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Knight, William Angus, 1836–1916, ed. * *
Wordsworthiana: a selection from papers read to the
Wordsworth society; edited by William Knight. London
and New York, Macmillan & co., 1889.
xxiv, 352 p. front. (port.) 19% cm. - . . .
CoNT1, NTS.–The Platonism of Wordsworth, by J. H. Shorthouse.--
Wordsworth's modernisation of Chaucer, by E, Dowden.—The por-
traits of Wordsworth, by W. Knight.—The earlier and later styles Of
Wordsworth, by R. H. Hutton.—Reminiscences of Wordsworth
amongst the peasantry of Westmorland, by H. D. Rawnsley.—Presi-
dent's address, 1883, by M. Arnold.—Wordsworth's "Guide to the
lakes,' by S. 13rooke-The personal character of Wordsworth's poetry,
by A. I.)e Vere.--Wordsworth's position as an ethical teacher, by the
I jean of Salisbury.— President's address, 1884, by J. R. Lowell,—The
(("ontinued on next Card)
A 38—611
150g 1
Knight, William Angus, 1836–1916, ed. Wordsworthiana.
.., 1889. (Card 2) -
CoNtENTs—Continued.
poetic Interpretation of nature, by IR. Noel.—Wordsworth's relations
to science, by R. S. Watson.—Wordsworth's treatment of sound, by
W. A. Heard.—Wordsworth and Charles Lamb, by A. Ainger.—Presi-
dent's address, 1885, by Lord Houghton.—Wordsworth and Turner, by
II. Goodwin.-I’resident's address, 1886, by Lord Selborne.—The
theism of Wordsworth, by J. Veitch.--The poets who helped to formil
Wordsworth's style, by A. Ainger.—Speech by Aubrey De Vere.
l’reface Contains the constitution of, and historical notes on the
Wordsworth society. *
1. Wordsworth, William, 1770–1850, 2. Wordsworth, William,
1770–1850—I’ortraits. I, Wordsworth society. II. Title. -
A 38—611
I Henry E. Huntington Library PR5870
for Library of Congress 1599.1 -
WORDSWORTHIANA,
WORDSWORTHIANA
A s E L E cºt I o N
From PAPERS read to
T H E wordswort H soci ETY
EDITED By ,
4n. *
KNIGHT
WILLIAM,
£0 m bott
MACMILLAN & Co.
AND NEW YORK,
Azize.” 9
22

º
WILLIAM WORIDSWORTH,
From the Statue by Tito MAs Wool.NER, R.A.

PREFACE.
“THE WORDsworth SocIETY" was founded at
Grasmere on the 29th September 1880,
The original idea, which sprang up amongst a
few friends in 1879, was to form a small and semi-
private Club, consisting of one or two families, who
wished to become more familiar with ‘the English
Lake District as Interpreted in the Poems of Words-
worth’; and it arose partly out of the publication
of a little book bearing the above title. The inten-
tion was that an annual excursion should be made
to the English Lakes, with the view of carrying on
and completing the work begun in that volume, As
soon as the scheme took definite shape, however, it
was found that so many persons wished to join in it,
that the idea of a private Club was abandoned, and
a more public Society took its place.
After various suggestions had been made, and
arrangements discussed, a meeting was held at
Grasmere, in the late autumn of 1880, at which the
following Constitution was adopted :— -
‘I. That a Society, to be called “THE WORDS-
worTH SocIETY,” be formed, for the following
vi * PREFACE.
purposes, viz.: (1) As a bond of union amongst those
who are in sympathy with the general teaching and
spirit of Wordsworth, (2) To promote and extend
the study of his Poems—in particular, to carry on
the literary work which remains to be done in
connection with the Text and Chronology of the
Poems, and the local allusions which they contain.
(3) To collect for preservation and, if thought
desirable, for publication, Original Letters and un-
published Reminiscences of the Poet. (4) To prepare
a Record of Opinions, with reference to Wordsworth,
from 1793 to the present time, and to investigate
any points connected with the first appearance of
his works.
‘II. That the officials of the Society be an Honorary
President, Secretary, and Treasurer, with an Execu-
tive Committee; and that an Annual Meeting of the
Society be held, at a place, and date, to be fixed by
the Committee, 3. - -
‘III. That it be in the power of any member to
transmit communications, bearing upon the work of
the Society, to the Honorary Secretary, to be read
and considered at the Annual Meeting.’ -
The Right Rev. the Bishop of St. Andrews was
elected President for the year 1880, Professor Knight,
St. Andrews, was elected Secretary, and G. Wilson,
Esq., Murrayfield House, Midlothian, Treasurer.
The Society existed for seven years, from 1880 to
PREFACE. g vii
1886. The annual meetings were held, for the first
two years, at Grasmere; and subsequently, for the
convenience of the majority of members, in London.
A volume containing the Transactions of the Society
was drawn up by the Secretary, privately printed
each year, and issued to the members. It included a
report of the meeting, the papers read, and others
which had been sent to the Secretary but had not
been read, as well as several that had been pre-
pared for publication only. As the membership
increased, however,-and beginning with half-a-
dozen enthusiasts, the Society in 1886 included
344 members, those who had subsequently joined
wished to possess copics of the earlier publi-
cations; and, as only a limited number had been
printed, the Transactions of some of the earlier
years were exhausted long before the Society ceased
to exist. Numbers I., IV., and VI. of the Transac-
tions, e.g. are wholly out of print, while many copics
of Numbers V., VII., and VIII, still remain. It has
been thought desirable, therefore, to meet the demand
for copies of the Transactions—which exists both
amongst the former members of the Society and
the general public-—to issue a new volume, contain-
ing a Selection from the Papers read. -
It has been a somewhat difficult, task to select
from these papers, but those I have omitted are
chiefly those prepared by myself, such as the Biblio-
viii - PREFACE,
graphy, and the Chronological Table of the Poems,
the Rydal Mount library catalogue, and the letters
from Wordsworth, his wife, and sister, to various
correspondents. All the important papers, critical
or expository, which were read to the Society, have
been republished in this volume, which, for want of
a simpler title, I have called Wordsworthiana. They
are printed in the order in which they were written.
A brief account of the several meetings of the
Society, and of its Transactions, may conclude this
short prefatory note. . -
At the second annual meeting, held at Grasmere,
on the 20th July 1881, the recommendations of the
Committee, which were to the following effect, were
adopted : (1) That the Society should issue a full
Bibliography of the Poems of Wordsworth, published
during his lifetime, with illustrative notes. This
Bibliography to form No. I. of the Society's publica-
tions. (2) That an engraving, or etching, of one of
the portraits of Wordsworth should be issued. (3)
That the members should be requested to send to
the Secretary any information they may possess, first,
as to the Letters of Wordsworth—whether in MS, or
published—stating where they are to be found ; and
second, as to critical notices of the poems which may
not be easily accessible, so as to form the materials
for a Bibliography of Criticism, to be subsequently
issued by the Society. t e
| PREFACE. is
Twelve short papers, written by members of the
Society and others, in this country and America,
were read by the Secretary at this meeting. They
included ‘Wordsworth on Don Quixote, by A. J.
Duffield; “The Platonism of Wordsworth,' by J.
Henry Shorthouse ; an article on Wordsworth's
Tyrolese Sonnets, by Alois Brandl ; Wordsworth's
petition to Parliament on the law of Copyright; and
six unpublished poems, in MS., or privately printed,
by Wordsworth and his sister. It was resolved by
the Society to erect a memorial stone at the parting-
place of the brothers John and William Wordsworth,
at Grisedale Tarn, inscribing on it the last stanza
of the Eſegiac Verses by the Poet. This was carried
out during the following year. Lord Coleridge was
elected at this meeting as President for the year 1881 ;
as also the Executive Council, which was to consist
of the President of the Society, the Honorary Secre-
tary, and the Treasurer, and the following members :
the Bishop of St. Andrews; Lord Houghton; Mr.
Robert Browning ; the Principal of Brasenose Col-
lege, Oxford ; the Very Rev. The Dean of Salisbury;
Professor Campbell Fraser, Edinburgh; Professor
Edward Dowden, Dublin ; Professor Edward Caird,
Glasgow; The Rev. Stopford Brooke, London; Mr.
Richard Holt Hutton, London; and Mr. R. Spence
Watson, Newcastle-on-Tyne, -
In 1883, the Rev. Alfred Ainger, The Temple
x - PREFACE.
Church ; the Rev. H. D. Rawnsley, Keswick; and
Mr. Heard, Fettes College, were added to the Com-
mittee. - - -
No, I. of the Transactions—issued shortly after
this meeting—contained the Bibliography of the
Poems referred to.
The third meeting of the Society was held in the
Freemasons' Tavern, London, on the 3d of May
1882. The Chair was taken, first by Mr. Robert
Browning, and afterwards by Lord Coleridge, the
President for the year. Papers were read from
Professor Dowden on ‘Wordsworth's Modernisations
of Chaucer, by Mr. Hutton on ‘The Earlier and Later
Styles of Wordsworth,’ by the Secretary on ‘The
Portraits of Wordsworth,’ and by Mr. Rawnsley on
‘The Reminiscences of Wordsworth amongst the
Peasantry of Westmoreland.” Of two papers by
Mrs. Owen of Cheltenham, one on “Wordsworth's
View of Death,’ the other on ‘The Seeming Triviality
of some of Wordsworth's Subjects,' the former was
read, and both were published in the Transac-
tions, along with a paper by Mr. Hutchinson of
Kimbolton on ‘The Structure of the Wordsworth
Sonnet.' sº
Nos. II, and III. of the Transactions contain most of
the above papers, and others, including a letter from
Professor Bonamy Price, on the Ode on Immortality.
No. IV. of the Transactions contained five portraits
PREFA CE, xi
of Wordsworth, reproduced by photography, along
with a letterpress description of them.
The fourth annual meeting was held in the
College Hall at Westminster, on the 2d of May
1883. Mr. Matthew Arnold was President, and
addressed the Society. The Secretary read a paper
by Mr. Aubrey de Vere, on ‘The Personal Character
of Wordsworth's Poetry’; Mr. Stopford Brooke read
one, on “Wordsworth's Guide to the Lakes’; and the
Dean of Salisbury read another on “Wordsworth's
Position as an Ethical Teacher.” In a fourth, Mr.
Rawnsley explained the nature of a proposed per-
manent Lake District Defence Society. In addition
to those papers, which are published in No. V. of the
Society's Transactions,—that volume contains some
‘Notes on the Localities of the Duddon Sonnets,’
by Mr. Herbert Rix; a letter from Mr. F. C. Yarmall
on “Wordsworth's Inſluence in America’ ; a ‘Biblio-
graphy of Review and Magazine Articles on Words-
worth,’ by W. F. Poole of Chicago; an account of
a Mountain Ramble by the Poet and his Sister in
1807, written by Dorothy Wordsworth ; letters from
Sara Coleridge, Lamb, and Emerson on Words-
worth ; a Poem by Whittier upon him ; and a ‘Local
Note on Hart Leap Well, by Mr. Hutchinson of
Kimbolton. r * -
The fifth annual meeting was held in the Library
at Lambeth Palace, on the 10th of May 1884, the
xii PREFACE.
American Minister, Mr. J. Russell Lowell, in the
Chair, who delivered an address as President. After
the Archbishop of Canterbury had moved a vote of
thanks to the President, the Honourable Roden
Noel read a paper on ‘The Poetic Interpretation of
Nature’; Mr. Heard read one on “Wordsworth's
Treatment of Sound'; Mr. R. Spence Watson on
“Wordsworth's Relations to Science’; and the Rev.
Alfred Ainger on “Wordsworth and Charles Lamb.'
The Secretary also read some unpublished Letters
of Wordsworth to Walter Savage Landor.
No. VI. of the Transactions includes, along with
these papers and addresses, a series of sixteen
Letters from Wordsworth to John Kenyon, and the
Rydal Mount Library sale-catalogue.
The sixth annual meeting was held on the 8th
of July 1885, at the residence of Lord Houghton,
who delivered an address as President for the year.
Some portions of the unpublished canto of The
Acc/use were then read by the Secretary, and a paper
by Mr. Harry Goodwin on ‘Wordsworth and Turner';
after which Mr. James Bryce, M.P., Mr. R. H.
Hutton, and others, spoke. Along with a Report of
this meeting, and the papers read, No. VII. of the
Transactions contains a revised Chronological Table
of the Poems of Wordsworth, and a new Biblio-
graphy, -
The final meeting of the Society was held in the
PREAACE, - xiii
Jerusalem Chamber, Westminster Abbey, on the
9th July 1886, Lord Selborne presiding. An
address from the President was followed by a paper
from Professor Veitch on ‘The Theism of Words.
worth, one from Mr. Ainger on ‘The Poets who
helped to form Wordsworth's Style, one from Mr.
Rawnsley on ‘The Humanity of Wordsworth, and
a speech from Mr. Aubrey de Vere. No. VIII.-the
final number of the Transactions—contains, in addition
to these papers, the Letters of Wordsworth, his wife -
and sister to Henry Crabb Robinson, and a letter
from the Honorary Treasurer to the Secretary of the
Society. f - -
Reports of the annual meetings of the Society were
printed in the newspapers of the day, and need not
be republished. An account of the first meeting,
however, given in the Spectator of October 16, 1880,
may be reproduced in part, as it contained the only
report of the remarks of the first President of the
Society — -
“A singularly interesting meeting took place in the Rothay
Hotel, Grasmere, on the afternoon of Wednesday, September .
29th, to inagurate the Wordsworth Society, the Bishop of
St. Andrews presiding. Bishop Wordsworth said:—“Our
assemblage here to-day represents a company spread, I may
venture to say, almost throughout the civili jed, world ; and
embracing, as it does, several very notable Wordsworthians,
is amply sufficient for the purpose which has brought us
xiv PREFACE,
together. That purpose, as I understand it, is to plant a -
sapling, which shall grow into a great tree, in honour of the
poet's memory, and which shall enable future generations
of his admirers—sitting, as it were, under its branches—to
understand his works more thoroughly, and to study them
with greater pleasure, like the yew-trees which he himself
planted in the neighbouring churchyard, and which are now
flourishing over his grave. With such an object before us,
the occasion is one for action rather than much speech; and,
in order that we may proceed to action with the least delay,
and with the best effect, I shall presently call upon our Secre-
tary, Professor Knight—who, as the originator of the move- -
ment, is most competent to do it justice—to explain to us
what his ideas and wishes are concerning it. Indeed, I feel that
I should be guilty of something like an act of petty larceny,
and should be putting my sickle into my neighbour's corn,
if I were to attempt to forestall the remarks which he will
make, with far greater propriety. I shall therefore only add
one word to express the satisfaction which I feel in observ-
ing that, among the company here present, there is a happy
mixture of pilgrims from both sides of the Border, English
and Scotch, reminding us of the time when Walter Scott and
William Wordsworth mounted up Helvellyn together; and
reminding me more particularly of the occasion when I
had the honour of accompanying my uncle to Abbotsford,
on the memorable visit which he paid to Sir Walter in 1831,
just as he was on the point of setting out for Italy,–an
occasion which produced “Yarrow Revisited,’ and also the
well-known sonnet, first murmured by the poet while I was *
PREAACE. . . . XV
walking by his side, in the following week, on the banks of
Loch Katrine.” * .
‘Professor Knight said thestoryof the origin of theproposed .
Society was very easily told. Some time ago it occurred to
one or two friends that there was some work still to be
done in reference to Wordsworth, both with a view to the
minute and systematic study of his text, and also to the pre-
servation of any memorials of the poet which were of a perish-
able character, and which, if not soon rescued from oblivion,
might be lost to posterity. Although a very great deal had
been done by critics and editors, there were many points that
remained for elucidation ; and it occurred to those friends
that this might be done more effectively by the co-operation
of several associated together than by solitary labour. It
seemed to them that in the case of all the greater poets, a
time came when this work had to be done ; and that it was
specially needed in the case of one whose poetry was so in-
timately associated with locality. Then there was the ques-
tion of the chronological order of the poems, which it is not
always easy to determine; and also the question of the best
text as all students of Wordsworth are aware that he altered
his text probably more than any other English poet. Well, a
few friends had agreed to form a private, or semi-private Club
for these purposes; and they originally conjoined with it
the idea of an annual meeting in this Lake District of Eng-
land, which is so peculiarly identified with the poet. Some
of the original members, however, suggested their friends as
associates; while others, hearing of the proposed Club,
wished to be admitted to it. It was thus very soon evident
xyi PREFACE.
that if a Club was to be formed, it could not be a private
s one ; and it then seemed to some of its promoters that
it would be well to make it as wide and representative as
possible. d -
“The names of those who had joined the Society were
then read, including Lord and Lady Selborne, Lord Cole-
ridge, Robert Browning, James Russell Lowell, Leslie
Stephen, Stopford Brooke, Lady Richardson, the Principal
of Brasenose College Oxford, the Dean of Salisbury, John
Ruskin, Edward Dowden, Aubrey de Vere, R. H. Hutton,
Alfred Hunt, Mrs. Augusta Webster, Mrs. Emily Pfeiffer, the
Bishops of Lincoln and St. Andrews, Professor Campbell
Fraser, Professor Edward Caird, Professor Nichol, Professor
Carpenter, J. M*Whirter, H. O. Holiday, F. J. Furnivall,
William Wordsworth (Eton), William Wordsworth (Bombay),
R. Spence Watson, George Wilson, J. Hutchinson, J. P.
Graves, etc. -
‘Before mentioning the definite work which the Society
might undertake, Professor Knight stated that he had an un-
published MS, poem of Wordsworth's, and two poems of his
sister Dorothy; but that after conference with their Presi.
dent, the Bishop of St. Andrews, he had thought it more expe-
dient not to bring these before the present meeting, which
was mainly a business one. Referring to the work which the
Society might undertake, there was, first, the systematic and
detailed study of the poems, to which the younger members
might devote themselves, with a view to determine certain
critical points which remain unfixed. For example, there
were many interesting questions in reference to the origin
PRERACE, xvii
of the poems, which he illustrated by quoting the very
sentence in Wilkinson's “Tours to the British Mountains”
on which the poem of “The Solitary Reaper” was
founded. Then, he thought that a valuable bit of work
might be done in collecting a history of opinion with
reference to Wordsworth, from the year 1793 to the
present time, showing its fluctuations, etc. There were
many essays and notices of the poet scattered in obscure
corners, which might be lost to posterity, and which, if
collected together, would form a most interesting literary
record.
“He had just read, for example, an admirable criticism
by Mrs. Browning, who made up for the omission of Words-
worth from her Visions of foets, by one of the finest and
most appreciative notices of him elsewhere, More than one
correspondent had referred to this as work needing to be
done, in particular Professor Dowden, of Trinity College,
Dublin, who also urged the publication, by the Society, of
all such writings of Wordsworth (poems, letters, etc.) as
still remain in MS., and may be deemed suitable for publica-
tion. The letters scattered through various books might be
brought together, or at least an index of them made, in
chronological order, stating where each letter may be found.
Then, it had been suggested that a short monograph might be
written on the portraits of Wordsworth, and a portrait en-
graved for the members of the Society. It had also been
proposed that the Society might, by-and-by, issue a selection
of Wordsworth's poems bearing upon the Lake District of
England, which, without note or comment, would be of
b
xviii PREFACA,
great value. Membership of the Society was not to be re-
garded as implying literary partisanship. He himself refused
to be called a Wordsworthian, if that implied that he belonged
to a literary party, or was the enrolled disciple of any literary
school, One of his friends and correspondents—himself a
distinguished writer on Wordsworth—had not joined the -
Society, because he thought it might imply partisanship,
Now, there were many members of this Society who felt the
truth of what the hostile critics say of Wordsworth, that
he lacks humour, and that he has no passion, at least of the
tumultuous kind, that his constructive power is feeble,
etc.; but then, they feel that no poet gives us everything,
and that all these defects in Wordsworth are compensated
for by his great meditative depth, and by that feature
which he alone amongst poets possessed in a super-eminent
degree, viz., his power of teaching us, when the tumult of
passion had passed, by insight into the symbolism of Nature
—an imaginative and rational insight—which connects his
poetry in so remarkable a manner, at once with the genius
of Plato, and with the latest and most elevated philosophy
of Europe. - - r
‘Extracts from several letters were then read giving
suggestions as to the work of the Society, in particular
from Mr. Ruskin and Mr. Dowden. After making his
suggestions, Professor Dowden said, “There is a real work
to do, and a sufficient work, Minor things may be done by
the way, as they arise, My conception of the Club, as
existing to do a definite piece of work, involves the idea of
its ceasing to exist when that work is done. I should not
PREFACE. xix
like the Club to languish, or to seek a factitious ground of
existence in the curiosities of a scholarship which has
exhausted all that is real and living. Wordsworth's poetry
goes furthest, like a voice among his own mountains, in
quiet and solitude. When the purpose of the Club has
been achieved, all external hindrances will have been
removed from the way of Wordsworth's influence; all
natural aids will have been aſſorded to it, and his poetry
may be left to do its own work, side by side with that of
other great writers, in a silent, spiritual way, like that of
light; in an untrammelled, invisible way, like that of the
winds, blowing where they list.” -
‘The Resolutions 1 were then proposed for consideration
by the meeting.
‘The Principal of Brasenose College, Oxford (Dr.
Cradock), entirely concurred with Professor Knight's pro-
gramme. The prejudice against Wordsworth, which was
once so general, was largely diminished, but not abolished,
and the Society would do good work by making Words-
worth even more widely known. Some years ago, in a
large public school, there were not three boys who knew a
line of Wordsworth beyond those which are quoted in
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. He felt that Words.
worth could not be properly appreciated without some
knowledge of the Lake Country. He proposed that the
resolutions should be adopted, in the form in which they
had been submitted. This was agreed to unanimously,
The Bishop of St. Andrews was elected President, Professor
* As printed at pp. v. vi.
xx AA’AºA.-1 CE,
Knight, Secretary, and Mr. George Wilson, Murrayfield
House, Midlothian, Treasurer.' ' -
I may add three things–First, that complete
copies of Nos. II., III, V, VII, and VIII. of the
Transactions can still be obtained by those who
wish them—Second, that many of the papers in the
present volume are considerably altered and en-
larged ; the cssay on the Portraits of the poet has
been rewritten, and important changes and addi-
tions have becn made in others; so that, while this
volume of Wordsworthiana is in one sense the publica-
tion of what has hitherto been issued privately, it is
also to a certain extent a new contribution to the
literature of the subject—7%ird, that many unpub-
lished fragments and memoranda relating to Words-
worth still exist, which I have not becn able to make
use of in the three Volumes of his Life, which will
soon appear, and which—had the Wordsworth Society
continued to exist—I would have placed in sub-
sequent volumes of its Transactions Should this
volume awaken any general intercst, these may be
collected and issued in a subscquent one, -
Since the paper on the portraits of Wordsworth
was printed off, I have scen a design by Mr. Woolner,
for a scated statue and part of a monument, pre-
pared by him in 1852, when the Wordsworth
memorial was placed in the Baptistery at West-
minster Abbey. As the design was not selected, the
AREFA CE, xxi
work was never executed. It is, however, extremely
interesting, and by the kind permission of Mr.
Woolner is reproduced in this volume. Within the
last few weeks I have also seen a miniature in oil of
Mrs. Wordsworth by Miss Gillies, which has great
interest. It was taken in Mrs. Wordsworth's old
age, and is now in the possession of Mrs. Charles
Lewis, Cambridge Terrace, London.
I should add that Mrs. William Wordsworth, the
poet's daughter-in-law—referred to frequently in the
course of this paper—has passed away since it was
written ; and that the portraits mentioned as belonging
to her are still at ‘The Stepping Stones,' Ambleside,
but are now the property of her family.
WILLIAM KNIGHT,
Tiff, UNIVERSITY, ST. ANDREWs,
Pecember 1888.
CONTENTs.
THE PLATONISM of WoRDsworth, , .
By J. HENRY SHORTHouse,
WoRDsworth's MoDERNISATION OF CHAUCER,
. By EDWARD Dowd'EN. . .
THE PORTRAITS OF WORDSworTH, . . • . . . .
By WILLIAM KNIGHT.
THE EARLIER AND LATER STYLES OF Wordsworth,
By Riciſ ARD II, IIUTTON. . . .
REM.INISCENCES OF WORDSWORTH AMONGST THE
PEASANTRY OF WESTMORELAND, .
By H. D. RAWNSLEY.
PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS, 1883, .. º e
Iły MATTHEW ARNOLD.
WoRDSWORTH’s ‘GUIDE TO THE LAKES, º º
By STOPFORD BROOKE,
THE PERSONAL CHARACTER or WoRDsworth's
POETRY, & th º & º •
By AUBREY DE VERE. -
WORDSWORTH's POSITION AS AN ETHICAL TEACHER,
By THE DEAN OF SALISBURY.
PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS, 1884, º
By J. RUSSELL LOWELL,
6 I
79
I2 I
I 43
I 55
163
xxiv cowz'Ex7s.
THE POETIC INTERPRETATION OF NATURE, , §
By The Hon. Roden Noel. sº
WoRDsworth's RELATIONS To SCIENCE, . ſº
By R. SPENCE WATson.
WoRDSworTH's TREATMENT OF SOUND, g
By W. A. IIEARD,
WORDSWORTH AND CHARLES LAMB,
By ALFRED A.INGER.
PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS, 1885, .
I3y LORD Iſou GHITON.
WoRDsworth AND TURNER,
By HARRY GOODWIN.
PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS, 1886, e
By Lord SELBORNE.
THE THEISM OF WORDSWORTH,
By JOHN VEITCH.
THE POETS WHO HELPED TO FORM
STYLE, . Ҽ . g
13y ALFRED A.INGER,
SPEECH BY AUBREY DE VERE, ,
INDEx, g e †
WORDSWORTH'S
PAGE
I79
199
335
343
THE PLATONISM OF worDSworTH.
By J. H. SHORTHOUSE.
THE PLATONISM OF worDsworth.
[The reader will perceive that no allusion is made in this Essay to
the general religious opinions of the Poet. The writer has simply
attempted to trace certain lines of thought which seem to him to exist
in Wordsworth's philosophic poetry.] -
To write of Wordsworth would seem futile, Wordsworth
is himself; to paraphrase or parody his words or characters
is unspeakably painful; nay more, it is useless, it will convey
no adequate idea to the man who is ignorant of Words-
worth's poetry. It is the perfection of certain passages
which induces the wish to call attention to them, but this
perfection leaves nothing to be desired or added ; nor can
any want of variety be pleaded as an excuse for using any
words other than the poet's own. The stage is crowded
already. Think of the press of fairy folk who throng upon
your memory as you turn over his pages in your recollection
—the miller and his maids on their island platform in the
river—that strange woman and her no less weird mate be-
neath the tower of Jedburgh—the stealthy mystic form of
the leech-gatherer—the stately march of figures which fill
the pathways of The White Doe—the valleys and hill-slopes
gay with blithe or hallowed with solemn figures which delight
our fancy in the pages of The Excursion—the churchyard
where the brother sleeps—the mountain sheepfold where
1 Read to the Society, July 1881.
4 . WoRDSworzy/AAA.
Michael toiled and sorrowed—the foot-plank which bore the
last impress of Lucy's feet—the dusty highway along which
the Cumberland beggar moved, and will move now for ever
—the ghastly fellowship that haunted the prosaic everyday
walks of the travelling potter, Peter Bell—Matthew, the
schoolmaster, and his mysteriously provoking witty rhymes
—Simon Lee—old childless Timothy and the hunt, and that
exquisite apologue which genius heard even in the chance
echo of the cuckoo's cry— -
unsolicited reply
To a babbling wanderer sent.
Wordsworth was a leader of men in the truest sense. On
his guidance the jaded and perplexed intellect may safely .
depend ; he possessed a power of cheerful calm, clear as
the dawn and unvarying as the stars.
That, when time brings on decay,
Now and then may I possess
IIours of perfect gladsomeness;
Keep the sprightly soul awake,
And have ſaculties to take
Even from things by sorrow wrought,
Matter for a jocund thought ;
Spite of care and spite of grief
To gambol with life's falling leaf.
It is the spirit of Paradise,
a spirit strong,
That gives to all the selſsame bent
Where life is wise and innocent. ”
It may be that there are lines of thought which the Poet
merely indicated, but which it is possible to trace out more
1 The Åiſten and Falling Leaves, p. 130, Ed. 1849.
* P, 121, lºd, 1849.
7//E PLA TONISA/ OF WORD.S WORTH, 5
clearly, and to follow further on, not only to our own delight
and advantage, but also to the appreciation of the poet,
. It has been suggested that one of these lines of thought
is the similarity of Wordsworth's teaching to that of Plato.
I have said the similarity of Wordsworth to Plato, because
it is not asserted that Wordsworth consciously Platonised ;
on the contrary, it is not likely that he ever read the
Dia/ogues. It is not impossible that Coleridge may have
talked to him upon the matter. We know he discoursed at
length to him upon Spinoza, and Mr. Frederick Pollock
fancies that he can trace the effect of those conversations
in the Poet's work.
I should suppose that any ordinarily educated man would,
if asked, describe Wordsworth as a poet of nature, and
he has with the utmost emphasis described himself as a
“worshipper of nature;’ nevertheless it would seem that
Wordsworth is essentially the poet of Aſan. He is in fact
less of a poet than of a Seer. It is man whom he chiefly
busies himself about. It is the emotions and thoughts of
men which fill his thoughts. Nature is the type of per-
manence and reality, man is transient and ever changing;
nevertheless nature is ever subservient to man. Seen by
man's intellect inanimate nature becomes ‘an ebbing and a
ſlowing mind.” It is intellect projected upon the bleak
side of some tall peak ‘familiar with forgotten years,” that
gave to it its ‘visionary character.” It was the transitory
nature of the being that stood upon its bank that gave to the
flowing stream its lesson of ‘life continuous—being unim-
pair'd.” By these forms of nature, ‘in the relation which
| The /*a-cursion : “The Wanderer," p. 447, I'd. 18.19.
* P, 4.49. * 'l)espondency Corrected,' 1), 182,
6
WORDSWORTHIAMA.
they bear to man,” are evoked ‘the spiritual presences of
absent things, convoked by knowledge.” -
Amid the groves, beneath the shadowy hills
The generations are prepared.” -
Their manners, their enjoyments and pursuits,
Their passions, and their ſeelings ; chiefly those
Essential and eternal in the heart."
But though man consecrates nature, nature elevates
man—man and nature act and re-act. That glorious uni-
verse, the intelligent succession of conditioned existence,
has
meanings which it brought
From years of youth. Which like a Being made
Of many Beings, it has wondrous skill -
To blend with knowledge of the years to come ;"
and thus to lure mankind from a superstitious Manichaeism
into a state of abiding and gracious calm, in which he is at
last able to recognise the eternal unity which pervades all
things, the synthesis of thought and matter, the clear dawn-
ing of the perfect intellectual day.
'Tis Nature's law
That none, the meanest of created things,
Of ſorms created the most vile and brute,
The dullest or most noxious, should exist
Divorced from good—a spirit and pulse of good,
A life and soul, to every mode of being
Inseparably link'd."
' ' Despondency Corrected,’ p. 487. 3 Idem, 1st Edition.
* The Afa-cursion : “The Churchyard," p. 504, I'd. 1849.
* /dem : “The Wanderer," p. 449, Ed, 1849.
" /dem : ''The Wanderer,' p, 450, I'd. 1849.
" The Old Cumberland. Heggar, p. 425, Ed. 1849.
THE PLA 7'0NISM of WoRDSWORTH, 7
If this is the nature of Wordsworth's poetry, what is the
result? He has himself told us that he did not intend to
found a system; but the effect produced by his teaching is
a sacred peace, in the presence of pure and absolute Being.
The petty troubles of existence vanish before the passionless
face of nature, and in the presence of invariable Law an
entrance is won into the kingdom of the pure Intellect,
by mystery and hope,
And the first virgin passion of a soul
Communing with the glorious universe."
- Immutably survive,
For our support, the measures and the forms,
Which an abstract intelligence supplies;
Whose kingdom is, where time and space are not.”
Now let us turn for a moment to the banks of the Ilissus
and we shall find something of the same character.
Standing under the shady plane-trees, which have long
since vanished, groups of earnest-looking young men are
discussing those themes which, as the years roll on, genera-
tion after generation will discuss ; ; while among them a
queer-looking little man whom all reverence, and make way
for, and listen to, walks about asking questions, and showing
each one of them, to his own satisfaction, how great a fool
he is. Plato's dialogues, just as much as Wordsworth's
poems, form a volume of Philosophical Romance. For his
groundwork he seized upon a wonderful and unique man.
His philosophy is based upon the story of a life and death,
his pages are crowded with men; without the aid of narra-
tive he can create character; but story is not wanting,
7%e ſºrcºrsion : ‘The Wanderer," p. 449, Ed. 1849.
* /dem : " Despondency Corrected," p. 476, Ed. 1849,
8 WORDSWOR7H1AAA, .
Anecdote and incident, apologue and poetry enliven the
page. The trials, the difficulties, the follies and aims of
men are his theme. Nor does he stop here, his philosophy
(transcendental, as it has been called) is human, his ideas
are those of earth. Unlike Aristotle and the Schoolmen,
he does not occupy himself with Existence, Substance,
Attribute, Essence, Eternity, but with matters of every-
day life; in the first place destroying false and pedantic
notions, and then basing his idealism upon recognised facts,
such as love, hatred, strength, and even horses, dogs, and
mud.
Let us endeavour to trace this likeness still more clearly
by two examples before we attempt to realise the meta-
physic result, and the particular mode in which it forced
itself on the Poet's imagination and by which he is still
enabled to communicate it to us.
He speaks of
another gift
Of aspect more sublime ; that blessed mood
In which the burden of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world
Is lighten'd : that screne and blessèd mood
In which the affections gently lead us on
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame,
And even the motions of our human blood,
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul; -
While, with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony and the deep power of joy
We see into the life of things." -
1 Tintern Abbey, p. 160, Ed. 1849,
7//E PLATONISAſ of wordsworth. 9
Such an exträct as this has said everything that need
be said on the subject, . It covers' all possible ground.
Let us remain silent, and turn to the other master:
And what think you would happen were it given
to any one to behold beauty itself, clear as the light, pure
and undefiled, not daubed with human colouring, nor pol-
luted with human ſleshliness, and other kinds of mortal
trash ; so that, in its singleness of form, he were able to
see the beautiful and the godlike in one. Think you that
the life of a man would be of little account if he look
thitherward (without fear) and has such fellowship as this?
Do you not see that to him alone will power be given
(who alone has the power to behold the beautiful) to be-
get, not the deceitful show of virtue, as not being tempted
by deceitſul shows, but the truth itself as one who em.
braces a reality —and so begetting virtue (as a lovely
daughter) and bringing her up, it will happen to him to
be God-beloved, and, if any man can be, immortal.”
Apart from all the distracting terminology of metaphysic,
then, the meaning of the English poet and the Greek philo-
sopher seems to be this: The forces of life, which we call
intellectual, may be actually of similar birth with the physi-
cal, but phenomenally they stand out in clear distinction.
Love, self-sacrifice, and self-denial, courage, and the other
virtues are so far immaterial at least that they are inde-
structible, invisible, invariable, in action, unregulated by the
laws which attach to matter. So long as the race endures
they are eternal, But a difficulty seems to present itself at
the outset. Love and self-denial, courage and the rest, are
all that you state them to be, but so are hatred, revenge,
fear, and the like. Will, then, the eternal world of Pure
Intellect, which an abstract intelligence has peopled, prove
* Plato, Sy//osium, XXIX. E. Ed. Stallbaum.
io WOAC/DSWORTHAM.4.
nothing more than a repetition of this?—with all its unin-
telligible gloom, its perplexities, its cruelties, its Sphinx-
riddles which lead to despair and death P . . .
To grapple with this difficulty Plato fell back upon what
may be called a principle of excellence, which rules the for-
mation and government of all animate and inanimate things.
What this principle was he was often at a loss to decide,
but he appealed boldly to the experience of his hearers to
acknowledge that there was such a principle, and to pro-
nounce upon the success or failure of any Work or Being in
proportion as it adheres to or departs from it. This being
so, it follows that all temporary, accidental, and unsuitable
adjuncts being eliminated, nothing but the pure idea of the
perfect object will exist in the intellect; so that to the
perfectly instructed man there would be no such thing as
evil or bad workmanship in the world. Indeed this is really
the case in the pure intellect, in which alone all things
exist (all things, that is, in their perfect form), and which
is God, -
The general truth of this, I think, will not be denied.
The latest efforts of modern speculation have declared that
the world of thought, and that alone, is subjective and ob-
jective at once, and that all conceivable attributes turn out
to be objective aspects of thought itself. “The ultimate
elements of thought are not merely correlated with the
ultimate elements of things: they are the elements of things
themselves.'" - -
Nor is Platonism antagonistic to any older or later form
of philosophic thought. You may make matter as etcrual
as you like. . You may deny the argument of design, and
conclude that no evidence exists of a Creator, beneficent or
! l'ide Mr. Fred, Pollock's S////o3.it, pp. 17.6-9.
7//E PLA 7 ov/s/ly of Wowz)sivox. 7A, II
otherwise. You may endow matter with such vital energies
and such faculties of thought as you may require. You may
satisfy yourself that force, or motion, or extension is the
immanent cause of all things: but the Platonic theory can
never be antiquated or impossible. -
From every phenomenon you will always be able to .
eliminate the transitory and the accidental, until you arrive
at an abstract idea which exists only in the pure intellect,
It is into this world of ideas that the Platonist forces his
way. In this fourth dimension of intellectual space he finds
himself in a world familiar and yet wonderful. Into this
world neither change, nor corruption, nor decay can enter.
This is the true eternal life. Of all earthly things the
ideas are eternal, and this pure intellect, this world in
which they live and move and have their being, and some
portion of which we have each of us received, is none
other than the all-perfect, all-containing intellect, the mind
of God,
In what way, then, does Wordsworth speak of this world?
Under what aspect did its eternal glories present themselves
to him P. He tells that
The power
Of nature, by the gentle agency
Of natural objects, led me on to feel
For passions that were not my own, and think
On man, the heart of man, and human life."
IIow exquisitely the individual mind
- to the external world
Is fitted, and how exquisitely too
The external world is fitted to the mind,”
* Michael, p. 96, Ed. 1849.
* Preface to 7/he ſº a cursion, p. 445, Ed. 1849.
12 WoADSWORTHANA.
From that bleak tenement
He many an evening to his distant home
In solitude returning, saw the hills
Grow larger in the darkness; all alone
Beheld the stars come out above his head,
And travell'd through the wood with no one near,
To whom he might confess the things he saw.
So the foundations of his mind were laid
In such communion, not from terror free."
While yet a child, and long before his time,
IIad he perceived the presence and the power
Of greatness: and deep feelings had impress'd
Great objects on his mind, with portraiture
And colour so distinct, that on his mind
They lay like substances, and almost seem’d
To haunt the bodily sense.”
I venture to think that these lines deserve the closest
study. They seem to me to contain the key not only to
Wordsworth's Platonism, but to that peculiar conception of
his that an entrance into the world of abstract thought may
be won by the help of material objects.
‘The presence and the power of greatness’—this is that
‘principle of excellence’ in which Plato believed. This
expression includes all that can be conceived of absolute
perſection—of immutable morality, absolute in itself—in-
dependent of space and time, of locality and temperament.
It includes that power within us which, in Mr. Matthew
Arnold's phrase, “makes for righteousness,’ that conscious-
ness which assures us that, in the Divine Intellect, love
must rule and not hatred, conſidence and not fear.
13y deep feeling, the Poet goes on to tell us, this greatness
* The Axcursion : ‘The Wanderer," p. 447, Jºd. 1849.
* /t/em, 1st Ed., p. 10.
7//E PLATOWISAſ of ivorosivolºzzi . 13
is impressed upon our mind, so that its attributes lie like
substances upon us and haunt the bodily sense. It is evi-
dent, I think, that he uses the word ‘substance’ in this
place not in the strict metaphysical sense, but in that .
secondary sense which has vitiated all the terms which
express essence or reality, popular use and wont invariably
attaching these two last terms to that which is not essential
or real. The poet evidently refers to that lower substanti-
ality which belongs to matter, and which is perceived by the
senses. He seems to affirm that by the help of the vast
objects of nature, perceived in silence and in solitude, we
are enabled to understand and to conceive the great realities
of abstract thought, and to #. -
Breathe in worlds
To which the heaven of heavens is but a veil."
But in the mountains did he feel his faith ;
There did he see the writing—all things there
Breathed immortality, revolving liſe, 3.
And greatness still revolving ;-infinite.
There littleness was not, the least of things
Seem’d infinite : and there his spirit shaped
Iſer prospects.”
This is that ‘ divine hope of pure imagination,” that
‘fittest to unutterable thought,” “the passing shows of
being.” -
‘The silence and the calm of mute insensate things,”
‘Where earth and heaven create one imagery.'"
1 Preface to The Excursion. g
* The Excursion: ‘The Wanderer,' 1st Ed., p. 14.
* /dem, p. 497, I'd. 1849. * Tv //, C., Six years old.
b Z'he AExcursion : “The Wanderer," p. 455, Ed. 18.19. -
0 To H. C., p. 62, s
I4 - WOADSWOATHIANA,
Matter therefore is a thought of God. The rural gods of
Greece would seem to have occupied a similar position in
the mind of the Platonist as did these “spiritual presences
of absent things,” “This soul imparted to brute matter,’ in
the poet's ‘pure imaginative soul.”
We live by admiration, hope, and love.”
- - A spirit hung,
Iłeautiful region o'er thy towns and ſarms,
Statues and temples, and memorial tombs;
And emanations were perceived ; and acts
Of immortality, in Nature's course, -
Exemplified by mysteries, that were felt
As bonds.”
The means are not very different, the result is the same.
This absolute being is described as including within itself,
as the sea its waves, all adoring and conscious and appre-
hending existence:
— Life continuous, Being unimpaired,
That hath been, is, and where it was, and is,
There shall be—seen, and heard, and felt, and known,
And recognised—existence unexposed -
To the blind walk of mortal accident ;
From diminution safe, and weakening age;
While man grows old, and dwindles, and decays,
And countless generations of mankind '.
Depart ; and leave no vestige where they trod.”
Thou, thou alone
Art everlasting, and the blessed Spirits
Which thou includest, as the sea her waves:
For adoration thou endur'st; endure
4 ‘Despondency Corrected," p. 487, Ed. 1849.
* “The Parsonage," p. 523. -
8 ‘Despondency Corrected," p. 482.
* /dem, p. 482, Ed. 1849.
* /dem, 1st Ed. w
7AA PLAZONISAſ of IPORDSiWowzy. 15
'or consciousness the motions of thy will ;
For apprehension those transcendent truths
Of the pure intellect, that stand as laws
Even to thy Being's infinite majesty | * -
The inborn conscience of humanity has recognised the
perfection of Being in a variety of forms—by diverse myths
and it may be grotesque imaginations at which a mis-
directed intellect may sneer. The ‘secret spirit of Human-
ity” has consented with a marvellous unanimity to con-
ceive of a world where wrong is made right, where suffering
is turned to joy, where inequality is removed, and the rough
places of misery and oppression made smooth—where the
poor and the afflicted who have seen or felt little in this life
to delight or elevate may find existence somewhat more .
worthy to be lived. That this blessed consummation may
never arrive in the form religionists have dreamed may be
true: but that the idea can never be aught else than true
and righteous is impossible. - -
The life where hope and memory are as one,
Earth quiet and unchanged, the human soul
Consistent in self-rule, and heaven revealed
To meditation in that quictness.”
Miserable indeed would the world become were this ideal
of righteousness ever entirely lost. -
Who in this spirit communes with the forms
Of nature, who with understanding heart
IDoth know and love such objects as excite
No morbid passions.” • , w
‘Despondency Corrected," p. 476, Ed. 1849.
* “The Wanderer,' p. 455, Ed. 18.49.
'l) espondency," p. 469, Ed. 1849.
!!
* * Despondency Corrected,' 1st I’d., p. 195.
I6 WoRDSWOAZA/AMA. . .
- The light of Love
Not failing, perseverance from his steps
Departing not, he shall at length obtain
The glorious habit by which sense is made
Subservient still to moral purposes,
Auxiliar to divine.” -
Thus deeply drinking in the soul of things,
IIe shall be wise perforce, and while inspired
By choice, and, conscious that the will is frce,
Unswerving shall he move, as if impelled
13y strict necessity, along the path
Of order and of good. Whate'er he see,
Whate'er he ſeel of agency direct,
Or indirect, shall tend to ſeed and nurse
IIis faculties, shall fix in calmer seats
Of moral strength, and raise to loſtier heights
Of love divine his intellectual soul.”
It would be easy to go on. This synthesis of thought
and matter is the key-note of every line in the poem. But
the line of thought has been sufficiently laid down; who
will follow it up? t
‘He excels,’ says Jewish proverb, when at loss for words
of highest praise, “He excels upon Sheminith'—the eighth
string of the world to come which shall be added to the
Kinnor of the Sanctuary when Messias begins His reign.
Listening, weary and sad, amidst the rustling echoes of the
se/va selwaggia of metaphysical tradition, we may catch from
these two master-singers, as Dante heard in the stately
rhythm of the volume he so long had conned, the clear
resonance of this mystical string.
1 Despondency Corrected," p. 196, * /dem, p. 197.
t
worDSworTH's SELECTIONS FROM
CHAUCER MODERNISED.
By EDWARD DowdEN.
worDSworTH's SELECTIONS FROM
CHAUCER MODERNISED, 1
WoRDsworth's Selections from Chaucer aim at render-
ing Chaucer's verse into plain, modern English, only
slightly coloured by archaic words or phrases, and retaining
the ancient accent only “in a few conjunctions, such as also
and alway.” Almost any writer of the present day would
retain several words having a savour of antiquity which
Wordsworth thought it right to reject, and doubtless the
verse would approach somewhat nearer to Chaucer's manner.
It may be questioned, however, whether the simplicity of
Chaucer's style (where it is simple, which is far from being
always the case) is not best preserved by Wordsworth's
method of modernisation, which is at once frank and
faithful. *
The selections are The Prioress's Tale—the story of
the little Christian boy murdered by Jews of Asia; a passage
from the fifth book of Troilus and Creyseyde describing
the love-sorrow of Troilus during Cressida's absence; and
the poem (erroneously ascribed to Chaucer) Zhe Cuckoo
and the AWightingale. These were written in the winter of
1801; but remained long in manuscript. The Prioress's
Tale was first published in 1820 (The A/isce//ancous
*** * * ~ * ~ * * * i - - - - - - - - -- - -- ------------ - -
* Read to the Society in May 1882.
20 WORDSWORTHIANA,
Poems of William Wordsworth, vol. iii.). The remaining
two modernisations were given as a present to one of the
contributors to the interesting little volume, The Poems of
Geoffrey Chaucer Modernised (London, 1841), in which
Leigh Hunt, Elizabeth Barrett, and Mr. R. H. Horne
assisted. Was the contributor to whom Wordsworth pre-
sented his versions Mr. Thomas Powell?" In Mr. Powell's
Poems (1842) are two sonnets relating to Wordsworth,
one beginning thus: -
Wordsworth, my heart rose as I heard you say,
“There is a spirit in the hearts of men,
Which had from God its wondrous origin,
And while a man lives ne'er can pass away.”
The other, On a Portrait of Wordsworth, painted by
Margaret Gillies, closes with the lines—
Here I seem to gaze
On Wordsworth's honoured face; for in the cells
Of those deep eyes Thought like a prophet dwells,
And round those drooping lips Song like a murmur strays.
In 1849, Mr. Powell emigrated to the city of New York.
Does he still live P I have not been fortunate enough to
see Mr. Powell's volume, The Ziving Authors of England
(New York, 1849), reprinted, I suppose, as Pictures of the
Ziving Authors of Britain (London, 1851). It might pos-
sibly yield something of interest to lovers of Wordsworth.
In a letter to Professor Reed of Philadelphia, Words-
worth writes: ‘Mr. Leigh Hunt has not failed in the
Manciple's Tale, which I myself modernised many years
ago.’ It would be interesting to ascertain whether Words-
- q.
* Professor Knight has since ascertained that this conjecture was correct,
SELEczzows From CHAUCER, 2.
worth's version of this tale (which he considered unsuitable
for publication) still exists in manuscript. -
Wordsworth's modernisations of Chaucer may be read
with pleasure even by those who know the originals. But
they ought to be read with a recognition of their defects as
well as of their merits. In a few instances errors seem to
have arisen either through ignorance of Chaucer's English,
or through inattention, or from a faulty text. Thus the
Christian boy who sings in praise of Mary all through 7 he
Prioress's Zale, is described by Chaucer as ‘a little cler-
geon,’ which Wordsworth renders by ‘a little scholar;' but
‘clergeon” means, not merely a young clerk, as Tyrwhitt
says, it specially means ‘a chorister-boy.' Again, when
Troilus would visit secretly the deserted home of Cressida,
we read— -
And therewithalle, his meynye for to blende
A cause he fonde for in towne for to go ;
‘his meynye for to blende,'—that is, to keep his household or
his domestics in the dark. But Wordsworth writes—
And there withal to cover his inſenſ,
possibly mistaking ‘meynye' for “meaning.’
In the following instance it would be pleasant to suppose
that there was a printer's error, but the metre forbids such
a conjecture. When Troilus sees the shut windows and
desolate aspect of his lady's house, his face grows blanched,
and he rides past with speed—so fast, says Wordsworth, –
That no wight his continuance espied.
1 Professor Skeat in his Clarendon Press Selections from Chaucer,
cites Du Cange : " Clergonus, junior clericus vel puer choralis; jeune clerc,
petit clerc ou enfant de choeur ; ' and Cotgrave, ‘C/ergeon, a singing man,
or Quirester in a Queer,'
22 WoRDSWOR7HANA.
But in Chaucer he rides fast in order that his white face
may not attract notice— -
And as God wolde he gan so faste ride
That no wight of his contenaunce espiede—
* Countenance,” not ‘continuance.’ On the other hand it is
to Urry's text, or whatever other text may have been before
him, that we must ascribe the error in Wordsworth's version
of Troilus's despairing love-song—
Toward my death with wind / steer and sail,—
which ought to be—
Toward my death with wind in stern I sail—
Troilus's bark careering towards death, with all sails set,
before a fierce stern-wind,
Two instances may be noted in which the simplicity and
innocence of Chaucer are lost, and with these, in one case,
some of his pathos. The little chorister who has so miracu-
lously sung the praise of Mary is buried with due honour,
And in a tombe of marble stoones clere
lènclosede thay this 'litel body sweete.
‘This lifel (ody sweete'—how tender as compared with
Wordsworth's—
And in a tomb of precious marble clear
Enclosed his uncorrupted body sweet,
where the word ‘tuncorrupted' casts an unpleasant suspicion
across the meaning of the adjective “sweet.' And yet the
change was wilful, for nothing could be easier or more
obvious than the yersion in modern English—.
Enclosed they this little body sweet.
1 ‘Ali's litel body,” in several MSS, and in Tyrwhitt.
SE/ACT/ONS FROM/ CHA UCER". 23
Again, Chaucer's lines describing the boy martyr at his
lesson in school— -
This litel child his litel book lernynge,
As he sat in the schole in his primere,
lose in Wordsworth's—
This little child, while in the school he sate,
His primer conning with an earnest cheer.
That “earnest cheer’ is a poor exchange for—
This litel child his litel book lernynge.
Besides, the pious boy cared not for the secular learning
of his primer; his heart being set on Mary's praise, he by
and by looked forward to being shent for his primer; even
to being beaten for his neglect of it thrice in an hour.
There is a fine extravagance, or perhaps I should say, a
vigorous realism towards the close, which Wordsworth has
toned down. The murdered boy must sing in his chorister's
treble, “O Alma Redemptoris Mater,’ as long as the mira-
culous grain lies upon his tongue. To hear the boy singing
thus with throat cut to the neck-bone is blissful, but it is
also ghastly ; and it were well if his spirit could depart. In
Chaucer, the holy Abbot with passionate action plucks for-
ward the boy's tongue--
His tongue out-caught and took away the greyn.
Then the little child gives up the ghost full softly, and,
with tears streaming like rain, the Abbot falls right along
upon the ground, grovelling—-
And gruſ he filal plat upon the grounde.
We see the vivid gesture, the extreme abandonment of
body to a sudden wave of emotion, as in some mediaeval
picture. In Wordsworth's corresponding stanza the Abbot
24 WORDS WOR7A/AMA.
‘touches' the tongue, and takes away the grain; he ‘drops.
on his face’ upon the ground, but hardly with the prone
abandonment of Chaucer's - . . .
And gruf he fil al plat upon the grounde,
I wish all this had taken place in Wordsworth's poem not
‘before the altar,' which might be the communion-table of:
an Anglican church, but, as in Chaucer, before the ‘chief
altar.' I like to imagine the little boy's body in a great
cathedral where are many shrines; it lies in no side-chapel,
but before the high altar, in presence of the Host:
Vpon his beere ay lyth this Innocent
Biforn the chief auter while the masse laste,
There are two passages in which Wordsworth makes, as
it were, open confession of failure. One is the concluding
stanza of The Prioress's Tale, the address to ‘Yonge Hew
of Lincoln,' where Wordsworth destroys the stanza by a
change in the rime system, and, indeed, leaves the second
line unrimed. The other is the ninth stanza of the same
poem. Chaucer writes: -
Thus hath this widow her litel child i-taught
Our blisſul lady, Cristes moder deere,
To worschip ay, and he ſorgat it nought ;
Aror sely child wil alway soone leere,
that is, ‘for a /a/Ay child will always learn soon.’ Words-
worth renders it thus— -
For simple inſant hath a ready ear, g
and adds a needless generalisation—
- Sweet is the holiness of youth ;
extending the stanza to receive this addition from seven to
eight lines, with an altered rime system. -
SELECTIONS FROM CRI. UCEA'. 25
Here may be noted a curious added epithet, which does
not appear in the selection from Troilus and Cresida, as
first printed in Mr. Horne's volume of Chaucer Modern-
ised, but which is found in The Poetical IWorks of
|Wordsworth, 1849-50, and in later editions. Troilus sings
of his absent lady, in Chaucer:
- With a soſte vois, he of his lady deere
That absent was, gan sing as ye may heere,
And in Wordsworth's earliest text it is—
- With a soſt voice, he of his lady dear
That absent was, 'gan sing as ye may hear.
Are we to ascribe to the printer the odd reading of the later
text, “with a soft might voice, he,' etc.? -
It is true the song addresses the departed lady as a lost
star, and was probably sung in the same hour when Troilus
would tell his trouble to the moon. Hence, perhaps,
Wordsworth’s “soft night voice,' if Wordsworth's it be.
It may be questioned whether an expression from
J/a/et ought to have been imported into a version of
Chaucer. Troilus has fancies that he is paling, pining,
and about to die; but they are mere ſancies:
And al this nas but his melancolye
That he had of hym self swich fantasye.
Wordsworth, haunted by Shakespeare, wrote—
- All which he of himself conceited wholly
Out of his weakness and his melancholy.
Every one knows—and no one better than Wordsworth
knew—that Chaucer did special reverence to the daisy, In
The Cuckoo and the Nightinga/e, a poem long ascribed
to Chaucer, it is the third of May —a date corresponding .
1 This paper was read before the Wordsworth Society on May 3, 1882.
26 - WORDSWORTHANA.
almost to mid May, according to our present reckoning.
The poet, after a wakeful night, rises, and goes forth at dawn;
he comes upon a ‘laund' or plain ‘of white and green: ”
So feire oon had I nevere in bene, - -
The grounde was grene, ypoudred with daysé,
The floures and the gras ilike al hie
Algiene and white, was nothing elles sene.' .
. A beautiful description of what it was possible to see
before patent mowing-machines made havoc of beauty, and
ground our quietude into discord, far different from the
pleasant swish of the scythe, short green grass, and the
daisies and the grass of equal height. Unfortunately in the
text which Wordsworth followed the description is sheer
I) OHSC11SC– 4 -
The ſloures and the greves like hie.
The daisy flowers are as high as the groves | Wordsworth
retained the groves but refused to make the ‘wee crimson-
tipped ſlowers’ of equal height with them :
Tall were the flowers, the grove a lofty cover,
All green and white, and nothing else was seen. -
It must be left for those who love the dawn to decide
whether the first birds get sleepily or briskly out of bed.
There seems to be a half-hour of tentative song, during
which the little throats are tuning for the day, Perhaps the
old poet who describes their first motions in the dewy dawn
as ‘creeping’ is not wrong: -
There sat I cloune among the feire floures,
And saw the briddes cre/e out of her boures
Ther as they had rested hem al the nyght.
But Wordsworth, whose observation is declared to be in-
fallible, has it—
SEL/ecTrows Frov clavcºw. 27
There sat I down among the fair fresh ſlowers,
And saw the birds come tripping from their bowers,
Where they had rested them all night. . . . .
Perhaps they come quickly, but, like passengers from the
cabin to the deck at morning, one by one, and so their
gradual arrival appears to an onlooker a slow proceeding,
It is to be noted here that Wordsworth follows the author
of The Cuckoo and the Mightinga/e, in changing the sex of
the baser bird at pleasure ; now the Cuckoo is male, now
female;' but the love-loyal Nightingale is always she.
Chaucer, Burns, and Wordsworth are lovers of the daisy.
All poets are lovers of the nightingale, including even Mr.
Allingham, a native of the unhappy country where there is
no Nightingale Valley.” In the old poem, after the
cuckoo, bird unholy, has said his evil say, the nightingale
breaks forth “so lustily’— -
That with her clere voys she made rynge
Thro out alle the grene wode wide.
Wordsworth has taken a poet's licence with these lines:
I heard the lusty nightingale so sing, -
That her clear voice made a loud rioting,
Echoing through all the green wood wide. - -
This ‘loud rioting’ is the characteristic Wordsworthian
interpretation of a song which has impressed various
imaginative minds in various ways—as melancholy, or glad
almost to madness. It is akin to that other passage so well
known : -
1 Would Chaucer have shown this carelessness P -
* See a beautiful Ode by the compiler of Aightingale l’ally, entreating
the birds to come back to the West, —
For Ireland's furious days are past,
28 WORDSWORTH/AM.A.
O Nightingale thou surely art
A creature of a fiery heart;
. These notes of thine they pierce and pierce,
Tumultuous harmony and fierce -
Thou sing'st as iſ the God of wine
Had helped thee to a Valentine. -
In 1827 Wordsworth added to his note prefixed to The
Prioress's Tale, a critical remark worth quoting before we
end : ‘The fierce bigotry of the Prioress forms a fine back-
ground for her tender-hearted sympathies with the Mother
and Child; and the mode in which the story is told amply
atones for the extravagance of the miracle.' Yes; Madame
Englentyne would weep if she saw a mouse caught in a trap
“if it were deed or bledde;’ she would weep if one of her
small hounds were dead,
Or if men smot it with a yerde smerte.
How piteous therefore must her heart grow for the little
martyred boy with his fair, carven throat But for the
cursed race of Jews, no pity! That serpent Sathanas has
his wasp’s nest in their hearts. And so the amiable Prioress
relates, with a gusto in that pretty voice of hers, how the
Provost drew the guilty Jews with wild horses—
And aſter that he heng them by the lawe.
