beck—­this third cascade being itself a treble fall.  Seen two or three days after rain, when the stream is full enough to break over the whole face of the rock in showers of snowy brightness, yet low enough to shew the rock behind its transparent veil, it is specially beautiful.  Trees change so much in eighty years that the absence of “beeches” now would not make this site impossible.  In a MS. copy of the poem (of date Dec. 28, 1800), the last line is

  ‘With all its poplars, we have named from you.’

Of the circular pool beneath this fall it may be said, as Wordsworth describes it, that

  ’... both flocks and herds might drink
  On its firm margin, even as from a well;’

and a “small slip of lawn” might easily have existed there in his time.  We cannot, however, be confident as to the locality, and I add the opinion of several, whose judgment may be deferred to.  Dr. Cradock writes: 

“As to Mary Hutchinson’s pool, I think that it was not on the beck anywhere, but some detached little pool, far up the hill, to the eastwards of the Hall, in ‘the woods.’  The description does not well suit any part of Rydal beck; and no spot thereon could long ’remain unknown,’ as the brook was until lately much haunted by anglers.”

My difficulty as to a site “far up the hill” is, that it must have been a pool of some size, if “both flocks and herds might drink” all round it; and there is no stream, scarce even a rill that joins Rydal beck on the right, all the way up from its junction with the Rothay.  The late Mr. Hull of Rydal Cottage, wrote: 

“Although closely acquainted with every nook about Rydal Park, I have never been able to discover any spot corresponding to that described in Wordsworth’s lines to M. H. It is possible, however, that the ‘small bed of water’ may have been a temporary rain pool, such as sometimes lodges in the hollows on the mountain-slope after heavy rain.”

Mr. F. M. Jones, the agent of the Rydal property, writes: 

  “I do not know of any pool of water in the Upper Rydal Park.  There are
  some pools up the river, ‘Mirror Pool’ among them; but I hardly think
  there can ever have been ‘beech-trees’ growing near them.”

There are many difficulties, and the place cannot now be identified.  Wordsworth’s own wish will doubtless be realised,

  ’The travellers know it not, and ’twill remain
  Unknown to them.’

Ed.

* * * * *

THE WATERFALL AND THE EGLANTINE

Composed 1800.—­Published 1800

[Suggested nearer to Grasmere, in the same mountain track as that referred to in the following note.  The Eglantine remained many years afterwards, but is now gone.—­I.F.]

Included among the “Poems of the Fancy.”—­Ed.