[929] See Dante, Inferno, iii. I.—Ed.
[930] They came down from Inveraray to Loch Goil by Hell's Glen.—Ed.
[931] 1837.
[932] Above Elvanfoot, near the watershed, at "Summit" on the Caledonian Railway line, where the Clyde rises.—Ed.
[Mosgiel was thus pointed out to me by a young man on the top of the coach on my way from Glasgow to Kilmarnock. It is remarkable that, though Burns lived some time here, and during much the most productive period of his poetical life, he nowhere adverts to the splendid prospects stretching towards the sea and bounded by the peaks of Arran on one part, which in clear weather he must have had daily before his eyes. In one of his poetical effusions he speaks of describing "fair Nature's face" as a privilege on which he sets a high value; nevertheless, natural appearances rarely take a lead in his poetry. It is as a human being, eminently sensitive and intelligent, and not as a poet, clad in his priestly robes and carrying the ensigns of sacerdotal office, that he interests and affects us. Whether he speaks of rivers, hills and woods, it is not so much on account of the properties with which they are absolutely endowed, as relatively to local patriotic remembrances and associations, or as they ministered to personal feelings, especially those of love, whether happy or otherwise;—yet it is not always so. Soon after we had passed Mosgiel Farm we crossed the Ayr, murmuring and winding through a narrow woody hollow. His line—"Auld hermit Ayr strays through his woods"—came at once to my mind with Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, and Doon,—Ayrshire streams over which he breathes a sigh as being unnamed in song; and surely his own attempts to make them known were as successful as his heart could desire.—I. F.]
[933] See Burns's poem To a Mountain Daisy, or as it was originally called, The Gowan.—Ed.
This can scarcely be true to the letter; but, without stretching the point at all, I can say that the soil and air appear more congenial with many upon the banks of this river than I have observed in any other parts of Great Britain.—I. F.]
[934] 1835.
MS.
MS.
[935] It is to be feared that there is more of the poet than the sound etymologist in this derivation of the Eden. On the western coast of Cumberland is a rivulet which enters the sea at Moresby, known also in the neighbourhood by the name of Eden. May not the latter syllable come from the word Dean, a valley? Langdale, near Ambleside, is by the inhabitants called Langden. The former syllable occurs in the name Emont, a principal feeder of the Eden; and the stream which flows, when the tide is out, over Cartmel Sands, is called the Ea—French, eau—Latin, aqua.—W. W. 1835.
[936] Especially on the upper reaches of the river, as seen from the Midland Railway line beyond Appleby.—Ed.
[939] 1845.
[Before this monument was put up in the Church at Wetheral, I saw it in the sculptor's studio. Nollekens, who, by-the-bye, was a strange and grotesque figure that interfered much with one's admiration of his works, showed me at the same time the various models in clay which he had made, one after another, of the Mother and her Infant: the improvement on each was surprising; and how so much grace, beauty, and tenderness had come out of such a head I was sadly puzzled to conceive. Upon a window-seat in his parlour lay two casts of faces, one of the Duchess of Devonshire, so noted in her day; and the other of Mr. Pitt, taken after his death, a ghastly resemblance, as these things always are, even when taken from the living subject, and more ghastly in this instance from the peculiarity of the features. The heedless and apparently neglectful manner in which the faces of these two persons were left—the one so distinguished in London society, and the other upon whose counsels and public conduct, during a most momentous period, depended the fate of this great Empire and perhaps of all Europe—afforded a lesson to which the dullest of casual visitors could scarcely be insensible. It touched me the more because I had so often seen Mr. Pitt upon his own ground at Cambridge and upon the floor of the House of Commons.—I. F.]
[941] 1845.
[942] In the edition of 1835 there is no title to this sonnet.
[943] [Greek: Ataraxia]Ἀταραξία, was the aim of Stoic, Epicurean, and Sceptic alike.—Ed.
[944] 1840.
[945] 1840.
[I became acquainted with the walks of Nunnery when a boy: they are within easy reach of a day's pleasant excursion from the town of Penrith, where I used to pass my summer holidays under the roof of my maternal Grandfather. The place is well worth visiting; though, within these few years, its privacy, and therefore the pleasure which the scene is so well fitted to give, has been injuriously affected by walks cut in the rocks on that side the stream which had been left in its natural state.—I. F.]
