sented in the closing stanzas of this poem. Mr. Myers asks: "What touch has given to these lines their impress of unfathomable peace There speaks from them a tranquillity which seems to overcome our souls; which makes us feel that we are travelling to a region where 'immoderate fear shall leave us, and inordinate love shall die."" To the Lady Fleming. The Flemings are descended from Sir Michael le Fleming, brotherin-law of William the Conqueror. He came over with William, and in reward for services against the Scots received manors in Lancashire and Cumberland, Coningstone Hall being one. See note to Conclusion of a Poem, 1795. In the grant to Furness Abbey given by Stephen, nephew of Henry I., in 1127, we find "with all the lands thereof, with sac and soc, tol and team, infangtheof, and everything within Furness, except the lands of Michael le Fleming." Rydal estate came to Thomas le Fleming of Coningstone by his marriage with Isabella, co-heir with Sir John de Lancastre, to whose ancestors it had been granted by Margaret, widow of Robert de Ros, 1274. Grasmere Church, formerly a chapelry under the mother church of Kendal, was in the time of Elizabeth sold to the Le Flemings of Rydal. Rydal Mount, more frequently described than any English poet's home except Shakespeare's, belonged to Rydal Hall. 1824. O dearer far than light and life are dear." Written at Rydal Mount. To Mrs. W. W. W. ence. The picture of Wordsworth's wedded life is a delight. Every allusion that he makes to his wife is full of the deepest love and reverWhen processes of logic bring him doubt, her love with its "sober certainties" comes to his relief. She thus, "not too bright or good for human nature's daily food," was able to "cherish and uphold" him. The following poem to Mrs. Wordsworth was written this year : Let other bards of angels sing, Bright suns without a spot; Rejoice that thou art not! were, I am sorry to say, suggested from apprehensions of the fate of my friend H. C.,1 the subject of the verses addressed To H. C. when six years old. The piece to Memory arose out of similar feelings. W. W. See Modern Gaelic Bards in Professor Shairp's Aspects of Poetry. 1825. To a Skylark. Written at Rydal Mount.-W. W. Cf. the earlier (1805) poem on the same subject; also Shelley's Skylark. 1826. The Pillar of Trajan. This was given as the subject for the Newdigate prize poem at Oxford, and Wordsworth wished his son John, who was then an undergraduate there, to try for it. On his declining to do so, the Poet wrote this to show him what could be done with the subject. The column was set up by the Senate and people in commemoration of the conquest of Dacia by Trajan. It was 132 feet high and surmounted by a colossal statue of the Emperor; it stood in the centre of the Forum Trajanum. The sculptures which covered it picture the Dacian wars. See Merivale's Romans under the Emperors. 55-60. Cf. Character of the Happy Warrior. 1 Hartley Coleridge. 1828. The Wishing Gate. Written at Rydal. See also Wishing-gate Destroyed.-W. W. A gate still stands in the old place, and from the inscriptions cut upon it one would judge that "Hope" still rules there. Beside the wishing gate which so they name, Mid northern hills to me this fancy came, And know to wish the wish that were the best. ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. The Wishing-Gate Destroyed. In regard to the occasion of the second poem Wordsworth says: "Having been told that this gate had been destroyed, and the opening where it hung walled up, I gave vent immediately to my feelings in these stanzas. But going to the place some time after, I found with much delight my old favorite unmolested." 66 In these Fair Vales hath Many a Tree." Inscription for a Stone in the Grounds at Rydal Mount. Engraven during my absence in Italy, upon a brass plate inserted in the stone.