he avoided all religious controversies, yet when age had silvered his head, and virtuous piety had secured to his appearance reverence and silent honour, no one, however determined in his hatred of apostolic descent, could have listened to his discourse on ecclesiastical history and ancient times, without thinking that one of the beloved apostles had returned to mortality, and in that vale of peace had come to exemplify the beauty of holiness in the life and character of Mr. Walker.

"Until the sickness of his wife, a few months previous to her death, his health and spirits and faculties were unimpaired. But this misfortune gave him such a shock, that his constitution gradually decayed. His senses, except sight, still preserved their powers. He never preached with steadiness after his wife's death. His voice faltered: he always looked at the seat she had used. He could not pass her tomb without tears. He became, when alone, sad and melancholy, though still among his friends kind and good-humoured. He went to bed about twelve o'clock the night before his death. As his custom was, he went, tottering and leaning upon his daughter's arm, to examine the heavens, and meditate a few moments in the open air. 'How clear the moon shines to-night!' He said these words, sighed, and laid down. At six next morning he was found a corpse. Many a tear, and many a heavy heart, and many a grateful blessing followed him to the grave."

Having mentioned in this narrative the vale of Loweswater as a place where Mr. Walker taught school, I will add a few memoranda from its parish register, respecting a person apparently of desires as moderate, with whom he must have been intimate during his residence there. "Let him that would, ascend the tottering seat Of courtly grandeur, and become as great As are his mounting wishes; but for me, Let sweet repose and rest my portion be.

"HENRY FOREST, Curate."

"Honour, the idol which the most adore,
Receives no homage from my knee;

Content in privacy I value more

Than all uneasy dignity."

"Henry Forest came to Lowes water, 1708, being twenty

five years of age."

"This curacy was twice augmented by Queen Anne's Bounty. The first payment, with great difficulty, was paid to Mr. John Curwen of London, on the 9th of May, 1724, deposited by me, Henry Forest, Curate of Loweswater. Y saith 9th of May, ye said Mr. Curwen went to the office, and saw my name registered there, &c. This, by the Providence of God, came by lot to this poor place. "Hæc testor H. FOREST."

In another place he records, that the sycamore-trees were planted in the churchyard in 1710.

He died in 1741, having been curate thirty-four years. It is not improbable that H. Forest was the gentleman who assisted Robert Walker in his classical studies at Loweswater.

To this parish register is prefixed a motto, of which the following verses are a part :

"Invigilate viri, tacito nam tempora gressu Diffugiunt, nulloque sono convertitur annus Utendum est ætate, cito pede præterit ætas.”—W. W.

Tributary Stream (page 293).

Text unchanged. The stream is the Tarn Beck, rising in Seathwaite Tarn, and joining the Duddon opposite Newfield.-ED.

The Plain of Donnerdale (page 294).

Text unchanged. Donnerdale is strictly "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" (Mr. Rix in Knight's "Wordsworth ").—ED.

"Whence that low voice?" (page 294). Text unchanged.—ED.

Tradition (page 295).

"

Text unchanged. The "hidden pool," Mr. Rix holds, must be either that opposite the "Travellers' Rest inn or that a little higher up, known as 66 Long Dub," both being between Donnerdale Bridge and Ulpha Bridge. -ED.

Sheep-Washing (page 295).

Ll. 1-5 (1845); previously:

"Sad thoughts, avaunt!-the fervour of the year, Poured on the fleece-encumbered flock, invites

To laving currents, for prelusive rites

Duly performed before the Dales-men shear

Their panting charge-The distant Mountains hear," L. 9 (1845); previously "Meanwhile, if Duddon's spotless breast receive."-ED.

The Resting-Place (page 296).

L. 13, "Here" (1837); previously "There." Mr. Rix conjectures that the "Resting-Place" of Sonnets XXIV.-XXVII. may be Holehouse Gill. The " embattled house of XXVII. he identifies with the fragment of masonry near the farm-house called "The Old Hall" (but note that the sonnet in which this occurs was not first published as one of this series, nor included in the series until 1827).-ED.

"Methinks 'twere," etc. (page 296).

L. 11, "that" (1837); previously “which.”—ED.

"Return, Content!" (page 297).

