[74] In Wordsworth’s own account, “Towards the close of the first book stand the lines that were first written, beginning, ‘Nine tedious years,’ and ending, ‘Last human tenant of these ruined walls.’ These were composed in 1795 at Racedown; and for several passages describing the employment and demeanour of Margaret during her affliction, I am indebted to obs”
[75] From an unpublished letter to Wrangham, The Athenæum, 8th December, 1894, quoted in The Early Life of Wordsworth (1770-1798), by Emile Legouis.
[76] It was noteworthy how he would eschew all the evil in newspapers; no theft or murder could ever be read to him.—Life of William Barnes, Leader Scott.
[77] William Barnes (1801-1886) was born at Rushay, in the hamlet of Bagber. He was the grandson of John Barnes, yeoman farmer, of Gillingham, and the son of John Barnes, tenant farmer, in the Vale of Blackmore. (A direct ancestor, John Barnes, was head-borough of Gillingham in 1604.) In 1835 he settled at Dorchester, and kept a school. In 1847 he was ordained, and lived at Whitcombe, Dorset. In 1862 he became Rector of Came, where he died.
[78] Thomas Hardy was born at Higher Bockhampton, near Dorchester, on June 2nd, 1840. In his seventeenth year he was articled to a Mr. Hicks, an ecclesiastical architect of Dorchester, to whom the restoration of many of the old South Dorset churches was entrusted. In 1862 he went to London, and became an assistant to Sir Arthur Blomfield, R.A. In 1874 he married Miss Emma Lavinia Gifford, niece of Dr. Gifford, Archdeacon of London, and formerly headmaster of King Edward’s School, Birmingham. Before taking up their residence at Dorchester, Mr. and Mrs. Hardy lived at Riverside, Sturminster Newton—the “Stourcastle” of the novels—and then at Wimborne, and finally settled at “Max Gate,” Dorchester, in 1885.
[79] It is noteworthy that sometimes the name of a village or town appears in the name of some character living in it, as, for instance, Jude Fawley lives in “Marygreen,” which we may identify with the village of Fawley, in Hants.; and the name of the schoolmaster of “Leddenton” (really the Dorset town of Gillingham) is Gillingham.
[80] Wareham is called Southerton in the earlier editions of The Return of the Native.
[81] C. G. Harper’s The Hardy Country.