-W. W. The inscription still remains upon the stone. Rev. Mr. Rawnsley, in his Reminiscences of Wordsworth among the Peasantry, gives the following from a dalesman: “He 'ud never pass folks draining, or ditching, or walling a cottage but what he 'd stop and say,' Eh dear, but it's a pity to move that stoan, and doant ya think ya might leave that tree?' I 'member there was a walling chap just going to shoot a girt stoan to bits wi' powder in the grounds at Rydal, and he came up and saaved it, and wrote summat on it." 1831. The Primrose of the Rock. Written at Rydal Mount. The rock stands on the right hand, a little way leading up the middle road from Rydal to Grasmere. We have been in the habit of calling it the Glow-worm Rock, from the number of glow-worms we have often seen hanging on it as described. - W. W. We walked in the evening to Rydal. Coleridge and I lingered behind. We all stood to look at the Glow-worm Rock- a primrose that grew there, and just looked out on the road from its own sheltered bower. - DOROTHY WORDSWORTH, 1802. The rock still remains. No one can fail to notice the contrast between the buoyant charm and natural magic of the Daffodils, and the slower, sweeter, and more reserved style of this poem. Here symbol is everything, reality next to nothing. We must admit that the later style is more in keeping with the truth of human life, for to most of us it is, if not sad, at least a serious thing, and we need such poetry as this, with its "sweet reasonableness," to keep us from becoming disheartened. 66 "The Primrose of the Rock," says Aubrey de Vere, "is as distinctly Wordsworthian in its inspiration as it is Christian in its doctrine." Yarrow Revisited. In the autumn of 1831 Wordsworth and his daughter set out for Scotland to visit once again the old friend, Sir Walter Scott, then in declining health. At Abbotsford they met many of Scott's family and friends Major Scott, Anne Scott, Mr. and Mrs. Lockhart, and William Laidlaw. On the next morning Scott accompanied them to Newark Castle on the Yarrow. The events of this day are commemorated in the poem. There seems to be a deep significance in the fact that this time the two poets did not linger on the braes and bens, but about the mouldering ruin of Newark; we can see in it the effect of the thought that this was probably the last meeting of the two. The fear that Scott would not be able to revive his strength, even upon "Warm Vesuvio's vine-clad slopes," oppresses Wordsworth and colors the whole poem. These forebodings proved too true. This was not only their last meeting, but it was Scott's last visit to the Vale of Yarrow and the scenes he loved so dearly. The poem, although in many respects unequal to the others upon the same subject, is nevertheless a tender and affectionate memorial of the love of two poets differing widely in character and methods. "On the 22d," says Mr. Lockhart, "these two great poets, who had through life loved each other and appreciated each other's genius more than infirm spirits ever did either of them, spent the morning together in a visit to Newark. Hence the last of the three poems by which Wordsworth has connected his name to all time with the most romantic of Scottish streams." Cf. Remembrance of the Braes of Yarrow, by Professor Shairp. On the Departure of Sir Walter Scott from Abbotsford, for Naples. On their return from Newark in the afternoon they crossed the Tweed just above Abbotsford; as the wheels grated upon the pebbles of the stream Wordsworth noticed the sad light which settled upon the Eildon Hills, and thinking it might be the last time Sir Walter would cross the stream, he was moved to express his feelings, which he did in this sonnet. It is the finest tribute ever paid by one poet to another. On the morning of the day upon which Wordsworth left Abbotsford Sir Walter had written in Dora's album, and on putting the book into her hand he said, “I should not have done anything of this kind but for your father's sake: they are probably the last verses I shall ever write." They were his last. One stanza is as follows: "And meet it is that he who saw The first faint rays of genius burn Low glimmering from their funeral urn." When Wordsworth on parting expressed the hope that he would be restored to health by this visit to Italy, Sir Walter replied in words from Yarrow Unvisited. This incident is recalled in Wordsworth's Musings in Aquapendente : "He said, 'When I am there, although 't is fair, Prophecy More than fulfilled, as gay Campania's shores Wordsworth after his return sent these two poems to Scott. 1832. Devotional Incitements. Written at Rydal Mount.-W. W. This poem gives conclusive evidence that in old age Wordsworth still preserved his young love for Nature, and his magical interpretive power. The keenness of insight, the lyric rapture, the soothing effect of this poem written at the age of sixty-two, indicate that the |