rock on the western side of Thirlmere, where the Greta issues from the lake.  But there is no rock in the district now called by the name of Ghimmer-crag, or the crag of the Ewe-lamb.  I am inclined to think that Wordsworth referred to the “Fisher-crag” of the Ordnance Survey and the Guide Books.  No other rock round Thirlmere can with any accuracy be called the “tall twin brother” of Raven-crag:  certainly not Great How, nor any spur of High Seat or Bleaberry Fell.  Fisher-crag resembles Raven-crag, as seen from Thirlmere Bridge, or from the high road above it; and it is somewhat remarkable that Green—­in his Guide to the Lakes (a volume which the poet possessed)—­makes use of the same expression as that which Wordsworth adopts regarding these two crags, Raven and Fisher.

  “The margin of the lake on the Dalehead side has its charms of wood
  and water; and Fischer Crag, twin brother to Raven Crag, is no bad
  object, when taken near the island called Buck’s Holm”

(’A Description of Sixty Studies from Nature’, by William Green of Ambleside, 1810, p. 57).  I cannot find any topographical allusion to a Ghimmer-crag in contemporary local writers.  Clarke, in his ’Survey of the Lakes’, does not mention it.

The Castle Rock, in the Vale of Legberthwaite, between High Fell and Great How, is the fairy castle of Sir Walter Scott’s ’Bridal of Triermain’.  “Nathdale Fell” is the ridge between Naddle Vale (Nathdale Vale) and that of St. John, now known as High Rigg.  The old Hall of Threlkeld has long been in a state of ruinous dilapidation, the only habitable part of it having been for many years converted into a farmhouse.  The remaining local allusions in ‘The Waggoner’ are obvious enough:  Castrigg is the shortened form of Castlerigg, the ridge between Naddle Valley and Keswick.

In the “Reminiscences” of Wordsworth, which the Hon. Mr. Justice Coleridge wrote for the late Bishop of Lincoln, in 1850, there is the following reference to ‘The Waggoner’. (See ‘Memoirs’, vol. ii. p. 310.)

“‘The Waggoner’ seems a very favourite poem of his.  He said his object in it had not been understood.  It was a play of the fancy on a domestic incident, and lowly character.  He wished by the opening descriptive lines to put his reader into the state of mind in which he wished it to be read.  If he failed in doing that, he wished him to lay it down.  He pointed out with the same view, the glowing lines on the state of exultation in which Ben and his companions are under the influence of liquor.  Then he read the sickening languor of the morning walk, contrasted with the glorious uprising of Nature, and the songs of the birds.  Here he has added about six most exquisite lines.”

The lines referred to are doubtless the eight (p. 101), beginning

  ‘Say more; for by that power a vein,’

which were added in the edition of 1836.

The following is Sara Coleridge’s criticism of ‘The Waggoner’. (See ‘Biographia Literaria’, vol. ii. pp. 183, 184, edition 1847.)