Title: The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth — Volume 6 (of 8)
Author: William Wordsworth
Editor: William Angus Knight
Release date: December 13, 2014 [eBook #47651]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Jane Robins and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
THE POETICAL WORKS
OF
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
EDITED BY
WILLIAM KNIGHT
VOL. VI
London
MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd.
NEW YORK: MACMILLAN & CO.
1896
PAGE | |
Laodamia | 1 |
Memorials of a Tour in Scotland— | |
The Brownie's Cell | 16 |
Composed at Cora Linn, in sight of Wallace's Tower | 26 |
Effusion, in the Pleasure-Ground on the Banks of the | |
Bran, near Dunkeld | 28 |
"From the dark chambers of dejection freed" | 33 |
Yarrow Visited | 35 |
Lines written on a blank leaf in a copy of the author's poem | |
The Excursion, upon hearing of the death of the late Vicar of Kendal | 40 |
PAGE | |
Dedication to the White Doe of Rylstone | 42 |
Artegal and Elidure | 45 |
To B.R. Haydon | 61 |
November 1 | 63 |
September, 1815 | 64 |
"The fairest, brightest, hues of ether fade" | 65 |
"Weak is the will of Man, his judgment blind" | 67 |
[Pg vi] "Hail, Twilight, sovereign of one peaceful hour!" | 67 |
"The Shepherd, looking eastward, softly said" | 68 |
"Even as a dragon's eye that feels the stress" | 69 |
"Mark the concentred hazels that enclose" | 71 |
"Surprised by joy—impatient as the Wind" | 72 |
PAGE | |
Ode. The Morning of the Day appointed for a General Thanksgiving. | |
January 18, 1816 | 74 |
Ode | 88 |
Invocation to the Earth | 95 |
Ode | 96 |
Ode | 104 |
The French Army in Russia, 1812-13 | 107 |
On the Same Occasion | 109 |
Siege of Vienna raised by John Sobieski | 110 |
Occasioned by the Battle of Waterloo | 111 |
Occasioned by the Battle of Waterloo | 112 |
"Emperors and Kings, how oft have temples rung" | 113 |
Feelings of a French Royalist, on the Disinterment of the | |
Remains of the Duke D'Enghien | 114 |
Dion | 116 |
A Fact, and an Imagination; or, Canute and Alfred, on the | |
Sea-shore | 130 |
"A little onward lend thy guiding hand" | 132 |
To ——-, on her first Ascent to the Summit of Helvellyn | 135 |
PAGE | |
Vernal Ode | 138 |
Ode to Lycoris | 145 |
[Pg vii] To the Same | 149 |
The Longest Day | 153 |
Hint from the Mountains, for certain Political Pretenders | 156 |
The Pass of Kirkstone | 158 |
Lament of Mary Queen of Scots | 162 |
PAGE | |
The Pilgrim's Dream; or, the Star and the Glow-worm | 167 |
Inscriptions supposed to be found in and near a Hermit's Cell | 170 |
Composed upon an Evening of Extraordinary Splendour and Beauty | 176 |
PAGE | |
This, and the two following, were suggested by Mr. W. Westall's Views | |
of the Caves, etc., in Yorkshire | 183 |
Malham Cove | 184 |
Gordale | 185 |
Composed during a Storm | 187 |
"Aerial Rock—whose solitary brow" | 187 |
The Wild Duck's Nest | 189 |
Written upon a blank leaf in "The Complete Angler" | 190 |
Captivity—Mary Queen of Scots | 191 |
To a Snow-Drop | 191 |
"When haughty expectations prostrate lie" | 192 |
To the River Derwent | 193 |
Composed in one of the Valleys of Westmoreland, on Easter Sunday | 194 |
[Pg viii] "Grief, thou hast lost an ever ready friend" | 195 |
"I watch, and long have watched, with calm regret" | 197 |
"I heard (alas! 'twas only in a dream)" | 198 |
The Haunted Tree | 199 |
September, 1819 | 201 |
Upon the Same Occasion | 202 |
PAGE | |
Composed on the Banks of a Rocky Stream | 208 |
On the Death of His Majesty (George the Third) | 209 |
"The stars are mansions built by Nature's hand" | 210 |
To the Lady Mary Lowther | 211 |
On the Detraction which followed the Publication of a certain Poem | 212 |
Oxford, May 30, 1820 | 213 |
Oxford, May 30, 1820 | 214 |
June, 1820 | 214 |
The Germans on the Heights of Hock Heim | 216 |
A Parsonage in Oxfordshire | 217 |
To Enterprise | 218 |
The River Duddon— | |
To the Rev. Dr. Wordsworth | 227 |
"Not envying Latian shades—if yet they throw" | 230 |
"Child of the clouds! remote from every taint" | 231 |
"How shall I paint thee?—Be this naked stone" | 232 |
"Take, cradled Nursling of the mountain, take" | 233 |
"Sole listener, Duddon! to the breeze that played" | 234 |
Flowers | 235 |
"Change me, some God, into that breathing rose!" | 237 |
[Pg ix] "What aspect bore the Man who roved or fled" | 237 |
The Stepping-Stones | 239 |
The Same Subject | 240 |
The Faëry Chasm | 241 |
Hints for the Fancy | 242 |
Open Prospect | 243 |
"O mountain Stream! the Shepherd and his Cot" | 245 |
"From this deep chasm, where quivering sunbeams play" | 245 |
American Tradition | 246 |
Return | 248 |
Seathwaite Chapel | 249 |
Tributary Stream | 250 |
The Plain of Donnerdale | 251 |
"Whence that low voice?—A whisper from the heart" | 252 |
Tradition | 253 |
Sheep-Washing | 253 |
The Resting-Place | 254 |
"Methinks 'twere no unprecedented feat" | 255 |
"Return, Content! for fondly I pursued" | 255 |
"Fallen, and diffused into a shapeless heap" | 256 |
Journey Renewed | 257 |
"No record tells of lance opposed to lance" | 258 |
"Who swerves from innocence, who makes divorce" | 260 |
"The Kirk of Ulpha to the pilgrim's eye" | 260 |
"Not hurled precipitous from steep to steep" | 261 |
Conclusion | 262 |
After-Thought | 263 |
Postscript | 264 |
Note to Sonnets XVII. and XVIII. | 267 |
Memoir of the Rev. Robert Walker | 270 |
[Pg x] Memorials of a Tour on the Continent— | |
Dedication | 285 |
Fish-women—on Landing at Calais | 286 |
Brugès | 288 |
Brugès | 290 |
After visiting the Field of Waterloo | 292 |
Between Namur and Liege | 293 |
Aix-la-Chapelle | 295 |
In the Cathedral at Cologne | 297 |
In a Carriage, upon the Banks of the Rhine | 299 |
Hymn, for the Boatmen, as they approach the Rapids under the | |
Castle of Heidelberg | 301 |
The Source of the Danube | 303 |
On approaching the Staubbach, Lauterbrunnen | 306 |
The Fall of the Aar—Handec | 308 |
Memorial, near the Outlet of the Lake of Thun | 310 |
Composed in one of the Catholic Cantons | 312 |
After-Thought | 315 |
Scene on the Lake of Brientz | 315 |
Engelberg, the Hill of Angels | 316 |
Our Lady of the Snow | 318 |
Effusion, in Presence of the Painted Tower of Tell, at Altorf | 321 |
The Town of Schwytz | 324 |
On hearing the "Ranz des Vaches" on the Top of | |
the Pass of St. Gothard | 326 |
Fort Fuentes | 328 |
The Church of San Salvador, seen from the Lake of Lugano | 332 |
The Italian Itinerant, and the Swiss Goatherd | 338 |
The Last Supper, by Leonardo da Vinci, in the Refectory of the | |
Convent of Maria della Grazia—Milan | 343 |
[Pg xi] The Eclipse of the Sun, 1820 | 345 |
The Three Cottage Girls | 351 |
The Column intended by Buonaparte for a Triumphal | |
Edifice in Milan, now lying by the wayside in the Simplon Pass | 356 |
Stanzas composed in the Simplon Pass | 357 |
Echo, upon the Gemmi | 360 |
Processions. Suggested on a Sabbath Morning in the | |
Vale of Chamouny | 363 |
Elegiac Stanzas | 371 |
Sky-Prospect—From the Plain of France | 377 |
On being Stranded near the Harbour of Boulogne | 378 |
After Landing—the Valley of Dover, Nov. 1820 | 380 |
At Dover | 381 |
Desultory Stanzas, upon receiving the preceding Sheets from the Press | 382 |
Appendix— | |
Note A | 387 |
Note B | 389 |
Addendum | 396 |
The Excursion—to which the fifth volume of this edition is devoted—has been assigned to the year 1814; since it was finished, and first published, in that year,—although commenced in 1795. During the earlier stages of its composition, this poem was known, in the Wordsworth household, as "The Pedlar"; and Dorothy Wordsworth tells us in one of her letters to the Beaumonts, preserved amongst the Coleorton MSS., that "The Pedlar" was finished at Christmas 1804. See also the Memoirs of Wordsworth, by his nephew (vol. i. p. 304, etc.), and Dorothy's Grasmere Journal, passim. But The Excursion, as we have it now, was finished for press in 1814. The poems more immediately belonging to that year are Laodamia, the Memorials of a Tour in Scotland, Dion, and two Sonnets.—Ed.
Composed 1814.—Published 1815.
[Written at Rydal Mount. The incident of the trees growing and withering put the subject into my thoughts, and I wrote with the hope of giving it a loftier tone than, so far as I know, has been given to it by any of the Ancients who have treated of it. It cost me more trouble than almost anything of equal length I have ever written.—I.F.]
In 1815 and 1820 this poem was one of those "founded on the Affections"; afterwards it was classed among the "Poems of the Imagination."—Ed.
After meeting the Wordsworths at Charles Lamb's, on the 9th May 1815, Henry Crabb Robinson wrote in his Diary: "It is the mere power which he is conscious of exerting in which he delights, not the production of a work in which men rejoice on account of the sympathies and sensibilities it excites in them. Hence, he does not much esteem his Laodamia, as it belongs to the inferior class of poems founded on the affections." (See Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence, vol. i. p. 482.)
Wordsworth wrote thus to Walter Savage Landor, from Rydal Mount, on the 21st of January 1824:—
"You have condescended to minute criticism upon the Laodamia.[D] I concur with you in the first stanza, and had several times attempted to alter it upon your grounds. I cannot, however, accede to your objection to the 'second birth,' merely because the expression has been degraded by Conventiclers.[E] I certainly meant nothing more by it than the eadem cura, and the largior æther, etc., of Virgil's Sixth Æneid. All religions owe their origin or acceptation to the wish of the human heart to supply in another state of existence the deficiencies of this, and to carry still nearer to perfection what we admire in our present condition, so that there must be many modes of expression arising out of this coincidence, or rather identity of feeling common to all Mythologies; and under this observation I should shelter the phrase from your censure—but I may be wrong in the particular case, though certainly not in the general principle. This leads to a remark in your last—'that you are disgusted with all books that treat of religion.' I am afraid it is a bad sign in me, that I have little relish for any other. Even in poetry it is the imaginative only, viz., that which is conversant with or turns upon Infinity, that powerfully affects me. Perhaps I ought to explain: I mean to say that except in those passages, where things are lost in each other, and limits vanish, and aspirations are raised, I read with something too like indifference; but all great Poets are in this view powerful Religionists."
In 1815 Charles Lamb wrote to Wordsworth, "Laodamia is a very original poem; I mean original with reference to your own manner. You have nothing like it. I should have seen it in a strange place, and greatly admired it, but not suspected its [Pg 10]derivation." (The Letters of Charles Lamb, edited by Alfred Ainger, vol. i. p. 284.)
Mr. Hazlitt wrote of Laodamia: "It breathes the pure spirit of the finest fragments of antiquity—the sweetness, the gravity, the strength, the beauty, and the languor of Death. Its glossy brilliancy arises from the perfection of the finishing, like that of careful sculpture, not from gaudy colouring—the texture of the thoughts has the smoothness and solidity of marble. It is a poem that might be read aloud in Elysium, and the spirits of departed heroes and sages would gather round to listen to it."
I am indebted to the Headmaster of Fettes College, Edinburgh, the Rev. W. A. Heard, for the following illustrative notes on Laodamia:—
"This poem illustrates more completely than any other the sympathy of the poet with the spirit of antiquity in its purest and most exalted forms. The idea that underlies the poem is the same conception of 'pietas' which Virgil has embodied in the Æneid, and with which he has associated, especially in the sixth book, which Wordsworth in many passages recalls, great ethical and religious conceptions, derived in the main from the philosophy of Plato. 'Pietas' embraces all the duties of life that are based upon the affections—love of home and parents and children, love of the Gods of our Fathers, and a reverence for that great order of things in which man finds himself a part. The pious man believes in a destiny, or order transcending his own will: to exalt any passion, however innocent, above this, is a rebellion; to intensify any passion, so as to disturb the appropriate calm of resignation, is to act irreverently against the gods. Lesser duties must give way to greater: love of wife must give way to love of country, and the sorrow of bereavement must not obscure the larger issues of life. Thus, not only did Laodamia's yearning for the restoration of her husband to life show a failure to recognise the fixity of eternal laws, but her death was 'ὑπὲρ μόρον' and in reason's spite; it was, after all, self-will, and could not win the favour of heaven.
Blending with this notion of 'pietas,' we find the Platonic repudiation of sensuous and material life. This life is only a discipline under imperfect conditions, and to be set free from the passion and fretfulness of existence is the choice and longing of the wise.
The poem is thus notable, not so much for the assimilation of details, as for natural affinity to the spirituality of antiquity, of which Virgil is the purest exponent. Virgil's seriousness, his[Pg 11] tenderness, his conception of the inevitable, and yet moral, order of the world, his desire for purification, his sadness, and yet complete freedom from unmanliness, his love of nature and belief in the sympathy of nature with man—all these are points of contact between the ancient and modern poet.
Offerings were made to the infernal deities in the interval between midnight and sunrise. See Virgil's Æneid, vi. 242-258. Sil. Ital., xiii. 405.
It is men's wont to offer to the buried shades the proper expiations of black sheep on the verge of dawn.
Neither face nor hue remained unchanged, nor braided the locks of her hair: but the bosom heaves and the heart swells wild with frenzy, and she is more majestic to behold, and her voice has no mortal sound.
Then he takes the wand: with this he summons pale ghosts from Orcus, others he sends to gloomy Tartarus below: with this he gives and takes away sleep.
Thrice thereon he tried to cast his arms around his neck: thrice was the phantom grasped in vain and escaped the embrace, unsubstantial as the fleeting winds and shadowy like as winged sleep.
'Vicit iter durum pietas,' is realised by these lines. 'Fidelity has prevailed to traverse the awful path.'
An oracle, moreover, destines some one or other for a cruel doom, who first of the Greeks sets foot on Trojan soil.
Unhappy wife who shall be the first to lament a husband slain: God grant you may not choose the forward part: this warning too I give, be last to disembark: 'tis no fatherland to hasten to, no fatherland for you.
When will the time be that you will share the couch, and lovingly at my side recount the glorious deeds of your warfare?
Cf. Euripides, Iphigeneia in Aulide, 547:
And again:
This refers to the struggle between Hercules and Θάνατος.
The story is found in Ovid, Metamorphoses, vii. 159-293.
This is a perfect rendering of the tone of the Sixth Æneid.
The charm of chariot and armour that they had in life, and the same care to pasture their glossy steeds, follow them deep buried under earth.
Here an 'ampler ether' spreads around the plains, and clothes them in purple light, and they recognise a sun of their own, their own constellations.—Æneid vi. 640.
But his wife too had been left at Phylace, her cheeks all marred with grief, and his palace half-finished.
For neither of a surety ought I to cling to life too fondly.—Iphigeneia in Aulide, 1385.
It is from the character of Iphigeneia that Wordsworth derives these traits.
We think of Virgil's tender line in the similar passage about Orpheus and Eurydice. Georg. iv. 488.
Pardonable indeed, were pardon known in the world of death.
Virg. Æn. vi. 445—
Those who died of love dwelt in the 'Lugentes Campi,' in the outer regions of Orcus.
The passage in Pliny is—
Sunt hodie ex adverso Iliensium urbis juxta Hellespontum in Protesilai sepulcro arbores, quae omnibus aevis cum in tantum accrevere ut Ilium aspiciant, inarescunt rursusque adolescunt.—Hist. Nat. 16, 44 (88).
Opposite to Ilium and close to the Hellespont there are to this day trees growing on Protesilaus' tomb, which, in every generation, as soon as they have grown high enough to see Ilium, wither away and again shoot up.
Cf. Anthologia Graeca Pal. vii. 141.
But right opposite hated Ilium the nymphs shroud thy tomb with a roof of elms; trees blighting with a lasting wrath, and if ever they see the walls of Troy, they shed their withering leaves.
And again, vii. 385—
For a legend showing a similar sympathy between nature and man, see Æneid, iii. 22."
As Wordsworth tells us in the Fenwick note to Laodamia, that "it cost him more trouble than almost anything of equal length he had ever written," and as there are many incomplete passages and suppressed readings among his MSS., the two following stanzas—intended at first to follow the second stanza in the poem as it now stands—may be given in a supplementary note.—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[1] 1827.
[2] 1820.
[3] 1820.
[4] 1845.
[5] 1836.
[6] 1820.
[7] 1827.
[8] 1827.
[10] 1836.
[11] 1827.
[12] 1845.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] Wordsworth mentioned in a letter to De Quincey (February 8, 1815) that this stanza was added while the poem was passing through the press.—Ed.
[B] The original MS. of Laodamia, however, contained the finally adopted reading "The oracle." Wordsworth explained to De Quincey (February 8, 1815) that he substituted the phrase "our future course," in case the words should seem to allude to the other answer of the oracle which commanded the sacrifice of Iphigenia.—Ed.
[C] For the account of these long-lived trees, see Pliny's Natural History, lib. xvi. cap. 44; and for the features in the character of Protesilaus see the Iphigenia in Aulis of Euripides. Virgil places the Shade of Laodamia in a mournful region, among unhappy Lovers:—
His Laodamia
It comes. W. W. 1827.
To his nephew, John Wordsworth, the poet wrote in 1831, explaining the alterations he had made in the last stanza of Laodamia: "As at first written, the heroine was dismissed to happiness in Elysium. To what purpose then the mission of Protesilaus? He exhorts her to moderate her passions; the exhortation is fruitless, and no punishment follows. So it stood: at present she is placed among unhappy ghosts for disregard of the exhortation. Virgil also places her there, but compare the two passages, and give me your opinion." (William Wordsworth, by Elizabeth Wordsworth, p. 131.)
With the last two lines of the poem, compare Hart-Leap Well, part ii. stanza 4 (vol. ii. p. 133)—
[D] Compare Imaginary Conversations, third series: "Southey and Porson."—Ed.
[E] He practically admitted its force, however, in the edition of 1827.—Ed.
1814
On the 18th July 1814, Wordsworth left Rydal, on a second visit to Scotland, accompanied by his wife, and her sister, Sarah Hutchinson.—Ed.
[In this tour, my wife and her sister Sara were my companions. The account of the "Brownie's Cell" and the Brownies was given me by a man we met with on the banks of Loch Lomond, a little above Tarbert, and in front of a huge mass of rock, by the side of which, we were told, preachings were often held in the open air. The place is quite a solitude, and the surrounding scenery very striking. How much is it to be regretted that, instead of writing such Poems as the Holy Fair and others, in which the religious observances of his country are treated with so much levity and too often with indecency, Burns had not employed his genius in describing religion under the serious and affecting[Pg 16] aspects it must so frequently take.[F]—I.F.]
The poems of this series were collected under their common title in the edition of 1827.—Ed.
SUGGESTED BY A BEAUTIFUL RUIN UPON ONE OF THE ISLANDS OF LOCH LOMOND, A PLACE CHOSEN FOR THE RETREAT OF A SOLITARY INDIVIDUAL,[13] FROM WHOM THIS HABITATION ACQUIRED THE NAME OF
Composed 1814.—Published 1820
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
The text of this poem was unaltered in the successive editions with a single exception, occurring in the first line. It was suggested by, and was a reminiscence of the tour in Scotland of 1814; but in 1803 Wordsworth visited the same spot alluded to in the Fenwick note, accompanied by his sister, who thus describes it: "The most remarkable object we saw was a huge single stone, I believe three or four times the size of Bowder Stone. The top of it, which on one side was sloping like the roof of a house, was covered with heather.... The ferryman told us that a preaching was held there once in three months by a certain minister—I think of Arrochar—who engages, as a part of his office, to perform the service. The interesting feelings we had connected with the Highland Sabbath and Highland worship returned here with double force. The rock, though on one side a high perpendicular wall, in no place overhung so as to form a shelter, in no place could it be more than a screen from the elements. Why then had it been selected for such a purpose? Was it merely from being a central situation and a conspicuous object? Or did there belong to it some inheritance of superstition from old times? It is impossible to look at the stone without asking, How came it hither? Had then that obscurity and unaccountableness, that mystery of power which is about it, any influence over the first persons who resorted hither for worship? Or have they now on those who continue to frequent it? The lake is in front of the perpendicular wall, and behind, at some distance, and totally detached from it, is the continuation of the ridge of mountain which forms the Vale of Loch Lomond—a magnificent temple, of which this spot is a noble Sanctum Sanctorum." (Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland, A.D. 1803, pp. 225-6.) The late Rev. William Macintosh of Buchanan supplied me with the following information in reference to the Brownie's Cell and the Pulpit Rock:—"I have little doubt that the Brownie's Cell is the name given by Wordsworth to a small vault, itself a ruin among the ruins of an old stronghold of the Macfarlanes in Eilan Vhow, an islet about three miles from the head of the Loch. The name of the islet is spelt in different ways; sometimes as I [Pg 22]have given it, sometimes Eilan Vow, or Eilan-a Vhu; no one whom I consulted could tell me the right spelling. In the early part of this century, the vault was the headquarters of a pedlar of the name of Macfarlane. He may have been the Hermit; and there is a story of his having been frightened by the sudden apparition of a negro, (probably the first he had ever seen), who had been ordered by his master—an English officer—to swim across for that purpose: and it is said that he never again visited the cell.
The Pulpit Rock, also called by a Gaelic name meaning the Bull Stone, is a very large boulder, or detached rock, which is likely to 'stand' as long as Ben Lomond. In the face of it, there is an artificial doorway and recess, which at one time the Parish Minister used to occupy as a Pulpit for occasional services. The audience sat on turf seats ranged round the foot of the Rock. The pulpit was reached by a few steps cut out, I suppose, in the Rock: but it has never been used for the last twenty years. The 'occasional' services are now held in a neighbouring schoolroom."
Mr. Malcolm M'Farlane, a very intelligent sheep farmer in Buchanan parish, supplies the following additional information about the Cell and the Rock:—"The 'Pulpit Rock' is a cell in the face of a large stone, blasted out with gunpowder. The proper appellation is, in Gaelic, 'Clach-nan-Tairbh,' literally translated the 'Stone of the Bulls.' It was formed about 50 or 60 years ago, the then minister of Arrochar, Mr. Proudfoot, had promised to preach in that part of his parish, on several occasions during the year, provided they would get up a place for his reception.... It was capable of containing three or four persons inside, was done up with wood work, an outer and inner door, with stone steps leading to the recess. They were not formed out of the rock, but other stones got up for the purpose, and turf seats laid out for the hearers, who were all exposed to the weather, except so far as they might be sheltered by the rock. The service has been discontinued at the rock for about twenty-five years, and is now held at a schoolhouse. The doors are gone, and no portion of the wood work remains. The cell is now used only as a nightly retreat for mendicants, tinkers," etc. Wordsworth's reference, in the Fenwick note, to Burns's Holy Fair induces me to quote what follows in Mr. M'Farlane's letter:—"Open air preaching was then very general in the Highlands: the people came long distances, travelled over hills, even in inclement weather, to attend them.[Pg 23] An individual who kept a small inn, on the loch side opposite Inversnaid, used regularly to attend the meetings with a supply of whisky; but he remained behind the 'rock' till the services were over, when the people partook of his refreshments. Also, on the north side of Loch Katrine, the minister of Callander used to conduct services in the open air, on several occasions during the year, in that distant part of his parish. An old man, who lived near the Trossachs, whom I remember very well, regularly attended with a supply of whisky. Dr. Robertson, who was then minister, after concluding the sermon, had gone to an adjoining farm house. The people had indulged too freely, so that a fight commenced (the same thing had happened on several occasions before). The Doctor had to leave his dinner in order to get them separated, and to put an end to the battle, but he never allowed any more whisky to be brought to the place afterwards.... These may be irrelevant matters, but they might illustrate a chapter in Lecky's History of Morals, as there is more decorum now observed. Since writing the above, I have thought that if the pulpit-rock is mentioned in Miss Wordsworth's Tour, Mr. M'Nicol, my informant, must have made a mistake in stating the time it was made, as about 50 or 60 years ago; but it cannot have been much more than 80 years, as it is not very long since some of the people who were engaged in the operation died.
"Regarding the island near the head of Loch Lomond which is termed 'Eilan (Island) Vow' in Black's Guide, and somewhat differently spelt in others, in the original Gaelic it is 'Eilan a Bhūth.' Būth is a Gaelic name for a shop, so that it is 'the island of the shop.' The English Vow has no connection whatever with the Gaelic, and is perfectly unintelligible. It is part of undoubted traditional history that the chiefs of the Clan M'Farlane, who owned a considerable portion of the adjoining lands, had their residence here. In these turbulent times islands were considered more secure, as surrounded with water. They kept a 'shop' in the island, from which they supplied the little wants of the surrounding population, so that it is perfectly clear how the Island derived its name. A good portion of the stronghold is still in good preservation. A part of the wall is about thirty feet high. It is a very old building. Mr. M'Nicol states that he had learned from his grandfather, by the tradition in the family, that it was erected between the eleventh and the twelfth century. The late Sir James Colquhoun, about twelve years ago, laid out some money for keeping the walls in[Pg 24] preservation. At the bottom of the Fort, and below the level of the floor, is the 'Brownie's Cell,' several steps leading down to it, and it is partly underground. It is about twelve feet wide, and sixteen feet long, with an arched roof, the mason work being still in good repair. There is some glimmering light emitted by two small apertures formed in the walls at each end. I have been unable to obtain any specific information what purpose it served in connection with the other building. Some said that it must have been a prison, and others a store for the shop. It might have been a prison at first, and afterwards, in more pacific times, used as a store.