L. 7, ed. 1838 only, reads: "Sparkling like salt-sea billows."-ED.

Fallen, and diffused," etc. (page 298).

First published 1819, with "The Waggoner;" in 1820 included among "Miscellaneous Sonnets; "in 1827 placed in this series. L. 7, "though" (1827); previously " when.” See Fenwick note on this series of Sonnets.-ED.

Journey Renewed (page 298).

Text unchanged.-ED.

"No record tells," etc. (page 299).

L. 3, "Tells that" (1827); "Nor that" (1820).

Mr. Rix identifies the burial place with a small enclosure, near a farm-house called New Close, used until 1751

as a burial-ground for members of the Society of Friends. "The earth is 'blank' because there is not a single tombstone." It is known to the country people as The Sepúlchre.-ED.

"Who swerves from innocence" (page 299). Text unchanged. See Fenwick note on this series of Sonnets.-ED.

"The Kirk of Ulpha" (page 300).

Text unchanged. On 1. 3 Mr. Rix notes that from time immemorial the walls of the Kirk have been whitewashed, "so that on a sunny day it literally shines' from its exalted position.”—ED.

XXXII-XXXIII. (pages 300, 301).

Text unchanged.-ED.

After-thought (page 301).

L. 5. A return of 1845 to the text of the first edition, 1820; but in "Miscellaneous Poems," 1820, and in all other edd. previous to 1845 the reading is, "Still glides the Stream, and shall not cease to glide."-ED.

"We feel that we are greater than we know" (page 302). "And feel that I am happier than I know."

MILTON. The allusion to the Greek Poet will be obvious to the classical reader.-W. W.

Yarrow Revisited, and other Poems (page 303).

In the autumn of 1831, my daughter and I set off from Rydal to visit Sir Walter Scott before his departure for Italy. This journey had been delayed by an inflammation in my eyes till we found that the time appointed for his leaving home would be too near for him to receive us without considerable inconvenience. Nevertheless we proceeded and reached Abbotsford on Monday. I was then scarcely able to lift up my eyes to the light. How sadly changed did I find him from the man I had seen so healthy, gay, and hopeful, a few years before, when he

said at the inn at Paterdale, in my presence, his daughter Anne also being there, with Mr. Lockhart, my own wife and daughter, and Mr. Quillinan,—“ I mean to live till I am eighty, and shall write as long as I live." But to return to Abbotsford, the inmates and guests we found there were Sir Walter, Major Scott, Anne Scott, and Mr and Mrs. Lockhart, Mr. Liddell, his Lady and Brother and Mr. Allan the painter, and Mr. Laidlaw, a very ol friend of Sir Walter's. One of Burns's sons, an officer i the Indian service, had left the house a day or two before and had kindly expressed his regret that he could no await my arrival, a regret that I may truly say wa mutual. In the evening, Mr. and Mrs. Liddell sang, an Mrs. Lockhart chanted old ballads to her harp; and M Allan, hanging over the back of a chair, told and acted oc stories in a humorous way. With this exhibition and h daughter's singing, Sir Walter was much amused, indeed were we all as far as circumstances would allo But what is most worthy of mention is the admiral demeanour of Major Scott during the following evenir when the Liddell's were gone and only ourselves and M Allan were present. He had much to suffer from t sight of his father's infirmities and from the great char that was about to take place at the residence he had bu and where he had long lived in so much prosperity happiness. But what struck me most was the pati kindness with which he supported himself under the m fretful expressions that his sister Anne addressed to l or uttered in his hearing. She, poor thing, as mistress that house, had been subject, after her mother's death a heavier load of care and responsibility and greater sa fices of time than one of such a constitution of body mind was able to bear. Of this, Dora and I were mad sensible, that, as soon as we had crossed the Tweed on departure, we gave vent at the same moment to our ap hensions that her brain would fail and she would go of her mind, or that she would sink under the trials had passed and those which awaited her. On Tues morning Sir Walter Scott accompanied us and mo the party to Newark Castle on the Yarrow. Whet alighted from the carriages he walked pretty stoutly, had great pleasure in revisiting those his favourite ha Of that excursion the verses "Yarrow revisited memorial. Notwithstanding the romance that per Sir Walter's works and attaches to many of his h there is too much pressure of fact for these vers