[Footnote D:  The lines from “Though nought was left,” to “daily hope” (192-206) were, by a printer’s blunder, omitted from the first issue of 1800.  In the second issue of that year they are given in full.—­Ed.]

[Footnote E:  The story alluded to here is well known in the country.  The chapel is called Ings Chapel; and is on the right hand side of the road leading from Kendal to Ambleside.—­W.  W. 1800.

Ings chapel is in the parish of Kendal, about two miles east of Windermere.  The following extract from Lewis’s Topographical Dictionary further explains the allusion in the poem: 

“Hugil, a chapelry six and a quarter miles from Kendal.  The chapel, rebuilt in 1743 by Robert Bateman, stands in the village of Ings, which is in this chapelry.  The free school was endowed with land in 1650 by Roland Wilson, producing at present L12 per annum.  The average number of boys is twenty-five.  This endowment was augmented by L8 per annum by Robert Bateman, who gave L1000 for purchasing an estate, and erected eight alms-houses for as many poor families, besides a donation of L12 per annum to the curate.  This worthy benefactor was born here, and from a state of indigence succeeded in amassing considerable wealth by mercantile pursuits.  He is stated to have been poisoned, in the straits of Gibraltar, on his voyage from Leghorn, with a valuable cargo, by the captain of the vessel,”

(See ‘The Topographical Dictionary of England’, by Samuel Lewis, vol. ii. p. 1831.)—­Ed.]

[Footnote F:  There is a slight inconsistency here.  The conversation is represented as taking place in the evening (see l. 227).—­Ed.]

[Footnote G:  It may be proper to inform some readers, that a sheep-fold in these mountains is an unroofed building of stone walls, with different divisions.  It is generally placed by the side of a brook, for the convenience of washing the sheep; but it is also useful as a shelter for them, and as a place to drive them into, to enable the shepherds conveniently to single out one or more for any particular purpose.—­W.  W. 1800.]

From the Fenwick note it will be seen that Michael’s sheep-fold, in Green-head Ghyll, existed—­at least the remains of it—­in 1843.  Its site, however, is now very difficult to identify.  There is a sheep-fold above Boon Beck, which one passes immediately on entering the common, going up Green-head Ghyll.  It is now “finished,” and used when required.  There are remains of walling, much higher up the ghyll; but these are probably the work of miners, formerly engaged there.  Michael’s cottage had been destroyed when the poem was written, in 1800.  It stood where the coach-house and stables of “the Hollins” now stand.  But one who visits Green-head Ghyll, and wishes to realize Michael in his old age—­as described in this poem—­should ascend the ghyll till it almost reaches the top of Fairfield; where the old man, during eighty years,