FOOTNOTE:
[FJ] "Adopting the view that Sonnets IX. and X. refer to the stepping-stones at Dale Head, the position of the 'Faëry Chasm,' which has often caused perplexity, becomes clear. It must be looked for not below but considerably above Seathwaite, and is, in fact, the very next striking feature that occurs after the stepping-stones at Dale Head are passed. It is, I believe, the rocky gorge which is crossed by Birks Brig.
The stream is here precipitated down a series of falls, and at the same time is forced into a much narrower channel than it has hitherto occupied. In its downward course it is thrust from side to side in a series of rebounds, the effect being that the flood is churned into a mass of foam, while the rocks between which it is driven are scooped and chiselled into the most fantastic shapes—basins and niches, caverns and arches, and pillars with an odd spiral twist. Anything of a more elfin character could hardly be conceived.
The turbulence of the water as it descends towards the bridge is very well expressed in the charming little sketch given at page 245 of Mrs. Lynn Linton's Lake Country, but the cleft itself is not there represented. Of that, or a part of it, an illustration has been given by Mr. Chattock in his etchings of the River Duddon published in 1884 by the Fine Art Society.
Neither Mr. Chattock nor Mrs. Lynn Linton has, however, identified the spot with the 'Faëry Chasm.' Mr. Chattock associates it with Sonnet XX., though the imagery of that sonnet must, as he himself confesses, have been 'inspired by some scene farther down the river,' while Mrs. Lynn Linton (p. 251) finds the 'Faëry Chasm' at Gowdrel Crag. This latter view, which is, apparently, that adopted also by Canon Rawnsley, is a very possible alternative, and is favoured by the fact that the bed of the stream is at that point strewn with blocks of sky-blue stone. In that case Sonnets XI. and XII. refer to the same chasm. Mr. Goodwin in Through the Wordsworth Country, illustrates a note on the Faëry Chasm by a picture of the chasm at Wallabarrow, and of all the 'clefts' this best fits with the epithet 'sunless'; but is it not too vast for fairy scenes?
I could not learn that any faëry tradition was associated with either place." (Herbert Rix.)
"I cannot rest satisfied that the Faëry Chasm of Sonnet XI. is to be looked for at Birks Brig. No sky-blue stone, above water or below, can be pointed out—
But if the wanderer by Duddon Vale rejoins the road till it passes these same farm buildings further down the valley, will strike into the field, and, attracted by the roar of the stream, search for the locality set forth in Sonnet XII., he will find in mid-stream a huge blue-grey boulder that may have suggested Sonnet XI. to the poet." (H. D. Rawnsley.)
VARIANT:
[443] 1827.
FOOTNOTE:
[FK] "Almost immediately after leaving Birks Brig the stream plunges into a gorge—the 'deep-worn channel' of this sonnet. By dint of a little clambering, all the picturesque features described in the sonnet may be seen, but the traveller is forced at last to resume the road. The channel is so deep and confined that the stream cannot be seen from the road, and this is the first time since leaving the source that the Duddon is lost to sight. It is this fact which gives rise to the concluding lines of the sonnet:—
VARIANT:
[444] 1837.
FOOTNOTES:
[FL] "In determining the spot to which this sonnet belongs two conditions have to be satisfied. In the first place, Seathwaite must be seen from it; and, in the second, there must be an open prospect of fields. Now, from Cockley Beck to Ulpha there is no single spot upon the road satisfying these two conditions. Unless the line of the river is entirely abandoned, and some point of view high up on the fells is taken, there is, I believe, only one station in all the valley which supplies them, and that is the summit of a rock called in maps and guide-books 'Pen Crag,' but which the dalesmen always call simply 'The Pen' (not to be confounded with the mountain of that name lower down the valley on the west). There is an additional reason for regarding the Pen as the station whence Wordsworth viewed his 'open prospect,' namely, that the point from which the ascent of the crag is most conveniently made is identical with the point where the Duddon makes his second plunge into a rocky abyss, which plunge is signalised in the very next sonnet (XIV.). Thus, at the very spot where the poet is enabled to gain a view of 'the haunts of men,' 'some awful Spirit' impels the torrent 'utterly to desert' those haunts, and to make a second plunge into the wilderness. An increased significance is thus given to each of the sonnets (XIII. and XIV.) by the juxtaposition of the localities which they describe.