"About the beginning of this century, the Island was occupied by a very eccentric individual, who led the life of a hermit, and took up his abode in this recess. He made frequent excursions out of it, but always returned to his Island-home before the end of the week. It was not then planted with wood, so that he cultivated a part of the ground, raised some crops, kept some poultry. He trained the poultry to fly on the approach of any stranger, so that they could not be got hold of, or taken away in his absence from the Island. He also kept a curious diary, in which local events, his own doings and opinions, were recorded in great detail, expressed in very quaint language. It was by the age of the moon, and not by the days of the month, that events were entered in the diary. He also cultivated astrology, and believed in the evil influence of some of the stars. He had a firm belief in ghosts; but he never was so frightened as when the Black Man (that is the negro), who he thought belonged to the invisible world, swam to the island. Of that adventure I have not been able to obtain a more detailed account, but his landing there very nearly put him out of his wits. The grandfather of the present Duke of Montrose had, on one occasion, visited the Island; and, when landing, the Hermit addressed him, 'James Graham, the Duke of Montrose, you are welcome to come and see my Island.'..."
There is no evidence that the ruin was once "a consecrated Pile," as stated in the poem. Wordsworth had evidently heard of the Hermit's writings, as mentioned by Mr. M'Farlane. See stanza vi., "guiding a pen unwearied."
In the Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson, there is an entry, dated January 2, 1820:—"Went to Lamb's, where I found Mr. and Mrs. Wordsworth.... Not much was said about his (W.'s) new volume of Poems. He himself spoke of The Brownie's Cell as his favourite" [Pg 25](vol. ii. p. 162). In the following year Mr. Crabb Robinson himself visited Scotland, and wrote thus on the 16th September:—"Being on the western side of Loch Lomond, opposite the Mill at Inversnaid, some women kindled a fire, the smoke of which was to be a signal for a ferryboat. No ferryman came; and a feeble old man offering himself as a boatman, I intrusted myself to him. I asked the women who he was. They said, 'That's old Andrew.' According to their account he lived a hermit's life in a lone island on the lake; the poor peasantry giving him meal, and what he wanted, and he picking up pence. On my asking him whether he would take me across the lake, he said, 'I wull, if you'll gi'e me saxpence.' So I consented. But before I was half over I repented of my rashness, for I feared the oars would fall out of his hands. A breath of wind would have rendered half the voyage too much for him. There was some cunning mixed up with the fellow's seeming imbecility, for when his strength was failing he rested, and entered into talk, manifestly to amuse me. He said he could see things before they happened. He saw the Radicals before they came, etc. He had picked up a few words of Spanish and German, which he uttered ridiculously, and laughed. But when I put troublesome questions he affected not to understand me; and was quite astonished, as well as delighted, when I gave him two sixpences instead of the one he had bargained for. The simple-minded women, who affected to look down on him, seemed, however, to stand in awe of him, and no wonder. On my telling Wordsworth this history, he exclaimed, 'That's my "Brownie!"' His Brownie's Cell is by no means one of my favourite poems. My sight of old Andrew showed me the stuff out of which a poetical mind can weave such a web" (vol. ii. pp. 212, 213).
Compare the sequel to this poem, The Brownie, in the "Yarrow Revisited and other Poems," of the Tour made in Scotland in the autumn of 1831.—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[13] 1820.
individual, a sketch of whose character is given in the Poem,
[14] 1837.
[15] 1820.
[16] Italics were first used in 1827.
[17] 1820.
[18] 1820.
[19] 1820.
[20] 1820.
[21] 1820.
[22] 1820.
[23] 1820.
[24] 1820.
[25] 1820.
FOOTNOTES:
[F] Compare Wordsworth's Letter to a Friend of Burns (passim).—Ed.
[G] Diodorus mentions this tradition (see his History, book iii. chap. 4), that the infant Bacchus was carried by Ammon, the Libyan Jupiter, to a cave on an island near Mount Nysa, from fear of Rhea, and that he was handed over to the care and the tuition of Nysa, the daughter of Aristæus. From this mountain the young Bacchus was supposed to have derived his name, Dionysus.—Ed.
In sight of Wallace's Tower
Composed 1814.—Published 1820
[I had seen this celebrated Waterfall twice before; but the feelings to which it had given birth were not expressed till they recurred in presence of the object on this occasion.—I.F.]
VARIANT:
[26] 1845.
FOOTNOTES:
[H] Compare The Prelude (vol. iii. p. 139), to which may be added the following Wallace Memorials:—"The barrel, or cave, in Bothwell parish; caves in Lasswade, Torphichen, and Lesmahagow parishes; chair at Bonniton, near Lanark; cradle on hill, two miles south by west of Linlithgow; house at Elderslie, in Renfrewshire; larder at Ardrossan; leap in Roseneath parish; monument on Abbey Craig, near Stirling; oaks at Elderslie and at Torwood; seats in Biggar, Kilbarchan, and Dumbarton parishes; statues at Lanark, and adjacent to the Tweed, near Dryburgh; stone in Polmont parish; towers in Ayr town, Roxburgh parish, Auchterhouse parish, and Kirkmichael parish, Dumfriesshire; trench in Kincardine-in-Monteith parish; and well in Biggar parish."—Wilson's Gazetteer of Scotland, 1882 (article, "Wallace Memorials").—Ed.
[I] The "time-cemented Tower" of the old castle of Cora still overlooks the waterfall. Compare the Address to Kilchurn Castle in the "Memorials of a Tour in Scotland," 1803 (vol. ii. p. 400); and, with
compare the Lines written in Early Spring (vol. i. p. 268).—Ed.
[J] Leonidas, king of Sparta, killed in the heroic defence of the pass of Thermopylæ, B.C. 480.—Ed.
[K] On the western side of the bay of Uri, in the lake of Lucerne, is Tell's Platte, where on a ledge of rock stands the chapel—rebuilt in 1880, but said to have been originally built in 1388—on the spot where the Swiss Patriot leapt out of Gessler's boat, and shot the tyrant.—Ed.
In the Pleasure-Ground on the Banks of the Bran, near Dunkeld
Composed 1814.—Published 1827
[I am not aware that this condemnatory effusion was ever seen by the owner of the place. He might be disposed to pay little attention to it; but were it to prove otherwise I should be glad, for the whole exhibition is distressingly puerile.—I.F.]
"The waterfall, by a loud roaring, warned us when we must expect it. We were first, however, conducted into a small apartment, where the Gardener desired us to look at a picture of Ossian, which, while he was telling the history of the young [Pg 29]Artist who executed the work, disappeared, parting in the middle—flying asunder as by the touch of magic—and lo! we are at the entrance of a splendid apartment, which was almost dizzy and alive with waterfalls, that tumbled in all directions; the great cascade, opposite the window, which faced us, being reflected in innumerable mirrors upon the ceiling and against the walls."—Extract from the Journal of my Fellow-Traveller.[L]
VARIANTS:
[27] The preceding four lines were added in the edition of 1837.
[28] 1827.
[29] 1832.
[30] 1832.
[31] 1837.
[32] 1837.
FOOTNOTES:
[L] See the Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland, 1803, by Dorothy Wordsworth, p. 210.—Ed.
[M] On the banks of the River Nid, near Knaresborough.—W. W. 1827.
[N] "The cliffs overhanging the Nid have been hollowed out into numerous cavities, some of which serve as dwellings, walled in front, and some having chimneys carried out at the tops; sometimes with windows and doors let into the rock itself. The most remarkable of these is St. Robert's Chapel, scooped out, and inhabited (it is said) by the same St. Robert, whose cave is farther down the river. An altar has been cut out of the rock, and one or two rude figures carved within this so-called chapel. The figure of an armed man with his sword in his hand is sculptured outside, as if guarding the entrance."—Murray's Yorkshire, p. 240 (edition 1867).—Ed.
[O] Fountains Abbey, near Studley Royal, in Yorkshire.—Ed.
[P] The statue of Amenophis in the vicinity of Thebes—called by the Greeks the statue of Memnon—was fabled to give forth a musical strain, when touched by the first ray of sunrise.—Ed.
Composed 1814.—Published 1815
[Composed in Edinburgh, during my Scotch tour with Mrs. Wordsworth and my sister, Miss Hutchinson, in the year 1814. Poor Gillies never rose above that course of extravagance in which he was at that time living, and which soon reduced him to poverty and all its degrading shifts, mendicity being far from the worst. I grieve whenever I think of him, for he was far from being without genius, and had a generous heart, not always to be found in men given up to profusion. He was nephew of Lord Gillies, the Scotch judge, and also of the [Pg 34]historian of Greece. He was cousin to Miss Margaret Gillies, who painted so many portraits with success in our house.—I.F.]
Classed among the "Miscellaneous Sonnets." In 1815 the sonnet was headed To ——.—Ed.
I am indebted to Miss Margaret Gillies—the artist referred to in the Fenwick note—for information in reference to her cousin, the subject of this sonnet. Robert Pearce Gillies was a man of unquestionable talent, but eccentric and extravagant. He inherited a considerable fortune, some £1500 a year, from his father, which he lost. He was editor of the Foreign Quarterly Review, was very intimate with De Quincey, and knew Sir Walter Scott, Wordsworth, and Quillinan well. He translated several German poems and novels, of which Scott thought highly. He was the author of Memoirs of a Literary Veteran (1851), in which (vol. ii. pp. 137-173) there is a sketch of Wordsworth, and several letters from him. He was [Pg 35]also an accomplished musician, playing the violin admirably. He lived near Hawthornden.
The expression "faded" or "fading grove," which Wordsworth applies to Roslin, may refer merely to the season of the year, viz. September.—Ed.
A sonnet written by Gillies, and addressed to Wordsworth, may be quoted in this note. It was transcribed by Mrs. Wordsworth into a copy of the 4to edition of The Excursion (1814), which was presented by the Poet to his grandson.
To the Author of The Excursion
VARIANTS:
[33] 1820.
[34] 1827.
[35] 1827.
September, 1814
Composed 1814.—Published 1815
[As mentioned in my verses on the death of the Ettrick Shepherd, my first visit to Yarrow was in his company. We had lodged the night before at Traquair, where Hogg had joined us, and also Dr. Anderson, the Editor of the British Poets, who was on a visit at the Manse. Dr. A. walked with[Pg 36] us till we came in view of the Vale of Yarrow, and, being advanced in life, he then turned back. The old man was passionately fond of poetry, though with not much of a discriminating judgment, as the Volumes he edited sufficiently shew. But I was much pleased to meet with him, and to acknowledge my obligation to his collection, which had been my brother John's companion in more than one voyage to India, and which he gave me before his departure from Grasmere, never to return. Through these Volumes I became first familiar with Chaucer, and so little money had I then to spare for books, that, in all probability, but for this same work, I should have known little of Drayton, Daniel, and other distinguished poets of the Elizabethan age, and their immediate successors, till a much later period of my life. I am glad to record this, not from any importance of its own, but, as a tribute of gratitude to this simple-hearted old man, whom I never again had the pleasure of meeting. I seldom read or think of this poem without regretting that my dear Sister was not of the party, as she would have had so much delight in recalling the time, when, travelling together in Scotland, we declined going in search of this celebrated stream, not altogether, I will frankly confess, for the reasons assigned in the poem on the occasion.—I.F.]
In 1815 and 1820 this was one of the "Poems of the Imagination." In 1827 it became one of the "Memorials of a Tour in Scotland" of 1814.
The MS. readings to this poem are taken from a copy in a letter by Dorothy Wordsworth to Mrs. Clarkson, dated November 11, 1814.—Ed.
Compare Yarrow Unvisited, vol. ii. p. 411; also Yarrow Revisited, composed in 1831; and Principal Shairp's Essay entitled "The Three Yarrows," in his Aspects of Poetry. "I meant to mention Yarrow Visited, with that stanza, 'But thou, that didst appear so fair'; than which I think no lovelier stanza can be found in the wide world of poetry;—yet the poem, on the whole, seems condemned to leave behind it a melancholy of imperfect satisfaction, as if you had wronged the feeling with which, in what preceded it, you had resolved never to visit it, and as if the Muse had determined, in the most[Pg 40] delicate manner, to make you, and scarce make you, feel it. Else, it is far superior to the other,[R] which has but one exquisite verse in it, the last but one, or the last two: this is all fine, except perhaps that that of 'studious ease, and generous cares,' has a little tinge of the less romantic about it." Charles Lamb to Wordsworth, in 1815. (See The Letters of Charles Lamb, edited by Alfred Ainger, vol. i. p. 286.)—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[36] 1815.
[37] 1815.
[38] 1815.
[38a] 1827.
[39] 1827.
FOOTNOTES:
[Q] Newark Castle, a "large, square, roofless, ancient castle, scene of Sir Walter Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel, four miles west by north of Selkirk." (Wilson's Gazetteer of Scotland.)—Ed.
[R] i.e. Yarrow Unvisited.—Ed.
Written[40] on a blank leaf in a copy of the author's poem "The Excursion," upon hearing of the death of the late Vicar of Kendal.
Composed 1814.—Published 1815
One of the "Epitaphs and Elegiac Pieces."—Ed.
The Annals of Kendal—an octavo volume containing information on all subjects of historical or antiquarian interest connected with the town—contains no reference to Mr. Murfitt, except a copy of the inscription on his monument. He was instituted vicar of Kendal in 1806, and died on the 7th November 1814. The following is a copy of the inscription.
The monument is erected against the north wall of the Parish Church of Kendal.
The phrase in the second line of the sonnet, "this unfinished Song," refers to The Excursion being only part of a longer unfinished poem, The Recluse. (See the preface to the edition of 1814.)—Ed.
VARIANT:
[40] 1845.
Written, November 13, 1814, . . .
In 1815 few poems were written, with the exception of the Dedication to The White Doe of Rylstone, one or two sonnets, and Artegal and Elidure. If we were to trust entirely to the Fenwick note to Laodamia, Artegal and Elidure would require to be transferred, along with it and Dion, to 1814. When Wordsworth, in 1845, separated the Ode, beginning
from the Ode, the morning of the Day appointed for a General Thanksgiving, January 18, 1816, he gave to the former the date 1815; and it is possible that it was composed towards the close of that year. But it was originally published in 1816 as part of the Thanksgiving Ode; and, although (in conformity with the plan of adopting the Author's latest view of his own text) it is printed by itself,—as finally approved by him,—it is not placed in the year 1815, but in 1816. The chief reason for this is, that it is kindred in theme, structure, and tendency with the other Odes belonging to that year; and it seems better—when there is a doubt as to the date—to bring together those poems that are kindred in character. It does not follow, however, that part of the Thanksgiving Ode itself may not have been written in 1815. Wordsworth, writing to Southey in 1816, said:—"It is a poem composed, or supposed to be composed, on the morning of the thanksgiving." Those belonging to the year 1815 are, therefore, few in number.—Ed.
In trellised shed, with clustering roses gay, etc.
Although this Dedication was only written in April 1815, it has, for obvious reasons, been already published—along with the[Pg 43] poem itself—in its chronological place (1807) (see vol. iv. p. 100); but as I have seen a MS. copy of this Dedication, which differs considerably from the final text, and was probably the first draft of the poem, it may be printed here. In the MS. I refer to, it is called Epistle Dedicatory.—Ed.
FOOTNOTES:
[S] Another version of this stanza follows:—
[T] Two variations of the last couplet follow in the MS.:—
(SEE THE CHRONICLE OF GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH AND MILTON'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND)
Composed 1815.—Published 1820
[This was written at Rydal Mount, as a token of affectionate respect for the memory of Milton. "I have determined," says he, in his preface to his History of England, "to bestow the telling over even of these reputed tales, be it for nothing else but in favour of our English Poets and Rhetoricians, who by their wit will know how to use them judiciously."—I.F.]
One of the "Poems founded on the Affections."
The extract given in the Fenwick note is not from the "preface," but from the first book of Milton's History of England.—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[41] 1820
[42] 1836.
[43] 1820.
[44] 1820.
[45] 1820.
[46] 1820.
[47] 1820.
[48] 1820.
[49] 1820.
[50] 1820.
[51] 1836.
[52] 1820.
[53] 1820.
[54] 1820.
[55] 1820.
[56] 1836.
[57] 1836.
[58] 1836.
[59] 1845.
[60] 1832.
[61] 1820.
[62] 1827.
[63] 1820.
[64] 1820.
[65] 1820.
[66] 1820.
[67] 1820.
[68] 1820.
[69] 1827.
FOOTNOTES:
[U] Brutus, reputed great-grandson of Æneas the Trojan Prince, the legendary founder of the British race—according to the story in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Chronicle—after a somewhat chequered career in Greece, consulted Diana where he should go and settle. To whom Diana in a vision replied:—
"Brutus guided now," says Milton (following Monmouth), "by Divine conduct, speeds him towards the West."... After some adventures in the Adriatic and in Gaul, "with an easy course, arriving at Totness, in Devonshire, quickly perceives here to be the promised end of his labours.
"The island, not yet Britain but Albion, was in a manner desert, and inhospitable; kept only by a remnant of Giants; whose excessive Force and Tyrannie had consumed the rest. Them Brutus destroies, and to his people divides the Land, which with som reference to his own name, he henceforth calls Britain." (Milton's History of England, book i.)—Ed.
[V] Julius Caesar landed for the first time in Britain, 55 B.C.—Ed.
[W] Compare The Solitary Reaper, II. 18-20 (vol. ii. p. 398):—
[X] See note A on the previous page.—Ed.
[Y] Corineus, according to the old legend, was the chief of a Trojan race who came with Brutus into Aquitania, and afterwards into Britain. Cornwall fell to Corineus by lot, in the portioning out of the new territory, "the rather by him liked," says Milton, "for that the hugest Giants in Rocks and Caves were said to lurk still there; which kind of Monsters to deal with was his old exercise." (Milton's History of England, book i.)—Ed.
[Z] Compare To a Skylark (1825)—
[AA] Locrine, Brutus' son, was engaged to marry Corineus' daughter, Guendolen. But, after defeating Humber, King of the Huns, and finding Estrildis, daughter of a German king, amongst the spoil, he took her captive. He married Guendolen, but loved Estrildis, and on the death of Corineus, he divorced Guendolen, and married Estrildis. The rest may be told in Milton's words: "Guendolen all in rage departs into Cornwal;... And gathering an army of her Father's Friends and Subjects, gives Battail to her Husband by the River Sture; wherein Locrine, shot with an arrow, ends his life. But not so ends the fury of Guendolen; for Estrildis, and her daughter Sabra, she throws into a River: and to leave a Monument of Revenge, proclaims that the Stream be henceforth called after the Damsel's name; which by length of time is changed now to Sabrina or Severn." (History of England, book i.)—Ed.
[AB] See note on the previous page.—Ed.
[AC] "Leir who next Reigned, had only three Daughters, and no Male Issue: governed laudably, and built Caer-Leir, now Leicester, on the bank of Sora. But at last, failing through Age, he determines to bestow his Daughters, and so among them to divide his Kingdom. Yet first to try which of them loved him best, (a Trial that might have made him, had he known as wisely how to try, as he seemed to know how much the trying behooved him) he resolves a simple resolution, to ask them solemnly in order; and which of them should profess largest, her to beleev. Gonorill the Eldest, apprehending too well her Father's weakness, makes answer invoking Heaven, That she loved him above her Soul. Therefore, quoth the old man, overjoyed, since thou so honourst my declined Age, to thee and the Husband whom thou shalt choose, I give the third part of my Realm. So fair a speeding for a few words soon uttered, was to Regan the second, ample instruction what to say. She on the same demand spares no protesting, and the Gods must witness that otherwise to express her thoughts she knew not, but that she loved him above all Creatures; and so receavs an equal reward with her Sister. But Cordeilla, the youngest, though hitherto best beloved, and now before her Eyes the rich and present hire of a little easie soothing, the danger also, and the loss likely to betide plain dealing, yet moves not from the solid purpose of a sincere and vertuous answer. Father, saith she, my love towards you, is as my duty bids; what should a Father seek, what can a Child promise more? they who pretend beyond this, flatter. When the old man, sorry to hear this, and wishing her to recall those words, persisted asking, with a loiall sadness at her Father's infirmity, but something on the sudden, harsh, and glancing, rather at her Sisters, then speaking her own mind, Two waies only, saith she, I have to answer what you require mee; the former, Your command is, I should recant; accept then this other which is left me; look how much you have, so much is your value, and so much I love you. Then hear thou, quoth Leir now all in passion, what thy ingratitude hath gained thee; because thou hast not reverenced thy aged father equall to thy Sisters, part in my Kingdom, or what else is mine reck'n to have none. And without delay gives in marriage his other Daughters, Gonorill to Maglannus Duke of Albana, Regan to Henninus Duke of Cornwal; with them in present half his Kingdom; the rest to follow at his Death. In the mean while Fame was not sparing to divulge the wisdom, and other Graces of Cordeilla, insomuch that Aganippus a great King in Gaul (however he came by his Greek name) seeks her to Wife, and nothing alter'd at the loss of her Dowry, receavs her gladly in such manner as she was sent him. After this King Leir, more and more drooping with years, became an easy prey to his Daughters and thir Husbands; who now by dayly encroachment had seis'd the whole Kingdom into thir hands: and the old King is put to sojorn with his Eldest Daughter, attended only by three score Knights. But they in a short while grudged at, as too numerous and disorderly for continuall guests, are reduced to thirty. Not brooking that affront, the old King betakes him to his second Daughter; but there also discord soon arising between the Servants of differing Masters in one Family, five only are suffer'd to attend him. Then back again he returns to the other; hoping that she his Eldest could not but have more pity on his Gray Hairs: but she now refuses to admitt him, unless he be content with one only of his followers. At last the remembrance of his youngest Cordeilla comes to his thoughts; and now acknowledging how true her words had bin, though with little hope from whom he had so injur'd, be it but to pay her the last recompence she can have from him, his confession of her wise forewarning, that so perhaps his misery, the prooff and experiment of her Wisdom, might somthing soft'n her, he takes his Journey into France. Now might be seen a difference between the silent, or downright spok'n affection of som Children to thir Parents, and the talkative obsequiousness of others: while the hope of Inheritance over-acts them, and on the Tongue's end enlarges thir duty. Cordeilla out of meer love, without the suspicion of expected reward, at the message only of her Father in distress, pours forth true filial tears. And not enduring either that her own, or any other Eye should see him in such forlorn condition as his Messenger declar'd, discreetly appoints one of her trusted Servants, first to convay him privately toward som good Sea Town, there to array him, bathe him, cherish him, furnish him with such Attendance and State, as beseem'd his Dignity. That then, as from his first Landing, he might send word of his Arrival to her Husband Aganippus. Which don with all mature and requisite contrivance, Cordeilla with the King her Husband, and all the Barony of his Realm, who then first had news of his passing the Sea, goe out to meet him; and after all honourable and joyfull entertainment, Aganippus, as to his Wives Father, and his Royall Guest, surrenders him, during his abode there, the power, and disposal of his whole Dominion; permitting his Wife Cordeilla to go with an Army, and set her Father upon his Throne. Wherein her piety so prospered, as that she vanquished her impious Sisters with those Dukes, and Leir again, as saith the story, three years obtained the Crown. To whom dying, Cordeilla with all regal Solemnities gave Burial in the Town of Leicester. And then as right Heir succeeding, and her Husband dead, rul'd the land five years in peace." (Milton, History of England, book i.)—Ed.
[AD] See Milton's History of England, book iii.—Ed.
[AE] The sword Excalibur, given to King Arthur by the Lady of the Lake. Compare Tennyson's Morte d'Arthur.—Ed.
[AF] The following is Milton's account of Gorbonian, Archigallo, and Elidure:—"Gorbonian the Eldest of his five Sons, then whom a juster man liv'd not in his Age, was a great builder of Temples, and gave to all what was thir due; to his Gods devout Worship, to men of desert honour and preferment; to the Commons encouragement in thir Labours, and Trades, defence and protection from injuries and oppressions, so that the Land florish'd above her Neighbours, Violence and Wrong seldom was heard of; his Death was a general loss; he was buried in Trinovant.
"Archigallo the second Brother followed not his Example; but depress'd the ancient Nobility, and by peeling the wealthier sort, stuff'd his Treasury, and took the right way to be depos'd.
"Elidure the next Brother, surnamed the Pious, was set up in his place; a mind so noble, and so moderat, as almost is incredible to have bin ever found. For having held the Scepter five years, hunting one day in the Forest of Calater, he chanc'd to meet his deposed Brother, wandering in mean condition; who had bin long in vain beyond the Seas, importuning Foren aides to his Restorement: and was now in a poor Habit, with only ten followers, privatly return'd to find subsistence among his secret friends. At the unexpected sight of him, Elidure himself also then but thinly accompanied, runs to him with open Arms; and after many dear and sincere welcomings, convaies him to the Citty Alclud; there hides him in his own Bed-Chamber. Afterwards faining himself sick, summons all his Peers as about greatest affairs; where admitting them one by one, as if his weakness endur'd not the disturbance of more at once, causes them, willing or unwilling, once more to swear Allegiance to Archigallo. Whom after reconciliation made on all sides, he leads to York: and from his own Head, places the Crown on the Head of his Brother, who thenceforth, Vice itself dissolving in him, and forgetting her firmest hold with the admiration of a deed so Heroic, became a true converted man: rul'd worthily 10 years; dy'd and was Buried in Caer-Leir. Thus was a Brother saved by a Brother, to whom love of a Crown, the thing that so often dazles, and vitiates mortal man, for which thousands of neerest blood have destroy'd each other, was in respect of Brotherly dearness, a contemptible thing." (Milton, History of England, book i.)—Ed.
[AG] The legendary story tells that Brutus, the founder of the British race, having come from Troy (see note [U] to p. 45), "in a chosen place builds Troia nova, changed in time to Trinovantum, now London."—Ed.
[AH] It may not be too insignificant to note that it was Diana, the "Goddess of the chase," whom Brutus, according to the legend, consulted as to where he should settle, and who directed him to the land "to the West, in th' Ocean wide." (See note [U] p. 45.)—Ed.
[AI] See Milton's History of England, quoted in footnote, p. 51.—Ed.
[AJ] The various (tentative) versions of Artegal and Elidure—especially of some of the stanzas—are more numerous than in the case of any other poem I have seen in MS., and several of them may be preserved.
Stanza 1
Stanza 2
Stanza 3
Stanza 4
Stanza 6
Stanza 7
Stanza 8
The following (suppressed) Stanza followed No. 10
Stanza 12
Stanza 13
Stanza 14
Stanza 16
Stanza 17
Stanza 25
Stanza 26
From Stanza 28 to end
Composed December 1815.—Published March 31, 1816.
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets." The title "Esq." was appended to the name in the editions of 1820 to 1832.—Ed.
This sonnet was first published in The Examiner (March 31, 1816). It was composed in December 1815. On November 27, Haydon wrote to Wordsworth: "I have benefited, and have been supported in the troubles of life by your poetry. I will bear want, pain, misery, and blindness, but I will never yield one step I have gained on the road I am determined to travel over." (See his Correspondence and Table Talk, vol. ii. pp. 19, 20.) To this Wordsworth replied in the following letter which is explanatory of the above sonnet, and of the two sonnets that follow it.
"Rydal Mount, near Ambleside,
December 21st, 1815.
* * * * * *
"Now for the poems, which are sonnets: one composed the evening I received your letter; the other the next day; and the third the day following. I shall not transcribe them in the order in which they were written, but inversely.
