The best approach is from Sallanches by St.Gervais .-- Ed.] [Footnote z: Compare Coleridge's 'Hymn before sun-rise in the Vale of Chamouni', and Shelley's 'Mont Blanc', with Wordsworth's description of the Alps, here in 'The Prelude', in 'Descriptive Sketches', and in the 'Memorials of a Tour on the Continent' .-- Ed.] [Footnote Aa: August 17, 1790 .-- Ed.] [Footnote Bb: This passage beginning, "The brook and road," was first published, amongst the "Poems of the Imagination," in the edition of 1845, under the title of 'The Simplon Pass' (see vol.ii.p.

69).

It is doubtless to this walk down the Italian side of the Simplon route that Wordsworth refers in the letter to his sister from Keswill, in which he says, "The impression of there hours of our walk among these Alps will never be effaced." Ed.] [Footnote Cc: The old hospice in the Simplon, which is beside a torrent below the level of the road, about 22 miles from Duomo d'Ossola .-- Ed.] [Footnote Dd: "From Duomo d'Ossola we proceeded to the lake of Locarno, to visit the Boromean Islands, and thence to Como." (W.W.to his sister.) The lake of Locarno is now called Lago Maggiore .-- Ed.] [Footnote Ee: "The shores of the lake consist of steeps, covered with large sweeping woods of chestnut, spotted with villages." (W.W.to his sister.)--Ed.] [Footnote Ff: "A small footpath is all the communication by land between one village and another on the side along which we passed, for upwards of thirty miles.

We entered on this path about noon, and, owing to the steepness of the banks, were soon unmolested by the sun, which illuminated the woods, rocks, and villages of the opposite shore." (See letter of W.W.from Keswill.)--Ed.] [Footnote Gg: See 'Descriptive Sketches', vol.i.pp.

42-46 .-- Ed.] [Footnote Hh: They followed the lake of Como to its head, leaving Gravedona on the 20th August .-- Ed.] [Footnote Ii: August 21, 1790 .-- Ed.] [Footnote Kk: They reached Cologne on the 28th September, having floated down the Rhine in a small boat; and from Cologne went to Calais, through Belgium .-- Ed.] * * * * *.