I should explain, in connection with this, that the Pen stands in the centre of the valley, a prominent and inviting look-out, and that the easy slope, by which it is on one side ascended, rises from the high-road, so that anybody who cares for views at all—and Wordsworth above all people—would not think of passing by without climbing to such an obvious point of vantage.
The 'one small hamlet' (line 2) is Seathwaite, which lies just below the Pen.
The 'barn and byre' (line 3) must have belonged to Newfield, the only farmhouse in the foreground.
The 'spouting mill' (line 3) is now a ruin. In Wordsworth's time it was in full work. Later (in the autumn of 1842), when it was visited by James Thorne, the wheel was broken, the machinery decaying, and the roof partly fallen in. At the present time, wheel, machinery, and roof have totally disappeared, and there is nothing to indicate that it ever was a mill. It was only by inquiring of the older inhabitants that I learnt these ruined walls standing by the Beck represent that 'mill for spinning yarn,' of which Wordsworth says that it calls to mind 'the momentous changes wrought by such inventions in the frame of society.' The ruin stands on the Tarn Beck, a few yards below Seathwaite Chapel, and on the other side of the stream.
The last three lines of the sonnet,
are probably an allusion to the Inn which, in Wordsworth's time, was to be found here. This is now a farmstead. It is called Newfield, and is just below Seathwaite Chapel. In Wordsworth's day it was inn and farm combined.
Mr. Malleson, in the article quoted above, appears (p. 576) to regard the green slope ascending towards Seathwaite Tarn, which opens on the left about a mile before the traveller reaches Seathwaite Chapel, as the 'Open Prospect'; but, though the fields here are certainly 'sprinkled o'er with dwellings,' the juxtaposition of the 'hamlet,' the 'barn and byre,' and the 'spouting mill' is wanting, and the allusion to the inn loses its point." (Herbert Rix.)
"It may be of interest to know that still the Newfield farm (in Wordsworth's time farm and inn combined) keeps up the well-deserved description of the poet. It is still 'a generous household.' When the yeoman, who was the last innkeeper and farmer combined, was on his death-bed, he enjoined those to whom Newfield passed to remember that 'though the license was to drop, and it was to become a private house, yet no stranger in the valley who requested a night's lodging was ever to be refused,' and the generous household are proud to keep up the tradition of hospitality." (H. D. Rawnsley.)
[FM] Compare Virgil, Æneid iii. 23—
This sonnet was first published in the small two-volume edition of the Poems in 1807, and was therefore written during or before 1807. In the present edition, however, it was not printed amongst the poems belonging to that year, since its appropriate place is manifestly in the series of sonnets relating to the River Duddon.—Ed.
FOOTNOTE:
FOOTNOTE:
[FO] "The 'deep chasm' of this sonnet is identical with the 'passage cleft through the wilderness' of Sonnet XIV. It lies between the Pen on the left hand, and Wallabarrow Crag on the right. As to the niche, which forms the subject of the sonnet, it cannot now be identified. There are, of course, plenty of such niches in the crags which tower above the Duddon just here, but none more striking than the rest. From the fact that it was 'free from shrubs and mosses grey,' one may perhaps infer that it was a place in the cliff from which a mass of rock had recently fallen. The bed of the stream just here is a chaos of such masses of rock, some of them being of enormous size.
