500

"The Waggoner."

Several years after the event that forms the subject of the Poem, in company with my friend, the late Mr Coleridge, I happened to fall in with the person to whom the name of Benjamin is given. Upon our expressing regret that we had not, for a long time, seen upon the road either him or his waggon, he said:"They could not do without me; and as to the man who was put in my place, no good could come out of him; he was a man of no ideas."

The fact of my discarded hero's getting the horses out of a great difficulty with a word, as related in the poem, was told me by an eye

Page 108.

After the line, "Can any mortal clog come to her," followed in the MS. an incident which has been kept back. Part of the suppressed verses shall here be given as a gratification of private feeling, which the well-disposed reader will find no difficulty in excusing. They are now printed for the first time.

"Can any mortal clog come to her?
It can :

But Benjamin, in his vexation,
Possesses inward consolation;
He knows his ground, and hopes to find
A spot with all things to his mind,
An upright mural block of stone,
Moist with pure water trickling down.
A slender spring; but kind to man
It is, a true Samaritan;

Close to the highway, pouring out
Its offering from a chink or spout;
Whence all, howe'er athirst, or drooping
With toil, may drink, and without stooping.

Cries Benjamin, 'Where is it, where?
Voice it hath none, but must be near.'
-A star, declining towards the west,
Upon the watery surface threw
Its image tremulously imprest,

That just marked out the object and with
drew:
Right welcome service!

ROCK OF NAMES!
Light is the strain, but not unjust
To Thee, and thy memorial-trust
That once seemed only to express
Love that was love in idleness;
Tokens, as year hath followed year,
How changed, alas, in character!
For they were graven on thy smooth breast
By hands of those my soul loved best;
Meek women, men as true and brave
As ever went to a hopeful grave:
Their hands and mine, when side by side,
With kindred zeal and mutual pride,
We worked until the Initials took
Shapes that defied a scornful look.-
Long as for us a genial feeling
Survives, or one in need of healing,
The power, dear Rock, around thee cast,
Thy monumental power, shall last
For me and mine! O thought of pain,
That would impair it or profane!
Take all in kindness then, as said
With a staid heart but playful head;
And fail not Thou, loved Rock! to keep
Thy charge when we are laid asleep."
Page 125.

"Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle."
Henry Lord Clifford, &c. &c., who is the
subject of this Poem, was the son of John Lord
Clifford, who was slain at Towton Field, which
John Lord Clifford, as is known to the reader
of English History, was the person who after
the battle of Wakefield slew, in the pursuit, the
young Earl of Rutland, son of the Duke of
York, who had fallen in the battle, "in part of
revenge" (say the Authors of the History of
Cumberland and Westmoreland); "for the
Earl's Father had slain his," A deed which
worthily blemished the author (saith Speed);
but who, as he adds, "dare promise any thing
temperate of himself in the heat of martial fury?
chiefly, when it was resolved not to leave any
branch of the York line standing; for so one
maketh this Lord to speak.” This, no doubt,
I would observe by the bye, was an action
sufficiently in the vindictive spirit of the times,
and yet not altogether so bad as represented;
"for the Earl was no child, as some writers
would have him, but able to bear arms, being
sixteen or seventeen years of age, as is evident
from this, (say the Memoirs of the Countess of
Pembroke, who was laudably anxious to wipe
away, as far as could be, this stigma from the
illustrious name to which she was born,) that
he was the next Child to King Edward the
Fourth, which his mother had by Richard Duke
of York, and that King was then eighteen years
of age and for the small distance betwixt her
children, see Austin Vincent, in his Book of
Nobility, p. 622, where he writes of them all.
It may further be observed, that Lord Clifford,
who was then himself only twenty-five years of
age, had been a leading man and commander,
two or three years together in the army of Lan-
caster, before this time; and, therefore, would
be less likely to think that the Earl of Rutland

Page 126.

"And both the undying Fish that swim

Through Bowscale-Tarn," &c.

It is imagined by the people of the country that there are two immortal Fish, inhabitants of this Tarn, which lies in the mountains not far from Threlkeld.-Blencathara, mentioned before, is the old and proper name of the mountain vulgarly called Saddleback. Page 126.

"Armour rusting in his Halls

On the blood of Clifford calls." The martial character of the Cliffords is well known to the readers of English history; but it may not be improper here to say, by way of comment on these lines and what follows, that besides several others who perished in the same manner, the four immediate Progenitors of the Person in whose hearing this is supposed to be spoken all died in the Field.

Page 130.
"Dion."

This poem began with the following stanza, which has been displaced on account of its detaining the reader too long from the subject, and as rather precluding, than preparing for, the due effect of the allusion to the genius of Plato:

might be entitled to mercy from his youth.But, independent of this act, at best a cruel and savage one, the Family of Clifford had done enough to draw upon them the vehement hatred of the House of York: so that after the Battle of Towton there was no hope for them but in flight and concealment. Henry, the subject of the Poem, was deprived of his estate and honours during the space of twenty-four years; all which time he lived as a shepherd in Yorkshire, or in Cumberland, where the estate of his Father-in-law (Sir Lancelot Threlkeld) lay. He was restored to his estate and honours in the first year of Henry the Seventh. It is recorded that, "when called to Parliament, he behaved nobly and wisely; but otherwise came seldom to London or the Court; and rather delighted to live in the country, where he repaired several of his Castles, which had gone to decay during the late troubles." Thus far is chiefly collected from Nicholson and Burn; and I can add, from my own knowledge, that there is a tradition current in the village of Threlkeld and its neighbourhood, his principal retreat, that, in the course of his shepherd-life, he had acquired great astronomical knowledge. I cannot conclude this note without adding a word upon the subject of those numerous and noble feudal Edifices, spoken of in the Poem, the ruins of some of which are, at this day, so great an ornament to that interesting country. The Cliffords had always been distinguished for an Fair is the Swan, whose majesty, prevailing honourable pride in these Castles; and we have O'er breezeless water, on Locarno's lake, seen that, after the wars of York and Lancaster, Bears him on while proudly sailing they were rebuilt; in the civil wars of Charles He leaves behind a moon-illumined wake: the First they were again laid waste, and again Behold! the mantling spirit of reserve restored almost to their former magnificence by Fashions his neck into a goodly curve; the celebrated Lady Anne Clifford, Countess of An arch thrown back between luxuriant wings Pembroke, &c. &c. Not more than twenty- Of whitest garniture, like fir-tree boughs five years after this was done, when the estates To which, on some unruffled morning, clings of Clifford had passed into the Family of Tuf- A flaky weight of winter's purest snows! ton, three of these Castles, namely, Brough,Behold!-as with a gushing impulse heaves Brougham, and Pendragon, were demolished, That downy prow, and softly cleaves and the timber and other materials sold by The mirror of the crystal flood, Thomas Earl of Thanet. We will hope that, Vanish inverted hill, and shadowy wood,' when this order was issued, the Earl had not And pendent rocks, where'er, in gliding state, consulted the text of Isaiah, 58th chap. 12th Winds the mute Creature without visible Mate verse, to which the inscription placed over the gate of Pendragon Castle, by the Countess of Showering down a silver light, Or Rival, save the Queen of night Pembroke (I believe his Grandmother), at the From heaven, upon her chosen Favourite! time she repaired that structure, refers the reader:-"And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in." The Earl of Thanet, the present possessor of the Estates, with a due respect for the memory of his ancestors, and a proper sense of the value and beauty of these remains of antiquity, has (I am told) given orders that they shall be preserved from all depredations.

Page 125.

"Earth helped him with the cry of blood." This line is from "The Battle of Bosworth Field," by Sir John Beaumont (brother to the Dramatist), whose poems are written with much spirit, elegance, and harmony; and have deservedly been reprinted lately in Chalmers' Collection of English Poets.

Page 132. living hill"

awhile the living hill Heaved with convulsive throes, and all was still.' DR DARWIN.

Page 136.

"The Wishing-gate."

"In the Vale of Grasmere, by the side of the old highway leading to Ambleside, is a gate which, time out of mind, has been called the Wishing-gate."

Having been told, upon what I thought good authority, that this gate had been destroyed, and the opening, where it hung, walled up, I gave vent immediately to my feelings in these stanzas. But going to the place some time after, I found, with much delight, my old favourite unmolested.

502

Page 155. Something less than joy, but more than dull content.

COUNTESS OF WINCHILSEA.

Page 166.

