[237] Note 16.—‘Thomas Wilkinson’s “Tour in Scotland.”’—Page 237.
Probably one of Wilkinson’s poems, of which Wordsworth speaks occasionally in his letters. ‘The present Lord Lonsdale has a neighbour, a Quaker, an amiable, inoffensive man, and a little of a poet too, who has amused himself upon his own small estate upon the Emont, in twining pathways along the banks of the river, making little cells and bowers with inscriptions of his own writing.’—Letter to Sir G. Beaumont, Oct. 17, 1805.
Wordsworth wrote the poem ‘To a Spade of a Friend,’ composed ‘while we were labouring together in his pleasure-grounds,’ commencing—
‘Spade with which Wilkinson hath tilled his land,
And shaped these pleasant walks by Emont’s side,’
in memory of this friend.—See Life, vol. i. pp. 55, 323, 349.
DISTANCES FROM PLACE TO PLACE.
| miles | miles | ||
| Grasmere to Keswick | 13 | Suie (road excellent) | 13 |
| Hesket Newmarket (road very bad) | 15 | Killin (tolerable) | 7 |
| Carlisle (bad road) | 14 | Kenmore (baddish) | 15 |
| Longtown (newly mended, not good) | 8 | Blair (bad) | 23 |
| Annan (good) | 14 | Fascally (wretchedly bad) | 18 |
| Dumfries (good) | 15 | Dunkeld (bad) | 12 |
| Brownhill (pretty good) | 12 | Ambletree (hilly—good) | 10 |
| Leadhills (tolerable) | 19 | Crieff (hilly—goodish) | 11 |
| Douglass Mill (very bad) | 12 | Loch Erne Head (tolerable) | 20 |
| Lanark (baddish) | 9 | Callander (most excellent) | 14 |
| Hamilton (tolerable) | 15 | Trossachs | 16 |
| Glasgow (tolerable) | 11 | Ferryman’s House (about 8) | 8 |
| Dumbarton (very good) | 15 | Callander to Falkirk (baddish) | 27 |
| Luss (excellent) | 13 | Edinburgh (good) | 24 |
| Tarbet (not bad) | 8 | Roslin (good) | 6 |
| Arrochar (good) | 2 | Peebles (good) | 16 |
| Cairndow (middling) | 12 | Clovenford (tolerable) | 16 |
| Inverary (very good) | 10 | Melrose (tolerable) | 8 |
| Dalmally (tolerable) | 16 | Dryburgh (good) | 4 |
| Taynuilt (excellent) | 13 | Jedburgh (roughish) | 10 |
| Portnacroish (tolerable) | 15 | Hawick (good) | 12 |
| Ballachulish (part most excellent) | 12 | Langholm (very good) | 24 |
| King’s House (bad) | 12 | Longtown (good) | 12 |
| Tyndrum (good) | 18 | Carlisle | 8 |
| Grasmere | 36 |
FOOTNOTES.
[0a] See Essays of R. H. Hutton, Esq., vol. ii.
[0b] See Appendix, pp. 304, 307.