and during much the most productive period of his poetical life, he nowhere adverts to the splendid prospects stretching towards the sea and bounded by the peaks of Arran on one part, which in clear weather he must have had daily before his eyes. In one of his poetical effusions he speaks of describing "fair Nature's face" as a privilege on which he sets a high value; nevertheless, natural appearances rarely take a lead in his poetry. It is as a human being, eminently sensitive and intelligent, and not as a poet, clad in his priestly robes and carrying the ensigns of sacerdotal office, that he interests and affects us. Whether he speaks of rivers, hills and woods, it is not so much on account of the properties with which they are absolutely endowed, as relatively to local patriotic remembrances and associations, or as they ministered to personal feelings, especially those of love, whether happy or otherwise; -yet it is not always so. Soon after we had passed Mosgiel Farm we crossed the Ayr, murmuring and winding through a narrow woody hollow. His line "Auld hermit Ayr strays through his woods"-came at once to my mind with Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, and Doon,-Ayrshire streams over which he breathes a sigh as being unnamed in song; and surely his own attempts to make them known were as successful as his heart could desire.-I. F.] "THERE!" said a Stripling, pointing with meet pride 5 ΙΟ *See Burns's poem To a Mountain Daisy, or as it was originally called, The Gowan.-ED. the river EDEN, CUMBERLAND 385 XXXVIII THE RIVER EDEN, CUMBERLAND ["Nature gives thee flowers That have no rivals among British bowers." This can scarcely be true to the letter; but, without stretching the point at all, I can say that the soil and air appear more congenial with many upon the banks of this river than I have observed in any other parts of Great Britain. --I. F.] 1 EDEN! till now thy beauty had I viewed 5 Full long thy beauty, Eden, had I viewed, By glimpses only MS. Of memory, my verse have I reviewed Eden! the Muse has wronged thee, be the shame And met but once the sound of thy sweet name: MS. 2 1835. Bright are the hours that prompt me now to pay MS. *It is to be feared that there is more of the poet than the sound etymologist in this derivation of the name Eden. On the western coast of Cumberland is a rivulet which enters the sea at Moresby, known also in the neighbourhood by the name of Eden. May not the latter syllable come from the word Dean, a valley? Langdale, near Ambleside, is by the inhabitants called Langden. The former syllable occurs in the name Emont, a principal feeder of the Eden; and the stream which flows, when the tide is out, over Cartmel Sands, is called the Ea-French, eau-Latin, aqua. -W. W. 1835. Especially on the upper reaches of the river, as seen from the Midland Railway line beyond Appleby.-ED. VOL. VII 2 C To my life's neighbour dues of neighbourhood; 10 XXXIX MONUMENT OF MRS. HOWARD IN WETHERAL CHURCH, NEAR CORBY, ON THE [Before this monument was put up in the Church at Wetheral, I saw it in the sculptor's studio. Nollekens, who, by-the-bye, was a strange and grotesque figure that interfered much with one's admiration of his works, showed me at the same time the various models in clay which he had made, one after another, of the Mother and her Infant: the improvement on each was surprising; and how so much grace, beauty, and tenderness had come out of such a head I was sadly puzzled to conceive. Upon a window-seat in his parlour lay two casts of faces, one of the Duchess of Devonshire, so noted in her day; and the other of Mr. Pitt, taken after his death, a ghastly resemblance, as these things always are, even when taken from the living subject, and more ghastly in this instance from the peculiarity of the features. The heedless and apparently Thee have I traced along thy winding way 1 1835. 2 1845. by the thought restrained That things far off are toiled for, while a good MS. 1835. That for things far off we toil, while many a good 1840. 3 1840. is seldom gained. 1835 and MS. SUGGESTED BY THE FOREGOING 387 neglectful manner in which the faces of these two persons were left-the one so distinguished in London society, and the other upon whose counsels and public conduct, during a most momentous period, depended the fate of this great Empire and perhaps of all Europe-afforded a lesson to which the dullest of casual visitors could scarcely be insensible. It touched me the more because I had so often seen Mr. Pitt upon his own ground at Cambridge and upon the floor of the House of Commons.-I. F.] STRETCHED on the dying Mother's lap, lies dead Is less to be lamented than revered; And own that Art, triumphant over strife And pain, hath powers to Eternity endeared. 5 II XL SUGGESTED BY THE FOREGOING 2 TRANQUILLITY! the sovereign aim wert thou 1 1845. issue 1835. 2 In the edition of 1835 there is no title to this sonnet. * 'Arapatía, was the aim of Stoic, Epicurean, and Sceptic alike.--ED. The Tragic Muse thee served with thoughtful vow; 5 ΙΟ XLI NUNNERY* [I became acquainted with the walks of Nunnery when a boy: they are within easy reach of a day's pleasant excursion from the town of Penrith, where I used to pass my summer holidays under the roof of my maternal Grandfather. The place is well worth visiting; though, within these few years, its privacy, and therefore the pleasure which the scene is so well fitted to give, has been injuriously affected by walks cut in the rocks on that side the stream which had been left in its natural state.-I. F. THE floods are roused, and will not soon be weary; Down from the Pennine Alps† how fiercely sweeps Peace to the Mourner's soul; but He who wore 1835. 2 1840. with his glorious light: 1835. Round our sad being shed celestial light, C. * Nunnery; so named from the House for Benedictine Nuns established by William Rufus.-ED. The chain of Crossfell.1-W. W. 1835. 1 1845. which parts Cumberland and Westmoreland from Northumberland and Durham. 1835. |