Wordsworth's modernisations of Chaucer are sufficiently
good to deserve that we should know their faults. And as
it is better to know definitely the weak points in the char-
acter or conduct of a friend than to have our feeling towards
him undermined by a vague suspicion, so it is better to read
Wordsworth's renderings with an exact knowledge of their
defects than with a general impression that because they are
modernisations they must therefore be unfaithful.
ON THE PORTRAITS OF worDSworth.
By WILLIAM KNIGHT.
ON THE PORTRAITS OF worDSworTH."
THE earliest portrait of Wordsworth, of which there is any
record, was taken in 1797,-during the Alfoxden days, by
an artist then living at Stowey. It was a half-length figure
(14 in, by Io), and is mentioned by Joseph Cottle in his
Early Recollections chiefly relating to S. Z. Coleridge, vol. i.
p. 317. It represented Wordsworth as he was in his twenty-
seventh year. - º
Nothing seems to have been heard of this picture for
ninety years, till it turned up at Sotheby's saleroom in
London, in July 1887. It is now in the possession of
Mr. George, bookseller, Bristol. Its artistic merit is not
great, but its historical interest is considerable.
II.
In the following year (1798) Robert Hancock took a
drawing in black chalk for Joseph Cottle. This was engraved
by R. Woodman for Cottle's Recollections, along with
portraits of Coleridge, Southey, and Lamb–all drawn by
Hancock—in the years in which each published his first
volume of poems. The originals are now together in the
National Portrait Gallery at South Kensington, having been
purchased by the trustees in May 1877. Like all the rest,
Wordsworth's is on a small scale. He is represented as .
wearing a dark buttoned coat and white cravat, scated in
1 Read to the Society in May I882,
32 s WORDSWORTHANA.
a wooden chair. The face is seen in profile, turned to the
left; the complexion tinted with red. Of this picture Cottle
says, “The portrait of Mr. Wordsworth was taken also by
Hancock, and was an undoubted likeness, universally
acknowledged to be such at the time.’ Referring to the
four portraits together he adds, “The time in which these
four men of genius were drawn was perhaps the most
advantageous for exhibiting their genuine characters; in
which case the likenesses contained in the following work
are those which might most faithfully and favourably descend
to posterity.” This picture of Wordsworth passed from
Cottle to his daughter, Mrs. Green; thence to Messrs. Fawcett
and Noseda, after which it was bought by Colonel Francis
Cunningham, and sold at his sale in 1876 to Mr. De la Rue,
from whom the Trustees of the National Portrait Gallery
bought it in the following year. When Dora Wordsworth,
the poet's daughter, saw this picture of her father in 1836,
she remarked that it ‘reminded her of her brother John.’
In Henry Crabb Robinson's Diary, August 29, 1836, the
following allusion to this picture occurs, “In Cottle's house
at Bristol, my attention was drawn to five miniatures, rather.
say small portraits of Southey, Coleridge, Lamb, and Words-
worth. . . . W. resembles E. Lytton Dulwer more than
himself now. All (C. assures me) were excellent likenesses.’
III,
In the year 1803 a portrait of Wordsworth was painted
by Hazlitt (the literary critic and artist). Of this picture
Southey wrote to his friend Richard Duppa, from Keswick,
* See Early Recollections chie/y relating to S. Z. Coloridge, by Joseph
Cottle. London, 1837. Preface, p. xxxiii.
THE PORTRA17s of IVorpsiſ or 7E. 33
December 14, 1803: ‘Hazlitt has been here. . . . He has
painted Wordsworth, but so dismally—though Wordsworth's
face is his ideal of physiognomical perfection—that one of
his friends, on seeing it, exclaimed, “At the gallows—deeply
affected by his deserved fate, yet determined to die like a
man; ” and if you saw the picture, you would admire the
criticism.” (See Southey's Life and Correspondence, vol. ii.
p. 238.) -
I may add that almost all the portraits of that period
were artistically bad.
On June 11, 1804, Southey wrote to Coleridge, ‘I went
into the Exhibition merely to see your picture, which per-
fectly provoked me, Hazlitt's does look as if you were on
your trial, and certainly had stolen the horse; but then you
did it cleverly—it had been a deep, well-laid scheme, and
it was no fault of yours that you had been detected. But
this portrait by Northcote looks like a grinning idiot, and
the worst is, that it is just like enough to pass for a good
likeness, with those who only know your features imper-
fectly, Dance's drawing has that merit at least that nobody
would ever suspect you of having been the original,’ (See
his Zife and Correspondence, vol. v. p. 291.)
IV.
For fifteen years after this—i.e. from his thirty-third to
his forty-eighth year—no portrait seems to have been taken
of Wordsworth; but about the year 1818, Edward Nash
(who was a friend of Southey's, and had painted several
portraits of the Southey family) took a likeness of Words-
worth for Southey. Mrs. Joshua Stanger (of Fieldside,
1 See Life and Correspondence of Southey, vol. v. pp. 59, 51.
C
34 WoRDSWORTHANA.
Keswick), who now possesses it, bought this picture at
the Greta Bank sale of Southey's effects, and an engraving
of it is prefixed to Zhe Prose Works of Wordsworth. It
is a pencil drawing (9 in, by 7 in); three-quarters length;
and the face is three-quarters turned to the left. The
figure is seated, the head resting on the right hand, the
right elbow on a table; and the left hand is placed inside
the waistcoat. &
V.
In the summer of 1817 Mr. Richard Carruthers visited
Rydal Mount, and took a sketch for a picture in oil, which
was finished in November of that year. The artist himself,
in writing to Mr. Thomas Monkhouse, mentions the dates.
This picture is now in the possession of the Rev. Thomas
Hutchinson, the Rector of Kimbolton, Leominster, in
Herefordshire, a nephew of Mr. Monkhouse, and also of
Mrs. Wordsworth. It is a half-length picture, three-quarters
face, turned to the right, The figure is in a sitting posture,
with the back against the trunk of a tree, the right elbow
leaning on a rock. In the background are mountain tops
and a rapid mountain stream. The dress is a black coat
with ruſſled shirt. The left hand is thrust into the waistcoat,
more suo, Carruthers's picture was engraved by Henry
Meyer, and published by Henry Colburn, Conduit Street,
London, in the AVezo Monthly A/agazine, Feb. 1, 1819.
It was also engraved by J. T. Wedgwood for the Paris
edition of Wordsworth's Poems, published by Galignani in
1828. The latter is not nearly so good a reproduction of
the original as Meyer's, published eight years before. A
copy of this picture by I. Hader—taken not from the
THE PORTRA17s of Worpsworth. 35
original, but from the engraving in the Paris edition—has
recently been photographed in Germany. .
In October 1821, Wordsworth, writing to Henry Crabb
Robinson, said of Carruthers, ‘He is an amiable young man,
whom a favourable opening induced to sacrifice the pencil to
the pen, not the pen of authorship—he is too wise for that,
but the pen of the counting-house, which he is successfully
driving at Lisbon.” Of Meyer's print in Colburn's Magazine,
Southey wrote to Sir George Beaumont (Feb. 1819), ‘Words-
worth may be congratulated upon coming off so well in the
Magazine. The print is not so good f : the drawing in my
possession, because it does not so well represent his capa-
cious forehead; but on the whole it is a respectable likeness,
and would be thought excellent by those who are not in-
timate with his face.”
VI.
Mr. Carruthers took a copy of this picture, which is now,
I understand, in the possession of Mrs. Drew, the daughter
of Mr. Thomas Monkhouse,
VII.
Writing to Henry Crabb Robinson from Rydal Mount
on the 24th June 1817, Wordsworth says, “I have not
lately . . . seen any one new thing whatever, except a
bust of myself. Some kind person—which persons mostly
unknown to me are—has been good enough to forward me
this.” Of this bust I can discover no trace whatsoever,
Probably it had no merit. -
VIII.
Benjamin Robert Haydon seems to have painted Words-
worth at least four times. The first portrait was taken in
36 - WoRDSWOR7:HIANA,
1817; and was a sketch intended for the head of a by-
stander, in his picture of Christ's Entry into Jerusalem. Of
this sketch Hazlitt said, ‘Haydon's head of him, introduced
into the Entry of Christ into Jerusalem, is the most like his
drooping weight of thought and expression.' ' 4 *
It is thus that Haydon writes, in his Autobiography of
his ‘Jerusalem,” as he called it : “During the progress of
the picture of Jerusalem, I resolved to put into it (1816), in a
side group, Voltaire as a sneerer, and Newton as a believer’.
(vol. i. p. 358). “I now (1817) put Hazlitt's head into my
picture, looking at Christ as an investigator. It had a good
effect. I then put in Keats into the background, and re-
solved to introduce Wordsworth bowing in reverence and
awe. Wordsworth was highly pleased, and before the close
of this season (1817) the picture was three-parts done. The
centurion, the Samaritan woman, Jairus and his daughter,
St. Peter, St. John, Newton, Voltaire, the anxious mother
of the penitent girl, and the girl blushing and hiding her
face, many heads behind, in fact the leading groups were
accomplished, when down came my health again, eyes and
all’ (vol. i. p. 372). Wordsworth's head is again referred to
in the artist's account of the successful exhibition of this
picture in London : “Wordsworth's bowing head ; Newton's
face of belief; Voltaire's sneer; the enormous shouting
crowd,' etc. (p. 404). The Entry into Jerusalem was
sold in Scptember 1831 to Messrs. Child and Inman,
of Philadelphia. Its departure from England was a heavy.
blow to the painter. ‘September 23, 1831,–My Jerusalem
is purchased, and is going to America. Went to see it
before it was embarked. It was melancholy to look, for the
last time, at a work which had excited so great a sensation
in England and Scotland. It was now leaving my native
THE PORTRA17s of Wordsh'ozzº. 37
country for ever' (vol. ii. p. 314). This picture is now in
the Roman Catholic Cathedral at Cincinnati.
Henry Crabb Robinson, in his Diary, May 11, 1820,
writes: ‘The group of Wordsworth, Newton, and Voltaire
is ill-executed. The poet is a forlorn and haggard old man;
the philosopher is a sleek, well-dressed citizen of London;
and Voltaire is merely an ugly Frenchman.’
The original study by Haydon for this head of Words-
worth is now in the possession of Mr. Stephen Pearce, 54.
Queen Anne Street, Cavendish Square, London, who writes
to me as follows: ‘The portrait I have of Wordsworth is the
original study in black chalk, by Haydon, the painter. They
were great friends. The head is larger than life, most care-
fully drawn, and was executed for the purpose of being placed
in Haydon's large picture of Christ's Entry into Jerusalem. .
It was his general plan with all the principal heads in his
pictures to make chalk studies, and then, I believe, to paint
from them. In that large picture Haydon painted several
of his eminent friends, using them as models. The face
and expression of the head of Wordsworth are those of one
bowing in reverence to Christ. It is on tinted paper, and
beneath the head in Haydon's writing is—
“Wordsworth.
For Entry into Jerusalem, 1817.”
This Haydon drawing was bought by Mr. Pearce at the Sale
of some of Haydon's effects in 1852, and has been in his
possession ever since.
IX.
The second picture by Haydon was drawn during the
following year, while the artist, according to the testimony
38 WoRDSworzi/Awa.
given below, was staying at Rydal Mount. I find no trace
of this visit to Rydal in Haydon's own autobiographical.
memoranda; but his records of the years 1818 and 1819
are extremely meagre, and the date of the drawing is un-
doubted. The original is in the possession of Mrs. Walter
Field, the only daughter of the late William Strickland
Cookson, Esq., Hampstead, and was given to him by Mr.
Wordsworth's sons, Mrs. Field writes to me of it, ‘The
sketch in my possession is a crayon drawing on tinted paper,
made by Haydon while staying at Rydal Mount, and pre-
sented by him to Mr. Wordsworth. It was, I believe, em-
ployed in the picture you name. It has on it, in Haydon's
writing, “B. R. Haydon, in respect and aſſection, 17th June
1818; ” and in Wordsworth's writing, “Wm. Wordsworth,
1818.” - -
It was engraved by Thomas Landseer, Southampton
Street, and published by him on May 1, 1831.
It is a three-quarters face, with a large turn-down collar,
showing the throat. The face looks somewhat over the
right shoulder to the spectator's left, and shows an outline
of the back of the head. It has the appearance of never
having been quite finished, but the massiveness of the head
is well rendered.
A living artist, commenting on this picture, writes to me
thus:– -
* June 26, 1882.
I have seen the Haydon “Wordsworth.' I distrust its
merits as a piece of draughtsmanship; and I suspect that
there is too much Haydon in it to make it valuable as a
likeness. It was taken when Wordsworth was forty-eight
years of age. If it is rightly drawn, Wordsworth must have
had a very great development of the back of the head. I
THE PORTRA/TS OF WORDSWOA. Z.A. 39 . .
cannot imagine how such a head and face could ever grow
into anything like the head and face which Miss Gillies
painted in 1841. That portrait strikes me as lacking in the
representation of the strength and stubbornness which must
have been evident in Wordsworth's face, but I feel that there
is a likeness in it. It is very delicately and carefully done,
. . . There is a want of thoroughness and of humility, as it
appears to me, in that sketch of Haydon's,
Wordsworth, I am told, used to speak of this as the like-
ness of ‘the brigand.’ º
In 1831 Sir William Boxall painted a small half-length
likeness, which was engraved by J. Bromley, and subse-
quently by R. Roffe, for the frontispiece to the twenty-sixth
volume of The Mirror, published in 1835. The original is
now at the Stepping Stones, Ambleside, in the possession
of Mrs. William Wordsworth, the poet's daughter-in-law,
It was also engraved by J. Cochran, * ,
XI.
In or about the same year, Wilkins published a lithograph
in his series of Men of the Day, including Lockhart,
Allan Cunningham, Rogers, etc. This likeness was nearly
life-size. The print of it, which I have seen, has these
words underneath: ‘Printed by C. Hullmandell, Drawn
from life, and on stone, by Mr. William Wilkins, 20 Newman
Street. Published as the Act directs, by J. Dickinson, 11.4
New Bond Street.” The poet himself, however, used to
call it the portrait of ‘the stamp-distributor.”
4Q WoRosworzyſzawa.
XII.
I may place beside this a medallion in wax by William
W. Wyon, A.R.A.—a companion to one which Wyon did
of Southey. It was taken in 1835, the same year as that in
which Southey's was done. (See his Zife and Correspondence,
vol. vi. p. 273.) It is now in the possession of Mrs. William
Wordsworth, the poet's daughter-in-law, Wyon was an en-
graver and designer of coins and medals; and held the
post of second engraver to the Mint, from 1816 to 1851.
- XIII.
In the year 1837, when Wordsworth was in Rome along
with Mr. Crabb Robinson, his portrait was painted by Severn,
the friend of Keats. It is a small picture (13 inches by 9).
Miss Caroline Fox tells us that Hartley Coleridge thought
this the best of all the portraits. It is now in India, in the
possession of the grandson of the poet, the Principal of
Elphinstone College, Bombay, who writes thus to me of it:—
‘April 18, 1882,-I possess the portrait painted in Rome;
but I neither consider it a pleasing picture, nor a satisfactory
likeness. . . . The artist has, I dare say, conveyed a
sufficiently faithful representation of what Wordsworth was,
in his less inspired moments, about the year 1836. He is
represented seated, with an umbrella in his hand, with the
air and attitude, as I have always thought, of an elderly
citizen, waiting for a ‘bus,” or some public conveyance. I
think I have heard that Wordsworth himself said that it
made him look more like a banker than a poet; perhaps
he ought to have said a stamp-distributor.’ Wordsworth
writing to his sister from Albano, during the Italian tour of
1837, says, “Mr. Severn, the friend of Keats, has taken my
THE PORTRA17s of WoRDSIVORTH. 41
portrait, which I mean to present to Isabella.' I fear you
will not, nor will she, be satisfied with it. It is thought,
however, to be a pretty good likeness as to features; only .
following the fact, he has made me look at least four years
older than I am.’ - *
XIV.
Next in order come the five pictures painted by the
Pickersgills, father and son. The first (which may be num-
bered twelfth in the list) was painted at Rydal Mount, but
finished in London, by H. W. Pickersgill, R.A., for St.
John's College, Cambridge, at the request of the Master
and Fellows. It is three-quarters length, and represents
the poet in a black cloak lined with red. It originally hung
in the Combination Room, but has been transferred to the
Dining Hall at St. John's College. It was engraved by W.
H. Watt for the stereotyped edition of the poems, issued in
1836; and also by C. Rolls in 1838, and published in The
Modern Poets and Artists of Great Britain, edited by S. C.
Hall (London: Whitaker and Co., 1838). It was this picture
that gave rise to the not very appropriate sonnet, beginning—
Go, faithful Portrait ! and, where long hath knelt
. . Margaret, the Saintly Foundress, take thy place,
The following description of it is by the Rev. Alexander
Freeman, M.A., Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge:
—‘William Wordsworth, Poet, by H. W. Pickersgill, R.A.;
canvas 5 feet by 4 feet 4 in...; lake scenery in back-
ground; seated under a high bank; black cloak, lined
with red, thrown open ; left hand rests on some papers,
holding pencil. Painted in old age, at Rydal Mount, for
St. John's College, about 1831 ; grey hair, rather sharp
* His daughter-in-law, his son John's wife.
42 Wordsworth IANA.
features, three-quarter face, turning over right shoulder,
three-quarter length,’— Zhe Eagle, vol. xi. No. 61.
Mr. William Wordsworth, the poet's son, told me that it
was painted in London in 1830. The above sonnet was
written in 1832. But in a postscript by Dorothy Words-
worth to a letter of her brother's to Sir W. Rowan
Hamilton, written on June 13, 1831, she says, “This very
moment a letter arrives, very complimentary, from the
Master of St. John's College, Cambridge (the place of
my brother William's education), requesting him to sit for
his portrait, etc.” She adds, ‘of course my brother con-
sents, but the difficulty is to ſix on an artist. There never
yet has been a good portrait of my brother. The sketch
by Haydon is a fine drawing, but what a likeness All that
there is of likeness makes it to me the more disagreeable.’
I do not think this picture of Pickersgill's was painted
till 1832. Wordsworth, writing to Dr. Arnold on Sept. 19,
1832, speaks of having had Pickersgill down with them for
the purpose of painting it, Henry Crabb Robinson wrote
in his Diary of May 30, 1833, ‘I went to Pickersgill's to see
his painting of Wordsworth. It is in every respect a fine
picture, except that the artist has made the disease in Words-
worth's eyes too apparent. The picture wants an oculist.’
Wordsworth writing to Mr. Moxon, October 10, 1836,
refers to the print of this portrait by Pickersgill, and
complains of “an air of fulness spread through the whole,
which is the more felt, from a fault in the original picture,
of a weakness of expression about the upper lip.’ And
again (in October 20, 1836), ‘I am still of opinion, in which
others concur, that the attitude has a look of decrepitude,
in consequence of the whole person not being given. It
appears to me to be beautifully engraved.' -
THE PORTRA17s of Wordsh'ok TH, 43.
. XV. . . . . .
A copy of this picture was painted by Pickersgill junior
(H. Pickersgill), for Mrs. Quillinan, the poet's daughter.
It was partly taken from one or two fresh sittings, and
partly from his father's previous portrait. In Henry Crabb
Robinson's Diary of March 3, 1835, the following occurs:
‘Walked with the Wordsworths to Pickersgill, who is painting
a small likeness of the poet for Dora.” Again, March 14,
1835 : “Called on Wordsworth by appointment at Pickers-
gill's. The small picture is much better than the large
one. W. walked with me to see the bust at Denman's,
He thinks it a good likeness.’
XVI,
Another copy of the St. John's Pickersgill, drawn by the
artist's son for the poet's brother Christopher—the Master
of Trinity College, Cambridge—is now in the possession of
the Bishop of St. Andrews, - -
XVII,
In 1840, the elder Pickersgill took a likeness of the poet
for Sir Robert Peel, to be placed in his Gallery of Living
Authors at Drayton Manor, Wordsworth wrote thus of it
to Mr. Reed, Philadelphia —‘Jan. 13, 1841,-Pickersgill
came down last summer to paint a portrait of me for Sir
Robert Peel's Gallery at Drayton Manor. It was generally
thought here [i.e. at Rydal] that this work was more suc-
cessful as a likeness than the one he painted some years
ago for St. John's College, at the request of the Master
and º'ellows.’ On the 1st of Sept. 1840, Wordsworth wrote
thus of this picture to the artist Haydon, ‘I am this moment
44 - WORDS WOR THIANA,
(while dictating this letter) sitting to Mr. Pickersgill, who has
kindly come down to paint me at leisure, for Sir Robert Peel,
in whose galleryat Drayton the portraitwill probably be hung.’
An engraving of this later picture of Pickersgill's, by
T. Skelton, is published in the Memoirs of the poet, written
by the Bishop of Lincoln. º
XVIII.
A replica of this, also by Pickersgill, may be seen in the
South Kensington National Portrait Gallery. The catalogue
informs us that it was purchased by the Trustees in 1860;
and the Director and Secretary, Mr. Scharf, informs me
that it was purchased from Mr. Pickersgill himself.
XIX.
Following the five Pickersgills come the five pictures by
Miss Margaret Gillies, which were taken on ivory. In
reference to these, I quote the artist's own statement, sent
to me in 1882 —‘Miss Gillies visited Rydal Mount in
1841, at the invitation of Mr. and Mrs. Wordsworth, to
make a miniature, which was commissioned by Mr. Moon
(the publisher) for the purpose of engraving. The engrav-
ing from this by Edward M'Innes was published on the
6th of August 1841, and republished Feb. 15, 1853, by
Miss Boyd, 467 Oxford Square. The original was sold
many years afterwards, and is now in America.' [A few
years ago it was repurchased, and is now in the possession
of Sir Henry Doulton, Lambeth.]
XX.
‘The second portrait was similar in position to the first ;
the Wordsworths being so pleased with the one done for
THE PORTRA/TS OF WORDS WORTH. 45
Moon, as to wish it repeated for themselves, with the addi.
tion of Mrs. Wordsworth at the poet's side in one picture.”
XXI.
f
“A copy of the same was subsequently taken for Miss 4
Quillinan, and is now in her possession at Loughrigg Holme,
XXII.
‘The third portrait was a profile. It was also from life.
It was engraved by Armitage, and published in a book
entitled Zhe AVew Spirit of the Age issued by Smith and
Elder in 1843 or 1844. Miss Gillies does not know what
became of the original of this profile. She considers it, as
a likeness, the most satisfactory of the three. The engraving
from the first portrait was not, in Miss Gillies's judgment,
a very good representation of her picture.’ *
The original of the profile is in the possession of Mrs.
William Wordsworth, and is by far the best likeness of the
three. The engraving, which has been often reproduced
in popular editions of the Works, does no justice to it.
Wordsworth, writing to Mr. Thomas Powell in 1841, says,
‘I think you will be delighted with a profile picture on
ivory with which Miss Gillies is at this moment engaged.
Mrs. Wordsworth seems to prefer it as a likeness to any-
thing that Miss G. has yet done.’ ‘. . . . . .
Mr. Powell published a volume of poems, in which there is
one On a Portrait of Wordsworth painted by Miss Margaret
* This picture descended to the poet's grandson, William Wordsworth,
Elphinstone College, Bombay, and was accidentally burnt. -
46 Wordsworth IANA.
Gillies. Judging, however, by the following extract, I think
that he refers to the first portrait painted by her:—
s - Here I seem to gaze
On Wordsworth's honoured face ; for in the cells
Of those deep eyes Thought like a prophet dwells,
And round those drooping lips Song like a murmur strays,
XXIII.
Miss Gillies painted another portrait, of the poet and his
wife—a copy of the one burnt in India—for Mr. William
Wordsworth. It is now at the Stepping Stones, Ambleside.
XXIV.
In 1842 Wordsworth again sat to Haydon at the painter's
urgent request. In a letter to Professor Reed of Phila-
delphia, written in January 1841, Wordsworth says, “Haydon
is bent upon coming to Rydal next summer, with the view
of painting a likeness of me, not a mere matter-of-fact por-
trait, but one of a poetical character, in which he will
endeavour to place his friend in some favourite scene of
these mountains. I am rather afraid, I own, of any attempt
of this kind, notwithstanding my high opinion of his abilities;
but, if he keeps in his present mind, which I doubt, it
would be in vain to oppose his inclination. He is a great
enthusiast, possessed also of a most active intellect; but he
wants that submissive and steady good sense, which is ab-
solutely necessary for the adequate development of power,
in that art to which he is attached.’ -
It does not appear, however, that Haydon did visit Rydal
Mount in 1842. In that year Wordsworth was in London,
and Haydon painted him in his own studio there,
THE PortRA17s of WORDSWORTH, 47
In the Autobiography, already referred to (see Nos. VIII,
and Ix.), edited by Mr. and Mrs. Taylor (second edition,
vol. iii. p. 223), the following occurs under date June 14,
1842 : , ‘Wordsworth sat, and looked venerable, but I was
tired with the heat. . . . I made a successful sketch. He
comes again to-morrow, 16th.—Wordsworth breakfasted
with me, and we had a good sitting. He was remarkably
well, and in better spirits.” Further on, in this Autobio-
graphy, we read that “He [i.e. Haydon] sent, at the request.
and pressure of Miss Mitford, to her friend Miss E. B.
Barrett (now Mrs. Browning), the portrait of Wordsworth
on Helvellyn, painted this year’ (p. 237). The portrait
inspired.this sonnet by Mrs. Browning —
ON A PORTRAIT OF WORDSWORTH BY D, R, HAYDON,
Wordsworth upon IIelvellyn ! I.et the cloud
Ebb audibly along the mountain-wind,
Then break against the rock, and show behind
The lowland valleys floating up to crowd
The sense with beauty. Ile with forehead bowed
And humble-lidded eyes, as one inclined g
13efore the sovran thought of his own mind,
And very meek with inspirations proud,
Takes here his rightſul place as poet-priest
Iły the high altar, singing praise and prayer
To the higher II cavens. A noble vision free
Our Haydon's hand has ſlung out from the mist
No portrait this, with academic air :
This is the poet and his poetry.
One of the last entries in Haydon's diary, June 18, 1846,
—six days before his death, when hard pressed by his
chronic embarrassments, is to this effect: ‘I sent . . .
Wordsworth, . . . to Miss Barrett, to protect.’
48 worpshorz HIANA,
Haydon represented Wordsworth in this picture as if
ascending Helvellyn, and composing the sonnet addressed
to himself (to Haydon) on his portrait of the Duke of
Wellington upon the field of Waterloo. This sonnet was
written in 1840, and the portrait represents Wordsworth in
his seventy-second year. It was bought at the sale of
Haydon's effects by Mr. Cornelius Nicholson of Ventnor,
Isle of Wight, in whose possession it now is. It was en-
grayed by Thomas Lupton in 1848, and has been recently
lent by Mr. Nicholson for the purpose of being etched for
the edition of the poet's works which is being published by
Mr. Paterson, Edinburgh. Of this picture by Haydon,
Wordsworth wrote to the artist, Jan. 24, 1846 : ‘I myself
think that it is the best likeness—that is, the most charac-
teristic, that has been done of me.’ -
XXV.
Mr Francis Bennoch, 5 Tavistock Square, London, tells
me that he possesses a portrait of Wordsworth seated on
Helvellyn, by B. R. Haydon. It is, he says, “on canvas,
about four or five feet square, and was painted on the
occasion when the poet was last in London, prior to the
artist's death. The head was sketched with infinite care,
and is altogether the most characteristic likeness I have
ever seen of him. He sat for it two or three times, but it
was never finished. The general idea of the scene is
clearly indicated, though rough exceedingly. From the
elevated point on which Wordsworth is seated, the shim-
mering on the surface of the lake is seen far beneath, while
overhead an eagle is perched on a crag. . . . The head of
the poet, however, is the only part really worth preserving.’
THE PORTRAITS OF IVoRDSIVOATH 49
XXVI,
In 1844, Mr Henry Inman, an American artist (1802-
1846) was commissioned by Professor Reed, of Philadelphia,
to paint a likeness of Wordsworth for him. Mr. Inman, while
in England, took portraits of Macaulay and Chalmers, as well
as of Wordsworth, and amongst his landscapes was one of
Rydal Falls. His portrait of Wordsworth belongs to Mr.
Reed's widow in Philadelphia. Mr. Yarnall, of Wynndown,
Overbrook, Montgomery Co., Pa., wrote to me of this
picture, Feb. 14, 1881 : “Not having seen it for several years,
I made a careful examination of it within a few days. It is
in perfect condition, evidently represents the poet at his
best, and is a singularly clear and beautiful work of art. It
is not quite but almost a profile—the face indicating perfect
health—the features rather large, the complexion very clear,
and the large grey eyes with that far-off look that gaze into
the future, which has so often been described. I think the
expression of the eyes is the most noticeable characteristic
of this picture, of which Mrs. Wordsworth wrote, “In my
opinion . . . Mr. Inman's portrait of my husband is the
best likeness that has been taken of him.” In 1845 Mr.
Inman himself wrote as follows of the picture: “His [i.e.
Wordsworth's] wife, son, and daughter, all declared their
approval of my work. He told me he had sat twenty-seven
times to various artists, and that my picture was the best
likeness of them all.”” -
Mr. Yarnall wrote, on June 27, 1882 : ‘The other por-
traits are more or less conventional—while the true man,
Wordsworth as he was, as he lived and moved among
the sons of men—not perhaps the ideal poet, but the
somewhat rustic dweller among the hills—speaks in the
D
50 - WOA*/9,SH VOA’7.II/A AVA,
Inman picture. It is a likeness. It is the man, with the
far-off gaze, who wrote the poems. Do you need more
than that? To my mind its simplicity is its charm.’
The following is Mr. Inman's letter to Professor Reed,
describing his picture of the poet — - t
- NEW YORK, June 23, 1845.
MY DEAR SIR,-- . . . Mr. Wordsworth's reception of me
and the brief professional and social intercourse I enjoyed
with him and his excellent family, furnish me with none but
the most pleasing recollections. He seemed to be much
gratified with your request for his portrait; and though his
house teens with tokens of regard from his countrymen, he
evidently had a peculiar value for this transatlantic com-
pliment to his genius. On a ſine morning (I think it was on
the 20th of August 1844) I made my first visit to Rydal
Mount. I found the house of the poet most delightfully
situated—a long, low cottage almost buried among trees
and clustering vines. It is built upon a small eminence
called Rydal Mount, and behind the house the cliffs of Fair-
field Fell rise in picturesque beauty; and from its rocky
ravine issues forth a pleasing waterfall or ‘Force’ called
Rydal Falls, whose waters precipitate themselves in two
sheets a few hundred yards from the house,
Mr. Wordsworth received me with unaffected courtesy;
and my first close and technical observation of him did not
fail to note the peculiarly genial smile which lights up a
face full of intelligence and good-nature, -
I took sittings of him nearly every day, and in the
presence of Mrs. Wordsworth and his daughter and a son (a
fine-looking young man, holding some Government appoint-
ment, I believe, at Carlisle). , -
It was delightſul to mark the close and kindly sympathy
THE PORTRA17s of WoRDSWORTH, 51.
that seemed to bind the aged poet and his wife together,
They had known each other from the early period of
infancy, having gone to the same school at three years of
age. She sat close at his 'side when the sittings were
taken, and the good old man frequently, in the course of
a conversation mainly addressed to myself, turned to her
with an affectionate inquiry for her opinion respecting the
sentiment he had just expressed, and listened with interest
to her replies. . . . The poet accompanied me twice on
my sketching excursions, and pointed out various points of
view, which seemed favourable as subjects for the pencil.
In walking over his own grounds, he would pause occasion-
ally to invite my attention to some fine old tree, whose
‘verdurous torso' (that was his phrase) chanced to strike his
imagination as worthy of remark. He would point to its
gnarled and tortuous trunk with the same gusto with which
the statuary might scan a fragment from the chisel of Phidias,
His gallery of gems were all from the hand of Nature—the
moss-covered rock, the shining cascade, the placid lake, or
splintered mountain pinnacle, seemed each to constitute for
him a prideful possession—and well they might, for his foot-
step has during a long life pervaded every marked point of .
interest in that picturesque region. -
When the picture was finished, he said all that should
Satisfy my anxious desire for a successful termination to my
labours. His wife, son, and daughter, all expressed their
approval of my work. He told me he had sat twenty-seven
times to various artists, and that my picture was the best
likeness of them all. Pray excuse this irregular and hasty
scrawl, and believe me, your obliged and obedient servant,
tº HI, INMAN.
------, - - - - ---—sº-sº -- * ~-- ****-*-* ****
* I have only been able to make out twenty-six up to the date in question.
52 WORDSWORTHIANA,
XXVII.
Of the last-mentioned picture Mr. Inman made a replica,
which was presented by Mr. Reed to Wordsworth, and which
hung at Rydal Mount ever afterwards during the poet's life-
time. It is now, I believe, in the possession of his grandson,
the Rev. John Wordsworth, Gosforth Rectory, Carnforth,
Cumberland. -
XXVIII,
While staying at Rydal Mount, Inman also made a pen-
and-ink sketch of the residence and grounds, which he
afterwards painted on canvas, introducing the figure of the
poet; but he died before the picture was finished. Mr.
Yarnall tells me that he has seen both the sketch and the
unfinished picture, and that both are very good.
XXIX. .
In 1847 a Carlisle artist, Carrick, took a miniature in
water colour, some time before he took one of the poet
Rogers. It is in the possession of Mr. William Wordsworth ;
but it is a poor likeness. Mr. Wordsworth told me that the
late Lord Bradford had a copy of this picture of Carrick's
taken by himself. Wordsworth, writing to Rogers on March
Io, 1848, says he forwards a letter from Carrick, requesting
to be allowed to take Rogers' portrait, and Wordsworth
adds, “He took my portrait, when I met him not long ago
at his native place, Carlisle. If you should comply with
his request, I should be gratified, and should deem it an
honour to be associated with you in this way.” -
THE PORTRA17s of WoRDSworznº. 53
XXX,
I now come to four busts of Wordsworth. The precise
date of the earliest I have not been able to ascertain. It is
one of the most interesting of the busts at Coleorton Hall,
near Ashby-de-la-Zouche, in Leicestershire, where Words.
worth was a frequent visitor of the late Sir George Beaumont,
and where he spent the winter of 1806 and part of the
summer of 1807. Sir George Beaumont, who was himself
an artist—and whose picture of Peel Castle in a Storm
gave rise to some of the finest stanzas Wordsworth ever
wrote—commissioned Chantrey to take the bust, which was
certainly executed before the year 1821, and which was en-
graved for the 8vo edition of the Poems, 1845. Henry
Reed tells me that the poet told his father in 1845 that
when he sat for this bust he chanted the lines,
- But who is he with modest looks, €tC,
It has been said that Wordsworth himself wished to be known
to posterity by this statue; and some have pronounced it ‘a
very noble idealisation.” Mr. Thrupp considers it “too
smoothly shaven and chiselled, and without mental expres-
sion.’ Hazlitt said of it, “It wants marking traits.’ ‘The
bust flatters his head' (Woctes Ambrosiana, No. 11.). Cole-
ridge remarked of Chantrey's bust that it was ‘more like
Wordsworth than Wordsworth was like himself.”
XXXI.
Mr. Angus Fletcher (a brother of Lady Richardson Of
Lancrigg)—who studied under Chantrey, and who executed
busts of Mrs. Hemans and Joanna Baillie—also took one of
Wordsworth. The year is uncertain, but it was either in
54 Wordsworth IANA.
1842, or between that year and 1844. Of this bust, which
is at Lancrigg, a niece of the artist writes to me —
‘The Wordsworth head is very like in air and expression,
and much more like than the medallion in the Church,
although there is no comparing the two artists. But then
Mr. Woolner had never seen Wordsworth, whereas my
uncle had opportunities of seeing him daily.”
xxxii.
Then there is the medallion just mentioned, designed by
Mr. Woolner for Grasmere Church. In reference to it Mr.
Woolner writes:— -
29 WELBECK STREET, W.,
January 26, 1882,
DEAR SIR,--I was staying with the Tennysons in the
autumn of 1850. at Coniston Lake, and while there was
introduced to Mrs. Fletcher of Lancrigg, and her son
Angus, Dr. Davy (brother of Sir Humphry), who married a
daughter of Mrs. Fletcher, and to other friends of Words-
worth; and I feel sure it was in the following year, 1851,
that I was asked to prepare a design for the tablet which is
in Grasmere Church. . . . . -
Angus Fletcher, Dr. Davy, and Mr. Quillinan (son-in-law
of Wordsworth), were the persons who assisted me, and with
whom I corresponded on the subject. Unhappily, they are
all now dead, and the affair seems to me more like a circum-
stance I had read of, than anything that I was ever person-
ally connected with.
One of the plants on the tablet is the lesser célandine;
and I found myself scolded in the Gardeners' Chronicle
about a year ago for mistaking it for the greater celandine,
an entirely gratuitous assumption on the writer's part, as I
THE PORTRA/TS OF IroRDSWORTH. 55.
had no intention of representing the greater, that being a
flower wholly unsuited to my purposes,
• * º & Q º o
The tablet was executed for his friends.—Ever truly yours,
- - - THOS, WOOLNER,
XXXIII.
In 1852, Mr. Frederick Thrupp designed the statue which
is now in the Baptistery at Westminster Abbey. The model
in plaster, from which the marble in the Abbey was done, is
at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham. Of this statue Mr.
Thrupp writes:— - - -
232 MARYLEBONE Roap, LoNDON, N.W.,
DEAR SIR,---In answer to your note, I beg to inform you
that I am the sculptor of the statue of Wordsworth which is
in the Baptistery of Westminster Abbey. Soon after his
death it was proposed and subscribed for by public con-
tributions, brought forward chiefly by Sir John Coleridge,
The present Lord Chief-Justice, with Sir W. Boxall and Mr.
J. Spedding, were Secretaries and the Executive Committee,
There was a general competition annong sculptors for the
statue. I made four models varied in position, and the
present statue was preferred as giving his contemplative
character. As regards the clothing of the figure adopted, it
is really just what he wore, his ordinary dress, covered by a
plaid, such as he was wont to wear, or a cape. A visitor
to my study related to me how he, travelling in Switzer-
land, came to an hotel, in the grounds of which he saw
a man sitting, and just as my statue has represented him,
On joining the company of the stranger, and conversing
with him, he soon discovered that he was talking with
William Wordsworth. To obtain a likeness I depended on
56 ſporosivor THANA.
a cast of his face taken in plaster during his lifetime; also
on Haydon's painting and drawing, which perhaps, like all
the painter's heads, is rather too strongly featured about the
mouth. He habitually thickened the lips, and curled them
overmuch. - &
Chantrey's bust is too smoothly shaven and chiselled, is
done in his most mannered style, without mental expression.
Pickersgill's portrait is a mild likeness, and without fervour
or power of thought.—I remain, dear Sir, yours faithfully,
- FREDERICK THRUPP.
Mr. Thrupp's bust was moulded from a mask of which
some casts were taken. Of what he calls the ‘unsophisti-
cated mould,” Sir Henry Taylor remarks in his Autobio-
graphy, p. 60, ‘It is admirable as a likeness, in my opinion,
and to my knowledge in that of Mrs. Wordsworth ; and there
is a rough grandeur in it, with which, if it were to be con- .
verted into marble, posterity might be content.’
XXXIV.
Mr. Jacob Thompson, a Cumberland artist (born 1806, ..
died 1879), and a friend of Wordsworth, took several
drawings connected with the poet—one of Rydal Mount;
another, a view from the Mount; a third representing the
stone in the grounds of the Mount that had been spared “at
Wordsworth's suit’ ‘from some rude beauty of its own;’ a
fourth, a view of the poet's grave in Grasmere Churchyard.
‘Later on,’ according to the account given by Mr. Llewel-
lynn Jewitt, ‘Jacob Thompson designed two illustrative
pictures which he himself drew on the wood, and presented
ready for engraving to his friend Mr. Hall, for his Social
Moſes. The first of these, commemorative of Wordsworth,
THE PORTRA/7s of Wordsworth, 57
bears in the circle an original portrait of the Laureate, and
a composition of landscape which includes in the middle
distance the home of the poet, Rydal Mount, Rydal Water,
in the distance the mountains, and, in the foreground—
evidently by the side of the stone, which at his suit was
spared—one of the poet's own creations, the simple pastoral
of Barbara Lewthwaite and her pet lamb.” The portrait
represents the head and bust (clothed) in advanced middle
life. It is a three-quarters face, turned to the left."
XXXV.
Mr. Stephen Pearce, of 54 Queen Anne Street, Cavendish
Square, who possesses one of the Haydon drawings of
Wordsworth (see No. VII.), writes to me of a life-sized
paper profile by Sir George Beaumont, also in his possession.
On this is written in Haydon's autograph—
‘Wordsworth, a profile sketched and cut out by Sir George
Beaumont, when I was going to have a bust of him.’
Mr. Pearce says, “This profile was evidently first drawn
in pencil by Sir George Beaumont, and then cut out with a .
knife or scissors by Sir George Beaumont also.
‘Haydon writes in his Autobiography, April 13th, 1815 :
“I had a cast made yesterday of Wordsworth's face.” It
was on that occasion, I expect, that Sir George Deaumont
drew Wordsworth's profile in pencil, and then cut it out;
and Haydon evidently valued it, as he preserved it.
‘I do not believe that Haydon had anything whatever to
do with the drawing of it, or the cutting out of it. I expect
* See Life and I'ſ 'orks of Jacob 7'hompson, by I., Jewitt, 1882, pp.
I O2-106. -
58 Wordsworzºzawa.
that Sir George Beaumont was present when Haydon was
going to have a cast made of Wordsworth's face; and, as
they were all great friends, Sir George sketched Words.
worth's profile, and then cut it out. Haydon may have
suggested improvements to Sir George as he was doing it.’
XXXVI.
This cast of Wordsworth's face, taken by Haydon in
1815, may stand as likeness No. xxxvi, Mr. Thrupp tells
me that he made use of it in his construction of the Words-
worth statue, now in the Baptistery of Westminster Abbey,
XXXVII. AND XXXVIII.
Samuel Lawrence made two very interesting sketches
of Wordsworth's head, which now belong to Mr. Dykes
Campbell, who writes of them thus:—
I am unable to assign any probable date, but they were
evidently made when Wordsworth was an elderly if not
quite an old man. They are in charcoal. . . . One day
when I was showing the whole of these sketches by
Lawrence to Mrs. Proctor, she identified many of the
heads, and was particularly struck by the two of Words-
worth, as being so like him, as she remembered him. .
Lawrence was perhaps the most faithful reproducer of
men's features of his day, and he had sketched, as he had
known (with more or less intimacy), all the best literary
men of the period. Mr. Browning told me, looking at my
sketches of Carlyle by Lawrence, that Carlyle had told him
more than once that Lawrence was the only man who had
ever made a thoroughly satisfactory portrait of him.’
7//E PORTRA17's OF WORDSworzh, 59
XXXIX.
There have been several attempts, since Wordsworth's
death, to produce a likeness of him, founded upon previous
portraits and descriptions of his appearance. Whatever
their artistic merits, they are of no great value as likenesses.
But two exceptions may be made. The first is Mr. Armi-
tage's fresco drawing at University College Hall, Gordon
Square, London. This painting was designed to comme-
morate the late Mr. Henry Crabb Robinson. On one side
are grouped his German, and on the other his English
friends. Wordsworth is seated with Coleridge, Southey,
Lamb, and others near him. Of his fresco Mr. Armitage
writes:—
3 IIA i.i. Royſ), ST, Joli N's Woot),
June 29, 1882.
IDEAR SIR,--The likeness of Wordsworth in my mural
painting at University Hall was certainly not taken from
life, and I really cannot recollect exactly from what portrait
of the poet I constructed my version of him. §
I fancy my authorities were an engraved portrait of him
in a book, and a medallion profile, but I cannot be sure ;
and Mr. Edwin Field, who exerted himself to get me the
most trustworthy data for my portraits, has been dead many
years.-Yours very truly, F. ARMITAGF.
XI,.
Another reconstruction of Wordsworth worthy of notice
was by Thomas Faed, R.A., in his picture representing Sir
Walter Scott and his literary friends at Abbotsford. It was
engraved by James Faed, and published by James Keith,
Edinburgh, on the 2d of January 1854. This likeness of
Go - WORDSWORTHIANA.
Wordsworth is evidently based on the Pickersgill portrait
in St. John's College, Cambridge. He is represented as
seated in the centre of the group of Sir Walter's friends,
between Jeffrey and Lockhart. - -
XLI.
There was a pen-and-ink sketch of Wordsworth taken by
Alfred Croquis, and published by James Farmer, 215
Regent Street, London, to which no date is assigned ; but
as the poet's name is printed below, ‘Wm. Wordsworth,
author of the Excursion,' I infer it may belong to some year
between 1820 and 1830. It has no great merit.
XLII.
I have heard of a sketch of the head of the poèt, taken
in Rydal Church, in the year 1845, by a living artist, an
eminent portrait-painter; but, as it has been lost for the
present, description of it in detail is unnecessary,
I have also seen a portrait—which is said to be original,
but is of little value—at Brinsop Court, Herefordshire; and
another in a private house at Kendal, -
On the whole, I am inclined to think that the best like-
nesses are two of those by Haydon (Nos. VIII. and xxiv.),
the profile by Miss Gillies (No. xxii.), Inman's picture (No.
XXVI.), and the bušts by Angus Fletcher and by Thrupp
(Nos. xxxi, and xxxiii.). -
ON worDSworTH's Two STYLES
By R. II, IIUTTON,
ON worDSWORTH's Two STYLES."
THE essential feature of Wordsworth's Poetry has been
described by the greatest of our living critics in language
that none of our Society is at all likely to forget. After
speaking of Goethe's experience of the Iron Age, Matthew
Arnold says of Wordsworth :— -
1 Ie, too, upon a wintry clime
1Iad fallen, on this iron time
Oſ doubts, disputes, distractions, fears,
IIe found us when the age had bound
Our souls in its benumbing round ;
IIe spoke, and loosed our heart in tears,
lſe laid us as we lay at birth
On the cool, flowery lap of earth,
Smiles broke from us, and we had ease;
The hills were round us, and the breeze
Went o'er the sunlit fields again ;
Our foreheads felt the wind and rain,
Our youth returned ; for there was shed.
On spirits that had long been dead,
Spirits dried up and closely furled,
The freshness of the early world.
Ah since dark days still bring to light
Man's prudence and man's fiery might,
Time may restore us in his course -
Goethe's sage mind, and Byron's force;
* Read to the Society in May 1882.
64 WoRDSWORTHIANA,
--- - -------- - - - -------- ~~~~~~
But where will Europe's latter hour
Again find Wordsworth's healing power?
Others will teach us how to dare,
And against fear our breast to steel ;
Others will strengthen us to bear ;
But who, ah who will make us feel?
The cloud of mortal destiny,
Others will front it fearlessly,
. But who, like him, will put it by ?
I think this is rightly chosen as the characteristic of
Wordsworth's poetry, that he puts by for us the ‘cloud of
mortal destiny,' that he restores us the ‘freshness of the
early world;’ that he gives us back the magic circle of the
hills, makes us feel the breath of the wind and the coolness
of the rain upon our foreheads; and touches both the vigour
of youth, and the peace of age, with more of that serene
lustre which dew gives to the flowers, than any other poet,
But the same great critic has assured us that, properly
speaking, Wordsworth has no style, “no assured poetic style
of his own ; ' and this though he freely admits that “it is
style, and the elevation given by style, which chiefly makes
the cffectiveness of Zaodamia. For my part, I should have
said that as to Wordsworth's blank verse Mr. Arnold is
right; that in his blank verse Wordsworth is so dependent
on his matter, that he runs through almost all styles, good
and bad. But in his rhymed verse, I should have preferred
to say—though the admission may, perhaps, be used on
behalf of Mr. Arnold's drift, that Wordsworth had two dis-
tinct styles—the style of his youth and the style of his age
—the elastic style of fresh energy, born of his long devotion
to Nature's own rhythms, and the style of gracious and
stately feeling, born of his benignity, of his deep-set, calm
sympathy with human feeling, -the style of The Solitary
ow IvorosſPorzºs Tiro styles. 65
Feaper, and the style of Devotional Incitements. Surely the
style of the verse, -
Alone she cuts, and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
Oh listen, for the vale profound
Is overſlowing with the sound,
is Wordsworth's, in as true a sense as the style of
After life's fitful ſever, he sleeps well,
is Shakespeare's. Or again, is there not the personal stamp
of Wordsworth indelibly imprinted on every line in the
Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle?—
No thoughts hath he but thoughts that pass
Light as the wind along the grass
Can this be he who hither came
In secret, like a smothered flame P
- - f
Less personal, certainly less indelibly branded with
Wordsworth's hand, is what I call the later style. Still, I
think such lines as these, in the Devotional Incitements,
describing the comparatively slight power of Art, when
compared with Nature, to excite reverence, have on them
an indelible impress of Wordsworth's developed genius, in
its gracious, pure, and Serene Solemnity:
The priests are from their altars thrust;
Temples are levelled with the dust;
And solemn rites and awful forms . .
Founder amid fanatic storms.
Yet evermore, through years renewed
In undisturbed vicissitude
Of seasons balancing their flight
On the swiſt wings of day and night,
Kind Nature keeps a heavenly door
Wide open ſor the scattered poor,
E
66 •. WORDS!!’OR THAMA.
The most characteristic earlier and the most characteristic
later style are alike in the limpid coolness of their effect,
the effect in the earlier style of bubbling water, in the later
of morning dew. Both alike lay the dust, and tâke us out
of the fret of life, and restore the truth to feeling, and cast
over the vision of the universe
The image of a poet's heart,
IIow bright, how solemn, how serene !
I}ut the earlier and the later styles, even in their best speci-
mens, do this in very diſſerent ways, while the inferior speci-
mens of each are marked by very different faults. As
models of the two styles at their best, I would take, for
instance, The Daffodils for the earlier, and The Primrose of
the Rock for the later; J'arrow Unvisited for the earlier,
and Yarrow A'evisited for the later; The Zeech-gaſ/lerer (or
as Wordsworth rather cumbrously called it, Æeso/u/ion and
Independence) for the earlier, and Zaodamia for the later
style. The chief diſſerences between the two styles seem to
me these :—That objective fact, especially when appealing
to the sense of vision, sometimes utterly bald and trivial,
though often very commanding in its effects, plays so much
larger a part in the earlier than the later; that the earlier,
when it reaches its mark at all, has a pure elasticity, a pas-
sionless buoyancy (passionless, I mean, in the sense of being
devoid of the hotter passions) in it, almost unique in
poetry; and lastly, that in the greater of the earlier pieces
emotion is uniformly suggested rather than cN.pressed, or,
if I may be allowed the paradox, expressed by reticence, by
the jealous parsimony of a half-voluntary, half-involuntary
reserve. In the later style, on the other hand, objective
fact is much less prominent; bald moralitics tend to take
ow Worps Worth's TiVo'szyzES, 67
the place of bald realities; and though the buoyancy is
much diminished, emotion is much more freely, frankly
and tenderly expressed, so that there is often in it a richness
and mellowness of effect quite foreign to Wordsworth's
earlier mood. The ruggedness of the earlier style is what
one may call one of knots and flinty protuberances ; there
is an occasional bleakness about it; the passion with which
passion is kept down, though often exalted, is sometimes
hard ; there is a scorn of sweetness, an excess of simplicity,
which frequently touches simp/esse ; and though the depth
of feeling which is dammed up makes its surging voice heard.
in the happier instances, yet in the less happy instances
the success of the operation is only too great, and leaves us
oppressed with a sense of unexpected blankness.
In the later style, all this is changed. The keenness of
sheer objective vision is still felt, but is less dominant;
while emotion, no longer restrained, ſlows naturally, and
with a sweet and tender lustre shining upon it, into musical.
expression. I may illustrate the diſſerence between the two
styles so far as regards the degrees of their direct expressive-
ness, by a characteristic change which Wordsworth made in
his later editions in the beautiful poem entitled Zhe Wountain.
The poet, it will be remembered, there remonstrates with
the schoolmaster, whom he calls Matthew, for speaking of
himself as unloved in his old age :
- - ‘Now both himself and me he wrongs,
The man who thus complains !
I live and sing my idle songs
Upon these happy plains;
And, Matthew, for thy children dead
I 'll be a son to thee.’
At this he grasped his hands, and said,
‘Alas, that cannot be ' '
68 WoRDSWOR7A/AWA.
In the later editions, Wordsworth altered this to—
At this he grasped my hand, and said
‘Alas, that cannot be l'
The earlier reading looks like hard fact, and no doubt
sounds a little rough and abrupt. But I feel pretty sure,
not only that the earlier version expressed the truth as it
was present to Wordsworth's inner eye when he wrote the
poem, but that it agreed better with the mood of those
earlier years, when the old man's wringing of his own hands,
in a sort of passion of protest against the notion that any
one could take the place of his lost child, would have
seemed much more natural and dignified to Wordsworth, .
than the mere kindly expression of grateful feeling for
which he subsequently exchanged it.
Now, I will go a little into detail. Contrast the power,
which is very marked in both cases, of the poem on ZVie
AJaffodils, with that on The Primrose of the ſock, You all
know the wonderful buoyancy of that poem on the daffodils,
—the reticent passion with which the poet's delight is
expressed, not by dwelling on feeling, but by selecting as a
fit comparison to that ‘crowd’ and ‘host' of golden daſſodils
the impression produced on the eye by the continuousness
of ‘the stars that shine and sparkle in the Milky Way,” the
eſſect of wind, and of the exultation which wind produces,
in the lines, * - e
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance;
and in the rivalry suggested between them and the waves:
The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee.
ow Wowoswor?'H's Two szy/ES. 69
You all kncw the exquisite simplicity of the conclusion
when the poet tells us that as often as they recur to his
mind, and º
— flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude,
y
his heart “with pleasure fills, and dances with the daffodils.
The great beauty of that poem is its wonderful buoyancy,
its purely objective way of conveying that buoyancy, and
the extraordinary vividness with which ‘the lonely rapture
of lonely minds’ is stamped upon the whole poem, which is
dated 1804. Now turn to 7%e /’rimrose of the A'ock, which
was written twenty-seven years later, in 1831. We find the
style altogether more ideal,—reality counts for less, symbol
for more. There is far less elasticity, far less exultant
buoyancy here, and yet a grander and more stately move-
ment. The reserve of power has almost disappeared ; but
there is a graciousness absent before, and the noble strength
of the last verse is most gentle strength :
A Rock there is whose homely front
The passing traveller slights :
Yet there the glow-worms hang their lamps,
I.ike stars, at various heights;
And one coy Primrose to that Rock
The vernal breeze invites.
What hideous warfare hath been waged,
What kingdoms overthrown,
Since first I spied that Primrose-tuft
And marked it for my own ;
A lasting link in Nature's chain,
From highest heaven let down
The flowers, still faithful to the stems,
Their fellowship renew ;
7o - WoRDSWORTHANA.
The stems are faithful to the root,
That worketh out of view ;
And to the rock the root adheres
. In every fibre true. -
Close clings to earth the living rock,
Though threatening still to fall ;
The earth is constant in her sphere ;
And God upholds them all :
So blooms this lonely Plant, nor dreads
Her annual funeral. . .
It will be observed at once that in The Daffodils there is
no attempt to explain the delight which the gay spectacle
raised in the poet's heart. He exults in the spectacle itself,
and reproduces it continually in memory. The wind in his
style blows as the wind blows in The Daffodils, with a sort
of physical rapture. In the later poem, the symbol is every-
thing. The mind pours itself forth fully in reflective
gratitude, as it glances at the moral overthrow which the
humble primrose of the rock,-and many things of human
mould as humble and faithful as the primrose of the rock-
has outlived. In point of mere expression, I should call the
later poem the more perfect of the two. The enjoyment
of the first lies in the intensity of the feeling which it some-
how indicates, without expressing, of which it merely hints
the force by its eager and springy movement.
Now, take the earliest and latest Yarrow, and note the
same difference. How swift, and bare, and rapid, like the
stream itself, as Wordsworth chooses to describe it :
- A river bare
That glides the dark hills under,
is the verse in which he depreciates the reality, in order to
enhance the treasure of an unverified vision Yarrow is
OW WORDS WOA. TA's TiVo SzyI.E.S. 71
represented as a fit home chiefly for the country-people who
go to market at Selkirk, and for the wild birds and ground.
game which fly and burrow beside it :
Let Yarrow folk frae Selkirk town,
Who have been buying, selling,
Go back to Yarrow, 'tis their own;
Iºach maiden to her dwelling !
On Yarrow's banks let herons feed,
Ilares couch, and rabbits burrow !
I3ut we will downward with the Tweed,
Nor turn aside to Yarrow.
The charm of that is the charm of a perfectly bare repre-
sentation of a perfectly simple scene, enhanced by the
suggestion which lurks everywhere that the common facts
of life are pretty certain to seem common, unless, indeed,
you bring an imagination strong enough to transfigure them;
while if you do, the poet insists that the true magic is in
you, and not in the scene, since it is independent of the
actual vision on which the mind seems to feed. The beauty
of the verse is almost all confined to the thought itself; the
only touch of extraneous beauty is the careless suggestion
that ‘the swan on still St. Mary's Lake’ may, if it pleases,
‘float double, Swan and shadow,’ without tempting them
aside to see it; and even that seems put in only to suggest,
as it were, how greatly the power of vividly innagining even
such a sight as this exceeds in significance the power which
the mere eyes possess of discerning loveliness even where
they have taken in the forms and colours which ought to
suggest it. The whole beauty of the verses is in their bare-
ness. The poem may be said to have for its very subject
the economy of imaginative force, the wantonness of poetic
prodigality, the duty of retaining in the heart reserves of
72 WoA:/2SWOR77/IAA.I.
potential and meditative joy, on which you refuse to draw
all you might draw of actual delight: • .
Be Yarrow stream unseen, unknown
It must, or we shall rue it;
We have a vision of our own ;
Ah! why should we undo it?
And the style corresponds to the thought; it is the style
of one who exults in holding over, and being strong and
buoyant enough to hold over, a promised imaginative joy.
A certain ascetic radiance,—if the paradox be permissible,
—a manly jubilation in being rich enough to sacrifice an
expected delight, makes the style sinewy, rapid, youthful,
and yet careful in its youthfulness, as jealous of redundancy
as it is firm and elastic. . . This was written in 1803. Turn
to Yarrow Alevisited, which was written twenty-eight years
later, in 1831. The rhythm is the same, but how different
the movement; how much sweeter and slower, how many
more the syllables on which you must dwell, sometimes
with what the ear admits to be an over-emphasis; how
much richer the music, when it is music; how much more
hesitating, not to say vacillating, the reſlection ; and how
the versification itself renders all this, with its sedate pauses,
—pauses, to use another poet's fine expression, “as if
memory had wept,’-—its amplitude of tender feeling, its
lingerings over sweet colours, its anxious desire to find
compensations for the buoyancy of youth in wise reflec-
tion — * & *
Once more, by Newark's castle gate,
Long left without a warder,
I stood, looked, listened, and with thee,
Great Minstrel of the Border
ow IVoºDSiWorzºrs Zivo Szyzes. 73
Grave thoughts ruled wide on that sweet day
Their dignity installing . . . • .
