Chapter 26

{101} NOTE 11.--'Dutch myrtle.'--PAGE 101.

This seems to be the name by which Miss Wordsworth knew the plant which Lowlanders generally call _bog myrtle_, Border men _gale_, or _sweet gale_, and Highlanders _roid_ (pronounced as _roitch_). Botanists, I believe, know it as _Myrica Gale_, a most fragrant plant or shrub, growing generally in moist and mossy ground. Perhaps nothing more surely brings back the feeling that you are in the very Highlands than the first scent of this plant caught on the breeze.

{116} NOTE 12.--'_Bonnier than Loch Lomond_.'--PAGE 116.

As an illustration of local jealousy, I may mention that when Mr. Jamieson, the editor of the fifth edition of Burt's Letters, was in the Highlands in 1814, four years after the publication of Scott's Poem, and eleven after the Wordsworths' visit, he met a savage-looking fellow on the top of Ben Lomond, the image of 'Red Murdoch,' who told him that he had been a guide to the mountain for more than forty years, but now 'a Walter Scott' had spoiled his trade. 'I wish,' said he, 'I had him in a ferry over Loch Lomond; I should be after sinking the boat, if I drowned myself into the bargain, for ever since he wrote his "Lady of the Lake," as they call it, everybody goes to see that filthy hole, Loch Ketterine. The devil confound his ladies and his lakes!'

{145} NOTE 13.--'_For poor Ann Tyson's sake_.'--PAGE 145.

The dame with whom Wordsworth lodged at Hawkshead. Of her he has spoken with affectionate tenderness in the 'Prelude:'--

'The thoughts of gratitude shall fall like dew Upon thy grave, good creature!'

Her garden, its brook, and dark pine tree, and the stone table under it, were all dear to his memory, and the chamber in which he

'Had lain awake on summer nights to watch The moon in splendour couched among the leaves Of a tall ash that near our cottage stood.'

She lived to above fourscore; unmarried, and loving her young inmates as her children, and beloved by them as a mother.

'Childless, yet by the strangers to her blood Honoured with little less than filial love.'

_Wordsworth's Life_, vol. i. 39.

{196} NOTE 14.--'_The woman said it had been a palace_.'--PAGE 196.

A mistake. The old mansion here described was the building formerly used as a prison-house of the Regality of Athole in which the Dukes, and formerly the Earls, of Athole confined their criminals during the ages when they, in common with all the other Scottish Barons, exercised the right of heritable jurisdiction. This right was abolished after the '45, and then this, like all other baronial prison-houses, fell into disuse and decay. Nearly entire seventy years ago, it has now wholly disappeared, having been used up, no doubt, as material for the neighbouring buildings. There was, however, at Logierait, a Royal Castle, from which the place itself and the large adjacent parish take their name--Lag-an-raith, the hollow of the Castle,--while the neighbouring small hamlet and railway station on the other side of the Tummel are called Balla-na-luig--the town of the hollow. The Castle stood on a high knoll overlooking the church and inn of Logierait, commanding a view of the junction of the Tummel and the Tay immediately underneath, and of the whole of southern Athole, as far as Dunkeld. This knoll is now crowned by a high Celtic cross, memorial of the late Duke of Athole. Immediately around it are seen lying here and there blocks of solid masonry, the sole remnants of the Castle in which Robert II. is said to have dwelt during his visits to Athole. Traces of the Castle moat are still discernible.

{229} NOTE 15.--'_Rob Roy's grave was there_.'--PAGE 229.

Regarding this Wordsworth says, 'I have since been told that I was misinformed as to the burial-place of Rob Roy; if so, I may plead in excuse that I wrote on apparent good authority, namely, that of a well-educated lady who lived at the head of the lake, within a mile or less of the point indicated as containing the remains of one so famous in that neighbourhood.'

The real burial-place of Rob Roy is the Kirkton of Balquhidder, at the lower end of Loch Voil. The grave is covered by a rude grey slab, on which a long claymore is roughly engraved. The Guide-book informs us that the arms on his tombstone are a Scotch pine, the badge of Clan Gregor, crossed by a sword, and supporting a crown, this last to denote the relationship claimed by the Gregarach with the royal Stuarts. When I last saw the tombstone, as far as I remember, I observed nothing but the outline of the long sword.

{237} NOTE 16.--'_Thomas Wilkinson's_ "_Tour in Scotland_."'--PAGE 237.

Probably one of Wilkinson's poems, of which Wordsworth speaks occasionally in his letters. 'The present Lord Lonsdale has a neighbour, a Quaker, an amiable, inoffensive man, and a little of a poet too, who has amused himself upon his own small estate upon the Emont, in twining pathways along the banks of the river, making little cells and bowers with inscriptions of his own writing.'--_Letter to Sir G. Beaumont_, _Oct._ 17, 1805.

Wordsworth wrote the poem 'To a Spade of a Friend,' composed 'while we were labouring together in his pleasure-grounds,' commencing--

'Spade with which Wilkinson hath tilled his land, And shaped these pleasant walks by Emont's side,'

in memory of this friend.--See _Life_, vol. i. pp. 55, 323, 349.

DISTANCES FROM PLACE TO PLACE.

