Rydal Mount
I must here borrow the only picture which I find in Dr. Wordsworth’s “Memoirs,”—viz., that of the poet’s residence, which I transcribe from vol. I., p. 19.
“The house stands on the sloping summit of a rocky hill, called Nab’s Scar. It has a southern aspect. In front of it is a small semicircular area of grey gravel, fringed with shrubs and flowers, the house forming the diameter of the circle. From this area is a descent of a few stone steps southward, and then a gentle ascent to a grassy mound. Here let us rest a little.—At your back is the house; in front, a little to the left of the horizon, is Wansfell, on which the light of the evening sun rests, and to which the poet has paid a grateful tribute in two of his sonnets:—
‘Wansfell! this household has a favoured lot,
Living with liberty on thee to gaze.’
Beneath it the blue smoke shews the place of the town of Ambleside. In front is the lake Windermere, shining in the sun; also in front, but more to the right, are the fells of Loughrigg, on which the poet’s imagination pleased to plant a solitary castle:
‘Ærial rock, whose solitary brow
From this low threshold daily meets the sight.’
Looking to the right, in the garden, is a beautiful glade, overhung with rhododendrons, in beautiful leaf and bloom. Near them is a tall ash-tree, in which a thrush has sung for hours together, during many years. Not far from it is a laburnum, in which the osier cage of the doves was hung. Below, to the west, is the vegetable garden, not planted off from the rest, but blended with it by parterres of flowers and shrubs.
Returning to the platform of grey gravel before the house, we pass under the shade of a fine sycamore, and ascend to the westward by fourteen steps of stones, about nine feet long, in the interstices of which grow the yellow flowering poppy, and the wild geranium, or Poor Robin,
‘Gay
With his red stalks, upon a sunny day,’
a favourite with the poet, as his verses show.—The steps above, northward, lead to an upward sloping terrace, about two hundred and fifty feet long. On the right side it is shaded by laburnums, Portugal laurels, mountain-ash, and fine walnut-trees and cherries; on the left it is flanked by a low stone wall, coped with rude slates, and covered with lichens, mosses, and wild-flowers. The fern waves on the walls, and at its base grows the wild-strawberry and foxglove. Beneath this wall, and parallel to it, on the left, is a level terrace, constructed by the poet for a friend most dear to him and his,—who, for the last twenty years of Mr. Wordsworth’s life, was often a visitor at Rydal Mount. The terrace was a favourite resort of the poet, being more easy for pacing to and fro, when old age began to make him feel the acclivity of the other terrace to be toilsome. Both these terraces command beautiful views of the vale of the Rothsay, and the banks of the lake of Windermere.”
Then we have a description of Rydal Lake, and of the “long, wooded, and rocky hill of Loughrigg beyond, and above it,” as seen from an orifice on the ascending terrace; of the beautiful sycamore close to the arbour, the fine firs in the foreground, and the dark woods of fir, ash, oak, hazel, holly, and birch, on the right and left; of the “Far Ferrdel on the mountain’s side,” a little to the right of the “ascending terrace”—which, after a serpentine course of one hundred and fifty feet, terminates at a little gate, close to the “Nab Well,” where the poet was wont to quaff his daily libations. Another walk from the arbour leads to a field, sloping down to the valley, called “Dora’s field,” and on the right is a rude stone, bearing this inscription—
“In these fair vales hath many a tree
At Wordsworth’s suit been spared;
And from the builder’s hand this stone,
For some rude beauty of its own,
Was rescued by the bard.
So let it rest, and time will come,
When here, the tender-hearted,
May heave a gentle sigh for him,
As one of the departed.”
A pond containing gold fish, underneath a large oak, close to the gate which leads to this “Dora’s field,” completes the inventory of the external features of Rydal Mount.
It was in the spring of 1811 that Wordsworth left Allan Bank, and took up his temporary residence at the Parsonage, Grasmere. But the death of his children, Catharine and Thomas, which occurred in 1812, threw so melancholy a gloom over the neighbourhood, that he resolved to quit it altogether. It was not, however, without many painful feelings of regret that he bade adieu to the beautiful scenery in the vale of Grasmere—scenery which he had so long loved—every feature of which was as familiar to him as the faces of the dear children whom he had committed for ever to its quiet keeping. The step, however, was absolutely necessary, as he himself says in a letter to the Earl of Lonsdale, for the recurrence of that tranquillity of mind which it was his duty, and that of his surviving family, to strive for. Accordingly he removed to Rydal Mount, in 1813, where he resided until his death, in 1850. It was in that year—1813—that he received the appointment of Distributor of Stamps in the County of Westmoreland, which has already been alluded to, in the extracts made from the “Reminiscences” of De Quincy.
This appointment, for which he was mainly indebted to Lord Lonsdale, placed the poet in easy if not affluent circumstances, and enabled him to follow his art without anxiety respecting worldly matters,—a condition which the poet improved to his own honour, and to the public advantage. Some time after this good fortune had befallen him, he was offered the collectorship of the town of Whitehaven, an office far more lucrative than the other; but the poet declined it. He had now sufficient for his necessities, and no pecuniary inducement could avail with him to quit the sweet retirement of the lakes. He was fortunate, also—and De Quincy was right in saying that he was always fortunate, for Good Luck “threw her old shoe after him” wherever he went—in securing about this time the services of Mr. John Carter, as coadjutor in the stamp-office. Dr. Wordsworth speaks in the highest terms of this gentleman, who, for thirty-seven years, served the poet “faithfully and zealously, and who added to his business qualifications, those of sound scholarship and judicious criticism.”
Thus happily circumstanced, Wordsworth continued to write poetry, and to make more tours, as his fancy dictated. In 1814, he again visited Scotland, in company with his wife, his wife’s sister, and Miss Mary Hutchinson. The poems produced on this tour were “The Brownie’s Cell,” “Cora Linn,” “Effusions on the Banks of the Bran, near Dunkeld,” and “Sonnet to Mr. Gillies.” The following note, upon the poem “Yarrow Visited,” is of great interest. It is Wordsworth who writes.
“As mentioned in my verses on the death of the Ettrick Shepherd, my first visit to Yarrow was in his company. We had lodged the night before at Traquhar, where Hogg had joined us, and also Dr. Anderson, the editor of ‘The British Poets,’ who was on a visit at the manse. Dr. Anderson walked with us till we came in view of the Vale of Yarrow, and being advanced in life he then turned back. The old man was passionately fond of poetry, though with not much of a discriminating judgment, as the volumes he edited sufficiently shows; but I was much pleased to meet with him, and to acknowledge my obligation to his collection, which had been my brother John’s companion in more than one voyage to India, and which he gave me before his departure from Grasmere—never to return. Through these volumes I became first familiar with Chaucer; and so little money had I then to spare for books, that in all probability, but for this same work, I should have known little of Drayton, Daniel, and other distinguished poets of the Elizabethan age, and their immediate successors, till a much later period of my life. I am glad to record this, not for any importance of its own, but as a tribute of gratitude to this simple-hearted old man, whom I never again had the pleasure of meeting. I seldom read or think of this poem without regretting that my dear sister was not of the party, as she would have been so much delighted in recalling the time when, travelling together in Scotland, we declined going in search of this celebrated stream, not altogether, I will frankly confess, for the reasons assigned in the poem on the occasion.”
