that it was only by the accidental sound of a few German words that I was aware we had quitted Italy, and hence the unwelcome shock alluded to in the two or three last lines of the latter sonnet.-I. F.

Text unchanged of both XXV. and XXVI.—ED.

Composed at Rydal on May Morning, 1838 (page 263).

This and the following poem were composed on what we call the "Far Terrace' at Rydal Mount, where I have murmured out many thousands of verses.-I. F.

Written May 1, 1838. First published in "Sonnets," 1838; placed in 1842 among "Miscellaneous Sonnets' first placed in this series 1845. L. 12, "saddening hue (1845); "sombre hue " (1838).—Ed.

The Pillar of Trajan (page 264).

These verses perhaps had better be transferred to the class of "Italian Poems." I had observed in the Newspaper, that the Pillar of Trajan was given as a subject for a prize-poem in English verse. I had a wish perhaps that my son, who was then an undergraduate at Oxford, should try his fortune, and I told him so; but he, not having been accustomed to write verse, wisely declined to enter on the task; whereupon I showed him these lines as a proof of what might, without difficulty, be done on such a subject.-I. F.

Written 1825; first published 1827. Placed 1827-1843 among "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection;" placed in this series 1845. L. 67, 66 power of Time" (1837); previously "sweep of Time."-ED.

"More high the Dacian force,

To hoof and finger mailed!" (page 266).

Here and infra, see Forsyth.-W. W.

The Egyptian Maid (page 267).

In addition to the short notice prefixed to this poem it may be worth while here to say that it rose out of a few words casually used in conversation by my nephew Henry Hutchinson. He was describing with great spirit the appearance and movement of a vessel which he seemed to admire more than any other he had ever seen, and said her name was the "Water Lily." This plant has been my

delight from my boyhood, as I have seen it floating on the lake; and that conversation put me upon constructing and composing the poem. Had I not heard those words it would never have been written. The form of the stanza is new, and is nothing but a repetition of the first five lines as they were thrown off, and is not perhaps well suited to narrative, and certainly would not have been trusted to had I thought at the beginning that the poem would have gone to such a length.-I. F.

Dated by Wordsworth 1830; first published _1835. Text little changed. In 1835 11. 11, 12, given in Errata as now, appeared thus in the text:

"As nearer to the Coast she drew,

Appeared more glorious, with spread sail and pendant."

In like manner 1. 17, given in Errata as now, was in the text, "In patience built with subtle care."

L. 18 (1837); in 1835, "Or, at a touch, set forth with wondrous transformation."

In 1. 84 (now as in 1837) the 1835 reading was" though sad not cheerless." By an error of transcriber or printer in 1. 125 the 1835 text gave "beach" for "shore"; the rhyme suggests the correction.-ED.

The River Duddon (page 281).

A Poet whose works are not yet known as they deserve to be thus enters upon his description of the "Ruins of Rome:"

"The rising Sun

Flames on the ruins in the purer air
Towering aloft;"

and ends thus

"The setting Sun displays

His visible great round, between yon towers,
As through two shady cliffs."

Mr. Crowe, in his excellent loco-descriptive Poem, "Lewesdon Hill" is still more expeditious, finishing the whole on a May-morning, before breakfast.

"To-morrow for severer thought, but now
To breakfast, and keep festival to-day.”

No one believes, or is desired to believe, that those Poems were actually composed within such limits of time 13 nor was there any reason why a prose statement should

acquaint the Reader with the plain fact, to the disturbance of poetic credibility. But, in the present case, I am compelled to mention, that the above series of Sonnets was the growth of many years;-the one which stands the 14th was the first produced; and others were added upon occasional visits to the Stream, or as recollections of the scenes upon its banks awakened a wish to describe them. In this manner I had proceeded insensibly, without perceiving that I was trespassing upon ground preoccupied, at least as far as intention went, by Mr. Coleridge; who, more than twenty years ago, used to speak of writing a rural Poem, to be entitled "The Brook," of which he has given a sketch in a recent publication. But a particular subject, cannot, I think, much interfere with a general one; and I have been further kept from encroaching upon any right Mr. C. may still wish to exercise, by the restriction which the frame of the Sonnet imposed upon me, narrowing unavoidably the range of thought, and precluding, though not without its advantages, many graces to which a freer movement of verse would naturally have led.

