4: 'I was for that time lifted above earth, And possess'd joys not promised in my birth.' Ed.] [Footnote n: The notes to this edition are explanatory rather than critical; but as this image has been objected to--as inaccurate, and out of all analogy with Wordsworth's use and wont--it may be mentioned that the noise of the breaking up of the ice, after a severe winter in these lakes, when it cracks and splits in all directions, is exactly as here described.

It is not of course, in any sense peculiar to the English lakes; but there are probably few districts where the peculiar noise referred to can be heard so easily or frequently.

Compare Coleridge's account of the Lake of Ratzeburg in winter, in 'The Friend', vol.ii.

p.
323 (edition of 1818), and his reference to "the thunders and 'howlings' of the breaking ice."-- Ed.] [Footnote o: I here insert a very remarkable MS.

variation of the text, or rather (I think) one of these experiments in dealing with his theme, which were common with Wordsworth.