At last, in 1814, the great poem was published upon which Wordsworth’s fame is built, viz., “The Excursion.” It was met, as usual, with tremendous and most indiscriminate abuse, especially by Jeffrey, in his “This won’t do” article. But despite all this, the poem grew deeply into the public mind, and is still growing there; and ranks, at last, with our highest poetry. All the characters and scenes in it are drawn from life, and there are few more interesting papers than the memoranda which the poet has left respecting these characters and their localities. “The Wanderer,” he acknowledges, is chiefly an embodied idea of what he fancied his own character might have become in the said Wanderer’s circumstances. His sister, with her gentle love and sweet remonstrances,—although ready to follow him to the ends of the earth—did in reality save him from this wild nomadic life, by fixing his thoughts upon a home, and the genial influences which domestic life would produce and exercise upon his poetic genius. And then his wife, children, and the rich harvests of fortune, which were reaped without any sowing of his, and dropped into his lap, finished the work his sister had begun, and finally settled him as a citizen and a family man. Otherwise, being strong in body, I should, he says, very probably, have “taken to the way of life such as that in which my ‘Wanderer’ passed the greater part of his days.” Much, however, of what the “Wanderer” says and does, was the result, in verse, of the poet’s experience; was what he had actually heard and seen, although refined, of course, as it passed through his imagination. He was fond of talking to all kinds of strange characters;—now treading on the outskirts of social life, or wandering with a wild, vagabond independence amongst the highways of towns and cities. Whatever of romance and adventure they had known, he wormed out of them, or charmed out of them; and he partially instances, as an illustration of this prying curiosity—this insatiable longing after experience, and the history of men—an old Scotchman, who married finally a relation of his wife’s, and settled down at Kendal, and a travelling packman, from whom he learned much, and whose adventures and wisdom are embodied in the character of the “Wanderer.” “The Solitary,” “The Pastor,” “Pedlar,” “Margaret,” “Miser,” and all the dramatis personæ of the poem, are made up of veritable human materials, and had their architypes in the great world of humanity. The reader, however, must go to Dr. Wordsworth for a full relation respecting these matters. All I can add here, respecting the “Excursion,” is that only 500 copies were disposed of in six years; and when, in 1827, another edition, of the same number of copies, was printed, it took seven years more to exhaust it. The poet, however, was not daunted by this culpable neglect of his immortal lines; but conscious of his own greatness, he wrote, in a letter to Southey,—“Let the age continue to love its own darkness; I shall continue to write, with, I trust, the light of heaven upon me.” Jeffrey, in the pride and arrogance of his position, as Executioner General of the Courts of Critical Assize, boasted that HE—poor devil!—had crushed the “Excursion;” and the boast was repeated to Southey:—“Tell him,” said he, Southey “that he could as soon crush Skiddaw!” Bernard Barton,—a writer whose chief merit consists in a letter written to Wordsworth, expressive of his homage and reverence for the Bard of Rydal—alludes, in the said letter, to Jeffrey: “He has taken,” says Wordsworth, in reply, “a perpetual retainer, from his own incapacity, to plead against my claims to public approbation.” So, we see, that the good poet could hit hard if he liked; although he rarely descended to this literary pugilism, thinking it beneath the dignity of his art and character.
It was Wordsworth’s custom to compose in the open air; and as his servant once said to a visitor, “This, sir, is my master’s library—his study is out of doors.” He had a great and sickening dread of writing; and his sister, or some other member of his family was always at hand to perform for him the office of amanuensis. In the year 1807, when on a visit to his wife’s brother at Stockton-on-Tees, the weather being very boisterous, and the winds rough, he used to pace up and down under the lee of a row of corn-stacks in a field near that town—and it was here that he composed the earlier part of “White Doe of Ryletone,” chaunting his verses aloud to the astonished stacks. The poem was not published until 1815, and has been much misinterpreted, and consequently abused. The truth is, that Wordsworth wrote always upon principle, and a carefully premeditated plan; there was always a high purpose in his poems, both moral and intellectual. His poetical canons were likewise his own, and his mode of treating a subject was always in conformity with them, or illustrations of them. Superficial readers, who had been accustomed to the objective poetry of Scott, could not understand Wordsworth, therefore; for he was studiously subjective, and the interest of his poems hangs nearly always upon the development of mere spiritual forces, and their progress, if I may so speak, outwards, in the subjugation of the external world or in the strengthening of the soul to bear the ills and mishaps of life with a sublime fortitude. “The White Doe” is a memorable example of this spiritual aim. “Every thing,” says Wordsworth, ‘attempted by the principal personages in this poem fails, so far as its object is external and substantial; so far as it is moral and spiritual it succeeds. The heroine of the poem knows that her duty is not to interfere with the current of events, either to forward or delay them; but
“To abide
The shock, and finally secure
O’er pain and grief a triumph pure.”
This she does in obedience to her brother’s injunction, as most suitable to a mind and character that, under previous trials, had been proved to accord with his. She achieves this, not without aid from the communication with the inferior creature which often leads her thoughts to revolve upon the past with a tender and humanising influence that exalts rather than depresses her. Her anticipated beatification of the mind, and the apotheosis of the companion of her solitude, are the points at which the poem aims, and constitutes its legitimate catastrophe.” All this is widely different from the usual mode of conducting dramatic action, and yet the action of the poem in question is complete and satisfactory, and is artistically developed from its own spiritual germ, or starting point.
Whilst walking, and composing “The White Doe,” Wordsworth received a wound in his foot; and it is curious to remark that, even when he ceased walking, the act of composition increased the irritation of the wound, whilst a mental holiday produced a rapid cure. “Poetic excitement,” he says, “when accompanied by protracted labour in composition, has throughout my life brought on more or less of bodily derangement. Nevertheless I am, at the close of my seventy-third year, in what may be called excellent health. But I ought to add, that my intellectual labour has generally been carried on out of doors.”
The next group of poems—and two of them certainly amongst the grandest triumphs of poetic art, were composed respectively as follows:—“Laodamia,” in 1814; “Dion,” in 1816; and the “Ode to Lycoris,” in 1817. The first and second of these poems were entirely Greek in their character and form, and Keates’ “Hyperion” is the only modern poem (and this a fragment) which is worthy to be placed in comparison with them. It is singular how the idea of these poems originated in the mind of the poet. He had been preparing his son for the University, and had to read up his old classics for this purpose. Hence the Classic Spirit took up its abode with him, and urged him to these beautiful and plastic productions. About this time, and with the same object in view—viz., the education of his son—he translated one of the earlier books of the “Æneid” into rhyme. Coleridge, in writing to the author respecting this translation, says, he has attempted an impossibility, and regrets he should have wasted his time on a work (viz., of translation) so much below him. Wordsworth was always attached to the classics; and before he read Virgil, he was so fond of Ovid, that he invariably got into a passion when he found this author placed below Virgil. He was never weary of travelling over the scenes through which Homer led him. “Classical literature,” he says, “affected me by its own beauty.”
