THE MOTHER'S RETURN

The Fenwick note is inaccurate. These lines were written by Dorothy Wordsworth at Coleorton, on the eve of her brother and sister's return from London, in the spring of 1807, whither they had gone for a month—Dorothy remaining at Coleorton, in charge of the children. Previous to 1845, the poem was attributed to "a female Friend of the Author."—Ed.

GIPSIES

See S. T. Coleridge's criticism of this poem in his Biographia Literaria, vol. ii. p. 156 (edition 1847).—Ed.

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"O NIGHTINGALE! THOU SURELY ART"

Mrs. Wordsworth corrected her husband's note to Miss Fenwick, by adding in the MS., "at Coleorton"; and at Coleorton the Wordsworths certainly spent the winter of 1806, the Town-end Cottage at Grasmere being too small for their increasing household. It is more likely that Wordsworth wrote the poem at Coleorton than at Grasmere, and it looks as if it had been an evening impromptu, after hearing both the nightingale and the stock-dove. There are no nightingales at Grasmere,—they are not heard further north than the Trent valley,—while they used to abound in the "peaceful groves" of Coleorton. If the locality was—as Mrs. Wordsworth states—Coleorton, and if the lines were written after hearing the nightingale, the year would be 1807, and not 1806 (the poet's own date). The nightingale is a summer visitor in this country, and could not have been heard by Wordsworth at Coleorton in 1806, as he did not go south to Leicestershire till November in that year. But it is quite possible that it was "the stock-dove's voice" that alone suggested the lines, and that they were written either in 1806, or (as I think more likely), very early in 1807. In the month of January Wordsworth was corresponding with Scott about the poems in this edition of 1807.—Ed.

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"THOUGH NARROW BE THAT OLD MAN'S CARES, AND NEAR"

[Written at Coleorton. This old man's name was Mitchell. He was, in all his ways and conversation, a great curiosity, both individually and as a representative of past times. His chief employment was keeping watch at night by pacing round the house, at that time building, to keep off depredators. He has often told me gravely of having seen the Seven Whistlers, and the Hounds as here described. Among the groves of Coleorton, where I became familiar with the habits and notions of old Mitchell, there was also a labourer of whom, I regret, I had no personal knowledge; for, more than forty years after, when he was become an old man, I learned that while I was composing verses, which I usually did aloud, he took much pleasure, unknown to me, in following my steps that he might catch the words I uttered; and, what is not a little remarkable, several lines caught in this way kept their place in his memory. My volumes have lately been given to him by my informant, and surely he must have been gratified to meet in print his old acquaintances.—I. F.]

In 1815 this sonnet was one of the "Poems belonging to the Period of Old Age"; in 1820 it was transferred to the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.

To bring all the poems referring to Coleorton together, so far as possible, this and the next sonnet are transferred from their places in the chronological list, and placed beside the Coleorton "Inscriptions."

I am indebted to Mr. William Kelly of Leicester for the following note on the Leicestershire superstition of the Seven Whistlers.

In Notes and Queries there are several allusions to this local superstition. In the Fifth Series (vol. ii. p. 264), Oct. 3, 1874, the editor gives a summary of several notes on the subject in vol. viii. of the Fourth Series (pp. 68, 134, 196, and 268), with additional information. He says "record was made of their having been heard in Leicestershire; and that the develin or martin, the swift, and the plover were probably of the whistling fraternity that frightened men. At p. 134 it was shown that Wordsworth had spoken of one who

On the same page, the swift is said to be the true whistler (but, as noted at page 196, the swifts never make nightly rounds), and the superstition is said to be common in our Midland Counties. At page 268, Mr. Pearson put on record that in Lancashire the plovers, whistling as they fly, are accounted heralds of ill, though sometimes of trivial accident, and that they are there called 'Wandering Jews,' and are said to be, or to carry with them, the ever-restless souls of those Jews who assisted at the Crucifixion. At page 336, the whistlers are chronicled as having been the harbingers of the great Hartley Colliery explosion. A correspondent, Viator, added, that on the Bosphorus there are flocks of birds, the size of a thrush, which fly up and down the channel, and are never seen to rest on land or water. The men who rowed Viator's caique told him that they were the souls of the damned, condemned to perpetual motion. The Seven Whistlers have not furnished chroniclers with later circumstances of their tuneful and awful progresses till a week or two ago.... The whistlers are also heard and feared in Portugal. See The New Quarterly for July 1874, for a record of some travelling experience in that country."

