This poem gave its title to a separate division in the second volume of the edition of 1807, viz. "The Blind Highland Boy; with other Poems."—Ed.
This reading occurs in all the editions. But Wordsworth, whose MS. was not specially clear, may have written, or meant to write "petty," (a much better word), and not perceived the mistake when revising the sheets. If he really wrote "petty," he may have meant either small rills (rillets), or used the word as Shakespeare used it, for "pelting" rills.—Ed.
Compare Tennyson's In Memoriam, stanza xix.:
'There twice a day the Severn fills;
The salt sea-water passes by,
And hushes half the babbling Wye,
And makes a silence in the hills, etc.'
Ed.