It is well known to all the readers of WORDSWORTH, that in addition to the sketch which he has drawn of this primitive pastor in his great poem of the Excursion, he has, in his notes to his sonnets on the River Duddon, given a prose history of his life, from materials supplied by the family, in language of the utmost simplicity and beauty. This little memoir is, of course, locked up from the generality of readers in the somewhat costly volumes of Mr. Wordsworth’s works; and the author has often wished that it were reprinted in a separate form, for general perusal, as a great man’s “Records of a Good man’s life.” Happening then, as has already been said, to place the birth of his hero in the North, the thought occurred to him so far to attempt a sketch of the character of Robert Walker, as to justify him, in his own eyes, in presenting to the Poet the request (even now an unreasonable one) that he would permit his own true history of the Patriarch to accompany this little narrative into the world. With this request Mr. Wordsworth has kindly complied; thus conferring on the author a favour in addition to many others previously received; and affording to his reader the comfortable assurance that, in purchasing this otherwise meagre production, he will at least receive, in the following memoir alone, something well worth his money. The author has only to add, that the little sketch, at the conclusion of the tale, of the late Rev. Joshua Brooks, Chaplain of the Collegiate Church, may probably look like a caricature to all except those who knew him; and, (now that the publication is no longer anonymous) that the two characters in the dialogue are both alike imaginary. BROUGHTON CLIFF, MARCH 25, 1843. [Picture: Broughton Church] [From Mr. Wordsworth’s notes to his series of sonnets on the river Duddon.] THE reader who may have been interested in the foregoing Sonnets, (which together may be considered as a Poem,) will not be displeased to find in this place a prose account of the Duddon, extracted from Green’s comprehensive _Guide to the Lakes_, lately published. “The road leading from Coniston to Broughton is over high ground, and commands a view of the River Duddon; which, at high water, is a grand sight, having the beautiful and fertile lands of Lancashire and Cumberland stretching each way from its margin. In this extensive view, the face of nature is displayed in a wonderful variety of hill and dale; wooded grounds and buildings; amongst the latter, Broughton Tower, seated on the crown of a hill, rising elegantly from the valley, is an object of extraordinary interest. Fertility on each side is gradually diminished, and lost in the superior heights of Blackcomb, in Cumberland, and the high lands between Kirkby and Ulverstone.