that could be
recovered.' The story runs that Helen Irving (or Helen Bell),
of Kirkconnell in Dumfriesshire, was beloved by Adam Fleming,
and (as some say) Bell of Blacket House; that she favoured the
first but her people encouraged the second; that she was thus
constrained to tryst with Fleming by night in the churchyard,
'a romantic spot, almost surrounded by the river Kirtle'; that
they were here surprised by the rejected suitor, who fired at
his rival from the far bank of the stream; that Helen, seeking
to shield her lover, was shot in his stead; and that Fleming,
either there and then, or afterwards in Spain, avenged her
death on the body of her slayer. Wordsworth has told the story
in a copy of verses which shows, like so much more of his work,
how dreary a poetaster he could be.

XXXII

This epic-in-little, as tremendous an invention as exists in
verse, is from the _Minstrelsy_: 'as written down from tradition
by a lady' (C. Kirkpatrick Sharpe).

corbies = _crows_
fail-dyke = _wall of turf_
hause-bane = _breast-bone_
theek = _thatch_

XXXIII

Begun in 1755, and finished and printed (with _The Progress
of Poetry_) in 1757. 'Founded,' says the poet, 'on a tradition
current in Wales, that Edward the First, when he concluded the
conquest of that country, ordered all the bards that fell into
his hands to be put to death.' The 'agonising king' (line 56)
is Edward II.; the 'she-wolf of France' (57), Isabel his queen;
the 'scourge of heaven' (60), Edward III.; the 'sable warrior'
(67), Edward the Black Prince. Lines 75-82 commemorate the rise
and fall of Richard II.; lines 83-90, the Wars of the Roses, the
murders in the Tower, the 'faith' of Margaret of Anjou, the 'fame'
of Henry V., the 'holy head' of Henry VI. The 'bristled boar'
(93) is symbolical of Richard III.; 'half of thy heart' (99)
of Eleanor of Castile, 'who died a few years after the conquest
of Wales.' Line 110 celebrates the accession of the House of
Tudor in fulfilment of the prophecies of Merlin and Taliessin;
lines 115-20, Queen Elizabeth; lines 128-30, Shakespeare;
lines 131-32, Milton; and the 'distant warblings' of line 133,
'the succession of poets after Milton's time' (Gray).

XXXIV, XXXV

Written, the one in September 1782 (in the August of which year
the _Royal George_ (108 guns) was overset in Portsmouth Harbour
with the loss of close on a thousand souls), and the other
'after reading Hume's _History_ in 17