met her on the road, took her up, and by a shorter way
conveyed her to Broughton, where we were all re-united and spent a happy
evening.

I have many affecting remembrances connected with this stream. These I
forbear to mention, especially things that occurred on its banks during
the latter part of that visit to the sea-side, of which the former part
is detailed in my Epistle to Sir George Beaumont.

[The following additional notices of his latter excursion to the banks
of the Duddon are from a letter to Lady Frederick Bentinck.

'You will have wondered, dear Lady Frederick, what is become of me. I
have been wandering about the country, and only returned yesterday. Our
tour was by Keswick, Scale Hill, Buttermere, Loweswater, Ennerdale,
Calder Abbey, Wastdale, Eskdale, the Vale of Duddon, Broughton, Furness
Abbey, Peele Castle, Ulverston, &c.; we had broken weather, which kept
us long upon the road, but we had also very fine intervals, and I often
wished you had been present. We had such glorious sights! one, in
particular, I never saw the like of. About sunset we were directly
opposite that large, lofty precipice at Wastwater, which is called the
Screes. The ridge of it is broken into sundry points, and along them,
and partly along the side of the steep, went driving a procession of
yellow vapoury clouds from the sea-quarter towards the mountain
Scawfell. Their colours I have called yellow, but it was exquisitely
varied, and the shapes of the rocks on the summit of the ridge varied
with the density or thinness of the vapours. The effect was most
enchanting; for right above was steadfastly fixed a beautiful rainbow.
We were a party of seven, Mrs. Wordsworth, my daughter, and Miss Fenwick
included, and it would be difficult to say who was most delighted. The
Abbey of Furness, as you well know, is a noble ruin, and most happily
situated in a dell that entirely hides it from the surrounding country.
It is taken excellent care of, and seems little dilapidated since I
first knew it, more than half a century ago.][1]

[1] _Memoirs_, ii. 97-8.

320. _The Wild Strawberry: Sympson_. [Sonnet VI. ll. 9-10.]

'There bloomed the strawberry of the wilderness,
The trembling eyebright showed her sapphire blue.'

These two lines are in a great measure taken from 'The Beauties of
Spring, a Juvenile Poem,' by the Rev. Joseph Sympson. He was a native of
Cumberland, and was educated in the vale of Grasmere, and at Hawkshead