“Peter Bell” appeared in 1819. It was composed twenty years before, as already related; and sold better than any of Wordsworth’s previous poems, notwithstanding the abuse of the critics. Five hundred copies were exhausted before one month, between April and May of this one year (1819). “The Waggoner” was published at the same time, but was not so successful, perhaps on account of its mere local interest. The “Sonnets on the River Duddon” appeared about the same time, and were dedicated to the Rev. Dr. Wordsworth, the poet’s brother, who was at that time Rector of Lambeth. “The river Duddon has its main sourceJ in the mountain range near the “Three Shire Stones,” as they were called, where the three counties, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Lancashire meet. It flows to the south through Seathwaite, by Broughton, to the Duddon Sands, and into the Irish Sea.”—Wordsworth’s first acquaintance with this stream commenced in his boyhood, during the time that he was so passionately fond of angling: upon one of his fishing excursions he joined an old weather-beaten man, and went far away from home, seduced by the dear delight of his art. On their return, the embryo poet was so wearied, that the old man had to carry him on his back. He says that his earliest recollections of this stream were full of distress and disappointment; but in later times he visited it with so many beloved persons, that its waters flowed through him in streams of music—in anthems of affectionate song.
In 1820 Wordsworth made another tour to the Continent, in company with his wife and sister, Mr. and Mrs. Monkhonse, then just married, and Miss Herricks. They left these two ladies at Berne, while Mr. Monkhouse went with the poet and his retinue, on an excursion amongst the Alps, as far as Milan. They were joined at Lucerne by Mr. H. C. Robinson; and the two ladies, whom they had left at Berne, rejoined them at Geneva, when the whole party went to Paris, where they remained five weeks.
In 1822 Wordsworth published a volume of Sonnets, and other Poems, as the result of this tour, entitled, “Memorials of a Tour on the Continent.”
In two letters to Lord Lonsdale—one dated from Lucerne, August 19th, 1820, and the other from Paris, dated October 7, 1820,—the poet has given a general outline of this tour and its incidents.K I ought to add that Wordsworth visited Waterloo, amongst other places of interest, at this time. The party returned by way of Boulogne, November 2nd, and had a narrow escape of shipwreck,—the vessel striking upon a sand-bank, and being then driven with violence on a rocky road in the harbour, where she was battered about until the ebbing of the tide set her at liberty—at least from the violence of the sea; “and, blessed be God,” says Wordsworth, in his Journal, “for our preservation!”
They arrived at Dover on the 7th, and at London on the 9th, where they met Rogers, Lamb, and Talfourd, amongst other noted persons and friends. Wordsworth walked on to visit Coleridge, from Hampstead Heath, on the 18th, and then went down to Cambridge, to congratulate his brother, Dr. Wordsworth, on his appointment to the Mastership of Trinity College.
They returned to Rydal Mount on Christmas Eve, visiting Sir George and Lady Beaumont, at Coleorton, by the way. Sir George was then about to build a church on his estate, and this fact led to conversation on Church History, and eventually to the production of the “Ecclesiastical Sonnets.” In the third part of the first of these Sonnets occurs the following line:—
“I saw the figure of a lovely maid.”
And the note attached to it, by the poet, is so interesting, that I must transcribe it:—
“When I came to this part of the series, I had the dream described in this sonnet. The figure was that of my daughter, and the whole passed exactly as here represented. The sonnet was composed on the middle road leading from Grasmere to Ambleside; it was began as I left the last house in the vale, and finished, word for word, as it now stands, before I came in view of Rydal. I wish I could say the same of the five or six hundred I have written; most of them were frequently retouched, in the course of composition, and not a few laboriously.”
Here is the sonnet in question:—
“I saw the figure of a lovely maid,
Seated, alone, beneath a darksome tree,
Whose fondly-overhanging canopy
Set off her brightness with a pleasing shade.
No spirit was she; that my heart betrayed,
For she was one I loved exceedingly;
But while I gazed in tender reverie
(Or was it sleep that with my fancy played?),
The bright corporeal presence—form and face—
Remaining still distinct, grew thin and rare,
Like sunny mists; at length the golden hair,
Shape, limbs, and heavenly features, keeping pace,
Each with the other, in a lingering race
Of dissolution, melted into air.”
In 1823, Wordsworth again visited the Continent, making a short tour, with his wife, in Belgium and Holland. As usual, a journal of travel was kept by the poet, and is printed, partly at least, in the “Memoirs.” At the close of the summer, in the next year, he made a short excursion in North Wales, the records of which are contained in a letter to Sir George Beaumont, dated Hindwell, Radnor, September 20, 1824.L Again, in 1828, the poet, accompanied by his daughter, Dora, made an excursion to see Coleridge, through Belgium, and up the Rhine. And it was at this time that the “Incident at Bruges” was written, concerning which the poet says:—“Dora and I, while taking a walk along a retired part of the town, heard the voice as here described, and were afterwards informed that it was a Convent, in which were many English. We were both much touched, I may say, affected, and Dora moved, as appears in the verses.” The “Lines on a Jewish Family,” were likewise written on this tour. The poet, his daughter, and Coleridge were at St. Goar, when they first saw this family. They had provided themselves with a basket of provisions for the day, and offered the poor people a share of them. The mother refused for the rest, because it was a fast-day, adding, that whether such observances were right or wrong, it was her duty to keep them. They were all poor, ragged, and hungry, but exceedingly beautiful, and the self-command, self-respect, and self-sacrifice of the woman is the moral of this little story, I think, although no allusion is made to it in the poem.
In 1829, Wordsworth made a tour in Ireland, with J. Marshall, Esq., M.P. of Leeds. All through his life Wordsworth had a horror of Popery; and this journey, with his Continental tours, tended to confirm it with still greater intensity. He hated Popery because it was the avowed enemy of freedom, and he would not sanction the Catholic Emancipation Bill, because he thought that by giving freedom to the Catholic religion, the Government were but paving the way for a frightful domination over the souls and bodies of men. Still he loved freedom—as his sonnets to “Liberty,” and his enthusiastic sympathies with republican France, at the outbreak of the first revolution sufficiently show. He was a Churchman, however, devotedly attached to the traditions, forms, and doctrines of the Church, and there was no moving him from these foundations. He attributed the distress and misery of Ireland to the priests—Catholic, of course—and to the false tenures of the land. The country, he said, had never been fully conquered, and this was another and a chief cause of the degradation of Ireland. The people were under the control—absolute control—of the priests, ready to do their bidding, let that bidding be what it might. And he trembled—as well he might—for the power of the Irish Church! God forgive us, we are all at the best but short-sighted mortals, and few can see the truth, save through the medium of prejudice. The Irish Church, if my vision be clear, is one of the many stumbling blocks, and rubbish heaps in the way of Irish civilization; and certainly the Roman Catholic Church is another.
This tour supplied Wordsworth with very few materials for poetry. The lines, however, in the fine poem on the “Power of Sound,” one of the finest poems which Wordsworth has written, commencing
“Thou too be heard, lone eagle!”
were, he says, suggested near the Giant’s Causeway, where he saw a pair of eagles wheel over his head, and then dart off “as if to hide themselves in a blaze of sky made by the setting sun.”
