The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth Volume I Part 113

[Footnote Cc: Rude fountains built and covered with sheds for the accommodation of the pilgrims, in their ascent of the mountain. Under these sheds the sentimental traveller and the philosopher may find interesting sources of meditation.]

[Footnote Dd: This word is p.r.o.nounced upon the spot Chamouny, I have taken the liberty of reading it long thinking it more musical.]

[Footnote Ee: It is only from the higher part of the valley of Chamouny that Mont Blanc is visible.]

[Footnote Ff: It is scarce necessary to observe that these lines were written before the emanc.i.p.ation of Savoy.]

[Footnote Gg: A vast extent of marsh so called near the lake of Neuf-chatel.]

[Footnote Hh: This, as may be supposed, was written before France became the seat of war.]

[Footnote Ii: An insect so called, which emits a short, melancholy cry, heard, at the close of the summer evenings, on the banks of the Loire.]

[Footnote Jj: The river Loiret, which has the honour of giving name to a department, rises out of the earth at a place, called La Source, a league and a half south-east of Orleans, and taking at once the character of a considerable stream, winds under a most delicious bank on its left, with a flat country of meadows, woods, and vineyards on its right, till it falls into the Loire about three or four leagues below Orleans. The hand of false taste has committed on its banks those outrages which the Abbe de Lille so pathetically deprecates in those charming verses descriptive of the Seine, visiting in secret the retreat of his friend Watelet. Much as the Loiret, in its short course, suffers from injudicious ornament, yet are there spots to be found upon its banks as soothing as meditation could wish for: the curious traveller may meet with some of them where it loses itself among the mills in the neighbourhood of the villa called La Fontaine. The walks of La Source, where it takes its rise, may, in the eyes of some people, derive an additional interest from the recollection that they were the retreat of Bolingbroke during his exile, and that here it was that his philosophical works were chiefly composed. The inscriptions, of which he speaks in one of his letters to Swift descriptive of this spot, are not, I believe, now extant. The gardens have been modelled within these twenty years according to a plan evidently not dictated by the taste of the friend of Pope.]

[Footnote Kk: The duties upon many parts of the French rivers were so exorbitant that the poorer people, deprived of the benefit of water carriage, were obliged to transport their goods by land.]

[Footnote Ll:

--And, at his heels, Leash'd in like hounds, should Famine, Sword, and Fire, Crouch for employment.]

When he was young he little knew Of husbandry or tillage; And now he's forced to work, though weak, --The weakest in the village.

He all the country could outrun, Could leave both man and horse behind; And often, ere the race was done, He reeled and was stone-blind.

And still there's something in the world At which his heart rejoices; For when the chiming hounds are out, He dearly loves their voices!

Old Ruth works out of doors with him, And does what Simon cannot do; For she, not over stout of limb, Is stouter of the two.

And though you with your utmost skill From labour could not wean them, Alas! 'tis very little, all Which they can do between them.

Beside their moss-grown hut of clay, Not twenty paces from the door, A sc.r.a.p of land they have, but they Are poorest of the poor.

This sc.r.a.p of land he from the heath Enclosed when he was stronger; But what avails the land to them, Which they can till no longer?