Mr. Chattock identifies the 'chasm' with that at Gowdrel, higher up the river—a view which, besides breaking the order of the sonnets, would seem to be excluded by Wordsworth's note on Sonnets XVII. and XVIII., wherein he expressly states that the scenery 'which gave occasion to the sonnets from the 14th to the 20th inclusive,' lies about Seathwaite. Mr. Chattock's remark that 'the rocks are columnar in character,' so that the fall of a fragment readily gives rise to the appearance of an elongated 'niche,' is worthy of note. It would probably apply to either chasm." (Herbert Rix.)
on Wallabarrow, but found none there sufficiently striking to suggest Sonnet XV. Standing at Newfield Farm and looking north to the Pen, where it rises beyond the ruined mill, there certainly is upon its southern face just such a niche, but the green ivy has displaced the 'gloom.'" (H. D. Rawnsley.)
FOOTNOTE:
[FP] See Humboldt's Personal Narrative.—W. W. 1820.
"I cannot quit this first link (the finding of a piece of gold) of the mountains of Encaramada without recalling to mind a fact that was not unknown to Father Gili, and which was often mentioned to me during our abode in the Missions of the Orinoco. The natives of those countries have retained the belief that, 'at the time of the great waters, when their fathers were forced to have recourse to boats to escape the general inundation, the waves of the sea beat against the rocks of Encaramada.' This belief is not confined to one nation singly, the Tamanacs; it makes part of a system of historical tradition, of which we find scattered notions among the Maypures of the great cataracts, among the Indians of the Rio Erevato, which runs into the Caura, and among almost all the tribes of the Upper Orinoco. When the Tamanacs are asked how the human race survived this great Deluge, the 'age of water' of the Mexicans, they say, 'a man and a woman saved themselves on a high mountain, called Tamanacu, situated on the banks of the Asiveru, and casting behind them, over their heads, the fruits of the Mauritia palm-tree, they saw the seeds contained in those fruits produce men and women, who re-peopled the earth.' Thus we find in all its simplicity, among nations now in a savage state, a tradition which the Greeks embellished with all the charms of imagination! A few leagues from Encaramada, a rock, called Tepu-mereme, or 'the painted rock,' rises in the midst of the Savannah. Upon it are traced representations of animals, and symbolic figures resembling those we saw in going down the Orinoco, at a small distance below Encaramada, near the town Caycara. Similar rocks in Africa are called by travellers fetish-stones. I shall not make use of this term, because fetishism does not prevail among the natives of the Orinoco; and the figures of stars, of the sun, of tigers, and of crocodiles, which we found traced upon the rocks in spots now uninhabited, appeared to me in no way to denote the objects of worship of those nations. Between the banks of the Cassiquiare and the Orinoco, between Encaramada, the Capuchino, and Caycara, these hieroglyphic figures are often seen at great heights, on rocky cliffs which could be accessible only by constructing very lofty scaffolds. When the natives are asked how those figures could have been sculptured, they answer with a smile, as if relating a fact of which only a white man could be ignorant, that 'at the period of the great waters, their fathers went to that height in boats.'" Extract from Humboldt's Travels, vol. ii. chap. iv. pp. 182-3 (Bohn's Edition.)—Ed.
"The weathering of the volcanic ash of the Pen and the cliff of Wallabarrow opposite would naturally have suggested this sonnet. Evidence of ice-marking and glacier-action are not wanting in the neighbourhood." (H. D. Rawnsley.)
VARIANTS:
[445] 1820.
[446] 1820.
[447] 1827.
[448] 1827.
[449] 1827.
VARIANTS:
[450] 1837.
[451] 1845.
FOOTNOTES:
[FQ] "Seathwaite Chapel has been rebuilt. It may be worth mentioning that there is a woodcut of the original structure at p. 23 of Thorne's Rambles by Rivers (12mo, London, 1844), and a good engraving in the Rev. Canon Parkinson's Old Church Clock (5th edition, 1880, p. 99). The Parsonage, too, has been enlarged. It was formerly a mere cottage, with a peat-house at one end and an out-house of some kind at the other. These have been removed, and additions made to the dwelling at both ends. The brass in the church to the memory of 'Wonderful Walker' was taken from the tombstone. The stone has been turned over, and a new inscription cut." (Herbert Rix.)
[FR] See Daniel's Musophilus, l. 47.—Ed.