It was about this time also that the sweet poem, entitled “The Triad,” was written, in which the daughters of Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge, are bound together in the most musical and flowery forms, as the three Graces. Wordsworth often promised these fair children to send them down to immortality in his verses, but it was long before the mood seized him, and the modus operandi was made plain to him. At last the ideas embodied in “The Triad” struck him, and the result is something finer than the most vivid sculpture. The poet commences—
“Shew me the noblest youth of present time,
Whose trembling fancy would to love give birth;
Some god or hero from the Olympian clime
Returned to seek a consort upon earth;
Or, in no doubtful prospect let me see,
The brightest star of ages yet to be,
And I will mate and match him blissfully.”
So confident is he of the beauty and virtue of the three fair girls hidden amongst the recesses of the hills, that he boasts of their worthiness to match even the noblest of gods or heroes. And then he invokes them to appear, whilst a youth expectant at his side, and breathless as they,
“Looks to the earth and to the vacant air;
And with a wandering air that seems to chide,
Asks of the clouds what occupants they hide.”
And now the poet will fulfil his promise, and show the golden youth this beautiful triad of Graces.
“Fear not a constraining measure!
—Yielding to the gentle spell,
Lucida! from domes of pleasure,
Or from cottage-sprinkled dell,
Comes to regions solitary,
Where the eagle builds her aery,
Above the hermit’s long-forsaken cell!
—She comes!—behold
That figure, like a ship with silver sail!
Nearer she draws; a breeze uplifts her veil;
Upon her coming wait
As pure a sunshine, and as soft a gale,
As e’er, on herbage-covering earthly mold,
Tempted the bird of Juno to unfold
His richest splendour,—when his veering gait,
And every motion of his starry train,
Seem governed by a strain
Of music, audible to him alone.”
And then we have a picture of the lady:—
“worthy of earth’s proudest throne!
Nor less, by excellence of nature, fit
Beside an unambitious hearth to sit
Domestic queen, where grandeur is unknown;
What living man could fear
The worst of fortune’s malice, wer’t thou near,
Humbling that lily stem, thy sceptre meek,
That its fair flowers may brush from off his cheek
The too, too, happy tear?
—Queen, and handmaid lowly!
Whose skill can speed the day with lively cares,
And banish melancholy
By all that mind invents, or hand prepares;
O thou, against whose lip, without its smile
And in its silence even, no heart is proof;
Whose goodness, sinking deep, would reconcile
The softest nursling of a gorgeous palace,
To the bare life beneath the hawthorn roof
Of Sherwood’s archer, or in caves of Wallace—
Who that hath seen thy beauty could content
His soul with but a glimpse of heavenly day?
Who that hath loved thee, but would lay
His strong hand on the wind, if it were bent
To take thee in thy majesty away?
Pass onward (even the glancing deer
Till we depart intrude not here;)
That mossy slope, o’er which the woodbine throws
A canopy, is smooth’d for thy repose!”
The next lady that he invokes before the astonished youth is his own daughter—sweet Dora—the previous one was Miss Southey.
“Come, if the notes thine ear may pierce,
Come, youngest of the lovely three,
Submissive to the mighty verse
And the dear voice of harmony,
By none more deeply felt than thee!
I sang; and lo! from pastures virginal
She hastens to the haunts
Of Nature, and the lonely elements.
Air sparkles round her with a dazzling sheen;
And mark, her glowing cheek, her vesture green!
And, as if wishful to disarm
Or to repay the potent charm,
She bears the stringed lute of old romance,
That cheered the trellissed arbour’s privacy,
And soothed war-wearied knights in raftered hall.
How vivid, yet how delicate, her glee!
So tripped the muse, inventress of the dance;
So, truant in waste woods, the blithe Euphrosyne!”
But the ringlets of that head,
Why are they ungarlanded?
Why bedeck her temples less
Than the simplest shepherdess?
Is it not a brow inviting
Choicest flowers that ever breathed,
Which the myrtle would delight in,
With Idalian rose enwreathed?
But her humility is well content
With one wild floweret (call it not forlorn),—
Flower of the Winds—beneath her bosom worn—
Yet more for love than ornament.”
Then follows that beautiful description of her moral graces, already quoted in these pages, beginning—
“Open ye thickets! let her fly,
Swift as a Thracian nymph, o’er field and height;”
the whole picture being as fine a conception, and as rich an embodyment, of this sweet Dora,—judging from her portrait in the second volume of the “Memoirs,” and from numerous written and spoken reports of her person and character,—as the highest genius and the highest art combined, could possibly have produced. And now for Miss Coleridge:—
“Last of the three, tho’ eldest born,
Reveal thyself, like pensive morn
Touched by the skylark’s earliest note,
E’er humble-gladness be afloat.
But whether in the semblance drest
Of dawn, or eve, fair vision of the west,
Come, with each anxious hope subdued
By woman’s gentle fortitude,
Each grief, thro’ meekness, settling into rest.
—Or I would hail thee when some high-wrought page
Of a closed volume, lingering in thine hand,
Has raised thy spirit to a peaceful stand
Among the glories of a happy age.”
And, behold! she is here:—
“Her brow hath opened on me—see it there,
Brightening the umbrage of her hair;
So gleams the crescent moon, that loves
To be descried thro’ shady groves.
Tenderest bloom is on her cheek;
Wish not for a richer streak;
Nor dread the depth of meditative eye;
But let thy love, upon that azure field
Of thoughtfulness and beauty, yield
Its homage offered up in purity.
What would’st thou more? In sunny glade,
Or under leaves of thickest shade,
Was such a stillness e’er diffused
Since earth grew calm while angels mused?
Softly she treads, as if her foot were loth
To crush the mountain dew-drop—soon to melt,
On the flower’s breast; as if she felt
That flowers themselves, whate’er their hue,
With all their fragrance, all their glistening,
Call to the heart for inward listening—
And tho’ for bridal wreaths and tokens true
Welcomed wisely; tho’ a growth
Which the careless shepherd sleeps on,
As fitly spring from turf the mourner weeps on—
And without wrong are cropped the marble tomb to strew.
And now the charm is over;
——“the mute phantom’s gone,
Nor will return—but droop not, favoured youth,
The apparition that before thee shone
Obeyed a summons covetous of truth.
From these wild rocks thy footsteps I will guide
To bowers in which thy fortunes may be tried,
And one of the bright three become thy happy bride.”
A fairer subject than this, for the imagination of the true painter, does scarcely exist in poetry. The gorgeous magnificence of Miss Southey—the wild, bird-like nature of Dora, the mystic, spiritual, meditative beauty of Miss Coleridge. Here is material enough for the highest effort of art.
