maturer imagination worked amongst the yews of Borrowdale.

There is a singularly interesting passage in the same book of The Prelude, entitled " Retrospect," in which he quotes and recasts some lines he wrote when a boy at Hawkshead. Every one who knows anything of Wordsworth must remember the

Conclusion of a Poem composed in anticipation of leaving School. It was written in his sixteenth year, and the extract from it, with which every edition of his poems after 1815 begins, is as follows :— Dear native regions, I foretell,

From what I feel at this farewell,
That, wheresoe'er my steps may tend,
And whensoe'er my course shall end,
If in that hour a single tie
Survive of local sympathy,

My soul will cast the backward view,
The longing look alone on you.

Thus, while the Sun sinks down to rest
Far in the regions of the west,
Though to the vale no parting beam
Be given, not one memorial gleam,
A lingering light he fondly throws
On the dear hills where first he rose.

This was recast, in the blank verse of The Prelude, thus

A grove there is whose boughs Stretch from the western marge of Thurston-mere, With lengths of shade so thick that whoso glides Along the line of low-roofed water, moves As in a cloister. Once-while in that shade Loitering, I watched the golden beams of light Flung from the setting sun, as they reposed In silent beauty on the naked ridge

Of a high eastern hill-thus flowed my thoughts In a pure stream of words fresh from the heart:

Dear native Regions, wheresoe'er shall close
My mortal course, there will I think on you;
Dying, will cast on you a backward look;
Even as this setting sun (albeit the Vale
Is nowhere touched by one memorial gleam)
Doth with the fond remains of his last power
Still linger, and a farewell lustre sheds

On the dear mountain-tops where first they rose.1 Though the former was the impromptu utterance of a boy of sixteen, some will prefer its fresh simplicity to the new version written in the poet's manhood. The reference to "Thurston-mere" has puzzled many readers of The Prelude, and it is a good illustration of the need of some topographical commentary to the poems. The I. F. note is as follows: "The image with which this poem concludes suggested itself to me while I was resting in a boat along with my companions, under the shade of a magnificent row of sycamores, which then extended their branches from the shore of the promontory upon which stands the ancient, and at that time more picturesque, Hall of Coniston."2 Now there is nothing in the poem definitely to connect "Thurston-mere" with Coniston, though their identity is suggested. I find, however, that Thurston was the ancient name of Coniston.3 The site of that grove "on the shore of the promontory" is easily identified, though the grove itself is gone.

Another extract from The Prelude may be given here, as it describes a district close at hand, the estuary of the Leven, Morecambe Bay, the ruins of a Roman chapel on a rocky islet, and a 1 The Prelude, book viii. p. 226.

2 Prose Works,vol. iii. p. 4.

3 See Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of England, vol. i. p. 662; also the Edinburgh Gazetteer (1822), articles Thurston and Coniston.

The

characteristic incident in the poet's life, in his twenty-fourth year, shortly after his return to England from his one year's residence in France. 'honoured teacher of his youth" was the Rev. William Taylor, who was buried in Cartmell churchyard, and to visit whose grave the pupil turned aside that morning, from his route over the Ulverstone sands.1

O Friend! few happier moments have been mine
Than that which told the downfall of this Tribe
So dreaded, so abhorred. The day deserves
A separate record. Over the smooth sands
Of Leven's ample estuary lay

My journey, and beneath a genial sun,
With distant prospect among gleams of sky
And clouds, and intermingling mountain tops,
In one inseparable glory clad,

Creatures of one ethereal substance met
In consistory, like a diadem

Or crown of burning seraphs as they sit
In the empyrean. Underneath that pomp
Celestial, lay unseen the pastoral vales
Among whose happy fields I had grown up
From childhood. On the fulgent spectacle,
That neither passed away nor changed, I gazed
Enrapt; but brightest things are wont to draw
Sad opposites out of the inner heart,

As even their pensive influence drew from mine.
How could it otherwise? for not in vain
That very morning had I turned aside

To seek the ground where, 'mid a throng of graves,
An honoured teacher of my youth was laid,
And on the stone were graven by his desire
Lines from the churchyard elegy of Gray.
This faithful guide, speaking from his deathbed,
Added no farewell to his parting counsel,

1 Memoirs, vol. i. p. 38.

But said to me, "My head will soon lie low;"
And when I saw the turf that covered him,
After the lapse of full eight years, those words,
With sound of voice and countenance of the Man,
Came back upon me, so that some few tears
Fell from me in my own despite. But now
I thought, still traversing that widespread plain,
With tender pleasure of the verses graven
Upon his tombstone, whispering to myself:
He loved the Poets, and, if now alive,
Would have loved me, as one not destitute
Of promise, nor belying the kind hope
That he had formed, when I, at his command,
Began to spin, with toil, my earliest songs.

As I advanced, all that I saw or felt
Was gentleness and peace. Upon a small
And rocky island near, a fragment stood
(Itself like a sea rock) the low remains
(With shells encrusted, dark with briny weeds)
Of a dilapidated structure, once

A Romish chapel, where the vested priest
Said matins at the hour that suited those

Who crossed the sands with ebb of morning tide.
Not far from that still ruin all the plain
Lay spotted with a variegated crowd
Of vehicles and travellers, horse and foot,
Wading beneath the conduct of their guide
In loose procession through the shallow stream
Of inland waters; the great sea meanwhile
Heaved at safe distance, far retired. I paused
Longing for skill to paint a scene so bright
And cheerful, but the foremost of the band
As he approached, no salutation given
In the familiar language of the day,
Cried, "Robespierre is dead!"

Great was my transport, etc.1

1 The Prelude, book x. p. 228.

THE cottage at Grasmere, to which Wordsworth came with his sister in one of the last days of last century (December 21, 1799), is, even more than Rydal Mount, "identified with his poetic prime." It had once been a public-house, bearing the sign of the Dove and Olive Bough, from which circumstance it was for a long time, and is still occasionally, named "Dove Cottage." It is a small two-storied house. "The front of it faces the lake; behind is a small plot of orchard and garden ground, in which there is a spring and rocks; the enclosure shelves upwards towards the woody sides of the mountain above it."1

This plot of orchard ground is ours;
My trees they are, my sister's flowers.

He writes thus of his settlement at Grasmere, and of his sister

On Nature's invitation do I come,

By Reason sanctioned. Can the choice mislead, That made the calmest, fairest spot on earth, With all its unappropriated good,

My own, and not mine only, for with me

1 Memoirs, vol. i. p. 156.

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