No More Learning

"As we descended, the scene became more fertile, our way being
pleasantly varied--through coppices or open fields, and passing
farm-houses, though always with an intermixture of cultivated ground.
It was harvest-time, and the fields were quietly--might I be allowed
to say pensively? --enlivened by small companies of reapers. It is not
uncommon in the more lonely parts of the Highlands to see a single
person so employed. The following poem was suggested to William by a
beautiful sentence in Thomas Wilkinson's 'Tour in Scotland. '"

In a note appended to the editions 1807 to 1820, Wordsworth wrote:

"This Poem was suggested by a beautiful sentence in a MS. 'Tour in
Scotland,' written by a Friend, the last line being taken from it
_verbatim_. "

The first part of Wilkinson's 'Tours to the British Mountains', which
was published in 1824, narrates his journey in Scotland (it took place
in 1787); and the following sentence occurs in the record of his travels
near Loch Lomond (p. 12),

"Passed a female who was reaping alone: she sung in Erse, as she
bended over her sickle; the sweetest human voice I ever heard: her
strains were tenderly melancholy, and felt delicious, long after they
were heard no more. "

There can be no doubt that this is the sentence referred to both by
Dorothy and William Wordsworth. Thomas Wilkinson was the friend, in
whose memory Wordsworth wrote the poem 'To the Spade of a Friend,
composed while we were labouring together in his pleasure-ground'. They
were comparatively near neighbours, as Wilkinson lived near Yanwath on
the Emont; and he had given his MS. to the Wordsworth family to read. I
have received some additional information about this MS. , and
Wordsworth's knowledge of it, from Mr.
Wilson Robinson, who writes,

"From all the evidence, I conclude that Wilkinson's 'Tour to the
Highlands' was shown in manuscript to his friends soon after his
return;--that he was not only willing to show it, but even to allow it
to be copied, though reluctant to publish it;--that there was
sufficient intimacy between him and the Wordsworths to account for his
showing or lending the manuscript to them, especially as they had
travelled over much of the same ground, and would therefore be more
interested in it; and that in fact it was never published till 1824. "

When Wordsworth was living at Coleorton during the late autumn of 1806
he wrote to Wilkinson:

". . . What shall I say in apology for your Journal, which is now locked
up with my manuscripts at Grasmere. As I could not go over to your
part of the country myself, my intention was to have taken it with me
to Kendal . . . to be carefully transmitted to you; unluckily, most
unluckily, in the hurry of departure, I forgot it, together with two
of my own manuscripts which were along with it; and I am afraid you
will be standing in great need of it. . . . If you do not want it, it is
in a place where it can take no injury, and I may have the pleasure of
delivering it to you myself in the spring. . . .