Footnotes for Chapter IV.
*[1] Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm, dated Shrewsbury Castle, 21st Feb., 1788.
*[2] This practice of noting down information, the result of reading and observation, was continued by Mr. Telford until the close of his life; his last pocket memorandum book, containing a large amount of valuable information on mechanical subjects—a sort of engineer's vade mecum—being printed in the appendix to the 4to. 'Life of Telford' published by his executors in 1838, pp. 663-90.
*[3] A medical man, a native of Eskdale, of great promise, who died comparatively young.
*[4] Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm.
*[5] It would occupy unnecessary space to cite these poems. The following, from the verses in memory of William Telford, relates to schoolboy days, After alluding to the lofty Fell Hills, which formed part of the sheep farm of his deceased friend's father, the poet goes on to say:
"There 'mongst those rocks I'll form a rural seat,
And plant some ivy with its moss compleat;
I'll benches form of fragments from the stone,
Which, nicely pois'd, was by our hands o'erthrown,—
A simple frolic, but now dear to me,
Because, my Telford, 'twas performed with thee.
There, in the centre, sacred to his name,
I'll place an altar, where the lambent flame
Shall yearly rise, and every youth shall join
The willing voice, and sing the enraptured line.
But we, my friend, will often steal away
To this lone seat, and quiet pass the day;
Here oft recall the pleasing scenes we knew
In early youth, when every scene was new,
When rural happiness our moments blest,
And joys untainted rose in every breast."
*[6] Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm, dated 16th July, 1788.
*[7] Ibid.
*[8] Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm, dated 16th July, 1788.