"The last you will find was occasioned, I might say inspired, by your last letter, if there be any inspiration in it; the second records a feeling excited in me by the object it describes in the month of October last; and the first by a still earlier sensation, which the revolution of the year impressed me with last autumn."
(Then follow the three sonnets transcribed in the following order—
* * * * * *
"With high respect, I am, my dear sir, most faithfully yours.
"William Wordsworth."
(See the Autobiography of B. R. Haydon, vol. i. chap. xvi. p. 325.)
Haydon replied to Wordsworth, December 29 (see his Correspondence, vol. ii. pp. 20-23): "I must say that I have felt melancholy ever since receiving your sonnets, as if I was [Pg 63]elevated so exceedingly, with such a drunken humming in my brain, that my nature took refuge in quiet humbleness and gratitude to God."
It will be observed that in his letter of December 21, Wordsworth mentions the order in which these three sonnets were composed in three consecutive days. In his subsequent arrangement of the sonnets he altered this order, assigning "While not a leaf seems faded" to "September," and "How clear, how keen," to "November 1" (another instance of the inaccuracy of his dates). The detailed statement in this letter to Haydon must be trusted, however, in preference to the "afterthought" of the editions of 1820 and 1827. It may not be superfluous to note the dates of the first publication of this trilogy of sonnets, all of which Wordsworth sent to The Examiner.
Composed October 1815.—Published January 28, 1816
[Suggested on the banks of the Brathay by the sight of Langdale Pikes. It is delightful to remember these moments of far-distant days, which probably would have been forgotten if the impression had not been transferred to verse. The same observation applies to the next.[AK]—I. F.]
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets." In the editions of 1816 and 1820 the title was November 1, 1815.—Ed.
This sonnet originally appeared in The Examiner, January 28, 1816. It is rare indeed, if ever, that the Langdale Pikes retain the first snows of November till spring; although, as described in another poem, the cove on Helvellyn, in which Red Tarn lies—sheltered from the sun, and high up on the mountain—may
See Fidelity (vol. iii. p. 44), and the note to the sonnet addressed to Haydon, p. 62 of this vol.—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[70] 1837.
[71] 1838.
FOOTNOTES:
[AK] i.e. the sonnet entitled Composed during a Storm, which followed November 1 in the edition in which the Fenwick notes first appeared.
Composed October 1815.—Published February 11, 1816
["For me, who under kindlier laws." This conclusion has more than once, to my great regret, excited painfully sad feelings in the hearts of young persons fond of poetry and poetic composition, by contrast of their feeble and declining health with that state of robust constitution which prompted me to rejoice in a season of frost and snow as more favourable to the Muses than summer itself.—I. F.]
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
This sonnet was first published in The Examiner, February 11, 1816. See the note to the sonnet addressed to Haydon, p. 62.—Ed.
Published 1815
[Suggested at Hackett, which is on the craggy ridge that rises between the two Langdales, and looks towards Windermere. The Cottage of Hackett was often visited by us, and at the time when this Sonnet was written, and long after, was occupied by the husband and wife described in The Excursion, where it is mentioned that she was in the habit of walking in the front of the dwelling with a light to guide her husband home at night. The same cottage is alluded to in the Epistle to Sir George Beaumont, as that from which the female peasant hailed us on[Pg 66] our morning journey. The musician mentioned in the sonnet was the Rev. Samuel Tillbrook of Peter-house, Cambridge, who remodelled the Ivy Cottage at Rydal after he had purchased it.—I. F.]
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
The following reference to Mr. Tillbrook, referred to in the Fenwick note, is from the Diary, Correspondence, etc., of Henry Crabb Robinson, September 5, 1816:—"An evening was spent at Wordsworth's. Mr. Tillbrook, of Cambridge, formerly Thomas Clarkson's tutor, was there.... Mr. Walter sang some airs to Mr. Tillbrook's flute."—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[72] 1820.
[73] 1827.
[74] 1837.
FOOTNOTE:
[AL] See the vision of Mirza in the Spectator.—W. W. 1815.
Published 1815
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
FOOTNOTES:
[AM] Compare the distinction Wordsworth draws between Fancy and Imagination in his "Preface" to the Poems published in 1815, and his definition of the function of the Imagination in that essay.—Ed.
Published 1815
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[75] 1837.
Published 1815
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
Published 1815
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
The light of the "Taper" referred to shone from Allan Bank; the "black recess of mountains" described the heights of Silver Howe, and Easdale, round to Helm Crag; the "lake below," which "reflected it not" (because of the distance of Allan Bank from the side of the mere), was, of course, Grasmere. Wordsworth is looking at this "lamp suddenly glaring through sepulchral damp," however, from the eastern side of the lake, perhaps from the neighbourhood of "The Wishing Gate." I am indebted to the Rev. W. A. Harrison, Vicar of St. Anne's, Lambeth, for the following note to this sonnet:—
'In the Sonnet No. xxiv., 'Poems of the Imagination,' [i.e. 'Miscellaneous Sonnets'] these lines occur:—
"In line 3, all the later editions read 'Suddenly glaring.' But why 'suddenly'? There is nothing in the imagery of the poem which is at all suggestive of suddenness or unexpectedness in the appearance of the burning taper. The idea is alien from the spirit of the context. The dragon is drowsy and overborne with sleep. The taper is 'dreary' and 'motionless.' Everything is suggestive of 'sluggish stillness,' not of rapid, flashing movement.
"Yet I find the reading 'suddenly' in the one vol. ed. of 1828, which is said to be a reprint of the edition of 1827 in 5 vols.; in that of 1836-7; in that of 1840; and in all the later editions.
"In the edition of 1815, however, the reading given is one that is in strict keeping with the rest of the imagery, namely—
'Sullenly glaring.'
"Is it likely that 'sullenly' was deliberately altered by Wordsworth to 'suddenly,' or is 'suddenly' a misprint that has been perpetuated through successive editions?
"The sonnet in question is not dated, but it was probably written after 1807 and before 1815.
"Now, in a well-known and often-quoted passage in Wordsworth's letter in answer to Mathetes (Friend, vol. iii. 35, etc.), he speaks of the 'sullen light' which survives the extinguished flame of the candle that the schoolboy has blown out. 'It continues,' he says, 'to shine with an endurance which in its apparent weakness is a mystery; it protracts its existence so long ... that the observer who had lain down in his bed so easy-minded, becomes sad and melancholy,' etc. etc. etc.
"In the sonnet the same ideas occur, only the 'melancholy' is here predicated figuratively of the 'light' itself:—
"This paper in The Friend was written in 1810; and it is possible that the sonnet was written at about the same time.—W. A. Harrison."—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[76] 1827.
[77] 1827.
Published 1815
[Suggested in the wild hazel wood at the foot of Helm-crag, where the stone still lies, with others of like form and character, though much of the wood that veiled it from the glare of day has been felled. This beautiful ground was lately purchased by our friend Mrs. Fletcher; the ancient owners, most respected persons, being obliged to part with it in consequence of the imprudence of a son. It is gratifying to mention that, instead of murmuring and repining at this change of fortune, they offered their services to Mrs. Fletcher, the husband as an outdoor labourer, and the wife as a domestic servant. I have witnessed the pride and pleasure with which the man worked at improvements of the ground round the house. Indeed he expressed those feelings to me himself, and the countenance and manner of his wife always denoted feelings of the same character. I believe a similar disposition to contentment under change of fortune is common among the class to which these good people belong. Yet, in proof that to part with their patrimony is most painful to them, I may refer to those stanzas entitled Repentance, no inconsiderable part of which was taken verbatim from the language of the speaker herself.—I. F.]
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
This "old grey Stone" is a prominent feature in the Lancrigg Terrace-Walk. It is still moss-grown, and embowered by the hazel underwood. Not far from it, the path opens to the spot where the most of The Prelude was composed; first hummed aloud—as the poet walked to and fro along the terrace—and then dictated to his wife or sister. See Lady Richardson's account of this, in her article in Sharpe's London Magazine, in 1851, and in the Autobiography of Mrs. Fletcher (her mother), p. 244; also her contributions to the Memoirs of Wordsworth, vol. ii. p. 438, etc.—Ed.
Published 1815
[This was in fact suggested by my daughter Catherine long after her death.[AN]—I. F.]
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
Compare the poem entitled Characteristics of a Child three years old (vol. iv. p. 252), written in 1811, and which referred, like this one, to the poet's daughter Catherine, who died the year after. Compare also The Excursion, book iii. ll. 636-649, and the sonnet beginning, "Desponding Father! mark this altered bough," 1835.—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[78] 1820.
[79] 1820.
FOOTNOTES:
[AN] Wordsworth's daughter, Catherine, was born on the 6th September 1808, and died 4th June 1812.—Ed.
Most of the poems belonging to 1816 were suggested by the stirring political events of that year on the Continent of Europe. Four odes, and a number of sonnets,—referring to the Fall of Napoleon, the French army in Russia, the battle of Waterloo, etc.,—a translation of part of Virgil's Æneid, and one or two smaller fragments, make up the series. Wordsworth had not been so much inspired by the political events of his time, since the years 1809 and 1810—when he wrote the Tyrolese Sonnets, and others, "Dedicated to Liberty," etc.—but, both before and during the year 1816, he spent some time in preparing his eldest son for the University. He read the Latin poets with him; and very probably it was this that led him to translate into English verse, the three first books of the Æneid, which he did at this time. Some fragments of his Translations will be found in the Appendix to vol. viii.—Ed.
Composed 1816.—Published 1816.
[The first stanza of this Ode was composed almost extempore, in front of Rydal Mount, before church-time, and on such a morning and precisely with such objects before my eyes as are here described. The view taken of Napoleon's character and proceedings is little in accordance with that taken by some historians and critical philosophers. I am glad and proud of the difference, and trust that this series of poems, infinitely below the subject as they are, will survive to counteract, in[Pg 75] unsophisticated minds, the pernicious and degrading tendency of those views and doctrines that lead to the idolatry of power, as power, and, in that false splendour, to lose sight of its real nature and constitution as it often acts for the gratification of its possessor without reference to a beneficial end—an infirmity that has characterised men of all ages, classes, and employments, since Nimrod became a mighty hunter before the Lord.—I. F.]
"It is not to bespeak favour or indulgence, but to guard against misapprehension, that the author presumes to state that the present publication owes its existence to a patriotism, anxious to exert itself in commemorating that course of action, by which Great Britain has, for some time past, distinguished herself above all other countries.
"Wholly unworthy of touching upon so momentous a subject would that Poet be, before whose eyes the present distresses under which this kingdom labours, could interpose a veil sufficiently thick to hide, or even to obscure, the splendour of this great moral triumph. If the author has given way to exultation, unchecked by these distresses, it might be sufficient to protect him from a charge of insensibility, should he state his own belief that these sufferings will be transitory. On the wisdom of a very large majority of the British nation, rested that generosity which poured out the treasures of this country for the deliverance of Europe: and in the same national wisdom, presiding in time of peace over an energy not inferior to that which has been displayed in war, they confide, who encourage a firm hope, that the cup of our wealth will be gradually replenished. There will, doubtless, be no few ready to indulge in regrets and repinings; and to feed a morbid satisfaction, by aggravating these burthens in imagination, in order that calamity so confidently prophesied, as it has not taken the shape which their sagacity allotted to it, may appear as grievous as possible under another. But the body of the nation will not quarrel with the gain, because it might have been purchased at a less price: and acknowledging in these sufferings, which they feel to have been in a great degree unavoidable, a consecration of their noble efforts, they will vigorously apply themselves to remedy the evil.
"Nor is it at the expense of rational patriotism, or in disregard of sound philosophy, that the author hath given vent to feelings tending to encourage a martial spirit in the bosoms of his countrymen, at a time when there is a general outcry [Pg 76]against the prevalence of these dispositions. The British army, both by its skill and valour in the field, and by the discipline which has rendered it much less formidable than the armies of other powers, to the inhabitants of the several countries where its operations were carried on, has performed services for humanity too important and too obvious to allow any one to recommend, that the language of gratitude and admiration be suppressed, or restrained (whatever be the temper of the public mind), through a scrupulous dread, lest the tribute due to the past, should prove an injurious incentive for the future. Every man, deserving the name of Briton, adds his voice to the chorus which extols the exploits of his countrymen, with a consciousness, at times overpowering the effort, that they transcend all praise. But this particular sentiment, thus irresistibly excited, is not sufficient. The nation would err grievously, if she suffered the abuse which other states have made of military power, to prevent her from perceiving that no people ever was, or can be, independent, free, or secure, much less great, in any sane application of the word, without martial propensities, and an assiduous cultivation of military virtues[AO]. Nor let it be overlooked, that the benefits derivable from these sources, are placed within the reach of Great Britain, under conditions peculiarly favourable. The same insular position which, by rendering territorial incorporation impossible, utterly precludes the desire of conquest under the most seductive shape it can assume, enables her to rely, for her defence against foreign foes, chiefly upon a species of armed force from which her own liberties have nothing to fear. Such are the blessed privileges of her situation; and, by permitting, they invite her to give way to the courageous instincts of human nature, and to strengthen and to refine them by culture.
"But some have more than insinuated, that a design exists to subvert the civil character of the English people by unconstitutional applications and unnecessary increase of military power. The advisers and abettors of such a design, were it possible that it should exist, would be guilty of the most heinous crime, which, upon this planet, can be committed. The author, trusting that this apprehension arises from the delusive influences of an honourable jealousy, hopes that the martial qualities, which he venerates, will be fostered by adhering to those good old usages which experience has sanctioned; and by availing ourselves of new means of indisputable promise; particularly by [Pg 77]applying, in its utmost possible extent, that system of tuition, of which the master-spring is a habit of gradually enlightened subordination; by imparting knowledge, civil, moral, and religious, in such measure that the mind, among all classes of the community, may love, admire, and be prepared and accomplished to defend that country, under whose protection its faculties have been unfolded, and its riches acquired; by just dealing towards all orders of the state, so that no members of it being trampled upon, courage may everywhere continue to rest immoveably upon its ancient English foundation, personal self-respect; by adequate rewards, and permanent honours, conferred upon the deserving; by encouraging athletic exercises and manly sports among the peasantry of the country; and by especial care to provide and support sufficient institutions, in which, during a time of peace, a reasonable proportion of the youth of the country may be instructed in military science.
"Bent upon instant savings, a member of the House of Commons lately recommended that the Military College should be suppressed as an unnecessary expense; for, said he, 'our best officers have been formed in the field.' More unwise advice has rarely been given! Admirable officers, indeed, have been formed in the field, but at how deplorable an expense of the lives of their surrounding brethren in arms, a history of the military operations in Spain, and particularly of the sieges, composed with thorough knowledge, and published without reserve, would irresistibly demonstrate.[AP]
"The author has only to add that he should feel little satisfaction in
giving to the world these limited attempts to celebrate the virtues of
his country, if he did not encourage a hope that a subject, which it has
fallen within his province to treat only in the mass, will by other
poets be illustrated in that detail which its importance calls for, and
which will allow opportunities to give the merited applause to persons
as well as to things."W. Wordsworth.
"Rydal Mount, March 18, 1816."[AQ]
This Ode was originally published—along with the three that follow it, and some sonnets—in 1816, under the title, Thanksgiving Ode, January 18, 1816, with other short pieces, chiefly referring to recent public events, and with the prefatory announcement: "This Publication may be considered as a sequel to the Author's 'Sonnets dedicated to Liberty.'" To the whole there was prefixed an "Advertisement," beginning as at p. 75, "It is not," etc., and continuing to "W. Wordsworth," p. 77.—Ed.
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
Replying to some criticism on this Ode by Southey, Wordsworth wrote to his friend as follows:—"I am much of your mind in respect to my Ode. Had it been a hymn, uttering the sentiments of a multitude, a stanza would have been indispensable. But though I have called it a 'Thanksgiving Ode,' strictly speaking it is not so, but a poem, composed, or supposed to be composed, on the morning of the thanksgiving, uttering the sentiments of an individual upon that occasion. It is a dramatised ejaculation; and this, if anything can, must excuse the irregular frame of the metre. In respect to a stanza for a grand subject designed to be treated comprehensively, there are great objections. If the stanza be short, it will scarcely allow of fervour and importunity, unless so short, as that the sense is run perpetually from one stanza to another, as in Horace's[Pg 88] Alcaics; and if it be long, it will be as apt to generate diffuseness as to check it. Of this we have innumerable instances in Spenser and the Italian poets. The sense required cannot be included in one given stanza, so that another whole stanza is added, not infrequently, for the sake of matter which would naturally include itself in a very few lines.
"If Gray's plan be adopted, there is not time to become acquainted with the arrangement, and to recognise with pleasure the recurrence of the movement.
"Be so good as let me know where you found most difficulty in following me. The passage which I most suspect of being misunderstood is
and the passage where I doubt most about the reasonableness of expecting that the reader should follow me in the luxuriance of the imagery and the language, is the one that describes, under so many metaphors, the spreading of the news of the Waterloo victory over the globe."
The last reference in this letter is to the lines in that part of the Ode, which follows—
VARIANTS:
[80] 1837.
[81] 1837.
[82] 1837.
[83] 1850.
[84] 1837.
[85] 1837.
[86] 1837.
[87] 1837.
[88] "Missed" italicised in 1837 and subsequent editions.
[89] "They" italicised in the editions from 1816 to 1832.
[90] 1837.
[91] 1816.
[92] 1837.
[93] 1837.
[94] 1827.
[95] 1816.
[96] 1845.
[97] 1816
[98] 1845.
[99] The words "exterminating sword" were italicised in 1816 only. In Lord Coleridge's copy the MS. reading "vindicating sword" is given.
[100] 1845.
[101] 1816.
[102] 1820.
[103] 1820.
[104] 1827.
[105] 1837.
[106] 1827.
[107] 1837.
[108] 1827.
FOOTNOTES:
[AO] "Without a cultivation of military virtues."—W. W. 1845.
[AP] In all editions subsequent to that of 1816, this paragraph was omitted.—Ed.
[AQ] This "Advertisement" was prefixed to the poem, in all editions from 1816 to 1843. In 1845, when part of the Ode, beginning
was detached from the rest, and turned into a separate Ode, with the date 1815 appended, the "Advertisement" was thrown into a "note" at the end of the volume, and it retained this place in subsequent editions. In Lord Coleridge's copy of the edition of 1836-37—before the stanzas which were afterwards separated to form the second Ode—"Waterloo" is written.—Ed.
[AR] The heights of Wansfell and Loughrigg.—Ed.
[AS] The whole period of the Peninsular and Continental wars with Napoleon.—Ed.
[AT] Wellington.—Ed.
[AU] The outcome of Napoleonic ambition.—Ed.
[AV] "A discipline the rule whereof is passion" (Lord Brooke).—W. W. 1816.
[AW] Compare the lines beginning
addressed to Mrs. Wordsworth in 1824.—Ed.
[AX] Napoleon escaped from Elba in February 1815.—Ed.
[AY] The Allied Sovereigns declared against Napoleon, March 1815.—Ed.
[AZ] Wellington took the command in April 1815.—Ed.
[BA] Napoleon's power being finally broken at Waterloo.—Ed.
[BB] From Grasmere Church, over Rydal Mere.—Ed.
Composed 1816.—Published 1816
The first and the fourth stanzas of this Ode formed stanzas ix. and xii. of the Thanksgiving Ode from 1816 to 1842. In 1845 it was printed as number XLV. of the "Poems of the Imagination."—Ed.
I
II
III
IV
V
In an early MS. copy of this Ode, it concludes thus, after the line "And that we need no further victory!"
VARIANTS:
[109] 1845.
[110] 1845.
[111] 1845.
[112] 1837.
[113] 1845.
[114] 1837.
[115] 1837.
[116] 1845.
[117] 1845.
[118] 1820.
[119] 1837.
[120] 1850.
[122] 1845.
[123] 1845.
[124] 1837.
[125] 1845.
[126] The above six lines were added in 1837.
[127] 1845.
[128] 1845.
[129] The last four lines were added in 1845, but another version of the last two lines was written by Wordsworth in MS. on his edition of 1837—
FOOTNOTES:
[BC] Compare this description of the news of Waterloo spreading over the nations with the effect of the lady's laugh in To Joanna. See "Poems on the Naming of Places" (vol. ii. p. 159).—Ed.
[BD] See note A on preceding page.—Ed.
[BE] London.—Ed.
[BF] In Westminster Abbey.—Ed.
[BG] Compare the Psalter, civ. 32.—Ed.
[BH] Compare the Psalter, passim, e.g. xlvi., lxvi., cvi., and Shakespeare, Henry V. act IV. scene i.: "If these men have defeated the law and outrun native punishment, though they can outstrip men, they have no wings to fly from God: war is his beadle, war is his vengeance."—Ed.
FEBRUARY, 1816
Composed 1816.—Published 1816
[Composed immediately after the Thanksgiving Ode, to which it may be considered as a second part.—I. F.]
One of the "Epitaphs and Elegiac Pieces."—Ed.
I
II
VARIANTS:
[130] 1837.
FOOTNOTES:
[BI] The title which this Invocation to the Earth bore when first published in the Thanksgiving Ode, with other short pieces chiefly referring to recent public events, in 1816, was "Elegiac Verses, February 1816."—Ed.
[BJ] Compare Hamlet, act I. scene V., l. 183—
[BK] "The loss of human life, on the French side alone, in the wars consequent on the Revolution, was estimated (in 1815) to have been 4,556,000." (Blair's Chronological Tables, p. 724.)—Ed.
Composed January 1816.—Published 1816
This was one of the "Poems of the Imagination," in 1820. In 1827 it was placed among the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty."—Ed.
I
II
III
IV
V
VARIANTS:
[131] 1827.
[132] 1827.
[133] 1827.
[134] 1832.
[135] 1845
[136] 1827
[137] 1837.
[138] 1820.
[139] 1827.
[140] 1827.
[141] 1827.
[142] 1827.
[143] 1827.
[144] 1837.
The edition of 1827 is otherwise identical with that of 1837.
[145] 1837.
[146] 1845.
[147] 1827.
[148] 1845.
[149] 1816.
[150] 1816.
[151] 1827.
[152] 1845.
[153] 1837.
FOOTNOTES:
[BL] The title of this Ode, when first published along with the Thanksgiving Ode, was Ode, composed in January 1816. In 1845 the date 1814 was given; but there seems no reason to distrust the earlier one.—Ed.
[BM] These lines were first inserted in the edition of 1827.—Ed.
[BN] Compare Ode, Intimations of Immortality, etc., stanza ix.—
[BO] Haydon painted Wellington on the field of Waterloo. Compare the sonnet which Wordsworth wrote on that picture, in 1840, beginning—
[BP] The allusion is to the picture of the battle of Marathon, on the walls of the Stoa Poecile, in Athens. Compare the Effusion, in presence of Tell's Tower, in the "Memorials of a Tour on the Continent" (1820), st. i. and note.—Ed.
[BQ] In many places throughout Britain this was carried out. Statues to the memory of Wellington were erected in many towns, and buildings were named after him.—Ed.
[BR] In many places throughout Britain this was carried out. Statues to the memory of Wellington were erected in many towns, and buildings were named after him.—Ed.
[BS] The nine Muses, called the Pierides, from Pieria, near Olympus, where they were said to have been born, or first worshipped by the Thracians.—Ed.
[BT] Compare the first line of the Extract from the conclusion of a poem, composed in anticipation of leaving school (vol. i. p. 2)—
[BU] Compare Schiller's Piccolomini, in S. T. Coleridge's version (act II. scene 4)—
Composed 1816.—Published 1816
Included in 1820 among the "Poems of the Imagination," afterwards placed among the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty."—Ed.
I
II
III
IV
V
The date of the composition of this Ode is uncertain. Wordsworth himself gives no clue: but it seems to refer to the rise of the French Republic, with its illusive promises of Liberty: the freedom of the many being sacrificed to the despotism of one. The Republic passed "through many a change of form." It became both tyrannous and aggressive. The "Principalities" of Europe "melted" before it. It stood forth "an armèd creature," and "a terror to the Earth." It in turn put down "Justice," "Faith," and "Hope" throughout Europe; and the writer of the Ode says,
How long shall vengeance sleep? Ye patient Heavens, how long?
The allusions in stanza iv. suggest that this Ode was written before Waterloo, and the final overthrow of the power of Napoleon, but it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine the point with exactness from internal evidence.
The reference in the last stanza may be to the legend of Amphion moving stones, and building up the walls of Thebes, by the sound of his lyre; the stones advancing to their places, and being fitted together, as he played his instrument. Compare Tennyson's Amphion.—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[154] 1845.
[155] 1827.
[156] 1827.
[157] 1845.
[158] 1827.
[159] 1827.
Composed 1816.—Published 1816
This was first published in 1816 in the "Miscellaneous Pieces, referring chiefly to recent public Events," in the volume entitled Thanksgiving Ode, January 18, 1816, with other short pieces, etc. In 1820 it was placed among the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty, Part II."—Ed.
The French "retreat from Moscow was perhaps the most disastrous on record since the days of Xerxes.... On the night of 6th November, the temperature suddenly fell to that of the most rigorous winter. In that dreadful night thousands of men perished, and nearly all the horses, which compelled the abandonment of the greater part of the convoys. From this point the road began to be strewn with corpses, presenting the aspect of one continuous battlefield.... At Smolensk the cold was at 20 degrees of Réaumur." (Dyer's History of Modern Europe, vol. iv. pp. 518, 519.)—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[160] 1827.
The original title was Composed in Recollection of the Expedition of the French into Russia.
1816.
February 1816.
[161] 1820.
Composed 1816.—Published 1816
One of the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty."—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[162] 1820.
The title in 1816 was
Sonnet on the same occasion. February 1816.
February, 1816
Composed February 4, 1816.—Published 1816
One of the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty."—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[BV] 1816.
The title at first was February 1816.—Ed.
[163] 1837.
[164] 1837.
[165] 1837.
FOOTNOTES:
See Filicaia's Canzone, addressed to (Sir) John Sobieski, king of Poland, upon his raising the siege of Vienna. This, and his other poems on the same occasion, are superior perhaps to any lyrical pieces that contemporary events have ever given birth to, those of the Hebrew Scriptures only excepted.—W. W. (1816 and 1820.)
Vienna, besieged in 1683 by Mahomet IV., was relieved by John Sobieski. The following is Dyer's account of it in his Modern Europe (vol. iii. p. 109):—"At one time Vienna seemed beyond the reach of human aid. The Turks sat down before it on 14th July, and such were their numbers that their encampment is said to have contained more than 100,000 tents. It was the middle of August before John Sobieski could leave Cracow with 25,000 men, and by the end of that month the situation of Vienna had become extremely critical. Provisions and ammunition began to fail; the garrison had lost 6000 men, and numbers died every day by pestilence, or at the hands of the enemy. It was not till 9th September that Sobieski and his Poles formed a junction on the plain of Tuln with the Austrian forces under the Duke of Lorraine, and the other German contingents. On 11th September, the allies reached the heights of Kahlenberg, within sight of Vienna, and announced their arrival to the beleaguered citizens by means of rockets. On the following day the Turks were attacked, and, after a few hours' resistance, completely routed.... The Turkish camp, with vast treasures in money, jewels, horses, arms, and ammunition, became the spoil of the victors."
