space of half an hour."

In the Fenwick note, Wordsworth tells us that this _Epistle_ was written
in 1804; and by referring to the note prefixed to the first poem in the
"Memorials of a Tour in Scotland," 1803, (see vol. ii. p. 377), it will
be seen that the lines entitled _Departure from the Vale of Grasmere,
August, 1803_, beginning--

The gentlest Shade that walked Elysian plains,

were "not actually written for the occasion, but transplanted from my
_Epistle to Sir George Beaumont_."

It does not follow from this, however, that the lines belong to the year
1803 or 1804; because they were not published along with the earlier
"Memorials" of the Scotch Tour, but appeared for the first time in the
edition of 1827. It is certain that Wordsworth travelled down with his
household from the Grasmere Parsonage to Bootle in August 1811--mainly
to get some sea-air for his invalid children--and that he lived there
for some time during the autumn of that year. He _may_ have also gone
down to the south-west coast of Cumberland in 1804, and then written a
part of the poem; but we have no direct evidence of this; and I rather
think that the mention of the year 1804 to Miss Fenwick is just another
instance in which Wordsworth's memory failed him while dictating these
memoranda. If the poem was not written at different times, but was
composed as a whole in 1811, we may partly account for the date he gave
to Miss Fenwick, when we remember that in the year 1827 he transferred
a part of it (viz. the introduction) to these "Memorials" of the Scotch
Tour of 1803.

Up many a sharply-twining road and down,
And over many a wide hill's craggy crown,
Through the quick turns of many a hollow nook,
And the rough bed of many an unbridged brook.

Their route would be from Grasmere by Red Bank, over by High Close to
Elter Water, by Colwith into Yewdale, on to Waterhead; then probably,
from Coniston over Walna Scar, into Duddondale, and thence to Bootle.

Like a gaunt shaggy Porter forced to wait
In days of old romance at Archimago's gate.

See Spenser's _Faerie Queene_, book i. canto i. stanza 8.

... the liveliest bird
That in wild Arden's brakes was ever heard.

Compare _As you like it_, act II. scene 5.

And soon approach Diana's Looking-glass!
To Loughrigg-tarn, etc.

See the note appended by Wordsworth to the sequel to this poem.

A glim