The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth Volume Iii Part 44

[Footnote D: The Vale of Esthwaite.--Ed.]

[Footnote E: Hawkshead Church; an old Norman structure, built in 1160, the year of the foundation of Furness Abbey. It is no longer "snow-white," a so-called Restoration having taken place within recent years, on architectural principles. The plaster is stripped from the outside of the church, which is now of a dull stone colour.

"Apart from poetic sentiment," wrote Dr. Cradock (the late Princ.i.p.al of Brasenose College, Oxford), "it may be doubted whether the pale colour, still preserved at Grasmere and other churches in the district, does not better harmonize with the scenery and atmosphere of the Lake country.".

The most interesting feature in the interior is the private chapel of Archbishop Sandys.--Ed.]

[Footnote F: Hawkshead Church is a conspicuous object as you approach the town, whether by the Ambleside road, or from Sawrey. It is the latter approach that is here described.--Ed.]

[Footnote G: Anne Tyson,--Ed.]

[Footnote H: Anne Tyson seems to have removed from Hawkshead village to Colthouse, on the opposite side of the Vale, and lived there for some time before her death. Along with Dr. Cradock I examined the Parish Registers of Hawkshead in the autumn of 1882, and we found the following entry belonging to the year 1796.

"Anne Tyson of Colthouse, widow, died May 25th buried 28th, in Churchyard, aged 83."

Her removal to Colthouse is confirmed, in a curious way, by a reminiscence of William Wordsworth's (the poet's son), who told me that if asked where the dame's house was, he would have pointed to a spot on the eastern side of the valley, and out of the village altogether; his father having taken him from Rydal Mount to Hawkshead when a mere boy, and pointed out that spot. Doubtless Wordsworth took his son to the cottage at Colthouse, where Anne Tyson died, as the earlier abode in Hawkshead village is well known, and its site is indisputable.--Ed.]

[Footnote I: Compare book i. ll. 499-506, p. 148.--Ed.]

[Footnote K: There is no trace and no tradition at Hawkshead of the "stone table under the dark pine," For a curious parallel to this

'sunny seat Round the stone table under the dark pine,'

I am indebted to Dr. Cradock. He points out that in the prologue to 'Peter Bell', vol. ii p.9, we have the lines,

'To the stone-table in my garden, Loved haunt of many a summer hour,'

Ed.]

[Footnote L: There can be little doubt as to the ident.i.ty of "the famous brook" "within our garden" boxed, which gives the name of Flag Street to one of the alleys of Hawkshead.

"Persons have visited the cottage," wrote Dr. Cradock, "without discovering it; and yet it is not forty yards distant, and is still exactly as described. On the opposite side of the lane leading to the cottage, and a few steps above it, is a narrow pa.s.sage through some new stone buildings. On emerging from this, you meet a small garden, the farther side of which is bounded by the brook, confined on both sides by larger flags, and also covered by flags of the same Coniston formation, through the interstices of which you may see and hear the stream running freely. The upper flags are now used as a footpath, and lead by another pa.s.sage back into the village. No doubt the garden has been reduced in size, by the use of that part of it fronting the lane for building purposes. The stream, before it enters the area of buildings and gardens, is open by the lane side, and seemingly comes from the hills to the westwards. The large flags are extremely hard and durable, and it is probably that the very flags which paved the channel in Wordsworth's time may still be doing the same duty."

The house adjoining this garden was not Dame Tyson's but a Mr. Watson's.

Possibly, however, some of the boys had free access to the latter, so that Wordsworth could speak of it as "our garden;" or, Dame Tyson may have rented it. See Note II. in the Appendix to this volume, p.

386.--Ed.]

[Footnote M: Not wholly so.--Ed.]

[Footnote N: See note on preceding page.--Ed.]

[Footnote O: Compare the sonnet in vol. iv.:

'Beloved Vale!' I said, 'when I shall con ...

By doubts and thousand petty fancies crost.'

There can be little doubt that it is to the "famous brook" of 'The Prelude' that reference is made in the later sonnet, and still more significantly in the earlier poem 'The Fountain', vol. ii. p. 91.

Compare the MS. variants of that poem, printed as footnotes, from Lord Coleridge's copy of the Poems:

'Down to the vale with eager speed Behold this streamlet run, From subterranean bondage freed, And glittering in the sun.'

with the lines in 'The Prelude':

'The famous brook, who, soon as he was boxed Within our garden, found himself at once, ...

Stripped of his voice and left to dimple down, etc.'

This is doubtless the streamlet called Town Beck; and it is perhaps the most interesting of all the spots alluded to by Wordsworth which can be traced out in the Hawkshead district, I am indebted to Mr. Rawnsley for the following note:

"From the village, nay, from the poet's very door when he lived at Anne Tyson's, a good path leads on, past the vicarage, quite to its upland place of birth. It has eaten its way deeply into the soil; in one place there is a series of still pools, that overflow and fall into others, with quiet sound; at other spots, it is bustling and busy. Fine timber is found on either side of it, the roots of the trees often laid bare by the pa.s.sing current. In one or two places by the side of this beck, and beneath the shadow of lofty oaks, may be found boulder stones, grey and moss-covered. Birds make hiding-places for themselves in these oak and hazel bushes by the stream. Following it up, we find it receives, at a tiny ford, the tribute of another stream from the north-west, and comes down between the adjacent hills (well wooded to the summit) from meadows of short-cropped gra.s.s, and to these from the open moorland, where it takes its rise. Every conceivable variety of beauty of sound and sight in streamlet life is found as we follow the course of this Town Beck. We owe much of Wordsworth's intimate acquaintance with streamlet beauty to it."

Compare 'The Fountain' in detail with this pa.s.sage in 'The Prelude'.--Ed.]

[Footnote P: So it is in the editions of 1850 and 1857; but it should evidently be "nor, dear Friend!"--Ed.]

[Footnote Q: The ash tree is gone, but there is no doubt as to the place where it grew. Mr. Watson, whose father owned and inhabited the house immediately opposite to Mrs. Tyson's cottage in Wordsworth's time (see a previous note), told me that a tall ash tree grew on the proper right front of the cottage, where an outhouse is now built. If this be so, Wordsworth's bedroom must have been that on the proper left, with the smaller of the two windows. The cottage faces nearly south-west. In the upper flat there are two bedrooms to the front, with oak flooring, one of which must have been Wordsworth's. See Note II. (p. 386) in Appendix to this volume.--Ed.]

[Footnote R: In one of the small mountain farm-houses near Hawkshead.--Ed.]

[Footnote S: Compare 'Paradise Lost', book viii. l. 528:

'Walks, and the melody of birds.'

Ed.]

[Footnote T: Dr. Cradock has suggested to me the probable course of that morning walk.

"All that can be safely said as to the course of that memorable morning walk is that, in that neighbourhood, a view of the sea can only be obtained at a considerable elevation; also that if the words 'in _front_ the sea lay laughing' are to be taken as rigidly exact, the poet's progress towards Hawkshead must have been in a direction mainly southerly, and therefore from the country north of that place.

These and all other conditions of the description are answered in several parts of the range of hills lying between Elterwater and Hawkshead."

See Appendix, Note III. p. 389.--Ed.]

[Footnote U: Compare the sixth line of the poem, beginning