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VOL. II.

Its offering from a chink or spout;
Whence all, howe'er athirst, or drooping
With toil, may drink, and without stooping.

"Cries Benjamin, 'Where is it, where? Voice it hath none, but must be near.'

- A star, declining towards the west,

Upon the watery surface threw

Its image tremulously imprest,

That just marked out the object and withdrew:
Right welcome service!

ROCK OF NAMES!

Light is the strain, but not unjust
To thee, and thy memorial-trust
That once seemed only to express
Love that was love in idleness;
Tokens, as year hath followed year
How changed, alas! in character!

For they were graven on thy smooth breast
By hands of those my soul loves best;
Meek women, men as true and brave
As ever went to a hopeful grave:

Their hands and mine, when side by side,
With kindred zeal and mutual pride,
We worked until the Initials took
Shapes that defied a scornful look.
Long as for us a genial feeling
Survives, or one in need of healing,
The power, dear Rock, around thee cast,

Thy monumental power, shall last
For me and mine! O thought of pain,

That would impair it or profane!

Take all in kindness then, as said
With a staid heart but playful head;
And fail not thou, loved Rock! to keep
Thy charge when we are laid asleep."

26

Page 179.

Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle."

Henry Lord Clif &c., &c., who is the subject of this Poem, was the son of John Lord Clifford, who was slain at Towton Feid, walch John Lord Clifford, as is known to the reader of Engish Hatory, was the person who after the battle of Wakefeid sew, in the pursuit, the young Earl of Rutland, son of the Dake of York, who had fallen in the battle, "in part of revenge" (say the Authors of the History of Cumberland and Westmoreland); for the Earl's father had slain his." A deed which worthily blemished the author (saith Speed); but who, as he adds, “dare promise anything temperate of himself in the beat of martial fury? chiefly, when it was resolved not to leave any branch of the York line standing; for so one maketh this Lord to speak." This, no doubt, I would observe by the by, was an action sufficiently in the vindictive spirit of the times, and yet not altogether so bad as represented; "for the Earl was no child, as some writers would have him, but able to bear arms, being sixteen or seventeen years of age, as is evident from this, (say the Memoirs of the Countess of Pembroke, who was laudably anxious to wipe away, as far as could be, this stigma from the illustrious name to which she was born,) that he was the next child to King Edward the Fourth, which his mother had by Richard Duke of York, and that King was then eighteen years of age: and for the small distance betwixt her children, see Austin Vincent, in his Book of Nobility, p. 622, where he writes of them all. It may further be observed, that Lord Clifford, who was then himself only twenty-five years of age, had been a leading man and commander, two or three years together, in the army of Lancaster, before this time; and, therefore, would be less likely to think that the Earl of Rutland might be entitled to mercy from his youth. But, independent of this act, at best a cruel and savage one, the Family of Clifford had done enough to draw upon them the vehement hatred of the House of York: so that after the Battle of Towton there was no hope for them but in flight and concealment. Henry, the subject of the Poem, was deprived of his estate and honors during the space of twenty-four years; all which time he lived

as a shepherd in Yorkshire or in Cumberland, where the estate of his father-in-law (Sir Lancelot Threlkeld) lay. He was restored to his estate and honors in the first year of Henry the Seventh. It is recorded that, "when called to Parliament, he behaved nobly and wisely; but otherwise came seldom to London or the Court; and rather delighted to live in the country, where he repaired several of his Castles, which had gone to decay during the late troubles." Thus far is chiefly collected from Nicholson and Burn; and I can add, from my own knowledge, that there is a tradition current in the village of Threlkeld and its neighborhood, his principal retreat, that, in the course of his shepherd life, he had acquired great astronomical knowledge. I cannot conclude this note without adding a word upon the subject of those numerous and noble feudal edifices, spoken of in the Poem, the ruins of some of which are, at this day, so great an ornament to that interesting country. The Cliffords had always been distinguished for an honorable pride in these Castles; and we have seen that, after the wars of York and Lancaster, they were rebuilt; in the civil wars of Charles the First they were again laid waste, and again restored almost to their former magnificence by the celebrated Lady Anne Clifford, Countess of Pembroke, &c., &c. Not more than twenty-five years after this was done, when the estates of Clifford had passed into the Family of Tufton, three of these Castles, namely, Brough, Brougham, and Pendragon, were demolished, and the timber and other materials sold by Thomas Earl of Thanet. We will hope that, when this order was issued, the Earl had not consulted the text of Isaiah, 58th chap. 12th verse, to which the inscription placed over the gate of Pendragon Castle, by the Countess of Pembroke (I believe his grandmother), at the time she repaired that structure, refers the reader: "And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called the repairer of the breech, the restorer of paths to dwell in." The Earl of Thanet, the present possessor of the Estates, with a due respect for the memory of his ancestors, and a proper sense of the value and beauty of these remains of antiquity, has (I am told) given orders that they should be preserved from all depredations.

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He leaves behind a moon-illumined wake:
Behold! the mantling spirit of reserve
Fashions his neck into a goodly curve;
An arch thrown back between luxuriant wings
Of whitest garniture, like fir-tree boughs
To which, on some unruffled morning, clings

A flaky weight of winter's purest snows!

- Behold! -as with a gushing impulse heaves
That downy prow, and softly cleaves
The mirror of the crystal flood,

Vanish inverted hill, and shadowy wood,

And pendent rocks, where'er, in gliding state,
Winds the mute Creature without visible Mate

Or Rival, save the Queen of night

Showering down a silver light,

From heaven, upon her chosen Favorite!

Page 216.

"Living hill."

"Awhile the living hill

Heaved with convulsive throes, and all was still."

Page 233.

"The Wishing-Gate."

DR. DARWIN.

"In the Vale of Grasmere, by the side of the old highway leading to Ambleside, is a gate which, time out of mind, has been called the Wishing Gate."

Having been told, upon what I thought good authority, that this gate had been destroyed, and the opening where it hung walled up, I gave vent immediately to my feelings in these stanzas. But going to the place some time after, I found, with much delight, my old favorite unmolested.

Page 320.

"Something less than joy, but more than dull content."

COUNTESS OF WINCHILSEA.

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