The oak benches downstairs are covered with the names or initials of the boys, deeply cut; and, amongst them, the name of William Wordsworth--but not those of his brothers Richard, John, or Christopher--may be seen.

For further details as to the Hawkshead School, see the 'Life' of the Poet in this edition.
Towards the close of last century, when Wordsworth and his three brothers were educated there, the school was one of the best educational institutions in the north of England .-- Ed.] [Footnote N: Compare in the lines beginning "She was a Phantom of delight" p.

2: 'Creature not too bright or good For human nature's daily food.' Ed.] [Footnote O: Compare book iv.ll.50 and 383, with relative notes--Ed.] [Footnote P: Compare in 'Fidelity', p.

45: 'There sometimes doth a leaping fish Send through the tarn a lonely cheer.' Ed.] [Footnote Q: Compare the 'Ode, Intimations of Immortality', stanza v .-- Ed.] [Footnote R: Compare, in 'Tintern Abbey', vol.ii.

p.54: 'That time is past, And all its aching joys are now no more, And all its dizzy raptures.' And in the 'Ode, Intimations of Immortality', vol.viii.: 'What though the radiance which was once so bright Be now for ever taken from my sight.' Ed.] [Footnote S: This friend of his boyhood, with whom Wordsworth spent these "delightful hours," is as unknown as is the immortal Boy of Windermere, who blew "mimic hootings to the silent owls," and who sleeps in the churchyard "above the village school" of Hawkshead, and the Lucy of the Goslar poems.