In gentle bosoms, while sere leaves
Were on the bough, or falling ;
But breezes played, and sunshine gleamed—
The forest to embolden ; ..
Reddened the fiery hues, and shot.
Transparence through the golden.
For busy thoughts the stream flowed on
In ſoamy agitation;
And slept in many a crystal pool
For quiet contemplation :
No public and no private care
The free-born mind enthralling,
We made a day of happy hours,
Our happy days recalling.
And if, as Yarrow, through the woods
And down the meadow ranging,
HDid meet us with unaltered face,
While we were changed or changing ;
If, then, some natural shadows spread
Our inward prospect over,
The soul's deep valley was not slow
. . Its brightness to recover. - . . .
The expression there is richer, freer, more mellow ; but the
reserve force is spent ; all the wealth of the moment—and
perhaps something more than the wealth of the moment,
something which was not wealth, though mistaken for it—
was poured out. One cannot but feel now and again that,
as Sir Walter said of his aged harper,
His trembling hand had lost the ease
Which marks security to please,
And scenes long past of joy and pain
Came wildering o'er his aged brain,
74 WoRDSWOAZA/AMA.
Mr. Arnold places almost all the really first-rate work of
Wordsworth in the decade between the years 1798 and 1808,
I think he is right here. But I should put Wordsworth's
highest perfection of style much nearer the later date than
the earlier; at least iſ, as I hold, the Song at the Feast of
Brougham Castle touches the very highest point which he
ever reached. The Zeech-gatherer was written in the same
year, though its workmanship is not nearly so perfect. Let
me contrast its style with that of Zaodamia, of which the
subject is closely analogous, and which was written only
seven years later, in 1814; though these seven years mark,
as it appears to me, a very great transformation of style.
Both poems treat of Wordsworth's favourite theme, the
strength which the human heart has, or ought to have, to
contain itself in adverse circumstances, and the spurious
character of that claim of mere emotion to command us by
which we are so often led astray. The Zeech-gatherer has
much less of buoyancy than the earlier poems, and some-
thing here and there of the stateliness of the later style,
especially in the noble verse:
I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy,
The sleepless Soul that perished in his pride;
Of him who walked in glory and in joy,
Following his plough along the mountain-side ;
By our own spirits are we deified : -
We l’oets in our youth begin in gladness;
13ut thereof come in the end despondency and madness.
But on the whole, the poem is certainly marked by that
emphatic visual imagination, that delight in the power of
the eye, that strength of reserve, that occasional stiffness of
feeling, and that immense rapture of reverie, which charac-
terise the earlier period, though it wants the more rapid and
ow Ivokoswok TH's Ziro Szy/ES. 75
buoyant movement of that period. Take the wonderful
description of The Zeech-gatherer himself: -
Himself he propped, limbs, body, and pale face,
Upon a long grey staff of shaven wood :
And still, as I drew near with gentle pace,
Upon the margin of that moorish flood
Motionless as a cloud the old Man stood,
That heareth not the loud winds when they call;
And moveth all together, if it move at all.
Or take the description of the reverie into which the old
man's words threw Wordsworth : *
The old Man still stood talking by my side;.
But now his voice to me was like a stream
Scarce heard; nor word from word could I divide ;
And the whole body of the Man did seem
Like one whom I had met with in a dream ;.
Or like a man from some far region sent, -
To give me human strength, by apt admonishment."
In turning to Zaodamia, we see that a great change of
style—a great relaxation of the high tension of the earlier
power—and with it a great increase in grace and sweetness
has come. When Protesilaus announces that his death
was due to his having offered up his own life for the success .
of the Greek host, by leaping first to the strand where it
was decreed that the first comer should perish, Laodamia
replies:
‘Supreme of IIeroes—bravest, noblest, best
Thy matchless courage I bewail no more,
Which then, when tens of thousands were deprest
13y doubt, propelled thee to the fatal shore;
Thou found'st—and I forgive thee—here thou art—
A nobler counsellor than my poor heart.
76 WoRDSWORTH/ANA.
* **** *** * * *** -º- ºr -ºs - - - - - -ºm-º ºr - e.e. … < *-*.
“But thou, though capable of sternest deed,
Wert kind as resolute, and good as brave;
And he, whose power restores thee, hath decreed
Thou shouldst elude the malice of the grave :
Redundant are thy locks, thy lips as fair
As when their breath enriched Thessalian air.
“No Spectre greets me, -no vain Shadow this;
Come, blooming IIero, place thee by my side
Give, on this well-known couch, one nuptial kiss
To me, this day, a second time thy bride l’
Jove frowned in heaven, the conscious Parcae threw .
Upon those roseate lips a Stygian hue. .
‘This visage tells thee that my doom is past :
Nor should the change be mourn'd, even iſ the joys
Of sense were able to return as fast -
And surely as they vanish. I’arth destroys
Those raptures duly-–Erebus disdains :
Calm pleasures there abide—majestic pains,
“Be taught, O faithful Consort, to control
Rebellious passion : for the Gods approve
The depth, and not the tumult, of the soul ;
A ſervent, not ungovernalile love.
Thy transports moderate, and meekly mourn
When I depart, for brief is my sojourn.'
There is certainly an air of classic majesty and a richness
of colour about this which contrasts curiously with the
strong sketch of the lonely Leech-gatherer, though there
seems to me a fitness in the fact that the style of the poem
which paints the excess of unregulated feeling is full of
almost artificial grace, while the style of the poem which
paints the humble self-reliance of desolate fortitude is
for the most part cast in the mould of a bare and almost
bleak dignity. -
ow iroRDshow TH's Two styles. 77
But I must come to an end. The later style has, I think,
this advantage over the earlier, that where its subject is
equally fine,—which, as I admit, it often is not, -the work-
manship is far more complete, often almost of crystal beauty,
and without the blots, the baldness, the dead-wood, which
almost all Wordsworth's earlier works exhibit, Where, for
instance, in all the range of poetry, shall we find a more
crystal piece of workmanship than the sonnet—written I
think, as late as 1827, and addressed to Lady Beaumont
in her seventieth year—with which I may conclude this
paper:— *
Such age, how beautiful O Lady bright,
Whose mortal lineaments seem all refined
By favouring Nature and a saintly mind
To something purer and more exquisite
Than flesh and blood; whene'er thou meet'st my sight,
When I behold thy blanched unwithered cheek,
Thy temples fringed with locks of gleaming white,
And head that droops because the soul is meek,
Thee with the welcome Snowdrop I compare;
That child of winter, prompting thoughts that climb
From desolation toward the genial prime;
Or with the Moon conquering earth's misty air,
And filling more and more with crystal light,
As pensive lºvening deepens into night.
REMINISCENCES OF worDSworth
AMONG THE PEASANTRY OF
WESTMORELAND
By II, D, RAWNSLEY.
REMINISCENCES OF WORDSworTH AMONG
THE PEASANTRY OF WESTMORELAND.
HAVING grown up in the immediate vicinity of the present
Poet-Laureate's old home in Lincolnshire, I had been struck
with the swiftness with which,
As year by year the labourer tills
II is wonted glebe, or lops the glades, -
the memories of the poet of the Somersby Wold had faded
‘ from off the circle of the hills.’ I had been astonished to
note how little real interest was taken in him or his ſame,
and how seldom his works were met with in the houses of
the rich or poor in the very neighbourhood. -
It was natural that, coming to reside in the lake country,
I should endeavour to find out what of Wordsworth's
memory among the men of the Dales still lingered on,
how far he was still a moving presence among them,-how -
far his works had made their way into the cottages and
farm-houses of the valleys. +
But if a certain love of the humorous induced me to enter
into or follow up conversations with the few still living
among the peasants who were in the habit of seeing Words-
worth in the flesh, there was also a genuine wish to en-
deavour to find out how far the race of Westmoreland and .
Cumberland farm-folk—the ‘Matthews’ and the ‘Michaels'
1 Read to the Society in May 1882.
F
82 . - WoRDSWORTHIANA. . .
of the poet as described by him—were real or fancy pictures,
or how far the characters of the dalesmen had been altered
in any remarkable manner by tourist influences during the
thirty-two years that have passed since the aged poet was
laid to rest. t; º
For notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Ruskin, writing in
1876, had said “that the Border peasantry (painted with
absolute fidelity by Scott and Wordsworth)' are, as hitherto,
a scarcely injured race,—that in his fields at Coniston
he had men who might have fought with Henry V, at .
Agincourt without being distinguished from any of his
knights, that he could take his tradesmen's word for a
thousand pounds, and need never latch his garden gate,
nor fear molestation in wood or on moor, for his girl guests;
the more one went about seeking for such good life and
manners and simple piety as Wordsworth knew and de-
scribed in ſell-side homes, or such generous unselfishness
and, nobility among the Dale farmers as would seem to have
been contemporaries of the poet, the more one was dis-
appointed to find a characteristic something faded away, and
a certain beauty vanished that the simple retirement of old
valley-days of fifty years ago gave to the men amongst whom
Wordsworth lived. The strangers with their gifts of gold,
their vulgarity, and their requirements, have much to answer
for in the matter. But it is true that the decent exterior,
the shrewd wit, and the manly independence and natural
knightliness of the men of the soil is to a large extent
responsible for raising expectations of nobility of life and
morals, the expectation of which would be justified by no
other peasant class in England, and which, by raising an
unfair standard for comparison, ought to be prepared for
some disappointment. w - -
One's walks and talks with the few who remember Words-
A EM/AWISCEANCES OF TVORDSWORTH. 83
worth, or Wudsworth as they always call him, have done
little to find out more than the impression that they as out-
siders formed of him, but it allowed one to grasp by the
hand a few of those natural noblemen who by their pre-
sence still give testimony to a time and a race of men and
women fast fading away, and in need already of the im-
mortality of lofty tradition that Wordsworth has accorded
them. • . *
While these few of his still living peasant contemporaries
show us the sort of atmosphere of severely simple life, hand-
in-hand with a “joy in widest commonalty spread,’ that
made some of Wordsworth's poems possible, I think the
facts that they seem to establish of Wordsworth's seclusion,
and the distance he seems to have kept from them and their
cottage homes, not a little interesting. For they point to
the suggestion that the poet lived so separate and apart
from them, so seldom entered the “huts where poor
men lie,' or mixed with the fell-side folk at their sports
and junketings, that he was enabled, in his swift selection
and appreciation of the good and pure and true in their
surroundings, to forget, quite homestly perhaps, the faults
of the people among whom he lived.
Be that as it may, this paper aims at establishing no new
doctrine or view about the man, but at simply putting on
record reminiscences still in the minds of some of those
who often saw him, knew his fancies and his ways (as only
servants know the fancies and ways of their master), and
spoke with him sixty, fifty, or forty years ago.
These reminiscences may seem worthless to many, just
from the fact that they are the words of outsiders. They
will seem to others of interest for that very reason. And
this much must be said, they are trustworthy records from
true mouths. The native love of fruſh, or perhaps better,
84 WOADSWOA'7A/AWA.
the native dislike ever to hazard suggestion, or to speak
without book, is guarantee for that. To ask questions in
Westmoreland is the reverse of asking them of Syrian ſella-
heen and Egyptian dragomans. The Cumberland mind is
not inventive, nor swift to anticipate the answer you wish,
and one is always brought up sharp with—
‘Naay, I wud na speak to that neither :'
‘Naay, I'se not certain to owt o’ that :’
‘Might bea, but not to my knowledge howivver:”
‘It’s na good my saaing I kna that, when I doant, now
then,'—and so on. & -
Twenty summers had let the daisies blossom round Words-
worth's grave, when, in 1870, I heard of and saw the old
lady who had once been in service at Rydal Mount, and was
now a lodging-house keeper at Grasmere. She shall be called
as first witness, but what kind of practical and unimaginative
mind she had may be gathered from the following anecdote.
My sister came in from a late evening walk, and said, ‘O
Mrs. I) , have you seen the wonderful sunset?’ The good
lady turned sharply round, and drawing herself to her full
height, as if mortally offended, answered, ‘No, Miss R y
I’m a tidy cook, I know, and, “they say,” a decentish
body for a landlady, and sic-like, but I doant knaw nothing
about Sunsets or them sort of things, they’ve never been in
my line.' Her reminiscence of Wordsworth was as worthy
of tradition as it was explanatory, from her point of view,
of the method in which Wordsworth composed, and was
helped in his labours by his enthusiastic sister.
‘Well you know,' were her words, ‘Mr. Wordsworth
went humming and booing about, and she, Miss Dorothy,
kept close behint him, and she picked up the bits as he let
'em fall, and tak 'em down, and put 'em together on paper
AEM//w/scEwcFs of ſporosivoA:TH. 85
for him, And you may,' continued the good dame, ‘be
very well sure as how she didn't understand nor make sense
out of 'em, and I doubt that he [Wordsworth] didn't know
much about them either himself, but, howivver, there's a
great many folk as do, I dare say.” - -
And here it will be well to put in a caution. The
vernacular of the Lake district must be understood a little, or
wrong impressions would be got of the people's memory of
the bard. “What was Mr. Wordsworth like in personal
appearance?' I once asked of an old retainer, who still
lives not far from Rydal Mount. ‘He was a ugly-faāced man,
and a meån liver,’ was the answer. And when he continued,
‘Ay, and he was a deúl upo' the road, ye kna,’ one might
have been pardoned if one had concluded that the Lake
poet was a sort of wild man of the woods, an ugly customer
of desperate life, or highwayman of vagrant habit. All that
was really meant when translated was, that he was a man of
marked features, and led a very simple life in matters of
food and raiment. -
The next witness I shall call to speak of the poet is none
other than the lad whose wont it was to serve the Rydal
Mount kitchen with meat, week in week out, in the poet's
days. A grey-haired man himself now, his chiefest memory
of Wordsworth is that of a tall man, “rather a fineish man in
build, with a bit of a stoop, and a deal of grey hair upon
his heid.’ - * g -
In some of the days of close analysis that are coming upon
us, poets will perhaps be found to have depended for the
particular colour of their poems, or turns and cast of
thought, upon the kind of food—vegetable or animal—that
they mostly subsisted on. It will be well to chronicle the
fact that Wordsworth had an antipathy to veal, but was very
86 WOADSWOR7A/AN.1.
partial to legs, ‘lived on legs, you may almost say.' But
as my friend added, almost in the same breath, that the poet
was ‘a greit walker i' the vaāles,' he had uttered uncon-
sciously a double truth. - . .
The next fact that remained clear and distinct in the
butcher's mind was, that whenever you met the poet he
was sure to be ‘quite [pronounced white] plainly dressed.’
Sometimes in a round blue cloak. Sometimes wearing a big
wideawake, or a bit of an old boxer, but plainly dressed,
almost ‘poorly dressed, ya mun saay, at the best o' times.’
“But for aw that, he was quite an object man,’ he added,
meaning that there was a dignity that needed no dressing
to set it off, I suppose, in the poet's mien and manner. It
was interesting to hear, too, how different Wordsworth had
seemed in his grave silent way of passing children without a
word, from “li’le IIartley Coleridge,’ with his constant salut.
tation, uncertain gait, his head on one side, his walking-stick
suddenly shouldered, and then his frantic little rushes along
the road, between the pauses of his thought, ‘Many’s the
time,' said my friend, ‘that me and my sister has run our-
selves intil a lather to git clear fra Hartley, for we allays
thowt, ya kna, when he started running he was eſter us,
But as fur Mister Wildsworth, he'd pass you, same as if ya
was nobbut a stoan. He niver cared for children, how-
ever; ya may be certain of that, for didn't I have to pass
him four times in tº week, up to the door wi' meat? And
he niver oncst said owt. Ye're well aware if he'd been
fond of children he 'ud 'a spoke.’ - r
But Mrs. Wordsworth had made her impressions too on
the youth's mind. “As for Mrs. Wordsworth, she was plainer
in her ways than he was. The pláinest woman in these
parts, for all the world the bettermer part of an old farm-
wife.’ He intended nothing disrespectful by this simile, he
REMINISCENCEs of WoRDS Worth. . . 87
only wished to say she was simple in manner and dress.
But if Mrs. Wordsworth's personal appearance had im-
pressed him, her powers of housekeeping had impressed
him more. She was very persevering, and ‘ter'ble parti-
cular in her accounts, never allowed you an inch in the
butching-book.' It did not raise one's opinion of Lake
country butcher morality to find this a grievance, but the
man as he spoke seemed to think a little sorely of those
old-fashioned days, when mistresses, not cooks, took super-
vision of the household economics,
I bade my friend good-day, and the last words I heard
were, “But Mr. Wudsworth was ſuffe an object man,
mind ye.”
It is an easy transition from butcher-boy to gardener's lad,
and I will now detail a conversation I had with one who, in
this latter capacity at Rydal Mount, saw the poet daily for
some years. *
It was Easter Monday, and I knew that the one-time
gardener's lad at Rydal Mount had grown into a vale-
renowned keeper of a vale-renowned beerhouse, I had
doubts as to calling on this particular day, for Easter Mon-
day and beer go much together in our Lake country. But
I was half reassured by a friend who said, ‘Well, he gets
drunk three times a day, but takes the air between whiles,
and if you catch him airing he will be very civil, but it's a
bad day to find him sober, this.’ I explained that I wanted
to talk with him of old Wordsworthian days, “Aw, it's
Wudsworth you're a gaan to see about? If that's the game,
you're reet enuſſ, for, drunk or sober, he can crack away a
deal upon Mr. Wudsworth. An' I'se not so varry scuer but
what he's best drunk a li'le bit.’ I was reassured, and soon
88 IPORDSIVox 7'H/AMA,
found myself sitting on the stone ale-bench outside the
public-house, the best of friends with a man who had been
apparently grossly libelled—for he was as sober as a judge
—and whose eye fairly twinkled as he spoke of the Rydal
garden days. - -
‘You see, blessed barn, it’s a lock o’ daiiys sin', but I
remember them dańys, for I was put by my master to the
Rydal Mount as gardener-boy to keep me fra bad waays.
And I remember one John Wudsworth, Mr. Wudsworth's
nevi, parson he was, déad, like enough, afore this. Well,
he was stayin' there along o' his missus, first week as I was
boy there, and I was ter’ble curious, and was like enough to
hev bin drowned, for they had a bath, filled regular o'
nights, up above, ya kna, with a sort of curtainment all
round it. And blowed if I didn't watch butler fill it, and
then goa in and pull string, and down came watter, and I
was 'maazed as owt, and I screamed, and Mr. John come
and ſun' me, and saäved my life, Eh, blessed barn, them
was daiiys long sin'.' +
I asked whether Mr. Wordsworth was much thought of.
He replied, ‘Latterly, but we thowt li'le enough of him.
He was nowt to li'le Hartley. Li'le Hartley was a philo-
sopher, you see; Wudsworth was a poet. Ter’ble girt
difference betwixt them two ways, ye kna.’ I asked whether
he had ever found that poems of Mr. Wordsworth were read
in the cottages, whether he had read them himself. “Well,
you see, blessed barn, there's pomes and pomes, and Wuds-
worth's was not for sich as us. I never did see his pomes
—not as I can speak to in any man's house in these parts,
but,’ he added, ‘ye kna there's bits in the paapers fra time
to time bearing his naame.’ t - -
This unpopularity of Wordsworth's poems among the
peasantry was strangely corroborated that very same day
RFAſ/M/scewces of Woºdshow 77. 89
by an old man whom I met on the road, who said he had
often seen the poet, and had once been present and heard
him make a long speech, and that was at the laying of the
foundation of Boys' Schoolroom at Bowness, which was
built by one Mr. Bolton of Storrs Hall. -
On that occasion Mr. ‘Wudsworth talked long and weel
enough,’ and he remembered that he “had put a pome he
had written into a bottle wi' some coins in the hollow of
the foundation-stone.’ - - - -
I asked him whether he had ever seen or read any of the
poet's works, and he had answered, ‘No, not likely; for
Wudsworth wasn't a man as wrote on separate bits, saime
as Hartley Coleridge, and was niver a frequenter of public-
houses, or owt of that sort.' But he added, ‘He was a good
writer, he supposed, and he was a man folks thowt a deal
of in the dale : he was such a well-meaning, decent, quiet
man.’ -
But to return to my host at the public. Wordsworth, in
his opinion, was not fond of children, nor animals. He
would come round the garden, but never ‘say nowt.” Some-
times, but this was seldom, he would say, ‘Oh! you’re
planting peas?’ or, ‘Where are you setting onions?” but
only as a master would ask a question of a servant. He
had, he said, never seen him out of temper once, neither in
the garden, nor when he was along o' Miss Dorothy in her
invalid chair. But he added, “What went on in the house
I can't speak to ;' meaning that as an outdoor servant he
had no sufficiently accurate knowledge of the indoor life to
warrant his speaking of it. Wordsworth was not an early
riser, had no particular ſlower he was fondest of that he
could speak to ; never was heard to sing or whistle a tune
in his life; there was no two words about that, ‘though he
bummed a deal ; ’—of this more presently.
99 WoRDSWORTHIAMA,
‘He was a plain man, plainly dressed, and so was she, ya
mun kna. But eh, blessed barn he was fond o' his own
childer, and fond o' Dorothy, especially when she was faculty
strucken, poor thing; and as for his wife, there was noa two
words about their being truly companionable; and Wuds-
worth was a silent man wi'out a doubt, but he was not
aboon bein’ tender and quite monstrable [demonstrative] at
times in his own family.’
I asked about Mr. Wordsworth's powers of observation.
Had he noticed in his garden walks how he stooped down
and took this or that flower, or smelt this or that herb P
(I have heard since that the poet's sense of smell was
limited.) ‘Na, he wadna speak to that, but Mr. Wudsworth
was what you might call a vara practical-eyed man, a man
as seemed to see aw that was stirrin'.' -
Perhaps the most interesting bit of information I ob-
tained, before our pleasant chat was at an end, was a
description of the way in which the poet composed on the
grass terrace at Rydal Mount. ‘Eh! blessed barn,” my
informant continued, ‘I think I can see him at it now.
He was ter’ble thrang with visitors and folks, you mun kna,
at times, but if he could git away from them for a spell, he
was out upon his gres walk ; and then he would set his
head a bit forward, and put his hands behint his back.
And then he would start a bumming, and it was bum, bum,
bum, stop; then bum, bum, bum rect down till tºother end,
and then he’d set down and git a bit o’ paper out and write
a bit; and then he git up, and bum, bum, bum, and goa on
bumming for long enough right down and back agean. I
suppose, ye kna, the bumming helped him out a bit. . How-
ever, his lips was always goan' whoale time he was upon the
gres walk. He was a kind mon, there's no two words .
REA/INISCAENCES OF WOAIDSPWORTI/. 91
about that ; if any one was sick i' the plaace, he wad be
off to see til 'em.’ - -
And so ended my Easter Monday talk with the poet's
quondam gardener's boy, the now typical beerhouse-keeper,
who is half pleased, half proud, to remember his old master
in such service as he rendered him, in the days when it was
judged that to keep a boy out of mischief and from bad
company it was advisable to get him a place at Rydal -
Mount. g -
I must ask you next to take a seat with me in a waller's
cottage. If tea and bread and butter is offered, you had
better take it also, it is almost sure to be pressed upon you,
and it is of the best. I will be interrogator, only by way of
introduction saying, that our host is a splendid type of the
real Westmoreland gentleman labourer, who was in his days
a wrestler too, and whose occupation at the building of
Arox/low and Fiddler's /arm in the Rydal Valley, often
allowed him to see the poet in old times.
‘Well, George, what sort o' a man in personal appearance
was Mr. Wordsworth P’
‘He was what you might ca'a ugly man,—mak of John
Rigg much,--much about same height, 6 feet or 6 feet 2,-
smaller, but deal rougher in the face.” -
I knew John Rigg by sight, and can fancy from the pic-
tures of the poet that the likeness is striking in the brow
and profile. -
“But he was,' continued George, “numbledy in t” kncas,
walked numbledy, ye kna, but that might o' wussened with
age.” In George's mind age accounted for most of the
peculiarities he had noticed in the poet, but George's
memory could go back fifty years, and he ought to have
92 WORDSWORTHIANA.
remembered Wordsworth as hale and hearty. ‘He wozn't
a man as said a deal to common folk. But he talked a .
deal to hissen. I often seead his lip sa gaåin', and he'd
a deal o' mumblin' to hissel, and 'ud stop short and be a
lookin' down upo' the ground, as if he was in a thinkin’
waăy. But that might ha’ growed on him wi' age, an’ aw,
ye kna.’ - -
How true, thought I, must have been the poet's know-
ledge of himself!
And who is he with modest looks,
And clad in sober russet gown P
IIe murmurs by the running brooks,
A music sweeter than their own ;
He is retired as noontide dew,
Or fountain in a noonday grove.
And indeed, in all the reminiscences I have obtained among
the peasantry, these lines force themselves upon one as
corroborated by their evidence.
‘He’ [Mr. Wordsworth], continued George, “was a deal
upo' the road, would goa most days to L'Ambleside in his
cloak and umbrella, and in later times folks would stare
and gaum to see him pass, not that we thowt much to him
hereabouts, but they was straingers, ye see.'
It is curious, though natural, perhaps, to find a sort of dis-
belief among the natives in the poet’s greatness, owing
somewhat to the fact that it “was straingers as set such
store by him.’ They distrust strangers still, almost as much
as they did in old Border-times. -
But the secret of Wordsworth's unpopularity with the
dalesmen seems to have been that he was shy and retired,
and not one who mixed freely or talked much with them.
‘We woz,’ said George, “noan of us very fond on 'im ;
REM.INIscEwcEs of Wordsworziſ. 93
eh, dear! quite a different man from li'le Hartley. He
wozn't a man as was very compannable, ye kna. He was
fond o' stones and mortar, though,' he added, ‘It was in
'48, year of revolution, one Frost, they ca'd him rebellious
(Monmouth), and a doment in Ireland. I mind we was at
wuk at Fiddler's Farm, and Muster Wudsworth 'ud come
down most days, and he sed “it sud be ca'ed Model Farm,”
and so it was.” g * * - -
Speaking of Foxhow, he said, “He and the Doctor
[Doctor Arnold], you’ve happen heard tell o' the Doctor,
well, he and the Doctor was much i' one another's com-
pany; and Wudsworth was a great un for chimleys, had
summut to say in the making of a deal of 'em hereabout.
There was 'most all the chimleys Rydal way built after his
mind. I’member he and the Doctor had great arguments
about the chimleys time we was building l'oxhow, and
Wudsworth sed he liked a bit o' colour in 'em. And that
the chimley coigns sud be natural headed and natural
bedded, a little red and a little yallar. For there is a bit of
colour in the quarry stone up Easedale way. And heed a
great fancy an' aw for chimleys square up hauf way, and
round the t'other. And so we built ’em that how.’ It was
amusing to find that the house chimney-stacks up Rydal
way are in truth so many breathing monuments of the bard.
The man who with his face to the Continent passed in that
sunny pure July morn of 1803 over Westminster Bridge,
and noticed with joy the smokeless air, rejoiced also to sit
‘without emotion, hope, or aim, by his half-kitchen and
half-parlour fire at Town End, and wherever he went seems
to have noted with an eye of love
The smoke forth issuing whence and how it may,
Like wreaths of vapour without stain or blot.
94 - - WOA’D.S WOA’7”///.4 AV-1,
But if from the highland huts he had observed how inter-
mittently the blue smoke-curls rose and fell, he was most
pleased to watch on a still day the tremulous upward pillars
of smoke that rose from the cottages of his native dale. In
his Guide to the Jakes (p. 44) Wordsworth has said, “The
singular beauty of the chimneys will not escape the eye of
the attentive traveller. The low square quadrangular form
is often surmounted by a tall cylinder, giving to the cottage
chimney the most beautiful shape that is ever seen. Nor
will it be too fanciful or reſined to remark that there is a
pleasing harmony between a tall chimney of this circular
form and the living column of smoke ascending from it
through the still air.’ - -
And my friend George's memory of Mr. Wordsworth's
dictum about the need of having the chimney coign “natural
headed and natural bedded, a little red and a little yallar'
is again found to be true to the life from a passage in
the same Guide to the Zakes (p. 60), in which the poet,
aſter stating that the principle that ought to determine the
position, size, and architecture of a house (y,z, that it should
be so constructed as to admit of being incorporated into the
scenery of nature) should also determine its colour, goes on
to say ‘that since the chief defect of colour in the Lake
country is an over-prevalence of bluish tint, to counteract
this the colour of houses should be of a warmer tone than
the native rock allows;” and adds, “But where the cold blue
tint of the rocks is enriched by an iron tinge, the colours
cannot be too closely imitated, and will be produced of it-
self by the stones hewn from the adjoining quarry.” How
beautiful the colouring of the Rydal quarry stone is, and
how dutifully the son of the poet carried out his father's will
in his recent rebuilding of a family residence near Foxhow,
REMI/NISCAA/CES OF WORDSWORTH, 95
may be judged by all who glance at the cylindrical chimneys,
or look at the natural material that forms the panels of the
porch of the ‘Stepping-stones’ under Loughrigg,
I rose to go, but George detained me. For he was
proud to remember that upon one occasion ‘Mr. Wudsworth
had warmly watched him as he put forth his feats of strength
in the wrestling ring at Ambleside, ‘in the churchyeard day
after fair, forty or fifty years ago,' and had passed a remark
upon him. It was in the days ‘when folks wrustled for
nowt no more than a bit of leather strap,' And George had
‘coomed to pit,’ as the saying is, and after ‘coming again'
one man and throwing him, and another and throwing him,'
was last man in against a noted wrestler, one Tom Chapman.
He had agreed. for one fall. Mr. Wordsworth was “a-lookin'
on.' George and his antagonist. ‘Comed ' together, and
Chapman fell. “And I’member that I was more pleased
with Mr. Wudsworth's word than wi' the strap (or belt), for
folks telt me that he kep' a Saying, “He must be a powerful
young man that. He must be a strong young man.”’
So ends our chat with honest George, the waller. We will
next interview a man who at one time, for more than eleven
years, saw Wordsworth almost daily. This was in the days
that Hartley Coleridge lived at the Nab Cottage, or, as our
friend puts it (with a touch of menagerie suggestion in it),
‘i’ the daays when he kep' /i/e Hartley at the Nab,”—for
our friend was Coleridge's landlord, I had considerable
difficulty here, as in almost all my interviews with the good
folk, of keeping to the object or subject in hand. For li'le
Hartley's ghost was always coming to the front, ‘Naily,
natiy, I cannot say a deal to that, but ye kna li'le Hartley
would do so-and-so. Li'le Hartley was the man for them.
96 * , WOA D.S WOA. THIAAVA.
If it had been Hartley, now, I could ha’ told you a deål.'
And so on. - -
But in this particular instance my difficulty was trebled,
for my friend evidently nursed the idea that Wordsworth
had got most of “his poetry out of Hartley, and had in
return dealt very hardly with him, in the matter of admonish-
ment and advice, while at the same time Mrs. Wordsworth,
in her capacity of common-sense accountant, with a strict
dislike to wasteful expenditure or indiscriminate charity, had
left something of bitter in his cup of Rydal Mount memories;
and the old man would gladly enough pass over a Words-
worth leaſlet for a folio page of li'le Hartley. But he too
would be true in his speech, and would speak as he ‘kna'ed,’
neither more nor less. In his judgment Mr. Wordsworth
was a ‘plainish-ſaaced man, but a fine man, tall and leish
(active), and almost always upo' the road. He wasn't a man
of many words, would walk by you times enuff wi'out sayin'
owt, specially when he was i' study. He was always a study-
ing, and you might see his lips agoin’ as he went along the
road. He did most of his study upo' the road. I suppose,'
he added, “he was a cleverish man, but he wasn’t set much
count of by noan of us. He lent Hartley a deal of his books,
it's certain, but Hartley helped him a deal, I understand,
did best part of his poems for him, so the sayin’ is.”
‘He would come often in the afternoon and have a talk
at the Nab, and would go out with Hartley takin' him by
t’ arm for long eneugh, And when Hartley was laid by for
the last, Muster Wudsworth com down every day to see
him and took communion wi' him at the last.’ .
‘Then Mr. Wordsworth and Hartley Coleridge wer
great friends?' I asked. t
“Na na, I doant think li'le Hartley ever set much by him,
REMſ/y/Scawczs of IPORDSiWorzº, 97
never was very friendly, I. doubt, Ye see, he [Mr. Words-
worth] was so hard upon him, so very hard upon him, giv'
him so much hard preaăching about his waiiys.” -
‘Well, but Mrs. Wordsworth was kind to Hartley P’ I
said, ‘Happen she was, but I never see it. She was’ ſand
here the old man spoke very deliberately, as if this was the
firmest conviction of his life]—‘she was very on-pleasant,
very on-pleasant indeed. A close-fisted woman, that’s what
she was.” But further inquiry elicited the reason of this
personal dislike to the poet's wife, and a narrative of it will
probably win a public verdict for the lady of Rydal Mount,
with damages for libel against the man who so faithfully
kep' li'le Hartley at the Nab, and so made his lodger's
wrongs his own. - - -
‘Well, you see,” he continued gravely, ‘I remember oncst
I went up to the Mount to ask for sattlement of account,
for Mrs. Wudsworth paid for Hartley's keep, time he lodged
at the Nab, and I had fifteen shillings i' the book against
Coleridge for moneys I’d lent him different times. And she
was very awkward and on-pleasant and wouldn't sattle, ye
kna, for she thowt that Hartley had been drinkin' wi' it.
But,” he added, ‘howiver, I wrote to his mother as lived in
London, and she wrote to me and telt me I was to lend a
shilling or two as Hartley wanted it, and arter that she
Sattled wi' me for his lodgment hersel', but Mrs. Wudsworth
was very on-pleasant.” - • -
I was glad to change a subject that so distressed him,
and asked how the poet was generally dressed, and of his
habits. ‘Wudsworth wore a Jem Crow, never seed him in a
boxer in my life, a Jem Crow and an old blue cloak was his
rig, and as for his habits, he had moan, niver knew him with
a pot i' his hand, or a pipe i' his mouth. But,” continued
- G
98 WoRDSWORTHANA.
he, “he was a great skater for a' that'—(I didn't see the
connection of ideas—pipes and beer don't generally make
for good skating), “noan better in these parts—why, he
could cut his own nańme.upo' the ice, could Mr. Wudsworth.”
Before rising to go, I asked, “Which roads were the
favourites of the poet?’ •
‘Well, well, he was ter’ble fond of going along under
Loughrigg and over by Redbank, but he was niver nowt of
a mountaineer, always kep' upo' the road.”
This was a bit of news I had not expected, but we will
bear it in mind and test its truth in future conversations
with the poet's peasant contemporaries.
Our next talk shall be with one of the most well-informed
of the Westmoreland builders, and I am indebted to
Wordsworth's love of skating for an introduction to him.
I'or making inquirics as to this pastime of the poet, I had
chanced to hear how that Wordsworth had gone on one
occasion to figure a bit by himself upon the White Moss
Tarn. How that a predecessor of my friend the builder
who lived near White Moss Tarn had sent a boy to sweep
the snow from the ice for him, and how that when the boy
returned from his labour he had asked him, ‘Well, did Mr.
Wudsworth gie ye owt?’ and how that the boy with a grin
of content from ear to ear had rejoined, ‘Na, but I seed
him tummle though ' - -
I determined to seek out the builder and have the story
first-hand, and was well repaid; for I heard something of
the poet's gentle ways that was better than the grotesquely
humorous answer of the boy who saw him fall.
"The poet's skate had caught on a stone when he was in
full swing, and he came with a, crash on to the ice that
starred the tarn, and the lad, who had thought ‘the
REMINIscewces of worpshortſ, 99
tummle' a fair exchange for no pay, had been impressed
with the quiet way in which Wordsworth had borne his fall,
‘He didn't swear nor say nowt, but he just sot up and said,
“Eh, boy, that was a bad fall, wasn't it?” And now we are
walking along briskly towards Grisedale, with the recounter
of the story: * Kna Wudsworth ! I kent him weel,-why,
he taught me and William Brown to skate. He was a
ter'ble girt skater, was Wudsworth now ; and he would put
one hand i' his breast (he wore a frill shirt i' them days),
and t'other hand i' his wiistband, same as shepherds does
to keep their hands warm, and he would stand up straight
and sway and swing away grandly.” -
‘Was he fond of any other pastime?' I asked.
‘Nay, nay, he was over feckless i' his hands. I never seed
him at feasts, or wrestling, he hadn't owt of Christopher
Wilson in him. Nivver was on wheels in his life, and wud
ratherly ha’ been a tailor upon horseback happen, but he
was a gay good un upon the ice, wonderful to see, could
cut his name upon it, I've heard tell, but never seed him
do it.’ -
So that the rapture of the time when as a boy on Es-
thwaite's frozen lake Wordsworth had
- ... wheeled about,
Proud and exulting like an untired horse
That cares not for his home, and, shod with steel,
Had hissed along the polished ice,
was continued into manhood's later day; and here was
proof that the skill which the poet had gained, when
Not seldom from the uproar he retired,
Into a silent bay, or sportively -
Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng
To cut across the reflex of a star,
IOO - WORDS IVOA’7”HIAAWA.
was of such a kind as to astonish the natives among whom
... he dwelt. - -
My friend had known Wordsworth well, and what was
better, knew his poems too. ‘Here,' said he, ‘is the very
spot where Wudsworth saw Barbara feeding her pet lamb,
you'll happen have read it i' the book. She telt me herself.
I was mending up the cottage there at the time. Eh, she
was a bonny lass they were a fine family all the lot of
Lewthwaites. She went lang sin arid left, but she telt me
the spot wi' her own lips.” As I peered through the hedge
upon the high-raised field at my right, I remembered that
Barbara Lewthwaite's lips were for ever silent now, and re-
called how I had heard from the pastor of a far-away parish
that he had been asked by a very refined-looking handsome
woman, on her deathbed, to read over to her and to her
husband the poem of The Pet Zamb, and how she had said
at the end, “That was written about me. Mr. Wordsworth
often spoke to me, and patted my head when I was a child,’
and had added with a sigh, “Eh, but he was such a dear
kind old man.’ We passed on in silence till we were near
‘Boon beck,' and opposite Greenhead ghyll, ‘That,’ said
my companion, ‘is a cottage as we used to ca' i' these parts
Village Clock. One,—I 'a' forgotten his name, a shep,
lived here, and i' winter days folks from far enough round
would saay, “Is lect out i' shep's cottage P then you may
wind the clock and cover the fire” (for you kna matches
was scarce and coal to fetch in them days); and of a
morning “Is leet i' winder? is shep stirrin’? then you
munna lig no longer,” we used to saay.’ My friend did not
know that this too was in the book, as he called it, that
Wordsworth had described ‘the cottage on a spot of rising
ground,’
REMINISCENCES OF WORDS Worzº, to
And from its constant light so regular,
And so far seen, the House itself, by all
Who dwelt within the limits of the vale, -
Both old and young, was named the Evening Star.
Onward we trudged, entered the pastures leading to the
Grasmere Common that stretches up to the Grisedale Pass,
there sat, and had a talk as follows, the Tongue Ghyll Beck
murmuring among the budding trees at our feet :—
‘Why, why, Wudsworth never said much to folk, quite
different from li'le Hartley, as knawed the insides of cottages
for miles round, and was welcome at 'em all. He was dis-
tant, ye may saily, varra distant. He was not maade much
count of at first either in this country, but eſter a time folks
began to tak his advice, ye kna, about trees, and plantin',
and cuttin', and buildin’ chimleys, and that sort o' thing,
He had his saily at most of the houses in these parts, and
was very partic'lar fond of round chimleys.”
It was delicious this description of the path to fame
annong his countrymen the poet had taken, but my friend
explained himself as he went on :- -
'Ye see, he was one as kept his head dan and eyes upo'
the ground a deal, and mumbling to himself; but why, why,
he 'ud never pass folks draining, or ditching, or walling a
cottage, but what he’d stop and say, “Eh dear, but it's a
pity to move that stoan, and doant ya think ya might leave
that tree ?” I’member there was a walling chap just going
to shoot a girt stoan to bits wi' powder in the grounds at
Rydal, and he came up and Saaved it, and wrote summat
on it.’
“But what was his reason,' I asked, “for stopping the
wallers or ditchers, or tree-cutters, at their work?'
‘Well, well, he couldn't abear to see faāce o' things.
Io2 - WoRDSWORTHANA.
altered, ye kna. It was all along of him that Grasmere
folks have their Common open, Ye may ga now reet up
to sky over Grisedale, wi'out laying leg to fence, and all
through him. He said it was a pity to enclose it and run
walls over it, and the quality backed him, and he won.
Folks was angry enough, and wrote rhymes about it ; but
why, why, it’s a deal pleasanter for them as walks up Grise-
dale, ya kna, let aloan rights of foddering and goosage for
freemen in Grasmere.” -
“But Mr. Wordsworth was a great critic at trees. I’ve
seen him many a time lig o' his back for long eneugh to see
whether a branch or a tree sud ga or not. I’member weel
I was building Kelbarrer for Miss S , and she telt me I
must git to kna Wordsworth's 'pinion. So I went oop to
him as he came i't' wańy, and he said, “Ay, ay, building
wad do, and site wad but it’s very bare, very bare.”
‘I mind anither time I was building house aboon Town
End, with a lock of trees and planting round, and he said
to me, “Well, well, you’re ſiſty years in advance here :” he
meant it was grawed up well.
‘And I remember once upon a time at Hunting Stile
thereaway he coomed up. “Now, Mr. Wudsworth, how
will it goa P” I said. He answered me, “It’ll do; but
where are the trees P” and I said, “Oh, it’s weel enuff for
trees, it nobbut wants its whiskers.” “How so P” said he,
“Why, it's a young 'un,” I said, “and we doant blame a
young 'un for not having its hair upo' its faace.” And he
laughed, and he said, “Very good, a very good saying; very
true, very true.” But he was ter’ble jealous of new buildings.
1 Readers who may chance to have seen the letter Wordsworth wrote to
the local paper when he heard the news of the first railway invasion of the
Lake district, will notice how accurately true this piece of testimony is,
REMINIscºwCEs of WoRDSWOR7H, ios
“As for Mrs. Wudsworth, why, why, she was a very
plain woman, plainest i' these parts, and she was a manasher
an' aw, and kep' accounts. For ye kna he never knowed
about sich things, neither what he had nor what he spent.’
As we rose to continue our climb, my friend looked at
the trees in the little stream-bed below us, and said, “In my
days there was a deal of wild fruit in these parts. We had
toffee feasts i' winter, and cherry feasts i' summer, quite
big gatherings at cherry feasts.' -
‘Did you ever see Wordsworth at one?’ -
‘Niver, he only follered one amusement: that was
skating, as I telt ye.”
“Had he any particular friends among the shepherds P’
I asked. -
‘Na, na, not as ever I kent or heard of; but he wozn't a
mountaineer, was moastly down below upo' the road.”
“Iłut what was his favourite road P’ -
‘Oh, round by Grasmere and Red Bank and hoam again,
without a doubt. He 'ud go twice i' the day round by Mr.
Barber's there. He was a girt walker round there, and
a'most as girt a eater. Why, why, he 'ud git breakfast at
hãame, poddish or what not, and then come wi' Miss Wuds-
worth round lake to Mr. Barber's, and fall in wi' them, and
then off and round again, and be at Barber's at tea-time,
and supper up again before going hiame. And as for her,
why Miss Wudsworth, she'ud often coom into back kitchen
and ask for a bit of oatcake and butter. She was fond of
oatcake, and butter till it, fit to steal it a'most. Why, why,
but she was a ter'ble clever Woman, was that. She did as
much of his potry as he did, and went completely off it at
the latter end wi' studying it, I suppose. It’s a very Strange
thing, now, that studying didn't run on in the family.’
104 ... iPowps/OR7RIAA.l.
It was, I thought, a little hard to expect that the poet
should have handed on the torch, or to speak with dis-
respect of his sons because they only thought in prose,
But it was evidence in my friend, at least, of a profound
belief in the genius of the Rydal poet and tree-and-building
critic of old days, And it would have been a guess
shrewdly made that it was Wordsworth's brotherhood with
him, in the interests of his builder life, and jealous care for
architecture in the vales, that had made the bond so strong
and the belief in the poet so great, and exclusive. We
descended into the valley, took tea together at the Swan
Inn, and chatted on ; now learning that Wordsworth was a
regular attendant at Grasmere Church, now that he would
often in church-time be like a dazed man,—forget to stand
up and sit down, turn right round and stare vacantly at the
congregation. “But I remember one time partic'lar, when
he and Hartley and I coomed out of the church together.
I said, “What did you think of the sermon, Mr. Wuds-
worth P” and he answered me, “Oh, it was very good, and
very plain ; ” and I said, “Saame here, Mr. Wudsworth ;”
and li'le Hartly put his head on one side, and squeaked out,
“Oh, did ye think it was good P well, well, I was in purga-
tory the whole time,”’ -
The stars were overhead as we left all that was left—and
that was little enough—of our cosy evening meal; and,
bidding good-night I went home, with more Wordsworth
memories to keep me company.
It was by happy accident that I was enabled to have a
chat with one of the best types of our half-farmer half hotel.
keeper, only a few days before he left the Rydal neighbour-
hood for good, after a sojourn of sixty-ſive years therein. We
met at the house of a friend where he had been to pay his
REM.INISCENCES OF WORDSIVox TF1. 105
last rent due, and as I entered the room I was conscious.
of a be-whiskied conversationally aromatic air that boded
well for a ‘reet’-down good crack. . . . .
‘Kna Wudsworth ! I sud kna him, if any man sud, for as
a lad I carried butther to the Mount, as a growing man I
lived and worked in sight of him, and I lig now upon the
vara bed-stocks as he and his missus ligged on when they
were first wed, and went to Town End thereaway.'
‘Now tell me,’ said I, ‘what was the poet like in face and
make P’
‘Well in mak he was listyish. I dar say I cud gee him
four inches, now I suddent wonder but what I could, mysen.’
My informant stood about six feet four, or four and a half.
‘He was much to look at like his son William ; he was a listy
man was his son, mind ye. But for a’ he was a sizeable
man, was the father, he was plainish featured, and was a man
as had no pleasure in his faace. Quite different Wudsworth
was from li'le Hartley, Hartley always had a bit of smile or
a twinkle in his faace, but Wudsworth was not lovable in the
faace by noa means, for o' he was sizeable man, mind ye.”
‘I}ut,' I interrupted, ‘was he not much like your friend
John Rigg in face P’ -
“He might bea, Saam mak, ye kna, much about ; but,
John Rigg he’s a bit pleasant in his ſaace at wust o' times,
and Wudsworth, bless ye, never had noan.'
“Was he,' I said, ‘a sociable man, Mr. Wordsworth, in
the earliest times you can remember P’
‘Wudsworth,’ my kindly giant replied, ‘for a’ he had noa
pride nor nowt, was a man who was quite one to hissel, ye
kna. He was not a man as folks could crack wi', nor not a
man as could crack wi' folks. But there was another thing as
kep’ folks off, he had a ter'ble girt deep voice, and ye might
106 WoRDSWORTHANA.
See his faace agaan for long enuff. I’ve knoan folks, village.
lads and lasses, coming over by old road above which runs
from Grasmere to Rydal, ſayt almost to death there by Wish-
ing Gaate to hear the girt voice a groanin' and mutterin' and
thunderin' of a still evening. And he had a way of standin'
quite still by the rock there in tº path under Rydal, and
folks could hear sounds like a wild beast coming from the
rocks, and childer were scared fit to be deid almost.’
‘He was a great walker, I know,' I broke in. “Which
were his favourite roads? and was he generally on the hills,
or did he keep pretty much to the valleys?' -
‘He was a gay good walker, and for a’ he had latterly
a pony and phaeton, I never once seed him in a conveyance
in whole of my time. But he was never a mountain man.
He wud gae a deal by Pelter-bridge and round by Red
Bank, but he was most ter’ble fond of under Nab, and by
old high road to Swan Inn and back, and very often came
as far as Dungeon Ghyll. You’ve happen heerd tell of
Dungeon Ghyll; it was a vara favourite spot o' Wuds-
worth's, now, was that, and he onst made some potry about
a lamb as fell over. And I dar say it was true enuſf o' but
the rhymes, and ye kna they was put in to help it out.’
For the life of me, as he spoke, I didn't understand
whether he meant that the rhymes fished the lamb out of
the Dungeon Ghyll pool, or helped the poet out with his
verses, but I suppressed a smile and listened attentively.
“But for a’ he was a distant man, they was well spoke of,
mind ye, at the Mount,' continued my voluble friend. “They
stood high, and he was a man as paid his way and settled
vara reg'lar; not that his potry brought him in much, a deal
wasn't made up in books till after he was dead. Ay, and
they lived weel. Many's the time, when I was a lad, I went
REM.INIscEwcES of Words Iror ZII. 107
wi' butter. I could ha’ been weel content to be let aloan
for a bit in pantry, "Ticing things there, mind ye. And
they kep' three servants. I kent cook and housemaid weel,
and one they ca'ed Dixon, smart little chap as ever was seen
in these parts, ter'ble given over to cold water and temper-
ance—he woz, Coomed out of a “union,” but vara neat,
and always a word for anybody, and a vara quiet man, par-, .
tic'lar quiet, never up to no mischief, and always sat at hoam
wi' the lasses a mending and sewing o' evenings, ye kma.'
I didn't know, but guessed at once the sort of simple
stay-at-home ways and happy-family style of quiet domestic
service, known to the circle of maidens, who, after their
day's work, sat with their needles and thread entertaining
the guileless Dixon,
‘And what is your memory of Mrs. Wordsworth P’
‘Well, every Jack mun have his Jen, as the sayin' is, and
they was much of a mak. She was a stiff little lady, nothin'
very pleasant in her countenance neither.' I soon found
out that the word unpleasant was being used in a double
sense, and was intended to convey rather an over-seriousness.
of expression perhaps than any disagreeable look or ill-
tempered face. ‘Ye're weel awar',' continued the former
hostel-keeper, ‘that we mun a' hev troubles, times is not it’
| alike wi' best of us; we have our worrits and our pets, but
efter one on 'em, yan's countenance comes again, and Wuds-
worth's didn't, nor noan o' the family's, as I ever see,’ -
‘Did you ever see Mr. Wordsworth out walking—round
Pelter-bridge way ?’ -
‘Ay, ay, scores and scores o' times, But he was a lonely
man, fond o' goin' out wi' his family, and saying nowt to noan
of 'em. When a man goes in a family way he keeps togither
wi' 'em and chats a bit wi' 'em, but many’s a time I've seed
108 WORDSWORT//IAAWA,
him a takin' his family out in a string, and niver geein’ the
deariest bit of notice to 'em; standin' by hissel' and stoppin'
behind agapin', wi' his jaws workin' the whoal time; but niver
no cracking wi' 'em, nor no pleasure in 'em,--a desolate-
minded man, ye kna, Queer thing that, mun, but it was
his hobby, ye kna. It was potry as did it. We all have
our hobbies—some for huntin', some cardin', some fishin', ''
some wrestlin'. He niver followed nowt nobbut a bit o'
skating, happen. Eh, he was fond of going on in danger
times;–he was always first on the Rydal, however; but his
hobby, ye mun kna, was potry. It was a queer thing, but
it would like enough cause him to be desolate; and I’se
often thowt that his brain was that fu' of sic stuff, that he
was forced to be always at it whether or no, wet or fair,
mumbling to hissel' along the roads.’ -
“Do you think,' I asked, ‘that he had any friends among
the shepherds?’ - .."
‘Naay, naay, he cared nowt about folk, nor sheep, nor
dogs (he had a girt fine one, weighed nine stone, to guard
the house) not no more than he did about claes he had
on—his hobby was potry.” -
‘How did he generally dress?'
‘Well, in my time them swaller-lappeted ones were i'
vogue, but he kep' to all-round plain stuff, and I remember
had a cap wi' a neb to it. He wore that most days.”
‘Did you ever read his poetry, or see any books about in
the farm-houses P’ I asked. - -
‘Ay, ay, time or two. But ya’re weel aware there's potry
and potry. There's potry wi' a li'le bit pleasant in it, and
potry sic as a man can laugh at or the childer understand,
and some as takes a deal of mastery to make out what's
said, and a deal of Wudsworth's was this sort, ye kna,
WFM/M/scewces of Ivorosſrowzy. Io9
You could tell fra the man's faace his potry would niver
have no laugh in it. - -
“His potry was quite different work from li'le Hartley.
Hartley 'ud goa running along beside o' the brooks and
mak his, and goa in the first oppen door and write what he
had got upo' paper. But Wudsworth's potry was real hard
stuff, and bided a deal of makking, and he'd keep it in his
head for long enough. Eh, but it’s queer, mon, diſferent ways
folks hes of making potry now. Folks goes a deal to see
where he’s interred; but for my part I’d walk twice distance
over Fells to see where Hartley lies. Not but what Mr. Wuds-
worth didn't stand very high, and was a well-spoken man
enough, but quite one to himself. Well, well, good-day.'
And so we rose to go; he to his farm, I to my note-book.
I pass over sundry interviews of minor import, and will
detail as accurately as I can the result of several conversa-
tions with one who as a boy lived as page, or butler's assist-
ant, at Rydal Mount, and now himself in total eclipse (for
he is blind) delights to handle and show with pride the massy,
old-fashioned square glazed hand-lantern, that lighted his
master the poet on his favourite evening walks.
We go through Ambleside to reach his house, and call for
a moment at the shop of a man for whom on his wedding.
day Hartley Coleridge wrote the touching sonnet in which
he describes himself as -
Untimely old, irreverendly grey,
and he will tell us that Mr. Wordsworth was not a man of
very outgoing ways with folk, a plain man, and a very austere
man, and one who was ponderous in his speech. That he
called very often at his shop, and would talk, “but not about
much,' just passing the day. He will tell us, that Mrs.
I IO WoRDSWORTHANA.
Wordsworth was a very plain-faced lady, but will add that,
“for all that, Mr. Wordsworth and she were very fond of
one another.’’ - -
There is, as one would expect, a sort of general feeling
among the dalesmen that it was rather a strange thing that
two people so austere and uncomely in mere line of feature
or figure should be so much in love, and so gentle and
considerate in their lives. I say as we should expect, for
the men of Lakeland and the women of Lakeland are
notably comely, their features notably regular. I do not
myself know of a single instance of a really ugly married
woman among the peasants that I have met with in West-
moreland. But at the same time we must remember that
the word ‘plain,’ whether applied to dress or feature in
Westmoreland, means for the most part simple, homely,
unpretending, unassuming, and is often a term of honour
rather than dispraise. -
We shall, perhaps, as we near the village where our blind
friend lives, meet with an old man who will tell us that he
helped to bear both the poet and his wife to the grave, but he
will add that he was not “over weel acquent wi' 'em, though
he knas the room they both died in,’ and that the time he
saw most of the poet was the occasion when he conducted
Queen Adelaide ‘to see the Rydal Falls, and all about.’
We have got to the end of our walk, and, here, picking
his way by means of his trusty sounding-staff backwards and
forwards in the sunshine he feels, but cannot see, is the old
man, or rather old gentleman who in former times ‘took
Sarvice along of Mr. Wudsworth,’ and was “so well pleased
with his master that he could vara well have ended his days
at the Mount,' but found it was over quiet, and, wanting to
REM.INISCEAVCAES OF WORDS WORTH, I I I
see the world beyond the charmed circle of the hills, left a
good place, but not before he had formed his opinion of
both master and mistress, and obtained indelible impres-
sions of their several personalities, and had conceived along
with these an affection for them which glows in his words
as he talks to us of them. “Mr. Wudsworth was a plain-
faced man, and a mean liver.’ The description, as I hinted
in the preface, would have staggered a philo-Wordsworthian
unaccustomed to the native dialect. “But he was a good
master and kind man; and as for Mrs. Wudsworth, she
was a downright clever Woman, as kep' accounts, and was
a reg’lar manasher. He never know’d, bless ye, what he
had, nor what he was worth, nor whether there was owt to
eat in the house, never.’ -
“But you say,' I interposed, ‘that he didn't care much
whether there was or was not food in the house.’
‘Nay, nay, Wudsworth was a man as was fond of a good
dinner at times, if you could get him to it, that was tº job ;
not but what he was a very temperate man i' all things, very,
but they was all on 'em mean livers, and in a plain way. It
was porridge for breakfast, and a bit of mutton to dinner,
and porridge at night, with a bit of cheese, happen, to end
up wi'.’
‘You said it was hard to get him to his nieals: what
did you mean P’ I asked.
‘Weel, weel, it was study as was his delight: he was a”
for study; and Mrs. Wudsworth would say, “Ring the bell,”
but he wouldn't stir, bless ye. “Goa and see what he's
doing,” she'd say, and we goa up to study door and hear
him a mumbling and bumming through it. “Dinner's ready,
sir,” I’d ca' out, but he'd goa mumbling on like a deaf man,
ya see. And sometimes Mrs. Wudsworth 'ud say, “Goa and
I I 2 i. JJ'ORDS WOR THIAAWA,
break a bottle, or let a dish fall just outside door in passage.”
Eh dear, that mostly 'ud bring him out, would that. It was
only that as wud, however. For ye kna he was a very care-
ful mon, and he couldn't do with brekking the china.”
‘And was he continually at study in-doors, or did he rise
early, go out for a walk before breakfast, and study, as I
have heard, mostly in the open air?' I asked. -
My friend answered at once. ‘He was always at it, ye
kna, but it was nowt but what he liked, and not much desk-
work except when he had a mind to it. Noa, noa, he was
quite a open-air man, was Wudsworth : studied a deal upo'
the roads. He wasn't partic'lar fond of gitten up early, but
did a deal of study after breakfast, and a deal after tea,
Walked the roads after dark, he would, a deal, between his
tea and supper, and efter. Not a very conversable man, a
mumblin’ and stoppin', and seein’ nowt nor nobody.”
‘And what were his favourite roads?’ I asked, in an
innocent way.
‘Well, he was very partial to going up to Tarn Foot in
Easedale, and was fondest o' walking by Red Bank and
round by Darber's (the late Miss Agar's house), or else
t’other way about and home by Clappersgate and Brankers,
under Loughrigg, . Never was nowt of a mountaineer, and
Miss Dorothy 'companied him. Eh dear, many time I’ve
watched him coming round wit lantern and her after a walk
by night. You've heard tell of Miss Dorothy, happen.
Well, folks said she was cleverest mon of the two at his
job, and he allays went to her when he was puzzelt.
I)orothy had the wits, tho' she went wrang, ye kna.’ e
“Then,” said I, ‘Mrs. Wordsworth did not help the poet
in writing his verses?’ w -
‘Naay, naay. Why, she was a manasher, niver a studier,
ReMINIscºwces of wordsworza. 113
but for a’ that there’s no doubt he and she was truly
companionable, and they was ter’ble fond of one another,
But Dorothy hed tº wits on 'em boath.” t
‘And he was very devoted to his children?' I put in.
