It is with the little river Duddon as it is with most other 
      rivers, Ganges and Nile not excepted,--many springs might claim 
      the honour of being its head. In my own fancy I have fixed its 
      rise near the noted Shire-stones placed at the meeting-point of 
      the counties, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Lancashire. They stand 
      by the wayside on the top of the Wrynose Pass, and it used to be 
      reckoned a proud thing to say that, by touching them at the same 
      time with feet and hands, one had been in the three counties at 
      once. At what point of its course the stream takes the name of 
      Duddon I do not know. I first became acquainted with the Duddon, 
      as I have good reason to remember, in early boyhood. Upon
      the banks of the Derwent I had learnt to be very fond of angling. 
      Fish abound in that large river; not so in the small streams in 
      the neighbourhood of Hawkshead; and I fell into the common 
      delusion that the farther from home the better sport would be had. 
      Accordingly, one day I attached myself to a person living in the 
      neighbourhood of Hawkshead, who was going to try his fortune as an 
      angler near the source of the Duddon. We fished a great part of 
      the day with very sorry success, the rain pouring torrents, and 
      long before we got home I was worn out with fatigue; and, if the 
      good man had not carried me on his back, I must have lain down 
      under the best shelter I could find. Little did I think then it 
      would be my lot to celebrate, in a strain of love and admiration, 
      the stream which for many years I never thought of without 
      recollections of disappointment and distress.
<BR><BR>
        During my college vacation, and two or three years afterwards, 
      before taking my Bachelor's degree, I was several times resident 
      in the house of a near relative who lived in the small town of 
      Broughton. I passed many delightful hours upon the banks of this 
      river, which becomes an estuary about a mile from that place. The 
      remembrances of that period are the subject of the 21st Sonnet. 
      The subject of the 27th is in fact taken from a tradition 
      belonging to Rydal Hall, which once stood, as is believed, upon a 
      rocky and woody hill on the right hand as you go from Rydal to 
      Ambleside, and was deserted from the superstitious fear here 
      described, and the present site fortunately chosen instead. The 
      present Hall was erected by Sir Michael le Fleming, and it may be 
      hoped that at some future time there will be an edifice more 
      worthy of so beautiful a position. With regard to the 30th Sonnet 
      it is odd enough that this imagination was realised in the year 
      1840, when I made a tour through that district with my wife and 
      daughter, Miss Fenwick and her niece, and Mr. and Miss Quillinan. 
      Before our return from Seathwaite chapel the party separated. Mrs. 
      Wordsworth, while most of us went further up the stream, chose an 
      opposite direction, having told us that we should overtake her on 
      our way to Ulpha. But she was tempted out of the main road to 
      ascend a rocky eminence near it, thinking it impossible we should 
      pass without seeing her. This, however, unfortunately happened, 
      and then ensued vexation and distress, especially to me, which I 
      should be ashamed to have recorded, for I lost my temper entirely. 
      Neither I nor those that were with me saw her again till we 
      reached the Inn at Broughton, seven miles. This may perhaps in 
      some degree excuse my irritability on the occasion, for I could 
      not but think she had been much to blame. It appeared, however, on 
      explanation, that she had remained on the rock, calling out and 
      waving her handkerchief as we were passing, in order that we also 
      might ascend and enjoy a prospect which had much charmed her. "But 
      on we went, her signals proving vain." How then could she reach 
      Broughton before us? When we found she had not gone on before to 
      Ulpha Kirk, Mr. Quillinan went back in one of the carriages in 
      search of her. He met her on the road, took her up, and by a 
      shorter way conveyed her to Broughton, where we were all reunited 
      and spent a happy evening.
<BR><BR>
        I have many affecting remembrances connected with this stream. 
      Those I forbear to mention; especially things that occurred on its 
      banks during the later part of that visit to the seaside of which 
      the former part is detailed in my "Epistle to Sir George 
      Beaumont."
<BR><BR>
        The River Duddon rises upon Wrynose Fell, on the confines of 
      Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Lancashire; and, having served as a 
      boundary to the two last counties for the space of about twenty-
      five miles, enters the Irish Sea, between the Isle of Walney and 
      the Lordship of Millum.

<hr>

        A Poet, whose works are not yet known as they deserve to be, 
      thus enters upon his description of the "Ruins of Rome:"
<pre>
                     "The rising Sun
            Flames on the ruins in the purer air
            Towering aloft;"
</pre>
      and ends thus--
<pre>
                     "The setting Sun displays
            His visible great round, between yon towers,
            As through two shady cliffs."
</pre>
        Mr. Crowe, in his excellent loco-descriptive Poem, "Lewesdon 
      Hill," is still more expeditious, finishing the whole on a May-
      morning, before breakfast.
<pre>
           "To-morrow for severer thought, but now
            To breakfast, and keep festival to-day."
</pre>
        No one believes, or is desired to believe, that those Poems were 
      actually composed within such limits of time; nor was there any 
      reason why a prose statement should acquaint the reader with the 
      plain fact, to the disturbance of poetic credibility. But, in the 
      present case, I am compelled to mention, that the above series of 
      Sonnets was the growth of many years;--the one which stands the 
      14th was the first produced; and others were added upon occasional 
      visits to the Stream, or as recollections of the scenes upon its 
      banks awakened a wish to describe them. In this manner I had 
      proceeded insensibly, without perceiving that I was trespassing 
      upon ground pre-occupied, at least as far as intention went, by 
      Mr. Coleridge; who, more than twenty years ago, used to speak of 
      writing a rural Poem, to be entitled "The Brook," of which he has 
      given a sketch in a recent publication. But a particular subject 
      cannot, I think, much interfere with a general one; and I have 
      been further kept from encroaching upon any right Mr. C. may still 
      wish to exercise, by the restriction which the frame of the Sonnet 
      imposed upon me, narrowing unavoidably the range of thought, and 
      precluding, though not without its advantages, many graces to 
      which a freer movement of verse would naturally have led.
<BR><BR>
        May I not venture, then, to hope, that, instead of being a 
      hindrance by anticipation of any part of the subject, these 
      Sonnets may remind Mr. Coleridge of his own more comprehensive 
      design, and induce him to fulfil it?----There is a sympathy in 
      streams,--"one calleth to another;" and I would gladly believe, 
      that "The Brook" will, ere long, murmur in concert with "The 
      Duddon." But, asking pardon for this fancy, I need not scruple to 
      say that those verses must indeed be ill-fated which can enter 
      upon such pleasant walks of nature without receiving and giving 
      inspiration. The power of waters over the minds of Poets has been 
      acknowledged from the earliest ages;--through the "Flumina amem 
      sylvasque inglorius" of Virgil, down to the sublime apostrophe to 
      the great rivers of the earth by Armstrong, and the simple 
      ejaculation of Burns (chosen, if I recollect right, by Mr. 
      Coleridge, as a motto for his embryo "Brook"),
<pre>
             "The Muse nae Poet ever fand her,
              Till by himsel' he learned to wander,
              Adown some trotting burn's meander,
              AND NA' THINK LANG."
</pre>