s on the
Duddon. Once, when in our cottage at Town-End, I was talking with him
about poetry, in the course of our conversation I presumed to find fault
with the versification of Pope, of whom he was an enthusiastic admirer.
He defended him with a warmth that indicated much irritation;
nevertheless I would not abandon my point, and said, 'In compass and
variety of sound your own versification surpasses his.' Never shall I
forget the change in his countenance and tone of voice: the storm was
laid in a moment, he no longer disputed my judgment, and I passed
immediately in his mind, no doubt, for as great a critic as ever lived.
I ought to add, he was a clergyman and a well-educated man, and his
verbal memory was the most remarkable of any individual I have known,
except a Mr. Archer, an Irishman, who lived several years in this
neighbourhood, and who in this faculty was a prodigy: he afterwards
became deranged, and I fear continues so if alive.

Then follows the character of Robert Walker, for which see Nates to the
Duddon.

Next that of the _Deaf Man_, whose epitaph may be seen in the churchyard
at the head of Hawes-Water, and whose qualities of mind and heart, and
their benign influence in conjunction with his privation, I had from his
relatives on the spot.

The _Blind Man_, next commemorated, was John Gough, of Kendal, a man
known, far beyond his neighbourhood, for his talents and attainments in
natural history and science.

Of the _Infants' Grave_ next noticed, I will only say, it is an exact
picture of what fell under my own observation; and all persons who are
intimately acquainted with cottage life must often have observed like
instances of the working of the domestic affections.

_A volley thrice repeated_.--This young volunteer bore the name of
Dawson, and was younger brother, if I am not mistaken, to the prodigal
of whose character and fortunes an account is given towards the
beginning of the preceding book. The father of the family I knew well;
he was a man of literary education and [considerable] experience in
society, much beyond what was common among the inhabitants of the Vale.
He had lived a good while in the Highlands of Scotland as a manager of
iron-works at Bunaw, and had acted as clerk to one of my predecessors in
the office of distributor of stamps, when he used to travel round the
country collecting and bringing home the money due to Government in
gold, which it may be worth while to mention, f