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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

with one of his congregation, the well-known blind mathematician and botanist, Mr. John Gough, with the delineation of whose remarkable powers and character the poet has enriched his Excursion; and in turn, has, by the touch of his genius, imparted to them a lustre that will not fade, whilst English Literature shall endure" (p. 13).

NOTE B

(See p. 115)

The following is an extract from Dr. Daniel G. Brinton's work, the Myths of the New World.

"As in oriental legends, the origin of man from the earth was veiled under the story that he was the progeny of some mountain by the embrace of Mithras or Jupiter, so the Indians often pointed to some height or some cavern as the spot whence the first of men issued, adult and armed, from the womb of the All-mother Earth. The oldest name of the Alleghany Mountains is Paemotinck, or Pemolnick, an Algonkin word, the meaning of which is said to be "The origin of the Indians."

"The Witchitas, who dwelt on the Red River among the mountains named after them, have a tradition that their progenitors issued from the rocks about their homes, and many other tribes, the Tahkalis, Navajos, Coryoteras, and the Hailians, for instance, set up this claim to be autochthones. . .

66

"All those tribes, the Creeks, Seminoles, Choctaws, Chicasaws, and Natchez, who, according to tradition, were in remote times banded into one common confederacy under the headship of the last-mentioned, unanimously located their earliest ancestry near an artificial eminence in the valley of the Big Black River, in the Natchez country, whence they pretended to have emerged. . . . "A parallel to this southern legend occurs among the Six Nations of the north. They with one consent, if we may credit the account of Cusic, looked to a mountain near the falls of the Oswego River, in the State of New York, as the locality where the forefathers first saw the light of day, and that they had some such legend the name Oneida, people of the Stone, would seem to testify. .

"An ancient legend of the Aztecs derived their nation from a place called Chicomoztoc, the Seven Caverns, located north of Mexico. Antiquaries have indulged in all sorts of speculations as to what this means. . . . Caverns and hollow trees

were in fact the homes and temples of our first parents, and from them they went forth to conquer and adorn the world; and from the inorganic constituents of the soil acted on by Light, treated by Divine Force, vivified by the Spirit, did in reality the first of men proceed.

"This cavern, which thus dimly lingered in the memories of nations, occasionally expanded to a nether world, imagined to underlie this of ours, and still inhabited by beings of our kind, who have never been lucky enough to discover its exit. The Mandans and Minnetarees, on the Missouri River, supposed this exit was near a certain hill in their territory. "Myths of the New World, pp. 224-8.

Mr. Edward B. Tylor, Oxford, suggests that the legend referred to may be that described in Falkner's account of the Moluches.

"They believe that their good deities made the world, and that they first created the Indians in their caves, gave them the lance, the bow and arrows, and the stone-bowls, to fight and hunt with, and then turned them out to shift for themselves. They imagine that the deities of the Spaniards did the same by them. They have formed a belief that some of them after death return to their divine caverns,' etc. (Falkner's Description of Patagonia and the adjoining parts of South America, etc., chap. v. pp. 114-5, by Thomas Falkner, Hereford, 1774.) See also Edward B. Tylor's Early History of Mankind, P. 313.-ED.

NOTE C

(See p. 140)

For the following letters in reference to the "Muccawiss," I am indebted to Mr. Henry Reed,-son of the late Professor Reed of Philadelphia,—whose assistance in all matters relating to Wordsworth in America has been invaluable.

"No. 400 CHESTNUT STREET, PHILADELPHIA,

"

'September 26th, 1883.

"MY DEAR MR. KNIGHT-Dr. Brinton tells me that Muccawiss is the Algonquin for whip-poor-will, and he will ascertain for me the precise spelling, and, if possible, the book from which W. W. probably got his information. -Yours sincerely, HENRY REED."

"115 SOUTH SEVENTH STREET, September 27th, 1883.

