[Footnote A: The "square" of the "small market village" of Hawkshead still remains; and the presence of the new "assembly-room" does not prevent us from realising it as open, with the "rude mass of native rock left midway" in it--the "old grey stone," which was the centre of the village sports.--Ed.]
[Footnote B: Compare 'The Excursion', book ix. ll. 487-90:
'When, on thy bosom, spacious Windermere! A Youth, I practised this delightful art; Tossed on the waves alone, or 'mid a crew Of joyous comrades.'
[Footnote C: Compare 'The Excursion', book ix. l. 544, describing "a fair Isle with birch-trees fringed," where they gathered leaves of that shy plant (its flower was shed), the lily of the vale.--Ed.]
[Footnote D: These islands in Windermere are easily identified. In the Lily of the Valley Island the plant still grows, though not abundantly; but from Lady Holme the
'ruins of a shrine Once to Our Lady dedicate'
have disappeared as completely as the shrine in St. Herbert's Island, Derwentwater. The third island:
'musical with birds, That sang and ceased not--'
may have been House Holme, or that now called Thomson's Holme. It could hardly have been Belle Isle; since, from its size, it could not be described as a "Sister Isle" to the one where the lily of the valley grew "beneath the oaks' umbrageous covert."--Ed.]
[Footnote E: Doubtless the circle was at Conishead Priory, on the Cartmell Sands; or that in the vale of Swinside, on the north-east side of Black Combe; more probably the former. The whole district is rich in Druidical remains, but Wordsworth would not refer to the Keswick circle, or to Long Meg and her Daughters in this connection; and the proximity of the temple on the Cartmell Shore to the Furness Abbey ruins, and the ease with which it could be visited on holidays by the boys from Hawkshead school, make it almost certain that he refers to it.--Ed.]
[Footnote F: Furness Abbey, founded by Stephen in 1127, in the glen of the deadly Nightshade--Bekansghyll--so called from the luxuriant abundance of the plant, and dedicated to St. Mary. (Compare West's 'Antiquities of Furness'.)--Ed.]
[Footnote G: What was the belfry is now a mass of detached ruins.--Ed.]
[Footnote H: Doubtless the Cartmell Sands beyond Ulverston, at the estuary of the Leven.--Ed.]