occurs in the _Ode, Intimations of Immortality_.--ED.]
[Footnote BQ: Langdale.--ED.]
[Footnote BR: The flank of Lingmoor.--ED.]
[Footnote BS: The flat heathery summit of Lingmoor. Note the text of
1814.--ED.]
[Footnote BT: Bowfell, Great End, Shelter Crags, and Pike o' Blisco
to the west straight before them, the Langdale Pikes to the north on
the right, with Wrynose, Wetherlam, and the Coniston Mountains to the
south-west.--ED.]
[Footnote BU: The head of Little Langdale, with Blea Tarn in the centre,
as seen from the top of Lingmoor, the only point, except the summit of
Blake Rigg, from which it appears "urn-like."
With the six previous lines compare Beattie's _Minstrel_, book ii. stanza
vi.--
It was his chance to wander far abroad,
And o'er a lonely eminence to climb,
Which, heretofore, his foot had never trode;
A vale appeared below, a deep retired abode. ED.
]
[Footnote BV: The "small opening, where a heath-clad ridge supplied a
boundary," is that which leads down into Little Langdale by Fell Foot and
Busk.--ED.]
[Footnote BW: The "nook" is not now "treeless," but the fir-wood on the
western side of the Vale adds to its "quiet," and deepens the sense of
seclusion.--ED.]
[Footnote BX: Blea Tarn. "The scene in which this small piece of water
lies, suggested to the Author the following description (given in his
poem of _The Excursion_), supposing the spectator to look down upon it,
not from the road, but from one of its elevated sides." (See Wordsworth's
_Description of the Scenery of the District of the Lakes_ in his _Prose
Works_.)--ED.]
[Footnote BY: The solitary cottage, called Blea Tarn house, which is
passed on the left of the road under Side Pike.--ED.]
[Footnote BZ: The following is from Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere
Journal: Wednesday, 3rd September 1800.--"I went to a funeral at John
Dawson's. About 10 men and 4 women.... The dead person 56 years of age,
buried by the parish.... They set the corpse down at the door; and, while
we stood within the threshold, the men, with their hats off, sang, with
decent and solemn countenances, a verse of a funeral psalm. The corpse
was then borne down the hill, and they sang till they had passed the
Town-end. I was affected to tears while we stood in the house.... There
were no near kindred, no children. When we got out of the dark house
the sun was shining, and the prospect looked as divinely beautiful as I
ever saw it. It seemed more sacred than I had ever seen it, and yet more
allied to human life.... When we came to the bridge, they began to sing
again, and stopped during four lines before they entered the churchyard."
Compare this with such phrases in _The Excursion_ as--
They shaped their course along the sloping side
Of that small valley, singing as they moved;
A sober company and few, the men
Bare-headed, --(p. 84.)
We heard the hymn they sang--a solemn sound
Heard any where; but in a place like this
'Tis more than human! --(p. 90.)--ED.
]
[Footnote CA: See the note on the preceding page.--ED.]
[Footnote CB: Descending from the top of Lingmoor to Blea Tarn.--ED.]
[Footnote CC: The upper part of Little Langdale, descending to Fell
Foot.--ED.]
[Footnote CD: A spot exactly similar to this can easily be found, about
two hundred yards above the house, in the narrow gorge of Blea Tarn
Ghyll, below a waterfall, where a "moss-grown wall" still approaches
the rock on the other side of the stream, and where a "penthouse" might
easily be made by children.--ED.]
[Footnote CE: It may not be too trivial to note that, to this day, in the
Cumberland and Westmoreland vales, one of the favourite games of children
on the fell-sides near their cottages, is playing at mimic gardens and
parterres, made out of fragments of broken pottery.--ED.]
[Footnote CF: Compare Lamb's remark in a letter to Wordsworth, 14th
August 1814. See _Letters of Charles Lamb_, edited by Canon Ainger, vol.
i. p. 271.--ED.]
[Footnote CG: The flat ground on the more level part of the valley near
Blea Tarn cottage.--ED.]
[Footnote CH: Compare _Resolution and Independence_, stanza xiii. (see
vol. ii. p. 319).--ED.]
[Footnote CI: Compare the note p. 83; also the Fenwick note, in which
Wordsworth laments the change in the "manner in which, till lately, every
one was borne to the place of sepulture."--ED.]
[Footnote CJ: The custom of mourners kneeling round the coffin was, till
quite lately, in common use. It is still observed in some churches in
Cumberland and Westmoreland, but is gradually passing away.--ED.]
[Footnote CK: Blea Tarn house is a humble cottage, resembling Anne
Tyson's house at Hawkshead where Wordsworth lived when at school. On
the ground-floor are a parlour, kitchen, and dairy. You ascend by nine
stone steps to the upper flat, where there are four small rooms, and the
window of one of them faces the north in the direction of the Langdale
Pikes. The foundations of an older house may be seen a little lower down,
about twenty yards nearer the tarn; but the present house was probably
standing at the beginning of this century. As there are two poplars to
the north of the cottage, and a sycamore near them, it is not likely
that the place was _entirely_ "treeless" in Wordsworth's time. In the
Fenwick memoranda he says "the cottage was called Hackett, and stands,
as described, on the southern extremity of the ridge which separates the
two Langdales." In this he evidently confounds Hackett cottage, near
Colwith--which separates the two Langdales as you ascend them from the
lower country--with the Blea Tarn cottage, which stands on "the southern
extremity of the ridge which separates the Langdale" valleys as you
descend them.--ED.]
