omewhere have its native abode in such places. f Bothwell Castle had not been close to the Douglas mansion, we should have been disusted with the possessor's miserable conception of adorning such a venerable ruin; but it is so very near to the house, that of necessity the pleasure-grounds must have extended beyond t, and perhaps the neatness of a shaven lawn, and the complete desolation natural to a ruin, might have made an unpleasing contrast; and, besides being within the precincts of the pleasure-grounds, and so very near to the dwelling of a noble family, it has forfeited, in some degree, its independent majesty, and becomes a tributary to the mansion: its solitude being interrupted, it has no longer the command over the mind in sending it back into past times, or excluding the ordinary feelings which we bear about us in daily life. We had then only to regret that the castle and the house were so near to each other; and it was impossible not to regret it; for the ruin presides in state over the river, far from city or town, as if it might have a peculiar privilege to preserve its memorials of past ages, and maintain its own character for centuries to come. We sat upon a bench under the high trees, and had beautiful views of the different reaches of the river, above and below. On the opposite bank, which is finely wooded with elms and other trees, are the remains of a priory built upon a rock; and rock and ruin are so blended, that it is impossible to separate the one from the other. Nothing can be more beautiful than the little remnant of this holy place; elm-trees (for we were near enough to distinguish them by their branches) grow ont of the walls, and overshadow a small, but very elegant window. It can scarcely be conceived what a grace the castle and priory impart to each other; and the river Clyde flows on, smooth and unruffled, below, seeming to my thoughts more in harmony with the sober and stately images of former times, than if it had roared over a rocky channel, forcing its sound upon the ear. It blended gently with the warbling of the smaller birds, and the chattering of the larger ones that had made their nests in the ruins. In this fortress the chief of the English nobility were confined after the battle of Bannockburn. If a man is to be a prisoner, he scarcely could have a more pleasant place to solace his captivity; but I thought that, for close confinement, I should prefer the banks of a lake, or the seaside. The greatest charm of a brook or river is in the liberty to pursue it through its windings; you can then take it in whatever mood you like; silent or noisy, sportive or quiet. The beauties of a brook or river must be sought, and the pleasure is in going in search of them; those of a lake or of the sea come to you of themselves. These rude warriors cared little, perhaps, about either; and yet, if one may judge from the writings of Chaucer and from the old romances, more interesting passions were connected with natural objects in the days of chivalry than now; though going in search of scenery, as it is called, had not then been thought of. I had previously heard nothing of Bothwell Castle, at least nothing that I remembered; therefore, perhaps, my pleasure was greater, compared with what I received elsewhere, than others might feel."MS. Journal. Page 694. HART'S-HORN TREE. "In the time of the first Robert de Clifford, in the year 1333 or 1334, Edward Baliol king of Scotland came into Westmoreland, and stayed some time with the said Robert at his castles of Appleby, Brougham, and Pendragon. And during that time they ran a stag by a single greyhound out of Whinfell Park to Redkirk, in Scotland, and back again to this place; where, being both spent, the stag leaped over the pales, but died on the other side; and the greyhound, attempting to leap, fell, and died on the contrary side. In memory of this fact the stag's horns were nailed upon a tree just by, and (the dog being named Hercules) this rhythm was made upon them: 'Hercules killed Hart a greese, And Hart a greese killed Hercules.' The tree to this day bears the name of Hart'shorn Tree. The horns in process of time were almost grown over by the growth of the tree, and another pair was put up in their place." NICHOLSON AND BURNS'S History of Westmoreland and Cumberland. The tree has now disappeared, but I well remember its imposing appearance as it stood, in a decayed state, by the side of the highroad leading from Penrith to Appleby. This whole neighbourhood abounds in interesting traditions and vestiges of antiquity, viz. Julian's Bower; Brougham and Penrith Castles; Penrith Beacon, and the curious remains in Penrith |