The Tour of which the following Poems are very inadequate 
      remembrances was shortened by report, too well founded, of the 
      prevalence of Cholera at Naples. To make some amends for what was 
      reluctantly left unseen in the South of Italy, we visited the 
      Tuscan Sanctuaries among the Apennines, and the principal Italian 
      Lakes among the Alps. Neither of those lakes, nor of Venice, is 
      there any notice in these Poems, chiefly because I have touched 
      upon them elsewhere. See, in particular, "Descriptive Sketches," 
      "Memorials of a Tour on the Continent in 1820," and a Sonnet upon 
      the extinction of the Venetian Republic.
<hr>
<pre>
                              "Not the less
             Had his sunk eye kindled at those dear words
             That spake of bards and minstrels."
</pre>
<BR><BR>
        His, Sir Walter Scott's eye, 'did' in fact kindle at them, for 
      the lines, "Places forsaken now," and the two that follow were 
      adopted from a poem of mine which nearly forty years ago was in 
      part read to him, and he never forgot them.
<pre>
                         "Old Helvellyn's brow,
             Where once together, in his day of strength,
             We stood rejoicing."
</pre>
<BR><BR>
        Sir Humphrey Davy was with us at the time. We had ascended from 
      Paterdale, and I could not but admire the vigour with which Scott 
      scrambled along that horn of the mountain called "Striding Edge." 
      Our progress was necessarily slow, and was beguiled by Scott's 
      telling many stories and amusing anecdotes, as was his custom. Sir 
      H. Davy would have probably been better pleased if other topics 
      had occasionally been interspersed, and some discussion entered 
      upon: at all events he did not remain with us long at the top of 
      the mountain, but left us to find our way down its steep side 
      together into the vale of Grasmere, where, at my cottage, Mrs. 
      Scott was to meet us at dinner.
<hr>
<pre>
                           "With faint smile
             He said,--'When I am there, although 'tis fair,
             'Twill be another Yarrow.'"
</pre>
<BR><BR>
        See among these notes the one on "Yarrow Revisited."
<hr>
<pre>
             "A few short steps (painful they were)."
</pre>
<BR><BR>
        This, though introduced here, I did not know till it was told me 
      at Rome by Miss Mackenzie of Seaforth, a lady whose friendly 
      attentions during my residence at Rome I have gratefully 
      acknowledged, with expressions of sincere regret that she is no 
      more. Miss M. told me that she accompanied Sir Walter to the 
      Janicular Mount, and, after showing him the grave of Tasso in the 
      church upon the top, and a mural monument there erected to his 
      memory, they left the church and stood together on the brow of the 
      hill overlooking the city of Rome: his daughter Anne was with 
      them, and she, naturally desirous, for the sake of Miss Mackenzie 
      especially, to have some expression of pleasure from her father, 
      half reproached him for showing nothing of that kind either by his 
      looks or voice: "How can I," replied he, "having only one leg to 
      stand upon, and that in extreme pain!" so that the prophecy was 
      more than fulfilled.
<hr>
<pre>
             "Over waves rough and deep."
</pre>
<BR><BR>
        We took boat near the lighthouse at the point of the right horn 
      of the bay which makes a sort of natural port for Genoa; but the 
      wind was high, and the waves long and rough, so that I did not 
      feel quite recompensed by the view of the city, splendid as it 
      was, for the danger apparently incurred. The boatman (I had only 
      one) encouraged me, saying we were quite safe, but I was not a 
      little glad when we gained the shore, though Shelley and Byron--
      one of them at least, who seemed to have courted agitation from 
      any quarter--would have probably rejoiced in such a situation: 
      more than once I believe were they both in extreme danger even on 
      the Lake of Geneva. Every man however has his fears of some kind 
      or other; and no doubt they had theirs: of all men whom I have 
      ever known, Coleridge had the most of passive courage in bodily 
      peril, but no one was so easily cowed when moral firmness was 
      required in miscellaneous conversation or in the daily intercourse 
      of social life.
<hr>
<pre>
             "How lovely robed in forenoon light and shade,
              Each ministering to each, didst thou appear,
              Savona."
</pre>
<BR><BR>
        There is not a single bay along this beautiful coast that might 
      not raise in a traveller a wish to take up his abode there, each 
      as it succeeds seems more inviting than the other; but the 
      desolated convent on the cliff in the bay of Savona struck my 
      fancy most; and had I, for the sake of my own health or that of a 
      dear friend, or any other cause, been desirous of a residence 
      abroad, I should have let my thoughts loose upon a scheme of 
      turning some part of this building into a habitation provided as 
      far as might be with English comforts. There is close by it a row 
      or avenue, I forget which, of tall cypresses. I could not forbear 
      saying to myself--"What a sweet family walk, or one for lonely 
      musings, would be found under the shade!" but there, probably, the 
      trees remained little noticed and seldom enjoyed.
<hr>
<pre>
             "This flowering broom's dear neighbourhood."
</pre>
<BR><BR>
        The broom is a great ornament through the months of March and 
      April to the vales and hills of the Apennines, in the wild parts 
      of which it blows in the utmost profusion, and of course 
      successively at different elevations as the season advances. It 
      surpasses ours in beauty and fragrance but, speaking from my own 
      limited observation only, I cannot affirm the same of several of 
      their wild spring flowers, the primroses in particular, which I 
      saw not unfrequently but thinly scattered and languishing compared 
      to ours.
<BR><BR>
        The note at the close of this poem, upon the Oxford movement, 
      was intrusted to my friend Mr. Frederick Faber. I told him what I 
      wished to be said, and begged that, as he was intimately 
      acquainted with several of the Leaders of it, he would express my 
      thought in the way least likely to be taken amiss by them. Much of 
      the work they are undertaking was grievously wanted, and God grant 
      their endeavours may continue to prosper as they have done.
<hr>
        It would be ungenerous not to advert to the religious movement 
      that, since the composition of these verses in 1837, has made 
      itself felt, more or less strongly, throughout the English 
      Church;--a movement that takes, for its first principle, a devout 
      deference to the voice of Christian antiquity. It is not my office 
      to pass judgment on questions of theological detail; but my own 
      repugnance to the spirit and system of Romanism has been so 
      repeatedly and, I trust, feelingly expressed, that I shall not be 
      suspected of a leaning that way, if I do not join in the grave 
      charge, thrown out, perhaps in the heat of controversy, against 
      the learned and pious men to whose labours I allude. I speak apart 
      from controversy; but, with strong faith in the moral temper which 
      would elevate the present by doing reverence to the past, I would 
      draw cheerful auguries for the English Church from this movement, 
      as likely to restore among us a tone of piety more earnest and 
      real than that produced by the mere formalities of the 
      understanding, refusing, in a degree which I cannot but lament, 
      that its own temper and judgment shall be controlled by those of 
      antiquity.