line 143.  Cp.  I Kings xix. 12.

lines 147-73.  ’This beautiful sheet of water forms the reservoir from which the Yarrow takes its source.  It is connected with a smaller lake, called the Loch of the Lowes, and surrounded by mountains.  In the winter, it is still frequented by flights of wild swans; hence my friend Mr. Wordsworth’s lines:—­

     “The swan on sweet St. Mary’s lake
      Floats double, swan and shadow.”

Near the lower extremity of the lake are the ruins of Dryhope tower, the birth-place of Mary Scott, daughter of Philip Scott of Dryhope, and famous by the traditional name of the Flower of Yarrow.  She was married to Walter Scott of Harden, no less renowned for his depredations than his bride for her beauty.  Her romantic appellation was, in latter days, with equal justice, conferred on Miss Mary Lilias Scott, the last of the elder branch of the Harden family.  The author well remembers the talent and spirit of the latter Flower of Yarrow, though age had then injured the charms which procured her the name.  The words usually sung to the air of “Tweedside,” beginning “What beauties does Flora disclose,” were composed in her honour.’—­Scott.

Quoting from memory, Scott gives ‘sweet’ for still in Wordsworth’s lines.  Mr. Aubrey de Vere, in ‘Essays Chiefly on Poetry,’ ii. 277, reports an interview with Wordsworth, in which the poet, referring to St. Mary’s Lake, says:  ’The scene when I saw it, with its still and dim lake, under the dusky hills, was one of utter loneliness; there was one swan, and one only, stemming the water, and the pathetic loneliness of the region gave importance to the one companion of that swan—­its own white image in the water.’  For a criticism, deeply sympathetic and appreciative, of Scott’s description of St. Mary’s Loch in calm, see Prof.  Veitch’s ’Feeling for Nature in Scottish Poetry,’ ii. 196.  The scene remains very much what it was in Scott’s time, ’notwithstanding that the hand of the Philistine,’ says Prof.  Veitch, ’has set along the north shore of St. Mary’s, as far as his power extended, a strip of planting.’

line 177.  ’The chapel of St. Mary of the Lowes {de lacubus} was situated on the eastern side of the lake, to which it gives name.  It was injured by the clan of Scott, in a feud with the Cranstouns; but continued to be a place of worship during the seventeenth century.  The vestiges of the building can now scarcely be traced; but the burial-ground is still used as a cemetery.  A funeral, in a spot so very retired, has an uncommonly striking effect.  The vestiges of the chaplain’s house are yet visible.  Being in a high situation, it commanded a full view of the lake, with the opposite mountain of Bourhope, belonging, with the lake itself, to Lord Napier.  On the left hand is the tower of Dryhope, mentioned in a preceding note.’—­ Scott.

line 187.  See ‘Il Penseroso,’ line 167.

line 197.  Cp.  Thomson’s ‘Winter,’ line 66:—­