"Not twice had summer," etc. (l. 247). ED.
]
[Footnote IN: Old Mr. Sympson was found dead in his garden on the
opposite side of the road from the cottage, in 1807, in his ninety-second
year. There is now a new door into the garden, but the posts are old
enough to have been there in Sympson's time.--ED.]
[Footnote IO: The Sympsons are all buried at Grasmere. Their gravestone
stands about ten yards north-west from that of their poet, not far from
the monument erected in memory of Arthur Hugh Clough. There is only one
stone, a low one, with a pointed top. The following is the inscription
on it:--"Here lie the remains of the Reverend Jos. Sympson, Minister of
Wytheburn for more than 50 years. He died June 27, 1807, aged 92; also
of Mary, his wife, who died Jan. 24, 1806, aged 81; also of Eliz. Jane,
their youngest Dr., who died Sep. 11, 1801, aged 37."--ED.]
[Footnote IP: The Duddon valley.--ED.]
[Footnote IQ: See the notes to the Duddon sonnets.--ED.]
[Footnote IR: The chapelry of Seathwaite. The reference to "yon hill"
suggests that the conversation is carried on at Hackett (rather than
Grasmere), whence Wetherlam--which concealed the Duddon valley--would be
visible.--ED.]
[Footnote IS: It is so. In the churchyard of Seathwaite a plain stone
slab records the fact that he died on the 25th June 1802, in the
ninety-third year of his age.--ED.]
[Footnote IT: "The Deaf Man, whose epitaph may be seen in the churchyard
at the head of Hawes Water, and whose qualities of mind and heart, and
their benign influence in conjunction with his privation, I had from his
relatives on the spot."--I. F.
Thomas Holme of Chapel Hill was his name. On his epitaph it is said "he
was deprived of the sense of hearing in his youth, and lived about 58
years without the comfort of hearing one word. He reconciled himself to
his misfortune by reading, and useful employment." He died in 1773, "aged
67 years."
From this it is clear that we must not look for the "tall pine" or the
"plain blue stone" in Grasmere churchyard! and that the localities as
well as the narratives of _The Excursion_ are at times composite.--ED.]
[Footnote IU: For another reference to the streams in the Grasmere Vale,
compare the _Lines composed at Grasmere_, when Mr. Fox's death was hourly
expected (vol. iv. p. 47)--
Loud is the Vale! the Voice is up
With which she speaks when storms are gone,
A mighty unison of streams!
Of all her Voices, One. ED.
]
[Footnote IV: Either Stone Arthur, or Loughrigg. Compare the lines _To
the Clouds_, suggested by their appearance on Nab Scar--
Army of Clouds! ye wingéd Host in troops
Ascending from behind the motionless brow
Of that tall rock, etc. ED.
]
[Footnote IW: "The Blind Man was John Gough, of Kendal, a man known, far
beyond his neighbourhood, for his talents and attainments in natural
history and science."--I.F. For an account of John Gough, see Appendix,
and note [IX] p. 304.--ED.]
[Footnote IX: This John Gough, a friend of Wordsworth's, was one of the
first mathematicians of his time, and a most successful teacher. Whewell
and King (senior wranglers) were amongst his pupils. So was Dalton. Gough
had been deprived of sight by an attack of small-pox, when he was between
two and three years of age. He was a great botanist, as is mentioned in
the text; and the following remarkable circumstance is recorded of him,
showing at once his marvellous memory, and the extreme delicacy of his
sense of _touch_. In the _Elegiac Verses_ on his brother John, Wordsworth
had described the moss campion, _Silene acaulis_--
It grows upon its native bed
Beside our Parting-place;
There, cleaving to the ground, it lies
With multitude of purple eyes,
Spangling a cushion green like moss.
This poem was read to Gough in 1805 (it was not published till 1845),
and twelve years afterwards, in 1817, a specimen of the moss campion was
placed in his hand, and he said at once, "I have never examined this
plant before, but it is _Silene acaulis_." Compare Atkinson's _Worthies
of Cumberland_ and note E in the Appendix to this volume, p. 398.--ED.]
[Footnote IY: Compare _Paradise Lost_, book vi. l. 752.--ED.]
[Footnote IZ: See note [XI] above.--ED.]
[Footnote JA: Compare _L'Allegro_, l. 137--
Married to immortal verse. ED.
]
[Footnote JB: See Wordsworth's note, p. 389.--ED.]
[Footnote JC: Compare Burger's _Pfarrers Tochter_--
Drei Spannen lang. ED.
]
[Footnote JD: "This refers to the Greens, a very ancient Grasmere family,
settled for generations at Pavement End, which, with a considerable
tract of land, is still their property. The poet describes them as
dwelling at Gold-rill side, and I have been told that the name was a pure
invention to avoid the realism of 'Grasmere,' or 'Pavement End.' Such,
however, is not exactly the case. On enquiry from Mr. Fleming Green,
one of the family now residing in Grasmere, I find that a small stream
to which Wordsworth himself, from some fancy of his own, had given the
name of Gold-rill, ran formerly by the road side, and then turned by the
side of the farm at Pavement End towards the Lake. When the road was
reconstructed, the rill was covered, and can no more be seen there; but
it issues freely from a culvert at the back of the premises, and runs by
the hedge-side to the Lake. Mr. Fleming Green remembers the rill as it
was, and pointed out its course to me. He is a son of one of the 'seven
lusty sons' mentioned in the poem. (Mr. Green would read 'six.') He said
'we stuck to the old home till we could no longer stand up in it.' He
is one of a race well termed 'lusty.' The 'hoary grandsire' and many of
his descendants lie buried in a long row, a little to the left of the
path leading from the Church to the lichgate at the north. Among them
is little Margaret (her name and age not unrecorded), but her 'daisied
hillock three spans long' is now merged in the larger graves of her more
aged kindred." (Dr. Cradock to the Editor.)--ED.]