‘Ay, ay, he was fond of children like enough, but chil-
dren was niver vara fond o' him. Ye see he was a man o'
moods, niver no certainty about him; and I’m not so sure
he was fond of other ſoak's bairns, but he was very fond
of his own, wi'out a doubt.”
“And was he very popular among the folk hereabouts?'
‘There’s no doubt but what he was fond of quality, and
quality was very fond o' him, but he niver asked folk about
their work, nor noticed the flocks nor nowt: not but what
he was a kind man if folks was sick and taen badly. But
farming, nor beast, nor sheep, nor fields wasn't in his way,
he asked no questions about flocks or herds, and was a
distant man, not what you might call an outward man by
noa means. And he was very close, very close indeed, from
curious men. He’d goa t'other side o' road rather than
pass a man as axed questions a deal.' -
It was a mercy, I thought to myself, that no Wordsworth
Society had invited me to collect and write down the results
of a cross-question tour in those days. -
“But surely, ' I said, “he had some particular cottage or
farm where he would go and have a crack.’ -
“Naay, naay. He would go times or two to farm Dun-
geon Ghyll way, but he wasn't a man for friends. He had
some, neih doubt, in his walk of life; he was ter’ble friends
with the Doctor (Arnold) and Muster Southey, and Wilson
of Elleray and Hartley Coleridge. I'se seen him many a
time taking him out arm i' arm for a talking. But he was
specially friendly with Professor. I mind one time when we
H
114 WoRDSWORTHANA.
was driving, me and Mrs. Wudsworth and Miss Wudsworth,
to Kendal, and Professor Wilson was superintending making
o' a bye-road up by Elleray there, and he was in his slippers,
Nowt wud do but Wudsworth must git down and fall to
talkin', and we went on ; but he didn't come, and Mrs.
Wudsworth said, “Ye mun drive on ; he’ll pick us up at
Kendal: no knowing what's got him, now Professor is wi'
'im.” Well, well, she was right. For after putting up at
Kendal, who should walk in but Wudsworth and Professor
wi'out ony shoes to his feet neither, for Wilson was in his
slippers, and 'ad walk'd hisself to his stockin' feet, and left
best part of his stockin' on road an' a', far enuff before
they got to Kendal.’
‘But it was strange,' I said again in a suggestive way,
‘that Mr. Wordsworth should be so well “acquaint” with
Professor Wilson, for he was a great cock-fighting and
wrestling man, was he not, in his day ?’
‘Ay, ay, biggest hereabout,' my old friend replied. ‘It’s
queer, but it was along o' his study, ye kna. Wudsworth
was never no cock-fighter nor wrestler, no gaming man at
all, and not a hunter, and as for fishing he hedn't a bit o'
fish in him, hedn't Wudsworth—not a bit of fish in him.’
‘I have read in his books,’ said I, ‘things that make
me feel he was kind to dumb animals.” -
‘Naay, naay, ' my friend broke in, ‘Wudsworth was no
dog fancier; and as for cats, he couldn't abide them; and
he didn't care for sheep, or horses, a deal, but if he was
fond of onything, it was of li'le ponies. He was a man of
fancies, ye kna. It was a fancy of his. He was fond of
li'le ponies, nivver rode a horse in his life, nivver,
“But he went over a deal of ground in his time, Was he
always on his feet?' I said. *
REMIN/scewces of Wordsworza, 115
‘He went a deal over more ground nor ever he saw, for
he went a deal by night, but he was a man as took notice,
ye kna, never forgit what he saw, and he went slow.'
“But,' said I, ‘how did he cover so much ground; was
he never on wheels?’
‘Ay, ay, wheels, to be sure, he druv a' times, ye kna, in
cart. He, and Mrs. Wudsworth, and Dorothy and me,
we went a deal by cart Penrith way, and Borradale and
Keswick way, and Langdale way at times.' .
‘What sort of a cart?' I inquired. º
“Dung cart, to be sure. Just a dung cart, wi' a seat-
board in front, and bit of bracken in t” bottom, comfortable
as owt. We cud go that away for days, and far enuff. Ye
knaw in them days tubs wasn't known. Low-wood was
nobbut a cottage, and there was never abuv six or seven.
ponies for hiring at Ambleside. Tubs we ca’ the covered
carriages, tubs wasn't known in these parts. Dut happen
there was a tub or two at Kendal.’
‘And you must have gone precious slowly,' I said.
‘Ay, ay, slow enough, but that was Mr. Wudsworth's
fancy, and he'd git in and go along, and then he git down
into tº road and walk a bit, and niak a bit, and then he git
oop and hum a bit to himself, and then he stop and have a
look here and there for a while. He was a man as noticed
a deal stones and trees, very partic'lar about trees, or a rock
wi' ony character in it. When they cut down coppy woods
in these parts they mostly left a bit of the coppy just behint
wall to hide it for him, he was a girt judge in such things,
and noticed a déal.’ - -
‘And would he,' I asked, “tell you as you jogged along
in the cart, which mountain he was fondest of, or bid you
look at the sunset P’.
116 WoRosworząſawa.
‘Ay, ay, times he would say, “Now isn't that beautiful?"
and times he would hum on to himself. But he wasn't a
man as would give a judgment again'ony mountain. I've
heard girt folks at come to the Mount say, “Now, Mr.
Wudsworth, we want to see finest mountain in tº country,”
and he would say, “Every mountain is finest.” Ay, that's
what he would say.”
“But I have been told that his voice was very deep,' I put
in, in a happy-go-lucky way. “Had he a loud laugh, now?'
‘I don’t remember he ever laughed in his life, he’d smile
times or two, Ay, ay, his voice was deep one ; but I re-
member at family prayers in tº morning he'd read a bit of
the Scripture to us, and he was a very articulate, partic'lar
good reader, was Mr. Wudsworth, always had family prayer
in the morning, and went to church wi' prayer-book under
his arm, very reg'lar once upon the Sunday, he did.’ My
friend added, ‘He was quite a serious-minded man, and a
man of moods.’ -
Here ended my talk with the old retainer at the Mount.
But I was not allowed to go off until I had seen and
handled the old-fashioned candle lantern by which, as my
kind informant put it, the poet ‘did a deal of his study upo'
the roads after dark.”
And so must end my plain unvarnished tale. I leave my
indulgent readers to form their own conclusions; merely
suggesting that the collected evidence points to a simple
plainness and homeliness of life such as remains indelibly
impressed upon the men of Westmoreland, whose own lives
are less simple in these latter days, when ostentation and
vulgar pride of wealth in a class above them have climbed
the hills and possessed the valleys.
The testimony of the witnesses I have been fortunate
AEMINIscºwces of Wokosworzā. 11;
enough to bring before you seems to agree in depicting
Wordsworth as he painted himself, a plain man, continually
murmuring his undersong as he passed along by brook and
woodland, pacing the ground with uplifted eye, but so re-
tired, that even the North country peasant, who does even
yet recognise the social differences of class and caste that
separate and divide ‘the unknown little from the unknowing
great,’ was unable to feel at home with him, ‘Not a very
companionable man at the best of times’ was their verdict.
But I think all the while these dalesmen seem to have felt
that if the poet was not of much count as a worldly-wise
farm or shepherd authority, nor very convivial and free and
easy as li'le Hartley was, nor very athletic and hearty as
Professor Wilson, there was a something in the severe-faced,
simply habited man “as said nowt to nobody' that made
him head and shoulders above the people, and bade them
listen and remember when he spoke, if it was only on the
lopping of a tree or the build of a chimney-stack. ‘He
was a man of a very practical eye, and seemed to see every-
thing,’ was the feeling,
And turning from the poet to his wife, whilst one can see
how the household need of economy in early Town End
days gave her to the last the practical power of household
management that had almost passed into a proverb, Oll C
can see also how true was that picture of the
I3eing, breathing thoughtful breath,
A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command.
“He never knawed, they say, what he was wuth, nor what
he had in the house.” She did it all. Then, too, it is
touching to notice how deep and true the constant love be-
I 18 WoRDSWOR7IIIANA,
tween man and wife was seen to be, how truly companions
for life they were, and that, too, in the eyes of a class of
people who never saw that -
Beauty born of murmuring sound
IIad passed into her face,
and half marvelled that the spirit wed with spirit was so
marvellously closer than fleshly bond to flesh. -
Upright, the soul of honour, and for that reason standing
high with all; just to their servants; well-meaning and
quiet in their public life; full of affection in their simple
home life; so it seems the poet and his wife lived and died,
Thought a deal of for the fact that accounts were strictly
met at the tradesmen's shops, they were thought more of
because they were ever ready to hear the cry of the suffer-
ing, and to enter the doors of those ready to perish.
I do not think I have been able to tell the world any-
thing new about the poet or his surroundings. But the
man ‘who hedn't a bit of fish in him, and was no moun-
taineer,’ seems to have been in the eyes of the people always
at his studies; ‘and that because he couldn't help it,
because it was his hobby,' for sheer love, and not for money.
This astonished the industrious, money-loving folk, who
could not understand the doing work for ‘nowt,’ and per-
haps held the poet's occupation in somewhat lighter esteem,
just because it did not bring in ‘a deal o' brass to the
pocket.’ I think it is very interesting, however, to notice
how the woman part of the Rydal Mount family seemed to
the simple neighbourhood to have the talent and mental
ability; and there must have been, both about Dorothy
Wordsworth and the poet's daughter Dora, a quite remark-
able power of inspiring the minds of the poor with whom
REMINISCENCES OF PORDSWOR7/ſ, . 119
they came in contact, with a belief in their intellectual
faculties and brightness and cleverness. If Hartley Cole-
ridge was held by some to be Wordsworth's helper, it was
to Dorothy he was supposed by all to turn ‘if ivver he
was puzzelt.” The women had ‘the wits, or best part
of 'em,'—this was proverbial among the peasantry, and,
as having been an article of rural faith, it has been estab-
lished out of the mouths of all the witnesses it has been
my lot to call. r
MATTHEW ARNOLD'S ADDRESS As
PRESIDENT, 1883.
MATTHEW ARNOLD'S ADDRESS AS
PRESIDENT, 1883.
At your last year's meeting you did me the honour,
although I was not then a member of your Society, to elect
me your President for this year. I had declined to join the
Wordsworth Society for the same reason that I decline to
join other societies—not from any disrespect to their objects
or to their promoters, but because, being very busy and
growing old, I endeavour to avoid fresh engagements and
distractions, and to keep what little leisure I can for reflection
and amendment before the inevitable close. When your
election of me came, however, I felt that it would be
ungracious to decline it; and, as generally happens, having
decided to accept it and to join you, I soon began to find
out a number of excellent reasons for doing what I had
resolved to do. In former days, you know, people who
had in near view that inevitable close of which I just now
spoke, people who had had their fill of life's business and
were tired of its labour and contention, used to enter a
monastery. In my opinion they did a very sensible thing.
I said to myself: ‘Times and circumstances have changed,
you cannot well enter a monastery; but you can enter the
Wordsworth Society.’ The two things are not so very
different. A monastery is under the rules of poverty,
chastity, and obedience. Well, and he who comes under
124 WORDS WOR THIAMA,
the discipline of Wordsworth comes under those same rules.
Wordsworth constantly both preached and practised them.
He was “frugal and severe;’ he ever calls us to ‘plain living
and high thinking.” There you have the rule of poverty,
His chosen hero and exemplar, the Pedlar of The Excursion,
was formed and fashioned by the Scottish Church having
held upon him in his youth, with a power which endured all
his life long, ‘the strong hand of her purity.’ There you .
have the rule of chastity. Finally, in an immortal ode,
Wordsworth tells us how he made it his heart's desire and
prayer to live the “bondman of duty in the light of truth.'
There you have the rule of obedience. We live in a world
which sometimes, in our morose moments, if we have any,
may almost seem to us, perhaps, to have set itself to be as
little poor as possible, and as little chaste as possible, and
as little obedient as possible. Whoever is oppressed with
thoughts of this kind, let him seek refuge in the Words-
worth Society. -
As your President, it is my duty not to occupy too much
of your time myself, but to announce the papers which are
to be read to you, and to introduce their readers. It was
hoped that a paper would have been read by Lord Coleridge.
There was an additional reason for joining your Society
But the paper has had to be put off, alas, till next year.
There is a reason for continuing to belong to you ! Mr.
Stopford Brooke—whose published remarks on Wordsworth,
as on other great English writers, we all know, and excellent
they are—Mr. Stopford Brooke, I am glad to say, will read
us a paper. Mr. Aubrey De Vere—who has given us more
interesting and trustworthy reports of Wordsworth in his
old age than any one except Miss Fenwick—Mr. Aubrey
De Vere has prepared a paper, which will be read by our
MATTHEW ARWozd's ADDRESS. 125
Secretary—if he is not more properly to be called the author
of our being—Professor Knight. If Professor Knight's
work in founding us (I may say in passing) had even had
no other result than the production of those photographs
of Wordsworth which appear in the Society's Transactions
of last year, that result alone would have been a sufficient
justification of his work. Other matters, besides the papers
which I have mentioned, will come before you, and I must
leave way for them. But suffer me, before I sit down, to
say seriously and sincerely what pleasure I find in the
testimony aſſorded by the prosperity of your Society, and
by the numbers present here to-day, to the influence of
Wordsworth. His imperfections, the mixture of prose with
his poetry, I am probably more disposed than some members
of this Society to admit freely. But I doubt whether any
one admires Wordsworth more than I do. I admire him,
first of all, for the very simple and solid reason that he is
such an exceedingly great poet. One puts him after Shake-
speare and Milton, Shakespeare is out of comparison.
Milton was, of course, a far greater artist than Wordsworth;
probably, also, a greater force. But the spiritual passion of
Wordsworth, his spiritual passion when, as in the magnificent
sonnet of farewell to the River Duddon; for instance, he is at
his highest, and ‘sees into the life of things,’ cannot be
matched from Milton. I will not say it is beyond Milton, but
he has never shown it. To match it, one must go to the ocean
of Shakespeare. A second invaluable merit which I find in
Wordsworth is this: he has something to say, Perhaps one
prizes this merit the more as one grows old, and has less time
left for trifling. Goethe got so sick of the fuss about form
and technical details, without due care for adequate con-
tents, that he said if he were younger he should take pleasure
126 WORDS WORTHIANA,
in setting the so-called art of the new school of poets at
nought, and in trusting for his whole effect to his having
something important to say." Dealing with no wide, varied,
and brilliant world, dealing with the common world close to
him, and using few materials, Wordsworth, like his great
contemporary the Italian poet Leopardi, who also deals.
with a bounded world and uses few materials—Wordsworth,
like Leopardi, is yet so profoundly impressive, because he
has really something to say. And the mention of Leopardi,
that saddest of poets, brings me, finally, to what is perhaps
Wordsworth's most distinctive virtue of all—his power of
happiness and hope, his ‘deep power of joy.” What a sad-
ness is in those brilliant poets of Italy—what a sadness in
even the sweetest of them all, the one whom Wordsworth
specially loved, the pious and tender Virgil
Optima quaeque dies miseris mortalibus aevi
Prima ſugit— -
‘the best days of life for us poor mortals flee first away;’
subeuni morbi, “then come diseases, and old age, and labour,
and sorrow ; and the severity of unrelenting death hurries
us away.” Et dura rapit inclementia mortis.” From the
* See Eckermann, Gespräche m if Goethe, ii. 260-2 :—'Es ist immer ein
Zeichen einer unproductiven Zeit, wenn die so ins Kleinliche des Techni-
Schen geht, und eben so ist es ein Zeichen eines unproductiven Indivi-
duums, wenn es sich mit dergleichen befasst. . . . Wiire ich noch
jung und verwegen genug, so würde ich absichtlich gegen alle Solche
technische Grillen verstossen . . . aber ich wirde auf die Hauptsache
losgehen, und so gute Dinge zu Sagen Suchen, dass jeder gereizt werden
sollte, es zu lesen und auswendig zu lernen.’
2 Optima quaeque dies miseris mortalibus aevi
Prima fugit; subeunt morbi, tristisque Senectus
Et labor; et durae rapit inclementia mortis.
VIRGIL, Georgics, iii. 66-8.
J.ord coller/DGE's REMARKS, 127
ineffable, the dissolving melancholy of those lovely lines, let
us turn our thoughts to the great poet in whose name we
are met together to-day; to our Westmoreland singer of
‘the sublime attractions of the grave,’ and to the treasure
of happiness and of hope—
Of hope, the paramount duty which Heaven lays,
For its own honour, on man's suffering heart—
which is in him. We are drawn to him because we feel
these things; and we believe that the number of those who
feel them will continue to increase more and more, long
after we are gone.
g © º
Before the meeting separated, the Lord Chief-Justice
proposed a vote of thanks to the Chairman. In doing so,
LORD COLERIDGE said:—
I have been asked to do something which some one
must do, which all of you desire should be done, and which,
in one respect perhaps, there is hardly any one present who
can do with greater propriety than myself, namely, to move
a vote of thanks to Mr. Matthew Arnold for his address,
and for being our President for the year. He has told us
how very old he is, and how very grave and solemn he has
become, to which every one who looks at him, and listens
to him, and reads him, must at once entirely assent, He
tells us that he has withdrawn from the world, that he longs
to enter a cell, to go into a monastery; and he has de-
scribed the charms of reflection and meditation with much
personal appreciation and characteristic accuracy. But
though he has done that, and come here to preside over us,
I am sure none of us would have thought that these, were
128 - WoRDSWORTHANA.
his peculiar and characteristic qualities upon any authority
less cogent than his own. For my own part, having been
brought up with him from a child, I may say that the state-
ment comes upon me as a complete, an interesting, and a
pleasurable surprise. With regard to Wordsworth, however,
of all living men he has probably done most to bring back
and place upon its true grounds the devotion to that great
Poet. I should say, moreover, that he is fitly our President,
because not only is he perhaps the greatest of English
critics, but because he is, if not the greatest, at any rate the
most exquisite, of English poets. Those of us who have
had the pleasure to live for many years in the light of his
friendship know him also to be the most generous, the most
steadfast, the most loyal of friends. As his oldest living
friend, and as one who yields to no man in admiration for
him, as well as one who has owed him much for many
many years, I gladly take the opportunity of moving this
vote of thanks, - -
ON worDSworTH's GUIDE zo 7//E
- ZAKES,
By STOPFORD BROOK F.
oN wordsworth's GUIDE To THE ZAKES,
WE may be quite sure that when Wordsworth wished to
write his Guide to the Zakes he would look to see what his
brother poet, Gray, had said about them in the Journal
written to Mr. Wharton; and it is characteristic of Words.
worth's poetic temper that he seizes on the pathetic circum-
stance of it being written shortly before the death of Gray.
Of the natural descriptions he says that they are marked by
‘distinctness and unaffected simplicity;’ and we cannot
better the words. These are the excellencies of the natural
description, though here and there are phrases which recall
the artificial style in which men wrote about Nature when
Gray was still alive. - - - .
Rarely, if ever, the poet appears. There is one passage
where he says that he “heard the murmur of many waters,
not audible in the daytime,’ which seems to have in it what
Wordsworth calls ‘an ear practised like a blind man's
touch ;’—but I do not know whether I do not attribute a
poetical quality to it which it has not, because of Words-
worth's observation of the same voicefulness of the streams
at evening, and the lines in which he describes it--> -
A soft and lulling sound is heard
Oſ streams inaudible by day.
Another passage is more distinctly poetical, and were it
not lifted a little too high by the academic introduction of
1 Read to the Society in May 1883.
132 WORDSWORTHIAMA,
‘Chaos and old Night,’ would not be unworthy of Words.
worth himself; and, in its conception of the mountains as
alive, and guarding their dreadful and solitary secrets,
resembles Wordsworth's way of thinking
Gray is speaking of a mountain road, passable only for a
few weeks by the peasants, and leading into savage recesses
that ought not to be invaded. ‘But the mountains know
well,” he says, “that these innocent people will not reveal
the mysteries of their ancient kingdom—the reign of Chaos :
and old Night.”
But, after all, this single passage does not come out of
any poetical conception or passion of Nature such as
Wordsworth always has ; it is a mere chance. Gray was
not at home with wild scenery. His sense of the horror of .
Gordale Scar, his fear of ‘the loose stones that hang in the
air, and threaten the idle spectator with destruction;' his
declaration that, though the impression of the place—so
sublime it was—would last him his life, yet that he could
not stay in it a quarter of an hour without shuddering, all
prove that he had no real care for places where Wordsworth
would have felt filled with joy, and content to rest in as
in home. e
Nay, I even doubt whether he had any direct delight in
Nature for her own sake, such as we feel, or have been
taught to feel, by the poets. He likes his natural scenery
made artificial. It was his habit to carry about with him a
square of blackened glass, such as artists use to define the
limits of a landscape, and whenever he saw any scene he
thought pretty, he sat down to contemplate it in this glass.
‘Pray think, 1)octor, how the glass plays its part in such a
spot, he writes, after an ardent description of Borrowdale,
And at Grasmere, after equal ardour, he says—and the sen-
WoRDSWORTH's GUIDE To THE LAKES. 133
tence marks how aesthetic rather than natural was his con-
templation of Nature—‘From hence I got to the Parsonage,
a little before sunset, and saw in my glass a picture which,
if I could transmit to you, and fix it in all the softness of
its living colours, would fairly sell for rooo pounds. This
is the sweetest scene I can yet discover in point of pastoral
beauty.’ * -
I do not depreciate Gray's ‘distinctness and unaſſected
simplicity,’ as Wordsworth has it; but the difference between
this manner of seeing and feeling Nature, and that of
Wordsworth, is quite immeasurable. We are in another
world altogether when we open the Guide to the Zakes,
Wordsworth was at home with, his life from a child was
interwoven with, wild Nature. He loved and talked to it,
as a man loves and talks to a friend, and it would be un-
natural—considering the inevitableness of the poetic passion.
—iſ, even in a Guide-Book, his love did not appear. It
does appear, The descriptions in this book glow with re-
collected love, and with the indignation which companies
with love, when that which is dearly loved is injured or
made less beautiful. - •
There are many passages of anger against those who
dared to injure, or to make artificial the wild and fanciſul
play of Nature. There is a long indictment (nét without a
little of that humour which the force of indignation some-
times attains) against the larch-tree, for its want of sympathy
and organisation, and its gross individualism; thousands and
tens of thousands of “separate individual trees obstimately
presenting themselves as such.” But the indignation is little,
and the love much. Mark the minute aſſection, the long
contemplation of love in this passage—and there are many
more. He is talking of the lake shores.
134 wordsworth IAMA,
‘Along bays exposed to the setting in of strong winds,’ we
see the ‘curved rim of fine blue gravel, thrown up in course
of time by the waves, half of it gleaming from under the
t water, and the corresponding half of a lighter hue; and in
other parts bordering the lakes, groves, if I may so call
them, of reeds and bulrushes, or plots of water-lilies, lifting
up their large target-shaped leaves to the breeze, while the
white ſlower is heaving on the wave.’
This subtle essence of love, rising again and again through
the quiet argument and detail of the book, like the voice of
a hidden stream heard at intervals from the road on which
we walk, is part of the charm of this book.
Again, Wordsworth was first the poet, a poet also with
certain fixed ideas on which his imagination always built;
so that another part of the charm of this book is the con-
tinual emergence of these poetic ideas through the prose.
There is, also, the apparition of the Poet himself, speaking
the poetic tongue; more than in his letters, more than in
the prefaces, does he here liſt his head above the sober-
moving waves of prosé. 4.
The first of these fixed ideas is, that in the universe there
was a living Will,—the soul as it were of its body, -which
had pleasure in its own doings, and which could harmonise
itself with Man. Some say that this was only a poetic
sentiment. It may be so to them ; it may be so in itself.
But it was not so to Wordsworth. It was his deepest faith
concerning what we call Nature, and there is not a single
poem which has to do with the natural world in which it
does not appear.
It appears in this little book, but in a different way—and
this is its interest—from the way it appears in his poetry.
He is speaking, for example, of Mountain Tarns, and of
WoRDSWORTH's GUIDE 70 7//E LAKES. 135
their want of wood, and of ‘other cheerful images by which
fresh water is usually attended,’ and he says that this in-
ability in the tarn to g we furtherance to the meagre vege-
tation excites the sense of some repulsive power strongly put
forth, and thus deepens the melancholy natural to such
scenes;' but he does not leave the Tarn to this gloomy
thought, but goes on—and the added thought is the origin
of one of the ſinest passages in his mountain poetry—to Say
that the imagination is tempted to attribute a voluntary
power to every change which takes place in such a spot.
This talk of repulsive and voluntary powers is an appari-
tion of his idea. .
So, also, it appears in another way, when (speaking of the
vapours which, exhaled from the lakes, brood on the heights,
or descend to the valleys with inaudible motion) “he is dis-,
posed to sympathise with those who fancy these delicate
apparitions to be the spirits of their departed ancestors; '
and, rising more and more into the poetic temper, thinks of
the ſleecy clouds that rest on the hill-tops as caught and
detained there by some mysterious impulse of love.
Nor is this idea of a life in separate things, and of a vast,
Self-conscious thought, of which the plenomena of Nature
are the form, the mere vague sentiment of one who did not
observe the processes of Nature. Wordsworth had the eye
of a field-geologist, and he describes (as I’rofessor Geikie,
writing for the popular eye, would describe) the way in which
the shores of Rydal Mere were carved, or in which the out-
line of a wood, as it climbs a mountain, was wrought ; and
I do not doubt myself that close observation of this kind is
behind all the transcendental passages concerning Nature
in his poetry. - -
In this book, when he has done this accurate work, what
136 WORDSWORTHIANA.
do we find? He is not satisfied with the statement of the
natural causes. His idea comes in and behind these
causes, and present through them as power, he conceives of
an actual Being who day by day has wrought out into beauty,
for his own pleasure and for ours, the edges of the lake and
of the wood. “We never contemplate these boundaries
without some feeling, more or less distinct, of the powers of
Nature by which they are imposed :' and if they are defaced
by man, “such is the benignity of Nature, the scars will
gradually disappear before a healing spirit.'
A second part of this idea of a universal life in the world
without us, is in his conception of a co-operative harmony
between the animals and Nature herself—a conception of
which his poetry is full, and which is frequent in this little
book. *
Mr. Darwin would have been pleased, as we in this poetic
assembly are pleased, with Wordsworth, when he descries
‘the stately heron, with folded wings, that might seem to
have caught their delicate hue from the blue waters by the
side of which she watches,” Again, in his Zycursion, he
describes the straight ſlight of the raven over the large bay
under Place Fell. And when we read, ‘The waters were
agitated, and the iron tone of the raven's voice was in fine
keeping with the wild scene before our eyes,' we think of the
lines where this prose is made poetry—
The crags repeat the raven's croak
In symphony austere.
The same idea fills another passage, where he describes
the birds and the young lambs in the vales: ‘The notes of
the birds, when listened to by the side of broad still waters,
or when heard in unison with the murmuring of mountain
Ivorosivor TH's GUIDE TO THE LAKES.' ... 137
brooks, have the compass of their power enlarged accord-
ingly.' That is a phrase alive with Wordsworth, but this
which follows about the cuckoo is almost finer than anything
in the famous poem: ‘There is also an imaginative influence
in the voice of the cuckoo, when that voice has taken posses-
sion of a deep mountain valley, very different from anything
which can be excited by the same sound in a flat country.’
Then he passes on to the lambs; and we think of many a
passage in the Doe of Ky/stone: ‘These sportive creatures,
as they gather strength, are turned out upon the open moun-
tains, and with their slender limbs, their snow-white colour,
and their wild and light motions, beautifully accord or Con-
trast with the rocks and lawns on which they seek their food.’
Another part of his idea is that Nature takes up the need-
ful works of Man into herself and unites her work to his, so
that Man's work seems to be Nature's, and Nature's that of
Man. Yet each, while ministering to one another, are
distinct. - - -
Every one will remember many instances of this con
ception in Wordsworth's poems, -
I wish I had time to read you the whole passage in this
book in which (speaking of the mountain cottages) he
enshrines this thought; but it is enough to take two
sentences: the first, when he says—“that they remind the
contemplative spectator of a production of Nature, and may
(using a strong expression) rather be said to have grown
than to be erected; to have risen, by an instinct of their
own, out of the native rock, so little is there in them of
formality, such is their wildness and beauty;’ the second,
when, after describing the work of Nature on them, clothing
them, roof and sides, with moss and ferns and flowers, he
breaks out into his complete idea: ‘Hence buildings, which
138 - twoRDSWOAZY/ANA.
in their very form call to mind the processes of Nature, do
thus, clothed in part with a vegetable garb, appear to be
received into the bosom of the living principle of things, as
it acts and exists among the woods and fields.’
Another part of the same idea (that Nature has a life not
created in her by our imagination, but separate from ours),
is, that she acts upon us from without, to awaken thought,
to inspire feeling, to do, in fact, on us the work of a
teacher and a friend. This idea, expanded in a hundred
poems, and one of the foundation-thoughts of The Prelude
and The Excursion, is not neglected in this book, Here is
the passage, and though it ought to be in poetry, it is not
uninteresting to find our poetic idea in prose :-
‘A resident . . . must have experienced, while looking on
the unruffled waters, that the imagination, by their aid, is
carried into recesses of feeling otherwise impenetrable. . . . .
All else speaks of tranquillity;-not a breath of air, no rest-
lessness of insects, and not a moving object perceptible—
except the clouds gliding in the depths of the lake, or the
traveller passing along, an inverted image, whose motion
seems governed by the quiet of a time, to which its archetype,
the living person, is, perhaps, insensible:—or it may happen,
that the figure of one of the larger birds, a raven or a heron,
is crossing silently among the reſlected clouds, while the
voice of the real bird, from the element aloft, gently awakens
in the spectator the recollection of appetites and instincts,
pursuits and occupations, that deform and agitate the World,
—yet have no power to prevent Nature from putting on an
aspect capable of satisfying the most intense cravings for
the tranquil, the lovely, and the perfect, to which man, the
noblest of her creatures, is subject,
WoA:DSIVORTA'S GUIDE TO 7 HE LAAES,’ 139
In this way Wordsworth is led from Nature to Mankind.
It was the natural course with him ; and though his abiding
of thought over human life was deep, yet as deep was his
brooding over the life in Nature, • .
According to the way in which our character is originally
tempered, or is wrought at certain times, is our pleasure in
the one or in the other side of Wordsworth's thinking; but
he, more manifold than we, was seldom enthralled by the
one without seeking, or at once seeing, the other. Hence
the chapter in this book on the aspect of the country as
affected by its inhabitants is full of human feeling; while at
the same time he writes as if he felt that the indwellers and
all their work were actual receivers, day by day, of the
sympathy of Nature. -
As to his own method of work, the way in which, having
watched with ardent minuteness the aspects and changes of
Nature during a long mountain walk, he added afterwards
to these the thoughts of human life and duty that belonged
to them (by right, as he would think, of pre-established
harmony between the mind of Man and the mind of the
Universe), you will find an example of it here, if you read
the journal of the crossing of the pass of Kirkstone, and the
poem wrought out of the memories of that day. * -
I have but two things more to say. The first is, that not
only does Wordsworth express in this little book his poetic
ideas, but that he cannot help frequently falling into the
modes of poetry in the midst of his prose. This apparition
of the poet, as I said, is very pleasant, and if you read with
open eyes, you will often have the pleasure of that sight.
Phrases like these: “Turning round, we saw the mountains
of Wastaale in tumult;’ ‘The Scawfell cataracts were voice-
less;' ‘Skiddaw also has his own rainbows;’ ‘On this day
140 Ivorosivorząſawa.
the winds have been acting on the small lake of Rydal as
if they had received command to carry its waters from their
bed into the sky;’ ‘Such clouds, cleaving to their stations’
—he is speaking of the fleecy clouds among the mountain-
tops– or lifting up suddenly their glittering heads from .
behind rocky barriers, or hurrying out of sight with speed of
the sharpest edge,’ are not prose, nor in the manner of prose.
Sometimes the delight he feels is so great that the prose
is not only poetical in expression, but it is urged by his
pleasure into rhythm. Here are two instances: ‘The lake,
the clouds, and mists were all in motion, to the sound of
Sweeping winds’—‘The Den of Wastdale at our feet a gulf
immeasurable.’
Nor, lastly, can he help, like a poet, creating or composing
subjects. There are two (among a few others in this book)
which, I have no doubt, Wordsworth had formed into poems
in his mind; and I will close this paper by reading them
both. The first belongs to his ascent of Scawfell. They
are on the top.
“Look " I exclaimed, “at yon ship upon the glittering
sea 1" “Is it a ship?” replied our shepherd-guide. “It can
be nothing else,” interposed my companion; “I cannot be
mistaken, I am so accustomed to the appearance of ships at
sea.” The Guide dropped the argument; but, before a
minute was gone, he quietly said, “Now look at your ship;
it is changed into a horse.” So indeed it was, a horse with
a gallant neck and head. We laughed heartily; and, I hope,
when again inclined to be positive, I may remember the
ship and the horse upon the glittering sea; and the calm
confidence, yet submissiveness, of our wise Man of the
Mountains, who certainly had more knowledge of clouds
than we, whatever might be our knowledge of ships.’
WoRDS WorTH's GUIDE TO THE LAKES. 141
This is, you may think, commonplace enough. But it is
a subject, isolated, and touched in for such imaginative
moral treatment, with constant reference to the whole
natural scene around, as Wordsworth has done in the poem
of Resolution and Independence, when the Leech-gatherer
and the Moorland are wedded together.
The other subject is more ideal; and no one but a poet
could have first made the thing seem so vivid, then so
visionary—object and subject alike; and no one, perhaps,
but Wordsworth, could have so harmonised, as in the Doe
of Aylstone, the animal, and the natural scene which accom-
panied it, nor afterwards, added to it his own passionate
feeling of the mountain solitudes at night (with soft-sounding
streams), nor finally brought all the mountains in, to embrace,
with their invisible power, himself, and the quiet centre of
the vision, the knoll, the dark yew-tree, and the white
animal beneath it, and this —‘I shall say nothing of the
moonlight aspect of the situation which had charmed us so
much in the afternoon ; but I wish you had been with us
when, in returning to our friend's house, we espied his lady's
large white dog, lying in the moonshine upon the round
knoll under the old yew-tree in the garden, a romantic
image—the dark tree and its dark shadow—and the elegant
creature, as fair as a spirit ! The torrents murmured softly:
the mountains down which they were falling did not, to my
sight, furnish a background for this Ossianic picture; but I
had a consciousness of the depth of the seclusion, and that
mountains were embracing us on all sides; “I saw not, but
I felt that they were there.”” . . .
This is Wordsworth, and this is half his charm. It needs
the humanity, and the metrical music he would have given
it, had he put it into verse, and ordered it therein ; but who
does not see the Poem within it 2
- REMARKS
ON THE PERSONAL CHARACTER OF
worDSworTH's POETRY.
IBy AUBREY DE VERE,
REMARKS ON THE PERSONAL CHARACTER
OF WORDSWORTH's POETRY."
PoETRY is frequently termed a ‘creative art,’ and, in a
sense, the title is a just one ; but it fails to express one of
the most remarkable characteristics of poetry. A history,
or a philosophical treatise, may also be called a creation.
of human intelligence; and though a first-class poem is a
creation in a higher sense, standing as it does more remote
from what may be called the ‘handicraft' of the mind, still
there remains a yet closer relation between true poetry and
the poet. Byron, in one of his best poems, 77 e Za/w// (ſ
7 asso, has made the Italian poet speak of his Christian
Epic as his “soul's chi/d;’ and there is a deep significance
in the term. True poetry stands at the second, not the
first, remove from a mere manufactured article ; it is less a
creation of the poet's intellect than the spiritual Arogeny of
his total spiritual being. A history may reveal to us little of
the writer ; but the image of the poet is stamped upon great
poetry, and stamped the more deeply the less the poet
intended that it should be thus impressed. For this there
is a momentous cause. It is not a single faculty of the
mind that originates a true poem, though the imagination
| Read to the Society in May 1833.
K
146 . lſ/OA’ DS WOR THAAAWA.
is specially needed for that end ; it is the whole mind, and
not the mind only, but the whole moral and emotional
being, including those antecedent habits and experiences
which fitted that being for its task. In this respect the
highest poetry has some analogy to religious faith. It is
this also which makes poetry such a large thing, and which
constitutes the inſinite variety of poetry. The circumstances
which modify both the dispositions and the intellect of man
are ever changing with the ages; and therefore, even if the
special poetic faculty of a Homer, a Dante, or a Shakespeare
chanced to be exactly reproduced after the lapse of centuries,
its poetic products would be essentially different. If the
second Dante chose to imitate the first, the resemblances
would be less than the diversities, for the imitator contented
to be a mere plagiarist could never have been a Dante.
Had he been a true poet he would have lived a true life, .
and by that life his genius and its products must have been
substantially modified. It is this also which gives to great
poetry, and especially to Wordsworth's, its extraordinary in-
ſluence over all those who enter into wifa/ relations with it.
They find in it more than beautiful thoughts, vivid images,
valuable conclusions, melodious cadences; they find these
things, and many more, not apart and isolated, but fused
into a living and personal union. They ſind in it humanity,
and a diverse humanity. It is their whole being that is
challenged by a brother man, and to that challenge they
respond. -
The faculties of a man, though distinct faculties, yet act
conjointly, not separately, and act thus more in poetry than in
prose. The greatest poetry possesses most eminently this
diversity in unity. In it we note, in closest union, faculties and
habitudes, intellectual and moral, which might seem to stand
cHARACTER of Wordsworzyr's Pozzº P. 147
naturally at the furthest distance apart each from each. They
are thus united in poetry because they are thus united in man.
Comparing poet with poet, we find that the qualities which
jointly make up their several aggregates of power have been
combined in very different proportions, and according to a
different law. This is because in the highest poetry there
is not only a human element but also a distinctly personal
element. Such poetic personality is not to be confounded,
as has been well observed by Mr. R. H. Hutton, with the
trivial egotism which is ever displaying itself in manner-
isms, affectations, and the other more direct appeals of self-
love to unworthy sympathies. It is a personality to be
found in the epic poet and the dramatist, who have no
opportunity of thus obtruding themselves, not less than
in the lyrical or elegiac poet, . In this personality the
universal human type is never lost or merged, while ye
the individual type is differenced from other exemplars
of human nature in its modes of self-manifestation—diſſer-
enced by an essential, not an accidental diversity. In
no modern poetry is this higher personality so strongly
indicated as in Wordsworth's, a proof in itself that
he belongs to the first class of poets. It is in his
higher poetry that Wordsworth is most eminently himself.
Whatever he looks at he looks at in a way special to him.
When he contemplates Nature, it is as the mystic of old
perused the page of Holy Writ—making little of the letter,
but passing through it to the ‘spiritual interpretation.' If
he regards man, it is not as a busy agent-amid the turmoil
of life, nor yet as an ascetic ‘housed in a dream.’ He
regards him rather as a being in whom there unite count-
less mysterious influences both from the inner world of the
spirit and from the visible creation of God, constituting,
148 - (POA DSPWOR 7'HZAAVA,
when thus combined, a creature destined for lofty contem-
plation, yet bound at the same time by a network of sym-
pathies “descending to the worm in charity.” If he looks
upon human gladness, his ready sympathy with it is seldom
unshadowed by a remembrance of the speed with which
joy passes into Sorrow ; and, when contemplating Sorrow,
his most abiding thought is that her mission is to cleanse, to
elevate, and to make free. He sees good in all things; yet
in all good things he sees also some record of a higher good
now lost, so that the rejoicing of man seems but the captive's
harping in the land of exile. For him the smallest objects
have rightful claims upon our deeper aſſections; yet the
greatest are scarcely worthy of man's higher desires, for the
fo/ential excellencies in them too often are but ‘things in-
complete and purposes betrayed.’
It is easier to feel the strong personality of Wordsworth's
poetry than to define critically in what it consists. I
have suggested an approximate answer to this question,
viz. that it consists—1st, in the unusually large number of
qualities, intellectual and moral—qualities often not only
remote from each other, but apparently opposed to each
other—which are represented by his higher poetry; 2dly,
in the absolute unity in which these various qualities are
blended ; and, 3d/y, in the masterful moral strength which
results from their united expression. This measureless
strength was so deeply felt by Coleridge that in his Friend
he describes Wordsworth's poetry as ‘non verba sed toni.
trua,’ and elsewhere spoke of him as ‘the Giant; ' while
admirers of a very different sort were but beginning to babble .
about the “sweet simplicity’ of his verse. Wordsworth did
a signal injustice to his own poems when he classified
them as poems of the ‘Affections,' of the “Fancy,” of the
CHARAcTEA of Wordsirozza's Pozzº. 149
• ‘Imagination,’ of ‘Sentiment and Reflection.' There exist
no poems which could less equitably be subjected to a
classification so arbitrary. It but points to a partial truth,
while it conceals one of primary importance. All of these
faculties are doubtless found, though with diversities of .
proportion, in Wordsworth's poems; but they are commonly
found in union, and they are found marshalled under the
control of the highest poetic faculty, viz, the Imagination,
ZŽe Brothers, A Farewell, “She dwelt among the untrodden
ways,’ ſºuth, nay, even Zaoda/lia, were classed among the
“Poems of the Affections;” but there was no reason why
they should not have been equally classed among those of
the ‘Imagination,’ to which, in his later editions, many
poems were transferred. On the other hand, “She was a
phantom of delight,’ ‘Three years she grew in sun and
shower,’ ‘A slumber did my spirit seal,” and Zi/ern 21b/g),
were placed under the title, “Poems of the Imagination :’
but they might with equal justice have been referred to the
category of the ‘Affections ;' while the Zines /eſ/, u/om a
seat in a Yezy-free, Zhe Ha/Ay HParrior, A Poef's Epi/dp/,
‘I heard a thousand blended notes,' and the Ode ſo Duty,
might as fitly have been classed with the poems of the
‘Imagination' as with those of ‘Sentiment and Reflection.’
It is but in a few of Wordsworth's inferior poems, such as
might have been written by his imitators, that the higher
faculties and impulses are found in separation. In his best
poetry the diverse elements of the human intellect and of the
human heart are found, not only in a greater variety, but in
a closer and more spiritual union, than in any other poetry
of his time; and, from that union, rose the extraordinary
largeness of character which belonged to it. That char-
acteristic was felt by the discerning, even in his earlier day,
I 50 WORDS WOR7A/AWA.
when other poets were travelling over the world in search
of sensational incidents or picturesque costume, while he
seldom sought a theme except among the primary relations
of humanity, and those influences of exterior nature by
which human nature is moulded. -
The largeness that belongs to Wordsworth's poetry resulted
in part from the circumstance that the numerous elements
included in the poet's genius were often converse powers,
which in an inferior poet would have proved antagonistic,
The intelligential and the emotional parts of man's nature
are often at variance, and each part has found special repre-
sentatives among the poets; but in Wordsworth's poetry it
is impossible to say whether the mind or the heart is the
predominant power. Again, both in the mind and the
heart there are energies of an almost antagonistic nature.
What faculties are less like each other than those of medita-
tion and observation ? Yet to Wordsworth they belonged
alike. He dwelt in meditation, as in a cavern, but one
Not uncheered
By stealthy influx of the timid day
Mingling with night, such twilight to compose
As Numa loved ; when, in the Egerian grot,
From the sage Nymph appearing at his wish,
IIe gained whate'er a regal mind might ask,
Or need, of counsel breathed through lips divine."
It will, perhaps, be as the inmate of some such holy
seclusion that, in future days, those who have taken counsel
with Wordsworth will most often image to themselves their
master. They will picture him there as bending in medita-
tive trance over
t
Ode to Lycoris.
cHARACTEx of Wowoshºok?//'s Poáz& K, 15.
Diluvian records; or the sighs of Earth
Interpreting; or counting for old Time
His minutes, by reiterated drops,
Audible tears, from some invisible source
That deepens upon fancy—more and more
Drawn toward the centre whence those sighs creep forth
To awe the lightness of IIumanity," -
Yet it is certain that there was nothing by which Words-
worth was more characterised than by a gift the opposite of
meditation—that of minute observation. The most delicate
effects of Nature are those which he most delights in noting,
He marks the autumnal leaves, “unfaded, yet prepared to
fade,’ and listens to the wood-dove when its voice is
Buried among trees
Yet to be come at by the breeze.
Equally minute is his observation of those trifles by which
human emotions are best indicated. Thus, of the deserted
wife in her stern gloom, he says— - .
And when she at her table gave me food,
She did not look at me.
And again of her child—
- I ſer infant babe
11ad from its mother caught the trick of grief,
And sighed among its playthings, *
In such passages meditation and observation constitute a
single intellectual act. Again, Imagination and Fancy are
very diſſerent powers; yet vast and plastic as Wordsworth's
imagination is, his poems include a series in which fancy
predominates, while yet she ever sports under the watchful
eye of the nobler power. Again, the intuitive faculties of
1 Ode to I.vcoris,
I 52 IPOAA)SIPOA 7///AAA.
the mind are commonly contrasted with those of discursive
thought; but, penetrating as is Wordsworth’s “gift of genuine
insight,' he is not less remarkable for the accuracy of his
logical processes, which communicates to his philosophical
conclusions, and to his diction no less, that especial note of
trut/ſuſhess which belongs to them no less than to his
descriptions of Nature. Once more, what can be more dis-
similar than the creative faculty whose energy moulds all
things to shape, and the passive power which persistently
submits itself to the influences of Nature, till it has taken
in her meanings and absorbed her very soul? Early in
life he wrote the lines—
Nor less I deem that there are Powers
Which of themselves our minds impress;
That we can feed this mind of ours
In a wise passiveness,'
It was this “wise passiveness,' this poetic quietism, that drank
in that power which Wordsworth put forth again in the form
of creative energy. His ‘passiveness’ meant that profound
and persistent attention, both of thought and will, of which
but the fewest of men are capable. Where a habit of
restlessness has destroyed this quiescent power, the resilient
power, which should alternate with it, is dissipated before it
is formed, the slender tendrils of thought having been succes-
sively snapped off before they had time to root themselves.
All profound and authentic power, intellectual or imaginative,
moral or spiritual, is thus stunted. Newton once said that
the only difference between him and ordinary men was, that
his mind could attend longer to a single train of thought. A
great poet needs, this power no less, Men who value them-
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ~ *** *r--- - - • * * *** *-º-º- * * * * * ***
1 /.4/'05////aſion waſ ſee//,
cha RACTER OF WORDSWORTH's POETR Y. 153
selves on their intellectual agility, can seldom rest upon a
thought long enough to profit by it. Between Wordsworth
and Nature, and not less between him and that whole body
of Truth of which he was cognisant, there were more than
such nods of passing recognition,--there was a perpetual
spiritual commerce. Thence came the weight, the momen-
tum and living strength of his knowledge."
In Wordsworth's genius there were not less intimately
combined certain moral qualities often found in antagonism
to each other. It has been said that his sympathies were
rather for men than with men. There is much truth in this
remark. In any case, his sympathies for men must have
been held in check by the stately severity of his moral
ideals. But a compensation for this restriction, so far as it
exists in him, is found in the circumstance that his sym-
pathies for men were almost unlimited, as is marked by the
fact that sternly as he condemned the evil-doer, he held
contempt to be an unlawful sentinent, and but once
expressed it in his poetry. He affirms
. . . . . . that he who feels contempt
For any living thing hath faculties
Which he has never used ; that thought with him
Is in its infancy,
Two other moral habits often found apart from each other
are veneration and admiration. In Wordsworth those two
habitudes most happily united, as his imaginative soarings
and exultations were blended with misgivings, his strong
and fearless self-assertion with humility, his general hope- .
fulness of disposition with moods of deep depression, his
contemplative calmness with gusts of stormy passion, his
*** * ****-* * *-* * * * * * * -- -------
*
| Some admirable remarks on subjects analogous to this will be found
in l’i incipal Shairp's Studies in 1’oetry and Philosophy, pp. 47-50,
154 Worpshow THIAAA.
recluse and hermit spirit with patriotic ardours. It was the
vast number of these ‘harmonious opposites’ united in
Wordsworth, and the closeness with which they were inter-
fused, which imparted to his poetry those characteristics of
magnanimity, of large-hearted humanity, and of vastness in
unity, which, taken together, constitute what is felt as the
personal character of Wordsworth's poetry. -
wORDSworth's POSITION As AN
ETHICAL TEACHER,
By THE DEAN OF SALISBURY.
worDSworTH's POSITION AS AN
ETHICAL TEACHER.
Wordsworth has on the whole been fortunate in his critics,
If we leave out of sight the lucubrations of Jeffrey in the
Jºdinburgh A'eview, we have first to notice the incomparable
exposition of Coleridge, in the Biographia Zieraria, where
the poet was for the first time placed in his proper niche.
The matured and thoughtful reflections of Sir Henry Taylor,
originally published in the Quarterly Review, and now re.
printed in his works, give an adequate account of the energy
and force found by men of the generation now passing away
in the works of Wordsworth. Principal Shairp, who is still
happily employed in declaring to younger Oxonians the
poetic faith of their elders, has blended biography and
criticism in an admirable essay. If I do not make mention
of the refined and subtle teachings of Mr. R. H. Hutton,
the keen insight of Mr. Stopford Brooke, and the delightful
and characteristic introduction to the selections, which are
doing so much for Wordsworth's fame, the reason will be
apparent to the members of the Wordsworth Society. I
venture, however, humbly to think that there are certain
points in Wordsworth's writings, taken as a whole, which
have hardly been touched upon as they deserve. A poet
1 Read to the Society in May 1883,
158 Wordswok THIANA.
and a critic has said of the gifted sister of Maurice de
Guérin, that “her soul had the same characteristic quality
as his talent—distinction.” If I may adapt and expand the
phrase, I should say that there is in Wordsworth a distinc-
tion of moral elevation, which, when recognised adequately,
discovers to us the reason why he has been a soother and
guide of such spirits as John Stuart Mill, and why he bids
fair to continue in the position, the unique position, of an
ethical teacher as well as a great poet. In the remarkable
introduction of Professor Jowett to the Goyglas of Plato we
find these words: ‘The true office of a poet or writer of fic-
tion is not merely to give amusement, or to be the ex-
pression of the feelings of mankind, good or bad, or even to
increase our knowledge of human nature. There have been
poets in modern times, such as Goethe or Wordsworth, who
have not forgotten their high vocation of teachers; and the
two greatest of the Greek dramatists owe their sublimity to
their ethical character. The noblest truths, sung of in the
purest and sweetest language, are still the proper material of
poetry.’ And again : “He (the poet) is his own critic, for
the spirit of poetry and criticism are not divided in him.
His mission is not to disguise men from themselves, but to
reveal to them their own nature, and make them better
acquainted with the world around them.' I contend that
the spirit of this instructive passage is to be found expressed
in full completeness in the poems of Wordsworth which
treat especially of the deeper emotions of the soul. Words-
worth himself, in the interesting reply to the letter of Ma-
thètes, contained in the third volume of The Friend (edition
of 1844), has revealed his own method, and the truest con-
victions of his matured intellect. The prose of Wordsworth
possesses certain excellencies of its own. In the pamphlet
Wordsworzy AS AAW E THICAL TEACHEA’. 159
on the Convention of Cintra we find some passages recalling
the stately majesty of Burke. There is a letter to Walter.
Scott, on Dryden, in the highest vein of manly criticism.
In the Essay on Epitaphs there is a certain Miltonic ring.
But the answer to Mathetes, in terseness and purity, is quite
admirable. In his portrayal of the temptations and intellec-
tual pitfalls of young men there is an expression of true
sympathy. And when he claims for Nature the office of ‘a
teacher of truth’ through joy and through gladness, we have
a subtle exposition of the affinity he always delights to trace
between the ministrations of natural beauty and the perfect
freedom of the moral faculties. Youth must return to the
visible universe, to ancient books, and to those which
breathe the ancient spirit. But beneath all desire for cul-
ture must reside the primary sense of duty. Man is ever to
remember that to act is better than to think. The Ode to
ZXuty all lovers of Wordsworth have, or ought to have, by
heart. The poet evidently designs to bring into high relief
the perfect play of a moral nature, wherein acts of virtue
pass out of restraint into the glorious freedom and liberty
which are proper to man. If it be asked, What in this, and
in The Haffy Warrior constitute, in Wordsworth's eyes,
the true panacea for moral ill? surely the word Self-govern-
ment will supply all we are in search for. ‘Genial virtue
falling back,” as Sir Henry Taylor says, “upon severe virtue
for support,” is the governing motive of the Ode to ZX1//y.
The conclusion of the reply to Mathetes, in which the poet
speaks of the transference ‘in the transport of imagination
of the law of moral to physical natures, and the contempla-
tion of all modes of existence as subservient to one spirit,'
is ſity followed by the stanza which I venture to quote,
familiar though it may be to all present :---
16o WoRDSWORZAIANA.
To humbler functions, awful Power
I call thee : I myself commend
Unto thy guidance from this hour;
Oh! let my weakness have an end
Give unto me, made lowly wise,
The spirit of self-sacrifice;
The conſidence of reason give,
And in the light of truth thy bondman let me live :
Mr. Hutton has said, that ‘Wordsworth alone, of all the
great men of that day, had seen the light of the countenance
of God, Shining clear into the face of duty.’ I am inclined
to think that as the world grows older, a still greater value
will attach to the ethical qualities of Wordsworth's verse.
Whatever science may achieve, there will still be the stern
whisper of a voice, ‘Thy duty do,” and men, sated with the
feverish poetry of emotion and sensation, will return to the
sterner and more barren heights ‘of verse that builds a
princely throne on humble truth.' The attraction which
the terse vigour possessed by Burns in his moral mood had
for Wordsworth men will continue to find in Michael, The
Acech-Gathere/, and the great Ode. Nowhere, perhaps, has
the awful contrast between the prisoned spirit and the buoy-
ancy of nature been brought out so fully as in the poem on
the lonely lecch-Gatherer. I must not, however, be tempted
into enlarging on the true lessons to thought and action to
be derived from poems in the recollection of all. Again and
again, as we all know, throughout Wordsworth's poetry, the
outward picture is nothing to the poet unless it be connected
with the freedom of duty, and the hope of immortality,
where he finds the ‘diviner air’ in which man is destined to
expatiate. Undoubtedly there are, passages in Zhe Excur.
sion and 7he Pre/ude where we desire greater concentration
WORDS WOR 7A. A.S AAW ETH/CAI, TEA CA/EA’. 161
of thought and expression, where the didactic impulse is
hardly disguised; but from both of these poems a noble
cento of passages might be extracted, all tending to indicate
the true tendency of his ethical system, “efficacious in
making men wiser, better, and happier.' We are sometimes
told that men are passing away from that stage of intellec-
tual interest when the fragments of Coleridge and the poems
of Wordsworth thrilled the souls of aspirant youth with a
desire for a noble and dutiful life. It may be so, But I
for one am still loath to believe that the hour of Words-
worth's empire as an ethical teacher and as a great poet is
coming to an end. Mr. Emerson's words dwell in my
memory: ‘Alone in his time he treated the human mind
well, and with an absolute trust. His adherence to his
poetic creed rested on real inspirations. The Ode on Jul-
mortality is the high-water mark which the intellect has
reached in this age.’ May I venture to add, that his ethical
teaching can never be separated from his poetic power P
They are twin stars. Never by the keenest science can they
be separated. - -
J. RUSSELL LOWELL'S ADDRESS AS
- PRESIDENT, 1884.
J. RUSSELL LOWELL's ADDRESS As
PRESIDENT, 1884. -
IN an early volume of the Philosophical Transactions there is
a paper concerning ‘A certain kind of lead found in Germany
proper for Essays.' That it may have been first found in
Germany I shall not question, but deposits of this depressing
mineral have been discovered since in other countries also,
and we are all of us more or less familiar with its presence
in the essay, nowhere more than when this takes the shape
of a critical dissertation on some favourite poet. Is this,
then, what poets are good for, that we may darken them
with our elucidations, or bury them out of sight under the
gathering silt of our comments P Must we, then, peep and
botanise on the rose of dawn or the passion-ſlower of sunset 2
I should rather take the counsel of a great poet, the com-
mentaries on whom already make a library in themselves,
and say, - -
State contenti, umama gente, al /l/ia,
—be satisfied if poetry be delightful, or helpful, or inspiring,
or all these together, but do not consider too nicely why it
is so. - –
Do not suppose that I am glancing covertly at what others,
from Coleridge down, have written of Wordsworth. I have
read them, including a recent very suggestive contribution of
I66 - Wordsworth/AMA.
Mr. Swinburne, with no other sense of dissatisfaction than
that which springs from ‘desiring this man's art and that
man's scope.' No, I am thinking only that whatever can be
profitably or unprofitably said of him has been already said,
and that what is said for the mere sake of saying it is not
worth saying at all. Moreover, I myself have said of him
what I thought good more than twenty years ago. It is as
wearisome to repeat one's-self as it is profitless to repeat
others, and that we have said something, however inade-
quate it may afterwards seem to us, is a great hindrance to
saying anything better. . & -
The only function that a President of the Wordsworth
Society is called on to perform is that of bidding it farewell
at the end of his year, and it is perhaps fortunate that I have
not had the leisure to prepare a discourse so deliberate as to
be more worthy of the occasion. Without unbroken time
there can be no consecutive thought, and it is my misfortune
that in the midst of a reſlection or of a sentence I am liable
to be called away by the bell of private or public duty,
Even had I been able to prepare something that might have
satisfied me better, I should still be at the disadvantage of
following next after a retiring president” who always has
the art of saying what all of us would be glad to say if
we could, and who in his address last year gave us what
seemed to me the finished model of what such a perform-
ance should be. -
During the year that has passed since our last Annual
Meeting, however idle the rest of us may have been, our
Secretary has been fruitfully busy, and has given us two
more volumes of what it is safe to say will be the standard
1 Mr. Matthew Arnold,
J. Røssøzz Zon'ezz's ADDRESS. 167
and definitive edition of the poet's works. In this, the
chronological arrangement of the several poems, and still
more, the record in the margin of the author's corrections
or repentances (£entimenti), as the Italians prettily call them,
furnish us with a kind of self-registering instrument of the
exactest kind by which to note, if not always the growth of
his mind, yet certainly the gradual clarification of his taste,
and the somewhat toilsome education of his ear. It is
plain that with Wordsworth, more than with most poets,
poetry was an art—an art, too, rather painfully acquired by
One who was endowed by nature with more of the vision
than of the faculty divine. Some of the more important
omissions, especially, seem silently to indicate changes of
opinion, though oftener, it may be suspected, or mood, or
merely a shifting of the point of view, the natural conse.
quence of a change for the better in his own material con-
dition.