MILES MILES

Grasmere to Keswick 13 Suie (road 13 excellent)

Hesket Newmarket (road very 15 Killin 7 bad) (tolerable)

Carlisle (bad road) 14 Kenmore 15 (baddish)

Longtown (newly mended, not 8 Blair (bad) 23 good)

Annan (good) 14 Fascally 18 (wretchedly bad)

Dumfries (good) 15 Dunkeld (bad) 12

Brownhill (pretty good) 12 Ambletree 10 (hilly--good)

Leadhills (tolerable) 19 Crieff (hilly-- 11 goodish)

Douglass Mill (very bad) 12 Loch Erne Head 20 (tolerable)

Lanark (baddish) 9 Callander (most 14 excellent)

Hamilton (tolerable) 15 Trossachs 16

Glasgow (tolerable) 11 Ferryman's 8 House (about 8)

Dumbarton (very good) 15 Callander to 27 Falkirk (baddish)

Luss (excellent) 13 Edinburgh 24 (good)

Tarbet (not bad) 8 Roslin (good) 6

Arrochar (good) 2 Peebles (good) 16

Cairndow (middling) 12 Clovenford 16 (tolerable)

Inverary (very good) 10 Melrose 8 (tolerable)

Dalmally (tolerable) 16 Dryburgh (good) 4

Taynuilt (excellent) 13 Jedburgh 10 (roughish)

Portnacroish (tolerable) 15 Hawick (good) 12

Ballachulish (part most 12 Langholm (very 24 excellent) good)

King's House (bad) 12 Longtown (good) 12

Tyndrum (good) 18 Carlisle 8

Grasmere 36

FOOTNOTES.

{0a} See Essays of R. H. Hutton, Esq., vol. ii.

{0b} See Appendix, pp. 304, 307.

{0c} The following is the entry referred to:--

'October 4th, 1832.--I find that this tour was both begun and ended on a Sunday. I am sorry that it should have been so, though I hope and trust that our thoughts and feelings were not seldom as pious and serious as if we had duly attended a place devoted to public worship. My sentiments have undergone a great change since 1803 respecting the absolute necessity of keeping the Sabbath by a regular attendance at church.

'D. W.'

{9a} Criffel.

{9b} Annandale.

{11} See Appendix A.

{20} There is some mistake here. The Hopetoun title was not taken from any place in the Leadhills, much less from the house shaped like an H.--_Ed._

{27} Probably the Rev. John Aird, minister of the parish, 1801-1815.

{30} Ragweed.

{31a} Tinto.

{33} New Lanark, Robert Owen's mills.

{36a} Lady Mary Ross.

{36b} Corehouse.

{36c} See Appendix B.

{45} The house belonging to the Earls of Hopetoun at Leadhills, not that which bears this name about twelve miles from Edinburgh.--Ed.

{53} Glasgow Green.

{56} No doubt Erskine House, the seat of Lord Blantyre.--_Ed._

{61} A huge isolated rock in Borrowdale, Cumberland, which bears that name.--_Ed._

{63} The inscription on the pillar was written by Professor George Stuart of Edinburgh, John Ramsay of Ochtertyre, and Dr. Samuel Johnson; for Dr. Johnson's share in the work see Croker's Boswell, p. 392.--_Ed._

{67} Camstraddan House and bay.--_Ed._

{80a} This distinction between the foot and head is not very clear. What is meant is this: They would have to travel the whole length of the lake, from the west to the east end of it, before they came to the Trossachs, the pass leading away from the east end of the lake.--_Ed._

{93} There is a mistake here. His bones were laid about fifteen or twenty miles from thence, in Balquhidder kirkyard. But it was under the belief that his 'grave is near the head of Loch Ketterine, in one of those pinfold-like burial grounds, of neglected and desolate appearance, which the traveller meets with in the Highlands of Scotland,' that the well-known poem on 'Rob Roy's Grave' was composed. See Note 15 at the end of volume.--_Ed._

{97} Goblins' Cave.

{113} To a Highland Girl. At Inversneyde upon Loch Lomond.

{124} I should rather think so!--_Ed._

{131} 'Capability' Brown.

{134} _Quaere_, Cladich.--_Ed._

{139a} Not very probable.

{139b} See Appendix C.

{142} The Pass of Awe.--_Ed._

{155} Lochnell House.

{160} Castle Stalker.

{161} George, seventh Marquis of Tweeddale, being in France in 1803, was detained by Bonaparte, and died at Verdun, 9th August 1804.--_Ed._

{165} See Appendix D

{177} Buchal, the Shepherd of Etive.

{186} _Quaere_, Luib.

{187} The burial-place of Macnab of Macnab.

{190} In this interval her dear brother, Captain Wordsworth, had been drowned, as stated in note to page 3, in the wreck of the 'Abergavenny,' on February 5, 1805.

{210} See Appendix E.

{215} Monzie probably.

{216} Glen Ogle.

{218} Ardhullary.

{225a} This is none other than the well-known Scottish word '_gey_,'--indifferently, tolerable, considerable.--_Ed._

{225b} See Appendix F.

{246} See Lockhart's _Life of Scott_ for an account of this visit, vol. i. pp. 402-7. Mr. L. says, 'I have drawn up the account of this meeting from my recollection, partly of Mr. W.'s conversation, partly from that of his sister's charming "Diary," which he was so kind as to read to me on the 16th May 1836.'--_Ed._

{254} See Appendix G.

{266} W. Laidlaw. See Scott's _Life_, vol. i.

{295} On the banks of the River Nid, near Knaresborough.

{314} If this is not a misprint, the Lady had antedated her tour by two years, as she made it in 1796 and published it in 1799.