A number of poems followed this exquisite “Triad”—viz., “The Wishing Gate,” in 1828—“The Lawn,” “Presentiments,” “The Primrose on the Rock,” “Devotional Incitements;” these last were written between 1828 and ’32. A number of gold and silver fishes presented to the poet by Miss H. J. Jewsbury, who subsequently died of the cholera in India,—and afterwards removed to the pond already alluded to, under the oak in “Dora’s field,” suggested the verses “Gold and Silver Fishes in a Vase,” and likewise “Liberty,” and “Humanity;” “The Poet and the caged Turtle Dove” was likewise suggested by real circumstances. Miss Jewsbury had given Dora a pair of these beautiful birds; one of them was killed by an un-necessary cat, and not a “harmless one;” the other survived many years, and had a habit of cooing the moment Wordsworth began “booing” his poems, as the country people called it.
Wordsworth gives an amusing account of a visit which he paid about this time to “Chatsworth.” He had undertaken to ride his daughter’s pony from Westmoreland to Cambridge, that she might have the use of it during a visit she was about to make to her uncle at Trinity; and on his way from Bakewell to Matlock, he turned off to see the splendid mansion of the great Duke of Devonshire. By-and-bye a tremendous storm came on, and the poet was drenched through to the very skin, whilst the pony, to make his rider’s seat the more easy, went “slantwise” all the way to Derby. Notwithstanding this, however, and the pelting of the pitiless storm, Wordsworth managed to hold sweet and sad converse with his muse, and composed his “Lines to the Memory of Sir George Beaumont,” who died 7th February, 1827. It is a picture which we cannot readily forget, and shows how completely the poet was master of himself. Sir George Beaumont and his lady were friends and benefactors of Wordsworth—he loved them both intensely. Walking through the grounds and gardens of Coleorton with Sir George—the successor in the Baronetcy to his friend—and after the death of Lady Beaumont, which took place in 1822, he comes suddenly to her ladyship’s grotto, near the fountain, and is overwhelmed with his feelings, and the recollection of the dead, and the happy memories which rush over his mind in connection with this place, so that he cannot speak for tears. On his return home he wrote the elegiac musings, already mentioned in these memoirs, which are full of love, and the sanctity of a sweet sorrow. In the same year (1831) were composed “The Armenian Lady’s Love,” “The Egyptian Maid,” and “The Russian Fugitive,” poems in which all the beauties of language are pressed, along with the simplicity which marks the old English ballads. Lines on his portrait, painted by Pickersgill, and preserved with sacred veneration in St. John’s College, Cambridge, were likewise written in this year, as well as the inscription already quoted, for the stone at Rydal.
Besides these poetical compositions, however, Wordsworth interested himself in public affairs; and having fixed principles of political and social economy in his own mind, regarded all public measures at variance with them, as fatal errors, and subversive in their consequences of the highest human concerns. In 1806, he wrote a letter to a friend, who had consulted him respecting the education of his daughter—in which he gives some sound and excellent advice respecting the training and development of youthful minds. For Wordsworth had at an early period devoted his attention to the subject of education, and had his own views respecting it—views which were marked by the spiritual peculiarity of his mind. When he wrote “The Excursion,” he seems to have had the highest hopes for man, when education should become universal; and insisted that the State should teach those to obey, from whom she exacted allegiance:—
“O for the coming of that glorious time,
When, prizing knowledge, as her noblest work
And best protection, this imperial realm
While she exacts allegiance, shall admit
An obligation on her part to teach
Them who are born to serve her and obey;
Binding herself, by statute, to secure
For all the children whom her soil maintains
The rudiments of letters, and inform
The mind with moral and religious truth,
Both understood, and practised.”
Excursion, Book ix.
He was an avowed enemy, however, at a later period—for his views respecting the modus operandi of teaching, had undergone some change since “The Excursion” was written—to all Infant Schools, Madras Systems, and Bell Systems. The former he regarded as usurping the functions of motherly duty; the latter, as dead mechanism. Speaking of the education of girls, he says:—“I will back Shenstone’s ‘School Mistress,’ by her winter fire, and in her summer garden seat, against all Dr. Bell’s sour-looking teachers in petticoats. What is the use of pushing on the education of girls so fast, and moving by the stimulus of Emulation, who, to say nothing worse of her, is cousin-german to Envy? What are you to do with these girls? What demand is there for the ability that they may have prematurely acquired? Will they not be indisposed to bend to any kind of hard labour or drudgery? And yet many of them must submit to it, or go wrong. The mechanism of the Bell System is not required in small places; praying after the fugleman, is not like praying at a mother’s knee. The Bellites overlook the difference: they talk about moral discipline; but wherein does it encourage the imaginative feelings? in short, what she practically understands is of little amount, and too apt to become the slave of the bad passions. I dislike display in everything; above all, in education.... The old dame (Shenstone’s) did not affect to make theologians and logicians; but she taught to read; and she practised the memory, often no doubt by rote, but still the faculty was improved; something, perhaps, she explained, but trusted the rest to parents and masters, and to the pastor of the parish. I am sure as good daughters, as good servants, as good mothers and wives, were brought up at that time as now, when the world is so much less humble-minded. A hand full of employment, and a head not above it, with such principles and habits as may be acquired without the Madras machine, are the best security for the chastity of wives of the lower rank.”
The above extract is from a letter dated 1828, and addressed to the Rev. Hugh Jones Rose, formerly principal of King’s College, London. It exemplifies, in a very striking manner, the change which had come over Wordsworth’s mind upon the subject of education, and does not strike me as being particularly creditable to him.
On the 13th of April, 1836, Wordsworth took part in the ceremony of laying the foundation-stone of certain new schools, about to be erected at Bowness, Windermere, and made a speech upon the occasion; in which he advocates a very humble kind of instruction for the working classes; forgetting that man is to be educated because he is a man, and not neglected because he happens to be one of the “lower orders.” I have no sympathy with this foolish cant about educating people according to their station, and am sorry that Wordsworth’s sanction can be quoted in its favour. I must reserve what I have to say upon this subject, however, for my analysis of the mind and writings of the poet.
In 1835, Wordsworth published his “Yarrow Revisited, and other Poems.” Speaking of “Yarrow Re-visited,” he says: “In the autumn of 1831, my daughter and I set off from Rydal, to visit Sir Walter Scott, before his departure for Italy. This journey had been delayed by an inflammation in my eyes, till we found that the time appointed for his leaving home would be too near for him to receive us without considerable inconvenience. Nevertheless we proceeded, and reached Abbotsford on Monday. I was then scarcely able to lift up my eyes to the light. How sadly changed did I find him from the man I had seen so healthy, gay, and hopeful, a few years before, when he said, at the inn at Patterdale, in my presence, his daughter, Ann, also being there, with Mr. Lockhart, my own wife and daughter, and Mr. Quillinan: ‘I mean to live till I am eighty, and shall write as long as I live.’ Though we had none of us the least thought of the cloud of misfortune which was then going to break upon his head, I was startled, and almost shocked, at that bold saying, which could scarcely be uttered by such a man, without a momentary forgetfulness of the instability of human life. But to return to Abbotsford. The inmates and guests we found there, were Sir Walter, Major Scott, Anne Scott, and Mr. and Mrs. Lockhart; Mr. Laidlaw, a very old friend of Sir Walter’s; one of Burns’s sons, an officer of the Indian service, had left the house the day before, and had kindly expressed his regret that he could not wait my arrival, a regret that I may truly say was mutual. In the evening, Mr. and Mrs. Liddell sang, and Mrs. Lockhart chaunted old ballads to her harp; and Mr. Allan, hanging over the back of a chair, told, and acted, odd stories in a humourous way. With this exhibition, and his daughters’ singing, Sir Walter was much amused, and, indeed, so were we all, as far as circumstances would allow.”
