em in _Biographia Literaria_, vol. ii.
chap. xxii. p. 176 (edition 1817), should be consulted.--ED.

THE WHITE DOE OF RYLSTONE;

OR, THE FATE OF THE NORTONS

Composed 1807-10.--Published 1815

ADVERTISEMENT

During the Summer of 1807, I visited, for the first time, the beautiful
country that surrounds Bolton Priory, in Yorkshire; and the Poem of the
WHITE DOE, founded upon a Tradition connected with that place, was
composed at the close of the same year.--W. W.[A]

[The earlier half of this poem was composed at Stockton-upon-Tees, when
Mrs. Wordsworth and I were on a visit to her eldest brother, Mr.
Hutchinson, at the close of the year 1807. The country is flat, and the
weather was rough. I was accustomed every day to walk to and fro under
the shelter of a row of stacks, in a field at a small distance from the
town, and there poured forth my verses aloud as freely as they would
come. Mrs. Wordsworth reminds me that her brother stood upon the
punctilio of not sitting down to dinner till I joined the party; and it
frequently happened that I did not make my appearance till too late, so
that she was made uncomfortable. I here beg her pardon for this and
similar transgressions during the whole course of our wedded life. To my
beloved sister the same apology is due.

When, from the visit just mentioned, we returned to Town-end, Grasmere,
I proceeded with the poem; and it may be worth while to note, as a
caution to others who may cast their eye on these memoranda, that the
skin having been rubbed off my heel by my wearing too tight a shoe,
though I desisted from walking, I found that the irritation of the
wounded part was kept up, by the act of composition, to a degree that
made it necessary to give my constitution a holiday. A rapid cure was
the consequence. Poetic excitement, when accompanied by protracted
labour in composition, has throughout my life brought on more or less
bodily derangement. Nevertheless, I am at the close of my seventy-third
year, in what may be called excellent health; so that intellectual
labour is not necessarily unfavourable to longevity. But perhaps I ought
here to add that mine has been generally carried on out of doors.

Let me here say a few words of this poem in the way of criticism. The
subject being taken from feudal times has led to its being compared to
some of Walter Scott's poems that belong to the same age and state of
society. The comparison is inconsiderate. Sir Walte