to read ‘The Brothers’ in Ennerdale, or “The Daffodils” by the shore of Ullswater, gives a new significance to these “poems of the imagination,” a discovery of the obscurer allusions to place or scene will deepen our appreciation of those passages in which his idealism is most pronounced.  Every one knows Kirkstone Pass, Aira Force, Dungeon Ghyll, the Wishing Gate, and Helm Crag:  many persons know the Glowworm Rock, and used to know the Rock of Names; but where is “Emma’s Dell”? or “the meeting point of two highways,” so characteristically described in the twelfth book of ‘The Prelude’? and who will fix the site of the pool in Rydal Upper Park, immortalised in the poem ‘To M. H.’? or identify “Joanna’s Rock”?  Many of the places in the English Lake District are undergoing change, and every year the local allusions will be more difficult to trace.  Perhaps the most interesting memorial of the poet which existed, viz. the “Rock of Names,” on the shore of Thirlmere, is now sunk under the waters of a Manchester reservoir.  Other memorials are perishing by the wear and tear of time, the decay of old buildings, the alteration of roads, the cutting down of trees, and the modernising, or “improving,” of the district generally.  All this is inevitable.  But it is well that many of the natural objects, over and around which the light of Wordsworth’s genius lingers, are out of the reach of “improvements,” and are indestructible even by machinery.

If it be objected that several of the places which we try to identify—­and which some would prefer to leave for ever undisturbed in the realm of imagination—­were purposely left obscure, it may be replied that Death and Time have probably now removed all reasons for reticence, especially in the case of those poems referring to domestic life and friendly ties.  While an author is alive, or while those are alive to whom he has made reference in the course of his allusions to place, it may even be right that works designed for posterity should not be dealt with after the fashion of the modern “interviewer.”  But greatness has its penalties; and a “fierce light” “beats around the throne” of Genius, as well as round that of Empire.  Moreover, all experience shows that posterity takes a great and a growing interest in exact topographical illustrations of the works of great authors.  The labour recently bestowed upon the places connected with Shakespeare, Scott, and Burns sufficiently attests this.

The localities in Westmoreland, which are most permanently associated with Wordsworth, are these:  Grasmere, where he lived during the years of his “poetic prime,” and where he is buried; Lower Easdale, where he passed so many days with his sister by the side of the brook, and on the terraces at Lancrigg, and where ‘The Prelude’ was dictated; Rydal Mount, where he spent the latter half of his life, and where he found one of the most perfect retreats in England; Great Langdale, and Blea Tarn at the head