justify such violent expressions; and I should condemn the passage, though perhaps few Readers will agree with me, as vicious poetic diction. The last stanza is throughout admirably expressed: it would be equally good whether in prose or verse, except that the Reader has an exquisite pleasure in seeing such natural language so naturally connected with The beauty of this stanza tempts me here to add a sentiment which ought to be the pervading spirit of a system, detached parts of which have been imperfectly explained in the Preface,namely, that in proportion as ideas and feelings are valuable, whether the composition be in prose or in verse, they require and exact one and the same language.

metre.

NOTES TO THE POEM OF THE BROTHERS.

NOTE 1.

Page 27-line 1. "There were two springs which bubbled side by side." The impressive circumstance here described, actually took place some years ago in this country, upon an eminence called Kidstow Pike, one of the highest of the mountains that surround Hawes-water. The summit of the Pike was stricken by lightning; and every trace of one of the fountains disappeared, while the other continued to flow as before.

NOTE II.

Page 29-line 6. "The thought of death sits easy on the man," &c. There is not any thing more worthy of remark in the manners of the inhabitants of these mountains, than the tranquillity, I might say indifference, with which they think and talk upon the subject of death. Some of the country church-yards, as here described, do not contain a single tomb-stone, and most of them have a very small number.

NOTES TO THE POEM or MICHAEL.

NOTE I.

Page 224-line 6. "There's Richard Bateman," &c. The story alluded to here is well known in the country. The chapel is called Ings Chapel; and is on the right-hand side of the road leading from Kendal to Ambleside.

NOTE II.

Page 227-line 15. " had designed to build a sheepfold," &c. It may be proper to inform some readers, that a sheep-fold in these mountains is an unroofed building of stone walls, with different divisions. It is generally placed by the side of a brook, for the convenience of washing the sheep; but it is also useful as a shelter for them, and as a place to drive them into, to enable the shepherds conveniently to single out one or more for any particular purpose.

THE END.

R. Taylor and Co. Printers, 38, Shoe-Lane,