h us till we came in view of the vale of Yarrow, and being advanced
in life he then turned back. The old man was passionately fond of
poetry, though with not much of a discriminating judgment, as the
volumes he edited sufficiently shew. But I was much pleased to meet with
him and to acknowledge my obligation to his Collection, which had been
my brother John's companion in more than one voyage to India, and which
he gave me before his departure from Grasmere never to return. Through
these volumes I became first familiar with Chaucer; and so little money
had I then to spare for books, that, in all probability, but for this
same work, I should have known little of Drayton, Daniel, and other
distinguished poets of the Elizabethan age and their immediate
successors, till a much later period of my life. I am glad to record
this, not for any importance of its own, but as a tribute of gratitude
to this simple-hearted old man, whom I never again had the pleasure of
meeting. I seldom read or think of this poem without regretting that my
dear sister was not of the party, as she would have had so much delight
in recalling the time when, travelling together in Scotland, we declined
going in search of this celebrated stream, not altogether, I will
frankly confess, for the reasons assigned in the poem on the occasion.

* * * * *

X. POEMS DEDICATED TO NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE AND LIBERTY.

[HEADED IN I.F. NOTES 'SONNETS DEDICATED TO LIBERTY.']

257. _Robert Jones_.

'Jones! as from Calais,' &c. [Sonnet III.]

(See No. 9, Dedication to Descriptive Sketches.)

This excellent Person, one of my earliest and dearest friends, died in
the year 1835. We were under-graduates together of the same year, at the
same college, and companions in many a delightful ramble through his own
romantic country of North Wales. Much of the latter part of his life he
passed in comparative solitude; which I know was often cheered by
remembrance of our youthful adventures, and of the beautiful regions
which, at home and abroad, we had visited together. Our long friendship
was never subject to a moment's interruption,--and, while revising
these volumes for the last time, I have been so often reminded of my
loss, with a not unpleasing sadness, that I trust the Reader will excuse
this passing mention of a Man who well deserves from me something more
than so brief a notice. Let me only add, that during the middle part of
hi