ion in
me to consider that I was the person who in 1790 made the Trossachs first
known, for except to the natives and a few individuals in this
neighbourhood, this remarkable place had never been heard of.' Mr.
Robertson died in 1812. There were thus at least two notices of the
Trossachs published before Mr. Graham's Sketches: these were not
published till 1806. _The Lady of the Lake_ was first published in 1810.

{101} NOTE 11.--'Dutch myrtle.'--PAGE 101.

This seems to be the name by which Miss Wordsworth knew the plant which
Lowlanders generally call _bog myrtle_, Border men _gale_, or _sweet
gale_, and Highlanders _roid_ (pronounced as _roitch_). Botanists, I
believe, know it as _Myrica Gale_, a most fragrant plant or shrub,
growing generally in moist and mossy ground. Perhaps nothing more surely
brings back the feeling that you are in the very Highlands than the first
scent of this plant caught on the breeze.

{116} NOTE 12.--'_Bonnier than Loch Lomond_.'--PAGE 116.

As an illustration of local jealousy, I may mention that when Mr.
Jamieson, the editor of the fifth edition of Burt's Letters, was in the
Highlands in 1814, four years after the publication of Scott's Poem, and
eleven after the Wordsworths' visit, he met a savage-looking fellow on
the top of Ben Lomond, the image of 'Red Murdoch,' who told him that he
had been a guide to the mountain for more than forty years, but now 'a
Walter Scott' had spoiled his trade. 'I wish,' said he, 'I had him in a
ferry over Loch Lomond; I should be after sinking the boat, if I drowned
myself into the bargain, for ever since he wrote his "Lady of the Lake,"
as they call it, everybody goes to see that filthy hole, Loch Ketterine.
The devil confound his ladies and his lakes!'

{145} NOTE 13.--'_For poor Ann Tyson's sake_.'--PAGE 145.

The dame with whom Wordsworth lodged at Hawkshead. Of her he has spoken
with affectionate tenderness in the 'Prelude:'--

'The thoughts of gratitude shall fall like dew
Upon thy grave, good creature!'

Her garden, its brook, and dark pine tree, and the stone table under it,
were all dear to his memory, and the chamber in which he

'Had lain awake on summer nights to watch
The moon in splendour couched among the leaves
Of a tall ash that near our cottage stood.'

She lived to above fourscore; unmarried, and loving her young inmates as
her children, and beloved by them as a mother.

'Childless, yet by