its name implies, is situated at the mouth of the River Cocker, which here joins its larger neighbour the River Derwent, and has been called the Western Gate of the Lake District.  Here also were Roman, Saxon, and Norman remains.  The castle, standing in a strong position between the two rivers, was rebuilt in the reign of Edward I, and in Edward II’s time his haughty favourite, Piers Gaveston, resided in it for a short period.  It was held for the king during the Civil War, but was left in ruins after an attack by the Parliamentarians in 1648.  The Gateway Tower displayed many coats of arms, and there was the usual dungeon, or subterranean chamber, while the habitable portion of the castle formed the residence of Lord Leconfield.  The poet, William Wordsworth, was born at Cockermouth on April 7th, 1770, about a hundred years before we visited it, and one of his itinerary poems of 1833 was an address from the Spirit of Cockermouth Castle: 

  Thou look’st upon me, and dost fondly think,
  Poet! that, stricken as both are by years,
  We, differing once so much, are now compeers,
  Prepared, when each has stood his time, to sink
  Into the dust.  Erewhile a sterner link
  United us; when thou in boyish play,
  Entered my dungeon, did’st become a prey
  To soul-appalling darkness.  Not a blink
  Of light was there; and thus did I, thy Tutor,
  Make thy young thoughts acquainted with the grave;
  While thou wert chasing the winged butterfly
  Through my green courts; or climbing, a bold suitor,
  Up to the flowers whose golden progeny
  Still round my shattered brow in beauty wave.

[Illustration:  COCKERMOUTH CASTLE]

Mary Queen of Scots stayed at Cockermouth on the night of May 17th, 1568—­after the defeat of her army at Langside—­at the house of Henry Fletcher, a merchant, who gave her thirteen ells of rich crimson velvet to make a robe she badly needed.

[Illustration:  PORTINSCALE.]

The weather turned out wet in the afternoon, so we stayed for tea at one of the inns in the town, and noted with curiosity that the number of the inhabitants in Cockermouth was 7,700 at one census, and exactly the same number at the next, which followed ten years afterwards.  The new moon was now due, and had brought with it a change in the weather, our long spell of fine weather having given place to rain.  We did not altogether agree with our agricultural friends in Cheshire that it was the moon that changed the weather, but it would be difficult to persuade the farmers there to the contrary, since the changes in the weather almost invariably came with the phases in the moon; so, without venturing to say that the moon changed the weather or that the weather changed the moon, we will hazard the opinion that the same influences might simultaneously affect both, and the knowledge that we were approaching the most rainy district in all England warned us to prepare for the