[Footnote CL: It is generally supposed that the
two huge Peaks,
That from some other vale peered into this,
are the Langdale Pikes; and it is the most likely supposition. But, if
the three were seated, as described, in the upper room of the cottage
(which has one small window looking toward the Pikes), they could not
possibly see them. Side Pike and Pike o' Blisco alone could be seen.
Either then, these are the Peaks referred to; or, what is much more
likely, the realism of the narrative here gives way; and the far finer
pikes of Langdale are introduced--although they are not visible from
the house--because they belong to the district, and can be seen from so
many points around. The phrases "from some other vale" and "lusty twins"
point unmistakably to those two characteristic pikes which "peer" over
the crest of the ridge dividing the Langdale valleys. "Let a man," says
Dr. Cradock, "as he approaches Blea Tarn from Little Langdale, see these
slowly rising, and peering alone over the depression (or Haws) which
divides the Langdales, and he cannot doubt that they are the 'lusty
twins.' Let the Haws be in shadow, and the Pikes in sunlight, or the
reverse, and the effect is one of the most striking in all the district."
Compare the sonnet, _November 1, 1815_, beginning--
How clear, how keen, how marvellously bright. ED.
]
[Footnote CM: This is strictly accurate. On and about the 21st June, the
sun, as seen from Blea Tarn, sets just between the Langdale Pikes.--ED.]
[Footnote CN: "Mark how the wind rejoices in these peaks, and they give
back its wild pleasure; how all the things which touch and haunt them get
their reply; how they are loved and love; how busy are the mute agents
there; how proud the stars to shine on them." (Stopford A. Brooke's
_Theology in the English Poets_, p. 108.)--ED.]
[Footnote CO: "The account given by the Solitary, towards the close of
the second book, in all that belongs to the character of the old man, was
taken from a Grasmere pauper, who was boarded in the last house quitting
the vale on the road to Ambleside."--I.F.]
[Footnote CP: "The character of his hostess, and all that befell the poor
man upon the mountain, belongs to Paterdale. The woman I knew well; her
name was Ruth Jackson, and she was exactly such a person as I describe.
The ruins of the old chapel, among which the old man was found lying,
may yet be traced, and stood upon the ridge that divides Paterdale from
Boardale and Martindale, having been placed there for the convenience of
both districts."--I.F.
The following is Dorothy Wordsworth's account of the same occurrence,
given in a record of what she called "a Mountainous Ramble," written
in 1805. Her brother afterwards incorporated this passage, with a few
alterations, in his _Description of the Scenery of the Lakes_.
"Looked into Boar Dale above Sanwick--deep and bare, a stream winding
down it. After having walked a considerable way on the tops of the hills,
came in view of Glenridding and the mountains above Grisdale. Luff then
took us aside, before we had begun to descend, to a small ruin, which was
formerly a chapel or place of worship where the inhabitants of Martindale
and Paterdale were accustomed to meet on Sundays. There are now no traces
by which you could discover that the building had been different from a
common sheepfold; the loose stones and the few which yet remain piled
up are the same as those which lie about on the mountain; but the shape
of the building being oblong is not that of a common sheepfold, and it
stands east and west. Whether it was ever consecrated ground or not I
know not; but the place may be kept holy in the memory of some now living
in Paterdale; for it was the means of preserving the life of a poor old
man last summer, who, having gone up the mountain to gather peats, had
been overtaken by a storm, and could not find his way down again. He
happened to be near the remains of the old chapel, and, in a corner of
it, he contrived, by laying turf and ling and stones from one wall to
the other, to make a shelter from the wind, and there he lay all night.
The woman who had sent him on his errand began to grow uneasy towards
night, and the neighbours went out to seek him. At that time the old man
had housed himself in his nest, and he heard the voices of the men, but
could not make _them_ hear, the wind being so loud, and he was afraid
to leave the spot lest he should not be able to find it again, so he
remained there all night; and they returned to their homes, giving him up
for lost; but the next morning the same persons discovered him huddled up
in the sheltered nook. He was at first stupefied and unable to move; but
after he had eaten and drunk, and recollected himself a little, he walked
down the mountain, and did not afterwards seem to have suffered."--ED.]
[Footnote CQ: Compare Ezekiel, chap. i.--ED.]
[Footnote CR: "The glorious appearance disclosed above and among the
mountains, was described partly from what my friend Mr. Luff, who
then lived in Paterdale, witnessed upon that melancholy occasion, and
partly from what Mary and I had seen, in company with Sir George and
Lady Beaumont, above Hartshope Hall, on our way from Paterdale to
Ambleside."--I. F.
Compare the lines 827-881 with the account of the view from the top of
Snowdon, in _The Prelude_, book xiv. II. 11-62 (vol. iii. pp. 367-68),
and see Charles Lamb's remarks in his letter to Wordsworth (Aug. 14,
1814) on receiving a copy of _The Excursion_. (_Letters of Charles Lamb_,
edited by Alfred Ainger, vol. i. p. 271.) In his _Table Talk_ Coleridge
expresses a wish "that the first two books of _The Excursion_ had been
published separately under the name of 'The Deserted Cottages.' They
would have formed, what indeed they are, one of the most beautiful poems
in the language." This advice has been followed more than once--ED.]
=Book Third=