The Italian poet Filicaia referred to by Wordsworth (Filicaja, Vincenzo), wrote six odes on the deliverance of Vienna by Sobieski. They were published in Florence in the following year, 1684, and established the writer's fame. Queen Christina of Sweden was much struck by them; and, being a generous patroness and admirer of letters, she enabled Filicaja to devote himself to poetry exclusively as his life-work. He wrote numerous patriotic sonnets and heroic odes, in Italian and in Latin.—Ed.
(The last six lines intended for an Inscription.)
February, 1816
Composed February 4, 1816.—Published 1816
One of the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty."—Ed.
It need hardly be said that the intention of using the six last lines as an "Inscription" was never carried into effect. The infelicity of the second last line is fatal to its use on any "monument." The punctuation of the Sonnet as it appeared in The Champion, January 2, 1814, differs slightly from the above.—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[166] 1820.
The full title in 1816 was Inscription for a national monument in commemoration of the Battle of Waterloo.
February, 1816
Composed February 4, 1816.—Published 1816
One of the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty."—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[167] 1837.
The title in 1816 was Occasioned by the same battle, February 1816
[168] 1820.
[169] 1837.
[170] 1837.
FOOTNOTES:
[BX] "From all this world's encumbrance did himself assoil."—Spenser. W. W. 1816.
In a MS. copy of the sonnet, Wordsworth wrote it thus: "In the above is a line taken from Spenser—
Composed 1816.—Published 1827
One of the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty."—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[171] 1832.
FOOTNOTES:
[BY] From the position of this sonnet in the edition of 1827, as well as from manifest internal evidence, it refers, like the two previous ones, to the battle of Waterloo. Illustrations of the first six lines of the sonnet are too numerous in mediæval history to require detailed allusion.—Ed.
On the Disinterment of the Remains of The Duke D'Enghien
Composed 1816.—Published 1816.
One of the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty."—Ed.
The Duc d'Enghien, grandson of the Prince de Condé, and only son of the Duc de Bourbon, born at Chantilly in 1772, commanded the corps of Emigrés gathered on the Rhine by his grandfather. After the peace of Luneville, he retired to Ettenheim, near Strasburg, in German territory. There he married the Princess Charlotte of Rohan-Rochefort, and lived peacefully as a private citizen. He was, though wholly innocent, suspected by Napoleon of complicity in the plot of Pichegru, Cadoudal (one of the Chouans), Moreau, and others, to overthrow him as first Consul, and to restore the Bourbon dynasty. "The Duke was residing at Ettenheim, in the neutral territory of Baden, when Bonaparte, in violation of international law and the rights of the German Empire, caused him to be seized on the night of 15th March by a party of French gens d'armes, and to be carried to the castle of Vincennes, where, after a sort of mock trial, he was shot in the fosse of the fortress, March 21st" (1804).—Dyer's Modern Europe (vol. iv. p. 378). The whole of the proceedings against the Duc d'Enghien were illegal (as was confessed by the presiding judge), and his execution was one of the blackest stains on the character of Napoleon. After the Restoration, in 1814, his remains were disinterred by order of Louis XVIII., and buried in the chapel of the castle at Vincennes, where the restored king erected a monument to his memory. The "pit of vilest mould" mentioned in the sonnet, is, of course, the moat of the castle, and the phrase "to lodge among ancestral kings," refers to Vincennes having been a royal residence, where many princes died and were buried, e.g. Queen Jeanne (wife of Philippe le Bel), Louis le Hutin, and Charles le Bel. Vincennes is close to Paris, the fortress being only about five miles south-east of the Louvre. The chapel, which has a fine Gothic front, was begun in 1248, and was finished in 1552. The monument to the Duc d'Enghien is in the old Sacristy. It consists of four figures in marble, representing the Duke, supported by Religion and bewailed by France, while Vengeance waits behind. It was executed by Deseine.—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[172] The first line of the title was added in the edition of 1836, and continued afterwards.
[173] 1840.
(See Plutarch)
Composed 1816.—Published 1820
[This poem was first introduced by a stanza that I have since transferred to the Notes, for reasons there given,[BZ] and I cannot comply with the request expressed by some of my friends that the rejected stanza should be restored. I hope[Pg 117] they will be content if it be, hereafter, immediately attached to the poem, instead of its being degraded to a place in the Notes.—I. F.]
FOOTNOTE:
[BZ] To the edition of 1837, and subsequent ones, Wordsworth appended the following note:—
This poem began with the following stanza, which has been displaced on account of its detaining the reader too long from the subject, and as rather precluding, than preparing for, the due effect of the allusion to the genius of Plato:—
In the Fenwick note to An Evening Walk, vol. i. p. 5, after describing the two pairs of swans that frequented the lake of Esthwaite, Wordsworth says: "It was from the remembrance of those noble creatures, I took, thirty years after, the picture of the swan which I have discarded from the poem of Dion." After quoting the note, which explains the discarding of the above stanza, Professor Henry Reed remarks, "It is a remarkable instance of the comparative sacrifice of a passage of great beauty to the poet's dutiful regard for the principles of his Art" (American edition of 1851, p. 415). Wordsworth's reasons for withdrawing the stanza are obvious; but it is perhaps not unworthy of mention that when I was editing a volume of Selections from Wordsworth, to which many members of "The Wordsworth Society" contributed, Robert Browning besought me, in the strongest terms, to restore that discarded stanza.—Ed.
From 1820 to 1843 Dion was classed among the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection." In the edition of 1845 it was placed next to Laodamia among the "Poems of the Imagination."—Ed.
VARIANT:
[174] 1820.
I
II
III[CA]
IV
V
VI
VARIANTS:
[175] 1837.
[176] 1837.
[177] 1820.
[178] 1820.
[179] 1820.
[180] 1820.
[181] 1827.
[182] 1827.
[183] 1820.
[184] 1837.
[185] 1820.
[186] 1820.
[187] 1820.
[188] 1827.
[189] 1820.
[190] 1820.
[191] 1820.
[192] 1820.
[193] 1820.
[194] 1820.
[195] 1832.
[196] 1820.
[197] 1820.
[198] 1820.
The following suggested variations of text also exist in MS.—Ed.
Some years ago I was inclined to assign this poem to the year 1814, because Wordsworth himself gave it that date in one of the notes which he dictated to Miss Fenwick in 1843. I now assign it to the year 1816. Wordsworth gave it that date in the year 1837, and if written in 1814, I think it would have been included in the edition of 1815.
Dion, the Ode to Lycoris, and the translation of part of Virgil's Æneid, belong to a time when Wordsworth had reverted to the subjects of ancient classical literature while preparing his eldest son for the University.
Charles Lamb wrote thus to Dorothy Wordsworth in 1820:—"The story of Dion is divine—the genius of Plato falling on him like moonlight—the finest thing ever expressed." (The Letters of Charles Lamb, edited by Alfred Ainger, vol. ii. p. 56.)
I am indebted to the Headmaster of Fettes College, the Rev. W. A. Heard, for the following notes on the poem, with special reference to Plutarch. They reveal, as Mr. Heard remarks, "Wordsworth's method of work upon the authors he had read and studied, and show upon what a solid structure of fact he always wrote." It will be observed that he invariably appended to the title of this poem "(See Plutarch)."
"When Dion, the pupil of Plato, became the autocrat of Syracuse, it seemed as if the moment had come for the rule of a philosopher. But the gardens of the Academy knew nothing of the methods by which alone intrigue could be met and unscrupulousness baffled. The murder of Heracleides became a political necessity; but when this was conceded, the charm was once and for ever broken—the career was done. Plutarch's biography deals mainly with the external conditions, and is overlaid with so much historical detail that the personality of Dion stands out in insufficient relief. Wordsworth gives us a study of the internal struggle, showing us the failure of an ideal, not in its external aspect, but as closing the aspirations, and desolating the conscience, of a truly noble mind. He accepts Plutarch's general conception of the life, incorporating much of the details and adopting some of the language, but over and above the fresh emphasis he gives to critical moments, the imaginative insight with which all the detail is treated makes the poem an original presentation.
ὑψηλὀς τῷ ἠθει καὶ μεγαλόφρων.—'He was lofty in his disposition and large-minded.' Again, Plutarch speaks of the "σεμνότης"—the 'still magnificence' of his nature, coupled with "τὸ γενναίον καἰ ἁπλότης," nobility and simplicity.
βουλομένου τοῡ Πλάτωνος ὁμιλἰα χάριν ἐχούση καὶ παιδιᾱς εμμελοῡς κατὰ καιρὸν ἁπτομένη κεραννύυμενον ἀφηδύνεσθαι τοῡ Δίωνος τὸ ἦθος. Plato tried to soften the harshness of his disposition by the delights of intercourse, and the grace of seasonable wit.
This refers to a warning of Plato, ἡ αὐθάδεια ὲρημία σύνοικος—Arrogance is the house-mate of solitude.
και θεασἁμενοι τὸν Δίωνα διὰ τἡν θυσίαν ἐστεφανωμένον οι παρόντες ἀπὸ μιᾶς ὁρμῆς ἐστεφανοῦντο πάντες.—And seeing Dion wearing a garland on account of the sacrifice, those that were present with one impulse put on garlands one and all.
ὡπλισμένοι δὲ φαυλως ἐκ τοῦ προστυχόντος.—Poorly armed, as chance enabled them.
Δίων προσερχόμενος ῆδη καταφανἡς ἡν πρῶτος αὐτὸς ὡπλισμένος λαμπρῶς ... ἐστεφανωμένος.—Dion himself was already in sight, advancing at their head, clad in gleaming armour and wearing a garland.
τῶν Συρακουσίων δεχομένων ὥσπερ ἱεράν τινα καὶ θεοπρεπῆ πομπὴν ἐλευθερίας καὶ δημοκρατίας δι' ἐτῶν ὀκτὼ καὶ τεσσαράκοντα κατιούσης εἰς τὴν πόλιν.—The Syracusans receiving them as a holy procession beseeming the Gods ('to the Immortals dear'), escorting freedom and democracy back to the city after an exile of forty-seven years.
ἑκατέρωθεν παρὰ τὴν ὁδὸν τῶν Συρακουσίων ἱερεῖά τινα καὶ τραπέζας καὶ κρατῆρας ἱστάντων καὶ καθ' ὁῧς γένοιτο προχύταις τε βαλλόντων καὶ προστρεπομένων ὡσπερ θεὸν κατευχαῖις.—The people setting, on either side the way, victims and tables and bowls of wine, and as he came opposite, casting flowers upon him, and supplicating him with prayers as though he were a God.
Cf. Milton, Paradise Regained, iv. 244:—
Perhaps the idea of Ilissus bending over the urn is taken from the western pediment of the Parthenon. At one angle there is a recumbent figure of the Kephissus, at the other of the llissus; originally there seems to have been a ὑδρια attached to one of them. See Guide to Sculptures of the Parthenon, published at the British Museum.[CB]
Dion was anxious to give Syracuse a constitution, but he found Heracleides an incessant opponent in spite of the long forbearance he had shown him. Feeling that the one obstacle to a settlement must at all costs be removed, he yielded to advisers whom he had long withstood, and allowed them to put Heracleides to death. He gave him, however, a public funeral, and persuaded the people that it was impossible for the State to have peace on any other conditions.
ἐτύγχανε μὲν γὰρ ὀψὲ τῆς ἡμέρας καθεζόμενος ἐν παστάδι τῆς οἰκίας μόνος ὥν πρὸς ἑαυτῷ τὴν διάνοιαν' ἐξαίφνης δὲ ψόφου γενομένου πρὸς θατέρῳ πέρατι τῆς στοᾶς, ἀποβλέψας ἕτι φωτὸς ὅντὸς εἶδε γυναῖκα μεγάλην στολῇ μὲν καὶ προσώπῳ μηδὲν Ἑριννύος τραγικῆς παραλλάττουσαν, σαίρουσαν δὲ καλλύντρω τινὶ τὴν οἰκίαν.—He happened to be sitting late in the evening in a corridor of the house in solitary meditation: suddenly a sound was heard in the further end of the portico, and looking up, he saw in the lingering light the form of a majestic woman, in dress and face like the Fury as she appears in tragedy—sweeping the house with a brush.
In Plutarch, the apparition is simply ominous of coming evil, his son, a few days afterwards, throwing himself in a fit of petulance from the roof of the palace, and his own death shortly following: the moral significance assigned to it in the poem is Wordsworth's own interpretation.
In Plutarch, Dion calls his attendants, dreading to be left alone for fear the spectre should return (παντἀπασιν ἐκστατικῶς ἕχων καὶ δεδοικὼς μὴ πάλιν εἰς ὅψιν αὐτῷ μονωθέν τὸ τέρας ἀφίκηται). Wordsworth seems to have taken a hint from this passage, and to have added a tragic intensity by representing the horror as one which he could share with no one, a supernatural doom in which he must be absolutely solitary.
Callippus, an early friend of Dion's in Athens, and bound to him by a sacred association as he had initiated him into the mysteries, was now in Syracuse, and for selfish ends was plotting his friend's ruin, ἐλπίσας Σικελίαν ἆθλον ἕξειν τῆς ξενοκτονίας, 'hoping to get Sicily as the prize of his treachery.'
Not only was this Callippus his friend, not only had he initiated him into the mysteries at Athens, a bond of peculiar sanctity, but there was even a worse perfidy: to allay the suspicions of Dion's household he had taken 'the awful oath'. Descending into the sacred enclosure of Demeter, he had put on the purple robe of the goddess, and taking a burning torch in his hand, had disowned upon oath any thought of treachery. Yet in spite of this awful oath, he chose the very festival of the goddess as the moment for perpetrating the crime.
cities of the ancient world, and contained a large number of splendid buildings built from the quarries adjacent to the city. Perhaps the most famous was the great theatre, the seats of which were formed with slabs of white marble.
ὁ μὲν Δίων, ὡς ἔοικεν, ἐπὶ τοῖς κατὰ τὸν Ἡρακλείδην ἀχθόμενος καὶ τὸν φόνον ἐκεῖνον ὥς τινα τοῦ βίου καὶ τῶν πράξεων αὐτῷ κηλῖδα περικειμένην, δυσχεραίνων ἀεὶ καὶ βαρυνόμενος εἶπεν ὅτι πολλάκις ἤδη θνήσκειν ἕτοιμός ἐστι καὶ παρέχειν τῷ βουλομένῳ σφάττειν αὑτόν, εἰ ζῆν δεήσει μὴ μόνον τοὺς ἐχθρούς, ἀλλὰ καὶ τοὺς φίλους φυλαττόμενον. His relations had been cautioning him against Callippus; but 'Dion, grieved at heart, it would seem, at the fate of Heracleides, and ever chafing at and brooding over the murder as a stain upon his life and conduct, was willing, he said, to die a thousand deaths and yield his neck to any who would strike the blow, if life was only to be had by guarding against friends as well as foes.'"—Ed.
FOOTNOTES:
[CA] See, at the close of the poem (p. 122), several experimental renderings of this stanza, printed from MS.—Ed.
[CB] That Wordsworth knew the Elgin marbles—where the half-recumbent Ilissus, a torso, is one of the finest pieces of the pediment—is certain. There is a reproduction of it in his nephew's (the late Bishop of Lincoln's) book on Greece. In Henry Crabb Robinson's Diary (vol. ii. p. 195) there is an interesting account of the poet's visit to the British Museum, to see the Elgin marbles, etc. See also the Autobiography of B. R. Haydon, where, in a letter to the artist, Wordsworth says, "I am not surprised to hear that Canova expressed himself highly pleased with the Elgin marbles: a man must be senseless as a clod, or as perverse as a fiend, not to be enraptured with them" (vol. i. p. 325).—Ed.
Or, Canute and Alfred, on the Sea-shore[199]
Composed 1816.—Published 1820
[The first and last fourteen lines of this poem each make a sonnet, and were composed as such; but I thought that by intermediate lines they might be connected so as to make a whole. One or two expressions are taken from Milton's History of England.—I. F.]
One of the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection."—Ed.
The passage from Milton's History of England (book vi.), referred to in the Fenwick note, relates an incident, "which" (as Milton justly says), "unless to Court-Parasites, needed no such laborious demonstration." There is only one expression borrowed by Wordsworth: "The Sea, as before, came rolling on, ... whereat the King, quickly rising, wished all about him to behold and consider the weak and frivolous form of a King, and that none indeed deserved the name of a King, but he whose Eternal Laws both Heaven, Earth, and Sea obey."—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[199] 1820.
[200] 1820.
[201] 1840.
[202] 1820.
[203] 1845.
[204] 1857.
[205] 1820.
[206] 1820.
[207] 1837.
[208] 1820.
FOOTNOTE:
[CC] Compare Tennyson, In Memoriam, stanza xix.—
Composed 1816.—Published 1820
[The complaint in my eyes, which gave occasion to this address to my daughter, first showed itself as a consequence of inflammation, caught at the top of Kirkstone, when I was over-heated by having carried up the ascent my eldest son, a lusty infant. Frequently has the disease recurred since, leaving my eyes in a state which has often prevented my reading for months,[Pg 133] and makes me at this day incapable of bearing without injury any strong light by day or night. My acquaintance with books has therefore been far short of my wishes; and on this account, to acknowledge the services daily and hourly done me by my family and friends, this note is written.—I. F.]
One of the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection."—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[209] 1850.
[210] 1837.
[211] 1837.
[212] 1827.
FOOTNOTES:
[CD] The opening lines of Milton's Samson Agonistes. Compare also The Wanderings of Cain (canto ii. l. 1), by S. T. Coleridge: "A little farther, O my father, yet a little farther, and we shall come into the open moonlight." ... "Lead on, my child!" said Cain; "guide me, little child!"—Ed.
[CE] Dora Wordsworth died in 1847, a loss which cast a gloom over her father's remaining years; and it is not without interest that in the last revision of the text of his poems, in the year of his own death, he substituted
for the earlier reading,
[CF] Compare in the lines on Lucy, beginning, "Three years she grew in sun and shower" (vol. ii. p. 81)—
[CG] Compare Paradise Lost, book ii. l. 409.—Ed.
On her first Ascent to the Summit of Helvellyn
Composed 1816.—Published 1820.
[Written at Rydal Mount. The lady was Miss Blackett, then residing with Mr. Montagu Burgoyne at Fox-Ghyll. We were tempted to remain too long upon the mountain; and I, imprudently, with the hope of shortening the way led her among the crags and down a steep slope which entangled us in difficulties that were met by her with much spirit and courage.—I. F.]
One of the "Poems of the Imagination."—Ed.
With these stanzas to Miss Blackett, compare those addressed by Wordsworth to his sister, published in 1807, under the title To a Young Lady, who had been reproached for taking Long Walks in the Country; and the poem entitled Louisa, after accompanying her on a Mountain Excursion, also referring to his sister (vol. ii. pp. 362, 365).—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[213] 1827.
[214] 1832.
[215] 1845.
[216] 1836.
[217] 1820.
[218] 1832.
[219] 1820.
FOOTNOTE:
[CH] A mountain in Asia, dividing Armenia from Assyria, whence the river Tigris has its source.
The year 1817 was not specially productive of new poems. They may be arranged thus, The Vernal Ode, The Ode to Lycoris, its Sequel, The Longest Day, The Pass of Kirkstone, Hints from the Mountains, and the Lament of Mary Queen of Scots.
Composed 1817.—Published 1820
[Composed at Rydal Mount, to place in view the immortality of succession where immortality is denied, as far as we know, to the individual creature.—I. F.][CI]
This Vernal Ode was first published in the volume entitled "The River Duddon, a series of Sonnets: Vaudracour and Julia: and other poems. To which is annexed, a Topographical Description of the Country of the Lakes, in the north of England." In that volume its title was Ode.—1817. In 1820 it was placed among the "Poems of the Imagination." Its title was merely Ode, and in the table of contents it was called "Beneath the Concave"; the page heading "Vernal Ode" being given to it on the last three of its six pages. In 1827, and 1832, it was transferred to the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection." In 1836 it was returned to the class of "Poems of the Imagination."—Ed.
I
II
III[CK]
IV
V
A MS. copy of this Ode commences with the following stanza, and goes on to "And what if his presiding breath," stanza iii. text of 1820.—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[220] 1827.
ODE.—1817. 1820.
1st Edition.
1820.
ODE.
2nd Edition.
[221] 1836.
[222] 1827.
[223] 1827.
[224] 1827.
[225] 1836.
[226] 1827.
[227] 1827.
[228] 1840.
[229] 1827.
[230] 1820.
[231] 1820.
[232] 1820.
[233] 1820.
[234] 1820.
[235] 1820.
[236] 1827.
[237] 1836.
[238] The stanza ends here. ms.
[239] 1827.
[240] 1820.
[241] 1820.
[242] 1820.
[243] 1820.
[244] 1832.
[245] 1820.
[246] 1820.
[247] 1820.
[248] 1820.
FOOTNOTES:
[CI] Compare George Eliot's "O may I join the choir invisible" (Poems, p. 240).—Ed.
[CJ] See Pliny's Historia Naturalis, book xi. chap. 1.—Ed.
[CK] The first eight lines of stanza iii. were added in the edition of 1836; and in that of 1832 stanzas ii. and iii. were included in a single one. They were again separated in 1836.—Ed.
[CL] Urania (the heavenly muse) was usually represented as crowned with stars, and holding a globe in her hand; while Clio was crowned with laurel.—Ed.
May, 1817
Composed 1817.—Published 1820
[The discerning reader—who is aware that in the poem of Ellen Irwin I was desirous of throwing the reader at once out of the old ballad, so as if possible, to preclude a comparison between that mode of dealing with the subject and the mode I meant to adopt—may here perhaps perceive that this poem originated in the four last lines of the first stanza. Those specks of snow, reflected in the lake and so transferred, as it were, to the subaqueous sky, reminded me of the swans which the fancy of the ancient classic poets yoked to the car of Venus. Hence the tenor of the whole first stanza, and the name of Lycoris, which—with some readers who think my theology and classical allusion too far fetched and therefore more or less unnatural and affected—will tend to unrealise the sentiment that pervades these verses. But surely one who has written so much in verse as I have done may be allowed to retrace his steps in the regions of fancy which delighted him in his boyhood,[Pg 146] when he first became acquainted with the Greek and Roman poets. Before I read Virgil I was so strongly attached to Ovid, whose Metamorphoses I read at school, that I was quite in a passion whenever I found him, in books of criticism, placed below Virgil. As to Homer, I was never weary of travelling over the scenes through which he led me. Classical literature affected me by its own beauty. But the truths of Scripture having been entrusted to the dead languages, and these fountains having recently been laid open at the Reformation, an importance and a sanctity were at that period attached to classical literature that extended, as is obvious in Milton's Lycidas for example, both to its spirit and form in a degree that can never be revived. No doubt the hacknied and lifeless use into which mythology fell towards the close of the 17th century, and which continued through the 18th, disgusted the general reader with all allusion to it in modern verse; and though, in deference to this disgust, and also in a measure participating in it, I abstained in my earlier writings from all introduction of pagan fable, surely, even in its humble form, it may ally itself with real sentiment, as I can truly affirm it did in the present case.—I. F.]
One of the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection." In 1847 Wordsworth wrote to Mr. Fletcher that this poem was "suggested to him one day at Ullswater, in the year 1817, by seeing two white, snowy clouds reflected in the lake. 'They looked' (he said), 'like two swans.'"—Ed.
I
II
III
VARIANTS:
[249] 1827.
[250] 1827.
[251] 1837.
FOOTNOTES:
[CM] Probably one of the bays in Rydal Mere.—Ed.
[CN] The kingfisher.—Ed.
[CO] Probably on Nab Scar reflected in Rydal water.—Ed.
[CP] Compare The Prelude, book vi. l. 173—
[CQ] Lycoris was the name under which the poet Gallus wrote of his Cytheris, a freed woman of the senator Volumnius, celebrated for her beauty and intrigues. See Virgil's reference to her in Eclogue x. 42, in which he condoles with his friend Gallus for the loss of Lycoris—
Ovid also refers to her, A. A. iii. 537—"The western and the eastern lands know of Lycoris." From the tone of the Fenwick note, it would seem that Wordsworth was doubtful of the fitness of associating the name of Lycoris with the dominant thought of these stanzas; but there is no unfitness in the use he makes of it. This poem, with its reference to the "one soft vernal day," and its prevailing thought of spring, and
appropriately follow the Vernal Ode.—Ed.
Composed 1817.—Published 1820
[This, as well as the preceding and the two that follow,[CR] were composed in front of Rydal Mount, and during my walks in the neighbourhood. Nine-tenths of my verses have been murmured out in the open air: and here let me repeat what I believe has already appeared in print. One day a stranger having walked round the garden and grounds of Rydal Mount asked one of the female servants, who happened to be at the door, permission to see her master's study. "This," said she, leading him forward, "is my master's library where he keeps his books, but his study is out of doors." After a long absence from home it has more than once happened that some one of my cottage neighbours has said—"Well, there he is; we are glad to hear him booing about again." Once more in excuse for so much egotism let me say, these notes are written for my familiar friends, and at their earnest request. Another time a gentleman whom James had conducted through the grounds asked him what kind of plants throve best there: after a little consideration he answered—"Laurels." "That is," said the stranger, "as it should be; don't you know that the laurel is the emblem of poetry, and that poets used on public occasions to be crowned with it?" James stared when the question was first put, but was doubtless much pleased with the information.—I.F.]
One of the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection."—Ed.
The spot described in this sequel to Lycoris is, I think, the bower in the rock on Nab Scar, alluded to in Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal (see note to The Waterfall and the Eglantine, vol. ii. p. 172). The description in that Journal, taken in connection with the text of this poem, warrants the suggestion that the "Friend" with whom he had "known such happy hours together" was his own sister Dorothy. The[Pg 152] extreme probability that it was on Nab Scar that the snow patches lay, which were reflected in Rydal mere, and which his imagination transformed into the swans that carried Venus' car through heaven, adds to the likelihood of this conjecture. The following extracts from the Sister's journal may be compared with passages in the poem:—"We pushed on to the foot of the Scar. It was very grand when we looked up, very stony.... Coleridge went to search for something new. We saw him climbing up towards a rock. He called us, and we found him in a bower,—the sweetest that was ever seen. The rock on one side is very high, and all covered with ivy, which hung loosely about, and bore bunches of brown berries." With this compare—
And with the following, "We looked down on the Ambleside vale, that seemed to wind away from us, the village lying under the hill," compare—
With the following, "It is scarce a bower, a little parlour only, not enclosed by walls, but shaped out for a resting-place by the rocks, and the ground rising about it. It had a sweet moss carpet," compare l. 14—
Doubtless Wordsworth drew on his imagination, "making a truth and beauty of his own," in this, as in every other description of place, which has a local colouring in it; but to connect "the dim cave" of the Ode to Lycoris with these conversations between Coleridge and the Wordsworths—mentioned in the Grasmere Journal of the latter, and hinted at in the closing passage of the Ode—is certainly permissible.—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[252] 1827.
