e lines that follow were either read or recited by me,
more than thirty years since, to the late Mr. Hazlitt, who quoted some
expressions in them (imperfectly remembered) in a work of his published
several years ago."

In the quarto edition of 1815 the following lines precede the extract
from Lord Bacon; and in the edition of 1820 they follow it. In 1827 they
were transferred to the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."

_"Weak is the will of Man, his judgement blind;
Remembrance persecutes, and Hope betrays;
Heavy is woe;--and joy, for human kind,
A mournful thing, so transient is the blaze!"--
Thus might he paint our lot of mortal days
Who wants the glorious faculty, assigned
To elevate the more-than-reasoning Mind,
And colour life's dark cloud with orient rays.
Imagination is that sacred power,
Imagination lofty and refined:
'Tis her's to pluck the amaranthine Flower
Of Faith, and round the Sufferer's temples bind
Wreaths that endure affliction's heaviest shower,
And do not shrink from sorrow's keenest wind._ ED.

[F] See his _Essays_, XVI., "Of Atheism." Wordsworth's quotation is not
quite accurate.--ED.

[G] It is to be regretted that at the present day Bolton Abbey wants
this ornament: but the Poem, according to the imagination of the Poet,
is composed in Queen Elizabeth's time. "Formerly," says Dr. Whitaker,
"over the Transept was a tower. This is proved not only from the mention
of bells at the Dissolution, when they could have had no other place,
but from the pointed roof of the choir, which must have terminated
westward, in some building of superior height to the ridge."--W. W.
1815.

[H] See note I. at the end of the poem, p. 196.--ED.

[I] See note I. at the end of the poem, p. 196.--ED.

[J] The Nave of the Church having been reserved at the Dissolution, for
the use of the Saxon Cure, is still a parochial Chapel; and, at this
day, is as well kept as the neatest English Cathedral.--W. W. 1815.

[K] "At a small distance from the great gateway stood the Prior's Oak,
which was felled about the year 1720, and sold for 70_l._ According to
the price of wood at that time, it could scarcely have contained less
than 1400 feet of timber."--W. W. 1815.

This note is quoted from Whitaker.--ED.

The place where this Oak tree grew is uncertain. Whitaker says it stood
"at a small distance from the great gateway." This old entrance o