[946] Nunnery; so named from the House for Benedictine Nuns established by William Rufus.—Ed.
[948] The two streams of the Croglin and the Eden unite in the grounds of Nunnery.—Ed.
[950] 1835.
MS.
[952] At Corby, a few miles below Nunnery, the Eden is crossed by a magnificent viaduct; and another of these works is thrown over a deep glen or ravine at a very short distance from the main stream.—W. W. 1835.
[953] 1845.
[954] 1835.
[955] Compare the Sonnet On the Projected Kendal and Windermere Railway, written in 1844.—Ed.
Composed, probably, in 1821.—Published 1822
[956] It first appeared in A Description of the Scenery of the Lakes in the North of England, third edition, 1822.—Ed.
[957] 1837.
[958] 1837.
[959] The daughters of Long Meg, placed in a perfect circle eighty yards in diameter, are seventy-two in number above ground; a little way out of the circle stands Long Meg herself, a single stone, eighteen feet high. When I first saw this monument, as I came upon it by surprise, I might over-rate its importance as an object; but, though it will not bear a comparison with Stonehenge, I must say, I have not seen any other relique of those dark ages, which can pretend to rival it in singularity and dignity of appearance.—W. W. 1837.
The text of this note, in the edition of 1822, is slightly different.—Ed.
In a letter to Sir George Beaumont, January 6, 1821, Wordsworth wrote, "My road brought me suddenly and unexpectedly upon that ancient monument, called by the country people Long Meg and her Daughters. Everybody has heard of it, and so had I from very early childhood; but had never seen it before. Next to Stonehenge it is beyond dispute the most noble relic of the kind that this or probably any other country contains. Long Meg is a single block of unhewn stone, eighteen feet high, at a small distance from a vast circle of other stones, some of them of huge size, though curtailed of their stature, by their own incessant pressure upon it." Compare a note in Wordsworth's Guide to the Scenery of the Lakes, section 2.—Ed.
[960] 1837.
["Cathedral pomp." It may be questioned whether this union was in the contemplation of the artist when he planned the edifice. However this might be, a poet may be excused for taking the view of the subject presented in this Sonnet.—I. F.]
[961] There was no title in the edition of 1835.
[964] The present Castle was begun in 1808. It is in the style of the 13th and 14th century structures. The arched corridors surrounding the staircase—which is sixty feet square and ninety feet high—may justify the description in the sonnet. These stone corridors open on each side, through the centre of the castle. Compare the reference to Lowther in Barren's Travels in China, p. 134, in the course of his description of "Gehol's matchless gardens," referred to in The Prelude, book viii. (vol. iii. p. 274.)—Ed.
[965] The Lowther family have been, for generations, the representatives of the Conservative cause in Cumberland.—Ed.
"Magistratus indicat virum."
[967] 1835.
MS.
[968] This sonnet was written immediately after certain trials, which took place at the Cumberland Assizes, when the Earl of Lonsdale, in consequence of repeated and long-continued attacks upon his character, through the local press, had thought it right to prosecute the conductors and proprietors of three several journals. A verdict of libel was given in one case; and, in the others, the prosecutions were withdrawn, upon the individuals retracting and disavowing the charges, expressing regret that they had been made, and promising to abstain from the like in future.—W. W. 1835.
[This poem might be dedicated to my friends, Sir G. Beaumont and Mr. Rogers jointly. While we were making an excursion together in this part of the Lake District we heard that Mr. Glover, the artist, while lodging at Lyulph's Tower, had been disturbed by a loud shriek, and upon rising he had learnt that it had come from a young woman in the house who was in the habit of walking in her sleep. In that state she had gone down stairs, and, while attempting to open the outer door, either from some difficulty or the effect of the cold stone upon her feet, had uttered the cry which alarmed him. It seemed to us all that this might serve as a hint for a poem, and the story here told was constructed and soon after put into verse by me as it now stands.—I. F.]
This poem was translated into Latin verse by the poet's son, and published in the second edition of Yarrow Revisited, and other Poems, 1835.—Ed.