ABSTRACT
Dated ‘August 1810’ in V&C; presumably written just after Harriet Grove’s last visit to Field Place on 16–18 August. Lines 1–4 describe the estate of ‘St Irvyne’ (Hills Place, Horsham), ‘full of magnificent forest-trees, waterfalls, and rustic seats’ (Hogg ii 550–1), the setting of S.’s romance with Harriet, though the ‘dimly-seen mountain’ is poetic licence. S. included the first 4½ lines (there are no verbal variants) among related verses written out for Hogg at Oxford probably in November 1810 (see headnote to No. 20), pretending them to be the work of his sister Elizabeth (Hogg i 200–201). But it is now clear that the attribution to Elizabeth S. was a mere ‘blind’ (see Esd Nbk 258–9), which S.’s references to himself in the third person, after ‘thy [Percy]’ in line 8 of this poem, accidentally appear to support. Apparently Hogg was never allowed to know of the existence of V&C, from which the lines given him were taken.
