[Footnote G: Compare the preface to 'The Excursion'. "Several years ago,
when the author retired to his native mountains, with the hope of being
enabled to construct a literary work that might live," etc.--Ed.]

[Footnote H: After leaving London, he went to the Isle of Wight and to
Salisbury Plain with Calvert; then to Bristol, the Valley of the Wye,
and Tintern Abbey, alone on foot; thence to Jones' residence in North
Wales at Plas-yn-llan in Denbighshire; with him to other places in North
Wales, thence to Halifax; and with his sister to Kendal, Grasmere,
Keswick, Whitehaven, and Penrith.--Ed.]

[Footnote I: Raisley Calvert.-Ed.]

[Footnote K: His friend, dying in January 1795, bequeathed to Wordsworth
a legacy of L900. Compare the sonnet, in vol. iv., beginning

'Calvert! it must not be unheard by them,'

and the 'Life of Wordsworth' in this edition.--Ed.]

[Footnote L: The Wordsworths went to Alfoxden in the end of July, 1797.
It was in the autumn of that year that, with Coleridge,

'Upon smooth Quantock's airy ridge they roved
Unchecked, or loitered 'mid her sylvan combs;'

when the latter chaunted his 'Ancient Mariner' and 'Christabel', and
Wordsworth composed 'The Idiot Boy' and 'The Thorn'. The plan of a joint
publication was sketched out in November 1797. (See the Fenwick note to
'We are Seven', vol. i. p. 228.)--Ed.]

[Footnote M: The death of his brother John. Compare the 'Elegiac Verses'
in memory of him, p. 58.--Ed.]

* * * * *

FROM THE ITALIAN OF MICHAEL ANGELO

Translated 1805?--Published 1807

[Translations from Michael Angelo, done at the request of Mr. Duppa,
whose acquaintance I made through Mr. Southey. Mr. Duppa was engaged in
writing the life of Michael Angelo, and applied to Mr. Southey and
myself to furnish some specimens of his poetic genius.--I. F.]

Compare the two sonnets entitled 'At Florence--from Michael Angelo', in
the "Memorials of a Tour in Italy" in 1837.

The following extract from a letter of Wordsworth's to Sir George
Beaumont, dated October 17, 1805, will cast light on the next three
sonnets.

"I mentioned Michael Angelo's poetry some time ago; it is the most
difficult to construe I ever met with, but just what you would expect
from such a man, shewing abundantly how conversant his soul was with
great things. There is a mistake in the world concerning the Italian
language; the poet