worn pillar called the Countess Pillar. It has the following inscription:

"This pillar was erected, in the year 1656, by Anne, Countess Dowager of Pembroke, etc., for a memorial of her last parting with her pious mother, Margaret, Countess Dowager of Cumberland, on the 2nd of April 1616; in memory whereof she hath left an annuity of 47. to be distributed to the poor of the parish of Brougham, every 2nd day of April for ever, upon the stone table placed hard by. Laus Deo!"

While the poor gather round, till the end of time
May this bright flower of Charity display
Its bloom, unfolding at the appointed day;
Flower than the loveliest of the vernal prime
Lovelier-transplanted from heaven's purest clime!
'Charity never faileth:' on that creed,

More than on written testament or deed,
The pious Lady built with hope sublime.
Alms on this stone to be dealt out, for ever!
'LAUS DEO.' Many a stranger passing by
Has with that Parting mixed a filial sigh,
Blest its humane Memorial's fond endeavour;
And, fastening on those lines an eye tear-glazed,
Has ended though no Clerk, with 'God be
praised!'

It is an octagonal pillar. The inscription is in capital letters, and is let into the stone in a copperplate, thirteen and a-half inches by ten and a-half inches.

The final memorial poem in this series refers to Roman Antiquities. At Voreda, some six miles from the present town of Penrith, there had been an old Roman Station-a camp of the third class. The relics discovered in it are now at Lowther Castle.

How profitless the relics that we cull,

Troubling the last holds of ambitious Rome

S

Unless they chasten fancies that presume
Too high, or idle agitations lull!

Of the world's flatteries if the brain be full,
To have no seat for thought were better doom,
Like this old helmet, or the eyeless skull
Of him who gloried in its nodding plume.
Heaven out of view, our wishes what are they
Our fond regrets tenacious in their grasp?
The Sage's theory? the Poet's lay?—
Mere Fibula without a robe to clasp ;
Obsolete lamps, whose light no time recals;
Urns without ashes, tearless lachrymals!

WORDSWORTH has described the Duddon Valley, and memorialized it, both in verse and prose. The allusions in the poems were traced out some years ago, during successive visits, by Mr. Herbert Rix; and although there may be room for difference of opinion in one or two points, a subsequent visit to the valley has not led me to differ from Mr. Rix, except in two instances. I therefore think it best to give his localization in full. To this Mr. Rix has most kindly consented. The following chapter is his-—

I.

Not envying Latian shades-if yet they throw
A grateful coolness round that crystal Spring,
Blandusia, prattling as when long ago

The Sabine Bard was moved her praise to sing;
Careless of flowers that in perennial blow

Round the moist marge of Persian fountains

cling;

Heedless of Alpine torrents thundering Through ice-built arches radiant as heaven's bow;

I seek the birthplace of a native Stream.

All hail, ye mountains! hail, thou morning light! Better to breathe at large on this clear height

213

Than toil in needless sleep from dream to dream: Pure flow the verse, pure, vigorous, free, and bright, For Duddon, long-loved Duddon, is my theme!

The Duddon rises on Wrynose Fell, though whereabouts on Wrynose Fell it rises is not so easy to determine. James Thorne, indeed, in his pretty little book, Rambles by Rivers, has furnished a picture of the source of the Duddon, and given directions for finding it, warning his readers at the same time that the "real source may easily be overlooked and the wrong spot selected. But his woodcut is so vague and featureless, that the traveller who tries to identify the spot which it represents, will find in this wild waste of rocks and rivulets any number of combinations which exactly suit it. Following, however, the stream which lies most nearly in a line with the lower bed of the river, it will be found to rise in a spot which commands a wide prospect: the valley of the Brathy, from Langdale Tarn to the head of Windermere, being in the foreground, and, in the background, wave upon wave of distant mountain ranges. Geographically speaking, this appears to me to be the source of the Duddon.

Poetically speaking, however, a different beck may be selected as the infant Duddon. As you go from Fell Foot to Cockley Beck, turn sharply to the right at the Three-Shire Stones, and you will come, at the distance of 200 yards, to a deep cleft, draped on either side with bracken and parsley-fern, and over-arched by two mountain ashes, which spring from the rock on either side, and interweave their branches midway. Just above this grotto the stream divides. The branch on the right hand, as you go towards the source, is the rill leading to the geographical source, but the left-hand branch is that which the poet is more likely to have followed

when he sought "the birthplace" of the Duddon. It is somewhat the larger of the two, and decidedly the more picturesque.

Following this stream we find it rising at a point whence neither the Brathy nor the Duddon Valley can be seen. We are surrounded by a perfect wilderness of huge hill-tops, and the spot, with its surroundings, answers well to the description given in the second and third sonnets. We are in the midst of a "lofty waste," haunted by the spirit of "Desolation;" the "whistling blast," which is never wanting in Wrynose Pass, sweeps bleakly by, and the "naked stones," such as the poet chose for his seat, are scattered all around.

As to the "tripping lambs," which supply a simile in the third sonnet, it is truly wonderful where those fell lambs will climb to! Not only do you encounter them on these lofty and desolate fells, where it seems almost strange to meet with any living creature, but, if you look upward, you will see them high above you, almost on the crown of Pike o' Blisco.

III.

How shall I paint thee?—Be this naked stone
My seat, while I give way to such intent;
Pleased could my verse, a speaking monument,
Make to the eyes of men thy features known.
But as of all those tripping lambs not one
Outruns his fellows, so hath Nature lent
To thy beginning nought that doth present
Peculiar ground for hope to build upon.
To dignify the spot that gives thee birth,
No sign of hoar Antiquity's esteem
Appears, and none of modern Fortune's care;
Yet thou thyself hast round thee shed a gleam
Of brilliant moss, instinct with freshness rare;
Prompt offering to thy Foster-mother, Earth!