NOTE x.

These still exist, &c.

There is a future Existence even in this world; an Existence in the hearts and minus of those who shall live after us.  It is in reserve for every man, however obscure; and his portion, if he be diligent, must be equal to his desires.  For in whose remembrance can we wish to hold a place, but such as know, and are known by us?  These are within the sphere of our influence, and among these and their descendants we may live evermore.

It is a state of rewards and punishments; and, like that revealed to us in the Gospel, has the happiest influence on our lives.  The latter excites us to gain the favour of GOD; the former to gain the love and esteem of wise and good men; and both lead to the same end; for, in framing our conceptions of the DEITY, we only ascribe to Him exalted degrees of Wisdom and Goodness.

NOTE y.

Yet still how sweet the soothings of his art!

The astronomer chalking his figures on the wall, in Hogarth’s view of Bedlam, is an admirable exemplification of this idea.  See the RAKE’S PROGRESS, plate 8.

NOTE z.

Turns but to start, and gazes but to sigh! The following stanzas are said to have been written on a blank leaf of this Poem.  They present so affecting a reverse of the picture, that I cannot resist the opportunity of introducing them here.

Pleasures of Memory!—­oh supremely blest,
And justly proud beyond a Poet’s praise;
If the pure confines of thy tranquil breast
Contain, indeed, the subject of thy lays! 
By me how envied!—­for to me,
The herald still of misery,
Memory makes her influence known
By sighs, and tears, and grief alone: 
I greet her as the fiend, to whom belong
The vulture’s ravening beak, the raven’s funeral song.

She tells of time mispent, of comfort lost,
Of fair occasions gone for ever by;
Of hopes too fondly nurs’d, too rudely cross’d,
Of many a cause to wish, yet fear to die;
For what, except th’ instinctive fear
Lest she survive, detains me here,
When “all the life of life” is fled?—­
What, but the deep inherent dread,
Lest she beyond the grave resume her reign,
And realize the hell that priests and beldams feign?

NOTE a.

Hast thou thru Eden’s wild-wood vales pursued

On the road-side between Penrith and Appelby there stands a small pillar with this inscription: 

“This pillar was erected in the year 1656, by Ann Countess Dowager of Pembroke, &c. for a memorial of her last parting, in this place, with her good and pious mother, Margaret, Countess Dowager of Cumberland, on the 2nd of April, 1616; in memory whereof she hath left an annuity of 4_l_. to be distributed to the poor of the parish of Brougham, every 2nd day of April for ever, upon the stone-table placed hard by.  Laus Deo!”

The Eden is the principal river of Cumberland, and rises in the wildest part of Westmoreland.