One result of this marshalling of the poems by the natural
sequence of date is the conviction that, whatever modifications
Wordsworth's ideas concerning certain social and political
questions may have undergone, these modifications had not
their origin in inconsiderate choice, or in any seduction of pcr.
sonal motive, but were the natural and unconscious outcome
of enlarged experience, and of more profound reflection upon
it. I see no reason to think that he ever swerved from his
early faith in the beneficence of freedom, but rather that he
learned the necessity of defining more exactly in what free-
dom consisted, and the conditions, whether of time or place,
under which alone it can be beneficent, of insisting that it
must be an evolution and not a manufacture, and that it
should co-ordinate itself with the prior claims of society and
civilisation. The process in his mind was the ordinary
168. - IVOA’DSWORTHIANA .
crystallisation of sentiment hitherto swimming in vague
solution, and now precipitated in principles. He had made
the inevitable discovery that comes with years, of how much
harder it is to do than to see what 'twere good to do, and
grew content to build the poor man's cottage, since the
means did not exist of building the prince's palace he had
dreamed. It is noticeable how many of his earlier poems
turn upon the sufferings of the poor from the injustice of
man or the unnatural organisation of society. He himself
had been the victim of an abuse of the power that rank and
wealth sometimes put into the hands of the unworthy, and
had believed in political methods, both for remedy and pre-
vention. He had believed also in the possibility of a gre-
garious regeneration of man by sudden and sharp, if need
were by revolutionary expedients, like those impromptu con-
versions of the inhabitants of a city from Christ to Mahomet,
or back again, according to the creed of their conqueror, of
which we read in mediaeval romances. He had fancied
that the laws of the Universe would curtsey to the resolves
of the National Convention. He had seen this hope utterly .
baffled and confuted, as it seemed, by events in France, by
events that had occurred, too, in the logical sequence fore-
told by students of history. He had been convinced,
perhaps against his will, that a great part of human suffering
has its root in the nature of man, and not in that of his
institutions. Where was the remedy to be found, if remedy
indeed there were P It was to be sought at least only in an
improvement wrought by those moral influences that build
up and buttress the personal character. Goethe taught the
self-culture that results in self-possession, in breadth and
impartiality of view, and in equipoise of mind; Wordsworth
inculcated that self-development through intercourse with
J. Wºssezz Zoiſ'Ezz's Appress. 169
man and nature which leads to self-sufficingness, self-sus-
tainment, and equilibrium of character. It was the indivi-
dual that should and could be leavened, and through the
individual the lump. To reverse the process was to break
the continuity of history and to wrestle with the angel of
destiny. - - y
And for one of the most powerfully effective of the
influences for which he was seeking, where should he look
if not to Religion? The sublimities and amenities of out-
ward nature might suffice for William Wordsworth, might
for him have almost filled the place of a liberal education ;
but they elevate, teach, and above all console the imagina-
tive and solitary only, and suffice to him who already
suffices to himself. The thought of a god vaguely and
vaporously dispersed throughout the visible creation, the
conjecture of an animating principle that gives to the Sunset
its splendours, its passion to the storm, to cloud and wind
their sympathy of form and movement, that sustains the
faith of the crag in its forlorn endurance, and of the hare-
bell in the slender security of its stem, may inspire or soothe,
console or fortify the man whose physical and mental fibre
is so sensitive that, like the spectroscope, it can botn feel
and record these impalpable impulses and impressions,
these impersonal vibrations of identity between the frag-
mentary life that is in himself and the larger life of the
universe whereof he is a particle. Such supersensual
emotions might help to make a poem, but they would not
make a man, still less a social being. Absorption in the
whole would not tend to that development of the individua
which was the corner-stone of Wordsworth's edifice.
That instinct in man which leads him to fashion a god in
his own image, why may it not be an instinct as natural and
170 Wordsworth/AMA.
wholesome as any other? And it is not only God that this
instinct embodies and personifies, but every profounder
abstract conception, every less selfish devotion of which
man is capable. Was it, think you, of a tiny crooked out-
line on the map, of so many square miles of earth, or of
Hume and Smollett's History that Nelson was thinking
when he dictated what are perhaps the most inspiring words
ever uttered by an Englishman to Englishmen? Surely it
was something in woman's shape that rose before him with
all the potent charm of noble impulsion that is hers as
much through her weakness as her strength. And the
features of that divine apparition, had they not been
painted in every attitude of their changeful beauty by
Romney P -
Coarse and rudimentary as this instinct is in the Savage,
it is sublimed and etherealised in the profoundly spiritual
imagination of Dante, which yet is forced to admit the
legitimacy of its operation. Beatrice tells him—
Thus to your minds it needſul is to speak,
I3ecause through sense alone they understand :
It is for this that Scripture condescends
Unto your faculties and feet and hands,
To God attributes, meaning something else.
And in what I think to be the sublimest reach to which
poetry has risen, the conclusion of the Paradiso, Dante
tells us that within the three whirling rings of vari-coloured
light that symbolise the wisdom, the power, and the love of
God, he seems to see the image of man.
Wordsworth would appear to have been convinced that
this Something deeply interfused, this pervading but illusive
intimation, of which he was dimly conscious, and that only
by ſlashes, could never serve the ordinary man, who was in
J. A.USSEL. Lowe/Lºs ADDRESS. 171
no way and at no time conscious of it, as motive, as judge,
and more than all as consoler,-could never fill the place of
the Good Shepherd, Observation convinced him that what
are called the safeguards of society are the staff also of the
individual members of it, that tradition, habitude, and
heredity are great forces, whether for impulse or restraint.
He had pondered a pregnant phrase of the poet Daniel,
where he calls religion ‘mother of Form and Fear.’ A
growing conviction of its profound truth turned his mind
towards the Church as the embodiment of the most potent
of all traditions, and to her public offices as the expression
of the most socially humanising of all habitudes. It was no
empty formalism that could have satisfied his conception,
but rather that ‘Ideal Form, the universal mould,’ that ſor//la
wentis &ferna which has given shape and expression to the
fears and hopes and aspirations of mankind. And what he
understood by Fear is perhaps shadowed forth in the Ode to
Duty, in which he speaks to us out of an ampler ether than
in any other of his poems, and which may safely ‘challenge
insolent Greece and haughty Rome’ for a comparison either
in kind or degree. -
I Ought not to detain you longer from the interesting
papers, the reading of which has been promised for this
meeting. No member of this Society would admit that its
existence was needed to keep alive an interest in the poet,
or to promote the study of his works. But I think we
should all consent that there could be no better reason for
its being than the fact that it elicits an utterance of the
impression made by his poetry on many different minds
looking at him from as many different points of view. That
he should have a special meaning for every one in an
audience so various in temperament and character might
172 WoRDSWORTHANA.
well induce us to credit him with a wider range of sympathies
and greater breadth of thought than each of us separately
would, perhaps, be ready to admit. - -
But though reluctant to occupy more than my fair share
of your time, the occasion tempts me irresistibly to add a
few more words of general criticism. It has seemed to me
that Wordsworth has too commonly been estimated rather
as philosopher or teacher than as poet. The value of what
he said has had more influence with the jury than the way
in which he said it. There are various methods of criticism,
but I think we should all agree that literary work is to be
judged from the purely literary point of view.
If it be one of the baser consolations, it is also one of the
most disheartening concomitants of long life, that we get
used to everything. Two things, perhaps, retain their
freshness more perdurably than the rest,-the return of
spring, and the more poignant utterances of the poets.
And here, I think, Wordsworth holds his own with the best.
But Mr. Arnold's volume of selections from him suggests a
question of some interest, for the Wordsworth Society of
special interest,-How much of his poetry is likely to be a
permanent possession ? The answer to this question is in-
volved in the answer to a question of wider bearing, What
are the conditions of permanence? Immediate or con-
temporaneous recognition is certainly not dominant among
them, or Cowley would still be popular, Cowley, to whom
the Muse gave every gift but one, the gift of the unexpected
and inevitable word. Nor can mere originality assure the
interest of posterity, else why are Chaucer and Gray fami-
liar, while Donne, one of the subtlest and most self.
irradiating minds that ever sought an outlet in verse, is
known only to the few P Since Virgil there have been at most
J. RUSSEZZ Zoiſ'EZZ's ADDAESS. I 73
but four cosmopolitan authors—Dante, Cervantes, Shake-
speare, and Goethe. These have stood the supreme test of
being translated into all tongues, because the large humanity
of their theme, and of their handling of it, needed trans-
lating into none. Calderon is a greater poet than Goethe,
but even in the most masterly translation he retains still a
Spanish accent, and is accordingly interned (if I may
Anglicise a French word) in that provincialism which we
call nationality. - -
When one reads what has been written about Wordsworth,
one cannot fail to be struck by the predominance of the
personal equation in the estimate of his value, and when we
consider his claim to universal recognition, it would not be
wise to overlook the rare quality of the minds that he has
most attracted and influenced. If the character of the
constituency may be taken as the measure of the represen-
tation, there can be no doubt that, by his privilege of
interesting the highest and purest order of intellect, Words-
worth must be set apart from the other poets, his contem-
poraries, if not above them. And yet we must qualify
this praise by the admission that he continues to be insular,
that he makes no conquests beyond the boundaries of his
mother tongue, that, more than perhaps any other poet of
equal endowment, he is great and surprising in passages
and ejaculations. In these he truly -
Is happy as a lover, and attired
In sudden brightness, like a man inspired ;
in these he loses himself, as Sir Thomas Browne would say,
in an O allitudo / where his muse is indeed a muse of fire,
that can ascend, if not to the highest heaven of invention,
yet to the supremest height of impersonal utterance. Then,
174 . - - | POA DS WOR TH/AAWA,
like Elias the prophet, ‘he stands up as fire, and his word
burns like a lamp.’ But too often, when left to his own.
resources, and to the conscientious performance of the duty
laid upon him to be a great poet quand méme, he seems
diligently intent on producing fire by the primitive method
of rubbing the dry sticks of his blank verse one against the
other, while we stand in shivering expectation of the flame
that never comes. In his truly inspired and inspiring pas-
sages it is remarkable also that he is most unlike his
ordinary self, least in accordance with his own theories of
the nature of poetic expression. When at his best, he
startles and waylays as only genius can, but is furthest from
that equanimity of conscious and constantly indwelling
power that is the characteristic note of the greatest work. If
Wordsworth be judged by the ex ungue leomem standard, by
passages, or by a dozen single poems, no one capable of
forming an opinion would hesitate to pronounce him, not
only a great poet, but among the greatest, convinced in the
one case by the style, and in both by the force that radiates
from him, by the stimulus he sends kindling through every
fibre of the intellect and of the imagination. At the same
time there is no admittedly great poet in placing whom
we are forced to acknowledge so many limitations and to
make so many concessions.
Even as a teacher he is often too much of a pedagogue,
and is apt to forget that poetry instructs not by precept and
inculcation, but by hints, and indirections and suggestions,
by inducing a mood rather than by enforcing a principle or
a moral. He sometimes impresses our fancy with the image
of a schoolmaster whose classroom commands an unrivalled
prospect of cloud and mountain, of all the pomp and prodi-
gality of heaven and earth. From time to time he calls his
y. A U.SSEZZ LOIWAEI L'S ADDRESS. 175
pupils to the window, and makes them see what without the
finer intuition of his eyes they had never seen, makes them
feel what, without the sympathy of his more penetrating
sentiment, they had never felt. It seems the revelation of
a new heaven and a new earth, and to contain in itself its
own justification. Then suddenly recollecting his duty, he
shuts the window, calls them back to their tasks, and is
equally well pleased and more discursive in enforcing on
them the truth that the moral of all this is that in order to
be happy they must be virtuous. If the total absence of any
sense of humour had the advantage sometimes of making
Wordsworth sublimely unconscious, it quite as often made
him so to his loss.
In his noblest utterances man is absent except as the anti-
thesis that gives a sharper emphasis to nature. The greatest”.
poets, I think, have found man more interesting than nature,
have considered nature as no more than the necessary
scenery, artistically harmful if too pompous or obtrusive,
before which man acts his tragi-comedy of life. This pecu-
liarity of Wordsworth results naturally from the fact that he
had no dramatic power, and of narrative power next to none.
If he tell us a story, it is because it gives him the chance
to tell us something else, and to him of more importance.
In Scott's narrative poems the scenery is accessory and sub-
ordinate. It is a picturesque background to his figures, a
landscape through which the action rushes like a torrent,
catching a hint of colour perhaps from rock or tree, but
never any image so distinct that it tempts us aside to reverie
or meditation. With Wordsworth the personages are apt to
be lost in the landscape, or kept waiting idly while the poet
muses on its deeper suggestions. And he has no sense of
proportion, no instinct of choice and discrimination. All
176 WOAA)SIVOA 7A/AWA.
Arº-
his thoughts and emotions and sensations are of equal value
in his eyes because they are his, and he gives us methodi-
cally and conscientiously all he can, and not that only which
he cannot help giving because it must and will be said.
There is no limit to his—let us call it facundity. He was
dimly conscious of this, and turned by a kind of instinct, I
Suspect, to the sonnet, because its form forced boundaries
upon him, and put him under bonds to hold his peace at
the end of the fourteenth line. Yet even here nature would
out, and the oſt-recurring same subject confinued lures the
nun from her cell to the convent parlour, and tempts the
student to make a pulpit of his pensive citadel. The hour-
glass is there, to be sure, with its lapsing admonition, but it
reminds the preacher only that it can be turned,
I have said that Wordsworth was insular, but, more than
this, there is also something local, I might say parochial, in
his choice of subject and tone of thought. I am not sure
that what is called philosophical poetry ever appeals to more
than a very limited circle of minds, though to them it
appeals with an intimate power that makes them fanatical in
their preſerence. Perhaps none of those whom I have
called universal poets (unless it be Dante) calls out this
fanaticism, for they do not need it, fanaticism being a sure
token either of weakness in numbers or of weakness in
argument. The greatest poets interest the passions of men
no less than their intelligence, and are more concerned
with the secondary than the primal sympathies, with the
concrete than with the abstract.
But I have played the advocatus diaboli long enough,
I come back to the main question from which I set out.
Will Wordsworth survive, as Lucretius survives, through the
splendour of certain sunbursts of imagination refusing for a
J. RUSSELL Low EZL'S ADDRESS. 177
passionate moment to be subdued by the unwilling material
in which it is forced to work, while that material takes fire
in the working as it can and will only in the hands of genius,
as it cannot and will not for example, in the hands of Dr.
Akenside? Is he to be known a century hence as the
author of remarkable passages P Certainly a great part of
him will perish, not, as Ben Jonson said of Donne, for want
of understanding, but because too easily understood, His
teaching, whatever it was, is part of the air we breathe, and
has lost that charm of exclusion and privilege that kindled
and kept alive the zeal of his acolytes while it was still sec.
tarian, or even heretical. But he has that Surest safeguard
against oblivion, that imperishable incentive to curiosity and
interest that belongs to all original minds. His finest utter-
ances, do not merely nestle in the car by virtue of their
music, but in the soul and life, by virtue of their meaning. .
One would be slow to say that his general outfit as poet was
so complete as that of Dryden, but that he habitually dwelt
in a diviner air, and alone of modern poets renewed and
justified the earlier faith that made poet and prophet inter-
changeable terms. Surely he was not an artist in the
strictest sense of the word; neither was Isaiah, but he had
a rarer gift, the capability of being greatly inspired. Popu.
lar, let us admit, he can never be ; but as in Catholic coun-
tries men go for a time into retreat from the importunate
dissonances of life to collect their better selves again by
communion with things that are heavenly, and therefore
eternal, so this Chartreuse of Wordsworth, dedicated to the
Genius of Solitude, will allure to its imperturbable calm the
finer natures and the more highly tempered intellects of
every generation, so long as man has any intuition of what
is most sacred in his own emotions, and sympathies, or of
M -
178 IVORDSWORTHANA.
whatever in outward nature is most capable of awakening
them and making them operative, whether to console or
strengthen. And over the entrance-gate to that purifying
seclusion shall be inscribed: -
Minds innocent and quiet take
This for an hermitage.
THE POETIC INTERPRETATION
OF NATURE.
By IION, RODEN 'NOEL,
THE POETIC INTERPRETATION OF NATURE.
WITH EXAMPLES TAKEN cIIIEFLY FROM
& WoRDsworth.
I PROPOSE to say a few words on that Poetry of Nature
of which Wordsworth was High Priest—my examples
being of course taken chiefly from him—though I quite
feel with Mr. Arnold that the fruitful application of ideas
to life is one main element in the impression he makes,
But I cannot follow that fine poet and critic in his apparent
depreciation of Nature-poetry, as when he dismisses Shelley
as the poet of the clouds and sunsets, and says he had not
got hold of the right subject-matter for poetry. It is
distinctly a modern subject, no doubt; but, I should have
thought, one newly reclaimed for beneficent poetic ends,-
so much more fertile possession made over to the Muse, in
addition to that purely human interest which has been hers
from of old. -
I believe that Rousseau, Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley,
Keats, Coleridge, were verily prophets, to whom a new
revelation was intrusted. In a time when all secrets were
at length supposed to be laid bare before man's microscopic
understanding, all superstitions exploded, all mysteries ex-
plained ; when the universe emptied of ancient awe seemed
no longer venerable, but a hideous lazar-house rather, made
visible to all human eyes in every ghastly corner of it; before
the Circe-wand of materialism, Love metamorphosed into a
! Read to the Society, July 1884.
182. ' - IWORDS WOR THIAAWA,
sensation, Man shrivelled to a handful of dust, the Body
of God's own breathing world with familiar irreverence
laid upon the board of some near-sighted professor to be
dissected; when the angels of Faith and Hope seemed to
be deserting for ever the desecrated shrines of mankind,
—then it was that these Prophet-Poets, as very ministers of
Heaven, pointed men to the World-Soul, commanding them
once more to veil their faces before the swift subtle splendour
of Universal Life. The moods of Nature do mysteriously
respond to the moods of Man. To the sensitive spirit the
sea, the mountains, and the stars are very types and symbols
of permanence, order, eternity. Nature and man are elder
sister and younger brother; she wakes intelligence and will
in him ; he knows himself in knowing her. She seems to
him a dumb and blind elder sister, whose laws inexorably
bind him, while he imposes himself upon her, reading
spiritual meanings in her face. The chaos of our own soul,
individual human degradation, of which we in the midst
can but dimly divine the issue, receives a mystic interpreta-
tion from what seems the unconscious innocence of a sphere
which yet manifests evil and good, strength and weakness,
—though, withal, the grand universality of a Kosmos.
Thence we can look up with greater trust than before even
for the worms that ‘sting one another in the dust.’
Why do the Arab in the desert, the Persian on his moun-
tain, bow before the all-beholding sun ? In him is no sin,
no vanity, falsehood, or vain ambition, himself veritable in-
carnation of one invisible Sun. He who loses his own
personality in Nature, who lays down, before her, the
universal mother and tomb of humanity, his own private
wrongs and griefs and fevered aspirations, hereby redresses
the balance so unduly weighted with the self-will and
!
Złſz POE 7/c Jy7ER/RE 7.47/Ow OF MA 7'URE. 183
momentary longings of one restless man. For she is one
who toils not nor dreams, errs not nor supposes, raves not
nor repents, but calmly fulfils herself for ever,
In her general aspects, Nature, if we do not peer too .
closely into the minutiae of her painful strife and struggle,
looks inevitable and calm, not in perpetual spiritual conflict
like ourselves; and hence she seems to offer rest to those
who love her. The harmony of inviolable laws appears
in her coöperant to an end. Dut I think that this in-
evitableness of a universal order implicitly involves the idea
of rightness, that of some fulfilled obligation tinged with
morality, or what is akin to it, I know this cannot be
proved, but I think it may be felt. -
The individual, in so far as he can assert himself against,
or regard himself as out of relation with, the whole Kos-
mos is wrong, evil; but in harmony with all he is right.
And though indeed external nature may be really composed
of individuals, yet if it be so, we are not, except in some
small degree as respects the animal world, in the secret of
their subjectivity, and therefore cannot know them as such,
Intelligences who should be unable to put themselves in
conscious communication with ours might well regard
human bodies as part of a fixed order of inflexible laws,
without private volition or caprice, just as we now regard
the inorganic. For even in ourselves private volitions are
capable of being reduced to a law of averages through
statistical science, which points to a real eternal order
beyond and beneath our discords, resolving them into har-
mony. And however this be, to merge our personality in
quiet or rapturous contemplation of universal natural order
proves indeed heavenly relief from the too often intolerable
burden of an isolated self-life. -
184 . WOWDSIVorząſawa,
All that is profound, eternal, impersonal in us, goes forth
to wed with the profound, eternal, impersonal Heart of all.
It is beyond our good and right, more than our ideal, yet
justifies, sanctions, transcends, absorbs it. Universal Nature,
who is one with us, constitutes, nourishes, creates us; while
we in her constitute, nourish, create ourselves, one another,
and her. If it be true that we form her in our image, it is
also true that from her we derive the power so to form her;
we are her creatures, living in and by her. Verily, it is our
Arivilege to know conflict, and bewilderingly to realise some
fundamental inner freedom, which is more than mere in-
animate law; but the seemingly inanimate order is a revela-
tion of still higher privilege, that of inevitable Will, at one
with unhesitating Wisdom; and this surely is the inmost
verity of things, our defect and disharmony being but an
isolated chord in the grand music,
Therefore, I repeat, “the light that never was, on sea or
land, the consecration, and the poet's dream' is indeed a
new revelation, made peculiarly in the modern poetry of
true spiritual insight, and of this Poetry of Nature Words-
worth is the High Priest. Not only does it pour fresh illu-
minating light upon Nature herself, but it also deepens
and enlarges our comprehension of man. By means of their
analogues in Nature, the human heart and mind may be
more profoundly understood. Human emotions win a
double dearness, or an added sorrow from their fellow-
ship and association with outward scenes. While Nature
can be fathomed only through her analogies with the de-
sires, fears, and aspirations of the human soul, these again
can scarcely become defined and articulate save through
the mystic and multiform appearances of Nature. We have
here then a new poetic product of priceless value; neither
THE POET/c INTERPRE/Azrow of NATURE. 185
the external scene alone, nor man alone, but rather the
spiritual child of their espousals. g -
It is really almost puerile nowadays to suppose that
there is an absolute Nature, which science and the land-
surveyor are alone competent correctly to know, while
poetry invents a world of her own wherewith to amuse her-
self and other people. Spiritual imagination alone knows
Nature; I don't say adequately, even she, but with any
approach to adequacy; though, of course, the common con-
stitution of our senses and understanding presents to us an
external world which, so far as Superficial characteristics are
concerned, is pretty well the same for all, and which quite
sufficiently serves the purposes alike of science, of common
intercourse, and of practical utility. But since Berkeley,
Kant, and modern physiology, it is no longer permissible to
doubt that even these superficial qualities, and what we call
‘laws of nature,’ are merely the interpretation which our
sensible and mental constitution enables us to put upon the
language of the Kosmos, wherein a great deal more is meant
than meets the ear. Of course, one must be insane to deny
that the sea is a vast quantity of salt water, or that a primrose
is indeed a yellow primrose, as Peter Bell with his plain
common sense sees it to be. But it is quite compatible with
sanity to believe that both sea and primrose are a great
deal more also. Only one must have other faculties, or
faculties more highly trained, to discern the more, Poetry
does not tell pretty lies for the sake of amusement, but
penetrates to the heart of things. Therefore, I cannot alto-
gether agree with Mr. Ruskin about ‘pathetic fallacy,'—
although no doubt there is a “false’ way of looking at things
as well as a true. The nimble fancy may suggest mere points
of superficial resemblance, hardly vital or essential to the -
186 morpsworząſawa.
objects, which the poet endows with animation and soul,
rather perhaps conveying an erroneous conception of their
proper and peculiar character. So far I can agree; but
what I urge is that to endow them with animation and
soul is not necessarily to falsify, may rather be to see more
to the very root of them. I don't pretend that the poet
speaks with precise accuracy in his metaphors and similes,
but he suggests an inner truth of things, to which the un-
imaginative are simply blind, Indeed precise accuracy be-
longs to the region of the understanding, which is by itself
incapable of the higher truth. So that when Mr. Arnold .
tells us to conceive dogmas in the light of poetry, if he
means with elasticity, in no hard and fast, cast-iron fashion,
I can follow ; but if he means as mere gracious figurative
fables, I cannot.
For instance, nothing could be more realistically descrip-
tive than Wordsworth's magnificent lines on the Yew-trees
of IBorrowdale':
each particular trunk a growth
Of intertwisted fibres serpentine
Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved ;
but the imaginative touches are equally true; nay, penetrate
more to the heart of things:
Nor uninformed with Phantasy, and looks
That threaten the profane ;
then those wonderful personifications, less fanciful than
Shelley's in Adonaïs, but more innaginative, how deep they
go, how grand and solemn the mystery they unveil
beneath whose sable roof
4 * * ghostly Shapes -
May meet at noontide; Fear and trembling II ope,
Silence and Foresight; Death the Skeleton
And Time the Shadow. . .
THE POE 7/C INTERPRAE TA TVON OF AW.17 UAE, 187
To meditative imagination, in the umbrageous atmosphere
of the yew-trees, these august Presences verily abide—more
actually, than their ancient boughs with coral berries. The
cuckoo is no mere cuckoo, but “a wandering voice;’ a voice
of dear memories, and coming summer. “Yellow bees in
the ivy bloom’ are to the poet ‘forms more real than living
man, nurslings of immortality.” Nay, those outer things are
because these inner realities are; the former would not be
without the latter—they are images and shadows only ;
the leaping lamb is on earth because the Lamb of God
is in Heaven, in the inner Holy of Holies of Humanity.
Light is in the sense, in outer space, because Light is in the
spirit, in the understanding. The perishing bread that sus-
tains the body is by virtue of the Bread of Life. To the
opened inner eye there is indeed a Real Presence in the
elements of the Eucharist, .
I do not mean to say that the animism of savages is a
correct belief, for they simply deify phenomena without
analysis, or suspicion that these are largely subjective; nor
even do I say that the Pagan poets were correct in their
mythological beliefs; or the mediaevals in their fairy-lore; yet
I believe that they were not far from the truth when they
formulated their conviction that our spiritual kinship with
Nature testifies to some spiritual beings like ourselves behind
the phenomena of Nature, the elements, and so-called in-
animate objects, being only their expression, body, or vesture.
Nor do I deem such a belief at all incompatible with a full
recognition of that ever-widening kingdom of physical law, to
which modern Science introduces us: only let science ‘stick
to her own last 'ſ Quite certainly the ancients were never
guilty of deliberately, in cold blood, inventing a quasi-poetic,
or metaphorical diction, which the vulgar were so foolish as
188 troºpshorzyſzawa,
to take for literal fact, as our pseudo-scientific insincerity of
unbelief, and incapacity for comprehending other modes of
thought and feeling, now complacently assume. On the con-
trary, modern Nature-poetry is reverting, though in its own
fashion, and in accordance with other altered convictions of
our age, to this primal conception of the ancients. For as
Science—though furnishing in her fairy tales new material for
poetry—aſfords no help to the poetic feeling of life and spirit
in Nature, so neither does a theology which teaches that there
is a God external to the world, who once made, and still
possibly sustains it. Poetry demands God immanent in
Man and Nature. So that the author of Ecclesiastical Son-
nets, the High Priest of this special poetry, yet hesitating
and bewildered by his dogmatic creed, as by his habit of
inherited thought, startles us out of our propriety by ex-
claiming :
- Great God . I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn,
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
IIave glimpses that would make me less forlorn ;
Iſave sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn
But the philosophy of idealism supplies for the logical
faculty the conception needed to lift it into some harmony
with the vision of children, poets, and the more primitive,
less sophisticated, races. Wordsworth, however, and Cole-
ridge seem scarcely to dare believe what to the inmost core
of them they feel true. You will remember the strange
passage, in one of Coleridge's philosophical poems, where
he apologises to his wife for giving utterance to his con-
viction! Schiller, in his Gods of Greece, makes a melancholy.
lament over their extinction. And I confess that, dearly as
The Pozzyc ſyzeAPrezazzow of AA 70AA, 189
I love Mrs. Browning, her poem in reply to Schiller appears
to me in all respects the least felicitous of her works. Pan
is not dead—save in this sense, that God manifest in
Nature is now, since the revelation of our Blessed Lord
Jesus Christ, felt to be less worshipful than God manifest in
Divine Humanity. There would seem to be three elements,
which, combined, create the world as we know it—the God
in Man, the God in Nature, and the Defect in both. We
and the world have a common reason, and a common heart,
or we could not know the world. The richer and deeper
our own life, the more can we enter into the life of the world,
and the more fully we enter into that, the more universal
and profound becomes our own. Not only is our mental
life developed through perception, but physiology shows the
close correlation of our external and internal lives, so that
without the nourishment and sustainment of our bodies by
earth and sun, our soul-life in its present form would be
impossible. . Yet the Divine Reality is deeper than plummet
of human understanding ever sounded : eye hath not seen,
nor ear heard. The outer world is but symbol and parable, .
the imperfect self-manifestation to our defective apprehen-
sion of eternal Ideas, which are substantial. That is a truth
familiar to mystics of all ages, and in recent times has been
virtually restated by two notable teachers, one a man of
science, James Hinton, the other a theologian, Cardinal
Newman. The world, says Hinton, seems to us dead, only
on account of our own deadness. And therefore, in pro-
portion as we are made alive, will the life of the World
become manifest to us. Therefore also I conceive Words-
worth's position in the immortal Ode on Immortality to be
thoroughly justified. Fresh from the Fountain of his being,
the child-spirit sees most truly. The gleam of the sanctuary
190 WORDS WOR THIANA,
is upon him, and around: ‘meadow, grove, and stream, the
earth, and every common sight, to him do seem, apparelled
in celestial light, the glory and the freshness of a dream.”
Heaven lies about us in our infancy 1
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
- Must travel, still is Nature's priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended ;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day,
B ut—
. The Clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;
© wº g e tº
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. .
The Child-spirit is alone immortal; yet the Divine Child
in his eternal youth looks.often forth from the sadder and
wiser eyes of man. The old mystics believed that when
Adam and Eve sinned, the gods or angels they talked with
became hidden from them, and appeared to them as trees
and flowers, and common earth or sky, beautiful indeed,
but hardly animate, and they quite unable to hold intelli-
gent converse with them as before. To Blake, the seer-
poet, the sun was no mere ball of fiery vapours, but a
glorious company of the Heavenly Host praising God. Yet
to me it appears that James Hinton was wrong in his
THE POETIC INTERPRA, 7ATION OF WATURE, 191
assumption that Man alone is fallen or defective, while
Nature remains perfect. The impression one derives is
rather that we have shared in her fall, or she in ours.
Between us there can be no such chasm. Nay, she is ‘red
in tooth and claw with ravine.' A formidable indictment,
indeed, has been drawn up against her in the outraged
names of justice and of love . She has her moods as we
have, good and evil, grave and gay, desolate and happy,
cruel and kind, terrible and gentle, while we respond to her
varying humour according to our own. Hence it is that
poets interpret her differently according to their own char-
acters. The grand and gloomy, the Titanic and diabolic,
find their expression in Byron, but the tranquil and tender
chiefly in Wordsworth. I really do not think there is much
‘pathetic fallacy’ in the ascription by poets of their own
moods to Nature. It is rather that in these dominant moods
of theirs they are able to feel the corresponding note in
Nature. There is indeed in Her, as there is also in our-
selves, a deep foundation of tranquillity and calm under
all the roaring and unrest of loud waves, a region of
repose, an inner haven of peace; and the profoundest poet
abides, or is anchored there, however he may be tossed to
and fro on the upper surge. And very often have her loud
paeans of rejoicing been felt by the sorrowful to be out of
harmony with their sorrow. Or again, the overflowing,
multitudinous joy of her springs and summers may carry
consolation, and conviction that all is well, into the arid
recesses of a mourner's heart. Or once again, the dreariness
and desolation of her dark seas and shores, her mountains
and barren plains, may unbearably overwhelm an already
overburdened soul.
I have admitted with Mr. Ruskin that there is a false and
192 WORDS WOA. THIANA.
vicious metaphorical diction used by poetasters, insincerely,
as a kind of ‘current coin;’ frigid conceits, cold artifices of
mere talent, or mère jingling babble for effect, from which
precisely Wordsworth came to deliver us. And doubtless
a man's individual feeling may blind him to the dominant
mood in Nature, at a given moment. So far he may
misrepresent her. -
A true poet is ever a loving and faithful observer of the
external features and deportment of his mistress. But just
because his look is the long look of a lover, no passing
glance,—he sees more than that. Real feeling, I hold, must
put us into some vital relation with the actuality of things,
though the expression of it may be but a tentative striving
to body forth the truth about them. Thus when Kingsley,
in his beautiful ballad, The Sands of Dee, calls the foam of
the wave that drowned Mary “cruel, though indeed the
foam itself may not be cruel, he gives utterance to a feeling
that is inevitable, and therefore in all probability justified;
for behind those engulfing seas there surely must be some
pitiless and murderous Power, some Prince, or princes, of
a world that ‘lieth in the wicked, however that power may .
be directed and overruled by a Paternal Master-Love. And
when Keats, in describing the slow movement of spent
shredding foam along the back of a heavy wave, charac-
terises it by the phrase ‘wayward indolence,’ he fixes and
determines the idiosyncrasy of this movement in a manner
simply impossible to a poet who should either fail to per-
ceive, or else resolve not to allow himself the language of
analogy. There is some occult identity between spent foam
and our ‘wayward indolence.’
The heart of Wordsworth beats in sympathy with the
sea's when he sings—
7HE POEZIc AwaZAPREZATIow of N.17 UAE, 193
Listen the mighty being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder everlastingly.
The great Apocalypse of Dante is one colossal translation
of the inner truths of heart and soul into the corresponding
imagery and environment of sense. When Milton calls the
boat that wrecked Lycidas -
That ſatal and perfidious bark,
Built in the eclipse and rigg'd with curses dark,
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine :
how unliteral, inaccurate, and yet true to the inmost fact is
he ‘Stone him with hardened hearts, harder than stones,'
says Shakespeare, Stones are hard because hearts are, not
hearts hard because stones are, though that is not the
common opinion. To arrive at the true spiritual order,
you must reverse the order of experience. Metaphor is the
interpretation of one thing through another. And one
thing is through another | Seeing it as isolated, we see it, .
through our own defect, in perfectly. It ever fulfils itself
by analogy, developed and discerned, as by passing on into
some other phase or form of existence. Everything is a
Proteus. But as Keats attributes the bright mail of fish to
the kisses of lovers, Wordsworth assigns to Duty the
guardianship of the Ancient Heavens, and the laughter of
fragrant flowers. Nor is this graceful falsehood, but vital
truth.
We have in Z/e Z%0//—not, on the whole, a very
inspired poem—some minute, faithful description, char-
acteristic of Wordsworth. His graphic delineations of
landscape place a vivid imagery before the sense, which
must ever be dear to true lovers of Nature, dearer than the
N
194 WORDSWORTH IAAA.
often vaguer and more confused reminiscences, or too
phantasmal, nebulous, and unarticulated, however gorgeous,
inventions of Shelley. But still the imaginative touch in
that poem goes deeper than all the realism— .
And she is known to every star,
And every wind that blows,
Yet if that is false, if it hints not, in the only or best way
possible, at a vital reality, why should it give peculiar
delight? Can what is known to be the most utterly fantas-
tic, and irrational element in the whole composition boast
such a prerogative P Surely not, though it be quite un-
necessary to deſine this imaginative truth more precisely,
Again, do we not thank our poet when he calls the Wye
‘wanderer through the woods,' and tells us of the Thames
‘wandering at its own sweet will '?
Shelley is hardly so close an observer as Wordsworth ; or,
when he is so, his observation is more limited in range. It
is a dissolving view of cloud, and wood, and water, and
ſlower. While Wordsworth spiritualises the results of
loving observation, Shelley rather etherealises vague im-
pressions as of trance or dream. The former is like an
inductive philosopher, setting in order, indeed often trans-
figuring into sacred glory common experience ; the latter
like a schoolman of the middle ages, expatiating in pheno-
mena deduced a Ariori from his own inner consciousness.
While Shelley volatilises sense, Wordsworth conducts us
through its homely portal into a heavenlier and more .
abiding realm. Wordsworth and Byron, Antaeus-like, win
new strength from contact with Mother Earth. I love .
Shelley too well to compare him with Icarus, or with
Phaeton ; for, if he does not soar with us to the highest, he
THE Pozzyc ſyzERPRE7.4770M of M47 UAE, 195
flies with us through a very lovely, however insubstantial,
dreamland of his own fair vision." -
How should the uncertain trembling motion of mist
about a mountain be defined better than by the lines of
Wordsworth P- - *
Such gentle mists as glide,
Curling with unconſºrmed intent
On that green mountain-side.
Whatever corresponds to that “unconſirmed intent,’ the
kinship there is in the mist to the more vital and essential
characteristics of the human soul, this surely is as much
there as mechanical laws of motion in space, which are
themselves but systematised perceptions of our sensuous
understanding, though doubtless corresponding to some
reality of sensuous perception outside; but the very essence
of those material qualities is that they are distantly akin,
that they are mysteriously symbolical of more human, more
intellectual, more ethical behaviour, lºor, as Schelling and
Coleridge pointed out, a symbol is itself the superior being
under inferior conditions: it is the higher essence, one
may say, deprived of its ethereal vesture, and become .
incarnate, yet radiant still, and redolent of veiled Divinity.
Of course such poetry will never be popular, because it
can be only intelligible to the few. When Nature is treated
as a mere background for the figures, and merely the salient
features within common observation are described, as in Sir
Walter Scott, or in Thomson, descriptive verse may be
| But I have just read Mr. Stopford lºrooke's introduction to Shelley,
which, so far as I know, is assuredly the nost pregnant and illuminating
criticism of him extant. The comparison of his nature-poetry with that
of Wordsworth deserves careful study.
196 IVorpswoRTHIAM.A.
appreciated; for most people do care for landscape in a
general way; they give it a careless occasional glance in
passing; but the poetry which is begotten of the ardent
look of a lover is a very different affair; although there is
an occult undefined influence of scenery on races, and
mountaineers love their mountains. In Wordsworth the
reader has not only the initial difficulty of translating words
—arbitrary oral symbols—into their visual equivalents, but
he must translate them also into ‘the light that never was
on sea or land,’ the spiritual offspring of Nature and the
poet's heart. Yet you may as well expect a man born
blind to understand the meaning of the word ‘colour.” Such
poets as Wordsworth and Shelley cannot be understood by
the unprepared, by the worldly-minded, or self-absorbed,
though to the elect they are very clear. To reap ‘the harvest
of a quiet eye, certain sensibilities are implied, and the reader
must be able to recognise, feel, and re-create for himself the
pictures with which the poet presents him. If he finds it
too much trouble, let him shut the book, for it is a trouble
he cannot be spared. Lessing's arguments against descrip-
tive poetry are invalid, for even in looking at a scene, or a
painting, you must be able yourself to put together succes-
sively the parts of what you see, in order to form for yourself
an agreeable whole, And if the poët shall have preserved
a unity of mood, that is enough to steep the creation in one
harmonious artistic atmosphere. -
And now as to the dramatic interpretation of Man
through Nature.
What would the Leech-gatherer in Wordsworth's poem be
without the ‘lonely moor’? They coalesce to one moving
image. In the meditative imagination of the poet the poor
contented old man becomes transfigured, and appears as a
THE POETIc ſyzerPRE7,4770A of NATURE, 197
heavenly minister, an angel from God, sent to console the
poet, upon whom weighed ‘the weary burden, and the
mystery of all this unintelligible world.” Often indeed does
the meditative rapture of Shelley and W ordsworth pass into
a kind of mystic disembodiment before the face of Nature;
they are caught up into some third heaven, where sense-
limits are confounded, and our poor earth-language falters
‘with the burden of an honour unto which she was not
born.’ What would that wonderful pathos of Michael be
without the unfinished sheep-fold, or the equally wonderful
pathos of Margaret without the neglected garden, once so
trim, or the red stains and tufts of wool on the corner-stone
of the cottage porch, where the sheep were now permitted
to come and “couch unheeded 'P
I.et us note in conclusion a few brief instances where
Wordsworth deals with the influences of Nature, and her
own character as manifested to him. In that loveliest of
lyrics, Three years she grew, we have the picture of Lucy, to
whom Nature was ‘law and impulse,’ ‘an overseeing power
to kindle or restrain,’ to whom the cloud lent state, and
the willow grace, into whose face from the rivulets passed
‘beauty, born of murmuring sound,’ to whom belonged
‘the silence and the calm of mute insensate things,’ Re-
member too that beautiful passage in The Excursion where
the old man corrects the wanderer's despondency by
pointing him to the spear-grass on the wall, with the dew
on it, as testifying to the clear-hearted peace which abides
in the bosom of things. - -
There is the magical poem about the boy, into whose
heart the voice of mountain torrents was borne in those
intervals of blowing mimic hootings to the owls, under the
starlight by the lake; there is the dancing of the poet's
198 - IPORDSIPORTHANA.
heart with the daffodils, and that picture in Mutting, wherein
‘the green and mossy bower, deformed and sullied,
patiently gave up its quiet being.' The voices of sea, of .
mountain torrents, and of forests, are indeed the voice of
Liberty, as Coleridge in the ode, Wordsworth in the sonnet,
and Longfellow in the Slave's Dream declare. Every flower
‘enjoys the air it breathes;” “the budding twigs spread
out their fan to catch the breezy air,’ and can we doubt
that there is pleasure ? We ought indeed ‘to move among
the shades with gentleness of heart, and with gentle hand
touch, for there is a spirit in the woods.” In all sobriety,
it is true, that what the poet saw in the Simplon Pass was
‘like the workings of one mind, features of one face, char-
acters of the great Apocalypse ; ' in all sobriety it is true
that Nature -
can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so ſeed
With loſty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
IRash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerſul faith, that all which we behold
Is full of lolessings. -
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things,
wordswort H's RELATIONS TO
- SCIENCE,
By R. SPENCE WATSON.
worDSworTH's RELATIONS TO SciENCE,
IN his History of English Zhought in the Eighteenth Cen- .
tury, Mr. Leslie Stephen says that Wordsworth “hates.
science, because it regards facts without the imaginative and
emotional colouring.' The statement is not correct, but it
expresses the belief generally held. And that this unfounded
view should be the common one is scarcely surprising when
we consider the way in which Wordsworth speaks of science
and her votaries in the few writings known to the general
reader which contain any allusion to them. For example,
in Stangas suggested' in a Steam&oaf off St. Æces //ead, he
declares that to Prowess, guided by the keen insight of the
Genius of our age, ‘Matter and Spirit are as one Machine.’
In The 7 abſes Turned, he contrasts the sweetness of ‘the
lore which Nature brings,’ with “our meddling intellect,”
which ‘mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things.’ In his
notes upon his poems he compares the botanical names
given to the plants and flowers imported from all quarters
of the globe with the touching and beautiful names of our
indigenous flowers, and says, “Trade, commerce, and manu-
factures, physical science, and mechanic arts, out of which
so much wealth has arisen, have made our countrymen in-
finitely less sensible to movements of imagination and fancy
than were our forefathers in their simple state of society.’
| Read to the Society in May 1884,
2O2 Ivorosipok TH/AWA,
He speaks of the better days when ‘Art's abused inventions
were unknown,' and ‘of undue respect' for “proud discoveries
of the intellect.’ In A Poet's Epitaph, he calls the philo-
sopher ‘a fingering slave; one that would peep and botanise
upon his mother's grave;’ and speaks of his ‘ever-dwindling
soul.” The philosopher of that day is the man of science
of this, as the literary and scientific societies of this day are
the children of the literary and philosophical societies of
ninety years ago. Wordsworth's botanical philosopher is
the man of science ‘whose mind is but the mind of his own
eyes,' and we have it upon the authority of our poet, and
confirmed by common-sense, that such an one “is a slave,
the meanest we can meet,”
But we must remember that Wordsworth's life was a long
one, and that he was born and educated before scientific
inquiry had claimed the general acceptance which is now
acknowledged to be her due. When the second edition of
his Z1'rica/ /3a//ad's was published, in the year 18oo, the Lin-
naean Society was the only learned body in England devoted
to the investigation of a single branch of physical science.
The Royal Society had existed for a century and a half, but
the Royal Institution did not begin its labours until that
very year; the Geological Society was established in 1808;
the Institute of Civil Engineers in 1818; and the Royal
Astronomical Society in 1821. The greatest triumphs of
steam were still in the far future. There was much scien-
tific speculation indeed, and often of great value, but there
was as yet little patient, systematic, and widespread observa-
tion. Scientific inquiry was an individual, not a general,
task. It had but little hold of the popular mind. It was
looked upon with suspicion, if not with dread, by the re-
ligious world, who did not see that to strive against truth in
IVOADSWOATH'S RELA 77OA's zo SC/EACE, 203
any form was to strive against their own highest ideal.
Before Wordsworth died, in 1850, the world of thought had
changed, and it is no discredit to him to acknowledge that
his range of vision had widened. His standpoint from time
to time was different; but I hope to show that it was always
a reasonable one, always rather in advance of, than behind,
the times; the standpoint of an honest, and earnest thinker,
who was indeed a poet, but none the less a close observer,
and a shrewd, practical, common-sense man.
I shall not attempt to exhaust the instances of the
scornful way in which Wordsworth speaks of him whose life
is spent in the consideration of details, and who never rises
to a general view, never sees beyond ‘the mind of his own
eyes.' Nor shall I take account of the quality of the poetry
which I cite or quote. I confine myself simply to what bears
most directly upon my theme, and pass to that slightly
tedious poem, in nine books, Zhe Zvcursion, because in it
Wordsworth treats frequently and fully of scientific inquiry
and its results. We must listen to all he says in this poem
on the subject, or we shall assuredly misconceive his rela.
tions to it.
His words are frequently those of condemnation. He
speaks of ‘knowledge ill begun in cold remark on outward
things,’ and ending ‘with formal inference;’ of the prying,
poring, and dwindling of the men who, “still dividing and
dividing still,’ would weigh the planets in the hollow of a
hand ; of the philosophers who prize the human soul, with
its thousand faculties and twice ten thousand interests, but .
‘as a mirror that reflects to proud self-love her own intelli-
gence.’ He describes “the wandering herbalist,’ who casts
a slight regard of transitory interest upon the lofty crags and
masses of rock around him, whilst peeping anxiously about
2O4 - IVokosmorząſawa.
“for some rare floweret of the hills;” and “the fellow-
wanderer,' whose road and pathway may be traced by the
scars his activity leaves behind — -
He who with pocket-hammer smites the edge
Of luckless rock or prominent stone, disguised
In weather-stains or crusted o'er by Nature
With her first growths, detaching by the stroke
A chip or splinter—to resolve his doubts ;
And, with that ready answer satisfied,
The substance classes by some barbarous name,
And hurries on ; . . . . -
. . . and thinks himself enriched,
Wealthier, and doubtless wiser, than before
Although Wordsworth was brought up in the pre-scientific
age, he knew that the world may be wiser, and even
wealthier in the wealth which perishes not in the possessing,
from the labours of patient and diligent observers with the
imaginative power to make their observations of worth, and
never dreamed of including such amongst those whom he
satirised. He expresses indeed his admiration of ‘the
great Newton's own ethereal self; he describes with praise
the astronomical researches of the Chaldeans, amongst whom
‘the imaginative faculty was lord of observations natural;"
he lauds the ‘nicest observation and unrivalled skill' of the
Greeks; he even points out the close connection between
the higher mathematics and poetry, and tells how, ‘in
geometric science,’ he ‘found both elevation and composed
delight;" and his gentle satire is aimed at those, and at those
alone, ‘whose mind is but the mind of their own eyes,' and
in geology, as in other things, the tribe is unlikely to become
extinct, ſº -
He says frequently and plainly that such alone are the
men he objects to, and that he objects to them because they
|Porpsworzº's RezAzzows 7'o sc/zAcz. 2O5
never rise above that which they see to that which it really
is; because they place the letter above the spirit, or perhaps
do not know that there is any spirit, the light in them being
darkness. He is careful to explain that even minute scien-
tific inquiry has not necessarily this soul-dwindling effect;
that such result depends upon the character and capacity of
the individual inquirer; that the human mole will grub into
the earth, wherever you may place him, and be satisfied
therewith. “Some are of opinion,’ Wordsworth writes, ‘that
the habit of analysing, decomposing, and anatomising, is in-
evitably unfavourable to the perception of beauty. People
are led into this mistake by overlooking the fact that such
processes being to a certain extent within the reach of a
limited intellect, we are apt to ascribe to them that insensi-
bility of which they are in truth the effect, and not the cause.
Admiration and love, to which all knowledge truly vital
must tend, are felt by men of real genius in proportion as
their discoveries in natural philosophy are enlarged ; and the
beauty in form of a plant or an animal is not made less, but
more apparent, as a whole, by a more accurate insight into
its constituent properties and powers. A satanſ, who is not
also a poet in soul and a religionist in heart, is a feeble and
unhappy creature.' But he speaks of the happiness of him
who, “directed by a meek, sincere, and humble spirit,'
explores not human nature only, but all natures, to the end
that he may find the law that governs each, the constitu-
tions, powers, and faculties,’ that assign to every class of
visible beings its station and its office—
e Through all the mighty commonwealth of things,
Up from the creeping plant to sovereign man. -
He does not hate science; he only sees clearly the
errors and the dangers into which an undue appreciation of
206 WORDS WOR7A/ZAN.A. .
it, and a neglect of that which is outside of it, may cause its
votaries to fall. He does not deny that it is an important
realm of the intellect ; but he does not hold it to be the
most important, Take such a passage as the familiar one --
- I have seen -
A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract
Of inland ground, applying to his ear
The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell,
To which, in silence hushed, his very soul
Listened intensely ; and his countenance soon
13rightened with joy; for from within were heard
Murmurings, whereby the monitor expressed
Mysterious union with its nati sea.
Even such a shell the universe itself
Is to the ear of faith; and there are times,
I doubt not, when to you it doth impart
Authentic tidings of invisible things ;
Of ell) and flow, and ever-during power;
And central peace subsisting at the heart
Of endless agitation.
l'ron such a passage we learn what it is which Words-
worth places far above scientific knowledge. He does not
teach that poetry and science are necessarily antagonistic,
but that they are different. He goes even further than this,
and tells us that they should not be looked upon as enemies,
but as intimate allies. True that in a note to the Preface
to the Zyrical /3a//ad's he explains that “much confusion has
been introduced into criticism by the contradistinction of
poetry and prose, instead of the more philosophical one of
poetry and matter of fact, or science,' But this is no more
than most men would readily admit. It is simply a question
of more or less felicitous expression. Wordsworth holds
that science will only be a ‘precious visitant,’ that it will
only be of true worth, when the loftier teachings of poetry
WoRDSWORTH's RELA 77OA's To SCIENCE 207
supplement and embrace its instruction; that the man who
neglects the imaginative side of his intellect cannot truly
live; and that scientific observation, which has no outlook
beyond the naked object, will make man dull and inani-
mate, will chain him to that object as a slave, instead of
supporting and guiding his mind's excursive power.
When he turns to the visible outcome of scientific re-
search, and considers the results of the practical application
of scientific discovery to the useful arts, he sees both sides
of the case, and states them fairly. He takes a view which
is remarkable indeed for common-sense, and in it, as in
the whole of his relations to science, we are struck by the
unerring instinct which leads him to admire the good and
eschew the evil. He tells how the little hamlets have grown
into huge continuous and compact towns; how the furthest
glens have been penetrated “by stately roads, easy and bold :'
And, wheresoe'er the traveller turns his steps,
IIe sees the barren wilderness erased,
Or disappearing; triumph that proclaims
IIow much the mild Directress of the plough
Owes to alliance with these new-born arts
—I lence is the wide sea peopled, … hence the shores
Of Britain are resorted to by ships
l’reighted from every climate of the world
With the world's choicest produce. I lence that sum
()f keels that rests within her crowded ports, -
Or ride at anchor in her sounds and bays :
That animating spectacle of sails
That, through her inland regions, to and fro
l'ass with the respirations of the tide,
l’erpetual, multitudinous !
He is writing before beneficent legislation began to root
out that infant slavery in England under which mere babies
208 irokosworzyſzawa.
--~
worked twice the hours which grown men will now consent
to labour, and at tasks of the most fatiguing and degrading
kind, And he looks upon both sides of the shield, and tells
also of the darker aspect of the great change which has
come over the land— -
When soothing darkness spreads
O'er hill and vale . . . *
. . . and the punctual stars,
While all things else are gathering to their homes,
Advance, and in the firmament of heaven
Glitter—but undisturbing, undisturbed ;
As if their silent company were charged
With peaceful admonitions for the heart
Of all-beholding Man, earth's thoughtful lord ;
Then, in full many a region, once like this,
The assured domain of calm simplicity
And pensive quiet, an unnatural light
Prepared for never-resting Labour's eyes,
13reaks ſtom a many-windowed fabric huge ;
And at the appointed hour a bell is heard,
Of harsher import than the curfew-knoll
That spake the Norman Conqueror's stern behest—
A local summons to unceasing toil
Disgorged are now the ministers of day ;.
And, as they issue from the illumined pile, -
A ſresh band meets then), at the crowded door-
And in the courts—and where the rumbling stream,
That turns the multitude of dizzy wheels, -
Glares, like a troubled spirit, in its bed *
Among the rocks below, Men, maidens, youths,
Mother and little children, boys and girls,
lenter, and each the wonted task resumes
Within this temple, where is offered up
To Gain, the master idol of the realm,
Perpetual sacrifice.
t
Fully and earnestly had Wordsworth felt the miserable
WoRDSIPORTA's KEZATION's To SCIENCE, 209
inequalities in the conditions of existence, the depth of sad-
ness in the lives of too many of the working poor, and the
ever-increasing number of those in our great cities, where
the application of scientific discovery has been carried the
furthest, ‘who sit in darkness and there is no light.' Nobly
does he exclaim, and his exclamation claims audience of all,
men now as forcibly as when it was penned— ..
Our life is turned
Out of her course, whenever man is made
An offering or a sacrifice, a tool
Or implement, a passive thing employed
As a brute mean, without acknowledgment
Of common right, or interest in the end ;
Used or abused, as selfishness may prompt.
Warmly does he protest in his latter days against the
thirst for gold which would leave ‘no nook of English
ground secure from rash assault.' He inveighs in bitter
terms against the invasion of his favourite mountain soli-
tudes by the ruthless railway director in search of dividends,
And his words have helped to save, in our own day, these
last refuges of repose from the ravages of railways, saved
them not only for the inhabitants of the district or for
wealthy visitors, but for the toiling masses from our great
centres of industry in the north of England, who, thanks to
the proper application of railways, are able to escape from
time to time for a few hours from the ceaseless whir and
hum of machinery into these lovely and noble scenes, to
‘let the misty mountain wind be free to blow against them,'
and to - -
Feel that this cold metallic motion,
Is not all the life God fashions. or reveals.
The two letters to the A/orning Pos/, in which Words-
O
2 IO - IVORDSWORTHIAMA,
worth, in 1844, discussed the projected Kendal and Winder-
mere railway, are good examples of the calm, sensible, and
thorough way in which he argues a question. He does not
rave wildly against all railways, nor does he assume that all
men, whether they be rich or poor, are fitted to appreciate
the beauties of Nature. There is a good deal of Words-
worth, of Ruskin, and of humbug, in the present day's
ready-made enthusiasm for natural beauty or grandeur, led
up to by excellent roads, and not too remote from comfort.
able and well-ordered inns. But he puts his points strongly :
— ‘The railway power, we know well, will not admit of
being materially counteracted by sentiment; and who would
wish it where large towns are connected and the interests of
trade and agriculture are substantially promoted by such
mode of intercommunication ? But, be it remembered, that
this case is a peculiar one, that the staple of the country is
its beauty and its character of retirement.’ And again :
‘The time of life at which I have arrived may, I trust, if
nothing else will, guard me from the imputation of having
written from any selfish interests, or from fear of disturb-
ance which a railway might cause to myself. If gratitude
for what repose and quiet in a district hitherto, for the most
part, not disfigured, but beautified by human hands, have
done for me through the course of a long life, and hope
that others might hereafter be benefited in the same
manner and in the same country, be selfishness, then,
indeed, but not otherwise, I plead guilty to the charge.
Nor have I opposed this undertaking on account of the
inhabitants of the district merely, but, as hath been inti-
mated, for the sake of every one, however humble his
condition, who, coming hither, shall bring with him an eye
to perceive, and a heart to feel and worthily enjoy.’
WoRDSiWorzº's RELATIows to sc/EMcA. 21.
Wordsworth, then, was no simple reviler of railways or
of other useful scientific appliances. He felt the grandeur
of the º ... •
Motions and means, on land and sea, at war
With old poetic feeling.
He would not judge them amiss. He had ‘that prophetic
sense of future change, that power of vision,’ which enabled
him to discover the soul which is behind even ‘steamboats,
viaducts, and railways,’ and he sang of them-- -
In spite of all that beauty may disown
In your harsh features, Nature doth embrace
IIer lawſul offspring in Man's art ; and Time,
Pleased with your triumphs o'er his brother Space,
Accepts from your bold hands the proffered crown
Of hope, and smiles on you with cheer sublime,
He is not led to hate science because many of its votaries
can see nothing beyond it, nor to decry its practical applica-
tion because of the many abuses attendant upon that
application. On the contrary, he bursts forth into full
acknowledgment of the might of the power which he will
not hold all mighty— -
- Yet do I exult,
Casting reserve away, exult to see
An intellectual mastery exercised
O'er the blind elements; a purpose given,
A perseverance fed ; almost a soul
Imparted—to brute matter. I rejoice,
Measuring the force of those gigantic powers
That, by the thinking mind, have been compelled
To serve the will of ſechle-bodied Man. *
This surely should go far to dispel the delusion that
Wordsworth hated science, You do not hate the less
212 . WoRDSiWorzi/IANA,
because you hold that it is included in the greater, You
can scarcely hate that which you exult in and rejoice at.
At the beginning of the last book of The Excursion, we
learn what, to Wordsworth, is the conclusion of the whole
matter— ... • . .
To every Form of being is assigned
An active Principle : howe'er removed
From sense and observation, it subsists
In all things, in all natures; in the stars
Oſ azure heaven, the unenduring clouds,
In flower and tree, in every pebbly stone
That paves the brooks, the stationary rocks,
The moving waters, and the invisible air.
Whate'er exists hath properties that spread
13eyond itselſ, communicating good,
A simple blessing, or with evil mixed ;
Spirit that knows no insulated spot,
No chasm, no solitude ; from link to link
It circulates, the Soul of all the worlds. -
This is that which we must remember whatever else we
may forget—this spirit, this living principle, this “soul of all
the worlds.' Preached often indeed by Wordsworth, the
central thought of all his poetry, but not of his alone, This
same truth we find in Genesis, ‘and the Spirit of God
moved upon the face of the waters; ' this in Proverbs,
‘rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth, and my delights
were with the sons of men;' this in John, ‘in Him was life,
and the life was the light of men;' this in Milton’s ‘holy
light, offspring of Heaven first-born ; ' this in Cowper's,
‘there lives and works a soul in all things;’ this in Shelley's
“light whose smile kindles the universe;’ this in Matthew
Arnold’s ‘calm soul of all things;’ and in Robert Brown-
ing's ‘the forests had done it; ' this, repeated in many forms
by all true poets in all true poetry, of which it is, indeed, a
IVOADSIVORTH'S REZAZYoMS To sc/EMcA, 213
fundamental truth, And, this being so, however closely we
may observe, whatever laws we may discover, however often
we may “triumph o'er a secret wrung from nature's close
reserve,' we have made but a little further progress into the
illimitable unknown; we are 'groping blindly in the dark-
ness,' until, by this talisman, we “touch God's right band in
that darkness, and are lifted up and strengthened.’
