No banded host on his footsteps waited, No child nor vassal from bower or hall: He look'd around him like one belated On a lonely wild; and he went from all. Slowly he strode to the ship; and for ever Sailed out from the land he had ruled so well; And the name of the King by the Azure River Is all that is left for the bards to tell. NOTES TO "KING EVELING." The ancient, but now insignificant town and seaport of Ravenglass, six miles from Bootle and about sixteen from Whitehaven, is situated on a small creek, at the confluence of the rivers Esk, Mite, and Irt, which form a large sandy harbour. Of this place the Editor of Camden, Bishop Gibson, says--"The shore, wheeling to the north, comes to Ravenglass, a harbour for ships, and commodiously surrounded with two rivers; where, as I am told, there have been found Roman inscriptions. Some will have it to have been formerly called Aven-glass, i.e. (Coeruleus) an azure sky-coloured river; and tell you abundance of stories about King Eveling, who had his palace here." Ravenglass appears from Mr. Sandford's M.S. to have been of old of some importance as a fishing town. He says--"Here were some salmons and all sorts of fish in plenty; but the greatest plenty of herrings, (it) is a daintye fish of a foot long; and so plenteous a fishing thereof and in the sea betwixt and the ile of man, as they lie in sholes together so thike in the sea at spawning, about August, _as a ship cannot pass thorow_: and the fishers go from all the coast to catch them." There was also formerly a considerable pearl-fishery at this place: and Camden speaks of the shell-fish in the Irt producing pearls. Sir John Hawkins obtained from government the right of fishing for pearls in that river. The pearls were obtained from mussels, by the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, who sought for them at low water, and afterwards sold them to the jewellers. About the year 1695, a patent was granted to some gentlemen, for pearl-fishing in the Irt; but how the undertaking prospered is uncertain. The pearl-mussels do not appear to have been very plentiful for many years. Nicolson and Burn observe, that Mr. Thomas Patrickson, of How in this County, is said to have obtained as many from divers poor people, whom he employed to gather them, as he afterwards sold in London for £800.