[253] 1827.
[254] 1827.
[255] 1827.
[256] 1827.
FOOTNOTES:
[CR] As the Fenwick notes have no regard to chronological order, but refer to the poems as arranged by Wordsworth himself, it may be noted that the "preceding" is the Ode to Lycoris; "the two that follow" are September 1819, and its sequel entitled Upon the same Occasion.—Ed.
[CS] Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome. "He was renowned," says Niebuhr (History of Rome, I. 237), "as the author of the Roman ceremonial law. Instructed by the Camena Egeria, who led him into the assemblies of her sisters in the sacred grove, he regulated the whole hierarchy, the pontiffs, the augurs, the flamens," etc.—Ed.
[CT] Compare Walter Savage Landor's Count Julian, v. 3—
[CU] Possibly this refers to his sister Dorothy. Among the poems on the Tour of 1833 is one To a Friend. This friend was the poet's son, pastor at Brigham, Cockermouth. See the note appended to the present poem.—Ed.
Addressed to my Daughter, Dora[257]
Composed 1817.—Published 1820
[Suggested by the sight of my daughter (Dora) playing in front of Rydal Mount; and composed in a great measure the same afternoon. I have often wished to pair this poem upon the longest, with one upon the shortest, day, and regret even now that it has not been done.—I. F.]
One of the "Poems referring to the Period of Childhood."—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[257] 1849.
[258] 1845.
[259] 1845.
[260] 1820.
[261] 1836.
[262] 1820.
[263] 1832.
[264] 1820.
[265] This stanza is an interpolation by the poet in the ms.
[266] 1820.
[267] 1845.
For certain Political Pretenders[268]
Composed 1817.—Published 1820
[Bunches of fern may often be seen wheeling about in the wind as here described. The particular bunch that suggested these verses was noticed in the Pass of Dunmail Raise. The verses were composed in 1817, but the application is for all times and places.—I. F.]
Included among the "Poems of the Fancy."—Ed.
ANSWER
VARIANTS:
[268] 1827.
[269] 1827.
[270] 1827.
[271] 1827.
[272] 1827.
[273] 1827.
Composed June 27, 1817.—Published 1820
[Written at Rydal Mount. Thoughts and feelings of many walks in all weathers, by day and night, over this Pass, alone and with beloved friends.—I. F.]
Included among the "Poems of the Imagination."—Ed.
I
II
III
IV
A copy of this poem, sent in MS. to the Beaumonts at Coleorton, contains the following preface—"Composed chiefly in a walk from the top of Kirkstone to Patterdale, by W. Wordsworth, 1817"; and on the back of this MS. (in which those variations from the earliest published version occur, which are printed as "MS." readings in the previous footnotes, and which ends with stanza iii.), the date is given, "Mr. Wordsworth's verses, June 27, 1817."—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[274] 1820.
[275] 1857.
[276] 1820.
[277] 1820.
[278] 1820.
[279] 1820.
[280] 1820.
[281] 1820.
[282] 1836.
[283] 1836.
[284] 1836.
[285] 1820.
[286] 1820.
[287] 1820.
[288] 1820.
[289] 1820.
FOOTNOTES:
[CV] The title in the edition of 1820 was Ode, The Pass of Kirkstone.—Ed.
[CW] The top of Kirkstone Pass is aptly described as an "inverted arch." There are numerous signs of the Roman occupation of Britain still surviving in the district; the old Roman road to Penrith running along the top of High Street, a little to the east of Kirkstone.—Ed.
[CX] The block, which from its shape was called the Kirkstone, lies to the west of the road, and a little way from the summit of the Pass, on the right as one ascends from Patterdale.—Ed.
[CY] Towards Brothers Water.—Ed.
[CZ] "The walk up Kirkstone was very interesting. The becks among the rocks were all alive. William showed me the little mossy streamlet which he had before loved when he saw its bright green track in the snow. The view above Ambleside very beautiful. There we sat and looked down on the green vale. We watched the crows at a little distance from us become white as silver as they flew in the sunshine, and when they went still further, they looked like shapes of water passing over the green fields." (Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, 16th April 1802.)—Ed.
[DA] Compare Ode, Intimations of Immortality, stanza iii.—
On the Eve of a New Year
Composed 1817.—Published 1820
[This arose out of a flash of moonlight that struck the ground when I was approaching the steps that lead from the garden at Rydal Mount to the front of the house. "From her sunk eyes a stagnant tear stole forth" is taken, with some loss, from a discarded poem, The Convict, in which occurred, when he was discovered lying in the cell, these lines:—
But now he upraises the deep-sunken eye,The motion unsettles a tear;The silence of sorrow it seems to supply,And asks of me—why I am here.—I. F.]
This was first published in "The River Duddon," etc., in 1820, but was omitted from the four-volume edition of the "Poems" of 1820. In 1827 it was placed among the "Poems founded on the Affections."—Ed.
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
Compare the sonnet entitled Captivity, Mary Queen of Scots, composed and published in 1819 (p. 191); also the sonnet, composed in 1833, entitled Mary Queen of Scots (Landing at the mouth of the Derwent, Workington).—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[290] 1820.
[291] 1820.
[292] 1820.
[293] 1820.
[294] 1820.
[295] 1820.
[296] 1820.
[297] 1820.
[298] 1820.
[299] 1820.
[300] 1827.
[301] 1820.
Still fewer than those of 1817 are the poems composed in 1818. They comprise The Pilgrim's Dream, The five Inscriptions, supposed to be found in and near a Hermit's Cell, and the stanzas Composed upon an Evening of extraordinary Splendour and Beauty, etc. They were all written at or near Rydal Mount; and their local allusions are all Rydalian.
Or, the Star and the Glow-worm
Composed 1818.—Published 1820
[I distinctly recollect the evening when these verses were suggested in 1818. It was on the road between Rydal and Grasmere, where Glow-worms abound.[DB] A Star was shining above the ridge of Loughrigg Fell, just opposite. I remember a critic, in some review or other, crying out against this piece. "What so monstrous," said he, "as to make a star talk to a glow-worm!" Poor fellow! we know from this sage observation what the "primrose on the river's brim" was to him.—I. F.]
One of the "Poems of the Fancy."—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[302] 1820.
[303] 1820.
[304] 1827.
[305] 1845.
[306] 1820.
[307] 1827.
[308] 1827.
[309] 1820.
[310] 1820.
FOOTNOTE:
[DB] Compare The Primrose of the Rock composed in 1831. The rock which the Wordsworth family were in the habit of calling "Glow-worm Rock" is on the right hand side of the road, as you ascend from Rydal, by the middle path, over White Moss Common to Grasmere.—Ed.
1818
Composed 1818.—Published 1820
The five poems which follow were placed among the "Inscriptions," from 1820 onwards.—Ed.
I
"Hopes, what are they?—Beads of Morning"
Compare Carlyle's Cui Bono—
See his Miscellaneous Essays, vol. i. p. 352 (edition 1857).—Ed.
II
Inscribed upon a Rock
[The monument of ice here spoken of I observed while ascending the middle road of the three ways that lead from Rydal to Grasmere.[DC] It was on my right hand, and my eyes were upon it when it fell, as told in these lines.—I. F.]
III
"Hast thou seen, with Flash incessant"
[Where the second quarry now is, as you pass from Rydal to Grasmere, there was formerly a length of smooth rock that sloped towards the road on the right hand. I used to call it Tadpole Slope, from having frequently observed there the water-bubbles gliding under the ice, exactly in the shape of that creature.—I. F.]
IV
Near the Spring of the Hermitage
It is impossible to say where the "spring of the Hermitage" was, or was supposed by Wordsworth to be. It may refer to some Rydalian retreat. There is no spring or "crystal well" on St. Herbert's Island, Derwentwater; but Inscription XIII. in the edition of 1820 is entitled "For the Spot where the Hermitage stood on St. Herbert's Island, Derwentwater."—Ed.
V
"Not seldom, clad in Radiant Vest"
VARIANTS:
[311] 1820.
[312] 1820.
[313] 1820.
[314] 1820.
[315] 1820.
[316] 1827.
[317] 1820.
[318] 1820.
[319] 1837.
[320] 1820.
[321] 1820.
[322] 1820.
[323] 1820.
4 vol. edition.
[324] 1820.
[325] In a MS. this stanza follows the second last one in the Inscription beginning, "Hopes, what are they?"
[326] 1827.
[327] 1827.
FOOTNOTE:
[DC] And therefore not far from the Glow-worm Rock, if not upon it. See the note to The Pilgrim's Dream, p. 167.—Ed.
Composed 1818.—Published 1820
[Felt, and in a great measure composed, upon the little mount in front of our abode at Rydal. In concluding my notices of this class of poems, it may be as well to observe that among the "Miscellaneous Sonnets" are a few alluding to morning impressions, which might be read with mutual benefit, in connection with these "Evening Voluntaries." See, for example, that one on Westminster Bridge, that composed on a May Morning, the one on the Song of the Thrush, and that beginning—"While beams of orient light shoot wide and high."—I. F.]
In 1820 this was one of the "Poems of the Imagination." In 1837 it was transferred to the "Evening Voluntaries."—Ed.
I
II
III
IV
VARIANTS:
[328] 1820.
[329] 1820.
[330] 1832.
[331] 1820.
[332] 1820.
[333] 1820.
[334] 1820.
[335] 1820.
[336] 1820.
[337] 1820.
[338] 1837.
[339] 1820.
[340] 1820.
[341] 1820.
[342] 1820.
[343] 1837.
[344] 1820.
[345] 1820.
[346] 1820.
FOOTNOTES:
[DD] The title, in the first edition of 1820, was "Ode, composed upon an evening of extraordinary splendor and beauty." In the four-volume edition of that year it was "Evening Ode, composed upon an evening of extraordinary Splendor and Beauty." In a MS. copy I have found the following, "Composed during a sunset of transcendent Beauty, in the summer of 1817."—Ed.
[DE] There used to be fallow deer in the park at Rydal Hall. Compare The Triad (where the local allusions all refer to the Rydal district)—
and The Excursion, book ix. l. 563 (vol. v. p. 373).—Ed.
[DF] Compare Gray's Progress of Poesy, ll. 119, 120—
[DG] The multiplication of mountain-ridges, described at the commencement of the third Stanza of this Ode, as a kind of Jacob's Ladder, leading to Heaven, is produced either by watery vapours, or sunny haze;—in the present instance by the latter cause. Allusions to the Ode, entitled Intimations of Immortality, pervade the last Stanza of the foregoing Poem.—W. W. 1820.
The "hazy ridges" referred to in the text are probably those to the west, behind Silver How.—Ed.
[DH] In the lines "Wings at my shoulders seem to play," etc., I am under obligation to the exquisite picture by Mr. Alstone, now in America. It is pleasant to make this public acknowledgment to men of genius, whom I have the honour to rank among my friends.—W. W. 1820.
The phrase "men of genius" includes Haydon. The first part of this note of 1820, being one on Peter Bell, referring to Haydon's Bible picture of Christ's Entry into Jerusalem. (See note to Peter Bell, l. 979.)
The American painter was Mr. Washington Allston. Wordsworth sent him a MS. copy of the poem, transcribed "in gratitude for the pleasure he had received from the sight of Mr. Allston's pictures, in particular 'Jacob's Dream,'" and at the end of the MS. of his poem, Wordsworth wrote, "The Author does not know how far he was indebted to Mr. Allston for part of the 3rd stanza. The multiplication of ridges in a mountainous country, as Mr. A. has probably observed, arises from two causes, sunny or watery vapour—the former is here meant. When does Mr. A. return to England?" In a letter on "Wordsworth and Allston," in The Athenæum, Mr. J. Dykes Campbell refers to "something in the picture having given definite form to observations of natural phenomena the significance of which the poet had not immediately noted." "Wordsworth," he adds, "was a close and untiring rather than a quick or keen observer, and his mind was at all times stored with a wealth of notes which sometimes had to wait long before they could either be worked out or worked in. Sometimes—as in this instance, perhaps—they were revivified by the suggestions of some kindred observer who happened to anticipate the poet in giving them form."—See The Athenæum, August 7, 1894.—Ed.
[DI] Compare the reference in the Ode, Intimations of Immortality, ll. 178, 179, to—
With the exception of The Haunted Tree, and the lines entitled September 1819, all the poems composed during the year 1819 were sonnets. Four of the latter were published along with Peter Bell, in the first edition of that poem; and other twelve, along with The Waggoner, which was first published in the same year. One of the twelve refers to the Old Hall of Donnerdale, and belongs to the series of Sonnets on the River Duddon, where it will be found (No. XXVII.) It was first published, along with those referring to Rydal, in the volume of 1819, and probably detached from the rest of the series, because originally it had no particular reference to the Old Hall in the Duddon Valley; but was (as Wordsworth indicates in the third of the Fenwick notes to the Duddon) "taken from a tradition belonging to Rydal Hall, which once stood, as is believed, upon a rocky and woody hill on the right hand as you go from Rydal to Ambleside, and was deserted from the superstitious fear here described, and the present site fortunately chosen instead."—Ed.
This, and the two following sonnets, were first published in Blackwood's Magazine, vol. iv., January 1819, p. 471. They were reprinted in The Poetical Album, edited by Alaric Watts, in 1829 (Second Series, vol. i. pp. 332, 333) under the title,[Pg 184] "The Caves of Yorkshire." The same volume of the Album contains (p. 43) the sonnet beginning—
In the 1819 edition of Peter Bell, p. 84, a note, prefatory to the four following sonnets, occurs to this effect: "The following Sonnets having lately appeared in Periodical Publications are here reprinted."—Ed.
Composed 1819.—Published 1819
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[347] 1820.
[348] 1820.
FOOTNOTES:
[DJ] Wordsworth visited these caves with Edward Quillinan in 1821.—Ed.
[DK] Waters (as Mr. Westall informs us in the letterpress prefixed to his admirable views) are invariably found to flow through these caverns.—W. W. 1819.
Composed 1819.—Published 1819
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
Malham Cove is a noble amphitheatre of perpendicular limestone rock, lying in regular strata, the height being 300 feet in the centre. The Aire issues from the rock at the base of the cliff, a considerable stream. Possibly Westall's picture of Malham Cove suggested to Wordsworth the Giant's Causeway in Ireland, and its legend. They have the same columnar appearance; although the former is limestone, and the latter basalt.—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[349] 1820.
[350] 1837.
FOOTNOTES:
[DL] Compare the Fenwick note to The Excursion.—Ed.
[DM] Compare the Fenwick note to The Excursion.—Ed.
Composed 1819.—Published 1819
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
There are many legendary stories connected with the Yorkshire caves, particularly in the Giggleswick district; but I have been unable to trace any legend about the "local Deity" of Gordale. There is nothing in the letterpress of Westall's views, or in the "addenda" to West's Guide to the Lakes in Cumberland, about these legends. The chasm is a very remarkable cleft in the limestone rock, near Malham. Gray's description of Gordale, in his Journal (1796), may be referred to.—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[351] 1819.
[352] 1819.
[353] 1819.
[354] 1819.
[355] 1827.
[356] 1819.
Composed 1819.—Published 1819
[Written in Rydal Woods, by the side of a torrent.—I. F.]
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[357] 1827.
[358] 1827.
[359] 1840.
Composed 1819.—Published 1819
[A projecting point of Loughrigg, nearly in front of Rydal Mount. Thence looking at it, you are struck with the boldness[Pg 188] of its aspect; but walking under it, you admire the beauty of its details. It is vulgarly called Holme-scar, probably from the insulated pasture by the waterside below it.—I. F.]
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
Compare the sonnet No. XXVII. of the Duddon Series, beginning "Fallen, and diffused into a shapeless heap," as it was evidently written with reference to the old (traditional) Hall of Rydal. If an
stood in "the sinuous vale" of Rydal, there was no "neglect of hoar Antiquity."—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[360] 1827.
[361] 1837.
[362] 1827.
Composed 1819.—Published 1819
[I observed this beautiful nest on the largest island of Rydal Water.—I. F.]
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[363] 1819.
[364] 1819.
[365] 1819.
[366] 1819.
[367] 1819.
[368] 1837.
Composed 1819.—Published 1819
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[369] 1827.
[370] 1827.
[371] 1819.
[372] 1827.
Composed 1819.—Published 1819
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
Compare the Lament of Mary Queen of Scots, p. 162.
Why this sonnet was printed, from 1819 (in which year it appeared in The Waggoner, a Poem, to which are added Sonnets,) to the last edition of 1849, within inverted commas, I have never been able to discover.—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[373] 1837.
[374] 1827.
Composed 1819.—Published 1819
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[375] 1827.
[376] 1827.
[377] 1827.
[378] 1827.
Composed 1819.—Published 1820
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
FOOTNOTES:
[DN] In the edition of 1820 this sonnet was entitled,
On seeing a tuft of Snow-drops in a Storm;
and, in the edition of 1827, the title was,
Composed a few days after the foregoing;
the "foregoing" sonnet being that addressed To a Snow-drop.—Ed.
[DO] Compare in The Primrose of the Rock—
[DP] Macedonian; the district of Emathia being the original seat of the Macedonian monarchy.—Ed.
[DQ] An allusion to the so-called Sacred Band, whose successes under Pelopidas had so large a share in sustaining the Theban ascendency after the Battle of Leuctra (B.C. 371-366).—Ed.
Composed 1819.—Published 1819
This sonnet was first published along with The Waggoner. In the editions from 1820 to 1832 it was placed among the "Miscellaneous Sonnets." In 1835 it was included in the series of "Poems, composed or suggested during a tour, in the summer of 1833."—Ed.
The Derwent has its source on the slopes of Glaramara; and an Eagle Crag rises above one of its affluents (the Langstrath beck, separating the Langstrath from the Greenup Valley). Doubtless there were eagles there in the last century when Wordsworth was born, and they would soar over Skiddaw and the Grasmere group of mountains towards Cockermouth, his birth-place.—Ed.
VARIANT:
[379] 1827.
Composed 1819.—Published 1819
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[380] 1819.
[381] 1819.
[382] 1819.
The following (incomplete) version of this Easter Sunday sonnet exists in MS.:—
Composed 1819.—Published 1819
[I could write a treatise of lamentation upon the changes brought about among the cottages of Westmoreland by the silence of the spinning-wheel.[DR] During long winter nights and wet days, the wheel upon which wool was spun gave employment to a great part of a family. The old man, however infirm, was able to card the wool, as he sate in a corner by the fire-side; and often, when a boy, have I admired the cylinders of carded wool which were softly laid upon each other by his side. Two wheels were often at work on the same floor; and others of the family, chiefly little children, were occupied in teasing and cleaning the wool to fit it for the hand of the carder. So that all, except the smallest infants, were contributing to[Pg 196] mutual support. Such was the employment that prevailed in the pastoral vales. Where wool was not at hand, in the small rural towns, the wheel for spinning flax was almost in as constant use, if knitting was not preferred; which latter occupation has the advantage (in some cases disadvantage) that, not being of necessity stationary, it allowed of gossiping about from house to house, which good housewives reckoned an idle thing.—I. F.]
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
The following version of the last seven lines of this sonnet is from a MS. copy of it:—
VARIANT:
[383] 1819.
FOOTNOTE:
[DR] Compare similar regrets in The Excursion.—Ed.
Composed 1819.—Published 1819[DS]
[Suggested in front of Rydal Mount, the rocky parapet being the summit of Loughrigg Fell opposite. Not once only, but a hundred times, have the feelings of this sonnet been awakened by the same objects seen from the same place.—I. F.]
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[384] 1837.
[385] 1837.
FOOTNOTES:
[DS] This sonnet was omitted in the edition of 1827.—Ed.
[DT] Compare Beattie's Hermit (stanza iii. l. 5)—
Composed 1819.—Published 1819
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
Socrates to Simmias.—"Will you not allow that I have as much of the spirit of prophecy in me as the swans? For they, when they perceive that they must die, having sung all their life long, do then sing more than ever, rejoicing in the thought that they are about to go away to the God, whose ministers they are. But men, because they are themselves afraid of death, slanderously affirm of the swans, that they sing a lament at the last, not considering that no bird sings when cold, or hungry, or in pain, not even the nightingale, nor the swallow, nor yet the hoopoe, which are said indeed to tune a lay of sorrow, although I do not believe this to be true of them any more than of the swans. But because they are sacred to Apollo, they have[Pg 199] the gift of prophecy, and anticipate the good things of another world; wherefore they sing and rejoice in that day more than ever they did before. And I too, believing myself to be the consecrated servant of the same God, and the fellow-servant of the swans, and thinking that I have received from my master gifts of prophecy which are not inferior to theirs, would not go out of life less merrily than the swans." Phædo, 85 (Jowett's translation, vol. i. p. 462).—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[386] 1819.
[387] 1819.
FOOTNOTE:
[DU] See the Phædon of Plato, by which this Sonnet was suggested.—W. W. 1819.
To ——
Composed 1819.—Published 1820
[This tree grew in the park of Rydal, and I have often listened to its creaking as described.—I. F.]
One of the "Poems of the Imagination."—Ed.
Where this Haunted Tree stood in Rydal Park, or whether it is still standing, cannot be determined. There are several "time-dismantled oaks" in the Park, but none with a heather couch beneath them, so far as I know. I have, however, heard stories of this tree from old residenters. The "Lady," the "lovely wanderer of the trackless hills," may have been the poet's daughter, Dora, to whom (probably) this poem was inscribed.—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[388] 1827.
[389] 1827.
[390] 1836.
[391] 1836.
[392] 1827.
[393] 1849.
FOOTNOTES:
[DV] The title in the first edition of 1820 was "To ——."—Ed.
[DW] The Hamadryads were supposed not only to haunt the trees, but to live in them, and to die with them.—Ed.
Composed 1819.—Published 1820
One of the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection."—Ed.
See the Fenwick note to the second of the two Odes to Lycoris. This poem and the next in order are "the two that follow," referred to in that note as "composed in front of Rydal Mount, and during my walks in the neighbourhood." Note the eulogy of Spring, and (comparative) disparagement of Autumn, in Lycoris; and the complimentary truth, in reference to Autumn, brought out in this fragment.—Ed.
FOOTNOTE:
[DX] Rydal Mere. Compare the Ode to Lycoris (pp. 145-148).—Ed.
Composed 1819.—Published 1820
One of the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection."—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[394] 1827.
[395] 1820.
(4 vol. edition.)
FOOTNOTES:
[DY] Compare Macbeth, act V. scene iii. l. 23—
[DZ] The reference may be to some of the poets of the Restoration.—Ed.
[EA] Here the reference may be to Cædmon's Paraphrase.—Ed.
[EB] Alcæus of Mytilene, in Lesbos, the first of the Æolian lyric poets, flourished in the 42nd Olympiad, about 600 B.C. He wrote odes, songs, and epigrams, and was the inventor of the Alcaic metre, called after his name. "During the civil war Alcæus engaged actively on the side of the nobles, whose spirits he endeavoured to cheer by a number of most animated odes, full of invectives against the tyrant; and after the defeat of his party, he, with his brother Antimenidas, led them again in an attempt to regain their country." (Mr. Philip Smith in the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography.)—Ed.
[EC] I am indebted to Mr. H. T. Rhoades, Rugby, for the following note on Alcæus:—"There is nothing exactly corresponding to 'Woe, woe, to Tyrants' in the fragments of Alcæus which have come down to us—which are chiefly drinking songs—the nearest is an exultation over a dead tyrant, νυν χρη μεθυσθην ... επειδη κατθανε Μυρσιλος—but he wrote verses which Pittacus thought dangerous, and for which he was banished. Horace, Od. IV. ix. 7, has 'Alcæi minaces camenæ,' and Wordsworth has perhaps had this in his mind."—Ed.
[ED] Sappho. Her ode to Aphrodite—of which Longinus said it was "not one passion, but a congress of passions"—is the most perfect in Greek literature. It is to it that Wordsworth refers; and as there has been much controversy as to the character of this magnificent erotic ode—compare the discussion by Welcher (Rheinisches Museum, 1857); by Mure (Critical History of the Language and Literature of Ancient Greece, vol. iii. chap. V. 11); by Müller (Literature of Ancient Greece, pp. 175, 178); and by J. A. Symonds (Studies of the Greek Poets, 1st Series, p. 129), Wordsworth's verdict—
is noteworthy.—Ed.
[EE] In 1752, during the excavations at Herculaneum, the villa of an Epicurean philosopher was discovered, in which were 1800 rolls of papyri, containing fragments of Epicurus' work On Nature. Only about 350 of these charred MSS. have as yet been unwound. When the discovery was first made that a library of ancient literature had been unearthed, European scholars everywhere anticipated
Hence Wordsworth's allusion to the possible discovery of the long buried fragments of classical antiquity, such as the poems of Simonides, or the lost books of Livy and Tacitus, for which others longed.—Ed.
[EF] Simonides, of Ceos, perfected Greek elegy and epigram, a "brilliant representative not only of Greek choral poetry in its prime, but of the whole literary life of Hellas during the period which immediately preceded and followed the Persian war." We find in him "a Dorian solemnity of thought and feeling, which qualified him for commemorating in elegy and epigram and funereal ode the achievements of Hellas against Persia.... The genius of Simonides is unique in this branch of monumental poetry (epigram). His couplets—calm, simple, terse, strong as the deeds they celebrate, enduring as the brass or stone which they adorned—animated succeeding generations of Greek patriots." (Symonds, Studies of the Greek Poets, 1st Series, pp. 146-149.) The phrase "pure Simonides" probably refers to his reputation—which was proverbial—for σωφροσύνη, that temperance and restraint, that moderation and self-control which are seen both in his poems and in his reputed sayings as a philosopher.—Ed.
[EG] Horace refers to Simonides, Carmina IV. ix. 5-8—
and again, Carmina II. i. 37-40—
[EH] I have been unable to find any allusion to Simonides in Virgil. But probably Wordsworth merely refers to the numerous lost books of Greek and Latin literature; and wonders if these treasures (of all kinds), which Horace and Virgil knew and prized, would ever be recovered by us. Some of Horace's most significant references to the literature of Greece, and of the past, occur in Odes III. 3; iv. 2 and 3.