Then we gather from Wordsworth's poems that he fully
recognised the true value of science, and acknowledged the
benefits to mankind accruing from scientific investigation
applied to the arts of everyday life. We gather also that he
saw how the value of these benefits was diminished by their
inherent dangers. And he is careful to point out the chief
danger, that of causing the soul to dwindle by centering its
life upon petty, or even upon important, details, whilst
neglecting the wider and higher fields of vision.
His views upon this matter are yet more directly stated
in his prose writings—those writings so full of interest and
of wisdom, yet so little known. In the pamphlet usually
called The Convention of Cintra there are many passages in
which he points out the danger I have referred to, and the
way in which it must be avoided. I shall quote but one of
these :– -
In many parts of Europe (and especially in our own country), men
have been pressing forward, for some time, in a path which has betrayed
by its fruitfulness; ſurnishing them constant employment for picking up
things about their feet, when thoughts were perishing in their minds.
While mechanic arts, manufactures, agriculture, commerce; and all
those products of knowledge which are confined to gross, definite, and
tangible objects, have, with the aid of experimental philosophy, been
every day putting on more brilliant colours, the splendour of the imagina.
tion has been fading. . . . Animal comforts have been rejoiced over,
as if they were the end of being. . . . Now a country may advance,
2 4 . WoADSWORTHANA.
for some time, in this course with apparent profit; these accommoda-
tions, by zealous encouragement, may be attained, and still the peasant,
or artisan, their master, be a slave in mind—a slave rendered even more
abject by the very tenure under which these possessions are held ; and
iſ they veil from us this fact, or reconcile us to it, they are worse than
worthless.
I do not wish to argue that physical science has any pro-
minent place in Worthsworth's writings. That was not to
be expected, for reasons already sufficiently stated. But
whenever it does come across his path, and he has to notice
it, he does so in a clear-sighted and sympathetic way. This
is the case throughout all his writings, from the familiar
letters to his friends to the formal and carefully polished
sonnet; from his youthful days to the fulness of his years.
He studiously discriminates between that which is evil and
that which is good, and when he condemns, his condemna-
tion is conſined to those particular points upon which our
greatest scientists would cordially unite with him. As in the
last quotation, he points out the practical dangers which he
saw in the too complete absorption in scientific pursuits, so
in the following words from his essay on the Principles of
Aoetry, he states explicitly what his views upon the relations
between poetry and science really were:-- -
The poet considers man and nature as essentially adapted to each
other, and the mind of man as naturally the mirror of the fairest and
most interesting properties of nature ; and thus the poet, prompted by
this feeling of pleasure, which accompanies him through the whole
course of his studies, converses with general nature with affections akin
to those which, through labour and length of time, the man of Science has
raised up in himself, by conversing with those particular parts of nature
which are the objects of his studies. The knowledge, both of the poet
and the man of science, is pleasure, but the knowledge of the one
cleaves to us as a necessary part of our existence, our natural and
imalienable inheritance; the other is a personal and individual acquisi-
WORDSIPv4///'s AAZ.1770A's To sc/EMcA, 215
tion, slow to come to us, and by no habitual and direct sympathy
connecting us with our fellow-beings. The man of science seeks truth
as a remote and unknown benefactor; he cherishes and loves it in his
solitude : the poet, singing a song in which all human beings join with
him, rejoices in the presence of truth as our visible ſriend and hourly
companion. Poetry is the breath and liner spirit of all knowledge; it
is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all
SC1Cil Cé, , , , - -
If the labours of men of science should ever create any material
revolution, direct or indirect, in our condition, and in the impressions
which we habitually receive, the poet will sleep then no more than at
present ; he will be ready to follow the steps of the man of science,
not only in those general indirect effects, but he will be at his side,
carrying sensation into the midst of the objects of the science itselſ.
The remotest discoveries of the chemist, the botanist, or mineralogist,
will be as proper objects of the poet’s art as any upon which it can be
employed, if the time should ever come when these things shall be
familiar to us, and the relation under which they are contemplated by
the followers of these respective sciences shall be manifestly and palpably
material to us as enjoying and suffering beings. If the time should
ever come when what is now called science, thus familiarised to men,
shall be ready to put on, as it were, a form of Ilesh and blood, the poet
will lend his divine spirit to aid the transfiguration, and will welcome
the being thus produced as a dear and genuine inmate of the house.
hold of man.
Thus, then, both from his prosc and poetry, we have seen
what Wordsworth thought of the relations between poetry
and Science, and have learned how grave a misconception
it is to speak of him as a science-hater. Since he ceased to
write, science has made gigantic strides, and has fulfilled
some of his demands, and our true poets have not ſailed
in some measure to recognise and avail themselves of the
fact. But the dangers which he foresaw are still present
with us, and in ever-increasing strength. They are actual,
not imaginary dangers—dangers which aſſect our everyday
216 irokosmokzHIAAA.
lives; and Wordsworth's warning voice is of even greater
value in our time than it was in his own. - -
For this is the day of specialised study—of specialised life.
In all branches of human aſſairs, intense competition, the
pressure of numbers, the desire to go far, the wish to know
much, and to know it accurately, have led to subdivision
of labour, to the individual man's becoming a specialist—
in some instances ‘a tool or implement.’ In our manu-
factories apprentices no longer learn a trade, but one depart-
ment of a multiform business. In medicine there is a strong
tendency to become attached to some special form of
disease or disaster; in painting, to walk along a certain
path—that usually which is most economical of thought.
In science it is really necessary that a man should choose
his subject, and devote his life to it, if he is to make any
substantial progress, but it is his work-a-day life, not his
whole life, which must be so devoted. The stunting and
dwindling soul-processes must be counteracted ; and Surely
it is to poetry that we must look as to the force which can
best counteract them. Specialising is in its infancy in
England as compared with Germany, and in Germany it has
become so universal that poetry has almost ceased to be
written. -
Not long ago, an eminent French critic said that, owing
to the specialising tendency of science and to its all-
devouring force, poetry would cease to be read in fifty years.
Not English poetry, I trust and think. The belief in
necessary conflict between Letters and Science hinders the
general recognition of the fact that an advance in either
must be a gain to both. Poetry long held the field alone,
but did not necessarily benefit thereby. Ours is the
transition time, or, rather, the time of development and
tºok psiroRTH's AAAZZOA's zo sc/EMCA. 217
growth. Science, which has won for mankind liberty of
thought, and which has created for mankind ‘new heavens
and a new earth,' receives in our day her full meed of
praise. But all movements which depend upon the mind
of man go forward in tides, and, for the moment, the tide of
science flows on to the full whilst that of art, is on the ebb.
It is a time when it behoves those who believe that the
relations of Wordsworth towards science were true and wise
ones, to be firm in upholding them, and whilst, with him,
exulting ‘to see an intellectual mastery exercised o'er the
blind elements, yet to keep ever before the minds of men
that the higher life is that which passes beyond the realms’
of sense into those of spirit; that there are emotions,
passions, longings, of the mind of man, which are just as
truly facts, and enter just as largely into the web of life, nay,
which demand to be studied, understood, and accounted
for, just as faithfully, and with just as fatal consequences
for neglect or misunderstanding, as any of the laws which
affect the physical world.
worDSworTH's TREATMENT OF SOUND.
By W. A. IIEARD,
wordsworth's TREATMENT OF SOUND.
MR. STOPFORD BROOKE, in the interesting paper which he
read at our meeting last year on the Guide to the Lakes,
ealled attention to a noteworthy passage in which, speaking
of the songs of the birds, Wordsworth remarks:–“Their
notes, when listened to by the side of broad still waters, or
when heard in unison with the murmuring of mountain
brooks, have the compass of their power enlarged accordingly,
There is also an imaginative influence in the voice of the
cuckoo, when that voice has taken possession of a deep moun-
tain valley, very different from anything which can be excited .
by the same sound in a flat country.’ These remarks illustrate
a sensibility to the sounds of nature, and an imaginative
appreciation of these sounds and voices, which constitute, I
think, a peculiar characteristic of Wordsworth's poetry; and
they are requoted here to introduce us to a few thoughts'
upon his frequent references to the utterances of nature.
It is surprising that Wordsworth did not give us himself
a more explicit account of this sensibility to sound, being,
as it is, one of those elements in the poetic interpretation
of nature, and one of those habits of mind, which he de-
lighted to analyse. There is little in the Guide to the /akes
beyond the passage quoted which bears directly, saye in the
way of illustration, upon the subject. Yet all his poems,
* -º-º-º-º-º: * ~
* Read to the Society in May 1884.
222 WoRDSWORTHANA.
the sonnets, lyrics, and longer pieces, are rich in the asso-
ciations of sound. • . * ,
The region of his inner spirit
Teems with vital sounds, &
We cannot penetrate the secret of a poet's art; but we
may with advantage examine and illustrate some special
detail or habit of thought ; and in this case an apology is
the less necessary, because there is such a unity of spirit in
Wordsworth, that we cannot examine any particular con-
stituent of his poetry without seeing the whole compass of
his mind. We cannot separate his sensibility to sound from
his general philosophy of nature; the one is subservient to
the other, the ear revealing to us a large part in the secret
and inward life of nature upon which that philosophy rests,
In such a subject the poet best speaks for himself; but
before giving any illustrations, it may be serviceable to sum-
marise briefly the general characteristics of Wordsworth's
treatment of sound. - -
As the basis or origin of all, we find that he had a
peculiarly sensitive ear. It is not only the grander tones of .
the waterfall or the roaring storms that impress him, but he
treasures all the tiny sounds down to the piping of the stone-
chat or the sand-lark, and all ‘the milder minstrelsies of
rural scenes.' Even silence itself is no mere negation of
sound, but a positive power, that seems at times to strain
the senses, at times to allay and lull them. This capacity is
instinctive and habitual : he does not hear sounds only
under constrained attention, but in consequence of an
unusually quick and vigilant sense. The ear seems never
to sleep; brood as the mind will, the ear always has its
message to report,
WoRDSWORTH's TREATA/EAT OF SOUND. 223.
There is also a great retentiveness of sound. This is
only true to Wordsworth's general capacity of mind. All
that he notes in nature seems to become fixed in his thoughts;
he is not a poet of ſleeting impressions; the impressions
once conveyed become permanent associations. Thus when
he recalls the hillside or the valley, it is not only the appear-
ance to the eye that revives in the memory, but the voices
of nature's breathing life are heard in the imagination ; the
music of water, or wind, or trees, or birds, is an inseparable
part of the retrospect, ‘The memory is a dwelling-place
for all sweet sounds and harmonies.’ -
The imagination comes into play in various ways. (1) He
regards the sounds of wind, and breeze, and flood, and
torrent, and brook, as the utterance or language of a living
power. They are not moise, but voices; not mechanical
sounds, but expressions of nature's mighty life. Nor is it
these only that utter her voice. (2) The same life or
power which speaks from the mountain or the ghyll thrills
also all the creatures that dwell in her domain. The bleating
of the lamb and the song of the birds seem to issue from
the heart of nature, and, like the rushing waters or the mur-
muring rill, they proceed from her universal inspiration,
(3) There is too a sweet concord and a spontaneous harmony
in these voices, Nature is not heterogeneous; sound blends
with sound, like the song of the birds in unison with the
mountain brooks, “With chiming Tweed the lint-whites sing
in chorus.” (4) Another noticeable point is his habit of
selecting some peculiar note or tone as interpretative of the
landscape, and finding some key-note of the scene, as if
nature put forth a cry as a revelation of her inmost self
(5) Further, we find that voice or utterance in Wordsworth's
mind is almost inseparable from the notion of life. Partly
224 IPORDSWOR7//1.1NA,
literally, partly metaphorically, he thinks of nature as full of
gentle delicate music which only those who are most in
sympathy with her can catch. We must not confuse this
with the music of the spheres; he is not thinking of the
rhythmical movements of nature, , but of nature in her
abundant forms of individual life; each ſlower, each tree,
each blade of grass has a music of its own. Lastly, we
must remember throughout, that in virtue of the harmony
between man and nature all her various voices become in a
way intelligible to the heart. Of course we are familiar
with Wordsworth's belief that nature teaches men by dis-
closing a spiritual presence, and satisfying with something
more than a material beauty the communings of those that
love her. But it is not the mere contemplation of nature
that does this for us; there is another influence than that
which streams through the eye; as often, perhaps oftener,
the utterances of nature bring home this spiritual power—
the invisible bird, the ceaseless murmur of the fountain, the
echoes that through the mountains throng,
We may illustrate these remarks by quotations from the
poems. We have spoken of Wordsworth as having, in a
special degree, an organic sensibility to sound. He has
given us himself in one of his prose essays an elaborate
analysis of what he considers the innate faculties of a poet;
but we may turn with advantage to his poems for a briefer,
but more telling account. Speaking of his brother, whom
he ventures to call a silent poet, he says:
- - Thou from the solitude
Of the vast sea didst bring a watchful heart
Still couchant, an inevitable ear,
And an eye practised like a blind man's touch,
t w
The ‘inevitable ear' thus essential to the poet exactly
|PORDSIVOATII’s TREATMENT OF SOUND, 225
denotes the quality of which we are speaking. He seems
almost to catch the sound of growth : .
She listens, but she cannot hear
The foot of horse, the voice of man ;
The streams with Soſtest sounds are flowing,
The grass you almost hear it growing,
You hear it now iſ cler you can,
With this we naturally couple two lines in The Prelude:
Catching from tufts of grass and harebell flowers , *
Their ſaintest whisper to the passing breeze, W. -
It was partly in consequence of this sensitiveness of ear,
and partly of his avowed preference for homely detail, that
he at times revives or retains a landscape in our memory by
the introduction of very familiar, yet often unnoted, sounds.
The Zvening Walk gives us happy specimens of this power,
Any one who knows the lake-sides of Westmoreland or
Cumberland will recognise the truth, and with all the home-
liness, the power over the imagination of the details:
Sweet are the sounds that mingle from afar,
! ſeard by calm lakes, as peeps the ſolding star,
Where the duck dabbles 'mid the rustling sedge,
And ſeeding pike starts from the water's edge,
Or the swan stirs the reeds, his neck and bill
Wetting, that drip upon the water still,
From the same poem I may be allowed to make another
quotation, containing more imaginative force, yet still illus-
trative of the same sensibility: -
The song of mountain-streams, unheard by day,
Now hardly heard, beguiles my honeward way,
All air is, as the sleeping water, still,
- To catch the spiritual music of the hill,
There is no doubt that in the wear and tear of life the ears
|
226 wordsworząſawa.
of most of us wax grosser, and become less conscious of the
myriad sounds of which the air is full. It was not so with
Wordsworth. Nature at noonday and at midnight, in
repose as well as storm, was full of manifold tones and
voices, I believe that in this matter, as indeed in almost all
others, Wordsworth will be found free from exaggeration; if
we put him to the test, as I have done myself, we shall find
that sounds, which we were before not conscious of, are
astonishingly distinct when we stop to listen. That is just
the point where Wordsworth is superior to ordinary men.
He is always listening; he not only observes nature; he
constantly hears nature. The landscape is, if I may say so,
for the ear as well as for the eye; neither in reality, nor in
the imagination, is it a silent picture; it is a living presence,
and full of the utterance of life. He is surely describing
himself, while he attributes to another this wondrous sen-
sation : - -
And when there came a pause
Of silence such as baffled his best skill,
Then sometimes in that silence, while he hung
A.istening, a gentle shock of mild surprise
IIas carried far into his heart the voice .
Of mountain torrents.
He is so habitually conscious of the voices and sounds of
nature that at will he can turn to them, and by one stroke
or touch keep before us the occasion and scene of the poem.
By a little detail of sound he brings us back from the
regions of reverie, and detains us upon earth. In the
memorial lines upon Collins the mind is dramatically
arrested by this one touch : * . .
I ſow calm, how still, //w only sound
Zhe driftping 9///e oan sus/ended.
Thus are we stopped and recalled to the real scene, as
wordsworth's TREAZA/EM7 of sovyo. 227
we seem floating away in the pensiveness of the evening
twilight, - • .
Wordsworth might almost be called the poet of the waters,
From boyhood the sounding cataract haunted him like a
passion. Last winter's storm, which laid low the Fraternal
Four of Borrowdale, gives a pathetic interest to the lines
where he describes how he delighted
e in mute repose
To lie and listen to the mountain flood
Murmuring from Claramara's inmost caves.
With that truth to nature which makes his poems so com-
posed in tone, and so full of a reserve of strength, he does
not thrust the waterfall upon us; there is no accumulation
of detail. As in nature, so in his poem, the waterfall is
only to be heard by the listening ear; but to the listening
ear a magical power makes the plashing of the waters cease-
lessly distinct, Throughout and underneath all other
details and all the musings of his mind we seem to hear
through the poem -
The fall of water that cloth make
A murmur near the silent lake.
The sound of waters does indeed, as he tells us, literally
haunt him. The Derwent
& loved
To blend his murmurs with my nurse's song,
And from his alder shades and rocky falls,
And from his fords and shallows, sent a voice
That ſlowed along my dreams.
In distant cities he represents the power as felt, and far
away at Sea,
Oſt in the piping shrouds had Leonard heard
The tones of waterfalls and inland sounds
()f caves and trees.
228 JVOA’ DS WOA' | HIAAWA,
It was the ceaseless voicefulness of the stream that
impressed his mind with the notion of the continuous life of
a river, and led him to give it a kind of spiritual personality:
It seems the Eternal Spirit is clothed in thee
With purer robes than those of flesh and blood. -
The river that sweeps so softly by him on the plain is the
same that is still murmuring at its mountain source, and is
conscious of life and identity:
Mountain rivers, where they creep
Along a channel, smooth and deep,
To their own far-off murmurs listening,
There are two remarkable instances in Zhe A'relude
showing how the associations of sound remained fixed in his
memory, and combined with the imagery of a scene to form
an extraordinarily vital reproduction of the past. Many
will remember the passage in the twelfth book in which he
recounts how he went in his school-days, at the beginning
of a memorable Christmas holiday, to a crag that ascends
from the meeting-place of two highways to watch for the
palfreys descending from Kirkstone to take him and his
brothers home. A few days afterwards his father died, and
the contrast between the expectation of the holiday and the
bereavement that so shortly came, made this moment
immortal in his memory. He recalls the scene, but note
how he blends the sounds with the sights:
..And afterwards, the wind and sleety rain,
..And all the business of the elements,
The single sheep, and the one blasted tree,
.1//d (/he bleak ///usic fro/, //Mat old's/owne wal/,
The noise of wood and water, and the mist,
All these were kindred spectacles and sounds
To which I oſt repaired.
IPOAA)SIPOA 7//'s TRAEA 7//EMT' O/; SOUAV/), 229
So when he records a school-boy visit to the ruins of
Furness Abbey, the particular moment becomes permanent.
in the memory, chiefly in consequence of the magic song of
an unseen wren, singing to herself in the lonely pile. Here
we have to notice not only the song of the bird, but the
subsidiary sounds of rain and wind, that stir the memory so
long, and are so accurately preserved :
That single Wren
Which one day sang so sweetly in the nave
Of the old church, that—though from recent showers
The earth was comfortless, and touched by ſaint
Internal breezes, sobbings of the place,
And respirations, from the roofless walls
The shuddering ivy dripped large drops, yet still
So sweetly 'mid the gloom the invisible bird
Sang to herself, that there I could have made
My dwelling-place, and lived for ever there
To hear such music. g
When we proceed to what I may term the poetic inter-
pretation of sound, we must pause for a moment to consider
an habitual characteristic of Wordsworth's use of the imagi-
nation. The imagination is not arbitrarily exercised. There
is a notable robustness and sanity, in virtue of which,
though he casts the visionary gleam, he never obscures the
real and obvious nature of things. He discerns in this
world a spiritual life, and yet he retains its material identity,
The primrose by the river's brim is something more than a
yellow primrose, yet this spiritual addition is not a negation
of the commonplace aspect of the ſlower. This combination
of a ſidelity to nature worthy of a naturalist, with a spiritual
transfiguration, seems to constitute the uniqueness of Words.
worth's imaginative power. We find the same power
evincing itself in his interpretation of nature's voices, Al-
230 - WoRDSIPOR7///AAA.
ways keeping the true character of the sound before us, he
yet finds in it something more than an unintelligible voice,
Yet this voice is no mere echo of human emotions. It has
a meaning, but it is not a mere reflection of human moods.
We hear elsewhere of the mountains bursting forth into
singing. If this is not merely a poetic figure, it proceeds
from the subordination of nature to man, so that, having no
domain of its own, it only reſlects, like a cheerful home, the
joy of the human inmates. Wordsworth's is a very diſſerent
conception,--we are not concerned with defending, but
only with stating it. He does not destroy the identity and
independence of nature. Nature has a strong, real, unas-
sailable life of her own. Yet man and nature do not stand
entirely apart ; there is a wedding, a blending, a sacred
union of their might; both have certain inherent and inde-
structible qualities of their own, but these are in harmony
with each other, and thus it is that nature has an utterance
for man. - - -
We have spoken of the notion of the mountains bursting
forth into singing. Let us compare with this a passage
from Zhe Excursion, where he is speaking of the awful
voices of the lofty Brethren of the Langdales:
And well these loſty Iłrethren bear their part
In the wild concert—chiefly when the storm
Rides high : then all the upper air they fill
With roaring sound that ceases not to ſlow
Like smoke—along the level of the blast
In mighty current.
The wild sound of the mountains is like the mist that
creeps and shifts and variously blends and dissevers upon
their lofty sides. Here we have a true rendering of the in-
IrowdsivoA:/// 's ZAZ.47A/ENT OF SOUND, 231
finite tones of the hills in wind and storm, and yet they are
something more than roar and noise; they are the utter-
ance of a living power, though it is not clothed in flesh and
blood. It is no Orpheus, but the mountains themselves
that speak. Still less is it merely the caprice of man
fantastically producing speech from brute and silent earth.
This combination of literal fact and imaginative interpre-
tation is noticeable in another very familiar passage from
The Pre/ude, the famous skating scene: -
With the din
Smitten, the precipices rang aloud,
The leafless trees and every icy crag
Tinkled like iron : while far distant hills
Into the tumult sent an alien sound
Of melancholy.
This is true realism : nature is not inanimate, nor entirely
external to man; the instinct to find in her some corre-
pondence with the human soul is universal. The Pagan.
world felt the necessity, and satisfied the craving by a pro-
lific creation of guardian deities and nymphs. With this
religion of Paganism Wordsworth had unquestionable sym-
pathy, but he had absolutely no patience with the artifices
of a later age, which endeavoured in its unspiritual way to
represent the correspondence between man and nature under
the hollow forms of Dryads in which it did not believe.
There is indeed a spiritual music in nature, but it issues
from nature's genuine forms of life, the hill, and wood,
and water. So Wordsworth does not speak of nature as a
harp; but with realism and spirituality combined he tells
us of
The pointed crags
That into music touch the passing wind,
232 - j}'OA D.S (POA' TV/V.4 WA, .
And again we have a similar blending of fact and imagina-
tion :
- When is the Orphean lyre or Druid harp
To accompany the verse? The mountain blast
Shall be our hand of Music; he shall sound
The rocks and quivering trees and billowy lake,
And search the fibres of the caves. &
Another characteristic of Wordsworth's is that he sees
nature as one living power, in which nothing is isolated and
unconnected. In nature, as he says, everything is distinct,
yet nothing is defined into absolute independent singleness.
This is true also of the voices of nature; they are dis-
tinct, yet they are not dissonant, but form a concord of
sounds, a blending music of hill and waterfall and pine-tree.
Deep answers unto deep ; the creatures, permeated by one
inſluence, call each to the other; the busy sounds of the air
are linked in a single harmony:
The stream, so ardent in its course before,
Sent forth such sallies of glad sound, that all
Which I till then had heard appeared the voice
Of common pleasure : beast and bird, the lamb,
The shepherd's dog, the iinnet and the thrush,
Vied with this waterfall, and made a song
Which, while I listened, seemed Wike the ceild growth,
(); //e some natura/ Aroduce of the air
Zhat could not cease to be.
Nature being thrilled with one and the same life, one in-
spiration fills her manifold voices, and produces a majestic
unison : -
Loud is the Vale —the Voice is up
With which she speaks when storms are gone,
A mighty unison of streams -
Of all her Voices, One
This sympathy diffused throughout nature is sometimes
*
IVORDS Wowz//'s 7&EA 7/ENT OF SOUAT), 233
revealed to us, as in the above instances, by the blending of
numerous voices in one harmony or unison. At other times,
and indeed oftener, the poet detects some single tone or
cry, so appropriate to the landscape, so much in keeping
with its mood and character, that it seems to disclose
nature's inward life. Wordsworth in nothing shows truer
poetic power than in the discernment with which he selects
some single object as a centre for the imagination. He
dispenses with detail, and places but little material before
our imaginations, yet that material is of such a kind that
when we dwell upon it, the whole scene is revealed ! As in
What's Yarrow but a river bare
That flows the dark hill under,
we have the minimum of detail, but detail pregnant with
imaginative life; so we find the same penetrativeness in the
selection of some single sound or cry which gives a unity to
the scene. He finds in the voice of a bird or the bleating
of a lamb this unity and revealing power : * -
The bleating of the lamb, I heard, sent forth
As if it were the mountain's voice;
As if the visible mountain made the cry :
The plaintive spirit of the solitude. -
In the following passage also, though other sounds are
heard, it is the voice of the solitary raven that gives us the
true note of the night scene in all its solemnity :
t * The whispering Air
Sends inspiration from the shadowy heights
And blind recesses of the caverned rocks :
The little rills and waters numberless,
Inaudible by daylight, blend their notes
With the loud streams : and often at the hour
When issue forth the first pale stars, is heard
One voice—the solitary raven,
An iron knell, -
234 IPORDSIPOA'7H/AAA.
Notice again how he carries into our hearts the very per-
sonality of nature's solitary recesses by a lonely sound:
There sometimes doth a leaping fish
Send through the tarn a lonely cheer:
The crags repeat the raven's croak
In symphony austere.
It would be difficult to find a passage which reveals so much
to the imagination, by such slight materials; nothing could
more perfectly express the solitude of this mountain tarn.
This potency of sound is specially distinct in the songs of
the birds, and becomes a mysterious fascination when the
bird is unseen. Wordsworth prefers not to localise sound.
What indeed seems to charm him most in the sounds of
nature is that they are dissociated from place or bound, and
blend mysteriously with the beauty of the landscape. When
the birds are singing, their joy seems to proceed from the
general life of nature; it is not the utterance of an individual
thing, or the music of one grove or covert, it is the voice of
nature itself. The linnet is a life, a presence like the air,
the presiding spirit of the May, its song the voice of nature's
gladness. In the poem To the Cuckoo this conception finds
a still more emphatic expression :
Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring :
Even yet thou art to me
AVo bird, but an inz'isible thing,
A voice, a mystery.
In the lines upon the Stock-dove there is the same notion
of diffusion of sound from a source not seen, lines to which
the poet has appended his own comment:
II is voice was buried among trees,
Yet to be come at by the breeze,
WoRDSIPOAZA's TREATHEAT of sov.VD. 235
But in the poem on the Cuckoo there is a still greater
spiritual power in the song of the bird. Not only does the
bird seem devoid of corporeal existence, but the material
world itself becomes spiritualised by the voice as it passes
from hill to hill, now far, now near : -
O blessed bird, the earth we pace
Again appears to be
An unsubstantial fairy place
Th it is fit home for thee.
The gross and visible frame of things
Relinquishes its hold upon the sense,
Yea almost on the mind itself, and seems
All unsubstantialised. -
The voice of man may also in the same way become
almost a part of nature, working a human sweetness into
the landscape. In The Solitary A'rafter we feel the song to
be the very soul of the valley: it transfuses the whole scene;
it makes a new atmosphere, inseparable from the vale:
Q listen, for the vale profound
Is overſlowing with the Sound,—
& The maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending.
The same idea underlies the familiar poem, What, jou
(??? stepping westward 2 where the evening greeting, as it
falls from human lips, blends with lake, and air, and light,
and sky. g
In these instances the voice of man is practically im-
personal, and the singer and the speaker are unconsciously
parts of nature. But when self-consciousness and self-will
come into play, the voice of man may disturb the harmonies
of nature and produce a discord: man's querulousness is a
jarring note: - -
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong.
236 IVOA'ſ).SiroR 7///.4AA,
We all know the development of the human mind in con-
tact with nature as Wordsworth conceived it: there is first
the instinctive, sensuous, unreflective, irrepressible delight; e
then a period of self-consciousness and self-centred aims, in .
which nature seems more at distance from us; lastly, a new
contact and harmony between man and nature, human ex-
perience attuning our ears,
The soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering
bringing a chastened, but more spiritual, delight in the life.
and utterances of nature. Moral life quickens within us a
spiritual sense, so that we are more and more enabled to
catch the harmonies of nature in proportion as we are truer
men. Literally, and as a physical fact, he believed that a
finer organ than the ear, or even the ear, if we diligently
trained it, could catch a music in what we now deem the
voiceless movements of nature; but he delighted to use
this notion as an expression of a closer spiritual contact be-
tween nature and man. The charm of the flower is some-
thing more penetrating than the mere delight of the eye :
the ſlowers have an utterance for us, and their beauty and
fragrance conspire into a harmony: -
I'lowers themselves, whate'er their hue,
With all their fragrance, all their glistening,
Call to the heart for inward listening,
And again :
While ſlower-breathed incense to the skies
Is waſted in mute harmonies,
So the mysterious inſluence of the mountains is a kind
of harmony, a ceaseless language to be understood by a
tworpshow Tiſs TRAAzºreyr of sov.v.D. 237
spiritual ear: nature's laws have gifted them with a power
to yield music of finer frame : * ..
* A harmony,
So do I call it, though it be the hand
Of silence, though there be no voice : the clouds,
The mists, the shadows, light of golden suns,
Motions of moonlight, all come thither—touch
And have an answer—thither come and shape
A language not unwelcome to sick hearts
And idle spirits,
With this we would compare a subtle line in which he
combines the language of two senses :
A soft eye-music of slow waving boughs,
l’owerſul almost as vocal harmony.
Nature thus speaks to our minds, but her sounds and
music also affect body as well as soul. Wordsworth does
not separate the physical and the spiritual : nothing is
solely physical in its eſſect, everything has a spiritual result.
This combination of physical and spiritual teaching in
nature is the idea embodied in the well-known poem, Z%rce
years she grew in sun and shower. One stanza is specially
apposite: i
- ..And she shall lean her car
In many a secret place, - *
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty born of murmuring sound
Shall pass into her face. -
This is not only true poetry, but it has a Platonic feliciº
tousness of language as the expression of a philosophy,
In The Prelude we have a still more convincing testimony
to the influence, primarily physical, but also and inevitably
238 worpswox"HIAMA.
spiritual, of the music of nature ; a portion of the passage
has already been quoted: - -
- For this, didst thou,
O Derwent, winding among grassy holms
When I was looking on, a babe in arms,
Make ceaseless music that composed my thoughts
To more than infant softness, giving me,
Amid the fretful dwellings of mankind,
A foretaste, a dim earnest of the calm -
That Nature breathes among the hills and groves.
It is hardly necessary, however, to multiply instances of
Wordsworth's belief in the educating influences of nature,
or in particular, of the beneficent and soothing power of
her harmony. e -
It is no matter for surprise that he brings to other subjects
the mood and language of a listener. Combining with the
voices of nature he hears the still sad music of humanity,
but, thanks to the tranquillity which the love of nature has
instilled into his spirit, it is a music no longer harsh
nor grating, though of ample power to chasten and subdue.
In the seclusion of a mountain home the tones of strife are
mitigated, and that which seems a dissonant clamour to
those who are in the thick of the fight, is softened as it
passes through the atmosphere of a life in communion with
nature, into a sad, yet not inharmonious music. The same
metaphorical language is elsewhere to be found, notably in
two famous passages of The Evenºrsion. To the ear of faith
the universe resounds with hidden murmurs, like the hollow
shell, which, to the ear of the curious child, betrays, by its
Sonorous cadences, mysterious union with its native sea. In
the second passage we have a metaphor which has recently
become more familiar, when he tells us how old age gives us
WoRDSWOAZA's 7&EAZA/EA/7 of SovyD. 2
3
9
Fresh power to commune with the invisible world,
And hear the mighly stream of tendency,
Uttering, for elevation of our thought,
A clear sonorous voice, inaudible
To the vast multitude.
Wordsworth has written some stanzas upon the power of
sound, but his admirers are perhaps not so anxious to make
mention of these. What he has to tell us is not to be found
there, but in fragments, touches, passing intimations, which
not only reveal his thought, but are themselves a sweet
aérial music like the music of his own hills, . I cannot CO]] -
clude better than with the true note sounded at his grave
in Mr. Matthew Arnold's Memorial Verses : . .
Keep fresh the grass upon his grave,
O Rotha, with thy living wave
Sing him thy best for few or none
lſears thy voice right, now he is gone.
WORDSWORTH AND CHARLES LAMB.
By ALFRED AINGER,
WORDSWORTH AND CHARLES LAMB.1
IN the Edinburgh ſeview of November 1814 appeared
Jeffrey's famous notice of The Excursion, beginning with
words that have since become almost monumental : “This
will never do.’ But it is less generally known that in the
corresponding number of the Quarterly (October 1814)
appeared a review of the same poem by Charles Lamb,
which may well be taken as a happy instance of a bane
being found in company with its antidote, like that botanical
superstition of our childhood, the nettle and the dock leaf.
Professor Knight has given us, in an appendix to the last
volumn of his excellent edition, the principal letters of
Lamb to Wordsworth that contain critical remarks on his
poetry, especially on The Excursion ; but he has not given
any extracts from this Quarterly article, and it has occurred
to me that a very brief account of it might be interesting to
the Society, because, as far as I have observed, it is less
known even to lovers of Charles Lamb than most of his
other critical papers. -
There is one special reason, however, why the review of
necessity does not rank with Lamb's best criticism. Just
before its appearance in print, Lamb writes to Wordsworth
apologetically on the subject, claiming indulgence on the
ground that it was the first review he had ever written, ‘I
hope,’ he says, “you will see goodwill in the thing. I had
! Read to the Society in May 1881.
* ſyORDS WOA. THIANA,
a difficulty to perform not to make it all panegyric; I have
attempted to personate a mere stranger to you, perhaps with
too much strangeness. But you must bear that in mind
when you read it, and not think that I am, in mind, distant
from you or your poem, but that both are close to me,
among the nearest of persons and things.” “But,’ he con-
cludes, ‘it must speak for itself, if Gifford and his crew do
not put words in its mouth, which I expect. Farewell,
Love to all. Mary keeps very bad.'
The ominous hint that Giſſord might put words into
Lamb's mouth that he had never spoken was only too liter.
ally to be ſulfilled. Immediately after the appearance of the
Quarterly, Lamb writes again to his friend, this time in
dismay : ‘I told you my review was a very imperfect one.
But what you will see in the Quarter/y is a spurious one,
which Mr. Baviad Gifford has palmed upon it for mine. I
never felt more vexed in my life than when I read it. I can-
not give you an idea of what he has done to it, out of spite
at me, because he once suffered me to be called a lunatic
in his Review. The language he has altered throughout.
Whatever inadequateness it had to its subject, it was, in
point of composition, the prettiest piece of prose I ever writ:
and so my sister (to whom alone I read the MS.) said,
That charm, if it had any, is all gone : more than a third of
the substance is cut away, and that not all from one place,
but Aassiºn, so as to make utter nonsense. Every warm
expression is changed for a nasty cold one.’
Lamb goes on to explain at some length the changes and
omissions which Gifford had effected in his paper, and adds:
“I regret only that I did not keep a copy.' All readers of
the letter, and of the review itself, will share this regret.
The loss of the best piece of prose that Lamb had up to
IPORDSWORTH AND CHARLEs L.A./B. . . 245
that time produced—seeing that the essays on Hogarth and
on Shakespeare's Tragedies were already written—is indeed
one of the calamities of literature. And even a cursory
glance at Lamb's review confirms his account of what had
happened. There is very little in it in respect of style to
disclose its authorship. The thought—or rather the feeling
—that pervades it is such as could have been shown by no
man of letters of that date except Lamb, and in this respect
the review is certainly characteristic; but of the curiosa
felicitas of words which marks Lamb's prose when not
tampered with by editors, it is significantly empty.
And this circumstance, no doubt, has tended to exclude
the review from most surveys or histories of Wordsworthian
criticism. Moreover, as Mr. Arnold has reminded us,
Wordsworth has been fortunate in his eulogists. Most of
those who have praised him have praised him well. Much
has been written in the last twenty years of signal value in
the appreciation and analysis of Wordsworth. Trained
metaphysicians have delighted to pluck out the heart of his
mystery, and to explain his unique message to the world.
But all the more for that reason we should be thankful to
one who, seventy years ago, could at once recognise the
value of Wordsworth's message, while the world was still
unworthy of it. For six years from that year (1814) of its
publication, Bishop Wordsworth reminds us the English
public was content with a single edition of The Excursion,
consisting of only 500 copies. As late as 1827 another
edition of 500 copies ‘satisfied the popular demand for
seven years.’ All honour then to one who could feel its
value, as Lamb felt it, when, as regarded the authoritative
critical powers of that day, he stood almost alone. I say
feel its value,' and no true Wordsworthian will demur to the
246 - JVOA’/),SJ WOA' T//IAAW.1,
expression, seeing how large a share the heart bears in our
judgments of this poet. For reasons we have seen, there is
little of Lamb's distinctive charm of style in his paper; and
he was neither a moral philosopher, nor a trained analyst,
and we need not look for profound thought. Much of his
praise may seem commonplace compared with that of a
succeeding generation. It is the timeliness of his apprecia-
tion that should win our gratitude.
Listen to this passage, for instance: ‘To a mind consti-
tuted like that of Mr. Wordsworth, the stream, the torrent,
and the stirring leaf seem not merely to suggest associations
of deity, but to be a kind of speaking communication with
it. He walks through every forest as through some Dodona;
and every bird that ſlits among the leaves, like that mira-
culous one in Tasso, but in language more ‘piercing'
(Giſford altered this word into intelligent), reveals to him far
higher love-lays. In his poetry nothing in Nature is dead.
Motion is synonymous with life. “Beside yon spring,’ says
the Wanderer, speaking of a deserted well, from which in
former times a poor woman who died heart-broken had
been used to dispense refreshment to the thirsty traveller:
. . . Beside yon spring I stood
And eyed its waters, till we seemed to feel
One sadness, they and I. For them a bond
Of brotherhood is broken ; time has been
When every day the touch of human hand
Dislodged the natural sleep that binds them up
In mortal stillness,
To such a mind, we say—call it strength or weakness—if
weakness, assuredly a fortunate one—the visible and audible
things of creation present, not dim symbols or curious em-
blems—which they have done at all times to those who have
WORDSWORTH AND CHARLES LAMB. 247
been gifted with the poetic faculty—but revelations and
quick insights into the life within us, the pledge of im-
mortality.’ - •
This passage, beautiful as it stands, was one of those
which Lamb, in a letter to Wordsworth, bitterly complains
of as having been mangled by editor Gifford, who had cut
down ‘more piercing than any articulate sounds,’ into the
tame and meaningless “more intelligent.' But still we are.
able throughout to find sentences and phrases which are,
in their essence, Lamb, and not Gifford; as when he says,
‘In him [Wordsworth] faith, in friendly alliance and con-
junction with the religion of his country, appears to have
grown up, fostered by meditation and lonely communions
with Nature—an internal principle of lofty consciousness,
which stamps upon his opinions and sentiments (we were
almost going to say) the character of an expanded and
generous Quakerism.” Again, take his remark on the fourth
book (Despondency Corrected), which he ranks as the noblest
portion of the poem, that its versification ‘is so involved in
the poetry that we can hardly mention it as a distinct ex-
cellence.’ ‘The general tendency of the argument,' he
goes on to say, ‘is to abate the pride of the calculating
understanding, and to reinstate the imagination and the
affections in those seats from which modern philosophy has
laboured but too successfully to expel them.' Again, here
is a sentence with which we may be sure Gifford had little or
nothing to do. It is Lamb's passing comment on the atti-
tude of the village priest, in the fifth and following books,
telling the simple story of those who slept in the Church-
yard among the Mountains, I hope I may be forgiven if I
first quote the corresponding comment of Jeſſrey, from the
Iºdinburgh ‘The sixth book” (The Churchyard among the
.248 Ivorosivo&7W/AW.A.
Mountains), ‘contains a choice obituary, or characteristic
account of several of the persons who lie buried before this
group of moralisers: an unsuccessful lover, who finds con-
solation in natural history—a miner, who worked on for
twenty years in despite of universal ridicule, and at last
found the vein he had expected—two political enemies,
reconciled in old age to each other—an old female miser—
a seduced damsel—and two widowers, one who devoted
himself to the education of his daughters, and one who
married a prudent middle-aged woman to take care of them.'
Let us hear Charles Lamb's comment upon the same book, .
with the matter or manner of which we at least are sure
that Giſſord had not meddled : “In the resolution of these
doubts, the priest enters upon a most affecting and singular
strain of narration, derived from the graves around him,
Pointing to hillock after hillock, he gives short histories of
their tenants, disclosing their humble virtues, and touching
with tender hand upon their frailties. Nothing can be con-
ceived finer than the manner of introducing these tales. With
heaven above his head, and the mouldering turf at his feet
—standing betwixt life and death—he seems to maintain
that spiritual relation which he bore to his living ſlock, in its
undiminished strength, even with their ashes, and to be in
his proper cure, or diocese, among the dead;’—a sentence,
I think you will agree with me, worthy in nobility of thought
and rhythm of Sir Thomas Browne. -
I have only time to indicate by a few detached sentences
how much that has become by reiteration almost the com-
monplace of Wordsworthian criticism was first spoken by
Lamb–as it were in prophetic anticipation of that counter-
criticism which Z/e Evcursion, above all Wordsworth's
poems, was destined to call forth. How admirably said is
WORDSIVOATH AND CI/ARLES LAM//s. 2.49
the following, where Lamb, after noting that Wordsworth's
popularity is endangered by the very “boldness and origin-
ality of his genius,’ adds: ‘The times are past when a poet
could securely follow the direction of his own mind into
whatever tracts it might lead. A writer who would be
popular, must timidly coast the shore of prescribed sentiment
and sympathy. He must have just as much more of the
imaginative faculty than his readers as will serve to keep
their apprehensions from stagnating, but not so much as to
alarm their jealousy. He must not think or feel too
deeply. If he has had the fortune to be bred in the midst
of the most magnificent objects of creation, he must not
have given away his heart to them; or, if he have, he must
conceal his love, or not carry his expressions of it beyond
that point of rapture which the occasional tourist thinks it
not overstepping decorum to betray, or the limit which that
gentlemanly spy upon Nature, the picturesque traveller, has
vouchsafed to countenance. He must do this, or be con-
tent to be thought an enthusiast.' He anticipates, more.
over, the now common objection that the poet puts into the
hearts and mouths of unlettered peasants thoughts and words
unsuited to their humble capacities, and says ſinely that if
the poet ‘has detected, or imagines he has detected, through
the cloudy medium of their unlettered discourse, thoughts
and apprehensions not vulgar, traits of patience and con-
stancy, love unwearied, and heroic endurance, . . . . he will
be deemed a man of perverted genius by the philanthropist,
who, conceiving of the peasantry of his country only as
objects of a pecuniary sympathy, starts at finding them
elevated to a level of humanity with himself, having their
own loves, enmities, crayings, aspirations, as much beyond
his faculty to believe as his beneficence to supply.”
250 * * IVORDS WORTH IAM.4.
And lastly, Lamb disposes for ever of the critics who
confuse poetry “having children for its subject' with poetry
that is ‘childish,' and who, “having themselves, perhaps,
never been children, never having possessed the tenderness
and docility of that age, know not what the soul of a child
is—how apprehensive how imaginative how religious !’
In almost all the main issues, then, that so long separated,
and, alas ! still separate the reasonable lover of Wordsworth
from those who sit in the seat of the scorner, Charles Lamb
shows himself here, as in so many other fields of literature,
almost unique in critical discernment. He was no partisan;
he never writes as one holding a brief. He had the liveliest
sense of Wordsworth's deficiencies and limitations. He is
none of those “fervent Wordsworthians’ against whom Mr.
Arnold has told us we must “be on our guard' (a class, I
venture to hope, not quite so large as Mr. Arnold would
have us believe), who will have Wordsworth admired all
round, or not at all. Lamb ventures to pick and choose,
and to discriminate, even when he writes to the poet himself.
And he can read and criticise on occasion without enthusiasm,
and even with his own matchless humour. While he
declares (may we not without presumption add, with what
justice?) of the verse:
.And thou that didst appear so fair
To ſond imagination,
Dost rival in the light of day
- Her delicate creation,
that “no lovelier stanza, 'I think, can be found in the wide
world of poetry, he is not afraid to say bluntly that even
the Poet's Epitaph is disſigured by the common satire upon
parsons and lawyers at the beginning.
I do not think it would be a bad day's work for the
WoRDSIPORTH AND CHARZES LAME, 251.
Wordsworth Society to print side by side these two essays
of Jeffrey and Lamb that appeared in the two leading
critical authorities of the time almost in the same week,
when Zhe Excursion was first submitted to the judgment of
the world. It might be called, after Mrs. Barbauld's famous
story, Eyes and No Eyes; but under whatever, name, it
could not fail to teach many lessons, both of encouragement
and warning. There is an unpublished comment of Lamb's
in the matter of another poet, George Wither, with which I
may fitly close this paper. When an early copy of an edi-
tion of Wither's poems, with manuscript notes of Dr. Nott's,
was submitted to Lamb for his further suggestion and criti-
cism, he found that Dr. Nott had written against Wither's
satire On Ambition the words—‘A very dull essay indeed.’
Upon which Lamb retorts:– -
‘Why double-dull it with thy dull commentary P. Have
you nothing to cry out but ‘very dull,’ ‘a little better,’ ‘this
has some spirit,” “this is prosaic’? Foh
‘If the sum of Wither withdraw a while, clamour not for
joy. Owl—it will out again, and blear thy envious eyes.”
If this is true of the ‘sun of Wither,’ how much more
need is there to repeat the warning for those who have only
eyes for the clouds that now and again steal across the sun
of Wordsworth
LORD HOUGHTON'S ADDRESS AS
PRESIDENT, 1885.
LORD HOUGHTON'S ADDRESS As
PRESIDENT, 1885.
LADIEs and Gentlemen, this is the third meeting which may
(in a manner) be called representative of English verse, that
I have had the pleasure of addressing this year. The first
was the occasion of the unveiling of the bust of Coleridge
in the Chapter-House at Westminster, a meeting which ex-
hibited not only deep personal interest in the character of
Coleridge, and in the honour he had received—the great-
est honour which an Englishman after death can receive—
that of a presentment of his image in the great national
mausoleum, ‘the Pantheon of the West,’ as Mr. Tennyson
—who himself one day will probably lie within those pre-
cincts—has called it. That meeting, besides that recog-
nition, was a very interesting resurrection, so to speak, of
the value and extent and power of Coleridge's philosophy.
And it was remarkable that every speaker, I think, on that
occasion expressed personal gratitude for the thoughts.
which had been imparted to him by the poet Coleridge,
not only in the melody of his verse, but in the novel systems
of thought of which he was the author in this country.
The second occasion on which I had the pleasure and the
honour of being present and presiding, was the inauguration
of the bust of the poet Gray in the hall of Pembroke College,
Cambridge, after more than a hundred years of silence as
256 - IroRDSIrowz///AAA.
to his name in that University. That was a very interesting
occasion, and although it originated chiefly in the interest
in Gray which had been shown by his able biographer, Mr.
. Gosse, was nevertheless fully estimated and understood by
the rest of the University and other representative men, of
whom the most remarkable perhaps is Mr. Lowell, the
Américan Minister, who took such an interesting part in
your meeting last year. I only wish that he had tided over a
little his departure from this country, and had been present
with us here to-day. I look on this as the third meeting of
that nature, and I may be permitted to say that I think
gatherings, representative of literary homage, and also of
personal interest in the poets in whose works we still take
delight, are not only very just in themselves, but extremely
useful in the cause of literature. We in this country are not
too apt to keep alive the remembrance of literary men. I do
not know whether we esteem them less, or whether on the
whole their influence is less than among other nations, but
certainly such a sensation as followed the death of Victor
Hugo would be scarcely possible in this country.
The very occasion of our meeting here to-day almost pre-
cludes me from saying anything of especial interest, because
whatever I might say with regard to the work of Words-
worth, to have any interest at all, must be of a critical char-
acter; and although I know that this is not merely a mutual
admiration Society, or even an individual admiration Society,
yet nevertheless I do not conceive that any criticism, with
such liveliness and liberty as makes criticism at all amusing,
would be suitable at a meeting of this kind. Therefore I
am driven, if I am to say anything diſſerent from the com-
monplaces of admiration with which we are familiar, to fall
back on what I might call any possible personal connection
1.0&D //ot/GHzow's iDDRESS. 257
of my own life and mind with that of the great poet. And
I am enabled—I think fortunately—to introduce this subject
to you by reading the initial passage of the delightful little
book which I hold in my hand—Matthew Arnold's Selections
from IVordsworth. I owed most, if not the whole, of the
interest of what I had to say about Gray at Cambridge, to
the subtle and delightful criticism of Matthew Arnold on
Gray, in the edition of The British Poets. I will, therefore,
if you will allow me, read to you these few words of Matthew
Arnold as the foundation for any future remarks :-‘I
remember hearing Lord Macaulay say, aſter Wordsworth's
death, when subscriptions were being collected to found a
memorial of him, that ten years earlier more money could
have been raised in Cambridge alone, to do honour to
Wordsworth, than was now raised all through the country.
Lord Macaulay had, as we know, his own heightened and
telling way of putting things, and we must always make
allowance for it. 13ut probably it is true that Wordsworth.
has never, either before or since, been so accepted and
popular, so established in the minds of all who profess to
care for poetry, as he was between the years 1830 and 1840,
and at Cambridge.' I happened to be a member of Trinity
College, Cambridge, at that time, and I am delighted to con-
firm that judgment. My recollections of that period are
sufficiently vivid to enable me to say that I am very proud
of having personally, in some degree, contributed to that
great acceptance of and I might say enthusiasm for Words.
worth which was generated among the youth of Cambridge
at that time. When I look back upon that time, and the,
so to say, mental proceedings by which it was made impor-
tant to the lives of all Who shared in it, I find it somewhat
difficult precisely to comprehend the cause of that enthusiasm.
258 . WORDSWOR THIAAA.
It was contemporaneous with a burst of interest in the
poetry of Shelley and of Keats, With regard to Keats, of
whose life I had afterwards the pleasure of being the
recorder, we were very proud of having been the means
of introducing to English literature the delightful poem of
Adonais. A son of Mr. Hallam, the historian, who was the
Marcellus of his day, and who, if he had lived, would have
been a most distinguished name in English history—the
Arthur Hallam of the In Memoriam—arrived from Italy at
that time, bringing with him a copy of the Adonals, which
had been printed at Pisa under the superintendence of
Byron. That copy we reprinted at Cambridge, and, as it
were, introduced into British literature, , -
The enthusiasm for Keats is, I think, very intelligible.
He is essentially the poet of youth ; he is the embodiment,
as it were, of youth and poetry, in the richness of the
imagination, and in the abundance of melodious power,
We also, I think, fully comprehend, now that Shelley has
taken his just place among the poets of England, how
delightful it was to our youthful interests, and I may say to
our youthful vanity, to raise the name of Shelley from the
obscurity, and I might almost say even the infamy, which
at that time attached to it, to the high atmosphere of pure
imagination in which it now exists in the estimate of all
real lovers of British literature. But there was no such
reason why we should have laboured to any similar extent
for the elevation of the name and works of Mr. Wordsworth,
The name of Wordsworth was familiar to the crowd at
Cambridge in two ways. His brother was the Master of
Trinity, a Venerated and respectable old gentleman, the
author of a very dull ecclesiastical biography, and who had
not recommended himself to the undergraduate mind by
LORD HOUGHTOM'S ADDRESS. 259
any exhibition of geniality or especial interest in our pur-
suits, our avocations, or even our studies. We had at
Cambridge, in the son of that Dr. Wordsworth, by the
name of Christopher Wordsworth, a very eminent scholar
and not unagreeable companion, but he manifested in youth
the germs of that outwardly hard, though inwardly bene-
volent, character, which so much distinguished him as the
learned, pious, excellent administrator, the Bishop of I.in-
coln. I had the pleasure of accompanying that distinguished
prelate in those Grecian travels which are familiar to you
all, and I wish I could show you in my books about me
here the presentation copy of his Voyage to me, which not
only confirmed our aſſectionate relations, but introduced me
to a new Greek word, which I do not know is familiar even
to such Hellenists as I see present. The book is addressed
ovodoutſpº tºº. I do not know whether, if any of you had
been asked to give me a Greek word for “fellow-traveller,
you could have done that—I am sure I could not.
Let us look back therefore at what could have been the
rationale of our faith and interest in the poetry of Words-
worth. I think I alluded to our juvenile vanity in rescuing
the names of Keats and Shelley from the injustice which we
thought had been done to them. Well, there was some-
thing of that sort, I think, in our patronage (such as it was)
of the name of Wordsworth. When we came to read him
seriously (as we did), we thought that the ridicule which
had been thrown upon the name of Wordsworth and the
publication of his pastoral poems was supremely unjust.
We could see the causes of it ; ; how that the extreme
familiarity of the diction had in it something by no means
congenial to the literary mind of that or perhaps any other
period ; not that England at that time was new to the
200 irokosipok THIAAA.
familiar diction, because we had had it in the most distinct
way in the poetry of Burns, where it had not only been
willingly accepted, but was undoubtedly one of the causes
of the ready acceptance of his verse among the people of
England, and still more of Scotland. It was not that alone,
but it was, I think, that this extreme familiarity of diction
was accompanied by something that looked like vulgarity
of thought. The sentiments which this diction represented
were of a very ordinary character, connected with the
ordinary peasant life of the country, and unaccompanied by
any of those stirring, deep, and passionate emotions, with
which the common language of Burns was saturated. There
was, too, a certain indelicacy of thought in the sense of
producing to the mind images of a very common character
under circumstances of an almost ludicrous nature. And,
looking back at this now at the distance we do, I think I
can say that we felt this more strongly, from that one great
deficiency in the faculties of Wordsworth—a total want of
the sense of humour. No man with a sense of humour
could have exposed himself to those occasionally just
criticisms of the almost comic positions of some of his
characters, verging on coarseness. I do not think that the
lines of Peter Bell, which were thus cited as examples of
almost comic verse, could have been written by any man
with a strong sense of humour. He would have seen the
position himself quite as strongly as his critics would have
seen it. And at that time, whatever else we were, we were
all humorists. Therefore there was something to get over in
our admiration, and I think we got over it by a process
which, looking back, seems to me to have been almost too
good to be true. I do not think that, as a body of young
men, at that time we were especially religious, or especially
LoRD HOUGHTow's ADDRESS, 261
virtuous in any way, and therefore, I do not think it was the
height of the morality of Wordsworth which attracted us;
but still there was something that we saw (I do not know
how) as to the moral elevation of that verse, in contrast
with the reigning poetic power of that time, namely, the
verse of Lord Byron. It was then not only fashionable, but
almost indispensable, for every youth to be Byronic. Of
course, though at Cambridge we had not either the energy, or
perhaps the courage, to be Corsairs or Laras, yet nevertheless
we enjoyed the poetry, and especially the later poetry, of
Lord Byron, as something very cognate to our dispositions.
and tempers, probably not the best of either. But we did
see that there was something in the poems of Wordsworth
and of Shelley which satisfied what we knew to be our
better and higher aspirations. { -
I daresay there may be some persons present who have
heard of an event of undergraduate Cambridge life at
that time, which has the peculiarity of tiding its memory
into several future undergraduate existences, namely, the
expedition from the Debating Society at Cambridge to the
Debating Society of Oxford, to discuss and impress upon
the University opinion of Oxford the superiority of Shelley
to Byron. That expedition was remarkable as having ori-
ginated in, and having been supported by, men who are still
of living interest in this country. I think it was originated.
by Sir Francis Doyle, who afterwards became Professor of .
Poetry at Oxford ; and it was certainly sustained by a name
not unfamiliar to you, the name of Mr. Gladstone, by whom
we were received at the railway station, and conducted to
our abode. You know that, according to the formula of
University life at Cambridge, you cannot be out for a night
without what is called an ‘Exeat'—a permission to be away
262 Irowpsirow 7./I./A.N.A.
—which can only be obtained from the Master of the
College, and I was deputed to obtain this from Dr. Words.
worth, the Master of Trinity, and did obtain it. I have
always had some compunction in having done so, because
I cannot think that that reverend theologian would have
favourably given us the permission if he had known we
were going to advocate the poetry of Mr. Shelley. I have
always had a dim suspicion—though probably I did not do
so—that I substituted the name of Wordsworth for Shelley.
Nevertheless, I so wrapped up in my language the definition
of our object—which was mainly, as I put it, the destruction
of the wicked influence of Lord Byron—as to make Dr. Words-
worth believe that what we intended to substitute for Byron
was not Shelley, but Wordsworth. However, we did go,
and I have no doubt that with our laudation of Shelley we
combined the laudation of Wordsworth, at the same time,
in our representations to the University of Oxford. We
were of course very much shocked to find that the name of
Shelley was utterly unknown at Oxford; indeed, one of the
speakers said he did not know a line of Shelley except
My banks they are furnished with bees.
We discovered he thought it was Mr. Shenstone, not the
poet of world-wide reputation, we had gone down there to
discuss. The expedition was interesting as a specimen of
what I may call a very laudable literary enthusiasm, of which
I shall be very glad to see more among the youth of this
day. However these facts may be, it remains true that the
undergraduate youth of my time at Cambridge did take that
part in, I will not say rehabilitating, but enhancing the fame
and power of the poems of Wordsworth in the University,
and in the general world of letters of which he afterwards
A.0/0/0.1/OUG//7 OA'S ADD/CAE.S.S. . . . 26
3
formed part. Of course at that time the wealth and the
power of Wordsworth were increasing, Matthew Arnold
says: ‘The death of Byron seemed to make an opening for
Wordsworth. Scott, who had for some time ceased to pro-
duce poetry himself, and stood before the public as a great
novelist,--Scott, too genuine himself not to feel the pro-
found genuineness of Wordsworth, and with an instinctive
recognition of his firm hold on nature and of his local truth,
always admired him sincerely, and praised him generously,
The influence of Coleridge upon young men of ability was
then powerful, and was still gathering strength; this influ-
ence told entirely in favour of Wordsworth's poetry. Cam-
bridge was a place where Coleridge's influence had great
action, and where Wordsworth's poetry, therefore, ſlourished
especially. But even amongst the general public its sale
grew large, the eminence of its author was widely recog-
nised, and Rydal Mount became an object of pilgrimage.’
It is very interesting to see in connection with Wordsworth's
adoration of the beauties of Nature, that his name and
fame are incorporated with the scenery of the Lakes, just
as much as are the name and fame of Sir Walter Scott with
the scenery of Scotland, of which he may be said to have
been the creator. Mr. Arnold goes on to say: “I remember
Wordsworth relating how one of the pilgrims, a clergyman,
asked him if he had ever written anything besides the Guide
fo the Lakes. Yes, he answered modestly, he had written
verses. Not every pilgrim was a reader, but the vogue was
established, and the stream of pilgrims came.’ -
I have been one of those pilgrims, and I can fully con-
firm with my personal observation the very interesting paper
on the reminiscences of Wordsworth amid the peasantry of
Westmoreland, of which you have a delightful record in the
264 IVOADSIPOwz/I/AA.l.
last volume of our Transactions, by the Rev. Mr. Rawnsley,
whom I regret not to see here to-day, I remember myself
talking to several old people about the matter, and they
used exactly the language which is here given about what
they call his ‘going booing about.’ It must have been a
kind of vague poetical utterance to which they gave that
very distinctive and characteristic epithet. And the pea-
Santry of Westmoreland seem fully to have recognised that
deficiency to which I have already alluded—his want of
humour. Here is a sample of what Mr. Rawnsley records.
“Did you ever read his poetry, or see any [of his] books
about in the farm-houses P” I asked. “Ay, ay, time or two.
But ya’re weel aware there’s potry and potry. There’s potry
wi' a li'le bit pleasant in it, and potry sic as a man can laugh
at or the childer understand, and some as takes a deal of
mastery to make out what’s said, and a deal of Wudsworth's
was this sort, ye kna. You could tell fra the man's faace
his potry would never have no laugh in it.” It may be un-
just to call that especially a defect; but, nevertheless, it was
evidently a part of Wordsworth's mind. And while it was
one of the interesting reminiscences of Voltaire to know
that Voltaire fully recognised the greatness and the superi-
ority of English poetry over that of his own country—in its
high moral standard and power of thought—Wordsworth is
reported to have spoken of Voltaire as being a remarkably
stupid writer.
Well, his fame grew ; and in these letters from Wordsworth
to Kenyon—also published in our Transactions for 1884
—there is this very interesting passage, written in 1837,-
‘I hear from many quarters of the impression which my
writings are making, both at home and abroad, and to an
old man it would be discreditable not to be gratified with
ZoKo Lovo/1zow's Appress. 265
such intelligence; because it is not the language of praise
for pleasure bestowed, but of gratitude for moral and intel-
lectual improvement received.’ - -
You have heard those beautiful lines—
I’ve heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds
With coldness still returning ;
Alas ! the gratitude of men
IIath oſtener leſt me mourning,
and I think I see in this passage the embodiment of that
feeling. - -
Beyond these vague personal impressions, ladies and
gentlemen, I do not know that I have anything to say, I
asked a man of letters to come here to-day, and he said he
believed he admired and enjoyed Wordsworth as much as
anybody, but still if he had come he should have had to
say that he could not put him in the first rank of English
poets, as he would a supreme poet of passion, or a supreme
poet of melody. Well, this may be so, and the same was
said of that other poet at whose celebration I attended,
that of Thomas Gray. In my remarks on that occasion I
stated the disadvantages under which the poet of sentiment
must always lie, in comparison with the supreme poet of
passion, or the poet of supreme melody. On the one hand
we may say that the poet of passion will always have a
depth of sympathy, almost we may say a violence of sym-
pathy, to which the poet of sentiment cannot attain. And
this was, I think, the chief cause why the poem of Thomas
Gray—representing, I think, perhaps the poetry of sympathy
in its most perfect form—the Elegy in a Col/n/ry C///rch.
yard, took, nevertheless, almost a century before it became
part of the English language as it now is. Then, Thomas
Gray wrote little else: Wordsworth wrote much. And we
266 IVORDSIPORTH/AAA.
cannot leave out of consideration, in judgment of him,
the poetical life, as it were, the poetic personality, which
stretched over nearly a century. It is this which gives to
Wordsworth a great specialty as the poet of sentiment—
that he has, as it were, identified himself with almost all the
great and general, and especially the domestic, aſſections of
mankind. There is no poetry which can be said to form
such a distinctive portion of our household literature as
that of Wordsworth. Its interest in so many forms of
familiar life, its interest in the common occupations of the
world, and above all, its perfect enthusiasm for Nature, and
from Nature to Nature's God—this gives to Wordsworth the
assurance of a constant immortality, crowned, I think, by
the production of come few poems which we may place at
the very top of philosophic poetry. If I am asked—in that
perfunctory way in which one is sometimes asked to write
in a lady's album—What is the greatest poem in the English
language? I never for a moment hesitate to say, Words-
worth's Ode on the Intimations of Immortality. That poem
is to me the greatest embodiment of philosophic poetry,
which may decorate youth, and childhood itself, with the
years of grave and philosophic manhood. It comprehends
the life of man. • *
'I thank you for having listened to these desultory obser-
vations, and I only wish I had the time or means for pro-
ducing something more worthy of your hearing.
wORDSWORTH AND TURNER.
By HARRY GOODWIN, .
WORDSWORTH AND TURNER.
The painter of ‘The Fighting Temeraire’ and ‘The Slave
Ship,' and the writer of The Zeech-Gatherer and The J/a//y
Warrior, were men of genius, widely separated in art and
life, Yet the leading feature in the work of each is alike:
the art of both was marked by a greater love of Nature,
and a return to more simplicity, than was characteristic of
the period of severe traditional conventionality in which
they worked, *
Wordsworth shows, in his sonnets to I laydon, and to Sir
George Beaumont, and in his objections to Sir Joshua
Reynolds's ‘mere portrait-painting,' that, outside. his own
special art, he was under the influence of the conventional
traditions of his time; just as Turner, in his attempt to
write verses after the manner of Pope and Rogers, proves
that in the art of painting on/y was he freed from the narrow
mannerism of the cighteenth century.
It is scarcely too much to say that landscape-painting
received as great an impetus from the work of Turner as
poetry received from Wordsworth. Both left old paths;
both sought after new methods, fresh truths of nature, rarely
hesitating to use the most homely incidents to illustrate
their themes. Let us take, for instance, Turner's ‘Church-
yard in Kirkby Lonsdale, Yorkshire,' in which picture one
1 Read to the Society in May 1885.
270 . . Ivow/SIVOR7A/AM.A.
might have expected an incident given in the spirit of
Young or Cowley, had it been painted by one of Turner's
contemporaries; but the great master quietly ignores all
the unities, and paints probably exactly what he saw—viz.,
a number of boys, who have left their school-books among
the graves, have set up a mark on one of the tombs, and
are throwing at it, in all the abandonment of boyish mischief.
Over their heads the loveliest trees wave softly in the tender
blue, l'ar away the river winds, and loses itself in the
mystery of the folded hills. Without this exquisite beauty
of landscape, the picture would remind us more of the
poetry of Crabbe than of Wordsworth; but the beauty
elevates and sustains the commonplace, as the poetry of
Wordsworth often surrounds a seemingly trivial subject with
pure and noble ideas. At the time it was painted, it was
as daring an innovation as the poem of Jºe are Seven could
have been, Both painter and poet seem to have said,
‘Enough of weeping swains and funereal urns,'
The common growth of mother Earth
Suffices me, her tears, her mirth,
! ſcr humblest mirth and tears,
Turner's work, like the world of nature, has its delicate
mystery of detail, as well as its grand sweeping masses and
largeness of outline. He saw and portrayed the sublimity
of light, and the grandeur of the forms of cloud, 13ut
Turner never forgot the human interest in any scene. We
are made to see through his eyes the varied life of men, on
hill and in dale, in the city and on the sea. Their toil, their
pleasures, all are given with the force of truth, sad and de-
spairing as the toil may be ; but above are the skies, and the
glory of the heavens transfuses all with surrounding bright-
ness. In the words of Goethe, as rendered by Carlyle :
IVožosivo&TH Awp 70Awer, 271
IIere is all fulness, , ,
Ye brave, to reward you ;
Work, and despair not.
Now in this is there not much kinship with Wordsworth's
special insistence on the healing power of Nature, and the
perfect fitness of the natural world to human life P-
- For I have learned -
To look on Nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oſtentinues
The still sad music of humanity, -
Nor harsh, nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue.
One strong characteristic these two great men had also
in common—their keen perception of, and sympathy with,
the sad side of human life, and the mystery of pain; but
they both looked forward to the light. They could say—-
e Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent (lower,
We feel that we are greater than we know,
Numberless instances may be given from Turner's work
in illustration of this kinship. Perhaps his ‘Scenes in the
Holy Land,' and his illustrations of Rogers's Poems, and
of the Rivers of England and France, give a more vivid
idea of this than some of his grander and more ambitious
work. In these “Scenes in the Holy Land,’ taken princi-
pally from sketches by other men (for Turner was never in
the East), it is interesting to note with what imagination he
connects the human interest of the event with the scene in
which it happens. Thus, in the drawing of ‘Rama,’ wolves
are tearing the lambs among a flock: one poor sheep
stands over the mangled body of a lamb. In the “Beth-
lehem,' one bright star in the evening sky, the solitary figure
of a woman with a young child by the wayside, the tender
mystery of the grey twilight—the loneliness, the poverty,
272 IPOA'DSH'OR THIAM.1.
and humility of the figure—tell us of what the painter's
heart was full. Many of Turner's illustrations of Rogers's
Poems have much greater affinity with The Prelude and The .
Excursion than with the dragging lines and stilted senti-
ment of the poems they were painted to illustrate. The
design, for instance, intended for the shepherd ‘on Tor-
naro's misty brow,' is perfectly fitted to picture to us the
passage in The Aveursion— -
13ut for the growing youth,
What soul was his, when, from the top
Of some bold headland, he beheld the sun
Rise up, and bathe the world in light !
In Turner's drawing the sun is literally “bathing the
world in light;' the power and grandeur of the visible uni-
verse swallow up material existence, filling and satisfying
the soul with its own supernal beauty. In the ‘Datur hora
quieti,' the peace of parting day, the rest and stillness,
suggest the leading thought of 77.6 Prelude.
To those familiar with Turner's ‘Shipwreck’ in the
National Gallery, these lines of Wordsworth's, from Peele
Castle in a Storm, must, I think, seem like another illustra.
tion of the same thought-
That hulk which labours in the deadly swell,
This rueful sky, this pageantry of ſcar.
Wordsworth once said of Southey, “1300ks are his paş-
sion, and,’ he added, ‘wandering, I can in truth affirm, was
mine ; ' and ‘wandering ' certainly was Turner's, All over
England, all over the Continent, he wandered, receptive and
solitary, becoming increasingly absorbed in his Art, untiring
in reproducing what he saw in Nature ; and at last accumu-
lating such a mass of work that it is difficult to believe it
the creation of one man.
IPOAA)SIPOA 7/1 AND TURNEA, 273
Turner did not take public criticism and disapproval
with the dignified patience and quiet self-reliance that were
so characteristic of Wordsworth ; but neither did he ever
lower his ideal to meet the views of any art critics.
On one occasion, while Turner was retouching a picture,
an artist friend said to him : ‘Well, now, I never saw any-
thing like that in Nature;’ to which Turner replied, “Very
likely; but don't you wish you were able to see it?’
To conclude this parallelism—already too long in words
and too short in circumstance—it has been said that there
was in Turner's work a strange mingling of the sublime and
the ridiculous ; and I believe that the same has been said
of Wordsworth, from the days of the Edinburgh Reviewers
to this present time. There may be a germ of truth in the
criticism. Both men may have been lacking in a sense of
the humorous—that saving grace of the nineteenth century :
but life was a serious thing to both. They had a message
to deliver, and were straitened until it was accomplished.
Wordsworth has said, ‘I wish to be considered as a teacher,
or as nothing.’ And so what he says comes from his lips
with a gravity not ill fitted to convey the truths he had to
teach. Both Poet and Painter were at one in their endea-
vour to show to others all they could of that world of
beauty into which they had access,
A sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man :
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.
LORD SELBORNE'S ADDRESS AS
PRESIDENT, 1886.
LORD SELBORNE'S ADDRESS As
PRESIDENT, 1886.
Ladies and GENTLEMEN,+When I was asked more than
a year ago to preside at the Meeting (then to be held) of
the Wordsworth Society, I felt, as I feel now, that I owed a
debt of piety and gratitude to the name and the memory of
Wordsworth, and to his work, which compelled me to do
what I could to pay it by any means within my power, Last
year I was prevented from doing so. This year I have
consented upon one condition, which I hope you will
pardon me for making. I said that if it was necessary to
prepare an essay, or some elaborate work, for your interest
or instruction, I did not feel equal to that. What should
it be 2 Should it be criticism P Well, there were three
reasons which made me unwilling to make that attempt,
One was, that it would be a very laborious thing to do
it with any possibility of giving satisfaction to you, or
to myself; and I was not satisfied that other duties would
give me the time to do what I should have wished if I
undertook it. Another and perhaps as forcible a reason
was, that I have been all my life a worshipper at the inner-
most shrine of Wordsworth, and I do not think that the
worshipper quite likes to undertake the task of dissection or
criticism. And a third reason, also quite sufficient, was that
I felt sure that the thing had already been very well done
—perhaps as well as it could be, certainly better than I
278 WoRDSIPORTH/AA.I.
could expect to do it—by others at other meetings of the
Wordsworth Society. So I thought that if I were here to-day,
I must be allowed to be here upon the condition of rather
speaking to you shortly, and in a conversational manner,
so as to give my own impressions of Wordsworth, not new,
and I have no doubt probably common to most of you, and
already better expressed by others. But my own impres-
sions have at least this to recommend them, that they are
real, and they have endured almost the whole of my life.
Now the beginning of my personal acquaintance with the
poems of Wordsworth, and, I may say, with the Poet him-
self—with whom I had some small opportunities (very
much valued) of personal conversation—goes far back,
to the time when I was an undergraduate at the University
of Oxford. There it was my good fortune very soon to be
honoured with the friendship of a distinguished man, the
poet's nephew, and an ardent admirer, as he ought to be,
of his uncle, Charles Wordsworth, who is now Bishop of .
St. Andrews. Many a night did I sit in his rooms at
Christ Church, hearing him read with that animation of
which he was a master the specimens which he thought the
finest, and most likely to interest and attract others, of his
uncle's work, That was the beginning. There I was a
pupil. Then I formed a very intimate friendship with a
man younger than myself, also at the University, who also
has left a name behind him, but is now gone–Frederick
William Faber—who was distinguished, first in the Church
of England, and aſterwards elsewhere ; a man of ardent
character and great zeal in everything which he undertook, *
and which he believed to be right, and especially an
enthusiastic lover of poetry. He and I read Wordsworth
together, as two lovers, rather than as pupil and master,
Zowo SEZhowAA's AppNESS. 279
And I think in that stage of reading perhaps it came home
even more than it did at the first. And having so begun,
and having followed it for myself as opportunity has offered,
until I became tolerably well acquainted with everything
which Wordsworth had written, I speak no more and no
less than the truth when I say that this acquaintance with
the works of Wordsworth has been to me as great a power
in the education of mind and character, after the 13ible,
as any that I have known, The Bible first, certainly, I
think it has been so to all who have given it a chance.
Certainly it has been so to me, I put no book in competi-
tion with the Bible. But, after the Bible, I trace more
distinctly, with more certainty, and with less hesitation and
doubt, to Wordsworth, than to any other literary influence
whatever, anything I may recognise as good in the forma-
tion of my own mind and character. I do not mean to say
for that reason that Wordsworth is necessarily the greatest
of all the writers whom I have known, and from whom I have
learned. I should hesitate, of course, to say that he was
greater than Plato ; and I should not hesitate to say—if
we must make comparisons—that he was not altogether so
great as Shakespeare, 13ut, nevertheless, I have learned
from Wordsworth more as an individual man than I ever
learned from Plato, or even from Shakespeare, Nor all I
unfamiliar with other great poets and great writers of
ancient and modern times. I have mentioned those whom
I should place the first, and therefore you may easily
suppose that of the rest, great as they may be, I cannot
say so much as I have said of these.
What was it, ſirst and foremost, and most important,
which one learned from Wordsworth 2 One learned, I say,
more about Man, and more about Nature, and more about
28o WoRDSWORTHANA.
the union of the two, than is to be learned anywhere else.
That was the lesson which I learned. The sympathy, the
intelligence with which man is regarded and portrayed and
put before his fellow-men throughout the works of Words-
worth is, I think, something unique in all literature. Man
everywhere, man in all conditions—the great, the noble (I
use the word, of course, in a moral and not in the lower
sense)—the noble of the earth, the men called to do illus-
trious deeds and leave in perishable names,—Wordsworth felt
with them and understood their vocation. But not with
them chiefly—with common men, men in every condition
of life, men struggling with infirmity, men struggling with
temptation—and, of course, when I say men, I mean
women too—men falling under vice, men bowed under
sorrow, men almost cast out from the world. None were
cast out from Wordsworth's sympathy. He saw that which
was great, that which was divine, that which was beautiful
pervading them all, in every condition ; and he could make
the lesson of the old Cumberland beggar as touching to the
heart as the lesson of Laodamia, or of Dion, or of any other
great example of public or of private virtue. That, I think,
was a great thing to learn, because there is in the world in
which we live a wonderful annount of distracting force in the
glory and glitter of worldly success, worldly ambition, and
in the miserable inequality of ranks. I do not say this in
any socialistic sense, but I say it in the sense of a man
sympathising with his fellow-men. In all these things there
is a great deal which tends to distract the mind and harden
the heart, and make people forget, after all, that worth makes
the man, the want of it the fellow; and, as Pope said—
“All the rest is leather and prunella. ' -
l'ope taught that in those verses—he said it. at least : but
ZOA'D SEZBORNE'S ADDRESS, 281
I am not at all sure that the moral of Pope's poems was very
much calculated to carry the lesson home to the hearts of
men, I thank him for the truth when he spoke it. Words-
worth speaks the truth, not as a man who comes down to
ride the high horse of ethics over his fellow-nien, but simply
as a poet of human nature. He sets before them in all its
varieties that same real nature which we have in common,
and which we ought to recognise in all, wherever we meet
with it. Now do not be frightened and offended if I may
seem here or there even to drop something which may look
like political allusion. It is not politics in any sense about
which we are likely to differ. But it may be in the recollec-
tion of some of you that a great man—whom I will not
name, for at present I do not agree with him, as I have
often done before—in 1866 offended some people by speak-
ing of the ‘common flesh and blood' which we have with
the general mass of our fellow-countrymen, as a reason why
we should place that degree of trust and confidence in them
which experience, the growth of opinion, the progress of cir-
cumstances, and other things in human affairs dictated when
the time had come. I from my heart and soul felt the ſorce of
the expression, and was by no means one of those who was .
in any way offended by it. I do not, indeed, agree with the
principle that ‘the voice of the people is the voice of God,'
although sometimes the popular instinct is not unlike that
of women—I hope the ladies will pardon me if I pay them
a compliment in one direction which may possibly not
seem so in another, who go straight to the point, passing
over the intermediate stages, and are very often more right
than men who go through them. But to suppose that to be
true as to the whole range of human affairs—that they can
by any possibility, because they have those generous, right
282 IPOA://swok 7:H/AM.A.
kind, true human instincts, always judge rightly about diffi-
cult matters—is not a lesson we are at all taught by Words-
worth, or by any philosophy which involves a true, a right,
a discriminating, as well as a deep sympathy, with human
nature. It is not by flattering people that you will best
show your fellow-feeling; it is not by telling them they
have qualities they have not; that they are what they are
not, or can be what they cannot be ; but it is by making
the most of what you have in common with them as they
are. This is the way in which human sympathy will be
cultivated, and such good done as can be done by the
cultivation of human sympathy, and this Wordsworth teaches
us throughout his writing. He does not teach us by any
means to abandon our judgment in order to indulge our
sympathy. The over-seeing Power of which he is the
preacher is not a “kindling’ power only, but is also one to
“restrain.” - -
So far I have spoken of what one learns about Man.
Now, with regard to Nature, I will merely glance at a point
of the utmost importance, relative to Nature as well as to
man, of which I am reminded by seeing that we are to be
favoured with a paper by Professor Veitch upon a subject
certainly of great interest, and requiring to be handled with
that judgment which I have no doubt will characterise his
way of treating it—“The Theism of Wordsworth.' I have
not the least idea how Professor Veitch is going to treat that
subject, but I cannot help saying some words about it
myself. I am, as I daresay everybody present to whom my
name is not entirely strange knows, a profound believer in.
the truth of the Christiai, religion. That belief has grown
with my growth. The whole experience of my life has
tended to confirm it. The more I meet with statements of
I.ORD SE //ROA'A'E'.S. ...! /) DAA.S.S. 283
difficulties, the more I feel that these are not difficulties
peculiar to Christianity, but that they are difficulties of a
kind incident to the state of probation in which we live, to
the nature of things, and from which, in one form or
another, there is no escape whether you are a Christian, or
whether you are not. But, at all events, I make this profes.
sion before you—not of course for the sake of making it, but
for the sake of what I am going to say upon the subject
of Wordsworth from that point of view. A man who can
say with sincerity what I have just now said must know and
be able to see whether or not there is anything contrary,
anything repugnant, anything at variance with his convic-
tions and his belief in the poetry of Wordsworth. I say
confidently that there is nothing—nothing whatever. If
there were a single point out of harmony with that Christian
belief, I must have felt it. I say there is nothing of the
kind. I mention two poems of which some people may
take a view different from that which I take, poems to
which, at all events, any one speaking upon that subject is
likely to make some allusion. They are ZYuſern A/bey
and the /ntimations of /m/morta/ity, I have met with
people who say of Tintern 21b/gy, ‘This is l'antheism.’
What do they mean by Pantheism 2 Nothing is more easy
than to use a word of that sort in a vague, unintelligible
manner, without any accurate attempt to determine in what
sense it is to be understood. It may possibly be meant
only to signify that which every Christian beligves. Of
course I need not say that one of the universally accepted
axioms of the Christian religion concerning that inscrutable
divine nature in which every Christian believes (though no
Christian pretends to define and comprehend it) is the omni-
presence of God. The mode of that omnipresence, the
284 worpshºok THANA.
conditions under which it exists, we do not know ; but every
Christian, every theist, professes to believe in a Divine
omnipresence, And that belief, beyond all doubt, is set
before us in the most glowing, the most real manner in that
poem of Wordsworth. Technical Pantheism means, if it
means anything at all, the identification of all things
which exist—what we commonly call matter (though I
cannot define what matter is any more than I can define
anything else)—with God. In other words, Pantheism
means the assertion that the universe is God, and therefore
everything is divine. Now there is nothing of that in
Wordsworth, Philosophers may think that is true, or
they may not think so, just as Plato held the idea of a Soul
of the world, that is to say, that there was a central divine
soul. He thought so of every one of the planets and fixed
stars, and in what we call matter he saw the body to that soul.
No ideas of that kind are to be found in Wordsworth ; but
the simple idea of a universal, all-penetrating, all-present,
divine power and influence is there. With regard to the
other beautiful poem, the Intimations of Immortality, I have
heard some very staunch upholders of orthodox dogmatic
teaching find fault with it. All I can say is, I see nothing
in it but this—though in some respects presented in a
ſanciful form—a recognition of the divine origin of the
human soul, And if there is such a thing as a human
soul, it has a divine origin, and whatever there be in it
of true, beautiful, and divine, comes from that origin, and
from that alone. All that I seem to have learned from
Wordsworth. I do not mention it controversially, but I
mention it as part of the education of my mind by the read-
ing of Wordsworth. -
Now to refer to our other subject. I do not like compara-
ZoAD SEZºoKAE's ADDRESS. 285
tive standards in anything. I do not mean that one can help
ranking poets in a certain order of greatness. If I were
asked to name the greatest poets, I should refer to the
general sense of Englishmen, and should place Shakespeare
first—I am not speaking of Homer and the ancients; they
belong to a sphere very distinct, and we should confuse
matters by going so far afield—and I should place Milton
(with some hesitation) second, because there is a certain
greatness about him, which, with many defects, is not
approached by any other writer in our language. And I
should certainly put Wordsworth third. There is a com-
pleteness in the work he has done, a thoroughness, which I
cannot recognise elsewhere. That may be, perhaps, because
I have personally learned so much from him. I say it to
express my own individual feeling. But as I began, so I
conclude. I deprecate comparative standards. It has
often happened to me to hear comparative standards applied
to scenery. . A person expresses his great admiration for
some beautiful scenery. Somebody else says: “ 13ut this
, is nothing like Scotland l’ ‘This is nothing like Switzer.
land ' I do not think a man who talks or feels so has a
true sense for scenery. Of course there is an association
which leads to a kind of comparison ; but I think that
everything has its own proper beauty. I can enjoy the snows
of the Alps, and feel their sublimity; but when I come back
to England, and see our green fields, our stately and
beautiful trees, and all the other charms of our country, I
confess I do not want to have Switzerland here ; I am content
with England, or with Scotland, or with Wales, or with the
Lake country, for they seem to me to have quite enough to
fill one's soul with absolute beauty, and all the better on
account of the variety in which it is portrayed, And so it
286 . Wokosipok 7/I/AAA.
is with regard to poetry. We ought to remember that, in-
stead of its being necessary for one great poet to be like
another, it is just the contrary. The great poet has his own
special and separate vocation; and it is in proportion as
that is true, and he realises and fulfils it, that he is a great
poet. He must be, so far, unlike others. -
I am disposed to admit what I suppose those who criti-
cise Wordsworth would perhaps impute to him as a defect—
that of all great poets he is perhaps the least objective; and,
for that reason, he may sometimes show a want of form and
colour in his poetry. I am not inclined to deny that—
either the general fact, or that the other is, perhaps, its
unavoidable consequence, But although I admit that he is
perhaps the least objective, yet (if it is not a paradox to say
it) I fancy that the poetry of Wordsworth educates the sense
of beauty, especially in regard to scenery and natural objects,
in a degree that no other poetry I know of does. The reason
is not very far to seek. The essence of poetry is not in its
outside, not in its form, not in its colour, not in its music,
Although all of us feel that these are accessories—the cloth-
ing which ought to go with poetry, and that poetry is defective
so far as it has them not, yet, after all, these are the outside.
The essence of beauty is in its more spiritual part ; and
Wordsworth lays hold of the spiritual part of Nature. He
never separates the two. The outward and inward eye see
together. He sees with them both deeply, and he teaches
and helps others to do the same. He is a true artist also,
Although I say that he is a true artist, I am not sure that
I like him best when the artist is most obvious, or when the
art of the artist is obvious. Criticism, whether it be self-
criticism, or criticism of the form of one's own work, or of
anything else in it, is rather an enemy to what is deepest.
LOAD SEZBOAAWE's ADDRESS, 287
and most genuinu in poetry. The greatest poets are at
their worst when they are most self-conscious. If we are to
take it that Shakespeare's plays and sonnets came from the
same hand, all I can say is, that I could not point to a
better illustration of the diſſerence in the degree of greatness
between the poetry which is self-conscious and the poetry
which is not. The sonnets are self-conscious, and I must
say, to my mind, not self-conscious in the most engaging
way; whereas the plays—those wonderful, many-sided, n:lt ll-
ral, and spontaneous outbursts of genius—they exhibit no
self-consciousness at all. So it is with Wordsworth, and yet
he is a very considerable artist. I do not think anybody can
doubt that if we want examples of magnificent form, of
magnificent colour, we may find them in Tintern A//cy and
in the Intima/ions of Z///lorſality, and not in those alone of
his works. Surely there is no poetry of the kind which has
ever surpassed them in these qualities, I may be thought a
heretic by some (Mr. Matthew Arnold is not present, or
might be afraid to say it), but I can enjoy all the small
things as well as the great ones. He seems like an artist
going about, pencil in hand, taking Wayside sketches of the
smallest as well as of the greatest, of the most trivial as well
as of the most sublime, of the pettiest as well as of the most
splendid objects, and he brings them together in a way
which would make many a critic cast this or that sketch
aside with ‘Trifle ! Not worth doing ! Very insignificant ' '
The person who will read them all, and endeavour to enter
into the feeling of all — following the notes of the music
instead of pulling it to pieces—may, I think, see the same
true sense of real beauty, the same feeling of the beauty
of Nature and humanity in all its forms, pervading his
lighter and inferior as well as his greater work. -
288 . IPOWDSII’ow 7/I/AAA.
I have said all that I want to say. I feel that whatever
is true in it you have heard before. If you have not heard
it, possibly you have thought it. The only credit I can take
to myself is that of thoroughly feeling and believing all I
have said.
THE THEISM OF WORDsworth.
By JOHN VEITCH.
THE THEISM of wordsworth.
IF I were to seek to express the main characteristic of the
poetic mood of Wordsworth at its highest reach, I should
say that his mind was open equally to the world of sense
—the finite, and to the sphere of the infinite which borders
and surrounds this world of ours. Most reflective minds
realise both worlds—that the finite is set somehow in the
midst, and as but a part, of infinitude itself. Our own
limitation suggests this. From the sense-world we go out
to the boundless in space, in time, and in power. Our
shortcoming in presence of the moral ideal links us by
a personal bond to the conception of absolute duty and un-
swerving will. Each finite life truly lived passes under the
shadow of infinity. ... " -
But to Wordsworth both spheres were equally real, or
rather the infinite was the more real of the two. In the full
consciousness of infinitude and the limitless, Wordsworth
recalls Lucretius; but there was this difference—with the
ancient poet infinitude was unpeopled, ‘a melancholy space
and doleful time,’ transcending and dwarfing human life and
its powers, holding for it neither love nor sympathy, vacuous
and inéxorable : while with the modern poet it was the abode
of living powers, even ultimately of one supreme Power of
life, closely related to and influencing the soul and heart of
man. Now this sense of the boundless, the transcendent in
292 worpsworzy/Awa.
limit, is one of the most powerful conceptions in Words-
worth's life and poetry. And it is at the root of his theistic
view of the world. It is by no means the whole of this view,
but without it as a direct conception his theism—any theism
in fact—is impossible. This is the frame, as it were, in
which God is to be set ; and without this opening into the
transcendent, the finite world-–the world of our experience
—must remain to us as the whole of reality. But what does
he say?— -
In such strength
Of usurpation, when the light of sense
Goes out, but with a ſlash that has revealed
The invisible world, doth greatness make abode,
There harbours; whether we be young or old,
Our destiny, our being's heart and home,
{ As with infºnitude, and only there ;
With hope it is, hope that can never die,
Effort, and expectation, and desire,
And something evermore to be.
Speaking again of the view from the ascent of Snowdon,
he says— -
tº There I beheld the emblém of a mind
Zhat ſeeds upon in/nity, that broods
Over the dark abyss, intent to hear
Its voices issuing forth to silent light
In one continuous stream ; a mind, sustained
By recognitions of transcendent power,
/u sense conducting to ideal form,
In soul of more than wortal privilege,
There-are several other passages which indicate the same
elevating consciousness, and the ennobling practical, moral
influence of it on his life and poetry. It is especially in . .
these lines:—Hence -
The THEISM of Wordswortſ, 293
an obscure sense
Of possible sublimity, whereto
With growing faculties she doth aspire,
With faculties still growing, feeling still
That whatsoever point they gain, they yet
Have something to pursue.
This feeling was manifest in him even from earliest child-
hood, ‘the disappearing line' of the public highway
that crossed
The naked summit of a far-off hill,
Beyond the limits that my ſect had troël
Was like an invitation into space,
Boundless, or guide into eſernity,
There is in a view of this sort the opening up of the
deepest contrasts in human life, thought, and imagination. . .
We find this brief life of ours standing out as but a small
speck, now bright, now darkened, against the whole of the
past and the future in time; our individual experience and
knowledge set against the boundless possibilities which time
and space may unfold; our selfhood, our personality—
mysterious, deep, and significant as it is—in contrast
somehow not only with the impersonal in things, but with
the great, perhaps ungraspable, conception of selfhood in
the universe. This rising above limit in our experience is
the first breaking, so to speak, with the finite world—the
world of the senses—the sphere of purely earthly regards
and earthly interests, and, in the very realisation of our own
limit, there is revealed to us that far wider and higher
sphere of being which holds for us awe, reverence, and
rebuke, incentives to action here that can never allow us
to rest in the mere contentment of earthly enjoyment or
bounded prospect. Once this sphere dawns upon us, but
294 WoRDSWORTHIANA,
not until it dawns, are we on the way, however devious and
perplexing, by turns in brightness and in shadow, that leads.
to the Presence which men call God. The root-difference
between the mind of the purely earthly man and the God-
visioned man, not the whole difference, but the deepest, is
just this point of the sufficiency or insufficiency of finite
experience—or a bounded life in time. On this point
Wordsworth and Pascal are at one. ‘Man,’ says the latter,
‘ was born only for infinity.’ * -
This, then, is the first stage in the progress of the Poet's
mind to his peculiar theism. . But there is a second even
more important stage. There is a sense, a consciousness of
a power or powers in the infinite sphere which surrounds us,
and of their presence, in some of our moods of mind, to the
senses—certainly to the soul and heart—especially when the
conscience is quickened or alert. There are of course
ordinary passages innumerable in which a sense of powers
higher than the world yet in it is indicated. For example—
Ye Presences of Nature in the sky
And on the earth ! Ye Visions of the hills
And Souls of lonely places,
Moon and stars
Were shining o'er my head. I was alone
And seemed to be a trouble to the peace
That dwelt among them. º
But in this connection there are two passages especially
which recur to the student of Wordsworth,
The first is the memorable passage in the Prelude, in
which the Poet tells us of that night, when rowing alone
on Esthwaite Lake, suddenly -
A huge peak, black and huge,
As if with zoluntary power instinct
C//reared its head. I struck and struck again,
ZWE THEISAſ of Worpsiyokºzy, 295
And growing still in stature the grim shape
Towered up between me and the stars, and still,
For so it seemed, with purpose of its own
And measured motion like a Ziving thing,
Strode after me. . . .
- After I had seen
That spectacle, for many days, my brain
Worked with a dim and undefermlined sense
Of unknown modes of being ; o'er my thoughts
There hung a darkness, call it solitude
Or blank desertion. No familiar shapes
Remained, no pleasant images of trees,
Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields;
But huge and mighty forms, that do not live
Like living men, moved slowly through the mind
By day, and were a trouble to my dreams.
The other passage is when in the night he had thought-
lessly taken, as he tells us, ‘the captive of another's toil.’
When the deed was done
I heard among the solitary hills
Low breathings coming after me, and sound's
Of undistinguishable motion, steps -
Almost as silent as the ſurf they trod.
Let us note here the mingling of reality and indefinitude,
a reality all the more and the more impressive because it is
unaffected by human limits. There was ‘purpose,’ ‘motion,'
‘life,' yet “unknown mode of being ;’ ‘a living thing, that
did not live like living men,” yet ‘mighty,' boundless, un-
circumscribable in its power, before which the individual— .
solitary, alone—confronting it, is as naught. It is real all
the while, yet it is a reality with which thought cannot
cope, and which will cannot withstand. *
In such circumstances an ordinary mind, if impressed at
296 - WORDSWORTHIANA,
all, would have been simply overcome with fear. Wordsworth's
emotion was that of awe-the awe of a new revelation of the
unseen—that cast its shadow over all his imagination, and
solemnised and purified the inner heart of his moral life.
Indeed, in both the instances referred to, the unseen power
was bodied forth as an impersonation of a suddenly quick-
ened and highly sensitive conscience. A link was formed
between the moral world of the finite spirit and the unseen,
as if the soul were in the presence of a higher, purer
consciousness than its own, unknown until suddenly re-
vealed, - -
In its essence this feeling was not new to Wordsworth ; it
was not new to him even in some of the aspects which he
felt and delineated. “Unknown modes of being'—mighty,
limitless by us, surrounding, overshadowing this sense-world
of ours; a consciousness of this kind had been a marked
and powerful influence in the popular feeling and current
ballad literature in the district from the Derwent to the
Tweed. Its hills, glens, wide-spreading solitary moorlands
had nourished it, for nowhere does a m'. feel his own little-
ness more, nowhere does he feel the aveing, purifying
power of solitude and mystery greater than on the far-reach-
ing, often mist-darkened, moorlands of ‘the north cuntré.’
We have it in the expressions of ‘the darke forest, awesome
for to see : ‘the dowie dens' and ‘the dowie houns;’ ‘the
brown’ and “waesome bent,’ and even in ‘the lee'—i.e.
lonesome—light of the moon. This feeling very readily
passed into a sense of supernatural power and presences
surrounding the steps of the traveller, so that we have the
common word ‘eerie” expressing the emotion which comes
from the felt nearness of the super-sensible and the unearthly,
and we have all the long-cherished beliefs regarding that
THE THEISM or worpshorzº, 297
mysterious spirit-world and ‘middle erd’— that ‘other
cuntré, intermediate between heaven and hell—chequered
neither by mortal change or calamity, nor cheered by mortal
hopes, removed from agony and shut out from bliss, which
yet might at any moment flash in weird shape on the lonely
traveller on the moor. The shadow of this lay on the life
of the earliest Border minstrel, Thomas the Rhymer, wait-
ing his call through the years, and then calmly, resignedly
passing, at the beck of the gentle white hart, to the
mysterious land, by a way so awesome and weird:—
O they rade on, and further on,
And they waded through rivers abune the knee,
And they saw neither sun nor moon,
But they heard the roaring o' the sea,
In the fairy ballad of the young Tamlane there are
circumstances and feelings delineated as experienced by the
heroine not essentially different from the imaginative mood
of Wordsworth, as depicted in the passages quoted:—
Gloomy, gloomy was the night,
And eerie was the way :
And fair Janet, in her green mantle,
To Miles Cross she did gae.
The heavens were black, the night was dark,
And dreary was the place ;
But Janet stood with eager wish
IIer lover to embrace.
Betwixt the hours of twelve and one,
21 mor//, wind fore the bent ;
And straight she heard strange elºitch sounds
Opon the wind that went.
Do we not realise here a certain parallel to
The conflict and the sounds that live in darkness,
298 WORDS WoA. THIANA.
or the
º: - Notes that are
The ghostly language of the ancient earth,
. Or make their dim abode in distant winds 7
Obviously this emotional sense of the unseen in the soul
of Wordsworth had its source deep down in a certain
heredity of feeling, due to the past, and nourished by .
circumstances of scenery and of race. In him it was sub-
limed. What had been but a dim working through the
ages on the fears of the older Cymric and Scandinavian
people became in him, as he lived and grew with open and
fervid heart, a revelation of moral and spiritual truth, and
thus an inspiration for mankind. And this was at the root
of his moral and theistic feeling.
Essentially connected with the consciousness of infinitude
in Wordsworth is the tendency to seek to grasp the world
as a whole, to rise to a point above details, to seek relation,
connectedness, unity, in the phenomena of sense; to centre
all phenomena, all appearances, in one—a Unity of Being,
This with Wordsworth is not a mere unity; there is somehow
the consciousness of a Spirit—call it infinite or absolute—
which permeates all the forms of existence, all the world of
created things, working therein as a power, and therein mani-
festing its nature. To this high sense or faith the whole
education of his life, as described especially in the Pre/ude,
unconsciously led him—unconsciously, I mean, as to its
steps and process. In this conviction he found rest, Con-
solation, practical power. It was not with him a process of
conscious seeking; it was rather a process of conscious
finding through the abandonment of himself to the gradual
revelation of a Personality higher than his own, that hovered
over him from his infancy, and spoke to him in many ways
THE THEISM of Wordsworzº, 299.
ere he knew the Speaker, and finally realised the Presence
that filled the temple of earth and heaven. - -
The questions here arise—(1) What precisely was the
nature of this unity, the sense or consciousness of which so
powerfully influenced the thought and imagination of Words-
worth? (2) How generally did it arise in his mind, and
with what guarantee or warrant? - - -
Now, on the first of these points we must keep in mind
that there are three, and but three, views of this world of
our experience, and its relation to what may transcend it.
We may hold, first, the simple independence of each fact in
the world—that all is originally unconnected, single, iso-
lated; any connection which now subsists has arisen through
accident—call it chance, custom, association, In the words
of David Hume, ‘Things are conjoined but are not con-
nected.’ Iaws would mean on such a system merely the
common modes in which things have, without guiding prin-
ciple, come to be uniformly associated. This, is Atheism
in the proper sense of the term. It is the absence or
denial of the €eós, Ultimate Principle, or God. This view.
is, I need not say, alien to the whole spirit of Wordsworth,
who constantly proclaims the inter-connectedness of the
outward world—the action and reaction between Man and
Nature—and the unity of the scheme of which these are
parts. In its moral and spiritual consequences this theory
is not less opposed to the teaching of Wordsworth, for, in
making each thing independent, it makes it self-sufficient,
and it entirely ignores the question of origin, as it precludes
any question of destiny. But what says the Poet?
I was only then
Contented, when with bliss ineffable
I felt the sentiment of Being spread
3OO
WORDSWOR THIANA,
Every reader of the Prelude knows how powerful was the
influence of Coleridge on the mind and heart of Words-
worth at the period of his life when that poem was written
But there is no point on which Coleridge
and his sympathetic rather than intelligent acquaintance with
the rising Absolutism of the Germany of the time impressed
Wordsworth more than in the matter of the transcendental
unity of being. He says, speaking of Coleridge and his
(1799 to 1805).
O'er all that moves and all that seemeth still ;
O'er all that, lost beyond the reach of thought
And human knowledge, to the human eye
Invisible, yet liveth to the heart;
O'er all that leaps and runs, and shouts and sings,
Or beats the gladsome air; o'er all that glides
Beneath the wave, yea, in the wave itself,
And mighty depth of waters. Wonder not
If high the transport, great the joy I ſelt,
Communing in this sort through earth and heaven
With every form Öf creature, as it looked
Towards the Uncreated with a countenance
Of adoration, with an eye of love.
One song they sang, and it was audible,
Most audible, then, when the fleshly ear,
O ercome by humblest prelude of that strain,
Forgot her functions, and slept undisturbed.
superiority to the ordinary way of looking at things—
And we have a characteristic passage of the so-called
To thee, unblinded by these formal acts,
The unity of all hath been revealed.
‘speculative' order in lines like these :—
Hard task, vain hope, to analyse the mind,
If each most obvious and particular thought,
Not in a mystical and idle sense,
But in the words of Reason deeply weighed,
Hath no beginning. -
THE THEISM of Wordsworth, 30.
The Poet's own good sense and strong concrete sym-
pathy, fortunately for himself and his poetic work, speedily
stayed this line of confusion between the relations in time
and the beginningless beyond intelligibility.
In the second place we may admit—may be driven to
admit—that there is more in things than accidental con-
junction; that somehow one thing is through another thing;
that there are essential connections; that there are ends,
even purposes, reasons, in the order and arrangements of
things. This leads us to the conception of a Power—a
Power of some sort—transcending experience, yet, it may
be, working in it. This is entirely opposed to the atheistic
or atomistic view of the world. There is a Power above
things, more than things—a Power which subsists while .
these pass; and through the working, unconscious or con-
scious, of this Power things are as they are. But here
there are two subordinate views, for we may regard this one
transcendent Power as unconscious or conscious. It is, on
either supposition, a substantial or abiding Power; under-
lying all, working through all that is, has been, or will be.
But if not conscious of itself and its workings, it is an im-
personal force; and it matters little whether it be regarded
as known or unknowable by us. On this I may remark in
passing there has been a great deal of useless controversy;
but it is obvious that no force which is allowed to manifest
itself can be unknowable—even unknown ; for in its mani-
festations it is, and these are known by us. It might be
added even that that which does not manifest itself in some
form is not, is never, actually. On the other hand, if the
transcendent Power be conscious—conscious of itself, con-
scious of its workings—it is a personal power, with intellect
and will—shall I say emotion ? For I am not now speaking
302 WoRosworząſawa,
anthropologically, I am speaking analogically, and, as I hope
to show, strictly in conformity on this point with the view of
Wordsworth. I am simply using words which, however
inadequate, are the best we have to indicate the character of
the transcendent reality. This is the proper Theistic view.
Now the position of Wordsworth lies, as it were, within
the scope of the last-mentioned view. He holds by a Unity,
a transcendent yet manifested Unity, a Unity amid a multi-
plicity, yet not a blind or unconscious power; a Spirit, Soul,
Personality, yet not as the human—not a magnified man.
This is the ground, the reason, the living, quickening prin-
ciple of things—of Nature and Man alike. Of Him we may
rise to consciousness, and He may become to us a source
of inspiration, imaginative, moral, and spiritual, giving us
Truths that wake to perish never, -
The other view, the Pantheistic, Wordsworth would have
repudiated—not perhaps on what may be called speculative
grounds, but simply from the feeling that it is utterly unsuited
to our experience—in fact, contradictory of it. The specu-
lative difficulties of it he might not have appreciated or even
apprehended. That a formless, indeterminate force should
be, and should pass, one knows not why or how, into the
formed, definite, unending variety of the beautiful world;
that the conscious should rise out of the unconscious ;
that the individual self-conscious, the personality of man,
should spring from the abyss of formless, undirected energy,
—all this Wordsworth would probably not have thought of
But brought face to face with facts, he would certainly have
recognised the essental incongruity of the alleged worthless-
ness of the individual in the world; the indifference of his
existence before the supreme Power; his coming and going
without care or love or concern on the part of the Absolute;
THE THEISM of Wordsworth. 303
the worthlessness, even absurdity, of individual effort after
moral and spiritual progess, in face of the certainty of final
absorption in the formless abyss out of which each one has
come we know not how, and to which each one can but
return and be no more—the evil as the good, the good as
the evil. All this he would feel and recognise, for the . .
one central conception of his moral theory was the worth of
the individual—of man as man; the deep sense of personal
responsibility for character and effort; above all, the con-
scious relation of the human to the divine. Higher minds
Are Powers; and hence the highest bliss
That flesh can know is theirs; the consciousness
Of Whom they are, habitually infused
Through every image and through every thought,
And all affections by communion raised
From earth to heaven, from human to divine.
On the scheme of Pantheism, man—the finite, conscious
spirit—is both an accident and an anomaly. There is no
reason for the being of a conscious personality on the hypo-
thesis of an Absolute which is in itself unconscious ; and,
effort to develop this personality in the line of the higher,
intellectual, moral, spiritual life is merely to violate the law
of its being, eventually to court disaster and pain in the
process of final absorption within the unconscious. Indi-
viduality and freedom are the haunting shadows and the
mockery of such a life. Wordsworth's view, on the other
hand, is that man, taken at his highest and best, is the
nearest type to God, and that every step we take in nobler
eſſort is a stage of assimilation with the Divine. -
What I have said of the nature of the Theism of Words-
worth may be proved and illustrated by reference to pas-
Sages with which all are familiar. I merely indicate briefly
3o4 WoRDSWORTHANA.
the points in those passages which bear on the matter in
hand. One of the strongest and most pertinent is in the
first book of the Prelude, and therefore written as early as
1799, which begins with the lines— . -
- Wisdom and Spirit of the universe :
Thou Soul that art the Eternity of thought,
And givest to forms and images a breath
And everlasting motion, not in vain
By day or starlight thus from my first dawn
Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me
The passions that build up our human Soul;
Not with the mean and vulgar works of man,
3ut with high objects, with enduring things—
With life and nature—purifying thus
The elements of feeling and of thought,
And sanctifying, by such discipline,
Both pain and fear, until we recognise
A grandeur in the beatings of the heart, -
There is here the consciousness of a transcendent Spirit,
a spiritual Power above and beyond the order of experience.
It is Soul, living Soul or Spirit, analogous thus to us, to our
spirit, yet in contrast to ours and all its workings, for it is
‘the Eternity of Thought,'—not the mere everlastingness of
successive thoughts in time, not the mere order of percep-
tions or thoughts ever going on, not a mere perpetual series .
. of relations—but ‘the Eternity of Thought,’ the ground, the
substratum, the very permanent in all thinking. It is in
contrast to our finitude, to our successive thinkings, grop-
ings, in time, until we get what we call ‘the truth;’ it is ‘the
Eternity,' the Soul or Consciousness above time and succes-
sion and finite effort or struggle, in whom all this is grasped
and held, as it were, in one indivisible act. It is, in the
language of Aristotle, the Oeſs—the one Eternal Energy.
And as Plato put intelligence first, and as grounding all
7RE THEISM OF WORDSWOAZII. 305
things, so the Poet in his own method sets. Man and
Nature as grounded and inspired by the Eternal Soul.
But though transcendent in itself, in a sense above experi-
ence, it is not a caput mortuum, or empty abstraction. It is
not even a power dwelling apart, set high up in the heavens,
no one knows where or truly what. It lays its touch upon
earth, on what we call the outward or material world, and
on what we name the soul of man. -
Thou givest to forms and images a breath
And everlasting motion;
and through these—in a word, through the outward and
symbolical world—this Soul that is the “Eternity of Thought,’
that gives breath to the passing scene around us—
Intertwines for us
The passions that build up our human soul. $
And thus we share in its workings, are drawn into com-
munion with the Transcendent Spirit, and ‘pain and fear
are sanctified for us,’ and we no longer are mere passing,
individual organisms, but a link in the life, the solemn life,
within the fold of the Eternal Thought; and so we rise in
the scale of being, and ‘recognise a grandeur in the beatings
of the heart.” - &
In the classical lines, Tintern Abbey, written about the
same time (1798), we have the sense of the nearness, the
immediacy, so to speak, of the mysterious Spirit of all
emphasised—
. . - I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interſused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man :
- U -
306 wordsworth/AWA.
A Motion and a Spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things,
I do not see that the Poet has given us any theory of the
mode of this touch of the Eternal Spirit, the how of the
connection between the infinite and the finite. In this he
was right, eminently sound and healthful in feeling. Indeed
obviously no such theory can be given on a doctrine which
makes the touch that of a Power which is essentially super-
human, and not to be formulated in the language of the
modes of human consciousness. There is ‘the burthen of
the mystery of this unintelligible world ; ' unintelligible to
the mere understanding of man. Of any such attempt there
is but one or other of two results—the transcendent ceases
to be God; or man, the finite, usurps the place of the In-
finite, and becomes the only ultimate reality. There is
either the degradation of God or the deification of man ;
and this is but another expression for the degradation of
God. I know no theory of the relation of Infinite to finite
which is not merely a wandering in cloudland. True
philosophy is not that all things—yes and no—are true;
sound ethics is not that all things—good and evil—are good;
and true theology is not that God is all things—Man and
AWature—or that all things is God. Yet no theory of the
necessary emanation of the finite from the Infinite can
escape these consequences; and unless it be necessary, it is
not a reasoned or demonstrated theory; it is simply a matter
of faith, of analogy, and probability.
I shall not take up your time with any detailed reference
to the Ode on Zntimations of Ammortality from A^ecollections
of AEarly Childhood, but it is impossible wholly to pass it by
in this connection. In it we have the Poet's fullest, most
THE THEISM OF WoRDSWORTH, 30,
explicit statement of the intuition of God, and, so far, of
man's relation to Him ; the assertion of the pre-existence of
the soul; the hope of immortality; the prefigurement of an
unearthly life:–
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar :
Not in entire forgetſulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.
There is ‘the soul that rises with us, our life's star,' as if
the body and the bodily life were simple accidents, con-
ditions which allow the God-descended, God-given soul to
accommodate itself to the brief passing through this time-
limited world. It hath set before, to rise again with us, the
individual. It is ours, and we are in it; but it holds more
of heaven than of earth, more of God than of us. It is but
as a wanderer from its home, orphaned until it again returns
to God, and dwells with Him in His presence, in that sphere
of light, and knowledge, and love, from which it had so
mysteriously emerged, almost fallen. Our relation to earth
is represented very much as that of a guest, a wayfarer, to
whom earth is kind:— -
The homely Nurse doth all she can
To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man,
Forget the glories he hath known,
And that imperial palace whence he came.
The impress of our origin and destiny is on us in the child-
hood time. The soul is not originally a mere tabula rasa,
or blank sheet of paper, on which Nature has to write its im-
pressions. It is not a mere receptacle for the tracings of
the senses, so that the greatest reach of our knowledge after-
308 WoRDSWORTHANA.
wards is only the combining and generalising of these; and
the very possibility of the notions of God, and personality, and
immortality, and all purely moral and spiritual conceptions is
absolutely excluded even from our consciousness. From
our very birth we have a certain community with God, and
this is shown most in the simplicity of heart which is self.
contained and self-contented, almost self-joyous, while
IIeaven lies about us in our infancy,
and ‘the earth' and “every common sight’ is
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
But there is more than this: there is the feeling and the
glimpse of a type or ideal over all our life, towards which,
from this early revelation, we are almost constrained to aspire.
Gradually the world comes in, and this ideal fades, but is
never absolutely lost; it never wholly dies, and we have as
the very saving of our life all through this worldliness—
Those obstinate questionings
Oſ sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realised.
It is thus -
those first affections,
Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may,
Are yet the fountain light of all our day,
Are yet a master light of all our seeing ;
Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence,
Their issue, their final teaching, is—
The faith that looks through Death.
THE THEISM of Worps WoRTH, 309
Of the intensity of the Nature-feeling in childhood alleged
by Wordsworth, it may fairly enough be said that it does not
hold universally. But I set little store on this as discredit-
ing or derogating from the importance of the feeling where
it does exist. The physical organisation, with its peculiarities
in individuals, has rauch to do both with the furtherance and
the repression of natural intuition and feeling. Man is by
no means a mere mind, and even the natural outflowings of -
mind are greatly modified and determined by bodily con-
ditions. That a special feeling or form of intuition does
not appear at a particular stage is no proof either that it is
unnatural or that it has not a latent reality,
But this may be said, that the intensity of the Nature-feeling
alleged by Wordsworth is not sufficient to found a proof, if
we may use that expression, of its relation to former percep-
tions or intuitions in a previous state of existence. This
reference, indeed, may be taken as a poetic way of putting
the truth of the first fresh intuition of the outward world as
fulfilling in various ways certain primary intellectual and
emotional needs of our own nature—eliciting the free, fresh
outflow of the faculties, soothing the heart, touching the
imagination, giving us the impression that we have not been
ushered into a strange land, uncouth and bewildering, but
into a sphere where has been at work, and is still working,
the same Hand which is felt in this inner, conscious life of
ours. The Poet himself has touched this very point when
he speaks of
- that calm delight
Which, if I err not, surely must belong
To those first-born affinities that ſit
Our new existence to existing things,
And in our dawn of being constitute
The bond of union between life and joy.
3 Io º WORDS WOR7A/WAAVA.
And infancy or youth is here a relative term. We may not
have the feeling in childhood; it may come at a later period
of life; but when it comes, it brings with it youth—a new-
born spirit, which will survive all through life as a glory which
never fades, and a heart which never grows old. And every .
time we feel the presence of the Transcendent Power in
things, there is a freshening of all the springs of life. I do not
think I use exaggerated or inappropriate language when I
say that to such a heart the journeying through this often
arid and conventional world is as if by the banks of a river,
the streams of which do glad the city of our God.
To a man of the type of Condillac or David Hume, to
any one whose whole view and feeling of the universe is
merely that it is a series of sense-impressions, sensations, per-
ceptions—associated, generalised, transformed,—the gospel
of the Ode on the Intimations of Immortality must appear.
simply meaningless drivel—in a word, ‘foolishness.” Yet
to Wordsworth the reminiscence and the intuition of the
Divine Reality and the Transcendent Ideal are as real as
any sense-impression, and a great deal more influential on
the regulation of life, moral and spiritual, than either a series
of impressions, or any prudential code of ethics generated
out of them—any rules for the avoidance of pain and the
Securing of pleasure. Such a conception, such an ideal
as that which overshadowed, solemnised, purified, and
clevated the soul of Wordsworth in that immortal Ode, and
in those other kindred utterances which might be quoted,
withered to the core self-seeking and prudential calculation,
and strengthened and beautified this earthly life with a wholly
unique sense of the littleness and yet the grandeur of self, as
a travelling not from grave to grave, but from God to God.
This Theistic view of Wordsworth is not, as I have
THE THEISM of Wordsworzā. 311
remarked, anthropomorphic in the ordinary sense of that
word. While the ‘essence of it is the recognition of a
Spirit in the world, and in man, and above both, it is a long
way removed from the kind of conceptions that ruled
Greek and Roman mythology. The Spirit he feels has no
taint of earthly passion, nor is it to be measured by human
intelligence. It is not fashioned merely in this image. It
is something above and beyond, yet in Nature and man.
In the sonnet to the -
Brook, whose society the Poet seeks,
we have one of the finest and subtlest expressions of this
relationship:— -
It seems the Eternal Soul is clothed in thee
With purer robes than those of flesh and blood,
And hath bestowed on thee a better good ;
Unwearied joy, and life without its cares.
No word is more ambiguously employed than the term
anthropomorphic. It is thought a sufficient objection to
Theism to say that it makes God anthropomorphic, An-
thropomorphic may be taken as meaning fashioned exactly
as man is—conceived as to personality, intelligence, and
will,—or as we find man to be, but somehow indefinitely or
infinitely greater than man. If IDeity be regarded as in-
finitely greater than a conscious personality, as above limit
in intelligence, above law of thought and conceived law of
being, then undoubtedly we have a contradiction ; for we
cannot conceive either consciousness or personality wholly
without limit, definiteness, or determination. And a God
merely man, but indefinitely greater than man, is no true
Deity. But anthropomorphic in the sense that Deity, as
an object of thought, must be regarded in and through the
312 Wordsworząſawa.
highest conceptions of our experience—that is, self-con-
sciousness, personality, intelligence, free-will, generally con-
scious activity—this every theory of Theism must assume,
If Deity is to be held an object of knowledge at all, as
anything more than a mere indefinite, limitless substratum
of substance—a mere caput mortuum, or at best indefinable
force—the conception must have in it those features, must
reflect them in their highest reach and purity. We at least
must think of Him through these, if we are to think of Him
at all. Anthropomorphic, therefore, in this sense, Deity is,
and is conceived by us to be. This is the true meaning of
the scholastic phrase ex eminentiá as opposed to actualiter.
In a word, Deity, if cognisable, is cognisable only through
relation or analogy to what is highest, best, most perfectly
formed in our experience. This will be found to be mind—
conscious being—in its ultimate ground of free power or
self-activity. He is
A Power
That is the visible quality and shape
And image of Right Reason.