Another extract from Notes and Queries is to the following effect:—

Gabriel's Hounds.—"At Wednesbury in Staffordshire, the colliers going to their pits early in the morning hear the noise of a pack of hounds in the air, to which they give the name of Gabriel's Hounds, though the more sober and judicious take them only to be wild geese making this noise in their flight." Kennet MS., Lansd. 1033. (See Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, vol. i. p. 388.) The peculiar cry or cackle, both of the Brent Goose and of the Bean or Harvest Goose (Anser Segetum), has often been likened to that of a pack of hounds in full cry—especially when the birds are on the wing during night. For some account of the superstition of "Gabriel's Hounds," see Notes and Queries, First Series, vol. v. pp. 534 and 596; and vol. xii. p. 470; Second Series, vol. i. p. 80; and Fourth Series, vol. vii. p. 299. In the last note these hounds are said to be popularly believed to be "the souls of unbaptized children wandering in the air till the day of judgment." They are also explained as "a thing in the air, that is said in these parts (Sheffield) to foretell calamity, sounding like a great pack of beagles in full cry." This quotation is from Charles Reade's Put yourself in his place, which contains many scraps of local folk-lore. The following is from the Statistical History of Kirkmichael, by the Rev. John Grant. "In the autumnal season, when the moon shines from a serene sky, often is the wayfaring traveller arrested by the music of the hills. Often struck with a more sober scene, he beholds the visionary hunters engaged in the chase, and pursuing the deer of the clouds, while the hollow rocks in long sounding echoes reverberate their cries." "There are several now living who assert that they have seen and heard this aërial hunting." See the Statistical History of Scotland, edited by Sir J. Sinclair, vol. xii. pp. 461, 462. Compare note to An Evening Walk, vol. i. p. 19.—Ed.

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COMPOSED BY THE SIDE OF GRASMERE LAKE. 1807

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IN THE GROUNDS OF COLEORTON, THE SEAT OF SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT, BART., LEICESTERSHIRE

About twelve years after the last visit of Wordsworth to Coleorton, referred to in the Fenwick note—of which the date should, I think, be 1842, not 1841—this cedar tree fell, uprooted during a storm. It was, however, as the Coleorton gardener who was then on the estate told me, replanted with much labour, and protected with care; although, the top branches being injured, it was never quite the same as it had been. During the night of the great storm on the 13th October 1880, however, it fell a second time, and perished irretrievably. The memorial stone remains, injured a good deal by the wear and tear of time; and the inscription is more than half obliterated. It is in a situation much more exposed to the elements than the other two inscriptions at Coleorton. He

was Sir John Beaumont, the brother of the dramatist, who wrote a poem on the battle of Bosworth. (See one of Wordsworth's notes to the Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle, p. 98.) The

was Francis Beaumont, the dramatist, who wrote in conjunction with Fletcher. He died at the age of twenty-nine.

In an undated letter addressed to Sir George Beaumont, Wordsworth wrote, "I like your ancestor's verses the more, the more I see of them. They are manly, dignified, and extremely harmonious. I do not remember in any author of that age such a series of well-tuned couplets."

In another letter written from Grasmere (probably in 1811) to Sir George, he says in reference to his own poems, "These inscriptions have all one fault, they are too long; but I was unable to do justice to the thoughts in less room. The second has brought Sir John Beaumont and his brother Francis so livelily to my mind that I recur to the plan of republishing the former's poems, perhaps in connection with those of Francis."

On November 16, 1811, he wrote to him again, "I am glad that the inscriptions please you. It did always appear to me, that inscriptions, particularly those in verse, or in a dead language, were never supposed necessarily to be the composition of those in whose name they appeared. If a more striking or more dramatic effect could be produced, I have always thought, that in an epitaph or memorial of any kind, a father or husband, etc., might be introduced speaking, without any absolute deception being intended; that is, the reader is understood to be at liberty to say to himself,—these verses, or this Latin, may be the composition of some unknown person, and not that of the father, widow, or friend, from whose hand or voice they profess to proceed.... I have altered the verses, and I have only to regret that the alteration is not more happily done. But I never found anything more difficult. I wished to preserve the expression patrimonial grounds,[A] but I found this impossible, on account of the awkwardness of the pronouns, he and his, as applied to Reynolds, and to yourself. This, even when it does not produce confusion, is always inelegant. I was, therefore, obliged to drop it; so that we must be content, I fear, with the inscription as it stands below. I hope it will do. I tried a hundred different ways, but cannot hit upon anything better...."—Ed.

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IN A GARDEN OF THE SAME

This niche is still to be seen, although not quite "unconscious of decay." The growth of yew-trees, over and around it, has darkened the seat; and constant damp has decayed the soft stone. The niche having been scooped out by Mrs. Wordsworth and Dorothy, as well as by Wordsworth, suggests the cutting of the inscriptions on the Rock of Names in 1800, in which they all took part. (See vol. iii. pp. 61, 62.) On his return to Grasmere from Coleorton, Wordsworth wrote thus to Sir George Beaumont, in an undated letter, about this inscription:—"What follows I composed yesterday morning, thinking there might be no impropriety in placing it so as to be visible only to a person sitting within the niche, which is hollowed out of the sandstone in the winter-garden. I am told that this is, in the present form of the niche, impossible; but I shall be most ready, when I come to Coleorton, to scoop out a place for it, if Lady Beaumont think it worth while." Then follows the—

Inscription

Oft is the medal faithful to its trust.

On Nov. 16, 1811, writing again to Sir George on this subject of the "Inscriptions," and evidently referring to this one on the "Niche," he says, "As to the 'Female,' and 'Male,' I know not how to get rid of it; for that circumstance gives the recess an appropriate interest.... On this account, the lines had better be suppressed, for it is not improbable that the altering of them might cost me more trouble than writing a hundred fresh ones."—Ed.

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