Since the above was written, the late Professor William Sellar wrote to me:—"I do not find any special reference to Simonides in Virgil. Besides the passages you refer to in Horace, there are two or three lines in the Odes, which he has translated from Simonides, e.g.
but I think Wordsworth's reference is quite vague. It is quite appropriate so far, that it was only in the Augustan age that the Romans got back to the great sources of Greek poetry, and one cause of the superiority of Virgil and Horace to all their contemporaries was that they did this much more thoroughly than the others, and appreciated the purest and oldest of these sources. Horace's special study was of course the whole range of Greek lyric poetry. He no doubt acknowledges his relation to Sappho and Alcæus more than to Simonides, but he recognises him as well as Pindar among the Masters of lyrical poetry. So far as one can judge by the fragments of Simonides' lyrical poetry, I should say that his characteristics were tenderness, piety, and purity; and, in these respects, he has a strong affinity with Virgil, which may explain their association together by Wordsworth. The passage quoted by you is very interesting, as showing how Wordsworth—the most essentially modern and least conventional of poets—regarded Virgil and Horace, who have often been disparaged as types of conventionalism.... It would be very interesting to bring together the various passages in which Wordsworth draws from the sources of classical poetry. His reminiscences of Latin poetry seem to me to have a peculiar freshness, different from the more direct reproduction of Milton, Gray, etc."—Ed.
The following poems may be assigned to the year 1820. The River Duddon, a series of Sonnets, the Ode To Enterprise, some of the Memorials of a Tour on the Continent, and a number of Miscellaneous Sonnets. Several of the Duddon Sonnets were composed in previous years, and one of them was published as early as 1807; but, as the volume containing the entire series was published in 1820—and the dedication was written on Christmas Eve of that year—the whole has been assigned to 1820. In localising the allusions in these sonnets, I have been greatly indebted to Mr. Herbert Rix, whose paper contributed to the "Transactions of the Wordsworth Society" was only the first of a Series of admirable studies of the Duddon. I have also been greatly indebted to Canon Rawnsley. Most of the "Memorials" of the Continental Tour were written during the journey; and, although they were not finished till 1822—the year of publication—I think their chronological place should be in the year 1820. In connection with these poems, I have had the advantage of perusing the two singularly interesting Journals of the Tour, written by Mrs. Wordsworth, and by the poet's sister Dorothy. Both of these were written, in the form of notes or "memoranda," during the journey. Miss Wordsworth's was expanded from these earlier jottings, two months after her return to Rydal Mount; and added to, as late as December 1821. In the case of each poem, illustrative extracts are given from these two Journals; and it will be seen that they cast much light on the incidents which gave rise to the Memorial Verses, and the circumstances under which they were composed. The poet's wish that these journals should be published, at least in part, is expressed in the Fenwick note, which precedes the sonnet beginning, "What lovelier home could gentle Fancy choose?"[Pg 208] p. 294; and Mrs. Wordsworth, in a letter to Mr. John Kenyon—dated 28th December 1821—after referring to her husband's being "busily engaged upon subjects connected with our Continental Journey," says, "Miss W. is going on with her Journal, which will be ready to go to press interspersed with her brother's Poems I hope before your return." She adds, however, "I do not say this seriously, but we sometimes jestingly talk of raising a fund by such means, for a second and a farther trip into Italy." The diary and correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson is also of use in determining some points connected with this Continental Journey, in which he accompanied the Wordsworths.—Ed.
Composed 1820.—Published 1820
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
Composed 1820.—Published 1820
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
His Majesty, George III., died on the 29th January 1820, in the 82nd year of his age, and the 60th of his reign. His mental powers had given way completely since 1810. See the sonnet, November, 1813 (vol. iv. p. 282) beginning,
On the 2nd of February 1820 Wordsworth wrote to the Earl of Lonsdale: "I sincerely condole with you on the lamented death of our most gracious and venerable Sovereign.... The best consolation for us all lies in the reflection that George the Third will be ranked by posterity among the best and wisest kings that ever sat upon the throne of England."—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[396] 1832.
[397] 1827.
FOOTNOTE:
[EI] His predecessor, George II., died in 1760.—Ed.
Composed 1820.—Published 1820
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[398] 1845 and c.
[399] 1827.
[400] 1837.
[401] 1832.
With a selection from the Poems of Anne, Countess of Winchelsea; and extracts of similar character from other Writers; transcribed[402] by a female friend.
Composed 1820.—Published 1820
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
In the "Essay Supplementary to the Preface" of the Second Edition of Lyrical Ballads (see "Prose Works," vol. ii. p. 240), Wordsworth wrote, "it is remarkable that, excepting The Nocturnal Reverie of Lady Winchelsea, and a passage or two in the Windsor Forest of Pope, the Poetry of the period intervening between the publication of Paradise Lost and The Seasons does not contain a single new image of external nature." The Nocturnal Reverie was written by Anne, Countess of Winchelsea, daughter of Sir William Kingsmill, Southampton.—Ed.
VARIANT:
[402] 1827.
FOOTNOTE:
[EJ] In 1820 (first edition) the title was "To ——."—Ed.
Composed 1820.—Published 1820
See Milton's Sonnet, beginning, "A book was writ of late called Tetrachordon."
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
It may be useful, for comparison, to quote Milton's sonnet in full.
On the Detraction which followed upon my writing certain Treatises
VARIANT:
[403] 1820.
1 vol. edition.
Composed 1820.—Published 1820
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
Wordsworth's love for his own university of Cambridge was strong; and he has commemorated St. John's College, as well as King's, and Trinity, in The Prelude (book iii. ll. 4, 46, 53, etc.): but the enthusiasm, expressed in this Sonnet, for "the spires of Oxford," and
(High Street), and "the long avenue" (Broad Walk) was both natural and generous.—Ed.
Composed 1820.—Published 1820
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
The reference (in lines 6-8) is probably to his sister Dorothy. Wordsworth, his wife, and sister were at Oxford on the 30th of May 1820; and they went on immediately afterwards to London: for H. C. Robinson tells us that, on the 2nd of June, he met the Wordsworths at Charles Lamb's.—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[404] 1827.
[405] 1827.
Composed 1820.—Published 1820
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
VARIANT:
[406] 1827.
FOOTNOTES:
[EK] Wallachia is the country alluded to.—W. W. 1820.
[EL] The Wordsworths remained some time in London in 1820, before they started for the Continent, on the 1st of August. They came up to be present at the marriage of Mr. Monkhouse. It is probable that they visited Richmond during this visit, and that the above Sonnet was suggested, both by the nightingale's song at Richmond, and by the prospect of their own Continental Tour. In connection with the six last lines of the Sonnet, it may be remembered that, when sailing between Kew and Richmond, Thomson,
caught the cold which ended his days. He lies buried in Richmond Church. In the first Book of The Seasons, on "Spring," he thus alludes to the nightingales—
Again,
Also in his Hymn,
To Richmond he alludes frequently, e.g.
Shene was the old name for Richmond.—Ed.
Published 1822
This sonnet was first published in the "Memorials of a Tour on the Continent, 1820"; the title being Local Recollections on the Heights near Hockheim. In 1827 it became one of the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty."—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[407] 1827.
The title in 1822 was Sonnet. Local Recollections on the Heights near Hockheim.
[408] 1827.
[409] 1837.
FOOTNOTES:
[EM] The event is thus recorded in the journals of the day:—"When the Austrians took Hockheim, in one part of the engagement they got to the brow of the hill, whence they had their first view of the Rhine. They instantly halted—not a gun was fired—not a voice heard: but they stood gazing on the river with those feelings which the events of the last 15 years at once called up. Prince Schwartzenberg rode up to know the cause of this sudden stop, they then gave three cheers, rushed after the enemy, and drove them into the water."—W. W. 1822.
The only reference which Dorothy Wordsworth makes to Hockheim in her Journal of the Tour on the Continent (1820) is as follows:—July 25th.—"We had a magnificent prospect down the Rhine into the Reingaw, stretching towards Bingen. Hockheim is on the right bank, nearly opposite to Mayence. The broad hills are enlivened by hamlets, villas, villages, and churches."
Prince Schwartzenberg, referred to in Wordsworth's own note, was Generalissimo of the allied armies of Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, and Russia, who were victors in the battle of Leipsic in 1813. The retreat of the French towards the Rhine after that battle was almost as disastrous to them as the retreat from Moscow in the previous winter. The incident described in the sonnet doubtless occurred during this retreat, when the French were driven across the Rhine in November 1813.—Ed.
Composed 1820.—Published 1822
[This Parsonage was the residence of my friend Jones, and is particularly described in another note.[EN]—I. F.]
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
This sonnet was written at Brugès, during the Continental Tour of 1820 (see note p. 291). It was originally published in a note to one of the "Ecclesiastical Sonnets," beginning
A genial hearth, a hospitable board.—Ed.
VARIANT:
[410] 1827.
FOOTNOTE:
[EN] See the note to Pastoral Character, in the "Ecclesiastical Sonnets," Part III. xviii.—Ed.
Composed 1820.—Published 1822.
The Italian Itinerant, etc. [see p. 338], led to the train of thought which produced the annexed piece.—W. W. 1822.
This poem having risen out of the Italian Itinerant, etc. [page 338], it is here annexed.—W. W. 1827.
From 1822 this poem was included in the "Memorials of a Tour on the Continent." In 1845 it was placed among the "Poems of the Imagination."—Ed.
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VARIANTS:
[411] 1837.
[412] The edition of 1849 has "Briton's," evidently a misprint.
[413] 1822.
[414] 1845.
[415] 1837.
[416] 1837.
[417] 1837.
[418] 1837.
[419] 1832.
[420] 1832.
[421] 1832.
[422] This stanza was first added in the edition of 1827.
[423] 1837.
[424] 1845.
[425] 1840.
[426] 1837.
FOOTNOTES:
—Dr. Darwin describing the destruction of the army of Cambyses.—W. W.
1822.
Compare Memoirs of Wordsworth, vol. ii. p. 225.—Ed.
[EP] The nightingale. Compare Il Penseroso, l. 62.—Ed.
A SERIES OF SONNETS
Composed 1820.—Published 1820
[It is with the little river Duddon as it is with most other rivers, Ganges and Nile not excepted,—many springs might claim the honour of being its head. In my own fancy I have fixed its rise near the noted Shire-stones placed at the meeting-point of the counties, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Lancashire. They stand by the way side on the top of the Wrynose Pass, and it used to be reckoned a proud thing to say that, by touching them at the same time with feet and hands, one had been in the three counties at once. At what point of its course the stream takes the name of Duddon I do not know. I first became acquainted with the Duddon, as I have good reason to remember, in early boyhood. Upon the banks of the Derwent I had learnt to be very fond of angling. Fish abound in that large river; not so in the small streams in the neighbourhood of Hawkshead; and I fell into the common delusion that the farther from home the better sport would be had. Accordingly, one day I attached myself to a person living in the neighbourhood of Hawkshead, who was going to try his fortune as an angler near the source of the Duddon. We fished a great part of the day with very sorry success, the rain pouring torrents, and long before we got home I was worn out with fatigue; and, if the good man had not carried me on his back, I must have lain down under the best shelter I could find. Little did I think then it would be my lot to celebrate, in a strain of love and admiration, the stream which for many years I never thought of without recollections of disappointment and distress.
During my college vacation, and two or three years afterwards, before taking my Bachelor's degree, I was several times resident in the house of a near relative who lived in the small town of Broughton. I passed many delightful hours upon the banks of this river, which becomes an estuary about a mile from that place. The remembrances of that period are the[Pg 226] subject of the 21st sonnet. The subject of the 27th is in fact taken from a tradition belonging to Rydal Hall, which once stood, as is believed, upon a rocky and woody hill on the right hand as you go from Rydal to Ambleside, and was deserted from the superstitious fear here described, and the present site fortunately chosen instead. The present hall was erected by Sir Michael le Fleming, and it may be hoped that at some future time there will be an edifice more worthy of so beautiful a position. With regard to the 30th sonnet it is odd enough that this imagination was realised in the year 1840 when I made a tour through that district with my wife and daughter, Miss Fenwick and her niece, and Mr. and Mrs. Quillinan. Before our return from Seathwaite Chapel the party separated. Mrs. Wordsworth, while most of us went further up the stream, chose an opposite direction, having told us that we should overtake her on our way to Ulpha. But she was tempted out of the main road to ascend a rocky eminence near it, thinking it impossible we should pass without seeing her. This, however, unfortunately happened, and then ensued vexation and distress, especially to me, which I should be ashamed to have recorded, for I lost my temper entirely. Neither I nor those that were with me saw her again till we reached the Inn at Broughton, seven miles. This may perhaps in some degree excuse my irritability on the occasion, for I could not but think she had been much to blame. It appeared, however, on explanation that she had remained on the rock, calling out and waving her handkerchief as we were passing, in order that we also might ascend and enjoy a prospect which had much charmed her. "But on we went, her signals proving vain." How then could she reach Broughton before us? When we found she had not gone on before to Ulpha Kirk, Mr. Quillinan went back in one of the carriages in search of her. He met her on the road, took her up, and by a shorter way conveyed her to Broughton, where we were all re-united and spent a happy evening.
I have many affecting remembrances connected with this stream. Those I forbear to mention; especially things that occurred on its banks during the later part of that visit to the sea-side, of which the former part is detailed in my Epistle to Sir George Beaumont.—I. F.]
The River Duddon rises upon Wrynose Fell, on the confines of Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Lancashire; and,[Pg 227] having served[427] as a boundary to the two last[428] counties for the space of about twenty-five miles, enters the Irish Sea, between the Isle of Walney and the Lordship of Millum.—W. W. 1820.[EQ]
VARIANTS:
[427] 1837.
[428] 1827.
FOOTNOTE:
[EQ] Wordsworth delighted in tracing the course of rivers all the way from their source to the sea. On November 12, 1808, Southey wrote to his son, "If I go" (it was to Workington) "it will be with Wordsworth, for the sake of tracing the Derwent the whole way." (See Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, vol. ii. p. 108.)—Ed.
(WITH THE SONNETS TO THE RIVER DUDDON, AND OTHER POEMS IN THIS COLLECTION, 1820[430])
VARIANTS:
[429] 1827.
[430] The date, 1820, was first inserted in the edition of 1837.
FOOTNOTES:
[ER] In the first edition of 1820, this dedicatory poem is not placed at the beginning of the series, but between the lines Composed at Cora Linn, and Repentance. The whole volume, however,—including many other poems besides those on the Duddon, and the Topographical Description of the Country of the Lakes in the North of England—is dedicated thus, "To the Rev. Christopher Wordsworth, D.D., etc. etc., these sonnets called forth by one of the most beautiful streams of his native county, are respectfully inscribed, by his affectionate brother, William Wordsworth."—Ed.
[ES] The fields and streams were those around Cockermouth and Hawkshead. It was near the island Cythera that Aphrodite was said, according to some legends, to have risen from the sea-foam. Hence the term "Cytherea's zone." The "Thunderer" is, of course, Jupiter Tonans.—Ed.
[ET] Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, afterwards Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, was then Rector of Lambeth parish.—Ed.
[EU] With this last stanza compare what Charles Lamb wrote to Dorothy Wordsworth on May 25, 1820, after reading the poem: "I have traced the Duddon in thought and with repetition along the banks (alas!) of the Lea—(unpoetical name): it is always flowing and murmuring in my ears." (Letters of Charles Lamb, edited by Alfred Ainger, vol. ii. p. 56.)—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[431] 1837.
[432] 1837.
[433] 1837.
FOOTNOTES:
[EV] See Horace, Carmina III. 13, Ad fontem Blandusiæ:
and compare Epistolae I. 16, 9.—Ed.
[EW] Mr. Herbert Rix—late Assistant Secretary to the Royal Society—has made a very minute and careful study of the Duddon Valley—repeated during many seasons—with the object of localising the allusions in the sonnets. I am indebted to him for the following notes, which bear his name.
The Rev. Canon Rawnsley has also studied the Duddon Valley with great care, and I place his comments beside those of Mr. Rix, both when they are supplementary, and when they differ from the conclusions come to by Mr. Rix.—Ed.
"The Duddon rises on Wrynose Fell, near to the 'Three-Shire Stone,' where Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Lancashire meet, though which of the rills descending from the heights above Wrynose Gap and uniting to form the streamlet which flows along the pass, is to be regarded as the ultimate source, or which of them the poet may have followed, it would perhaps be difficult to say. More than one takes its rise in just such a spot as we find described in the second and third sonnets, where the 'lofty waste' is haunted by the Spirit of 'Desolation,' where the 'whistling blast' sweeps bleakly by, and where 'naked stones,' such as the poet chose for his seat, are scattered all around. James Thorne, in his Rambles by Rivers (London, 1844, p. 10), has given a rough woodcut of the source of the Duddon." (Herbert Rix.)
"I was fortunate in seeking the 'birth-place of a native stream' after a very heavy fall of rain, and I followed the left hand branch to a basin, from which in winter time a full stream must pass with force, to judge by the deep channel-bed of white and bleached stones which the water has carved out of the peat-moss for itself. There was the clear height, and from it was seen quite distinctly Brathay Vale, and a glimpse of Duddon Vale at Cockley Beck, and of Windermere Lake below Lowwood, and the bare Yorkshire hills far away to the east-south-east." (H. D. Rawnsley.)
VARIANTS:
[434] 1845.
FOOTNOTES:
[EY] The deer alluded to is the Leigh, a gigantic species long since extinct.—W. W. 1820.
"As one looks upon the peat-moss, with its fragments of birch trees laid bare by the stream, one could easily imagine that the poet had been led, as he gazed, to think of
VARIANT:
[435] 1837.
FOOTNOTE:
[EZ] "'A gleam of brilliant moss' refers, no doubt, to the Sphagnum, or Bog-moss, which grows here in large patches, very noticeable among the sombre heather, and which shines like gold when the sunlight is upon it." (Herbert Rix.)
"On the edge of the saucer-like hollow, into which the rillets that make the stream descend, are glacier-banded rock outcrops, and on one of these is a rock perché, to which instinctively I turned for a seat. The lines in Sonnet III.—
at once suggested themselves to me; and below me, as I sat, gleamed the 'brilliant moss, instinct with freshness rare,' which the poet's eyes had rejoiced in, so many years ago." (H. D. Rawnsley.)
VARIANTS:
[436] 1820.
[437] 1820.
FOOTNOTES:
[FA] "The 'parting glance' of this sonnet would naturally be taken just before rounding the brow of the hill. The path drops somewhat suddenly, so that two or three steps bring the traveller from a level whence looking backward the 'sinuous lapse' of the stream may be seen for some distance, to a stage where it is entirely hidden from view. Or, more likely, the 'sinuous lapse' is that which lies below the spectator, as he stands at this point of vantage, and looks down into Wrynose Bottom. The 'Protean change' is then the contrast between the 'cradled Nursling' as the poet looks back into Wrynose Gap, and the 'loosely-scattered chain' or 'glittering snake' which he sees below him, as he turns and looks down into Wrynose Bottom. These similes are accurately descriptive of the river so seen, especially towards evening when the western light is on the water. From this point the Duddon descends to the valley by a quick series of falls. The first of these falls—a very pretty cascade just at the edge of the hill—is probably the 'dizzy steep' mentioned in the sonnet." (Herbert Rix.)
[FB] "As I went towards the road which leads down from the Three Shire Stones to Cockley Beck, I constantly found myself repeating Sonnet number IV.
The stream seemed now 'a loosely-scattered chain to make,' now to 'appear a glittering snake,' silently 'thridding with sinuous lapse the rushes, through' (if we might call the bog-myrtle bushes dwarf willows) 'dwarf willows gliding, and by ferny brake.'
I regained the main road, and took a parting, 'no negligent adieu' at the 'cradled nursling'; and saw the cascade at the grotto—wherefrom I first began to track the 'nursling' to its upland cradle—as white as snow in May. There, thought I, is the sight that suggested the line—
But, if the poet had needed suggestion of such a picture, and he had been at my side, he would have seen in three other directions, from the place where I was standing, three 'cataracts blowing their trumpets from the steep.' And I could have been induced to follow three other streams up into the Fells towards the north for the birth-place of the 'cradled nursling.'
As I descended towards Cockley Beck I constantly looked for the 'rushes,' the 'dwarf willows,' and the 'ferny brake,' spoken of in Sonnet IV., constantly looked for some other spot where I might take a 'parting glance' of the stream, which would satisfy the requirements of the description in Sonnet IV.; but I found none.
One thing is worth mentioning. Wordsworth is describing the Duddon as a Cumberland stream, his native stream, and he is accurate as ever. For one is struck, in descending from the Three Shire Stones to Cockley Beck, at the way in which all the feeders of the Duddon rise to the north on the Cumbrian Fells, and how comparatively waterless are the slopes of Grey Friars, on the southern or Lancashire side of the pass." (H. D. Rawnsley.)
FOOTNOTE:
[FC] "Sonnet V. is generally taken to be descriptive of Cockley Beck. Here, as we emerge from Wrynose Bottom, the first trees meet the eye after a full two miles of monotony and stones, and here, too, is the first cottage where the 'ruddy children' of another generation 'sport through the summer day.' The cottage itself is not indeed surrounded at the present time by 'sheltering pines'—that is a feature which applies better to another cottage half a mile lower down the stream—but they may, of course, have disappeared since Wordsworth's day; indeed, I was informed in 1885, by a woman then living in the cottage, that many which formerly stood behind the cottage had been felled within her own memory. A very accurate picture of the cottage and neighbouring bridge is given in Harry Goodwin's Through the Wordsworth Country. There is also a sketch at page 15 of Thorne's Rambles by Rivers." (Herbert Rix.)
"Wordsworth would probably have in his mind most of the few cots and farms in the upper reaches of the Duddon Vale as he wrote his Sonnet v. Half-a-mile south, the 'craggy mound' of the castle-like rock would rear out of mid-valley impressively enough. The larches that now sway and whisper about Cockley Beck, or on the little mound to the east of it, would then only be tiny trees. The birches may have risen in 'silver colonnade,' but now a few ashes, a few poplars, a few alders are the only trees near. Still, for the most part, the term 'unfruitful solitudes' characterises the spot; and as the traveller at Cockley Beck looks north and east, these solitudes become impressively solemn from the dark desolation of craggy fell-side and utter treelessness." (H. D. Rawnsley.)
FOOTNOTES:
These two lines are in a great measure taken from The Beauties of Spring, a Juvenile Poem, by the Rev. Joseph Sympson, author of The Vision of Alfred, etc. He was a native of Cumberland, and was educated in the vale of Grasmere, and at Hawkshead school: his poems are little known, but they contain passages of splendid description; and the versification of his Vision of Alfred is harmonious and animated. The present severe season,[438] with its amusements, reminds me of some lines which I will transcribe as a favourable specimen. In describing the motions of the Sylphs, that constitute the strange machinery of his Vision of Alfred, he uses the following illustrative simile:—
He was a man of ardent feeling, and his faculties of mind, particularly his memory, were extraordinary. Brief notices of his life ought to find a place in the History of Westmoreland.—W. W. 1820.
[FE] "Even in the 'unfruitful solitudes' of Wrynose, one may find—sheltered in the little gullies which the rills have worn down the fell-side—not only the strawberry, speedwell, and thyme, mentioned in the sonnet, but sundry other flowers, such as the Spearwort, Milkwort, Small Bedstraw, Euphrasia officinalis, and Potentilla tormentilla, but this and the following Sonnet were perhaps inspired by the beauty of the flowery meadows just below Cockley Beck." (Herbert Rix.)
"Wordsworth, from his Sonnet VI., would seem to have been describing the Duddon in April; and though by some misnomer 'the little speedwell's darling blue' has by him been called the 'trembling eyebright,' to-day in July 1884—though the time of the singing of birds who 'warble to their paramours' is over and gone—one can see by Duddon-side these 'old remains of hawthorn bowers.'
But I shall never forget the beauty or the size of the golden feathery spikes of sweet-scented Gallium (lady's bed straw), or the wonderful odour of the self-heal, and the glory of the harebells, as I saw them carpeting the meadows near Cockley Beck, this July day, 1884; and, as I plucked the very faintly scented euphrasia (or eyebright), I wondered much which were the spring-flowers Wordsworth had in his mind that by their breath invited no caress. Would it be the buttercup, the daisy, or which? He must have had some definite flower—scentless, but not less beautiful—in his eye as he wrote Sonnet VI." (H. D. Rawnsley.)
[438] This refers to the year 1820, and the sentence only occurs in the edition of 1820.—Ed.
FOOTNOTE:
[FF] "The 'darkling wren' was flitting from bush to bush, tuneless but happy, as I walked towards the stepping-stones spoken of in Sonnets IX., X.; and the timid little sandpiper, with its plaintive note, shot back and forward from shallow to shallow." (H. D. Rawnsley.)
VARIANT:
[439] 1837.
FOOTNOTES:
[FG] "The 'dark dell' is perhaps Hardknot Ghyll. It is the only spot in this part of the valley which could be so described. A footpath which passes through the farmyard of Black Hall runs alongside this ghyll and joins the Duddon Valley with the Whitehaven Road. The 'blue streamlet' would then perhaps be the little tributary which flows down the length of the ghyll over a slaty bed to join the Duddon below; or perhaps Wordsworth was mentally addressing the Duddon itself, though from the interior of the ghyll he would not be able to see it.
The alternative view is that by the 'dark dell' no particular spot is indicated but the whole of the upper valley of the Duddon, which is of a savage and forbidding aspect, and quite of a character to have inspired the sonnet. It is almost treeless, and the ground on either side of the stream is covered with bracken and loose blocks of slate, while the fells rise steeply on either hand, and are capped by naked crags.
As to the epithet 'blue' (line 10), the cerulean colour of the Duddon is one of its most exquisite characteristics, and is due, as Wordsworth has himself[FH] explained, to the hue of the rocks and gravel seen through the 'perfectly pellucid' water." (Herbert Rix.)
"This sonnet puzzles me from the use of the words dark dell. I could find nothing at all hereabout that could possibly be described so, until I looked back at the rain-black solitudes north of Cockley Beck, and imagined the poet using the word dark in the sense of mysterious, when I can imagine he would have been helped to this thought of hideous usages, and rites accursed, by the large Druid-like-looking boulders, and the mounds of burial, suggested by the moraine-heaps in the neighbourhood. But I think the 'blue Streamlet' must have been suggested by the light blue grey colour of the slate pebbles over which Duddon slides so easily here." (H. D. Rawnsley.)
[FH] See his Guide to the Lakes. Fifth edition. Kendal, 1835, p. 27.—Ed.
FOOTNOTES:
[FI] "There are four sets of stepping-stones across the Duddon. The first set is between Cockley Beck and Birks Brig, opposite to a farmhouse called Dale Head; the second set, called by the natives of the district the 'Fiddle Steps,' is in a deep hollow between Birks Brig and Seathwaite, at a point where the footpath to Eskdale crosses the Duddon; the third is opposite Seathwaite, and the fourth just above Ulpha.
Of these, the second and fourth may, I think, be disregarded. The question lies between the first and third, which we will call respectively the upper and the lower stones.
