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-Come now we'll to bed! and when we are there
He may work his own will, and what shall we care?
He may knock at the door, we'll not let him in;
May drive at the windows, we'll laugh at his din;
Let him seek his own home wherever it be;
Here's a cozie warm house for Edward and me.

40

Wordsworth dated this poem 1806, and said to Miss Fenwick that it was written at Grasmere. If it was written "during a boisterous winter evening" in 1806, it could not have been written at Grasmere; because the Wordsworths spent most of that winter at Coleorton. I am inclined to believe that the date which the poet gave is wrong, and that the Address really belongs to the year 1805; but, as it is just possible thatalthough referring to winter-it may have been written at Townend in the summer of 1806, it is placed among the poems belonging to the latter year.

This Address was translated into French by Mme. Amable Tastu, and published in a popular school-book series of extracts, but Wordsworth's name is not given along with the translation. From 1815 to 1843 the authorship was veiled under the title, "by a female Friend of the Author." In 1845, it was disclosed, "by my Sister."

In 1815 Charles Lamb wrote to Wordsworth, "We were glad to see the poems 'by a female friend.' The one of the Wind is masterly, but not new to us. Being only three, perhaps you might have clapt a D. at the corner, and let it have past as a printer's mark to the uninitiated, as a delightful hint to the better instructed. As it is, expect a formal criticism on the poems of your female friend, and she must expect it." (The Letters of Charles Lamb, edited by Alfred Ainger, vol. i. p. 285.)-ED.

"BROOK! WHOSE SOCIETY THE POET

SEEKS"

Composed 1806?---Published 1815

One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets. "-ED.
BROOK! whose society the Poet seeks,
Intent his wasted spirits to renew ;

And whom the curious Painter doth pursue
Through rocky passes, among flowery creeks,
And tracks thee dancing down thy water-breaks ;
If wish were mine some type of thee to view,1
Thee, and not thee thyself, I would not do
Like Grecian Artists, give thee human cheeks,
Channels for tears; no Naiad should'st thou be,-
Have neither limbs, feet, feathers, joints nor hairs :

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It seems the Eternal Soul is clothed in thee
With purer robes than those of flesh and blood,
And hath bestowed on thee a safer good; 2
Unwearied joy, and life without its cares.

"THERE IS A LITTLE UNPRETENDING RILL"

Composed 1806?-Published 1820

[This Rill trickles down the hill-side into Windermere, near Low-wood. My sister and I, on our first visit together to this part of the country, walked from Kendal, and we rested to refresh ourselves by the side of the lake where the streamlet falls into it. This sonnet was written some years after in recollection of that happy ramble, that most happy day and hour.-I. F.]

One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."-ED.

THERE is a little unpretending Rill

Of limpid water, humbler far than aught 3

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Nor spring enclosed in sculptured stone, nor aught MS.

There is a trickling water, neither rill,

Fountain inclosed, or rivulet, nor aught

MS. 1806.

That ever among Men or Naiads sought

Notice or name ! It quivers down the hill,
Furrowing its shallow way with dubious will;
Yet to my mind this scanty Stream is brought 1
Oftener than Ganges or the Nile; a thought
Of private recollection sweet and still! 2

5

Months perish with their moons; year treads on year;
But, faithful Emma! thou with me canst say
That, while ten thousand pleasures disappear,
And flies their memory fast almost as they, 3
The immortal Spirit of one happy day

10

Lingers beside that Rill, in vision clear.5

1 1820.

It trickles down the hill,

So feebly, just for love of power and will,
Yet to my mind the nameless thing is brought
It totters down the hill,
So feebly, quite forlorn of power and will;
Yet nameless Thing it to my mind is brought

2 1827.

MS.

MS.

Oftener than mightiest Floods, whose path is wrought
Through wastes of sand, and forests dark and chill. 1820.

3 1827.

Do thou, even thou, O faithful Anna! say
Why this small Streamlet is to me so dear;
Thou know'st, that while enjoyments disappear

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For on that day, now seven years gone, when first
Two glad foot-travellers, through sun and shower
My Love and I came hither, while thanks burst
Out of our hearts

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One of the MS. readings of the ninth line of this sonnet gives the date of the incident as "now seven years gone"; but I leave the date of composition undetermined. If we could know accurately the date of the "first visit" to the district with his sister (referred to in the Fenwick note), and if we could implicitly trust this MS. reading, it might be possible to fix it; but we can do neither. Wordsworth visited the Lake District with his sister as early as 1794, and in December 1799 he took up his abode with her at Dove Cottage. I have no doubt that the sonnet belongs to the year 1806, or was composed at an earlier date. As to the locality of the rill, the late Rev. R. Perceval Graves, of Dublin, wrote to me :

"It was in 1843, when quitting the parsonage at Bowness, I went to reside at Dovenest, that, calling one day at Rydal Mount, I was told by both Mr. and Mrs. Wordsworth, as a fact in which I should take a special interest, that the 'little unpretending rill' associated by the poet with 'the immortal spirit of one happy day,' was the rill which, rising near High Skelgill at the back of Wansfell, descends steeply down the hill-side, passes behind the house at Dovenest, and crossing beneath the road, enters the lake near the gate of the drive which leads up to Dovenest.

"The authority on which I give this information is decisive of the question. I have often traced upwards the course of the rill; and the secluded hollow, which by its source is beautified with fresh herbage and wild straggling bushes, was a favourite haunt of mine."-ED.

1807

In few instances is it more evident that the dates which Wordsworth affixed to his poems, in the editions of 1815, 1820, 1836, and 1845, and those assigned in the Fenwick notes -cannot be absolutely relied upon, than in the case of the poems referring to Coleorton. Trusting to these dates, in the absence of contrary evidence, one would naturally assign the majority of the Coleorton poems to the year 1808. But it is clear that, while the sonnet To Lady Beaumont may have been written in 1806, the "Inscription" For a Seat in the Groves of Coleorton, beginning

Beneath yon eastern ridge, the craggy bound, was written, not in 1808 (as stated by Wordsworth himself), but in 1811; and that the other "Inscription" designed for a Niche in the Winter-garden at Coleorton, belongs (I think) to the same year; a year in which he also wrote the sonnet on Sir George Beaumont's picture of Bredon Hill and Cloud Hill, beginning

Praised be the Art whose subtle power could stay.

When the dates are so difficult to determine, there is a natural fitness in bringing all the poems referring to Coleorton together, so far as this can be done without seriously interfering with chronological order. The two "Inscriptions" intended for the Coleorton grounds, which were written at Grasmere in 1811, are therefore printed along with the poems of 1807; the precise date of each being given so far as it can be ascertained -underneath its title.

Several political sonnets, and others, were written in 1807; also the Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle, and the first and larger part of The White Doe of Rylstone, with a few minor fragments. But, for reasons stated in the notes to The White

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