It was from the remembrance of these noble creatures I took, thirty years after, the picture of the swan which I have discarded from the poem of 'Dion.' While I was a school-boy, the late Mr.Curwen introduced a little fleet of these birds, but of the inferior species, to the Lake of Windermere.
Their principal home was about his own islands; but they sailed about into remote parts of the lake, and either from real or imagined injury done to the adjoining fields, they were got rid of at the request of the farmers and proprietors, but to the great regret of all who had become attached to them from noticing their beauty and quiet habits.

I will conclude my notice of this poem by observing that the plan of it has not been confined to a particular walk, or an individual place; a proof (of which I was unconscious at the time) of my unwillingness to submit the poetic spirit to the chains of fact and real circumstance.

The country is idealized rather than described in any one of its local aspects.
FOOT-NOTES.
5a.

_Intake_ (l.

49).
'When horses in the sunburnt intake stood.' The word _intake_ is local, and signifies a mountain-enclosure.
6.