James Thorne has fixed upon the upper stones as those of Wordsworth's two sonnets, and has given a picture of them. His woodcut is very rude, but is sufficiently defined by the number of the stones, the gate on the right, and the distant cottage on the left. Mrs. Lynn Linton, too, in her Lake Country (London, 1864, p. 251), claims the honour for the same set, and has given (p. 252), a very pretty picture of them. Miss Martineau, on the contrary, in her Survey of the Lake District,[441] appears to regard the stones opposite Seathwaite as the stones; and the Rev. F. A. Malleson, in his article on 'Wordsworth and the Duddon,'[442] takes the same view. This is the view which local tradition favours, for any inhabitant of Seathwaite or Ulpha, if asked for 'Wordsworth's Stones,' would at once direct the stranger to the lower stones.
There is something to be said for each of these opinions. The upper stones fit in with the order of the sonnets, coming after the sonnet about Cockley Beck, and before the sonnets about the Faëry Chasm, Seathwaite Chapel, and Ulpha Kirk. Moreover, the emphasis of the earlier sonnets in general, and of the opening lines of Sonnet IX. in particular, is on the growth of the 'struggling rill'—a thought which would be rather out of place if it came later in the series.
On the other hand the 'zone chosen for ornament,' and the 'studied symmetry' are more applicable to the lower than to the upper stones; they are of a bluish tint, are set at equal distances, and form a slight curve down stream, looking to a fanciful eye as though they were bending with the current. They are now (1894) disused, having been abandoned, on account of the frequent floods, in favour of a foot-bridge recently erected a little higher up the stream; and already the path to the stepping-stones is overgrown and nearly obliterated. If the sonnets are taken to refer to the lower stones 'yon high rock' would probably mean Wallabarrow; if to the upper stones, they would doubtless mean Castle How, a solitary and noticeable rock." (Herbert Rix.)
"One cannot but believe that Wordsworth, as he wrote Sonnets IX., X., had in his mind the third series of stepping-stones opposite Seathwaite, and under Wallabarrow Crag.
None of the others are fitly described as
Is it not possible that the word 'struggling,' as applied to rill,—when viewed in connection with the words 'without restraint,' in line 8 of Sonnet IX.—points with great definiteness to the localising of the Sonnet at these Seathwaite stones?
Certainly the stream as it has descended through the 'deep chasm' of Sonnet XV. between the Pen and Wallabarrow, is well described as having grown after a struggle into a brook of loud and stately march at this point. There are no likelier spots for the children to have put
than here, for there are several houses and farms on the wayside, whose younger inmates would have come down to these stepping-stones, in order to get to the village school, that 'Wonderful Walker' kept with so much honour at Seathwaite in olden time." (H. D. Rawnsley.)
[441] Whellan's History and Topography of Westmoreland and Cumberland, 4to, Pontefract, 1860, p. 56.
[442] Good Words, vol. xxiv. p. 579.
VARIANTS:
[440] 1837.
FOOTNOTE:
[FJ] "Adopting the view that Sonnets IX. and X. refer to the stepping-stones at Dale Head, the position of the 'Faëry Chasm,' which has often caused perplexity, becomes clear. It must be looked for not below but considerably above Seathwaite, and is, in fact, the very next striking feature that occurs after the stepping-stones at Dale Head are passed. It is, I believe, the rocky gorge which is crossed by Birks Brig.
The stream is here precipitated down a series of falls, and at the same time is forced into a much narrower channel than it has hitherto occupied. In its downward course it is thrust from side to side in a series of rebounds, the effect being that the flood is churned into a mass of foam, while the rocks between which it is driven are scooped and chiselled into the most fantastic shapes—basins and niches, caverns and arches, and pillars with an odd spiral twist. Anything of a more elfin character could hardly be conceived.
The turbulence of the water as it descends towards the bridge is very well expressed in the charming little sketch given at page 245 of Mrs. Lynn Linton's Lake Country, but the cleft itself is not there represented. Of that, or a part of it, an illustration has been given by Mr. Chattock in his etchings of the River Duddon published in 1884 by the Fine Art Society.
Neither Mr. Chattock nor Mrs. Lynn Linton has, however, identified the spot with the 'Faëry Chasm.' Mr. Chattock associates it with Sonnet XX., though the imagery of that sonnet must, as he himself confesses, have been 'inspired by some scene farther down the river,' while Mrs. Lynn Linton (p. 251) finds the 'Faëry Chasm' at Gowdrel Crag. This latter view, which is, apparently, that adopted also by Canon Rawnsley, is a very possible alternative, and is favoured by the fact that the bed of the stream is at that point strewn with blocks of sky-blue stone. In that case Sonnets XI. and XII. refer to the same chasm. Mr. Goodwin in Through the Wordsworth Country, illustrates a note on the Faëry Chasm by a picture of the chasm at Wallabarrow, and of all the 'clefts' this best fits with the epithet 'sunless'; but is it not too vast for fairy scenes?
I could not learn that any faëry tradition was associated with either place." (Herbert Rix.)
"I cannot rest satisfied that the Faëry Chasm of Sonnet XI. is to be looked for at Birks Brig. No sky-blue stone, above water or below, can be pointed out—
But if the wanderer by Duddon Vale rejoins the road till it passes these same farm buildings further down the valley, will strike into the field, and, attracted by the roar of the stream, search for the locality set forth in Sonnet XII., he will find in mid-stream a huge blue-grey boulder that may have suggested Sonnet XI. to the poet." (H. D. Rawnsley.)
VARIANT:
[443] 1827.
FOOTNOTE:
[FK] "Almost immediately after leaving Birks Brig the stream plunges into a gorge—the 'deep-worn channel' of this sonnet. By dint of a little clambering, all the picturesque features described in the sonnet may be seen, but the traveller is forced at last to resume the road. The channel is so deep and confined that the stream cannot be seen from the road, and this is the first time since leaving the source that the Duddon is lost to sight. It is this fact which gives rise to the concluding lines of the sonnet:—
VARIANT:
[444] 1837.
FOOTNOTES:
[FL] "In determining the spot to which this sonnet belongs two conditions have to be satisfied. In the first place, Seathwaite must be seen from it; and, in the second, there must be an open prospect of fields. Now, from Cockley Beck to Ulpha there is no single spot upon the road satisfying these two conditions. Unless the line of the river is entirely abandoned, and some point of view high up on the fells is taken, there is, I believe, only one station in all the valley which supplies them, and that is the summit of a rock called in maps and guide-books 'Pen Crag,' but which the dalesmen always call simply 'The Pen' (not to be confounded with the mountain of that name lower down the valley on the west). There is an additional reason for regarding the Pen as the station whence Wordsworth viewed his 'open prospect,' namely, that the point from which the ascent of the crag is most conveniently made is identical with the point where the Duddon makes his second plunge into a rocky abyss, which plunge is signalised in the very next sonnet (XIV.). Thus, at the very spot where the poet is enabled to gain a view of 'the haunts of men,' 'some awful Spirit' impels the torrent 'utterly to desert' those haunts, and to make a second plunge into the wilderness. An increased significance is thus given to each of the sonnets (XIII. and XIV.) by the juxtaposition of the localities which they describe.
I should explain, in connection with this, that the Pen stands in the centre of the valley, a prominent and inviting look-out, and that the easy slope, by which it is on one side ascended, rises from the high-road, so that anybody who cares for views at all—and Wordsworth above all people—would not think of passing by without climbing to such an obvious point of vantage.
The 'one small hamlet' (line 2) is Seathwaite, which lies just below the Pen.
The 'barn and byre' (line 3) must have belonged to Newfield, the only farmhouse in the foreground.
The 'spouting mill' (line 3) is now a ruin. In Wordsworth's time it was in full work. Later (in the autumn of 1842), when it was visited by James Thorne, the wheel was broken, the machinery decaying, and the roof partly fallen in. At the present time, wheel, machinery, and roof have totally disappeared, and there is nothing to indicate that it ever was a mill. It was only by inquiring of the older inhabitants that I learnt these ruined walls standing by the Beck represent that 'mill for spinning yarn,' of which Wordsworth says that it calls to mind 'the momentous changes wrought by such inventions in the frame of society.' The ruin stands on the Tarn Beck, a few yards below Seathwaite Chapel, and on the other side of the stream.
The last three lines of the sonnet,
are probably an allusion to the Inn which, in Wordsworth's time, was to be found here. This is now a farmstead. It is called Newfield, and is just below Seathwaite Chapel. In Wordsworth's day it was inn and farm combined.
Mr. Malleson, in the article quoted above, appears (p. 576) to regard the green slope ascending towards Seathwaite Tarn, which opens on the left about a mile before the traveller reaches Seathwaite Chapel, as the 'Open Prospect'; but, though the fields here are certainly 'sprinkled o'er with dwellings,' the juxtaposition of the 'hamlet,' the 'barn and byre,' and the 'spouting mill' is wanting, and the allusion to the inn loses its point." (Herbert Rix.)
"It may be of interest to know that still the Newfield farm (in Wordsworth's time farm and inn combined) keeps up the well-deserved description of the poet. It is still 'a generous household.' When the yeoman, who was the last innkeeper and farmer combined, was on his death-bed, he enjoined those to whom Newfield passed to remember that 'though the license was to drop, and it was to become a private house, yet no stranger in the valley who requested a night's lodging was ever to be refused,' and the generous household are proud to keep up the tradition of hospitality." (H. D. Rawnsley.)
[FM] Compare Virgil, Æneid iii. 23—
This sonnet was first published in the small two-volume edition of the Poems in 1807, and was therefore written during or before 1807. In the present edition, however, it was not printed amongst the poems belonging to that year, since its appropriate place is manifestly in the series of sonnets relating to the River Duddon.—Ed.
FOOTNOTE:
FOOTNOTE:
[FO] "The 'deep chasm' of this sonnet is identical with the 'passage cleft through the wilderness' of Sonnet XIV. It lies between the Pen on the left hand, and Wallabarrow Crag on the right. As to the niche, which forms the subject of the sonnet, it cannot now be identified. There are, of course, plenty of such niches in the crags which tower above the Duddon just here, but none more striking than the rest. From the fact that it was 'free from shrubs and mosses grey,' one may perhaps infer that it was a place in the cliff from which a mass of rock had recently fallen. The bed of the stream just here is a chaos of such masses of rock, some of them being of enormous size.
Mr. Chattock identifies the 'chasm' with that at Gowdrel, higher up the river—a view which, besides breaking the order of the sonnets, would seem to be excluded by Wordsworth's note on Sonnets XVII. and XVIII., wherein he expressly states that the scenery 'which gave occasion to the sonnets from the 14th to the 20th inclusive,' lies about Seathwaite. Mr. Chattock's remark that 'the rocks are columnar in character,' so that the fall of a fragment readily gives rise to the appearance of an elongated 'niche,' is worthy of note. It would probably apply to either chasm." (Herbert Rix.)
on Wallabarrow, but found none there sufficiently striking to suggest Sonnet XV. Standing at Newfield Farm and looking north to the Pen, where it rises beyond the ruined mill, there certainly is upon its southern face just such a niche, but the green ivy has displaced the 'gloom.'" (H. D. Rawnsley.)
FOOTNOTE:
[FP] See Humboldt's Personal Narrative.—W. W. 1820.
"I cannot quit this first link (the finding of a piece of gold) of the mountains of Encaramada without recalling to mind a fact that was not unknown to Father Gili, and which was often mentioned to me during our abode in the Missions of the Orinoco. The natives of those countries have retained the belief that, 'at the time of the great waters, when their fathers were forced to have recourse to boats to escape the general inundation, the waves of the sea beat against the rocks of Encaramada.' This belief is not confined to one nation singly, the Tamanacs; it makes part of a system of historical tradition, of which we find scattered notions among the Maypures of the great cataracts, among the Indians of the Rio Erevato, which runs into the Caura, and among almost all the tribes of the Upper Orinoco. When the Tamanacs are asked how the human race survived this great Deluge, the 'age of water' of the Mexicans, they say, 'a man and a woman saved themselves on a high mountain, called Tamanacu, situated on the banks of the Asiveru, and casting behind them, over their heads, the fruits of the Mauritia palm-tree, they saw the seeds contained in those fruits produce men and women, who re-peopled the earth.' Thus we find in all its simplicity, among nations now in a savage state, a tradition which the Greeks embellished with all the charms of imagination! A few leagues from Encaramada, a rock, called Tepu-mereme, or 'the painted rock,' rises in the midst of the Savannah. Upon it are traced representations of animals, and symbolic figures resembling those we saw in going down the Orinoco, at a small distance below Encaramada, near the town Caycara. Similar rocks in Africa are called by travellers fetish-stones. I shall not make use of this term, because fetishism does not prevail among the natives of the Orinoco; and the figures of stars, of the sun, of tigers, and of crocodiles, which we found traced upon the rocks in spots now uninhabited, appeared to me in no way to denote the objects of worship of those nations. Between the banks of the Cassiquiare and the Orinoco, between Encaramada, the Capuchino, and Caycara, these hieroglyphic figures are often seen at great heights, on rocky cliffs which could be accessible only by constructing very lofty scaffolds. When the natives are asked how those figures could have been sculptured, they answer with a smile, as if relating a fact of which only a white man could be ignorant, that 'at the period of the great waters, their fathers went to that height in boats.'" Extract from Humboldt's Travels, vol. ii. chap. iv. pp. 182-3 (Bohn's Edition.)—Ed.
"The weathering of the volcanic ash of the Pen and the cliff of Wallabarrow opposite would naturally have suggested this sonnet. Evidence of ice-marking and glacier-action are not wanting in the neighbourhood." (H. D. Rawnsley.)
VARIANTS:
[445] 1820.
[446] 1820.
[447] 1827.
[448] 1827.
[449] 1827.
VARIANTS:
[450] 1837.
[451] 1845.
FOOTNOTES:
[FQ] "Seathwaite Chapel has been rebuilt. It may be worth mentioning that there is a woodcut of the original structure at p. 23 of Thorne's Rambles by Rivers (12mo, London, 1844), and a good engraving in the Rev. Canon Parkinson's Old Church Clock (5th edition, 1880, p. 99). The Parsonage, too, has been enlarged. It was formerly a mere cottage, with a peat-house at one end and an out-house of some kind at the other. These have been removed, and additions made to the dwelling at both ends. The brass in the church to the memory of 'Wonderful Walker' was taken from the tombstone. The stone has been turned over, and a new inscription cut." (Herbert Rix.)
[FR] See Daniel's Musophilus, l. 47.—Ed.
[FS] The allusion is to the description of the "poure persoun of a toun" in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, ll. 477-528.—Ed.
[FT] See George Herbert's Priest to the Temple.—Ed.
[FU] The reference is to the lines in The Deserted Village—
FOOTNOTE:
[FV] "The 'tributary stream,' which forms the subject of this sonnet, is the Tarn Beck, which rises in Seathwaite Tarn, and joins the Duddon just opposite Newfield. Seathwaite Chapel itself is not on the Duddon, but on the Tarn Beck. The sonnet gives a perfect description of its leading characteristics.
Mr. Chattock has given an etching of the Tarn." (Herbert Rix.)
"If one stands upon the Pen and looks up the Duddon Vale, the
will be seen, exactly described, upon the shoulder of the Fell that drops down from Heath Fell to the north-west. Is it possible that Wordsworth, as he gazed, was moved by
just beneath the little upland farm with its emerald plot of tillage, shining like jewels in the July sun,
—is it possible, I suggest, that Wordsworth was moved by this scene to write Sonnet XIX.?" (H. D. Rawnsley.)
VARIANTS:
[452] 1820.
FOOTNOTE:
[FW] "The term Donnerdale (now usually spelt Dunnerdale) is strictly applied to the district on the east bank of the Duddon from Broughton up to Ulpha Bridge, and extending thence parallel to Seathwaite, from which it is divided by fells. Guide-books sometimes apply the term to the whole valley of the Duddon, but this is entirely wrong; the term is never applied by the inhabitants to the upper or confined part of the valley, and is correctly used by Wordsworth to indicate the open plain of the lower stream.
Hall Dunnerdale, sometimes shortened into Dunnerdale, is a hamlet on the high-road between Seathwaite and Ulpha. From a bridge just below this hamlet the characteristics of the stream at this part of its course as described in Sonnet XX. may best be noted. The banks are thickly wooded with oak, ash, beech, alder, sycamore, and larch; the hills are lower and greener than the fells farther up the valley, and for the moment we might almost think we had been transported to the banks of the Wey, and were looking upon a Surrey landscape. The water above and below the bridge is comparatively still. But this, as the sonnet says, is not to last long,—'a rough course remains, rough as the past.' Before we reach Ulpha Bridge 'suspended animation is again succeeded by the clamorous war of stones and waters, which assail the ear of the traveller all the way to Duddon Bridge.'"[453] (Herbert Rix.)
[453] Green's Comprehensive Guide to the Lakes, quoted in Whellan's History and Topography, p. 59.
[Concerning the limits of Dunnerdale, the Rev. S. R. M. Walker, Vicar of Seathwaite, in answer to a question on the subject, wrote to Mr. Rix as follows:—
"Seathwaite Vicarage, June 21, 1883.
Dear Sir—I am not surprised at our topographical divisions giving a stranger difficulty. They belong to the cross kind. Thus, Dunnerdale (as it is now here usually spelled) forms an integral part of the civil division, or township, of Dunnerdale and Seathwaite, whilst ecclesiastically it is attached, not to Seathwaite, but to the ecclesiastical parish or district of Broughton-in-Furness; Seathwaite, Broughton-in-Furness, and Woodland (now all separate benefices), being so many outlying parts of the ancient ecclesiastical and civil parish of Kirkby-Ireleth. Dunnerdale itself is the name given to the district which lies on the east or Lancashire bank of the Duddon, from a point a few yards south of Ulpha bridge till it meets the boundary of Broughton proper, or the right bank of the Lickle, a small tributary of the Duddon, the main portion of it being enclosed in a little valley parallel to that of the Duddon. The fells bounding it do, on the more northern part, form a line of division from Seathwaite....
S. R. M. Walker."]
FOOTNOTES:
[FX] See the Fenwick note prefixed to the Duddon Sonnets.—Ed.
[FY] "If, in Sonnet VI., Wordsworth was describing the Duddon in April, the lines
tell us that he was a wanderer here in October also." (H. D. Rawnsley.)
FOOTNOTE:
[FZ] "This tradition appears to have completely died out. I asked many old inhabitants of the place if they had ever heard such a story, but it was quite new to them.
The scene of the tragedy is not, however, very difficult to identify. There are very few 'hidden pools' in this part of the stream; it is mostly a shallow, brawling brook. I have carefully tracked the stream from Donnerdale Bridge to Ulpha Bridge, and can only find two places which at all answer to the description given in the sonnet. One of these is opposite the 'Traveller's Rest' inn, the other, is a little higher up. This latter is a deep and placid pool, situated half way down a curious corridor, known as 'Long Dub,' where the stream flows for some distance in a straight line between walls of rough mountain slate, the strata having been tilted almost at right angles to their natural position. Here a little rill tumbles into the Duddon by a miniature cascade, and the pool is sheltered and darkened by oak and beech—a not unlikely spot to have inspired the sonnet." (Herbert Rix.)
VARIANTS:
[454] 1845.
[455] 1845.
FOOTNOTE:
[GA] "The pool under Ulpha Bridge has for many generations been used for sheep-washing. The sheep from Birks Farm are now (1894) washed there every year. If we suppose the poet, in one of his frequent journeys down the valley, to have paused upon the bridge to witness this pastoral sight, the local order of the Sonnets is maintained." (Herbert Rix.)
VARIANT:
[456] 1837.
FOOTNOTE:
[GB] See note to Sonnet xxvii.—Ed.
VARIANT:
[457] 1837.
VARIANT:
[458] 1820.
FOOTNOTE:
[GC] See note to Sonnet XXVII.—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[459] 1819.
[460] 1827.
[461] 1819.
[462] Mr. J. Denton, quoted in Whellan's History and Topography, p. 410.
FOOTNOTE:
[GD] Sonnet No. XXVII. having been first published in The Waggoner and other poems (1819), was not reprinted in either of the editions of 1820. It was "taken from a tradition belonging to Rydal Hall," as is explained in the Fenwick note, p. 226.—Ed.
"Sonnets XXIV. to XXVII. appear to have been written in one spot,—some 'Nook—with woodbine hung and straggling weed.' If the poet has strictly retained in the sonnets the order in which the places lie upon the river-bank, this nook must be within a stone's throw of the pool mentioned in the preceding note, for the scenes of Sonnets XXIX. and XXXI. are close at hand. But, though there are plenty of such 'grottos' or 'arbours' here, some difficulty arises from the fact that the Old Hall and ruined keep cannot be seen from this part of the stream, nor, indeed, can they be seen from Ulpha itself, nor from any part of the high road. The height upon which the ruin stands is certainly a prominent feature in the landscape, but the ruin itself is completely hidden by a shoulder of the hill, neither can the hill by any stretch of the imagination be called a 'cliff.'
The only point of view from which the castle appears to stand upon a 'cliff' is reached by a footpath near some copper works, about half way up Holehouse Ghyll. Here you see the ruin at the end (or rather bend) of the Ghyll high above your head, the sides of the ravine rising steeply to its walls. Holehouse Ghyll is thickly wooded, so that this may very possibly be the poet's 'dim retreat,' the chief objection being that the Ghyll lies below Ulpha Kirk, and that the order of the sonnets would thus be broken.
But wherever the poet's 'nook' may have been, there can be little doubt that the fragment of masonry near the farmhouse called 'The Old Hall,' represents the 'embattled house' of Sonnet XXVII., for Broughton Tower, the only other fortified house in the valley, is still some miles away, and the rising ground upon which it stands is no cliff, but a mere undulation in the centre of the nether valley. Of the Castle at the head of Holehouse Ghyll there is little enough remaining—less, even, than in Wordsworth's day, for a woman living in a cottage close by it assured me that she could remember when there was much more of it standing than at the present time. The cause to which she assigned its rapid disappearance was not, however, the same as that assigned in the first two lines of the sonnet. According to her, natural decay had less to do with it than the destructive hands of the dalesmen, who pulled the stones down to mend the fell-walls with. A native of Ulpha added that a new barn was built for the adjoining farmhouse some little time since, and that a great part of the materials doubtless came from the old ruin.
A ragged piece of wall three to four feet in thickness, with three small square windows splayed inwards, and a fireplace about 6 feet long by 12 feet high, with a wide chimney, is all that now remains in situ, of this seat of the Lords of Ulpha.
As to the ghostly tradition embodied in Sonnet XXVII. Wordsworth himself has explained (see the Fenwick note) that it was borrowed from Rydal Hall. But the 'Old Hall' has a weird tradition of its own, for in the bottom of the Ghyll beneath the Castle walls, there is a pool, called 'The Lady's Dub,' where in old times a lady was killed by one of the numerous wolves which formerly infested the region. This is, in fact, the origin, according to some of the inhabitants, of the name 'Ulpha' ('Wolfa'). But a more likely derivation seems to be from Ulf, the father of Ketell, the father of Bennett, the father of Allan. Ketell lived in Henry III.'s reign, and Bennett in King John's, and to their ancestor Ulf the lordship of 'Ulphay' was granted.[462]
Mr. Chattock has given an excellent etching of the ruin.
If the 'Nook' of Sonnet XXIV. be in Holehouse Ghyll, and the 'embattled House' of Sonnet XXVII. be The Old Hall seen from that spot, then Sonnet XXVI. should specially refer to the stream which rushes down that Ghyll. 'Through tangled woods' well suits this stream; and even the 'sullen reservoirs' are not wanting if the two 'dubs' at the upper end of the Ghyll are taken into account." (Herbert Rix.)
VARIANTS:
[463] 1827.
FOOTNOTE:
[GE] "On the left or east bank of the Duddon, a little higher than Ulpha Bridge, near a farmhouse called New Close is a small enclosure, 44 feet square, with two old fir-trees and a quantity of laurels, which there can be little doubt is the scene of Sonnet XXIX.
The enclosure, known to the country people as the Sepulchre, is an old burial-place of the Society of Friends, none having been interred there since 1755, when a Friend from Birker, a small hamlet about four miles distant, was buried.[464]
The following two lines literally describe the condition of the little burial-ground:—
the earth is 'blank,' because there is not a single tombstone, and the graves are (at any rate at the present time) most literally 'neglected and forlorn,' for the place is a tangle of rank grass and untrimmed bushes.
About the year 1842 it was planted with fruit-trees, but when Wordsworth saw it, it probably presented much the same appearance as at present.
The opening lines—
and indeed the whole sonnet obtains a new significance from the association of the spot which it describes with the men of peace." (Herbert Rix.)
"There are few more touching scenes in the Duddon Valley than the little lonely hillside burial-place of the early Friends, spoken of in Sonnet XXIX. All round the inside of the rude wall enclosure are still to be seen the stone seats used by the followers of Fox, who were forbidden to hold their meetings under any lower roof than the canopy of Heaven. The Scotch firs have grown into stately shade since the Quakers sat in silent meditation high up, lifted above the life of the valley and the noise of Duddon and the tributary stream just opposite. But though the Friends lie here in unvisited graves, the earth is neither blank nor forlorn. Laurels glisten above their rest, and the Spiræa salicifolia waves its light wands of flower above their sleep, all evidences of care for the heroes of a cause that is not dead yet." (H. D. Rawnsley.)
[464] See Furness and Furness Abbey, by Francis Evans (8vo, Ulverston, 1842), p. 180.
FOOTNOTES:
[GF] "To get from the Sepulchre (Sonnet XXIX.) to Ulpha Kirk (Sonnet XXXI.) it is necessary to pass through Birks Wood, or else to skirt the wood by going up the Fell and round it." (Herbert Rix.)
[GG] Compare the Fenwick note prefixed to these sonnets.—Ed.
FOOTNOTE:
[GH] "Ulpha Kirk is situated on a rock, the base of which is washed by the Duddon. From time immemorial its walls have been whitewashed, so that on a sunny day it literally 'shines' from its exalted position. It is best seen from the hay-fields on the left bank just above Ulpha Bridge. These fields lie low, and the church perched on its rock seems lifted higher than from any other point of view.
When I visited Ulpha in the summer of 1882 I found the carpenters at work restoring it, and since then a new belfry has been erected, and the tiny white porch has been replaced by a larger one of wood. But I saw it in 1881, when the interior, as well as the exterior, still kept the appearance which it wore in Wordsworth's day. The pulpit (with sounding-board) was in the middle of one side, and to the right hand thereof were a magnificent lion-and-unicorn, and 'G. III. R.' The font was up against the wall, with a ladder hung above it. There was no vestry; the surplice was kept in a cupboard near the door, and the clergyman donned and doffed it behind a screen which only partially hid him. The pews were square and high, and the people sat all round them, with their backs to all four points of the compass; but when the hymn was sung they all turned with their backs to the altar and their faces to the choir." (Herbert Rix.)
"The last line of this sonnet is a good instance of Wordsworth's very close observation. The little churchyard has lately had an addition made to it. Any one going into the new part of the churchyard will be less able to understand the accuracy of the last line." (H. D. Rawnsley.)
