[17] See P. ix., 5.
[18] The tenant farmers on the Clevedon estate were the bearers. The Rev. William Newland Pedder, who was Vicar of Clevedon for forty years, and died in 1871, read the burial service. The “familiar names” are those of the Elton family, which are recorded both on brass and marble in the church.
[19] The corpse was landed at Dover, and was brought by sixteen black horses all the way to Clevedon—so says Augustus James, who, when a boy, witnessed the interment. Sir A. H. Elton, the late Baronet, kindly corroborated this statement. Besides the coffin, there was a square iron box, deposited in the vault, which may have contained
“The darken’d heart that beat no more.”
It is certain that the Poet always thought that the ship put in at Bristol.
Hallam’s family resided in London, which accounts for the mourners coming from so great a distance. Augustus James told me, that the funeral procession consisted of a hearse and three mourning coaches, each of which was drawn by four horses; and he saw the sixteen animals under cover after their journey. My friend, Mr. Edward Malan, heard the same story from A. James.
[20] It is a fact, that the Poem was written at both various times and places—through a course of years, and where their author happened to be, in Lincolnshire, London, Essex, Gloucestershire, Wales, anywhere, as the spirit moved him.
[21] The effect of vapour in magnifying objects is shown towards the end of the Idyll, “Guinevere,” where it says
“The moony vapour rolling round the King,
Who seem’d the phantom of a Giant in it.”
Can “the haze of grief” refer to the tear, which acts as a magnifying lens?