The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth — Volume 3 (of 8)Wordsworth, William
General
The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth — Volume 3 (of 8)
Wordsworth, William
English poetry -- 18th century; English poetry -- 19th century
[Footnote R: See 'Samson Agonistes', l. 88.--Ed.]
[Footnote S: See 'Hamlet', act I. sc. v. l. 100.--Ed.]
[Footnote T: The story of Mary, "The Maid of Buttermere," as told in the
guidebooks, is as follows:
'She was the daughter of the inn-keeper at the Fish Inn. She was much
admired, and many suitors sought her hand in vain. At last a stranger,
named Hatfield, who called himself the Hon. Colonel Hope, brother of
Lord Hopetoun, won her heart, and married her. Soon after the
marriage, he was apprehended on a charge of forgery, surreptitiously
franking a letter in the name of a Member of Parliament, tried at
Carlisle, convicted, and hanged. It was discovered during the trial,
that he had a wife and family, and had fled to these sequestered parts
to escape the arm of the law.'
See 'Essays on his own Times', by S. T. Coleridge, edited by his
daughter Sara. A melodrama on the story of the Maid of Buttermere was
produced in all the suburban London theatres; and in 1843 a novel was
published in London by Henry Colburn, entitled 'James Hatfield and the
Beauty of Buttermere, a Story of Modern Times', with illustrations by
Robert Cruikshank.--Ed.]
[Footnote U: Compare S. T. C.'s 'Essays on his own Times', p. 585.--Ed.]
[Footnote V: He first went south to Cambridge, in October 1787; and he
left London, at the close of his second visit to Town, in the end of May
1791.--Ed.]
[Footnote W: Compare 'Macbeth', act II. sc. i. l. 58:
'Thy very stones prate of my whereabout.'
Ed.]
[Footnote X: The Houses of Parliament.--Ed.]
[Footnote Y: See Shakespeare's 'King Henry the Fifth', act IV. sc. iii.
l. 53.--Ed.]
[Footnote Z: Solomon Gesner (or Gessner), a landscape artist, etcher,
and poet, born at Zürich in 1730, died in 1787. His 'Tod Abels' (the
death of Abel), though the poorest of all his works, became a favourite
in Germany, France, and England. It was translated into English by Mary
Collyer, a 12th edition of her version appearing in 1780. As 'The Death
of Abel' was written before 1760, in the line "he who penned, the other
day," Wordsworth probably refers to some new edition of the
translation.--Ed.]
[Footnote a: Edward Young, author of 'Night Thoughts, on Life, Death,
and Immortality'.--Ed.]
[Footnote b: In Argyleshire.--Ed.]
[Footnote c: Permission was given by Henry I. to hold a "Fair" on St.
Bartholomew's day.--Ed.]
[Footnote d: In one of the MS. books in Dorothy Wordsworth's
handwriting, on the outside leather cover of which is written, "May to
December 1802," there are some lines which were evidently dictated to
her, or copied by her, from the numerous experimental efforts of her
brother in connection with this autobiographical poem. They are as
follows:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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