scriptive Sketches', ll. 208-253.--Ed.]

[Footnote x: Probably the valley between Martigny and the Col de
Balme.--Ed.]

[Footnote y: Wordsworth and Jones crossed from Martigny to Chamouni on
the 11th of August. The "bare ridge," from which they first "beheld
unveiled the summit of Mont Blanc," and were disenchanted, was doubtless
the Col de Balme. The first view of the great mountain is not impressive
as seen from that point, or indeed from any of the possible routes to
Chamouni from the Rhone valley, until the village is almost reached. The
best approach is from Sallanches by St. Gervais.--Ed.]

[Footnote z: Compare Coleridge's 'Hymn before sun-rise in the Vale of
Chamouni', and Shelley's 'Mont Blanc', with Wordsworth's description of
the Alps, here in 'The Prelude', in 'Descriptive Sketches', and in the
'Memorials of a Tour on the Continent'.--Ed.]

[Footnote Aa: August 17, 1790.--Ed.]

[Footnote Bb: This passage beginning, "The brook and road," was first
published, amongst the "Poems of the Imagination," in the edition of
1845, under the title of 'The Simplon Pass' (see vol. ii. p. 69). It is
doubtless to this walk down the Italian side of the Simplon route that
Wordsworth refers in the letter to his sister from Keswill, in which he
says,

"The impression of there hours of our walk among these Alps will never
be effaced."

Ed.]

[Footnote Cc: The old hospice in the Simplon, which is beside a torrent
below the level of the road, about 22 miles from Duomo d'Ossola.--Ed.]

[Footnote Dd:

"From Duomo d'Ossola we proceeded to the lake of Locarno,
to visit the Boromean Islands, and thence to Como."

(W. W. to his sister.) The lake of Locarno is now called Lago
Maggiore.--Ed.]

[Footnote Ee:

"The shores of the lake consist of steeps, covered with large sweeping
woods of chestnut, spotted with villages."

(W. W. to his sister.)--Ed.]

[Footnote Ff:

"A small footpath is all the communication by land between one village
and another on the side along which we passed, for upwards of thirty
miles. We entered on this path about noon, and, owing to the steepness
of the banks, were soon unmolested by the sun, which illuminated the
woods, rocks, and villages of the opposite shore."

(See letter of W. W. from Keswill.)--Ed.]

[Footnote Gg: See 'Descriptive Sketches', vol. i. pp. 42-46.--Ed.]

[Footnote Hh: They followed the lake of Como to its head, leaving
Gravedon