On the following morning (Tuesday) Sir Walter accompanied Wordsworth, and most of his friends, to Newark Castle, on the Yarrow, and it was upon this occasion that the lines, “Yarrow Revisited,” were written. On the morning of Thursday following, when the poet left Abbotsford, he had a serious conversation with Sir Walter, who spoke with gratitude of the happy life he had led. Sir Walter wrote also a few lines in Dora’s album, addressed to her; and when he presented her with the book, in his study, he said: “I should not have done a thing of this kind, but for your father’s sake; they are probably the last verses I shall ever write.” “They shew,” says, Wordsworth, “how much his mind was impaired; not by the strain of thought, but by the execution—some of the lines being imperfect, and one stanza wanting corresponding rhymes.” Poor Sir Walter!—what a spectacle it was to see that colossal intellect tumbling into ruins.
Several poems were the result of this short tour, beside the “Yarrow Revisited,”—such as “The Place of Burial,” “On the Sight of a Manse in the South of Scotland,” &c., &c.—Wordsworth’s health, too, was much improved by this tour, and a violent inflammation of the eyes—a complaint to which he was much subject,—left him whilst walking through the Highlands, by the side of his “open carriage,” driven by Dora!
Amongst the poems contained in the volume entitled, “Yarrow Revisited,” were many of a political character, for they were written between the years 1830 and 1834, when the Revolution of France, and the Reform party in England, were agitating society to its centre. Wordsworth now hated revolution, and reform also; was opposed to a large and enlightened system of education; and to the admission of Dissenters to the Universities. His plea was the old constitution of things, which could not, he thought, be mended without being broken up and destroyed. “Since the introduction of the Reform Bill, I have been persuaded,” he says, “that the Constitution of England cannot be preserved. It is a question, however, of time.” The poem entitled, “The Warning,” will give the best idea of Wordsworth’s strong political opinions and feelings at this time. As a contrast, however, to these narrow yet patriotic views, we turn to the “Evening Voluntaries,” a collection of sweet poems, which were published in the same volume as the “Yarrow.” They were written on a high part of the coast of Cumberland, on April 7th (Easter Sunday), the author’s 63rd birth-day, between Moresby and Whitehaven, whilst he was on a visit to his son, who was then rector of Moresby.—Very beautiful, indeed, are these poems, which read like twilight vespers in some old abbey’s chancel. Wordsworth says of them—“With the exception of the eighth and ninth, this succession of voluntaries originated in the concluding lines of the last paragraph of this poem, [i.e. of the poem, written on the author’s birth-day, and marked No. 2, in the “Voluntaries,” commencing, “The sun that seemed so mildly to retire.”] With this coast I have been familiar from my earliest childhood, and remember being struck, for the first time, by the town and port of Whitehaven, and the white waves breaking against its quays and piers, as the whole came into my view from the top of the high ground, down which the road, that has since been altered, descended abruptly. My sister, when she first heard the voice of the sea from this point, and beheld the scene spread before her, burst into tears. Our family then lived at Cockermouth, and this fact was often mentioned amongst us, indicating the sensibility for which she was remarkable.”
As a specimen of the “Evening Voluntaries,” take the following:—
“Calm is the air, and loth to lose
Day’s grateful warmth, tho’ moist with falling dews.
Look for the stars, you’ll say that there are none;
Look up a second time, and one by one,
You mark them twinkling out with silvery light,
And wonder how they could elude the sight!
The birds, of late so noisy in their bowers,
Warbled awhile with faint and fainter powers,
But now are silent as the dim-seen flowers.
Nor does the village church clock’s iron tone
The time’s and season’s influence disown;
Nine beats distinctly to each other bound
In drowsy sequence—how unlike the sound
That in rough winter, oft inflicts a fear
On fireside listeners, doubting what they hear!
The shepherd, bent on rising with the sun,
Had closed his door before the day was done,
And now with thankful heart to bed doth creep,
And joins the little children in their sleep.
The bat, lured forth where trees the lane o’ershade,
Flits and reflits along the dark arcade;
The busy dor-hawk chases the white moth
With burring note, which industry and sloth
Might both be pleased with, for it suits them both.
A stream is heard—I see it not but know
By its soft music where the waters flow:
Wheels and the tread of hoofs are heard no more;
One boat there was, but it will touch the shore
With the next dipping of its slackened oar;
Faint sound that for the gayest of the gay,
Might give to serious thought a moment’s sway,
As a last token of man’s toilsome day.”
Wordsworth does not seem, during any period of his life, to have been on intimate terms with any of his contemporaries. He preferred the flower of the literateurs, Coleridge, Scott, Southey; and these, with the exception perhaps of Rogers, were his chief friends. We have letters of his, however, to much smaller fry; to Mrs. Hemans, and Miss Jewsbury, for example—and to sundry editors of other men’s wares; but there is little or no recognition of Byron, Shelly, Keats, Tennyson, Baily, Campbell, Moore, nor yet of Dickens or Bulwer. His letters represent his character even better than his poetry; they are Wordsworth in undress, without the “garland and singing robe,” and are worthy to be studied. I like much what he says to the Rev. Robert Montgomery, author of “The Devil and Father Luther,” and pious Robert would do well even at this late day to think on it. Montgomery had sent Wordsworth a copy of his poems, and in reply, the poet answers: “I cannot conclude without one word of literary advice which I hope you will deem my advanced age entitles me to give. Do not, my dear sir, be anxious about any individual’s opinion concerning your writings, however highly you may think of his genius, or rate his judgment. Be a severe critic to yourself; and depend upon it no person’s decision upon the merit of your works will bear comparison in point of value with your own. You must be conscious from what feeling they have flowed, and how far they may or may not be allowed to claim on that account, permanent respect; and above all I would remind you, with a view to tranquillise and steady your mind, that no man takes the trouble of surveying and pondering another’s writings with a hundredth part of the care which an author of sense and genius will have bestowed upon his own. Add to this reflection another, which I press upon you, as it has supported me through life—viz.: That posterity will settle all accounts justly, and that works which deserve to last will last; and if undeserving this fate, the sooner they perish the better.”
In the year 1836 the sister of the poet’s wife—Miss Sarah Hutchinson, who had resided with the family at Rydal, died, and was buried in Grasmere church, “near the graves of two young children removed from a family to which through life she was devoted.”
