Note CR — PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1814
Reading edition
"The glorious appearance disclosed above and among the mountains, was described partly from what my friend Mr. Luff, who then lived in Paterdale, witnessed upon that melancholy occasion, and partly from what Mary and I had seen, in company with Sir George and Lady Beaumont, above Hartshope Hall, on our way from Paterdale to Ambleside."—I. F.
Compare the lines 827-881 with the account of the view from the top of Snowdon, in The Prelude, book xiv. II. 11-62 (vol. iii. pp. 367-68), and see Charles Lamb's remarks in his letter to Wordsworth (Aug. 14, 1814) on receiving a copy of The Excursion. (Letters of Charles Lamb, edited by Alfred Ainger, vol. i. p. 271.) In his Table Talk Coleridge expresses a wish "that the first two books of The Excursion had been published separately under the name of 'The Deserted Cottages.' They would have formed, what indeed they are, one of the most beautiful poems in the language." This advice has been followed more than once—ED.