[FS] The allusion is to the description of the "poure persoun of a toun" in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, ll. 477-528.—Ed.
[FT] See George Herbert's Priest to the Temple.—Ed.
[FU] The reference is to the lines in The Deserted Village—
FOOTNOTE:
[FV] "The 'tributary stream,' which forms the subject of this sonnet, is the Tarn Beck, which rises in Seathwaite Tarn, and joins the Duddon just opposite Newfield. Seathwaite Chapel itself is not on the Duddon, but on the Tarn Beck. The sonnet gives a perfect description of its leading characteristics.
Mr. Chattock has given an etching of the Tarn." (Herbert Rix.)
"If one stands upon the Pen and looks up the Duddon Vale, the
will be seen, exactly described, upon the shoulder of the Fell that drops down from Heath Fell to the north-west. Is it possible that Wordsworth, as he gazed, was moved by
just beneath the little upland farm with its emerald plot of tillage, shining like jewels in the July sun,
—is it possible, I suggest, that Wordsworth was moved by this scene to write Sonnet XIX.?" (H. D. Rawnsley.)
VARIANTS:
[452] 1820.
FOOTNOTE:
[FW] "The term Donnerdale (now usually spelt Dunnerdale) is strictly applied to the district on the east bank of the Duddon from Broughton up to Ulpha Bridge, and extending thence parallel to Seathwaite, from which it is divided by fells. Guide-books sometimes apply the term to the whole valley of the Duddon, but this is entirely wrong; the term is never applied by the inhabitants to the upper or confined part of the valley, and is correctly used by Wordsworth to indicate the open plain of the lower stream.
Hall Dunnerdale, sometimes shortened into Dunnerdale, is a hamlet on the high-road between Seathwaite and Ulpha. From a bridge just below this hamlet the characteristics of the stream at this part of its course as described in Sonnet XX. may best be noted. The banks are thickly wooded with oak, ash, beech, alder, sycamore, and larch; the hills are lower and greener than the fells farther up the valley, and for the moment we might almost think we had been transported to the banks of the Wey, and were looking upon a Surrey landscape. The water above and below the bridge is comparatively still. But this, as the sonnet says, is not to last long,—'a rough course remains, rough as the past.' Before we reach Ulpha Bridge 'suspended animation is again succeeded by the clamorous war of stones and waters, which assail the ear of the traveller all the way to Duddon Bridge.'"[453] (Herbert Rix.)
[453] Green's Comprehensive Guide to the Lakes, quoted in Whellan's History and Topography, p. 59.
[Concerning the limits of Dunnerdale, the Rev. S. R. M. Walker, Vicar of Seathwaite, in answer to a question on the subject, wrote to Mr. Rix as follows:—
"Seathwaite Vicarage, June 21, 1883.
Dear Sir—I am not surprised at our topographical divisions giving a stranger difficulty. They belong to the cross kind. Thus, Dunnerdale (as it is now here usually spelled) forms an integral part of the civil division, or township, of Dunnerdale and Seathwaite, whilst ecclesiastically it is attached, not to Seathwaite, but to the ecclesiastical parish or district of Broughton-in-Furness; Seathwaite, Broughton-in-Furness, and Woodland (now all separate benefices), being so many outlying parts of the ancient ecclesiastical and civil parish of Kirkby-Ireleth. Dunnerdale itself is the name given to the district which lies on the east or Lancashire bank of the Duddon, from a point a few yards south of Ulpha bridge till it meets the boundary of Broughton proper, or the right bank of the Lickle, a small tributary of the Duddon, the main portion of it being enclosed in a little valley parallel to that of the Duddon. The fells bounding it do, on the more northern part, form a line of division from Seathwaite....
S. R. M. Walker."]
FOOTNOTES:
[FX] See the Fenwick note prefixed to the Duddon Sonnets.—Ed.
[FY] "If, in Sonnet VI., Wordsworth was describing the Duddon in April, the lines
tell us that he was a wanderer here in October also." (H. D. Rawnsley.)
FOOTNOTE: