The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth Volume I Part 112

FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT

[Footnote A: All the notes to this reprint of the edition of 1793 are Wordsworth's own, as given in that edition.--Ed.]

[Footnote B: The lyre of Memnon is reported to have emitted melancholy or chearful tones, as it was touched by the sun's evening or morning rays.]

[Footnote C: There are few people whom it may be necessary to inform, that the sides of many of the post-roads in France are planted with a row of trees.]

[Footnote D: Alluding to crosses seen on the tops of the spiry rocks of the Chartreuse, which have every appearance of being inaccessible.]

[Footnote E: Names of rivers at the Chartreuse.]

[Footnote F: Name of one of the vallies of the Chartreuse.]

[Footnote G: If any of my readers should ever visit the Lake of Como, I recommend it to him to take a stroll along this charming little pathway: he must chuse the evening, as it is on the western side of the Lake. We pursued it from the foot of the water to it's head: it is once interrupted by a ferry.]

[Footnote H:

Solo, e pensoso i piu deserti campi V misurando a pa.s.si tardi, e lenti.

'Petrarch'.]

[Footnote I: The river along whose banks you descend in crossing the Alps by the Semplon pa.s.s. From the striking contrast of it's features, this pa.s.s I should imagine to be the most interesting among the Alps.]

[Footnote J: Most of the bridges among the Alps are of wood and covered: these bridges have a heavy appearance, and rather injure the effect of the scenery in some places.]

[Footnote K:

"Red came the river down, and loud, and oft The angry Spirit of the water shriek'd."

HOME'S 'Douglas'.]

[Footnote L: The Catholic religion prevails here, these cells are, as is well known, very common in the Catholic countries, planted, like the Roman tombs, along the road side.]

[Footnote M: Crosses commemorative of the deaths of travellers by the fall of snow and other accidents very common along this dreadful road.]

[Footnote N: The houses in the more retired Swiss valleys are all built of wood.]

[Footnote O: I had once given to these sketches the t.i.tle of Picturesque; but the Alps are insulted in applying to them that term.

Whoever, in attempting to describe their sublime features, should confine himself to the cold rules of painting would give his reader but a very imperfect idea of those emotions which they have the irresistible power of communicating to the most impa.s.sive imaginations. The fact is, that controuling influence, which distinguishes the Alps from all other scenery, is derived from images which disdain the pencil. Had I wished to make a picture of this scene I had thrown much less light into it.

But I consulted nature and my feelings. The ideas excited by the stormy sunset I am here describing owed their sublimity to that deluge of light, or rather of fire, in which nature had wrapped the immense forms around me; any intrusion of shade, by destroying the unity of the impression, had necessarily diminished its grandeur.]

[Footnote P: Pike is a word very commonly used in the north of England, to signify a high mountain of the conic form, as Langdale pike, etc.]

[Footnote Q: For most of the images in the next sixteen verses I am indebted to M. Raymond's interesting observations annexed to his translation of c.o.xe's 'Tour in Switzerland'.]

[Footnote R: The rays of the sun drying the rocks frequently produce on their surface a dust so subtile and slippery, that the wretched chamois-chasers are obliged to bleed themselves in the legs and feet in order to secure a footing.]

[Footnote S: The people of this Canton are supposed to be of a more melancholy disposition than the other inhabitants of the Alps: this, if true, may proceed from their living more secluded.]

[Footnote T: These summer hamlets are most probably (as I have seen observed by a critic in the 'Gentleman's Magazine') what Virgil alludes to in the expression "Castella in tumulis."]

[Footnote U: Sugh, a Scotch word expressive of the sound of the wind through the trees.]

[Footnote V: This wind, which announces the spring to the Swiss, is called in their language Foen; and is according to M. Raymond the Syroco of the Italians.]

[Footnote W: This tradition of the golden age of the Alps, as M. Raymond observes, is highly interesting, interesting not less to the philosopher than to the poet. Here I cannot help remarking, that the superst.i.tions of the Alps appear to be far from possessing that poetical character which so eminently distinguishes those of Scotland and the other mountainous northern countries. The Devil with his horns, etc., seems to be in their idea, the princ.i.p.al agent that brings about the sublime natural revolutions that take place daily before their eyes.]

[Footnote X: Alluding to several battles which the Swiss in very small numbers have gained over their oppressors the house of Austria; and in particular, to one fought at Naeffels near Glarus, where three hundred and thirty men defeated an army of between fifteen and twenty thousand Austrians. Scattered over the valley are to be found eleven stones, with this inscription, 1388, the year the battle was fought, marking out as I was told upon the spot, the several places where the Austrians attempting to make a stand were repulsed anew.]

[Footnote Y: As Schreck-Horn, the pike of terror. Wetter-Horn, the pike of storms, etc. etc.]

[Footnote Z: The effect of the famous air called in French Ranz des Vaches upon the Swiss troops removed from their native country is well known, as also the injunction of not playing it on pain of death, before the regiments of that nation, in the service of France and Holland.]

[Footnote Aa: Optima quaeque dies, etc.]

[Footnote Bb: This shrine is resorted to, from a hope of relief, by mult.i.tudes, from every corner of the Catholick world, labouring under mental or bodily afflictions.]