| 1827 | |
| On which the Traveller thus had died | 1807 |
On which the Traveller thus had died
[Footnote A:] Tarn is a small Mere or Lake mostly high up in the mountains,—W. W.
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[Footnote B:] Compare the reference to Helvellyn, and its "deep coves, shaped by skeleton arms," in the Musings near Aquapendente (1837). Wordsworth here describes Red Tarn, under Helvellyn, to the east; but Charles Gough was killed on the Kepplecove side of Swirell Edge, and not at Red Tarn. Bishop Watson of Llandaff, writing to Hayley (see Anecdotes of the Life of Bishop Watson, p. 440), writes about Charles Gouche (evidently Gough). He had been lodging at "the Cherry Inn," near Wytheburn, sometime before his death.—Ed.
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[Footnote C:] Compare The Excursion, book iv. ll. 1185-94.—Ed.
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Note: Thomas Wilkinson—referred to in the notes to The Solitary Reaper, vol. ii. pp. 399, 400, and the verses To the Spade of a Friend, in vol. iv.—alludes to this incident at some length in his poem, Emont Vale. Wilkinson attended the funeral of young Gough, and writes of the incident with feeling, but without inspiration. Gough perished early in April, and his body was not found till July 22nd, 1805. A reference to his fate will be found in Lockhart's Life of Scott (vol. ii. p. 274); also in a letter of Mr. Luff of Patterdale, to his wife, July 23rd, 1805. Henry Crabb Robinson records (see his Diary, Reminiscences, etc., vol. ii. p. 25) a conversation with Wordsworth, in which he said of this poem, that "he purposely made the narrative as prosaic as possible, in order that no discredit might be thrown on the truth of the incident."—Ed.
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