[Footnote BH: "The scene of the first book of the poem is, I must own,
laid in a tract of country not sufficiently near to that which soon comes
into view in the second book, to agree with the fact. All that relates
to Margaret, and the ruined cottage, etc., was taken from observations
made in the south-west of England; and certainly it would require more
than seven-league boots to stretch in one morning, from a common in
Somersetshire, or Dorsetshire, to the heights of Furness Fells, and the
deep valleys they embosom."--I. F.
Compare with the first book of _The Excursion_ the first three books of
_The Prelude_.--ED.]
[Footnote BI: Compare stanza xi. in the _Ode, Intimations of Immortality_
(vol. viii.)--
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. ED.
]
=Book Second=