The place where the echo of the bleat of the lamb was heard—­referred to in the Fenwick note—­may be easily found.  The “precipice” is Pavy Ark.  “The ’lofty firs, that overtop their ancient neighbour, the old steeple-tower,’ stood by the roadside, scarcely twenty yards north-west from the steeple of Grasmere church.  Their site is now included in the road, which has been widened at that point.  They were Scotch firs of unusual size, and might justly be said to ‘overtop their neighbour’ the tower.  Mr. Fleming Green, who well remembers the trees, gave me this information, which is confirmed by other inhabitants.

  “When the road was enlarged, not many years ago, the roots of the
  trees were found by the workmen.”

(Dr. Cradock to the editor.) The

          ’tall rock
    That eastward looks’

by the banks of the Rotha, presenting a “lofty barrier” “from base to summit,” is manifestly a portion of Helmcrag.  It is impossible to know whether Wordsworth carved Joanna Hutchinson’s name anywhere on Helmcrag, and it is useless to enquire.  If he did so, the discovery of the place would not help any one to understand or appreciate the poem.  It is obvious that he did not intend to be literally exact in details, as the poem was written in 1800, and addressed to Joanna Hutchinson,—­who is spoken of as having been absent from Grasmere “for two long years;” and Wordsworth says that he carved the Runic characters ‘in memoriam’ eighteen months after that summer morning when he heard the echo of her laugh.  But the family took up residence at Grasmere only in December 1799, and the “Poems on the Naming of Places” were published before the close of 1800.  The effect of these lines to Joanna, however, is certainly not impaired—­it may even be enhanced—­by our inability to localise them.  Only one in the list of places referred to can occasion any perplexity, viz., Hammar-scar, since it is a name now disused in the district.  It used to be applied to some rocks on the flank of Silver-how, to the wood around them, and also to the gorge between Silver-how and Loughrigg.  Hammar, from the old Norse ‘hamar’, signifies a steep broken rock.

The imaginative description of the echo of the lady’s laugh suggests a parallel passage from Michael Drayton’s ‘Polyolbion’, which Wordsworth must doubtless have read. (See his sister’s reference to Drayton in her ‘Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland’, in 1803:  in the note to the poem, ‘At the grave of Burns’, p. 382 of this volume.)

’Which Copland scarce had spoke, but quickly every Hill Upon her verge that stands, the neighbouring valleys fill; Helvillon from his height, it through the mountains threw, From whence as soon again, the sound Dunbalrase drew, From whose stone-trophed head, it on the Wendrosse went, Which tow’rds the sea again, resounded it to Dent, That Brodwater therewith within her banks astound, In sailing to the sea, told it to Egremound, Whose buildings, walks, and streets, with echoes loud and long, Did mightily commend old Copland for her song.’

‘Polyolbion’, The Thirtieth Song, ll. 155-164.