To Henry Crabb Robinson[60]

Companion! by whose buoyant Spirit cheered, In whose experience trusting, day by day Treasures I gained with zeal that neither feared The toils nor felt the crosses of the way, These records take, and happy should I be Were but the Gift a meet Return to thee For kindnesses that never ceased to flow, And prompt self-sacrifice to which I owe Far more than any heart but mine can know.

W. WORDSWORTH.

RYDAL MOUNT, Feb. 14th, 1842.

The following is the Itinerary of the Italian Tour of 1837, supplied by Mr. Henry Crabb Robinson. (See Memoirs of Wordsworth, vol. ii. pp. 316, 317.) The spelling of the names of places is Robinson’s.

March, 1837.

19. By steam to Calais. 20. Posting to Samer. 21. Posting to Granvilliers. 22. Through Beauvais to Paris. 26. To Fontainbleau. 27. Through Nemours to Cosne. 28. To Moulins. 29. To Tarare. 30. To Lyons. 31. Through Vienne to Tain.

April.

1. Through Valence to Orange. 2. To Avignon; to Vaucluse and back. 3, 4. By Pont du Gard to Nismes. 5, 6. By St. Remi to Marseilles. 7. To Toulon. 8. To Luc. 9. By Frejus to Cannes. 10, 11. To Nice. 12. Through Mentone to St. Remo. 13. Through Finale to Savone. 14-16. To Genoa. 17. To Chiaveri. 18. To Spezia. 19. By Carrara to Massa. 20. To Lucca. 21. To Pisa. 22. To Volterra. 23. By Castiglonacco and Sienna. 24. To Radicofani. 25. By Aquapendente to Viterbo. 26. To Rome.

May.

13. Excursion to Tivoli with Dr. Carlyle. 17-21. Excursion to Albano, etc., etc., with Miss Mackenzie. 23. To Terni. 24. After seeing the Falls, to Spoleto. 25. To Cortona and Perugia. 26. To Arezzo. 27. To Bibiena and Laverna. 28. To Camaldoli. 29. From Muselea to Ponte Sieve. 30. From Ponte Sieve to Val Ombrosa and Florence.

June.

6, 7. To Bologna. 8. Parma. 9. Through Piacenza to Milan. 11. To the Certosa and back. 12. To the Lake of Como and back. 13. To Bergamo. 14. To Pallazuola and Isco. 15. Excursion to Riveri and back. 16. To Brescia and Desinzano. 17. On Lake of Garda to Riva. 19. To Verona. 20. Vicenza. 21. Padua. 22. Venice. 28. To Logerone. 29. To Sillian. 30. Spittal (in Carinthia).

July.

1. Over Kazenberg to Tweng. 2. Through Werfen to Hallein. 3. Excursion to Konigsee. 4, 5. To Saltzburg. 6. To Ischl. A week’s stay in the Salzkammer Gut, viz.-- 8. Gmund. 9. Travenfalls and back. 10. Aussee. 11. Excursion to lakes, then to Hallstadt. 13. Through Ischl to St. Gilgin. 14. Through Salzburg to Trauenstein. 15. To Miesbach. 16. To Tegernsee and Holzkirken. 17. To Munich. 21. To Augsburg. 22. To Ulm. 23. To Stuttgard. 24. To Besigham. 25. To Heidelberg. 28. Through Worms to Mayence. 29. To Coblenz. 30. To Bonn. 31. Through Cologne to Aix-la-Chapelle.

August.

1. To Louvain 2. To Brussels. 3. To Antwerp. 4. To Liege. 5. Through Lille to Cassell. 6. Calais. 7. London.

1845.

To …

1842.

The Tour of which the following Poems are very inadequate remembrances was shortened by report, too well founded, of the prevalence of Cholera at Naples. To make some amends for what was reluctantly left unseen in the South of Italy, we visited the Tuscan Sanctuaries among the Apennines, and the principal Italian Lakes among the Alps. Neither of those lakes, nor of Venice, is there any notice in these Poems, chiefly because I have touched upon them elsewhere. See, in particular, Descriptive Sketches, “Memorials of a Tour on the Continent in 1820,” and a Sonnet upon the extinction of the Venetian Republic.--W.W.