ing, and where she spent several years with their
uncle Cookson, the Canon of Windsor. It is more probable that the
"separation desolate" refers to the interval between this Christmas of
1790 and their reunion at Halifax in 1794. In a letter dated Forncett,
August 30, 1793, Dorothy says, referring to her brother, "It is nearly
three years since we parted."--Ed.]

[Footnote P: Thomas Wilkinson's poem on the River Emont had been written
in 1787, but was not published till 1824.--Ed.]

[Footnote Q: Brougham Castle, at the junction of the Lowther and the
Emont, about a mile out of Penrith, south-east, on the Appleby road.
This castle is associated with other poems. See the 'Song at the Feast
of Brougham Castle'.--Ed.]

[Footnote R: Sir Philip Sidney, author of 'Arcadia'.--Ed.]

[Footnote S: Mary Hutchinson.--Ed.]

[Footnote T: The Border Beacon is the hill to the north-east of Penrith.
It is now covered with wood, but was in Wordsworth's time a "bare
fell."--Ed.]

[Footnote U: He had gone to Malta, "in search of health."--Ed.]

[Footnote V: The Etesian gales are the mild north winds of the
Mediterranean, which are periodical, lasting about six weeks in spring
and autumn.--Ed.]

[Footnote W: A blue-coat boy in London.--Ed.]

[Footnote X: Christ's Hospital. Compare Charles Lamb's 'Christ's
Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago'.

"Come back into memory, like as thou wert in the dayspring of thy
fancies, with hope like a fiery column before thee--the dark pillar
not yet turned--Samuel Taylor Coleridge--Logician, Metaphysician,
Bard!--How have I seen the casual passer through the cloisters stand
still, entranced with admiration (while he weighed the disproportion
between the _speech_ and the _garb_ of the young Mirandula), to hear
thee unfold, in thy deep and sweet intonations, the mysteries of
Jamblichus, or Plotinus (for even in those years thou waxedst not pale
at such philosophic draughts), or reciting Homer in his Greek, or
Pindar--while the walls of the old Grey Friars re-echoed to the
accents of the _inspired charity boy_!"

('Essays of Elia.')--Ed.]

[Footnote Y: The river Otter, in Devon, thus addressed by Coleridge in
one of his early poems:

'Dear native Brook! wild Streamlet of the West!
How many various-fated years have passed,
What blissful and what anguished hours, since last
I skimmed the smooth thin stone along thy breast,
Numbering its li