"DEAR SIR-I have failed to find the exact word used by Wordsworth- -muccawiss. The nearest to it is 'moshkaois,' which signifies 'bittern,' a water-fowl of the diver class, to which the name has reference, it being a derivative from a verb meaning to rise to the surface of the water. The word is no doubt of Algonkin origin, and I would suggest that you write to the Algonkin scholar, par excellence, of our country, Colonel J. Hammond Trumbull, Hartford, Conn., who is both able and willing to solve all the enigmas of that difficult tongue.Very truly yours, D. G. BRINTON."

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"No. 400 CHESTNUT STREET, PhiladelPHIA, October 2nd, 1883.

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"MY DEAR MR. KNIGHT-I enclose a letter from Colonel Trumbull, which I think you will find satisfactory.—Yours very sincerely, HENRY REED."

'HARTFORD, CONN., September 29th, 1883.

"HENRY REED, Esq., Philadelphia.

"DEAR SIR-Wordsworth's Muccawis' was, certainly, a Whip-poor-will, and he must have taken the Indian name, directly or at second-hand, from Carver's Travels. Among the birds found in the interior parts of North America,' Carver (chap. 18) describes the Whipper-will, or, as it is termed by the Indians, the Muckawis. . . . As soon as night comes on, these birds will place themselves on the fences, stumps, or stones that lie near some house, and repeat their melancholy notes without any variation till midnight,' etc. So Wordsworth's Melancholy muccawis

Repeated, o'er and o'er, his plaintive cry.

"I have an impression—which I have not just now leisure to verify-that Carver's description of this and some other American birds was reprinted in the Gentleman's Magazine. Two or three English editions of the Travels had been printed before The Excursion was written.

"I find no other authority for this Indian' name. The Chippeway name for the Whip-poor-will is (as given by Tanner or Dr. E. James) Wawonaissa. Nuttall states, the Delaware name was Wecoális: Zeisberger wrote it Wecoolis. -Yours sincerely, J. HAMMOND TRUMBULL."

;

"P.S.-Carver did not name 'the merry mocking-bird 'which Wordsworth makes the companion of the Muccawis' but Campbell had heard of the merry mock-bird's song,' and copied a description of it from Ashe's Travels in America, in a note to Gertrude of Wyoming (1809), pt. i. st. 3."

Since receiving these letters I have ascertained that Wordsworth had in his library at Rydal Mount-whether he had it at Allan Bank I cannot say—a copy of one of the English editions of Carver's Travels.

Compare Wanderings in South America, etc., by Charles Waterton-a work which was also in Wordsworth's library at Rydal. I quote from a recent edition (1879). See pp. 99, III, 199, and 488 :

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"When in thy hammock, should the thought of thy little crosses and disappointments, in thy ups and downs through life, break in upon thee, and throw thee into a pensive mood, the owl will bear thee company. She will tell thee that hard has been her fate too; and at intervals Whip-poor-will' and 'Willy-come-go' will take up the tale of sorrow. Ovid has told thee how the owl once boasted the human form, and lost it for a very small offence; and were the poet alive now, he would inform thee, that Whip-poor-will' and 'Willy-comego' are the shades of these poor African and Indian slaves, who died worn out and broken-hearted. They wail and cry, 'Whip-poor-will' and 'Willy-come-go' all night long; and often, when the moon shines, you see them sitting on the green turf, near the houses of those whose ancestors tore them from the bosom of their helpless families, which all probably perished through grief and want, after their support was gone" (p. 99).

"The Caprimulgus wheels in busy flight around the canoe, while Whip-poor-will' sits on the broken stump near the water's edge, complaining as the shades of night set in" (p. III).

The following is from Ornithological Biography, or an Account of the Habits of the Birds of America, vol. i. p. 422, by John James Audubon, Edinburgh, 1831.

"Whip-poor-will, Caprimulgus vociferus, a species of Night-jar. Immediately after the arrival of these birds their notes are heard in the dusk and through the evening, in every part of the thickets, and along the skirts of the woods. They are clear and loud, and to me are more interesting than those of the Nightingale. The Whip-poor-will continues its

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