MS.
[964] The present Castle was begun in 1808. It is in the style of the 13th and 14th century structures. The arched corridors surrounding the staircase—which is sixty feet square and ninety feet high—may justify the description in the sonnet. These stone corridors open on each side, through the centre of the castle. Compare the reference to Lowther in Barren's Travels in China, p. 134, in the course of his description of "Gehol's matchless gardens," referred to in The Prelude, book viii. (vol. iii. p. 274.)—Ed.
[965] The Lowther family have been, for generations, the representatives of the Conservative cause in Cumberland.—Ed.
[966] 1835.
But high the democratic torrent swells.
MS.
XLV
TO THE EARL OF LONSDALE
"Magistratus indicat virum."
Lonsdale! it were unworthy of a Guest,
Whose heart with gratitude to thee inclines,
If he should speak, by fancy touched, of signs
On thy Abode harmoniously imprest,
Yet be unmoved with wishes to attest 5
How in thy mind and moral frame agree
Fortitude, and that Christian Charity
Which, filling, consecrates the human breast.
And if the Motto on thy 'scutcheon teach
With truth, "The Magistracy shows the Man;"
That searching test thy public course has stood;[967] 11
As will be owned alike by bad and good,
Soon as the measuring of life's little span
Shall place thy virtues out of Envy's reach.[968]