p. 300. XXI and XXII. Inscription for a Seat, etc.: Written when W. was staying with his sister at Windy Brow, on the slopes of Latrigg, Keswick, in April–May, 1794: the date of its revision in blank verse is determined by the fact that it is found in a notebook in use at Racedown, and that some of it is in the hand of Mary Hutchinson, who left Racedown early in June 1797, after a visit of some months. In August 1800 the W.s spent a few days with Coleridge at Keswick, and in D. W.'s Journal for Aug. 13 is the entry: "Made the Windy Brow seat." This incident may have led W. to produce the poem from his drawer, and it was sent, most probably by Coleridge, to The Morning Post, where it appeared on Oct. 21, with some changes in the text of which the only two of importance are recorded in my app. crit. Neither is an improvement. It is hard to see why the "weary homeless vagrants of the earth", natural occupants of the seat, should be ousted from it in favour of an improbable soldier with a still more improbable son, who, though only eight years old, is already garbed like a soldier, and bound to his father's trade. Whether W. or C. was responsible for this we cannot say, but the change in the conclusion of the poem, with its rather obvious piety, is far more like C. than W. in 1800.

The poem is attributed, but doubtfully, to Coleridge in Ernest Hartley C.'s edition of the Poems (i. 349).