"His early habits, and the want of those artificial measures of time which even shepherds now possess, had given him a turn for observing the motions of the heavenly bodies, and, having purchased such an apparatus as could then be procured, he amused and informed himself by those pursuits, with the aid of the Canons of Bolton, some of whom are said to have been well versed in what was then known of the science. "I suspect this nobleman to have been sometimes occupied in a more visionary pursuit, and probably in the same company. "For, from the family evidences, I have met with two MSS. on the subject of Alchemy, which, from the character, spelling, etc., may almost certainly be referred to the reign of Henry the Seventh. If these were originally deposited with the MSS. of the Cliffords, it might have been for the use of this nobleman. If they were brought from Bolton at the Dissolution, they must have been the work of those Canons whom he almost exclusively conversed with. "In these peaceful employments Lord Clifford spent the whole reign of Henry the Seventh, and the first years of his son. But in the year 1513, when almost sixty years old, he was appointed to a principal command over the army which fought at Flodden, and shewed that the military genius of the family had neither been chilled in him by age, nor extinguished by habits of peace. "He survived the battle of Flodden ten years, and died April 23d, 1523, aged about 70. I shall endeavour to appropriate to him a tomb, vault, and chantry, in the choir of the church of Bolton, as I should be sorry to believe that he was deposited when dead at a distance from the place which in his life-time he loved so well. "By his last will he appointed his body to be interred at Shap if he died in Westmoreland; or at Bolton if he died in Yorkshire." With respect to the Canons of Bolton, Dr. Whitaker shews from MSS. that not only alchemy but astronomy was a favourite pursuit with them.--W. W. 1815. [U] Barden Tower is on the western bank of the Wharfe, fully two miles north-west of Bolton Priory, above the Strid. At the time of the restoration of the Shepherd-lord, Barden Tower was only a keeper's forest lodge. It is so hidden in trees, and so retired, that the situation is most accurately described as the shy recess Of Barden's lowly quietness. ED. [V] The year 1569.--ED. [W] Percy, Earl of Northumberland, and Neville, Earl of Westmoreland--the two peers who joined in support of the Duke of Norfolk's marriage with Queen Mary, with a view to the restoration of Catholicism in England. See note III. p. 198.--ED. [X] Compare _Twelfth Night_, act I. scene i. l. 4-- That strain again! it had a dying fall. ED. [Y] See the Old Ballad,--_The Rising of the North_.--W. W. 1827. This Ballad is printed in Wordsworth's note, p. 186. The reference here is to the lines--