"Wild Redbreast," &c. This Sonnet, as Poetry, explains itself, yet the scene of the incident having been a wild wood, it may be doubted, as a point of natural history, whether the bird was aware that his attentions were bestowed upon a human, or even a living, creature. But a Bedbreast will perch upon the foot of a gardener at work, and alight on the handle of the spade when his hand is half upon it-this I have seen. And under my own roof I have witnessed affecting instances of the creature's friendly visits to the chambers of sick persons, as described in the One of verses to the Redbreast, page 84. these welcome intruders used frequently to roost upon a nail in the wall, from which a picture had hung, and was ready, as morning came, to pipe his song in the hearing of the Invalid, who had been long confined to her room. These attachments to a particular person, when marked and continued, used to be reckoned ominous; but the superstition is passing away.

Page 172.

The following is extracted from the journal of my fellow-traveller, to which, as persons acquainted with my poems will know, I have been obliged on other occasions:

mahogany desk; opposite the window a clock,
which Burns mentions, in one of his letters,
having received as a present. The house was
cleanly and neat in the inside, the stairs of stone
scoured white, the kitchen on the right side of
In the
the passage, the parlour on the left.
room above the parlour the poet died, and his
The ser-
son, very lately, in the same room.
vant told us she had lived four years with Mrs
Burns, who was now in great sorrow for the
She said that Mrs B.'s
death of Wallace.
youngest son was now at Christ's Hospital. We
were glad to leave Dumfries, where we could
think of little but poor Burns, and his moving
about on that unpoetic ground. In our road to
Brownhill, the next stage, we passed Ellisland,
at a little distance on our right- his farm-house.
Our pleasure in looking round would have been
still greater, if the road had led us nearer the

Salutes me every day, or at my pride looks grim,

Oft threatening me with clouds, as I oft threaten him.'

"These lines came to my brother's memory, as well as the Cumberland saying,

If Skiddaw hath a cap

personally known to each other, and he have looked upon those objects with more pleasure

"Dumfries, August, 1803. "On our way to the church-yard where Burns is buried, we were accompanied by a bookseller, who showed us the outside of Burns's house, where he had lived the last three years of his Scruffel wots well of that.' life, and where he died. It has a mean appear"We talked of Burns, and of the prospect he ance, and is in a bye situation; the front must have had, perhaps from his own door, of whitewashed; dirty about the doors, as most Skiddaw and his companions; indulging ourScotch houses are: flowering plants in the win-selves in the fancy that we might have been dow. Went to visit his grave; he lies in a corner of the churchyard, and his second son, There is no Francis Wallace, beside him. stone to mark the spot; but a hundred guineas have been collected to be expended upon some sort of monument. There,' said the bookseller, pointing to a pompous monument, 'lies Mr(I have forgotten the name)-a remarkably clever man; he was an attorney, and scarcely ever lost a cause he undertook. Burns made many a lampoon upon him, and there they rest We looked at Burns's grave with melancholy and painful reflections, repeating to each other his own poet's epitaph :

as you see.

'Is there a man,' &c.

"The churchyard is full of grave-stones and expensive monuments, in all sorts of fantastic shapes, obelisk-wise, pillar-wise, &c. When our guide had left us we turned again to Burns's grave, and afterwards went to his house, wishing to inquire after Mrs Burns, who was gone to spend some time by the sea-shore with her children. We spoke to the maid-servant at the door, who invited us forward, and we sate down in the parlour. The walls were coloured with a blue wash; on one side of the fire was a

for our sakes.'

Page 186.

Jones! as from Calais southward." (See Dedication to Descriptive Sketches.)' This excellent Person, one of my earliest and dearest friends, died in the year 1835. We were under-graduates together of the same year, at the same college; and companions in many a delightful ramble through his own romantic Country of North Wales. Much of the latter part of his life he passed in comparative solitude; which I know was often cheered by remembrance of our youthful adventures, and of the beautiful regions which, at home and abroad, we had visited together. Our long friendship was never subject to a moment's interruption,--and, while revising these volumes for the last time, I have been so often reminded of my loss, with a not unpleasing sadness, that I trust the Reader will excuse this passing mention of a Man who well deserves from me something more than so brief a notice. Let me only add, that during the middle part of his

When I may read of tilts in days of old,
And tourneys graced by Chieftains of renown,
Fair dames, grave citizens, and warriors bold,
If fancy would portray some stately town,
Which for such pomp fit theatre should be,
Fair Bruges, I shall then remember thee.'