In the following year, 1837, Wordsworth, accompanied by his friend H. C. Robinson, Esq., set off from London for Rome, returning in August. The “Itinerary” of the travellers is contained in the “Memoirs,” along with some memoranda by the poet; but they are not of much interest. Many fine pieces, however, sprung as usual from the journey, as well as a goodly number of sonnets. They originally appeared in a volume entitled “Poems, chiefly of Early and Late Years,” in 1842. In 1839, Wordsworth received the degree of D.C.L., from the University of Oxford, which was conferred on him in the Sheldonian Theatre, amidst shouts of rejoicing such as had never before been heard in that city, except upon the occasion of an unexpected visit of the Duke of Wellington. In 1838, Wordsworth prepared a new edition of his poems, to be published by Moxon, and continued to live at Rydal, in his quiet and musical manner, writing poems, taking rambles, and conducting his correspondence until 1843, when he was appointed Poet Laureate of England, Southey having died on the 21st of March of that year, and the appointment having been offered to Wordsworth on the 31st of the same month. One occurrence only broke the even tenor of the poet’s life in the interim alluded to, and this was an accident by which he was upset from his gig, and thrown violently into a plantation. The accident was owing to the carelessness and want of skill in the driver of a coach, which they met on the road. No serious consequences followed, however, and inquiries and congratulations flowed in on all sides, from the peasant up to Queen Adelaide.
From the time of Wordsworth’s appointment as Laureate,—which it ought to be said he at first refused, and only accepted with the understanding that it should be an honorary office,—he wrote very little poetry. His work, indeed, was done, his mission accomplished; and his old days were spent in rambling over the hills, and in the quiet enjoyment of his family, friends, fame, and fortune. Honours of a high order were subsequently heaped upon him. In the year 1838, the University of Durham took the initiative in conferring an academic degree on the poet; then the grand old Mother, Oxford, followed,—and in 1846 he was put in nomination, without his knowledge, for the office of Lord Rector of the University of Oxford, and gained a majority of twenty-one votes, in opposition to the premier, Lord John Russell. “The forms of election, however,” says Wordsworth, in a letter to Sir W. Gomm, of Port Louis, Mauritius, dated November 23, 1846, “allowed Lord John Russell to be returned through the single vote of the sub-rector voting for his superior. To say the truth, I am glad of this result, being too advanced in life to undertake with comfort any considerable public duty, and it might have seemed ungracious to have declined the office.”
On the 20th of January, 1847, Mr. William Wordsworth, the younger son of the poet, was married at Brighton, to Fanny Eliza Graham, youngest daughter of Reginald Graham, Esq., of Brighton, who was a native of Cumberland; and whilst the joy of this event was still fresh in the hearts of the Rydal household, a dread calamity awaited them in the death of Mrs. Quillinan—the sweet Dora so often spoken of in these pages, the beloved daughter of the poet. As previously stated, she had accompanied her husband to Portugal for the benefit of her health,—and although the change seemed at first to have operated favourably upon her, it was soon evident, on her return home, that she was doomed for the silent bourne of all travellers in this world. She died on the 9th day of July, 1847, and was buried in Grasmere church-yard. Her death was a terrible blow to the venerable poet, now in his eightieth year,—but he bore up patiently, with the heart and hope of a Christian.
Three years after this sad loss, Wordsworth himself was summoned away. On Sunday, the 10th of March, 1850, he attended at Rydal chapel for the last time, visiting, during the day, a poor old woman, who had once been his servant, and another person who was sick, and as the poet said, “never complained.”
“On the afternoon of the following day, he went towards Grasmere, to meet his two nieces, who were coming from Town End. He called at the cottage near the White Moss Quarry, and the occupant being within, he sat down on the stone seat of the porch, to watch the setting sun. It was a cold, bright day. His friend and neighbour, Mr. Roughsedge, came to drink tea at Rydal, but Mr. Wordsworth not being well, went early to bed.”
From this time he gradually grew worse; and in order to convey to him the impressions of his physicians, Mrs. Wordsworth whispered in a soft voice, full of deep devotion, “Dear William, you are going to Dora.” How delicate, how affectionate, how poetical! But the poet did not hear, or did not seem to hear; and yet, twenty-four hours after, when one of his nieces came into the room, and gently drew aside the curtains of his bed, he caught a glimpse of her figure, and asked, “Is that Dora?”
On the 23rd of April—the birth-day, and death-day of Shakspeare, the great-hearted Wordsworth went back again to God.
He was buried on the 27th, in Grasmere church-yard.
Those who would know more of the poet must go to his writings; and, I may add, that the “Memoirs” of Dr. Wordsworth are indispensable to a full understanding both of the Poet and the Man. His letters, containing his most private thoughts, are printed there with plentiful profuseness; and the “Memoranda” respecting the origin of his poems are intensely interesting and important to all students of Wordsworth. The reminiscences of various persons who knew him, set the character of the poet before us in strong relief. All agree in speaking of him as a most kindly, affectionate, and hospitable man, living with the simple tastes and manners of a patriarch, in his beautiful home. My limits prevent me from entering into an analysis of his mind and character, as I had intended to do; I must reserve this work, therefore, for another occasion, and will conclude with a few quotations from the poet’s “Table-Talk,” respecting his cotemporaries.—Speaking of Goethe, he says:—
“He does not seem to me to be a great poet in either of the classes of poets. At the head of the first I would place Homer and Shakspeare, whose universal minds are able to reach every variety of thought and feeling, without bringing his own individuality before the reader. They infuse, they breathe life into every object they approach, but you cannot find themselves. At the head of the second class, those whom you can trace individually in all they write, I would place Spenser and Milton. In all that Spenser writes, you can trace the gentle, affectionate spirit of the man; in all that Milton writes, you find the exalted, sustained being that he was. Now, in what Goethe writes, who aims to be of the first class, the universal, you find the man himself, the artificial man, where he should not be found; so that I consider him a very artificial writer, aiming to be universal, and yet constantly exposing his individuality, which his character was not of a kind to dignify. He had not sufficiently clear moral perceptions to make him anything but an artificial writer.
And again:—
“I have tried to read Goethe. I never could succeed. Mr.—— refers me to his ‘Iphigenia,’ but I there recognise none of the dignified simplicity, none of the health and vigour which the heroes and heroines of antiquity possess in the writings of Homer. The lines of Lucretius describing the immolation of Iphigenia are worth the whole of Goethe’s long poem. Again there is a profligacy, an inhuman sensuality, in his works, which is utterly revolting. I am not intimately acquainted with them generally. But I take up my ground on the first canto of ‘Wilhelm Meister;’ and as the attorney-general of human nature, I there indict him for wantonly outraging the sympathies of humanity. Theologians tell us of the degraded nature of man; and they tell us what is true. Yet man is essentially a moral agent, and there is that immortal and unextinguishable yearning for something pure and spiritual which will plead against these poetical sensualists as long as man remains what he is.”
Of Scott he says:—
“As a poet, Scott cannot live, for he has never in verse written anything addressed to the immortal part of man. In making amusing stories in verse, he will be superseded by some newer versifier; what he writes in the way of natural description is merely rhyming nonsense. As a prose writer, Mr. Wordsworth admitted that Scott had touched a higher vein, because there he had really dealt with feeling and passion. As historical novels, professing to give the manners of a past time, he did not attach much value to those works of Scott’s, so called, because that he held to be an attempt in which success was impossibility. This led to some remarks on historical writing, from which it appeared that Mr. Wordsworth has small value for anything but contemporary history. He laments that Dr. Arnold should have spent so much of his time and powers in gathering up, and putting into imaginary shape, the scattered fragments of the history of Rome.”