May I not venture, then, to hope, that, instead of being a hindrance, by anticipation of any part of the subject, these Sonnets may remind Mr. Coleridge of his own more comprehensive design, and induce him to fulfil it? There is a sympathy in streams,-"one calleth to another;" and I would gladly believe, that "The Brook" will, ere long, murmur in concert with "The Duddon." But, asking pardon for this fancy, I need not scruple to say, that those verses must indeed be ill-fated which can enter upon such pleasant walks of nature, without receiving and giving inspiration. The power of waters over the minds of Poets has been acknowledged from the earliest ages;through the "Flumina amem sylvasque inglorius of Virgil, down to the sublime apostrophe to the great rivers of the earth, by Armstrong, and the simple ejaculation of Burns (chosen, if I recollect right, by Mr. Coleridge, as a motto for his embryo "Brook,")

"The Muse nae Poet ever fand her,
Till by himsel' he learned to wander,
Adown some trotting burn's meander,
AND NA' THINK LANG."-W. W.

It is with the little river Duddon as it is with most other rivers, Ganges and Nile not excepted,-many springs might claim the honour of being its head. In my own fancy I have fixed its rise near the noted Shire

stones placed at the meeting-point of the counties, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Lancashire. They stand by the wayside on the top of the Wrynose Pass, and it used to be reckoned a proud thing to say that, by touching them at the same time with feet and hands, one had been in the three counties at once. At what point of its course the stream takes the name of Duddon I do not know. I first became acquainted with the Duddon, as I have good reason to remember, in early boyhood. Upon the banks of the Derwent I had learnt to be very fond of angling. Fish abound in that large river; not so in the small streams in the neighbourhood of Hawkshead; and I fell into the common delusion that the farther from home the better sport would be had. Accordingly, one day I attached myself to a person living in the neighbourhood of Hawkshead, who was going to try his fortune as an angler near the source of the Duddon. We fished a great part of the day with very sorry success, the rain pouring torrents, and long before we got home I was worn out with fatigue; and, if the good man had not carried me on his back, I must have lain down under the best shelter I could find. Little did I think then it would be my lot to celebrate, in a strain of love and admiration, the stream which for many years I never thought of without recollections of disappointment and distress.

During my college vacation, and two or three years afterwards, before taking my Bachelor's degree, I was several times resident in the house of a near relative who lived in the small town of Broughton. I passed many delightful hours upon the banks of this river, which becomes an estuary about a mile from that place. The remembrances of that period are the subject of the 21st Sonnet. The subject of the 27th is in fact taken from a tradition belonging to Rydal Hall, which once stood, as is believed, upon a rocky and woody hill on the right hand as you go from Rydal to Ambleside, and was deserted from the superstitious fear here described, and the present site fortunately chosen instead. The present Hall was erected by Sir Michael le Fleming, and it may be hoped that at some future time there will be an edifice more worthy of so beautiful a position. With regard to the 30th Sonnet it is odd enough that this imagination was realised in the year 1840, when I made a tour through that district with my wife and daughter, Miss Fenwick and her niece, and Mr. and Miss Quillinan. Before our return from Seathwaite chapel the party separated. Mrs.

Wordsworth, while most of us went further up the stream, chose an opposite direction, having told us that we should overtake her on our way to Ulpha. But she was tempted out of the main road to ascend a rocky eminence near it, thinking it impossible we should pass without seeing her. This, however, unfortunately happened, and then ensued vexation and distress, especially to me, which I should be ashamed to have recorded, for I lost my temper entirely. Neither I nor those that were with me saw her again till we reached the Inn at Broughton, seven miles. This may perhaps in some degree excuse my irritability on the occasion, for I could not but think she had been much to blame. It appeared, however, on explanation, that she had remained on the rock, calling out and waving her handkerchief as we were passing, in order that we also might ascend and enjoy a prospect which had much charmed her. "But on we went, her signals proving vain." How then could she reach Broughton before us? When we found she had not gone on before to Ulpha Kirk, Mr. Quillinan went back in one of the carriages in search of her. He met her on the road, took her up, and by a shorter way conveyed her to Broughton, where we were all reunited and spent a happy evening.

I have many affecting remembrances connected with this stream. Those I forbear to mention; especially things that occurred on its banks during the later part of that visit to the seaside of which the former part is detailed in my "Epistle to Sir George Beaumont."-I. F.

Written at intervals during many years; see Wordsworth's note; first published 1820. Sonnet XIV. was first published in 1807; its absence from ed. 1815 suggests that the Duddon Series was then in contemplation. Sonnet XXVII. was first published in 1819 with "The Waggoner."

On the identification of places in connection with this series see notes by Mr. Herbert Rix-from which I have selected several points-and by Mr. Rawnsley in Professor Knight's "Wordsworth," vol. vi; Thorne's "Rambles by Rivers;" chap. xvi. of "The Lake Country," by E. Lynn Linton; and "Wordsworth and the Duddon," by F. A. Malleson in "Good Words," vol. xxiv.-ED.

To the Rev. Dr. Wordsworth (page 281).

Text unchanged. Dr. Christopher Wordsworth in 1820 was Rector of Lambeth (see 1. 65). Professor Knight errs