[Footnote JE: "Of the infant's grave I will only say, it is an exact
picture of what fell under my own observation."--I. F.]
[Footnote JF: Compare George Herbert's
Sweet Day, so cool, so calm and bright. ED.
]
[Footnote JG: "This young volunteer bore the name of Dawson.... The
premature death of this gallant young man was much lamented, and as an
attendant upon the funeral, I myself witnessed the ceremony, and the
effect of it as described in the poem."--I. F. See the whole of the note
(p. 13).
"In _The Excursion_, book vii., is an animated account of the life and
death of a young volunteer, one of a company of eighty men, which, when
England was threatened with a French invasion, was formed in the Lake
District, and was named 'Wedgwood's Mountaineers,' having by him in a
generous spirit of patriotism been clothed and armed, and this in the
completest manner, as riflemen." See _Fragmentary Remains, Literary and
Scientific, of Sir Humphrey Davy, Bart._ (1858), p. 109. The Wedgwood
referred to was the Thomas Wedgwood who assisted Coleridge so opportunely.
In 1806 Wordsworth wrote of Dawson: "His calm and dignified manner,
united with his tall form and beautiful face, produced in me an
impression of sublimity beyond what I ever experienced from the
appearance of any other human being."--ED.]
[Footnote JH: The Napoleonic threat of invasion.--ED.]
[Footnote JI: Dr. John Davy, the editor of his brother Sir Humphry
Davy's _Fragmentary Remains_, was of opinion (see p. 110) that "in
describing the high qualities, intellectual and moral, of the young
soldier, the poet has in his mind the memory of the man whose name was
so properly associated with the company,--idealising according to his
wont,--selecting such qualities as suited his purpose." He refers to Mr.
Wedgwood, the founder of this volunteer corps.--ED.]
[Footnote JJ: Compare the Book of _Joshua_, _passim_; Josephus, _Ant._ v.
I. Also, _Judges_ vii.; and Josephus, _Ant._ v. 6.--ED.]
[Footnote JK: Is it a reference to the Pauline description of Charity (1
Cor. xiii. 7), "Charity ... hopeth all things, endureth all things"?--ED.]
[Footnote JL: Compare _The White Doe of Rylstone_, canto i. l. 42 (vol.
iv. p. 107)--
In great Eliza's golden time. ED.
]
[Footnote JM: See the Fenwick note, p. 13.--ED.]
[Footnote JN: See Spenser's _Faërie Queene_, part 1, canto viii. stanza
2.--ED.]
[Footnote JO: "The pillars of the gateway in front of the mansion
remained when we first took up our abode at Grasmere. Two or three
cottages still remain which are called Nott Houses, from the name of the
gentleman (I have called him a knight) concerning whom these traditions
survive. He was the ancestor of the Knott family, formerly considerable
proprietors in the district."--I. F.]
[Footnote JP: It is clear from the Fenwick note (see p. 13) that the
title, "Sir Alfred Irthing," was Wordsworth's invention. I am indebted
to the Rector of Grasmere--the Rev. Henry M. Fletcher--for the following
information as to the bells of the church, and to the "Nott house":--
"Three bells hang in the tower. That they are 'clear-sounding and
harmonious' I think may be said of them without poetical license. They
have not on them the name and title of their donor. Two of them have
coats of arms. My son believes that the quarterings show that they were
the gifts of the Flemings of Rydal Hall, patrons, for some hundred years,
of the living. The third, and smallest, reports of itself that it was
recast at the expense of Mrs. Dorothy Knott, in the year 1808, and that
Thomas Mears of London did the work. This last inscription is partly in
Latin. The two older bells have on them the inscriptions respectively of
'Soli Deo' and 'Gloria in altissimis Deo.'
"Looking over the old book of Church Warden's accounts, I observe that,
in the year 1732, there is an item
'Towards casting the bells, and other charges, £40, 3s. 9d.,'
and in the following year, 1733, again
'Towards casting the bells, and other charges, £49, 0s. 3d.'
This, at a time when the whole of the general charge yearly ranged from
£2 to £5. It was a re-casting, I presume.
"The 'Nott house' still exists, and is the residence of our chief
'statesman,' James Fleming. It is known as 'Knott's Houses.' In the
dialect of this county, when purely used, there is no possessive 's. Mr.
Fletcher's letters being always, _e.g._, spoken of at the post-office
here as 'Mr. Fletcher letters.' 'Nott house,' therefore, meant a house
belonging to Mrs. Dorothy Knott, or her husband's forefathers. A little
group of houses has formed round it; but the old Farm House, I make
little doubt, is the one for which you ask."
See also Charles Lamb's remarks in his third letter to Wordsworth about
_The Excursion_, written in 1814.]
[Footnote JQ: See Wordsworth's note, p. 389.--ED.]