Donnerdale, with Seathwaite as its most notable centre, has received much attention because Wordsworth (from whom we cannot, and would not if we could, escape in Lakeland) made it the subject of thirty-four sonnets, dedicated to his brother Christopher. The poet evidently set himself down to glorify this particular district by prolonged observation-- "... For Duddon, long-beloved Duddon, is my theme." In the course of his sonnets he sings its dwarf willows and ferny brakes; its sullen moss and craggy mound; its green alders, ash and birch trees, and sheltering pines; its hamlets under verdant hills; its barns and byres, and spouting mills. Nor does he fail to celebrate the gusts that lash its matted forests. When the gale becomes too obstreperous, then, reckless of angry Duddon sweeping by, the poet turns him to the warm hearth, to "Laugh with the generous household heartily At all the merry pranks of Donnerdale." The only pollution he would admit in this innocent stream was the occasional sheep-washing by the dalesmen. In his notes Wordsworth recommends the traveller who would be most gratified with the Duddon not to approach it from its source, as is done in the sonnets, nor from its termination, but from Coniston over Walna Scar, first descending into a little circular valley, a collateral compartment of the long, winding vale through which the river flows. In fact, Wordsworth's notes are a very excellent guide to the district, and Thorne, who was a first-hand authority upon rivers, confessedly took the poet as his cicerone when he followed the stream from the very top of Wrynose, marking even the bed of moss through which the water oozes at the source. With a poet's licence, Wordsworth likens his river finally to the Thames; but though the Duddon widens considerably at Ulpha, it loses its beauty before it finishes its career. [Illustration: DERWENTWATER AND SKIDDAW (_p. 299_).] [Illustration: DERWENTWATER FROM SCAFELL.] * * * * *