e infinite variety of natural appearances which had been unnoticed by
the poets of any age or country, so far as I was acquainted with them;
and I made a resolution to supply in some degree the deficiency. I could
not have been at that time above fourteen years of age. The description
of the swans that follows, was taken from the daily opportunities I had
of observing their habits, not as confined to the gentleman's park, but
in a state of nature. There were two pairs of them that divided the lake
of Esthwaite and its in-and-out-flowing streams between them, never
trespassing a single yard upon each other's separate domain. They were
of the old magnificent species, bearing in beauty and majesty about the
same relation to the Thames swan which that does to a goose. It was from
the remembrance of these noble creatures I took, thirty years after, the
picture of the swan which I have discarded from the poem of 'Dion.'
While I was a school-boy, the late Mr. Curwen introduced a little fleet
of these birds, but of the inferior species, to the Lake of Windermere.
Their principal home was about his own islands; but they sailed about
into remote parts of the lake, and either from real or imagined injury
done to the adjoining fields, they were got rid of at the request of the
farmers and proprietors, but to the great regret of all who had become
attached to them from noticing their beauty and quiet habits. I will
conclude my notice of this poem by observing that the plan of it has not
been confined to a particular walk, or an individual place; a proof (of
which I was unconscious at the time) of my unwillingness to submit the
poetic spirit to the chains of fact and real circumstance. The country
is idealized rather than described in any one of its local aspects.

FOOT-NOTES.

5a. _Intake_ (l. 49).

'When horses in the sunburnt intake stood.'

The word _intake_ is local, and signifies a mountain-enclosure.

6. _Ghyll_ (l. 54).

'Brightens with water-brooks the hollow ghyll.'

Ghyll is also, I believe, a term confined to this country; ghyll and
dingle have the same meaning.

7. Line 191.

'Gives one bright glance, and drops behind the hill.'

From Thomson.

8. *_Lines written while sailing in a Boat at Evening_. [IV.]

1789. This title is scarcely correct. It was during a solitary walk on
the banks of the Cam that I was first struck with this appearance, and
applied it to my own feelings in the man