Who was this "Young Lady"? Dorothy, the Poet's sister: say Professors Knight and Dowden; Mary Hutchinson, his affianced wife: says Mr. E. H. Coleridge (Athenæum, Sept. 16, Oct. 21, 1893). Possibly she is a bodiless creation of the Poet's fantasy—“ a mere fiction of what never was"; or -like Matthew the Schoolmaster of the Lyrical Ballads, and the Wanderer of the Excursion-she may be a composite study, idealized from several originals. If, however, we must identify her with any one of Wordsworth's womankind, it should be rather with the youthful Joanna Hutchinson, than with her elder sister Mary, or with Dorothy Wordsworth. In choosing pseudonyms, the Poet always follows the principle of metrical or syllabic equivalence, substituting Emma, Anna, or Lucy for Dora, Edward for Basil and Johnnie, Allan for Thomas, Emmeline for Dorothy, Matthew for William, and so forth. On this principle, Louisa, pronounced as an amphibrach [~-~] would fitly represent Joanna. Moreover, in 1801—the probable date of these two poems-Mary was 31, and Dorothy 30, years old; while Joanna was but 21. In a copy of Louisa

written out for the Lyrical Ballads of 1802, 1. 23 appears as: "When she goes barefoot up the brook." The detail here added, as Mr. W. Hale White points out, suggests Joanna, "the wildhearted maid." (See A Description of the Wordsworth and Coleridge MSS. in the possession of Mr. T. Norton Longman. Edited with notes by W. Hale White.) The Rev. Thos. Hutchinson of Leominster writes to the editor: "I think your conjecture very probable. The words 'ruddy, fleet, and strong' seem to me to be more applicable to my aunt Joanna than to Dorothy W. I never saw a Wordsworth to whom the first epithet could apply, nor do I think that the little frail woman whom I knew as Dorothy Wordsworth could ever have been really strong. There is a curious coincidence between the date of my aunt Joanna's death and that of the removal of the second stanza of Louisa; but I see not how the former event I could have been the cause of the latter." The chief textual change in Louisa was the apparently unaccountable (or could it be accidental?) omission, from 1845 onwards, of the exquisite second stanza,

"And she hath smiles," etc. In 1845, 1. 4, stanza i., became "That, nymph-like, she is fleet and strong.'

Fidelity (page 9).-Composed 1805 (W. W.1837). Charles Gough, whose death is here recorded, was lost on Helvellyn in April, 1805. His remains were found on July 22nd. His faithful guardian was a little Irish terrier bitch named Foxey. She seems to have lived on grass, and such carrion mutton as she could find in the neighbouring ghyll-bottoms. She had whelped a pup, which from its size must have lived some weeks, but when found was lying dead by the human remains. "The poor thing had got so skeered by being in sic a lonesome spot that it wouldn't let onyone come nigh it, and they was forced to set hounds on to catch it. Dogs didn't hurt it, poor thing! Dar bon! but it's wonderful things is dogs; so faithful and true!" See On Helvellyn with the Shepherds: Cornhill Magazine, Oct., 1890; Rawnsley's The English Lakes, ii., p. 40; Memorials of Coleorton, i., p. 98; and cf. Walter Scott's Helvellyn. Wordsworth told Crabb Robinson that "he purposely made the narrative as prosaic as possible, in order that no

discredit might be thrown upon the truth of the incident." Certain textual changes effected in 1815 mitigate the baldness of the style. E.g. 11. 7, 8 become:

"And instantly a dog is seen,

Glancing from that covert green;"

while 1. 34 ("not knowing what to think," etc.) becomes:

"Not free from boding thoughts, awhile"

-and 1. 40:

"The appalled Discoverer with a sigh" etc. "She was a Phantom," etc. (page 14).-Composed in 1804 (W. W.-1836), the germ of the poem being four lines (13-16 ?) which originally formed part of the Highland Girl (Fenwick Note). The "perfect woman" here sung is Mary Hutchinson. Cf. Prelude, xiv., 11. 268-270 (of M. H.):

"She came, no more a phantom to adorn
A moment, but an inmate of the heart,
And yet a Spirit," etc.

The text remained substantially unchanged.

The Redbreast and the Butterfly (page 16)— Composed in the orchard, Townend, Grasmere, on Sunday, April 18, 1802. The author of the Simpliciad makes merry over the Lake Poets' fraternal overtures to beast and bird:

"Poets with brother donkey in the dell
Of mild equality who fain would dwell;
With brother lark or brother robin fly,
And flutter with half-brother butterfly."

The reference is to 1. 26 of Coleridge's famous Address to a Young Jackass, originally published in the Morning Chronicle of December 30, 1794: “I hail thee BROTHER-spite of the fool's scorn"; to 1. 27 of Wordsworth's address To a Sky-Lark (p. 82): "Hearing thee, or else some other, As merry a Brother"; and to II. 10 and 39 of the present poem. Wordsworth retained 1. 10, since to call a bird by a Christian name (Robin, Peter, or Thomas) is, as De Quincey points out, in effect to "call him a brother" to man. But in 1815 he cancelled 1. 39 ("A brother he [the butterfly] seems of thine own "), and altered 11. 37, 38 to: