"Among the fugitive princes of Scythia, who were expelled from their country in the Mithridatic war, tradition has placed the name of Odin, the ruler of a potent tribe in Turkestan, between the Euxine and the Caspian."
Ed.
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[Footnote N:] Sertorius, one of the Roman generals of the later Republican era (see Plutarch's biography of him, and Corneille's tragedy). On being proscribed by Sylla, he fled from Etruria to Spain; there he became the leader of several bands of exiles, and repulsed the Roman armies sent against him. Mithridates VI.—referred to in the [previous note]—aided him, both with ships and money, being desirous of establishing a new Roman Republic in Spain. From Spain he went to Mauritania. In the Straits of Gibraltar he met some sailors, who had been in the Atlantic Isles, and whose reports made him wish to visit these islands.—Ed.
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[Footnote O:] Supposed to be the Canaries.—Ed.
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[Footnote P:]
"In the early part of the fifteenth century there arrived at Lisbon an old bewildered pilot of the seas, who had been driven by tempests he knew not whither, and raved about an island in the far deep upon which he had landed, and which he had found peopled, and adorned with noble cities. The inhabitants told him that they were descendants of a band of Christians who fled from Spain when that country was conquered by the Moslems."
(See Washington Irving's Chronicles of Wolfert's Roost, etc.; and Baring Gould's Curious Myths of the Middle Ages.)—Ed.
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[Footnote Q:] Dominique de Gourgues, a French gentleman, who went in 1568 to Florida, to avenge the massacre of the French by the Spaniards there. (Mr. Carter, in the edition of 1850.)—Ed.
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[Footnote R:] Gustavus I. of Sweden. In the course of his war with Denmark he retreated to Dalecarlia, where he was a miner and field labourer.—Ed.
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[Footnote S:] The name—both as Christian and surname—is common in Scotland, and towns (such as Wallacetown, Ayr) are named after him.
"Passed two of Wallace's caves. There is scarcely a noted glen in Scotland that has not a cave for Wallace, or some other hero."
Dorothy Wordsworth's Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland in 1803 (Sunday, August 21).—Ed.
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[Footnote T:] Compare L'Allegro, l. 137.—Ed.
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[Footnote U:] Compare Paradise Lost, iii. 17.—Ed.
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[Footnote V:] The Derwent, on which the town of Cockermouth is built, where Wordsworth was born on the 7th of April 1770.—Ed.
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[Footnote W:] The towers of Cockermouth Castle.—Ed.
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[Footnote X:] The "terrace walk" is at the foot of the garden, attached to the old mansion in which Wordsworth's father, law-agent of the Earl of Lonsdale, resided. This home of his childhood is alluded to in [Volume 2 link: The Sparrow's Nest], vol. ii. p. 236. Three of the "Poems, composed or suggested during a Tour, in the Summer of 1833," refer to Cockermouth. They are the fifth, sixth, and seventh in that series of Sonnets: and are entitled respectively To the River Derwent; In sight of the Town of Cockermouth; and the Address from the Spirit of Cockermouth Castle. It was proposed some time ago that this house—which is known in Cockermouth as "Wordsworth House," —should be purchased, and since the Grammar School of the place is out of repair, that it should be converted into a School, in memory of Wordsworth. This excellent suggestion has not yet been carried out—Ed.
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[Footnote Y:] The Vale of Esthwaite.—Ed.
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[Footnote Z:] He went to Hawkshead School in 1778.—Ed.
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[Footnote a:] About mid October the autumn crocus in the garden "snaps" in that district.—Ed.
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[Footnote b:] Possibly in the Claife and Colthouse heights to the east of Esthwaite Water; but more probably the round-headed grassy hills that lead up and on to the moor between Hawkshead and Coniston, where the turf is always green and smooth.—Ed.
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[Footnote c:] Yewdale: see [next note]. "Cultured Vale" exactly describes the little oat-growing valley of Yewdale.—Ed.
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[Footnote d:] As there are no "naked crags" with "half-inch fissures in the slippery rocks" in the "cultured vale" of Esthwaite, the locality referred to is probably the Hohne Fells above Yewdale, to the north of Coniston, and only a few miles from Hawkshead, where a crag, now named Raven's Crag, divides Tilberthwaite from Yewdale. In his Epistle to Sir George Beaumont, Wordsworth speaks of Yewdale as a plain
'spread
Under a rock too steep for man to tread,
Where sheltered from the north and bleak north-west
Aloft the Raven hangs a visible nest,
Fearless of all assaults that would her brood molest.'
Ed.
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[Footnote e:] Dr. Cradock suggested the reading "rocky cove." Rocky cave is tautological, and Wordsworth would hardly apply the epithet to an ordinary boat-house.—Ed.
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[Footnote f:] The "craggy steep till then the horizon's bound," is probably the ridge of Ironkeld, reaching from high Arnside to the Tom Heights above Tarn Hows; while the "huge peak, black and huge, as if with voluntary power instinct," may he either the summit of Wetherlam, or of Pike o'Blisco. Mr. Rawnsley, however, is of opinion that if Wordsworth rowed off from the west bank of Fasthwaite, he might see beyond the craggy ridge of Loughrigg the mass of Nab-Scar, and Rydal Head would rise up "black and huge." If he rowed from the east side, then Pike o'Stickle, or Harrison Stickle, might rise above Ironkeld, over Borwick Ground.—Ed.
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[Footnote g:] Compare S. T. Coleridge.
"When very many are skating together, the sounds and the noises give an impulse to the icy trees, and the woods all round the lake tinkle."
The Friend, vol. ii. p. 325 (edition 1818).—Ed.
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[Footnote h:] The two preceding paragraphs were published in The Friend, December 28, 1809, under the title of the Growth of Genius from the Influences of Natural Objects on the Imagination, in Boyhood and Early Youth, and were afterwards inserted in all the collective editions of Wordsworth's poems, from 1815 onwards. For the changes of the text in these editions, [volume 2 link: [see] seqq.] vol. ii. pp. 66-69.—Ed.
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[Footnote i:] The becks amongst the Furness Fells, in Yewdale, and elsewhere.—Ed.
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[Footnote j:] Possibly from the top of some of the rounded moraine hills on the western side of the Hawkshead Valley.—Ed.
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[Footnote k:] The pupils in the Hawkshead school, in Wordsworth's time, boarded in the houses of village dames. Wordsworth lived with one Anne Tyson, for whom he ever afterwards cherished the warmest regard, and whose simple character he has immortalised. (See especially in the [fourth book] of The Prelude, p. 187, etc.) Wordsworth lived in her cottage at Hawkshead during nine eventful years. It still remains externally unaltered, and little, if at all, changed in the interior. It may be reached through a picturesque archway, near the principal inn of the village (The Lion); and is on the right of a small open yard, which is entered through this archway. To the left, a lane leads westwards to the open country. It is a humble dwelling of two storeys. The floor of the basement flat-paved with the blue flags of Coniston slate —is not likely to have been changed since Wordsworth's time. The present door with its "latch" (see book ii. l. 339), is probably the same as that referred to in the poem, as in use in 1776, and onwards. For further details see [notes] to book iv.—Ed.
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[Footnote l:] Compare Pope's Rape of the Lock, canto iii. l. 54: