he intelligent, for whom alone it is written. It starts
from a high point of imagination, and comes round, through various
wanderings of that faculty, to a still higher--nothing less than the
apotheosis of the animal who gives the first of the two titles to the
poem. And as the poem thus begins and ends with pure and lofty
imagination, every motive and impetus that actuates the persons
introduced is from the same source; a kindred spirit pervades, and is
intended to harmonise the whole. Throughout, objects (the banner, for
instance) derive their influence, not from properties inherent in them,
not from what they _are_ actually in themselves, but from such as are
_bestowed_ upon them by the minds of those who are conversant with or
affected by those objects. Thus the poetry, if there be any in the work,
proceeds, as it ought to do, from the _soul of man_, communicating its
creative energies to the images of the external world. But, too much of
this.

'Most faithfully yours,
'W. WORDSWORTH.'][3]

[3] _Memoirs_, ii. pp. 57-58.

326. _William Hazlitt's Quotation_.

'Action is transitory.' [Dedication-postscript, II. 1-6.]

This and the five lines that follow were either read or recited by me,
more than thirty years since, to the late Mr. Hazlitt, who quoted some
expressions in them (imperfectly remembered) in a work of his published
several years ago.

327. _Bolton Alley_.

'From Bolton's old monastic Tower' (c. i. l. 1).

It is to be regretted that at the present day Bolton Abbey wants this
ornament; but the Poem, according to the imagination of the Poet, is
composed in Queen Elizabeth's time. 'Formerly,' says Dr. Whitaker, 'over
the Transept was a tower. This is proved not only from the mention of
bells at the Dissolution, when they could have had no other place, but
from the pointed roof of the choir, which must have terminated westward,
in some building of superior height to the ridge.'

328. '_When Lady Aaeliza mourned_' (c. i. l. 226).

The detail of this tradition may be found in Dr. Whitaker's book, and in
a Poem of this Collection, 'The Force of Prayer:'

'Bare breast I take and an empty hand' (c. ii. l. 179 and onward).

See the Old Ballad--'The Rising of the North.'

328[a]. _Brancepeth_.

Nor joy for you,' &c. (c. iii. l. 1).

Brancepeth Castle stands near the river Were, a few miles from the city
of Durham. It forme