There’s not a nook within this solemn Pass, But were an apt confessional for One Taught by his summer spent, his autumn gone, That Life is but a tale of morning grass Withered at eve. From scenes of art which chase That thought away, turn, and with watchful eyes Feed it ’mid Nature’s old felicities, Rocks, rivers, and smooth lakes more clear than glass Untouched, unbreathed upon. Thrice happy quest, If from a golden perch of aspen spray (October’s workmanship to rival May) The pensive warbler of the ruddy breast That moral sweeten by a heaven-taught lay, Lulling the year, with all its cares, to rest! NOTES. {2} NOTE 1.—‘_Hatfield was condemned_.’—PAGE 2. James Hatfield, indicted for having, in the Lake district, under the assumed name of Hon. Alexander Augustus Hope, brother of the Earl of Hopetoun, forged certain bills of exchange. He was condemned to death at Carlisle on August 16, 1803. His atrocious treatment of a beautiful girl, known in the district as ‘Mary of Buttermere,’ had drawn more than usual attention to the criminal. {5} NOTE 2.—‘_In Captain Wordsworth’s ship_.’—PAGES xxx, 3. The ‘Brother John’ here alluded to was a sailor. He was about two years and eight months younger than the poet, who found in him quite a congenial spirit. He perished, with nearly all his crew, in the ‘Earl of Abergavenny,’ East-Indiaman, which he commanded, and which, owing to the incompetency of a pilot, was in his last outward voyage wrecked on the Shambles of the Bill of Portland on the night of Friday, February 5, 1805. His brother William speaks of him in verse, as ‘a silent poet,’ and in prose describes him as ‘meek, affectionate, silently enthusiastic, loving all quiet things, and a poet in everything but words.’ Allusions to this sailor-brother occur in several of the poems, as in those lines beginning ‘When to the attractions of the busy world,’ to be found among the ‘Poems on the Naming of Places,’ also in the ‘Elegiac Stanzas suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm,’ and in other poems. {3} NOTE 3.—‘_There is no stone to mark the spot_.’—PAGE 5. ‘The body of Burns was not allowed to remain long in this place. To suit the plan of a rather showy mausoleum, his remains were removed into a more commodious spot of the same kirkyard on the 5th July 1815. The coffin was partly dissolved away; but the dark curling locks of the poet were as glossy, and seemed as fresh, as on the day of his death.’—_Life of Burns_, by Allan Cunningham. {19} NOTE 4.—‘They had a large library.’—PAGE 19. The following account of this library is taken from Dr. John Brown’s delightful tract, _The Enterkin_. The author will excuse wholesale appropriation to illustrate a journal which, I believe, will be dear to him, and to all who feel as he does:—