May I not venture, then, to hope, that, instead of being a hindrance, by anticipation of any part of the subject, these Sonnets may remind Mr. Coleridge of his own more comprehensive design, and induce him to fulfil it?—­There is a sympathy in streams,—­’one calleth to another;’ and I would gladly believe, that ‘The Brook’ will, ere long, murmur in concert with ‘The Duddon.’  But, asking pardon for this fancy, I need not scruple to say, that those verses must indeed be ill-fated which can enter upon such pleasant walks of Nature, without receiving and giving inspiration.  The power of waters over the minds of Poets has been acknowledged from the earliest ages;—­through the ‘Flumina amem sylvasque inglorius’ of Virgil, down to the sublime apostrophe to the great rivers of the earth, by Armstrong, and the simple ejaculation of Burns, (chosen, if I recollect right, by Mr. Coleridge, as a motto for his embryo ’Brook,’)—­

    The Muse nae Poet ever fand her,
    Till by himsel’ he learned to wander
    Adown some trotting burn’s meander
    AND NA’ THINK LANG.’

319. *_The Sonnets on the River Duddon_.

It is with the little River Duddon as it is with most other rivers, Ganges and Nile not excepted,—­many springs might claim the honour of being its head.  In my own fancy, I have fixed its rise near the noted Shire Stones placed at the meeting point of the counties Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Lancashire.  They stand by the wayside, on the top of the Wrynose Pass, and it used to be reckoned a proud thing to say, that by touching them at the same time with feet and hands, one had been in three counties at once.  At what point of its course the stream takes the name of Duddon, I do not know.  I first became acquainted with the Duddon, as I have good reason to remember, in early boyhood.  Upon the banks of the Derwent, I had learnt to be very fond of angling.  Fish abound in that large river,—­not so in the small streams in the neighbourhood of Hawkshead; and I fell into the common delusion, that the farther from home the better sport would be had.  Accordingly, one day I attached myself to a person living in the neighbourhood of Hawkshead, who was going to try his fortune, as an angler, near the source of the Duddon.  We fished a great part of the day with very sorry success, the rain pouring torrents; and long before we got home, I was worn out with fatigue; and if the good man had not carried me on his back, I must have lain down under the best shelter I could find.  Little did I think then it would have been my lot to celebrate, in a strain of love and admiration, the stream which for many years I never thought of without recollections of disappointment and distress.