He is this, for the simple reason that He, the highest
Power of all, cannot be less than we are or can conceive at .
our best, Wordsworth's view of the Eternal Soul, while it
is opposed to a literal anthropomorphism, is not, as seems
to me, opposed to the view that this. Soul flows into and
ſills all our highest conceptions; but it is a fountain whose
overſlow no human vessel can contain. -
There thus seems to be no incompatibility between the
Theism of Wordsworth as expressed in his general poems
and the views to which he gives utterance in the Ecclesi.
asſica/ Sonneſs, These, while breathing a pure, Solemn, .
elevating spirit, have never appeared to me to be pervaded
THE 7/IEISAſ of WoRosivorzh, 313
with the native inspiration and characteristic suggestion of
the Poet's genius and imaginative growth. They reflect his
historical and traditional feeling. But the Church forms
and service, even the doctrines of the Personality of God,
His manifestation in Christ, the sense of sin and the
quickening of the Holy Spirit, are readily folded in the
embrace of the Poet's Theism. This takes in all that is .
highest in these, keeps it while it transcends it. These are
for us the best and highest definite expressions of what is
necessarily transcendent, not adequate even to this tran-
scendency; but they contain the profoundest symbolism for
us, and so thoroughly the essence of the true, that while in
the ages to come, in this life or in another, this aspect of
the highest reality, while it may be sublimed, will never be
contradicted by aught to be evolved. . . -
After all this it may be said that this view of Wordsworth
may be only a peculiarity of his experience as an individual ;
it may be something which he has felt and known, but
which no one else is likely to feel or know. It may, in a
word, be valid for the individual, but not for mankind,
This touches the question of the warrant or guarantee for
the view of the Poet. Now on this generally I should like
to say that we ought to keep in mind one pre-requisite, one
condition of all knowledge, and that is the possession of a
certain degree of faculty, and the placing of ourselves in
circumstances in which this faculty may have play or exer-
cise. It is so in the sphere of the senses. The eye must
be there to recognise form and colour. For the colour-
blind, diversity in colour does not exist. The ear must be
there to hear sound, and it must be attuned to harmony,
ere harmony exists for it. The man who lives absorbed in
the material world knows nothing of the world of mind or
314 -- WORADS WOR THAAAWA.
consciousness, its modes, forms, varieties, which neverthe-
less is his very self. A man may live all his days, and
never know what he is ; never know the spiritual world
within him; never rise beyond organic impulses. Yet
there is a possibility of colour, and sound, and experience
of the spiritual world, whether the individual has the faculty
for the two former or not, whether he turn in upon himself
or not. It is possible even that circumstances, heredity, the
power of the organic life in us, may, partly through the
power of the past, and partly through the circumstances of
the individual, shut him out from a whole world of reality,
and that of the highest, purest, noblest kind,-nay, from the
knowledge of his true or highest self. And just as the
prophet, the seer of old, was needed to recall men to the
reality of things—the insight of moral and spiritual truths,
—so the scer-poet in these times may be needed to open
the eyes of mankind through his individual vision to what
is a universal reality, even the common though foregone
heritage of the race. This is what Wordsworth believed he
did, and I for one venture to think that he was right in so
believing. What does he say of his vision and himself?
In his solitary walks at Cambridge he felt
Incumbencies more awful, visitings
Of the Upholder of the tranquil soul,
That tolerates the indignities of Time,
And, from the centre of Eternity
All finite motions overruling, lives
In glory immutable. . . . *
I had a world about me--'twas my own ;
I made it, for it only lived to me, -
And to the God who sees into the heart. . . .
Some called it madness—so indeed it was,
If childlike fruitſulness in passing joy,
THE THEISM of Wordswox TH, 315
If steady moods of thoughtfulness matured
To inspiration, sort with such a name;.
If prophecy be madness; if things viewed
By poets in old time, and higher up
By the first men, earth's first inhabitants,
May in these tutored days no more be seen
With undisordered sight.
Again, poet, like prophet, has “a sense that fits him 'to
perceive “objects unseen before.’ -
Prophets of Nature, we to them will speak
. A lasting inspiration, Sanctified
By reason, blest by faith : what we have loved
Others will love, and we will teach them how.
Wordsworth was what is known as individual or individu-
alistic in the highest degree. There is not one personality
as a writer in this century more singularly unique than his,
But his individuality was not an idiosyncracy; it was not
abnormal, or merely subjective. Rather it was normal,
and of the highest type. We speak of two selves in man,
and we do so rightly. There is the lower self, finding its
gratification in worldly interest, commonplace objects, and,
it may be, low passion ; the everyday self, dwelling in its
little world, its microcosm, which it mostly values for itself,
and which finally cncloses it as a bounded prisoner.
There is, however, a higher self—unworldly, spiritual,
reverential,—living under the shadow of the Unseen ;
keenly alive to all suggestions from the transcendent and
supersensible world; seeing faces looking, as it were,
through the veil of sense; living more in this consciousness
than in the ordinary worldly routine; prizing it, in fact, as
the true life. In most people this higher self is but a
wavering ideal that comes and goes, with only a temporary
316 - WORDSWORTHANA.
influence. The characteristic of Wordsworth was that this
was the highest, strongest, most constant power in his life,
In this lay his individuality, but as such it was a typical
individuality, normal in the highest degree; representative,
not certainly of what is common among the individuals of .
the race, but representative of what is certainly the true
type of human life, of what that life ought to seek and to
be. And if such a man habitually, or even in his frequently
recurring best moments, felt and knew a Transcendent
Power in the world around him, in his own soul, as a divine
but very real atmosphere of the higher life, we may well
suppose that this is a catholic element, not a peculiarity of
the individual, but open to every man who has singleness
of vision and purity of heart. ‘Blessed are the pure in
heart, for they shall see God.' ' º
Wordsworth had a strong feeling regarding intuitions or
primary truths as a revelation and a strength to man. To
these book-lore was in his view wholly secondary. This
opinion was held by him even perhaps to exaggeration,
But it is in this line that we are to seek what for him
at least was the ultimate warrant of the faith in the one
abiding Transcendent Power manifested in all things. And
it is something to have the testimony of a pure, unworldly
spirit to the consciousness, at least, of such a reality, amid
the blindness, heedlessness, limited and noisy worldly self-
content of our own time.
The Transcendent Power which held Wordsworth through
life was not discovered by him, or got through a process of
dialectical exercise; it was revealed to him as a Being ex-
ternal to himself, which laid its hand-upon him absolutely,
overpoweringly. The light which shone and the voice
which called from heaven on Saul of Tarsus were not more
THE THEISM OF WORDSWORTH, 317
distinctly influences which unconditionally seized and
swayed the apostle than was the Power in the outward
world which surrounded, revealed itself, and made the poet-
seer its own, its daily vassal and its impassioned voice—
Speaking no dream but things oracular,
On that memorable morning after the night's dance and
rural festivity, when the dawn rose before him in ‘memor-
able pomp,' he tells us—
My heart was full ; I made no vows, but vows
Were then made for me ; bond unknown to me
Was given, that I should be, else sinning greatly,
A dedicated Spirit.
Wordsworth, to sum up what I have said, seems to me to
stand in two great relations to thought—past and present,
to mediaeval mysticism, and to modern science.
In the first place, what he felt and taught was not a mere
mystical intuition of a God or Being apart from the world,
leading to absorption in His contemplation, love, and
worship, but the consciousness of the Divine as present in
the world of sense, speaking through it to the soul, and thus
directly regulating the life in the present—raising the actual
world to the divine,—not depreciating it, or leading to its
being regarded as worthless, something to be despised and
crucified. His point of view is indeed the highest reach of
the reaction of the modern spirit against that unhealthy
phase of mediaevalism, not yet extinct among us, which
regarded the earth and earthly things of whatever sort as
vile, to be eradicated and stamped out of human life.
Wordsworth fused for us the spirit of worship and the
spirit of imagination—religion and poetry, 11c saved us
from substituting .
3.18 WoRDSIVOATHIANA,
. . - A universe of death -
For that which moves with light and life informed,
Actual, divine, and true.
In the second place, we may be disposed to ask in these
times: Is science the only interpretation of Nature ? does it
tell us all we can know about it? Science is no doubt an
interpretation in this way, that the intellect comes to the aid
of sense, and discovers the relations among things, and the
ideas which things exemplify. But we must keep in mind
that those ideas, those relations, are not themselves sensible
things, although without them these things are to us meaning-
less. Is it a great stretch to ask one to go a little further in
the line of unpicturable relations, to rise a little higher above
impressions to ideas, and to inquire whether the gathered
uniformities of science are not themselves to be run back to
a system ruled by an intellectual conception and dependent
on transcendental power P This would be to go above or
beyond science, but the procedure is not unscientific ; it is
the simple carrying out of what science itself postulates for
its own existence, the application of those unpicturable, even
unverifiable, notions of time and space, and cause and end,
without which science cannot move a step; for whatever is
universal in truth is unverifiable in our actual experience.
What Wordsworth found, what was revealed to him as an
intuition—not an inference certainly,–was the simple cor-
relative of the cosmos, of the ordered system, the one order-
ing power, the Océs. His was the science of science, the
knowledge of knowledge. In this relation one word more,
Science, in its true essence, has always sought the universal.
It has sought this by different methods and in different
spheres, but always the universal; so Plato, so Aristotle,
This, at least, was their common aim. With them it was the
ZXE ZEISAſ of WoRDSiWowzº. 319
necessary, therefore the universal, Bacon sought the same
thing by generalisation from particulars. There was still
another form of interpretation left unapplied. This Words-
worth gave. He read the appearances of sense into moral or
spiritual truths, thus finding in the individual, shifting forms
of the sense-world ideas fitted to regulate and elevate the
higher life of man, and so rising above not only sense but
individual appearances to universal, unchangeable truths.
He showed that those moral and spiritual lessons are in the
outward things, are at least the product of the interaction of
Nature and mind, are true and real meanings, are open and
designed for us to learn, and that, as the prophet of old
revealed new truth, so the seer-poet opens even to ordinary
vision this constant, this profound, this all-hallowing revela-
tion. And thus Poetry came to complete Science, to show
that in and through phaenomena there is a community of
knowledge between man and God, a community of con-
sciousness in ‘the Eternity of Thought,’ a fellowship even
of moral and spiritual feeling. a * . . .
There are many ennobling practical lessons and rules of
life which ſlow from the theism and general religious system
of Wordsworth. But among these, the highest, that which
truly involves all the others, is the lightening of the “burthen
of the mystery’ of the s
IIeavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
this world which for the understanding of man presents so
many insoluble problems. It is the yielding
That serene and blessed mood
In which the affections gently lead us on,-
Until the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
3ao - wordswox7F/AAA.
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul ;
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony and the deep power of joy.
We see into the life of things.
Wordsworth does not here point to that sublimity of char-
acter which is found in a dignified and reasoned acceptance of
the inevitable, yielding even a complacency which enables a
man to turn to the sunnier side of things and break into song.
He leads rather to the composure which arises from a faith
whose reſlective and scrutinising eye pierces ‘the cloud of
destiny,’ and is nourished by what it feels is beyond and
above it. There is all the difference between ‘putting by
and seeing beyond. -
Faith in liſe endless, the sustaining thought
Of human being, Eternity, and God,
Meanwhile let this be our rule of life –
Iºnough, if something from our hands have power
To live and act, and serve the future hour;
And if, as toward the silent tomb we go,
Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower,
We feel that we are greater than we know.
POETs who HELPED TO FORM
worDSworTH's STYLE.
J3 y ALFRED A.INGER.
POETS WHO HELPED TO FORM
WORDSWORTH'S STYLE,
ALL serious students of Wordsworth are well acquainted
with those Prefaces to the Lyrical Ballads, in which he set
forth and defended his famous theory of “Poetic Expression.’
We all know how admirable was the reformation he there
defended, and also how somewhat rash and unguarded was
the language he used in doing so. His friend Coleridge
entered into the controversy, and we possess in his Biogra-
Ahia Literaria a criticism of Wordsworth's theories, perhaps
of its kind the most searching, complete, and satisfactory in
the whole range of critical literature. He maintains, as you
will doubtless remember, that Wordsworth's practice was ex-
cellent, but that his defence of it was open to grave question.
For Wordsworth had asserted that there should be no dif.
ference whatever between the language of poetry and that of
everyday life, and Coleridge set himself to show (and I think
we may say succeeded in showing) that the language of
Wordsworth's poetry, even when it was simplest and freest
from the conventional poetic diction of the eighteenth-century
versifiers, was still far removed from the colloquial English
of the humbler classes, which he yet claimed to have used
without modification. y
No doubt Coleridge was right: Wordsworth in his Apologia
324 WOADSWOAZ H/AAA : POEZS WHO HAZPEZ)
had attempted to prove too much. His case reminds us of
the famous advice said to have been given by a judge of long
experience to one who was a novice on the bench: ‘Never
give reasons for your decisions. Your decisions will probably
be right; your reasons will probably be wrong. Of course
I do not make the sweeping assertion that all reasons
Wordsworth advanced for his usage were wrong. But
Coleridge saw, and we can see with him, that they prove too
much. We shall admit this if we recall that even of good
prose, the best prose of literature, it cannot be said that it is
identical, or ought to be, with the prose of everyday life.
When we sit down to write an essay or a story, we are bound
to excrcise a care in the use of language, and to introduce
a more choice vocabulary than when we discuss the last even-
ing's entertainment over the breakfast-table of the morning.
There is a ſine line of Boileau's in his Art Poéſique, which
seems to me to put the matter in a nut-shell—
Le style le moins noble a pourtant sa noblesse
(‘The humblest of styles has a nobility which must be
respected'). In this, as in other spheres of human life and
conduct, noblesse oblige. -
It is possible, however, to make too much of Wordsworth's
statements in defending his theory of poetic expression.
There is no doubt whatever as to what he meant when he
denounced that poetic phraseology which for nearly a
hundred years had cramped and hindered the development
of true poetic insight in the verse-writers of England. From
the time of Pope, those who passed for poets in England, with
some eminent and noteworthy exceptions, had gone on copy-
ing, not from Nature, but from one another. ‘It is remark-
able,” writes Wordsworth in one of the Prefaces just referred
Z'O FOAM WORDSWORTH's Szy/E, 325
to, ‘that, excepting the Nocturnal Reverie of Lady Winchil-
sea, and a passage or two in the Windsor Forest of Pope, the
poetry of the period intervening between the publication of
the Paradise Zost and the Seasons does not contain a single
new image of external nature; and scarcely presents a
familiar one from which it can be inferred that the eye of
the Poet had been steadily fixed upon his object, much less
that his feelings had urged him to work upon it in the spirit
of genuine imagination.’ Well, this assertion perhaps par.
takes of the exaggeration that too often marks Wordsworth's
language in speaking of his predecessors, but we cannot deny
that it is substantially true, And the practice thus described
—of not looking at Nature with their own eyes, but of borrow-
ing the aspects of Nature (or what were supposed to be such)
from one another—this practice was of course at the root of
that conventional language, that “poetic diction,’ which by
Wordsworth's day had become vapid and nauseous beyond
bearing. This was inevitable. As long as Nature is not
watched and noted at first-hand, it is clear that the same
words, epithets, and phrases will serve over and over again
to describe her. Just reflect what this ‘poetic diction'
really was. Even from men of genuine poetic sensibility,
even from Goldsmith, and Gray, and Thomson, we might
compile a complete vocabulary or glossary of this poetic
language. Out of this “poetic diction' we might construct a
poetic dictionary. Let us recall a few of such stereotyped
words and phrases. In the poets I have in mind a girl is
a nymph, and her lover a swain ; a poet is a bard; a traveller
always a pilgrim ; the air in motion is the gale ; a wood is a
grove; birds are songsters or the feathered choir; any distant
view in the country is the ſandscape; a country house is a
&ower; a person living alone always a her/hiſ, and so forth ;
326 WOAZOS WOAZ ZAIANA : POETS WHO I/EZ PED
and a list of the poetic epithets that occur over and over
again, such as ‘odorous,” and ‘vernal,' and ‘purling’ could
be indefinitely extended. This was what constituted, in
fact, the stock-in-trade, the capital of any ingenious wit or
‘eminent hand” who set up as poet; and the strong family
likeness among those writers, under the circumstances, is
not to be wondered at. Most of the minor verse of the
eighteenth century consisted in ‘ringing the changes’ upon
these substantives and adjectives, and many others like unto
them. And the secret (a very open one) of this poetic style
is certainly the direct antithesis of Wordsworth's. For it
lay in not using for poetic purposes the language of every
day. It lay in not calling a tree a tree, a field a field, a
Wind a wind—in fact, in not calling a spade a spade.
We may sometimes have wished that Wordsworth had
been somewhat more explicit, and had told us how and
when he first made the discovery that the tyranny of long
poetic usage must be crushed, and poetry emancipated from
its ſetters. Was he, we wonder, first struck by the vague
and vapid character of the diction of the eighteenth-century
poets, or by the vague and vapid character of their repre-
sentations of Nature ? The question is not of much con-
sequence, for the two vaguenesses and vapidities are closely
allied and mutually involved. As long as men do not look at
Nature with their own eyes, the old names and epithets
answer all purposes. But when a poet begins to ‘take
Nature for his teacher,’ he must at once discover that the
old diction is inadequate. To a man who sees, for instance,
that a wood has a thousand diſſerent aspects under different
skies, and at diſſerent seasons, and in different moods; and
that the breeze of summer never twice breathes in his ear
quite the same message, it is impossible that he should be
zo FoxA WoRDSmokTH's SzyzE. 327
content to go on labelling these things the 'grove’ and
the ‘gale, merely because his poetical godfathers have gone
on doing so for a hundred years. To a man who looks on
the peasant boy and the peasant girl with a true poet's
sympathy, and hears in them the ‘still, sad music of
humanity,’ it is impossible that he should not turn with
loathing from such empty nomenclature as ‘nymph ' and
“swain.” It is the first-hand study of man and Nature that
itself condemns and destroys that poetical diction which
Wordsworth found himself constrained to abandon,
Now, who were the poets who had done this, in a measure,
before Wordsworth, and pointed him out the way? He
has told us in these Prefaces and elsewhere, and they are
worth our moting. In a passage I just now quoted he
mentions Thomson and the Countess of Winchilsea as
being eminently distinguished for having watched Nature
for themselves, and tried to reproduce in verse her infinite
phases and changes. Of the latter of these writers, it is not
too much to say that if English readers of poetry know any-
thing about her, it is mainly owing to Wordsworth having
singled her out for honourable mention in his l’reface,
Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, lived between 1660
and 1720 (about), and thus was rather before Pope than
contemporary with him. She began to write just as Dryden
died, and before Pope had set the key and the stop for so
many a wearisome versifier of that century, Mr. Gosse, in
his Preface to the selection from this writer, in Mr.
Humphry Ward's Collection, does not overpraise her when
he calls her ‘a poetess of singular originality and excellence,’
She is not wholly free from a diction which was to become
later on conventional, but her language is in the main as
clear and pure as Wordsworth's, own, and for the same
328 WORDSWORTHANA : POEZS WHO HELPEI)
reason, that her poems show unmistakably that she watched
Nature for herself. And it was this quality in her evidently
which attracted the admiration of Wordsworth. Her
principal poem, mentioned by Wordsworth, A Mocturma/
A'everie, is an attempt to describe the peculiar features, the
sights and sounds, of a summer night in the country. The
poem is in the rhymed decasyllabic couplet, the heroic
couplet, which Waller and Dryden had already done so
much to make the favourite metre for descriptive and
narrative poetry, and which Pope was to do yet more to
impose as a yoke upon his successors. And it seems to me
quite certain that it was the recollection of this poem, and
the amount of real first-hand observation of Nature con-
tained in it, that led Wordsworth to write that early poem
of his, An Evening Wał, first published in 1793. The
very title of it suggests comparison with Lady Winchilsea's
Mocturnal /čeverie, and this poem also is in the heroic couplet.
It might appear strange that Wordsworth, already in full
reaction against the school of Pope, should yet have chosen
Pope's special couplet in which to write a poem based
upon principles so diſſerent. I cannot but think that it was
Lady Winchilsea's example which here determined his
choice. And there is one slight instance of his unconscious
obligation to Lady Winchilsea which, as far as I have seen,
has never been pointed out. The Evening Walk was com-
posed by Wordsworth between 1787 and 1789—that is to
say, when he was a youth of seventeen to nineteen. But still
earlier than this—in 1786 (as Professor Knight thinks
probable)—the young Wordsworth had written a shorter
but more remarkable poem—more characteristic of him in
thought, feeling, and diction. It is a sonnet, and has for
its heading only the words, “Written in very early youth.”
TO FORM WoRDSiWORTH's STYLE. 329
It will be found on page 2 of the first volume of Professor
Knight's edition, and runs as follows:— * -
Calm is all nature as a resting wheel.
The kine are couched upon the dewy grass;
The horse alone, seen dimly as I pass,
Is cropping audibly his later meal:
Dark is the ground ; a slumber seems to steal
O'er vale, and mountain, and the starless sky.
Now, in this blank of things, a harmony,
Home-felt, and home-created, comes to heal
That grief for which the senses still supply
Fresh ſool ; for only then, when memory
Is hushed, am I at rest. My Friends ! restrain
Those busy cares that would allay my pain ;
Oh leave me to myself, nor let me feel
The officious touch that makes me droop again,
A remarkable production, in any case, we shall agree, for a
boy of sixteen; but remarkable also as showing how essen-
tially the boy Wordsworth was father of the man. The
purity of the diction (a perfect example of his later practice
and illustration of his protest) and the turn of the phrases,
‘this blank of things,’ the “officious touch,” the ‘harmony,
home-felt and home-created,’ are indeed absolute fore-
shadowings of the Wordsworth that was to be. But the
one characteristic piece of Nature-transcribing that I meant
to instance is that in the third and fourth lines— -
The horse alone, seen dimly as I pass,
Is cropping audibly his later meal.
‘Cropping audibly.” Every one of us will recall how in the
absolute tranquillity of a late summer evening in the
country, the regular “twitch,” “twitch,’ of a grazing horse is
one of those few sounds that strike the ear at that season,
330 troºpswox THAMA: Pozz's IV//o AELPEI)
and only at that season, because of the otherwise perfect
stillness. Nothing could have been better chosen to em-
phasise that stillness, and bring the scene more graphically
before us. And it is at least noteworthy that Lady Winchil-
sea, seventy years before, had noted and preserved in verse
the same characteristic feature of ‘night in the fields.” In
her Nocturnal Reverie she has it thus—
When the loose horse now, as his pasture leads,
Comes slowly grazing through the adjoining meads,
Whose stealing pace and lengthened shade we fear,
Till torn-up forage in his teeth we hear.
This is coarsely expressed ; it lacks the transmutation of
that finer Sense and touch which embodied the same obser-
vation in the lines— -
The horse alone, seen dimly as I pass,
Is cropping audibly his later meal.
But so close a parallelism can hardly have been accidental.
Wordsworth had first been struck in reading the poetry of
Anne Finch with the power, in this instance, of a single and
most commonplace and unpoetical feature of a summer
evening, to bring Nature closer to us, and thereby to excite
our best and happiest emotions of delight in her, Lady
Winchilsea had helped, as he said Burns had done also, to
teach
his youth
How verse may build a princely throne
On humble truth.
Of the other poet, the author of the Seasons, here chosen.
by Wordsworth as an honourable exception to the “poetic
verbiage'-mongers of the eighteenth century, less need be
Said. Thomson is by no means free from the use of that
zo FoxM. WoRDSiWoRZA's Szy/A: 33 1
vocabulary which Wordsworth set himself to dethrone from
its bad eminence. But Wordsworth had noticed that when
Thomson most trusted to his own observation, and was
most directly inspired by personal contact with Nature, his
diction also cleared itself from the conventional taint.
Wordsworth was an ardent admirer of Thomson, and
especially of what he calls ‘that noble poem,” The Castle of
Andolence. We remember how he chose to write one poem
in imitation of it—the lines ‘written in a copy of The Castle
of Indolence,' when he describes Coleridge and Tom Poole.
We remember how, moved by Collins' Elegy on the Deat/,
of ZWomson, he in turn was led to write his exquisite
lines on Collins, ‘composed upon the Thames near Rich-
mond.’ Wordsworth's general debt to Thomson he has
himself acknowledged ; and unlike as the two poets are in
outward garb, and little as the author of the Seasons may
now be read, we can understand how much of value and of
encouragement Wordsworth found in that lover of Nature
who preceded him. There is a noble stanza in ZWe Castle
of Yndolence, which may not much remind us in phraseology
of Wordsworth, but which might almost serve as a motto for
Wordsworth's collective works :-
I care not, Fortune, what you me deny . .
You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace,
You cannot shut the windows of the sky,
Through which Aurora shows her brightening face ;
You cannot bar my constant feet to trace
The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve :
Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace,
And I their toys to the great children leave ;
Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can me bereave.
There is one slight but not insignificant proof of Words-
332 WORDSWORTHIAAA Pozz's WHo HEZPED
worth's careful reading and unconscious remembrance of .
Thomson to be found in his well-known Poet's Epitaph.
Every one here could repeat that bewitching stanza—
But who is He, with modest looks,
And clad in homely russet brown?
He murmurs near the running brooks
A music sweeter than their own.
I must confess to having known Wordsworth's poetry
intimately before I knew Thomson's equally well, and in
those days I often wondered who was the individual in
‘russet brown,” and where Wordsworth had met him. One
ingenious critic, apparently sharing my then ignorance, has
suggested that Wordsworth had Charles Lamb in mind,
because of the old snuff-coloured suit which Elia once wore,
and which his friends knew so well. But Wordsworth could
not have been familiar with the old snuff-coloured suit so
early as 1799, when the poem was written. No. Words-
worth had first met the modest singer, and no doubt for-
gotten the introduction to him, in Thoulson's Castle of
Indo/ence, where he thus appears—
IIe came, the bard, a little Druid wight
Of withered aspect; but his eye was keen,
With sweetness mixed. In russet brown bedight,
As is his sister of the copses green,
IIe crept along, unpromising of nien.
In “russet brown.' It is the very phrase, and was
suggested to Thomson, as he all but admits, by the parallel
of the sister warbler of the copses green, of course that is
to say, the nigh/ingaſe. It is not unamusing that Philomel
was the real prompter of the epithet, and not Charles Lamb.
Too much, perhaps, has been made of Wordsworth's twº- .
TO AE'OA'A/ I WORDS WOA 7 º'S STVZ/2. 333
indebtedness to books, and his obligations to Nature alone,
We all know the charming story of the visitor who asked to
see the Poet's study at Rydal Mount, and the old servant's
reply, ‘This is where master keeps his books, but he studies
in the fields.” The answer was as true as it was witty. But
not the less was the Poet under great and definite obliga-
tions to books. He himself, at least, never ignored it.
Books are “a substantial good,” he said, and most surely
they had been to him “a substantial good.’ Burns (at least
when writing in his own matchless dialect, for when he
chose literary English as his model, he too often fell into
the worst conventionalisms of poetic diction), Thomson,
Iady Winchilsea, these and a few more had taught Words-
worth that when Nature was closely loved and brooded over,
she never betrayed her worshippers in this matter of style.
Above all, from the ballad-writers; from Hamilton and the
Yarrow poems; From Logan with his Ode to the Cuckoo-
Sweet bird thy bower is ever green,
Thy sky is ever clear;
Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,
No winter in thy year;
from the touching simplicity of the Children in the IWood,
the new-felt charm of which Johnson had in vain striven to
laugh away— - - -
These pretty Babes, with hand in hand,
Went wandering up and down ;
But never more they saw the man
Approaching from the town; .
from these, and such as these, Wordsworth formed his own
noble and pellucid English. He was a student, and a close .
student, of other men's style. But in spite of certain
Miltonic echoes in portions of his blank verse, he cannot be
334 Worpshºok 7:HANA.
called the disciple, even when starting on his course, of any
one English poet, Rather he had watched what the quali-
ties of mind and soul were which had kept style pure, and
had set himself to acquire these, *
We part to-day, I have no claim or right to speak a fare-
well, but I should like to end this paper with the concluding
lines of Hartley Coleridge's sonnet to Wordsworth, which
speaks of the strong tie that should exist among all true
Wordsworthians, and which this Society, we may modestly
hope, has done nothing at least to weaken—
Oh, what must be
Thy glory here, and what the huge reward
In that blest region of thy poesy P
I'or long as man exists, immortal Bard,
Friends, husbands, wives, in sadness or in glee,
Shall love each other more for loving thee.
SPEECH BY AUBREY DE VERE.
SPEECH BY AUBREY DE VERE:
I DEEM it a great honour that I have been intrusted with
the pleasant task of offering the thanks of this Meeting to its
honourable President. All who heard it will feel how admir-
able his address was. He stated in its earlier part how
indebted he considered himself to the genius of Wordsworth,
and the lasting benefit he had derived from it in his youth,
I can only say that now, when he is no longer a youth, I
think he has made an ample return for the obligation. Last
year the Wordsworth Society was presided over by a poet
who was an old friend of mine, Lord Houghton. I think it
is not less appropriate that this Meeting, which is our last,
should be presided over by such a statesman as Lord, Sel-
borne. Wordsworth's poetry is eminently that of philosophic
thought; and amongst other subjects of philosophic thought
profoundly interesting he has left behind him many pas-
Sages indicating that political philosophy was more studied
by him than by poets generally. He has written several
Sonnets on what he considered to be the characteristics of
the true statesman. There is one in which he considers
the position of England at the time of the contemplated
French invasion. He says— •.
We shall exult, if they who rule the land
De men who hold its many blessings dear,
Wise, upright, valiant ; not a servile band,
Who are to judge of danger which they fear,
And honour which they do not understand.
* In moving a vote of thanks to Lord Selborne, July 1886,
y
338 - WORDS WOR THIANA,
In another sonnet he speaks of the true statesman in
these words:– - -
Blest Statesman he, whose mind's unselfish will
Leaves him at ease among great thoughts.
I believe he would have rejoiced in the thought that
any meeting at which his poetry was considered should be
presided over by a statesman, whose whole career has been
marked by consistency as well as by justice.
Wordsworth was eminently a patriot, as well as a states-
man. There is a sonnet in his Memorials of a Tour in
Italy which illustrates this. When at Florence, he was
shown a seat on which Dante had sat day by day watching
the Cathedral while it was being built. Wordsworth re-
garded it for some time, full of awe, as if he had no right
to stand thus close, as it were, to a poet he regarded as
so much greater than himself. But Dante was a patriot as
well as a poet. At last exclaiming, ‘Whatever I may be
as a poet, I am not less truly than he was, a patriot, ''
Wordsworth sat down on that seat, and
For a moment filled that vacant throne.
Our President must allow me to say that the address he
delivered this day seemed to me the most cordial, the most
discerning, and, for that reason, the most satisfactory praise
of Wordsworth which I have ever heard expressed. He
does not, however, stand alone in holding those opinions.
A great poet, Sir Henry Taylor, long since told me that he
believed Wordsworth to be, not merely the greatest of
modern English poets, but distinctly, without any exception,
the greatest English poet since Shakespeare. The same
belief I have heard expressed by my father, both a poet and
an admirable critic, I consider Wordsworth to be a greater
AUBREY DE PERE. 339
poet than Milton. I do not say he often soars so high, I
do not say that his diction is as lofty, or his style as majestic
and solid; but he had a greater range of thought, and a
vaster sphere of human sympathy than any other poet,
except Shakespeare. Shakespeare alone can be compared
with Wordsworth in Poetry's humanities. Shakespeare is
the greatest of all humanists. Wordsworth, of English poets,
is the next greatest master of the human heart, and the one
who most profoundly sympathises with human nature both
in its joys and sorrows. He was also pre-eminently the
poet of Nature, Frederick Faber, the eminent Oratorian,
was a friend of mine. I was once on a visit to Wordsworth
(to have slept under his roof I regard as the greatest
honour of my life), and we had a conversation about the
different modern poets who had in late years described
Nature. He expressed a low opinion as to their success in
description. He took down several volumes, and he said,
‘Here is a descriptive passage by . It is exceedingly
able writing, but it is not Nature. It is doubtless effective, .
but it is the writing of a person who vainly endeavours to
blend together as much as he sees, whether congruous or
incongruous, into a single picture. This is the way in which
he did his work. He used to go out with a pencil and a tablet,
and note what struck him, thus: “an old tower,” “a dashing
stream,” “a green slope,” and make a picture out of it.”
Then, turning to me, the old Poet added, with flashing eye,
“But Nature does not allow an inventory to be made of her
charms . He should have left his pencil behind, and gone
forth in a meditative spirit; and, on a later day, he should
have embodied in verse not all he had noted but what he
best remembered of the scene; and he would have then pre-
sented us with its soul, and not with the mere visual aspects
340 Wordswox7"HIANA,
of it. . . . With the exception of myself,’ he ended, ‘I do not
think I ever met a man who realised the inner meanings of .
Nature.” In this there was nothing of vanity, for he sud-
denly added, ‘I should make one exception: there was one
man—Frederick Faber—he not only had as good an eye for
Nature as I had, but a better one—a much better. He
used to walk with me on the mountains; and I was very
much surprised at finding that, with all my great and
manifold experience of them, he was constantly detect-
ing certain characteristic effects which I had never perceived,
He had a better eye for Nature than I have.”
You will all agree with what we heard from our noble
President, and also from the gentleman who spoke on the
Theism of Wordsworth, that the charge of Pantheism some-
times brought against his poetry is a wholly mistaken one.
On this subject he had no confession to make of any change
of opinions. Respecting it he once said to me: “When I
was a young man, I was very much occupied with several
other subjects of thought, philosophical, political, etc. It was
then that my imagination worked out for itself the channel
along which it afterwards flowed. In my later life I became
more and more impressed by the dignity and importance of
Religious Truth ; but my poetic habit had already been
formed. Moreover, I thought it would be presumptuous in
me to assume the office of a religious teacher, or often to
write on that subject.’ There is one particular poem to
which I should like to refer the reader because it illustråtes,
not only the theistie, but the definitely Christian character of
some of his most characteristic and beautiful poetry. His
poem, The Zºrimrose of the ſºock, consists of two parts. The
first part is a highly imagiſlative illustration of Wordsworth's
philosophic genius in his dealings with Nature and with
AUBREY DE PERE. 341
man; the second is an emphatic confession on the subject
of ‘A’edeeming Love,’ that is, of Christianity, which in one
of his later poems he has called ‘the lord and mighty para-
mount of Truths.” Some persons have misunderstood
Wordsworth, in part owing to the sense in which he com-
monly uses the word ‘Nature.” They object that he
magnifies Nature to such a degree that he seems to set
aside the Supernatural as foreign to man. That is never
his meaning. A line taken from one of his later poems
illustrates his deepest convictions on that subject. He
Says— - -
By, Grace Divine,
Not otherwise, O Mature, we are thine,
The Poet is not at war with the theologians as regards Grace
and Nature. Wordsworth here affirms distinctly that it is
only by ‘grace divine' that we, in any adequate sense, belong
to Nature. This is all-important. The Nature which he
sings and celebrates is thus not a Nature contrasted with
Grace; it is an ideal, if not an unfallen, Nature, the Nature
to which we ought to belong; but to belong to which is only
possible to a fallen race by the aid of Divine grace.
I believe, as I have already said, that Wordsworth is the
greatest English poet, with the solitary exception of Shake-
speare. I may seem to utter a paradox when I say that I
think him, on the whole, more in moral harmony with Shake-
speare than is any other English poet. They are, on the
surface, obviously and eminently unlike, Shakespeare is the
most self-forgetting of all poets; Wordsworth the least.
The former is the most dramatic of dramatists; the latter .
could not, except in short pieces, such as The Brothers,
adequately express himself in the dramatic form. But the
great lyric, idyllic, and philosophic poet resembles Shake-
34. WoRDSWORTHIANA.
speare more than any other poet in that which is the soul
of all poetry—in his poetic reverence for humanity, and
his imaginative appreciation of the connection between
humanity and the moral and spiritual sense in man; although,
being singularly destitute of many special dramatic aptitudes, -
though by no means of the dramatic faculty itself, his genius
was fortunately compelled to select for its expression a
poetic method (for Poetry, like Science, has its different
methods) almost the opposite of Shakespeare's.
IND EX.
I N D E X.
..! donais of Shelley, 186, 258, *-
Ainger, Alfred,—paper on Wordsworth
and Charles Lamb, 243; paper on the
Poets who helped to form Words.
worth's Style, 323.
Allingham's A'ightingale Pally, 27.
Animal life, 136.
Animism, 187:
Annual Meetings of the Wordsworth
Society, 1880 to 1886, vii.-xviii.
..!Aoſogia, 323.
Armitage (engraver), 45.
Armitage, E., fresco by, and letter from
him thereament, 59.
Arnold, Dr., letter to, 42, 93.
Arnold, Matthew, 63, 74 ; address
President of Society, 123, 181, 186,
239; ‘Selections from Wordsworth,'
257, 263. - -
Art and Nature, Power of, 65.
Associations of sound, 228.
3S .
BEAUMONT, Sir George, 53; paper profile
by, 57; sonnets to, 269.
—, Lady, sonnet to, 77,
Ael/, /'eter, 185, 26o.
Bennoch, Francis, possessor of portrait of
Wordsworth, 48; description of it, 48.
Bibliography of Magazine articles on
Wordsworth, xi.
JBiographia Literaria, 157, 323.
Blake, 190. . . .
13oileau's ..! ré Poétiyue, $24,
Boxall, Sir William, portrait of Words.
worth by, 39. *
Boyd, Miss, engraver of Miss Gillies'
portrait of Wordsworth, 44.
z
Boyle, Dean, paper on Wordsworth's posi-
tion as an ethical teacher, 157.
Bradford, Lord, possessor of copy of
Carrick's portrait, 52.
Brooke, Stopford, 124, 157; paper on Guide
to the Lakes, 131.
Arothers, The, 341.
Browning, Robert, 58.
-- Mrs., xvi., 20, 189; solinet by, 47.
Burns, 16o, 26o, 330, 333; love of the daisy,
27, -
IBryce, James, M. P., speech, xii. -
Byron, 145, 181, 194, 261 ; debate at
Oxford as to the inferiority to Shelley,
261, 263. -
CALDERON and Goethe, 173.
‘Calm is all mature,' a sonnet, 328.
Campbell, Dykes, letter from, as to two
sketches by Lawrence, 58. . -
Carlyle's opinion of Samuel Lawrence, 58,
Carrick, painter of water-colour portrait
of Wordsworth, 52. -
Carruthers, Richard, portrait of Words.
worth, 34 ; engraved by Meyer, 34:
Southey's estimate of engraving, 35 ;
copied another, 35; estimate of Cal-
ruthers by Wordsworth, 35.
Castée o/ //uto/ºutce, by Thomson, 331,
Cervantes, 172.
Chantrey, bust by, 53.
Characters in poems, 3.
Character (lºcrsonal) of Wordsworth's
poetry, 145 ; in what it consists, 148,
Characteristics of true poetry, 64, 149.
Chaucer, Selections modernised from, 19;
aim of these, 19; written and pub.
346.
JAWDAE.Y.
lished, 19; The Mancial's Tale, 20 ;
errors, 21, 28; Chaucer's love of the
daisy, 25, 27, 172 ; The Cuckoo and
- the Vightingale, 25.
Child-spirit, the, 190,
Chimneys, interest in, 93, 94, 101.
‘Children in the Wood,' 333.
Churchyard among the A/ountains, com-
ment of Jeffrey upon, 247; Lamb's,
248. e
Cochran, J., engraved Sir William Box.
all's porirait of Wordsworth, 39.
Coleorton Hall, 53.
Coleridge, Hartley, 40, 86, 88, 89, 93, 95,
104, to 5, 109 ; sonnet to Wordsworth,
334.
- Lord, 124 ; remarks in moving vote
of thanks to Matthew Arnold as Pre-
sident, 127. -
T., Hazlitt's portrait of 33;
Southey's letter on, 33; opinion of
Chantrey's bust of Wordsworth, 53,
59 ; exposition of, in Biogra//ia
/..?terariet, 157, 181, 188, 195, 198; un-
veiling of bust in Westminster Chapter
House, 255; influence of, on the
young, 263 ; on the mind and heart
of Wordsworth, 300 ; criticism of
Wordsworth's theories by, 323,
Collins, Remembrance of, 226, 331 ; Elegy
on the death of Thomson, 331.
Conditions of permanence, 172.
Constitution of the Wordsworth Society, vi.
Convention of Cintra, pamphlet on, 159,
2 I 3. -
Cottle, Joseph, 32.
Cowley, 172, 270,
Crabbe, 270,
Cradock, Dr., 1°rincipal of Brasenose Col.
lege, speech, xix.
Cuckoo and the Nightingale, The, 25.
Cuckoo, To the, 2.34; Logan's ode, 333,
Cumberland mind, the, 84.
t
— S
* 9. §
1)affodi/s, 66, 69,
Dante, 170, 193.
19evotional Incitements, 65,
Dion, 280. -
Donne, 172, 177.
Doulton, Sir Henry, possessor of Miss
Gillies' portrait of Wordsworth, 44.
Dowden, Edward, xvi. ; letter from, xvii.;
on Selections /rom Chatſcer modern-
ised, 19. -- *
Doyle, Sir Francis, 261,
Đramatic interpretation of man through
nattire, 196. -
Drew, Mrs., possessor of Carruthers' copy
of portrait of Wordsworth, 35.
Dryden, letter to Sir Walter Scott on, 159, .
I 77.
Duddon, the River, 125.
1)ungeon Ghyll, 106.
1914 ty, Ode to, 159, 193.
Jºcclesiastical Sonnets, 188.
Mºdinburgh Review on The E.rcursion,
2.43.
A: (e.gy in a Country Churchyard by Gray,
265. -
Emerson on Wordsworth, 161.
Essay on Epitaphs, 159,
Esthwaite Lake, 99, 294,
“Eternity of Thought,’ 304.
Iºthical Teacher, as an, 157, 174.
Fººting ll a '4', 21 m, 225, 328,
E.vcursion, The, 136, 138, 160, 197, 203,
230, 243, 245, 272 : key-note of the
poem, 16,
FADER, F. W., 278, 339.
Faed., Thomas, picture by, 59.
Farmer, James, publisher of pen and ink
sketch of poet, 60. -
Fayourite theme, the poet's, 74,
I'enwick, Miss, 124. •
Fiddler's Farm, building of, 91, 93.
Field, Edwin, 59. -
Fletcher, Angus, bust by, 53, 6o; letter
from Miss Richardson as to, 54.
Fountain, Z'he, 67,
Fox, Caroline, 40.
Fox I ſow, building oſ, 91.
Freeman, 18ev. Alexander, description of
Pickersgill's portrait of Wordsworth,
4 I.
Furness Abbey, 229.
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IMD.E.Y.
Knight, William, paper on Portraits of
Wordsworth, 31, 125; edition of
Wordsworth's works by, 166,
I.AMB, CHARLEs, portrait of 59 ; árticle in
The Quarterly Review by, on The
/...rcursion, 2.43, 251 ; letters to Words.
worth, 243; his prophetic anticipations
of adverse criticism, 248 ; poetry
dealing with children in contrast with
‘childish' poetry, 250 ; critical dis. :
Cernint:ht, 250, 332.
I,andor, \Valter Savage, letters to Words.
worth, xii.
Laodamia, 64, 66, 74, 75, 280,
Lawrence, Samuel, two sketches of poet's
head by, 58; letter from Mr. Jºykes
Campbell as to, 58.
J.eech-gather.”, 7%e, 66, 74, 75, 160, 196,
269,
Leopardi, 126.
Lessing, 196.
Letters to the J/orning Post, 209.
I.cwthwaite, Barbara, and her pet lamb,
57, 1 OO, -
Lockhart, J. G., 60.
Logan, Ode to the Cuckoo, 333,
I.ongfellow, S/aze's 12xeamſ, 198,
low cl], J. R., address as President of the
Society, 165, 256.
I.ucretius, 176; Wordsworth contrasted
with, 291,
I,upton, Thomas, engraver, 48.
I./coris, Ode to, 150.
/..yrica/ /3a//aſs, 202,
MACAU1.AY, Lord, 257,
M'Innes, I’dward, engraver
Gillies' portraits, 44.
Man and Nature, 6, 137, 138, 175, 182,
230, 236, 279 ; grounded and inspired
by the Eternal Soul, 305.
Man's voice a part of Nature, 235.
Margaret, 197.
Mathetes, answer to, 158.
Matter and Thought, the synthesis of, the
key-note of The ſ.rcursion, 16.
“Memory a dwelling place for all sweet
sounds and harmonies,’ 223.
of Miss
Aſen of the Day, lithograph portrait of
Wordsworth in, 39. . . .
Meyer, Henry, engraver of Carruthers'
portrait of Wordsworth, 34.
J/ichael, a Aastural Aoem, too, 160, 197.
Milton and Wordsworth compared, 125,
285, 325, 338.
Mitſord, Miss, 47.
..]/odern Poets and 21, tists of Great
Britain, by S. C. Hall, 41.
Monkhouse, Thomas, 34.
Moon, Mr., publisher, 45.
Moxon, letters to, 42,
NAli CorraGE, 95.
Nash, Edward, portrait of Wordsworth
by, 33. . .
Nature and Man, 6, 137, 138, 175, 182, 230,
236, 279.
— and Animals, co-operative harmony
between, 136,
—— Poetic Intérpretation of 181,
— inſluences of, 197; sounds of 226,
237; Wordsworth saw, as one living
power, 232; healing power of, 271 ;
teaching in regard to, 282; sense in
which poet uses word, 34t. -
— and Art, power of, 65.
New SAirit of the ...!gº', ; 5.
Newman, Cardinal, 189.
Newton, portrait of, in Haydon's picture of
‘Christ's entry into Jerusalem, 36.
Nicholson, Cornelius, possessor of Hay.
don's portrait of Wordsworth, 48.
.V. g/, finga/c l aſley, 27.
'O Nightingale, thou surely art,' 28,
..Yoct's .1//brosiana", 53. -
.\'o, turna 'A' everie, 325, 328,
Noel, Hon. Roden, paper on Poetic Inter.
pretation of Nature, 181.
Nott, 1)r., and Witlier's poems, 251.
.\ utting, 198, -
Ode to Duty, 159, 160.
Ode on /////wworta ſity, 161, 189, 266,
284.
Ode to Zycoris, 150,
Old Cu////erland Beggar, 280.
Origin of the Wordsworth Society, v.
Owen, Mrs., papers read to the Society, x.
283,
INDEX,
349
PAGANISM, Wordsworth's sympathy with,
23 I. 4
Pantheism, 283, 303; wherein Wordsworth
teaches, 284, 340, -
Pearse, Stephen, possessor of one of the
Haydon drawings of Wordsworth, 37,
57; letter from, as to paper profile by
Sir George Beaumont, 57.
Peasant life, 82.
Peel, Sir Robert, gallery of living authors
at Drayton Manor, 43.
Peele Castle in a Storm, 272.
Permanence of Wordsworth's poetry, 172,
176. -
Pickersgill, H., 43. -
Pickersgill, H.W., painter of Wordsworth's
portrait, 41, 43, 6o; opinion of Fred-
erick Thrupp of portrait by, 56.
Plato, dialogues of, 5, 7 ; similarity of
teaching to that of, 5.
Platonism of Wordsworth, 3 ; teaching of
Tintern A&ty and Symſ/ositſ/ſt of
Plato, 8; Platonic theory can never
be antiquated or impossible, 11 ; key
to Wordsworth's Platonism, 12; prin-
ciple of excellence of Plato, Io, 12 ;
poet's use of the word ‘substance,' 13;
matter a thought of God, 14; 'Secret
spirit of humanity,’ 15.
Pope, 28o; moral of his poems, 28.1, 324
Jſ indsor Jºoyº'st, 325. -
Poet, a true, 192 ; the poet of sentiment,
266; poet of human nature, 281,
Poet's 12/7taff/h, a, 202, 250, 332. -
Poets who helped to form Wordsworth's
Style, -a paper on, by Alfred Ainger,
323.
“Poetic diction,' 325, ‘Poetic expression,'
323; reverence for humanity, 341 ;
personality, 147; interpretation of
nature, 181 ; interpretation of sound,
229.
Poetry, ‘a creative art,’ 1.45, 167; analogy
to religious faith, 146; Coleridge's
description of Wordsworth's, 148;
Wordsworth's, that of philosophic
thought, 337; principles of, 214 ;
personality of his, 148; nature and
result of his, 7 ; permanence of his,
172, 176; an active principle the cen-
tral thought of all true poetry, 21.2 :
that which has children for its subject
and ‘childish 'poetry, 250.
Portraits of Wordsworth, a paper by Prof.
Knight, 30. -
Powell, Thomas, 20 ; letter to, 45; volume
of poems by, 45.
Power of art and nature, 65. -
A’relude, The, 138, 16o, 225, 228, 231, 237,
272, 294.
Present-day tendency, specialisation, 216.
Presidents' Addresses — Bishop Words.
worth's, xiii.; Matthew Arnold, 12.3 ;
J. Russell Lowell, 165 ; Lord Hough. .
ton, 255; Lord Selhorne, 277, -
Price, 13onamy, letter from, N. -
A 'rimrose o/, the Wock, The, 66, 68; illus.
tration of the Christian character of
Wordsworth's poetry, 340,
‘Principle of Excellevice' of Plato, Io, 12.
‘Principles of Poetry,' essay on, 214.
Prioress' Tale, of Chaucer, 19 ; errors in
modernised version, 21 ; critical re-
mark by Wordsworth, 28. -
Proctor, Mrs., 58.
Prose of Wordsworth, 158,
Quill.i.N.A.N., Mrs., the poet's daughter, 43.
—, Miss, 45.
Quarterly Review on The E.rcursion, 243,
RAwNsi.Ey, Rev. H. T., paper on Re-
miniscences among the Peasantry of
Westmoreland by, 81, 263 – maid-
servant at Rydal Mount, 84 ; butcher's
boy, 85; gardener's lad, 87; George
the waller, 91; tenant of Nab Cottage,
95; a Westmoreland builder, 98; hotel-
keeper, 104, 264; shop-keeper of Am-
bleside, 109 ; a page, 110-119.
—. Paper on ‘The Humanity of Words.
worth,’ xiii.
Recluse, The, read to the Society, xii.
Reed, Henry, 43, 53. -
—, Prof., letters from Wordsworth to, 20,
46, 49 ; letter from Mr. Inman to, 5o,
Reso/ution and //td, Aendence, 1.41.
350
AWDEX.
sº as tº sessit-ºws ver, as **** * * vºº's sºvº º sº-º ºrº-ºs •' ** ****** * ** .* * *-* * * * **
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, Wordsworth's ob.
jection to “mere portrait painting' of,
269, -
Rix, Herbert, on Duddon Sonnets, xi.
Robinson, Henry Crabb, diary, 32; letters
of Wordsworth to, 35, 4o ; diary, 42,
43; memorial of 59.
Rogers' letter to, 52; Turner's illustrations
to poems of, 272.
Rolls, C., engrayer of Pickersgill's por-
trait of Wordsworth, 41.
Rousseau, 181.
Ruskin, 82, 185, 191. -
“Russet brown' of The Poet's Epita/h, 332.
Rydal Mount, chimneys of 93.
S.A Lisnu Ry, T)FAN or, paper on Words.
worth's Position as an Ethical Teacher,
I 57.
Sands of /),'e', by Kingsley, 192,
Science, Relations to, a paper by R. Spence
Watson, 201 ; Wordsworth fully recog.
nised true value of science, and pointed .
out its chief danger, 213 ; relations
with poetry, 214, 319. -
Scientific inquiry and research, state of,
in poet's day, 202.
Seawſell, 140,
Schelling, 195.
Schiller, 188. s
Scott, Sir Walter, 59, 73, 159, 175, 195,
263. - -
Selborne, Lord, address as President, 277;
influence of Wordsworth on education
of mind and character of 279,
Severn, the painter, 40.
Shairp, Principal, 153, 157.
Shakespeare, comparison with, 125, 172,
235, 287, 339, 341.
Shelley, 181, 194, 196, a 53; debate tut
()xford as to superiority of Shelley to
13 yroin, 251.
‘Shipwreck,' 'Turner's, 272,
Sliorthouse, J. H., paper on Platonism of
- Wordsworth by, 3.
Silence a positive power, 222.
Simplon Pass, 198,
Skelton, J., engraver of l’ickersgill's later
portrait, 44. -
* *** arºr ºr * *
Socrates, 7.
Solitary Reaper, The, 65, 235. -
Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle,
65, 74. -
Sonnet-writer, 176. -
Sonnets on the characteristics of the true
Statesillan, 337.
Sound, Wordsworth's treatment of, a paper
by W. A., Heard, 221 ; of growth, 225;
of nature, 226; of waters, 227; asso-
ciations of, 228; of birds, rain and
wind, 229 : poetic interpretation oſ,
229 ; of the mountains, 230; of a
bleating lamb, 233: of a solitary raven,
233; a lonely, 234 : potency of 234;
of nature aſſects body as well as Soul,
2.37 : power of 239, -
Southey, letters of, on Hazlitt's portraits
of Wordsworth and Coleridge, 32, 33,
59; ‘books his passion, 272.
Specialised study the tendency of the
present day, 21 G,
Spinoza, 5.
Stanger, Mrs., possessor of Nash's portrait
of Wordsworth, 33.
Stangas suggested out a steamboat off
St. Æces /ſeatſ, 201.
State of scientific inquiry in research in
the poet's day, 202, g -
Stephen, Leslie, 201. -
Stock-dove, the lines upon the, 234.
. Styles of the poet, paper on, by R. H.
Hutton, 63; differences between, 66;
Poets who helped to form his Style, a
paper by Alfred Ainger, 323.
‘Substance,' the poet's use of the word, 13.
Sympathy, for men rather with men, 153,
28o ; with the sea, 192 ; teaches the
cºultivation of human, 282.
Synthesis of thought and matter the key.
note of The 1.1 city'sion, 16.
TAY1.OR, Sir II enry, Autobiography of 56,
paper in The Quarterly Review, 157,
159, 338. w
Teaching, similarity to that of Plato, 5 ;
eſſect of 7; in regard to man, 279; in
regard to nature, 28a.
Thames, 194.
INDEX.
351.
+ ºrº--tº - * --- - - * * > . --- - - -
Z'he Zhorn, 193.
The Tahá's Turned, 201, -
The Theism of Wordsworth, paper by a
Professor Veitch, 28a, 291, 34o ; the
sense of the boundless, one of the most
powerful conceptions of his life and
poetry, 291 ; consciousness of a power
or powers in the infinite sphere which
surrounds us, 294; tendency to centre
all phenomena in a unity of being, but
with it a consciousness of a Spirit
permeating all existence, 298; three
views of this world and its relation to
what may transcend it, 299, 302; man
at his highest and best the nearest type
to God, 303 ; teaching of The Prelude,
3o4; of Tintern . tºy, 305; of Ode
on //, /tortality, 306; of Æcc/esias-
tical Sonnets, 312 ; Wordsworth's
theism not anthropomorphic, 310 ;
how far the outcome of his individual
experience, 313; the Transcendent
I’ower a revelation to him, 316; the
highest lesson of his system, 319.
“There was a boy,’ 197,
Thomas the Rhymer, 297. -
Thompson, Jacob, portraits by, 56.
Thomson, 195; Sº'asons, 325; his influ-
ence upon Wordsworth, 331, 333.
‘Three years she grew,’ 197, 237,
Thrupp, Frederick, opinion of Chantrey's
bust, 53, 55; statue in 13aptistery of
Westminster Abbey by, 56, 69 ; letter
from, as to this statue, 55; used
Haydon's cast, 58. -
Tintwºn .1//wy, 8, 28 J, 287, 305.
Treatment of Sound, a paper by W. A.
Heard, 221.
Troilus and Cressida, errors in Chaucer
modernised, 21 ; inſluence of Shake-
Speare seen, 25.
Turner : love of nature, 269 ; impetus to
landscape painting, 269; ‘Church-
yard,' 269; sympathy with sad side
of human life, 27, ; kinship with
Wordsworth, .271 ; “Scenes in the
Holy Land,' 271 ; , illustrations of
Rogers' poems, 27a; wandering, his
passion, 272; lacking in a sense of the
* ~ * * *** * **--- - - - - - --
humorous, 273; poet and painter at
One, 273,
VEutch, “Professor, 282 ; paper on the
. Theism of Wordsworth, 291,340.
Vere, Aubrey dé, 124; remarks on the
personal character of Wordsworth's
poetry, 145; speech by, 337.
Virgil, 126, 172. . . .
Voice of Liberty, 198; of man, a part of
nature, 235, -
Voices of nature, 223: Wordsworth habi-
tually conscious of these, 226; voices
of the lofty brethren of the Langdales,
230; of humanity, 238. -
Voltaire, portrait of, in I ſayilon's picture
of ‘Christ's entry into Jerusalem,'
36; “a stupid writer,’ 264.
WATSON, R. Spence, paper on Words.
worth's Relations to Science, 201,
Watt, W. H., engraver of Pickersgill's .
portrait of Wordsworth, 41. -
Wedgwood, J. T., engraver of Carruthers'
portrait of Wordsworth, 34.
!'e are Swººn, 270.
‘What, you are stepping westward ' ' 235,
Ik'hite Doe Q/ ſy/stone, Zhe, 137, 14t.
Wilkinson's Tours to the /3ritish J/oi/11.
tains, xvii.
Wilson, Professor, 1 13, 114,
Winchi!sca, Countess of, Mocturnal A','.
cºte, 325, 327, 333.
Wither, George, satire on ambition, 251.
Woodman, R., engraver of Hancock's
chalk drawing of Wordsworth, 31,
Woolner, Thomas, medallion in Grasmere
Church by, 54; letter from, as to, 54.
Wordsworth, William : his Platonism, 3;
his characters, 3; a leader of men, 4 ;
the poet of man, 5.: similarity of
his teaching to that of Plato, 5 ;
a seer, 5; effect of his teaching, 7 ;
Powell's sonnets, 20 ; love, of the
daisy, 27; his favourite theme, 74;
contact with peasant life, 83; unpopu-
larity of poems with the peasantry, 88,
92, 108; children and animals, 89, 113; .
as a skater, 98, 103, io9 ; dalesmen's
opinion, 117 : his influence, 125; con-
352
JAW/XEX,
* <-
trasted with Gray, 131 ; at home with
wild nature, 133; his own injustice to
his poems, 148; earlier poems, 168;
as a poet, 173; as a teacher, 174 : COll- ||
trasted with Scott, 175 : his facundity,
176; the high priest of poetry of
nature, 181, 184; relations to science,
201 ; fully recognised the true value
of science, 213; sensibility to sound,
222; poet of waters, 227 : death of
his father, 228 ; discernment, 233:
want of sense of humour, 26o; the poet
of sentiment, 266; kinship of thought
with Turner, 269: sympathy with men,
271 ; teaches cultivation of human
sympathy, 282 ; third greatest poet,
285; least objective of poets and a true
artist, 286; main characteristic of his
poetic mood, 291 ; in the highest de-
gree individualistic, 315; obligations
to books, 333; a patriot and statesman,
338; as a dramatist, 341.
Wordsworth, Christopher (brother), 43,
258, 262. i
— Bishop of St. Andrews, 43, 278.
[ x
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Wordsworth, Bishop of Lincoln, 44, 245,
259, *
— Principal, 40, 45, 46, 50, 52 ; his wife,
39, 40, 45. -
Rev. John, 52.
— Dorothy (sister), 42, 103, 112,
— Dora (daughter), 32, 43, 50.
— Mrs. (wife), 34, 45, 49, 50, 56, 97, 102,
Io?, Io9, I I I, II 7.
— Society, 123; origin of, v. ; a testi-
mony to his influence, 125. -
Wye, the, 194.
Wyon, W. W., medallion in wax of
Wordsworth, 40.
YARNAL1, Mr., description of Inman's
portrait of Wordsworth, 49 ; letter
from, 49 ; opinion of, as to Inman's'
sketch of residence and grounds, 52 ;
paper on “Wordsworth's influence in
America,’ xi.
Yarrow Unzuisited, 66, 70.
Yarrow Revisited, 66, 7o.
Yew-trees of Borrowdale, 186.
Young, 270. -
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