ABSTRACT
In a note appended to this costly volume we read that ‘the poem of the White Doe of Rylstone is founded on a local tradition, and on the ballad in Percy’s Collection entituled, “The Rising of the North.” The tradition is as follows. – ‘About this time,’ not long after the dissolution of the monasteries, ‘a white doe, say the aged people of the neighbourhood, long continued to make a weekly pilgrimage from Rylstone over the falls of Bolton, and was constantly found in the Abbey church-yard during divine service, after the close of which, she returned home as regularly as the rest of the congregation.’ – Such is the foundation of the present piece, upon which Mr. Wordsworth has framed a story drawn from the narrative of the Nortons, who were engaged in the northern insurrection that took place in the 12th year of Queen Elizabeth. Of the poem itself we shall give a short specimen, and if that does not satisfy the reader, he will do well to purchase the book, and judge for himself: –
Fast the church-yard fills: – anon Look again, and they all are gone; The cluster round the porch, and the folk Who sate in the shade of the Prior’s oak.
