therefore, was it rightly said 30
That Ossian, last of all his race!
Lies buried in this lonely place.

* * * * *

VARIANTS ON THE TEXT

[Variant 1:

1827.

... in this ... 1807.]

[Variant 2:

1827.

And ... 1807.]

* * * * *

FOOTNOTE ON THE TEXT

[Footnote A: Compare the poem 'To the Lady Fleming', stanza iii. ll.
28-9.--Ed.]

The glen is Glenalmond, in Perthshire, between Crieff and Amulree, known
locally as "the Sma' Glen." I am not aware that it was ever called "Glen
Almain," till Wordsworth gave it that singularly un-Scottish name. [B]
It must have been a warm August day, after a tract of dry weather, when
he went through it, or the Almond would scarcely have been called a
"small streamlet." In many seasons of the year the distinctive features
of the Glen would be more appropriately indicated by the words, which
the poet uses by way of contrast with his own experience of it, viz. a
place

'Where sights are rough, and sounds are wild,
And everything unreconciled.'

But his characterization of the place--a glen, the charm of which is
little known--in the stillness of an autumn afternoon, is as true to
nature as any of his interpretations of the spirit of the hills and
vales of Westmoreland. As yet there is no farm-house, scarcely even a
sheiling, to "break the silence of this Dell."

The following is Dorothy Wordsworth's account of their walk through it
on Friday, September 9th, 1803:

"Entered the glen at a small hamlet at some distance from the head,
and, turning aside a few steps, ascended a hillock which commanded a
view to the top of it--a very sweet scene, a green valley, not very
narrow, with a few scattered trees and huts, almost invisible in a
misty green of afternoon light. At this hamlet we crossed a bridge,
and the road led us down the glen, which had become exceedingly
narrow, and so continued to the end: the hills on both sides heathy
and rocky, very steep, but continuous; the rock not single or
overhanging, not scooped into caverns, or sounding with torrents;
there are no trees, no houses, no traces of cultivation, not one
outstanding object. It is truly a solitude, the road even making it
appear still more so; the bottom of the valley is mostly smooth and
level, the brook not noisy: everything is simple and undisturbed, and
while