of indisputable promise: particularly by applying, in its utmost possible extent, that system of tuition whose master-spring is a habit of gradually enlightened subordination;- by imparting knowledge, civil, moral, and religious, in such measure that the mind, among all classes of the community, may love, admire, and be In this city are many vestiges of the splendour prepared and accomplished to defend, that of the Burgundian Dukedom, and the long black country under whose protection its faculties mantle universally worn by the females is prohave been unfolded, and its riches acquired;-bably a remnant of the old Spanish connection, by just dealing towards all orders of the state, which, if I do not much deceive myself, is so that, no members of it being trampled upon, traceable in the grave deportment of its inhacourage may everywhere continue to rest im- bitants, Bruges is comparatively little disturbed moveably upon its ancient English foundation, by that curious contest, or rather conflict, of personal self-respect;-by adequate rewards, Flemish with French propensities in matters of and permanent honours, conferred upon the taste, so conspicuous through other parts of deserving;-by encouraging athletic exercises Flanders. The hotel to which we drove at and manly sports among the peasantry of the Ghent furnished an odd instance. In the pascountry; and by especial care to provide and sages were paintings and statues, after the ansupport institutions, in which, during a time of tique, of Hebe and Apollo; and in the garden, peace, a reasonable proportion of the youth of a little pond, about a yard and a half in diathe country may be instructed in military meter, with a weeping willow bending over it, and under the shade of that tree, in the centre of the pond a wooden painted statue of a Dutch or Flemish boor, looking ineffably tender upon his mistress, and embracing her. A living duck, tethered at the feet of the sculptured lovers, alternately tormented a miserable eel and itself with endeavours to escape from its bonds and prison. Had we chanced to espy the hostess of the hotel in this quaint rural retreat, the exhibition would have been complete. She was a true Flemish figure, in the dress of the days of Holbein; her symbol of office, a weighty bunch of keys, pendent from her portly waist. In Brussels, the modern taste in costume, architecture, &c., has got the mastery; in Ghent there is a struggle: but in Bruges old images are still paramount, and an air of monastic life among the quiet goings-on of a thinly-peopled city is inexpressibly soothing; a pensive grace seems to be cast over all, even the very children.-Extract from Journal.

science.

I have only to add, that I should feel little satisfaction in giving to the world these limited attempts to celebrate the virtues of my country, if I did not encourage a hope that a subject, which it has fallen within my province to treat only in the mass, will by other poets be illustrated in that detail which its importance calls for, and which will allow opportunities to give the merited applause to PERSONS as well as to

THINGS.

The ode was published along with other pieces, now interspersed through this volume.

Page 200.

"Discipline the rule whereof is passion." LORD BROOKE.

Page 202. Sonnet I.

If in this Sonnet I should seem to have borne a little too hard upon the personal appearance of the worthy Poissardes of Calais, let me take shelter under the authority of my lamented friend, the late Sir George Beaumont. He, a most accurate observer, used to say of them, that their features and countenances seemed to have conformed to those of the creatures they dealt in; at all events the resemblance was striking.

Page 202.
"Bruges."
This is not the first poetical tribute which in
our times has been paid to this beautiful city.
Mr Southey in the "Poet's Pilgrimage "speaks
of it in lines which I cannot deny myself the
pleasure of connecting with my own.
"Time hath not wronged her, nor hath ruin
sought

Rudely her splendid structures to destroy,
Save in those recent days, with evil fraught,
When mutability, in drunken joy
Triumphant, and from all restraint released,
Let loose her fierce and many-headed beast.
But for the scars in that unhappy rage
Inflicted, firm she stands and undecayed;
Like our first Sires, a beautiful old age
Is hers in venerable years arrayed;
And yet, to her, benignant stars may bring,
What fate denies to man.-a second spring.

"Let a wall of rocks be imagined from three to six hundred feet in height, and rising between France and Spain, so as physically to separate the two kingdoms-let us fancy this wall curved like a crescent, with its convexity towards France. Lastly, let us suppose, that in the very middle of the wall, a breach of 300 feet wide has been beaten down by the famous Roland, and we may have a good idea of what the mountaineers call the BRECHE DE ROLAND.'"-Raymond s Pyrenees.