To his nephew, John Wordsworth, the poet wrote in 1831, explaining the alterations he had made in the last stanza of _Laodamia_: "As at first written, the heroine was dismissed to happiness in Elysium. To what purpose then the mission of Protesilaus? He exhorts her to moderate her passions; the exhortation is fruitless, and no punishment follows. So it stood: at present she is placed among unhappy ghosts for disregard of the exhortation. Virgil also places her there, but compare the two passages, and give me _your_ opinion." (_William Wordsworth_, by Elizabeth Wordsworth, p. 131.) With the last two lines of the poem, compare _Hart-Leap Well_, part ii. stanza 4 (vol. ii. p. 133)-- The trees were grey, with neither arms nor head; Half wasted the square mound of tawny green, etc. ED. ] [Footnote D: Compare _Imaginary Conversations_, third series: "Southey and Porson."--ED.] [Footnote E: He practically admitted its force, however, in the edition of 1827.--ED.] MEMORIALS OF A TOUR IN SCOTLAND 1814 On the 18th July 1814, Wordsworth left Rydal, on a second visit to Scotland, accompanied by his wife, and her sister, Sarah Hutchinson.--ED. [In this tour, my wife and her sister Sara were my companions. The account of the "Brownie's Cell" and the Brownies was given me by a man we met with on the banks of Loch Lomond, a little above Tarbert, and in front of a huge mass of rock, by the side of which, we were told, preachings were often held in the open air. The place is quite a solitude, and the surrounding scenery very striking. How much is it to be regretted that, instead of writing such Poems as the _Holy Fair_ and others, in which the religious observances of his country are treated with so much levity and too often with indecency, Burns had not employed his genius in describing religion under the serious and affecting aspects it must so frequently take.[F]--I.F.] The poems of this series were collected under their common title in the edition of 1827.--ED. I SUGGESTED BY A BEAUTIFUL RUIN UPON ONE OF THE ISLANDS OF LOCH LOMOND, A PLACE CHOSEN FOR THE RETREAT OF A SOLITARY INDIVIDUAL,[13] FROM WHOM THIS HABITATION ACQUIRED THE NAME OF THE BROWNIE'S CELL Composed 1814.--Published 1820 I To barren heath, bleak moor, and quaking fen,[14] Or depth of[15] labyrinthine glen; Or into trackless forest set With trees, whose lofty umbrage met; World-wearied Men withdrew of yore; 5 (Penance their trust, and prayer their store;) And in the wilderness were bound To such apartments as they found; Or with a new ambition raised; That God might suitably be praised. 10 II