And again:—
“He discoursed at great length on Scott’s works. His poetry he considered of that kind which will always be in demand, and that the supply will always meet it, suited to the age. He does not consider that it in any way goes below the surface of things; it does not reach to any intellectual or spiritual emotion; it is altogether superficial, and he felt it himself to be so. His descriptions are not true to nature; they are addressed to the ear, not to the mind. He was a master of bodily movements in his battle-scenes; but very little productive power was exerted in popular creations.”
Moore:—
“T. Moore has great natural genius; but he is too lavish of brilliant ornament. His poems smell of the perfumer’s and milliner’s shops. He is not content with a ring and a bracelet, but he must have rings in the ear, rings on the nose—rings everywhere.”
Shelley:—
“Shelley is one of the best artists of us all: I mean in workmanship of style.”
Tennyson:—
“I saw Tennyson, when I was in London, several times. He is decidedly the first of our living poets, and I hope will live to give the world still better things. You will be pleased to hear that he expressed in the strongest terms his gratitude to my writings. To this I was far from indifferent, though persuaded that he is not much in sympathy with what I should myself most value in my attempts—viz., the spirituality with which I have endeavoured to invest the material universe, and the moral relations under which I have wished to exhibit its most ordinary appearances.”
Hartley Coleridge—
He spoke of with affection. “There is a single line,” he added, “in one of his father’s poems, which I consider explains the after life of the son. He is speaking of his own confinement in London, and then says,—
‘But thou, my child, shalt wander like a breeze.’
“He thought highly also of some of Hartley’s sonnets.
Southey—
He said had outlived his faculties. His mind he thought had been wrecked by long watching by the sick bed of his wife, who had lingered for years in a very distressing state.
Coleridge—
He said the liveliest and truest image he could give of Coleridge’s talk was that of “a mystic river, the sound or sight of whose course you caught at intervals, which was sometimes concealed by forests, sometimes lost in sand, and then came flashing out broad and distinct; then again took a turn which your eye could not follow, yet you knew and felt that it was the same river....M Coleridge had been spoilt as a poet by going to Germany. The bent of his mind, at all times very much inclined to metaphysical theology, had there been fixed in that direction.”
Lord Byron—
“Has spoken severely of my compositions. However faulty they may be, I do not think I ever could have prevailed with myself to print such lines as he has done, for instance—
‘I stood at Venice on the Bridge of Sighs,
A palace and a prison on each hand.’
“Some person ought to write a critical review analising Lord Byron’s language, in order to guard others against imitating him in these respects.”
Emerson and Carlyle—
“Do you know Miss Peabody of Boston? She has just sent me, with the highest eulogy, certain essays of Mr. Emerson. Our—— and he appear to be what the French called esprits forts, though the French idols showed their spirit after a somewhat different fashion. Our two present Philosophes, who have taken a language which they suppose to be English, for their vehicle, are, verily, par nobile fratrum, and it is a pity that the weakness of our age has not left them exclusively to this appropriate reward—mutual admiration. Where is the thing which now passes for philosophy at Boston to stop?”
Such are a few random selections from the spoken opinions of the poet. He hated innovation, hence his attack upon the two last named authors, not made, I think, in the very best spirit. I must here leave him, however. He will stand well upon his honours in all future generations, and must certainly be ranked as a poet in the same category with Milton.
FINIS.
——————
J. S. Pratt, Stokesley, Yorkshire.
Footnotes
A These remarks do not of course apply to Cowper and Burns, to whom our modern literature is so deeply indebted, but to their predecessors, from Pope downwards.
B Memoirs of William Wordsworth, by Dr. Wordsworth, vol. 1, page 7.
C De Quincy, Tait’s Magazine, for 1839.
D It is related by De Quincy, that during Wordsworth’s early residence in the lake country—after his return from Cambridge—his mind was so oppressed by the gloomy aspect of his fortunes, that evening card-playing was resorted to, to divert him from actual despondency.
E Dr. Wordsworth’s Memoir, page 53.
F Memoir, page 71-2.
G Chambers’ Papers for the People, article Wordsworth.
H Vol. 1, page 149 to 154.
I Memoirs, Vol. 1., page 156
J Dr. Wordsworth’s “Memoirs,” vol. 2, p. 94.
K “Memoirs,” vol. 2, p. 102-105.
L Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 121.
M This view of Coleridge is confirmed by Carlyle, in his “Life of John Sterling,” just published.
“Coleridge sat on the brow of Highgate-hill, in those years, looking down on London and its smoke tumult, like a sage escaped from the inanity of life’s battle; attracting towards him the thoughts of innumerable brave souls still engaged there. His express contributions to poetry, philosophy, or any specific province of human literature or enlightenment, had been small and sadly intermittent; but he had, especially among young inquiring men, a higher than literary,—a kind of prophetic, or magician character. He was thought to hold,—he alone in England,—the key of German and other transcendentalisms; knew the sublime secret of believing by ‘the reason’ what ‘the understanding’ had been obliged to fling out as incredible; and could still, after Hume and Voltaire had done their best and worst with him, profess himself an orthodox Christian, and say and point to the Church of England, with its singular old rubrics and surplices at Allhallowtide, Esto perpetua. * * * * He distinguished himself to all that ever heard him as at least the most surprising talker extant in this world,—and to some small minority, (by no means to all,) the most excellent. The good man, he was now getting old, towards sixty perhaps,—and gave you the idea of a life that had been full of sufferings; a life heavy-laden, half-vanquished, still swimming painfully in seas of manifold physical and other bewilderment. * * * * * I still recollect his ‘object’ and ‘subject,’ terms of continual recurrence in the Kantean province; and how he sung and snuffled them into ‘om-m-mject’ ‘sum-m-mject,’ with a kind of solemn shake or quaver, as he rolled along. No talk, in his century or in any other, could be more surprising.
* * * * *
“He had knowledge about many things and topics,—much curious reading; but generally all topics led him, after a pass or two, into the high seas of theosophic philosophy, the hazy infinitude of Kantean transcendentalism, with its ‘sum-m-mjects’ and ‘om m-mjects.’ Sad enough, for with such indolent impatience of the claims and ignorances of others, he had not the least talent for explaining this or anything unknown to them; and you swam and fluttered in the mistiest, wide, unintelligible deluge of things,—for most part in a rather profitless, uncomfortable manner. Glorious islets, too, I have seen rise out of the haze; but they were few, and soon swallowed in the general element again. * * * * * * One right peal of concrete laughter at some convicted flesh-and-blood absurdity, one burst of noble indignation at some injustice or depravity rubbing elbows with us on this solid earth,—how strange would it have been in that Kantean haze-world, and how infinitely cheering amid its vacant air-castles, and dim-melting ghosts and shadows! None such ever came. His life had been an abstract thinking and dreaming, idealistic one, passed amid the ghosts of defunct bodies and of unborn ones. The mourning sing-song of that theosophico-metaphysical monotony left on you, at last, a very dreary feeling.”