FOOTNOTES:
[GI] Compare Michael Drayton—
[GJ] "This sonnet was probably written from some rare vantage ground or view as is obtained of the last reaches of the Duddon
from the crest of a hill immediately above Broughton.
I am led to think thus from the fact that standing there the poet could speak as he does in Sonnet XXXIV.—
while the little Broughton Church with its dark yews close around it seen at his feet would naturally give birth to the thought that 'the elements must vanish,' and that as Duddon hurried to its pauseless sleep, so man to 'the silent tomb must go.'" (H. D. Rawnsley.)
FOOTNOTE:
[GK] "This series of sonnets follows with some accuracy the order of the scenes. It is far from exact to speak of them, as Mr. Chattock in his preliminary note has so emphatically done, as 'massed together.' With the doubtful exceptions of the sonnets on the 'Stepping-Stones' and the 'Resting-Place,' each one falls naturally into its order. The Birth-place on Wrynose, the 'sinuous lapse' along the pass, the Descent into the Valley, the Cottage at Cockley Beck, Gowdrel Crag, Wallabarrow and the Pen, Seathwaite Chapel, the Tributary Stream, Long Dub, the Sepulchre at New Close, Ulpha Kirk, Duddon Sands—to all these places there are clear allusions; the sonnets which contain those allusions occur in the order indicated, and this order is the strict topographical succession proceeding from the source of the Duddon to the mouth." (Herbert Rix.)
VARIANT:
[465] 1820 (1st edition).
The text of 1840 returns to that of the 2nd edition of 1820.
FOOTNOTES:
[GL] Compare The Fountain (vol. ii. p. 92)—
And Tennyson's Brook,
The allusion to the Greek poet will be obvious to the classical reader.—W. W. 1820.
I was indebted to Professor Jebb, in 1883, for the following note:—
has been suggested by the well-known lines in the Ἐπιτάφιον Βίωνος, by the pastoral poet Moschus of Syracuse (circ. 200 B.C.):—
You will see that Wordsworth has translated the Greek verse which I underline ('brave' representing μεγάλοι). The 'mallows,' 'parsley,' 'anise' of the Greek poet's garden—which are to live again—are represented by Wordsworth's stream which 'shall for ever glide.'
One might contrast the lines in the Christian Year about the autumn leaves:—
With this Afterthought compare Virgil, Georgics II. 458, 459—
[466] Paradise Lost, book viii. l. 282.—Ed.
A poet, whose works are not yet known as they deserve to be,[GN] thus enters upon his description of the "Ruins of Rome":
and ends thus—
Mr. Crowe, in his excellent loco-descriptive Poem, Lewesdon Hill, is still more expeditious, finishing the whole on a May-morning before breakfast.
No one believes, or is desired to believe, that these Poems were actually composed within such limits of time; nor was there any reason why a prose statement should acquaint the Reader with the plain fact, to the disturbance of poetic credibility. But, in the present case, I am compelled to mention, that the above series of Sonnets was the growth of many years;—the one which stands the 14th was the first produced; and others were added upon occasional visits to the Stream, or as recollections of the scenes upon its banks awakened a wish to describe them. In this manner I had proceeded insensibly, without perceiving that I was trespassing upon ground preoccupied, at least as far as intention went, by Mr. Coleridge; who, more than twenty years ago, used to speak of writing a rural Poem, to be entitled "The Brook," of which he has given a sketch in a recent publication. But a particular subject, cannot, I think, much interfere with a general one; and I have been further kept from encroaching upon any right Mr. C. may still wish to exercise, by the restriction which the frame of the Sonnet imposed upon me, narrowing unavoidably the range of thought, and precluding, though not without its advantages, many graces to which a freer movement of verse would naturally have led.
May I not venture, then, to hope, that instead of being a hindrance, by anticipation of any part of the subject, these Sonnets may remind Mr. Coleridge of his own more comprehensive design, and induce him to fulfil it?[GO]——There is a sympathy in streams,—"one calleth to another"; and, I would gladly believe, that "The Brook" will, ere long, murmur in concert with "The Duddon." But, asking pardon for this fancy, I need not scruple to say, that those verses must indeed be ill-fated which can enter upon such pleasant walks of nature, without receiving and giving inspiration. The power of waters over the minds of Poets has been acknowledged from the earliest[Pg 266] ages;—through the "Flumina amem sylvasque inglorius" of Virgil,[GP] down to the sublime apostrophe to the great rivers of the earth, by Armstrong,[GQ] and the simple ejaculation of Burns,[GR] (chosen, if I recollect right, by Mr. Coleridge, as a motto for his embryo "Brook"),
As an illustration of the extraordinary freaks of contemporary criticism—freaks which still tarnish much that issues from the press—an estimate of those Duddon Sonnets, which appeared in The Monthly Review in 1820, may be referred to. All that posterity now admires in this exquisite series of descriptive poems is decried; and those passages which posterity regards as blemishes, are held up to admiration; e.g. the lines with which the tenth sonnet, in "The Stepping-Stones," concludes, which are so frigid and affected, were hailed as "a complete return into the regions of antiquity," and as a sign that "Mr. Wordsworth is certainly improving"! They are the very feeble lines:—
while the
is held up to ridicule!—Ed.
FOOTNOTES:
[GN] John Dyer. The Ruins of Rome, 4to, London, 1740. Compare Wordsworth's lines To the Poet, John Dyer, vol. iv. p. 273.—Ed.
[GO] Compare p. 302, "Why is the Harp of Quantock silent?"—Ed.
[GP] See Georgics II. 486.—Ed.
[GQ] Armstrong's "apostrophe to the great rivers of the earth" is in his Art of Preserving Health (book ii. ll. 355-364)—
[GR] From his Epistle to William Simpson, Ochiltree; stanza 15.—Ed.
The Eagle requires a large domain for its support; but several pairs, not many years ago, were constantly resident in this country, building their nests in the steeps of Borrowdale, Wastdale, Ennerdale, and on the eastern side of Helvellyn. Often have I heard anglers speak of the grandeur of their appearance, as they hovered over Red Tarn, in one of the coves of this mountain. The bird frequently returns, but is always destroyed. Not long since one visited Rydal Lake, and remained some hours near its banks; the consternation which it occasioned among the different species of fowl, particularly the herons, was expressed by loud screams. The horse also is naturally afraid of the eagle.—There were several Roman stations among these mountains; the most considerable seems to have been in a meadow at the head of Windermere, established, undoubtedly, as a check over the passes of Kirkstone, Dunmail-raise, and of Hardknot and Wrynose. On the margin of Rydal Lake, a coin of Trajan was discovered very lately.—The Roman Fort here alluded to, called by the country people "Hardknot Castle," is most impressively situated half-way down the hill on the right of the road that descends from Hardknot into Eskdale. It has escaped the notice of most antiquarians, and is but slightly mentioned by Lysons.—The Druidical Circle is about half a mile to the left of the road ascending Stone-side from the vale of Duddon: the country people call it "Sunken Church."
The reader who may have been interested in the foregoing Sonnets (which together may be considered as a Poem) will not be displeased to find in this place a prose account of the Duddon, extracted from Green's comprehensive Guide to the Lakes, lately published. "The road leading from Coniston to Broughton is over high ground, and commands a view of the river Duddon; which at high water is a grand sight, having the beautiful and fertile lands of Lancashire and Cumberland stretching each way from its margin. In this extensive view, the face of nature is displayed in a wonderful variety of hill and dale; wooded grounds and buildings; amongst the latter, Broughton Tower, seated on the crown of a hill, rising elegantly from the valley, is an object of extraordinary interest. Fertility on each side is gradually diminished, and lost in the superior heights of Blackcomb, in Cumberland, and the high lands between Kirkby and Ulverstone.
"The road from Broughton to Seathwaite is on the banks of[Pg 268] the Duddon, and on its Lancashire side it is of various elevations. The river is an amusing companion, one while brawling and tumbling over rocky precipices, until the agitated water becomes again calm by arriving at a smoother and less precipitous bed, but its course is soon again ruffled, and the current thrown into every variety of form which the rocky channel of a river can give to water." (Vide Green's Guide to the Lakes, vol. i. pp. 98-100.)
After all, the traveller would be most gratified who should approach this beautiful Stream, neither at its source, as is done in the Sonnets, nor from its termination; but from Coniston over Walna Scar; first descending into a little circular valley, a collateral compartment of the long winding vale through which flows the Duddon. This recess, towards the close of September, when the after-grass of the meadows is still of a fresh green, with the leaves of many of the trees faded, but perhaps none fallen, is truly enchanting. At a point elevated enough to show the various objects in the valley, and not so high as to diminish their importance, the stranger will instinctively halt. On the foreground, a little below the most favourable station, a rude foot-bridge is thrown over the bed of the noisy brook, foaming by the wayside. Russet and craggy hills, of bold and varied outline, surround the level valley which is besprinkled with grey rocks plumed with birch trees. A few homesteads are interspersed in some places, peeping out from among the rocks like hermitages, whose site has been chosen for the benefit of sunshine as well as shelter; in other instances, the dwelling-house, barn, and byre, compose together a cruciform structure, which, with its embowering trees and the ivy clothing part of the walls and roof, like a fleece, call to mind the remains of an ancient abbey. Time, in most cases, and nature every where, have given a sanctity to the humble works of man, that are scattered over this peaceful retirement. Hence a harmony of tone and colour, a consummation and perfection of beauty, which would have been marred had aim or purpose interfered with the course of convenience, utility, or necessity. This unvitiated region stands in no need of the veil of twilight to soften or disguise its features. As it glistens in the morning sunshine, it would fill the spectator's heart with gladsomeness. Looking from our chosen station, he would feel an impatience to rove among its pathways, to be greeted by the milkmaid, to wander from house to house, exchanging "good-morrows" as he passed the open doors; but, at evening, when the sun is set,[Pg 269] and a pearly light gleams from the western quarter of the sky, with an answering light from the smooth surface of the meadows; when the trees are dusky, but each kind still distinguishable; when the cool air has condensed the blue smoke rising from the cottage-chimneys; when the dark mossy stones seem to sleep in the bed of the foaming Brook; then, he would be unwilling to move forward, not less from a reluctance to relinquish what he beholds, than from an apprehension of disturbing, by his approach, the quietness beneath him. Issuing from the plain of this valley, the Brook descends in a rapid torrent, passing by the churchyard of Seathwaite. The traveller is thus conducted at once into the midst of the wild and beautiful scenery which gave occasion to the Sonnets from the 14th to the 20th inclusive. From the point where the Seathwaite Brook joins the Duddon, is a view upwards, into the pass through which the River makes its way into the Plain of Donnerdale. The perpendicular rock on the right bears the ancient British name of The Pen; the one opposite is called Walla-Barrow Crag, a name that occurs in several places to designate rocks of the same character. The chaotic aspect of the scene is well marked by the expression of a stranger, who strolled out while dinner was preparing, and, at his return, being asked by his host, "What way he had been wandering?" replied, "As far as it is finished!"
The bed of the Duddon is here strewn with large fragments of rock fallen from aloft; which, as Mr. Green truly says, "are happily adapted to the many-shaped waterfalls," (or rather water-breaks, for none of them are high,) "displayed in the short space of half a mile." That there is some hazard in frequenting these desolate places, I myself have had proof; for one night an immense mass of rock fell upon the very spot where, with a friend, I had lingered the day before. "The concussion," says Mr. Green, speaking of the event, (for he also, in the practice of his art, on that day sat exposed for a still longer time to the same peril,) "was heard, not without alarm, by the neighbouring shepherds." But to return to Seathwaite Churchyard: it contains the following inscription:—
"In memory of the Reverend Robert Walker, who died the 25th of June, 1802, in the 93d year of his age, and 67th of his curacy at Seathwaite.
"Also, of Anne his wife, who died the 28th of January, in the 93d year of her age."
In the parish-register of Seathwaite Chapel, is this notice:
"Buried, June 28th, the Rev. Robert Walker. He was[Pg 270] curate of Seathwaite sixty-six years. He was a man singular for his temperance, industry, and integrity."
This individual is the Pastor alluded to, in the eighteenth Sonnet, as a worthy compeer of the Country Parson of Chaucer, etc. In the seventh book of The Excursion, an abstract of his character is given, beginning—
and some account of his life,[GS] for it is worthy of being recorded, will not be out of place here.
FOOTNOTE:
[GS] 1827. An abstract of his character is given in the author's poem of The Excursion; and some account of his life.—W. W. 1820.
In the year 1709, Robert Walker was born at Under-crag, in Seathwaite; he was the youngest of twelve children. His eldest brother, who inherited the small family estate, died at Under-crag, aged ninety-four, being twenty-four years older than the subject of this Memoir, who was born of the same mother. Robert was a sickly infant; and, through his boyhood and youth continuing to be of delicate frame and tender health, it was deemed best, according to the country phrase, to breed him a scholar; for it was not likely that he would be able to earn a livelihood by bodily labour. At that period few of these dales were furnished with school-houses; the children being taught to read and write in the chapel; and in the same consecrated building, where he officiated for so many years both as preacher and schoolmaster, he himself received the rudiments of his education. In his youth he became schoolmaster at Loweswater; not being called upon, probably, in that situation, to teach more than reading, writing, and arithmetic. But, by the assistance of a "Gentleman" in the neighbourhood, he acquired, at leisure hours, a knowledge of the classics, and became qualified for taking holy orders. Upon his ordination, he had the offer of two curacies: the one, Torver, in the vale of Coniston,—the other, Seathwaite, in his native vale. The value of each was the same, viz. five pounds per annum: but the cure of Seathwaite having a cottage attached to it, as he wished to marry, he chose it in preference. The young person on whom his affections were fixed, though in the condition of a domestic servant, had given promise, by her serious and modest deportment, and by her virtuous dispositions,[Pg 271] that she was worthy to become the helpmate of a man entering upon a plan of life such as he had marked out for himself. By her frugality she had stored up a small sum of money, with which they began housekeeping. In 1735 or 1736, he entered upon his curacy; and nineteen years afterwards, his situation is thus described, in some letters to be found in the Annual Register for 1760, from which the following is extracted:
To Mr. ——.
"Coniston, July 26, 1754.
"Sir,
"I was the other day upon a party of pleasure, about five or six miles from this place, where I met with a very striking object, and of a nature not very common. Going into a clergyman's house (of whom I had frequently heard), I found him sitting at the head of a long square table, such as is commonly used in this country by the lower class of people, dressed in a coarse blue frock, trimmed with black horn buttons; a checked shirt, a leathern strap about his neck for a stock, a coarse apron, and a pair of great wooden-soled shoes plated with iron to preserve them (what we call clogs in these parts), with a child upon his knee, eating his breakfast; his wife, and the remainder of his children, were some of them employed in waiting upon each other, the rest in teazing and spinning wool, at which trade he is a great proficient; and moreover, when it is made ready for sale, will lay it, by sixteen or thirty-two pounds' weight, upon his back, and on foot, seven or eight miles, will carry it to the market, even in the depth of winter. I was not much surprised at all this, as you may possibly be, having heard a great deal of it related before. But I must confess myself astonished with the alacrity and the good humour that appeared both in the clergyman and his wife, and more so at the sense and ingenuity of the clergyman himself." ...
Then follows a letter from another person, dated 1755, from which an extract shall be given.
"By his frugality and good management, he keeps the wolf from the door, as we say; and if he advances a little in the world, it is owing more to his own care, than to anything else he has to rely upon. I don't find his inclination is running after further preferment. He is settled among the people, that are happy among themselves; and lives in the greatest unanimity and friendship with them; and, I believe, the[Pg 272] minister and people are exceedingly satisfied with each other; and indeed how should they be dissatisfied when they have a person of so much worth and probity for their pastor? A man who, for his candour and meekness, his sober, chaste, and virtuous conversation, his soundness in principle and practice, is an ornament to his profession, and an honour to the country he is in; and bear with me if I say, the plainness of his dress, the sanctity of his manners, the simplicity of his doctrine, and the vehemence of his expression, have a sort of resemblance to the pure practice of primitive Christianity."
We will now give his own account of himself, to be found in the same place.
From the Rev. Robert Walker.
"Sir,—Yours of the 26th instant was communicated to me by Mr. C——, and I should have returned an immediate answer, but the hand of Providence, then laying[GT] heavy upon an amiable pledge of conjugal endearment, hath since taken from me a promising girl, which the disconsolate mother too pensively laments the loss of; though we have yet eight living, all healthful, hopeful children, whose names and ages are as follows:—Zaccheus, aged almost eighteen years; Elizabeth, sixteen years and ten months; Mary, fifteen; Moses, thirteen years and three months; Sarah, ten years and three months; Mabel, eight years and three months; William Tyson, three years and eight months; and Anne Esther, one year and three months; besides Anne, who died two years and six months ago, and was then aged between nine and ten; and Eleanor, who died the 23d inst., January, aged six years and ten months. Zaccheus, the eldest child, is now learning the trade of a tanner, and has two years and a half of his apprenticeship to serve. The annual income of my chapel at present, as near as I can compute it, may amount to about £17, of which is paid in cash, viz., £5 from the bounty of Queen Anne, and £5 from W. P., Esq., of P——, out of the annual rents, he being lord of the manor, and £3 from the several inhabitants of L——, settled upon the tenements as a rent-charge; the house and gardens I value at £4 yearly, and not worth more; and I believe the surplice fees and voluntary contributions, one year with another, may be worth £3; but as the inhabitants are few in number, and the fees very low, this last-mentioned sum consists merely in freewill offerings.
"I am situated greatly to my satisfaction with regard to the conduct and behaviour of my auditory, who not only live in the happy ignorance of the follies and vices of the age, but in mutual peace and goodwill with one another, and are seemingly (I hope really too) sincere Christians, and sound members of the Established Church, not one dissenter of any denomination being amongst them all. I got to the value of £40 for my wife's fortune, but had no real estate of my own, being the youngest son of twelve children, born of obscure parents; and, though my income has been but small, and my family large, yet, by a providential blessing upon my own diligent endeavours, the kindness of friends, and a cheap country to live in, we have always had the necessaries of life. By what I have written (which is a true and exact account to the best of my knowledge,) I hope you will not think your favour to me, out of the late worthy Dr. Stratford's effects, quite misbestowed, for which I must ever gratefully own myself, Sir, your much obliged and most obedient humble Servant,
"R. W., Curate of S——,
"To Mr. C., of Lancaster."
About the time when this letter was written, the Bishop of Chester recommended the scheme of joining the curacy of Ulpha to the contiguous one of Seathwaite, and the nomination was offered to Mr. Walker; but an unexpected difficulty arising, Mr. W., in a letter to the Bishop, (a copy of which, in his own beautiful handwriting, now lies before me,) thus expresses himself. "If he," meaning the person in whom the difficulty originated, "had suggested any such objection before, I should utterly have declined any attempt to the curacy of Ulpha: indeed, I was always apprehensive it might be disagreeable to my auditory at Seathwaite, as they have been always accustomed to double duty, and the inhabitants of Ulpha despair of being able to support a schoolmaster who is not curate there also; which suppressed all thoughts in me of serving them both." And in a second letter to the Bishop he writes:—
"My Lord,—I have the favour of yours of the 1st instant, and am exceedingly obliged on account of the Ulpha affair: if that curacy should lapse into your Lordship's hands, I would beg leave rather to decline than embrace it; for the chapels of Seathwaite and Ulpha, annexed together, would be apt to cause a general discontent among the inhabitants of both[Pg 274] places; by either thinking themselves slighted, being only served alternately, or neglected in the duty, or attributing it to covetousness in me; all which occasions of murmuring I would willingly avoid." And in concluding his former letter, he expresses a similar sentiment upon the same occasion, "desiring, if it be possible, however, as much as in me lieth, to live peaceably with all men."
The year following, the curacy of Seathwaite was again augmented; and, to effect this augmentation, fifty pounds had been advanced by himself; and, in 1760, lands were purchased with eight hundred pounds. Scanty as was his income, the frequent offer of much better benefices could not tempt Mr. W. to quit a situation where he had been so long happy, with a consciousness of being useful. Among his papers I find the following copy of a letter, dated 1775, twenty years after his refusal of the curacy of Ulpha, which will show what exertions had been made for one of his sons.
"May it please your Grace,—Our remote situation here makes it difficult to get the necessary information for transacting business regularly; such is the reason of my giving your Grace the present trouble.
"The bearer (my son) is desirous of offering himself candidate for deacon's orders at your Grace's ensuing ordination; the first, on the 25th instant, so that his papers could not be transmitted in due time. As he is now fully at age, and I have afforded him education to the utmost of my ability, it would give me great satisfaction (if your Grace would take him, and find him qualified) to have him ordained. His constitution has been tender for some years; he entered the college of Dublin, but his health would not permit him to continue there, or I would have supported him much longer. He has been with me at home above a year, in which time he has gained great strength of body, sufficient, I hope, to enable him for performing the function. Divine Providence, assisted by liberal benefactors, has blest my endeavours, from a small income, to rear a numerous family; and as my time of life renders me now unfit for much future expectancy from this world, I should be glad to see my son settled in a promising way to acquire an honest livelihood for himself. His behaviour, so far in life, has been irreproachable; and I hope he will not degenerate, in principles or practice, from the precepts and pattern of an indulgent parent. Your Grace's favourable reception of this,[Pg 275] from a distant corner of the diocese, and an obscure hand, will excite filial gratitude, and a due use shall be made of the obligation vouchsafed thereby to Your Grace's very dutiful and most obedient Son and Servant,
Robert Walker."
The same man, who was thus liberal in the education of his numerous family, was even munificent in his hospitality as a parish priest. Every Sunday, were served, upon the long table, at which he has been described sitting with a child upon his knee, messes of broth, for the refreshment of those of his congregation who came from a distance, and usually took their seats as parts of his own household. It seems scarcely possible that this custom could have commenced before the augmentation of his cure; and what would to many have been a high price of self-denial, was paid, by the pastor and his family, for this gratification; as the treat could only be provided by dressing at one time the whole, perhaps, of their weekly allowance of fresh animal food; consequently, for a succession of days, the table was covered with cold victuals only. His generosity in old age may be still further illustrated by a little circumstance relating to an orphan grandson, then ten years of age, which I find in a copy of a letter to one of his sons; he requests that half-a-guinea may be left for "little Robert's pocket-money," who was then at school: intrusting it to the care of a lady, who, as he says, "may sometimes frustrate his squandering it away foolishly," and promising to send him an equal allowance annually for the same purpose. The conclusion of the same letter is so characteristic, that I cannot forbear to transcribe it. "We," meaning his wife and himself, "are in our wonted state of health, allowing for the hasty strides of old age knocking daily at our door, and threateningly telling us, we are not only mortal, but must expect ere long to take our leave of our ancient cottage, and lie down in our last dormitory. Pray pardon my neglect to answer yours; let us hear sooner from you, to augment the mirth of the Christmas holidays. Wishing you all the pleasures of the approaching season, I am, dear Son, with lasting sincerity, yours affectionately,
"Robert Walker."
He loved old customs and usages, and in some instances stuck to them to his own loss; for, having had a sum of money lodged in the hands of a neighbouring tradesman, when long course of time had raised the rate of interest, and more was offered, he refused to accept it; an act not difficult to one, who, while he was drawing seventeen pounds a year from his curacy,[Pg 276] declined, as we have seen, to add the profits of another small benefice to his own, lest he should be suspected of cupidity. From this vice he was utterly free; he made no charge for teaching school; such as could afford to pay, gave him what they pleased. When very young, having kept a diary of his expenses, however trifling, the large amount, at the end of the year, surprised him; and from that time the rule of his life was to be economical, not avaricious. At his decease he left behind him no less a sum than £2000; and such a sense of his various excellencies was prevalent in the country, that the epithet of wonderful is to this day attached to his name.
There is in the above sketch something so extraordinary as to require further explanatory details.—And to begin with his industry; eight hours in each day, during five days in the week, and half of Saturday, except when the labours of husbandry were urgent, he was occupied in teaching. His seat was within the rails of the altar; the communion-table was his desk; and, like Shenstone's schoolmistress, the master employed himself at the spinning-wheel, while the children were repeating their lessons by his side. Every evening, after school hours, if not more profitably engaged, he continued the same kind of labour, exchanging, for the benefit of exercise, the small wheel, at which he had sate, for the large one on which wool is spun, the spinner stepping to and fro. Thus, was the wheel constantly in readiness to prevent the waste of a moment's time. Nor was his industry with the pen, when occasion called for it, less eager. Intrusted with extensive management of public and private affairs, he acted, in his rustic neighbourhood, as scrivener, writing out petitions, deeds of conveyance, wills, covenants, etc., with pecuniary gain to himself, and to the great benefit of his employers. These labours (at all times considerable) at one period of the year, viz., between Christmas and Candlemas, when money transactions are settled in this country, were often so intense, that he passed great part of the night, and sometimes whole nights, at his desk. His garden also was tilled by his own hand; he had a right of pasturage upon the mountains for a few sheep and a couple of cows, which required his attendance; with this pastoral occupation, he joined the labours of husbandry upon a small scale, renting two or three acres in addition to his own less than one acre of glebe; and the humblest drudgery which the cultivation of these fields required was performed by himself.
He also assisted his neighbours in haymaking and shearing[Pg 277] their flocks, and in the performance of this latter service he was eminently dexterous. They, in their turn, complimented him with the present of a haycock, or a fleece; less as a recompense for this particular service than as a general acknowledgment. The Sabbath was in a strict sense kept holy; the Sunday evenings being devoted to reading the Scripture and family prayer. The principal festivals appointed by the Church were also duly observed; but through every other day in the week, through every week in the year he was incessantly occupied in work of hand or mind; not allowing a moment for recreation, except upon a Saturday afternoon, when he indulged himself with a Newspaper, or sometimes with a Magazine. The frugality and temperance established in his house, were as admirable as the industry. Nothing to which the name of luxury could be given was there known; in the latter part of his life, indeed, when tea had been brought into almost general use, it was provided for visitors, and for such of his own family as returned occasionally to his roof, and had been accustomed to this refreshment elsewhere; but neither he nor his wife ever partook of it. The raiment worn by his family was comely and decent, but as simple as their diet; the home-spun materials were made up into apparel by their own hands. At the time of the decease of this thrifty pair, their cottage contained a large store of webs of woollen and linen cloth, woven from thread of their own spinning. And it is remarkable that the pew in the chapel in which the family used to sit, remains neatly lined with woollen cloth spun by the pastor's own hands. It is the only pew in the chapel so distinguished; and I know of no other instance of his conformity to the delicate accommodations of modern times. The fuel of the house, like that of their neighbours, consisted of peat, procured from the mosses by their own labour. The lights by which, in the winter evenings, their work was performed, were of their own manufacture, such as still continue to be used in these cottages; they are made of the pith of rushes dipped in any unctuous substance that the house affords. White candles, as tallow candles are here called, were reserved to honour the Christmas festivals, and were perhaps produced upon no other occasions. Once a month, during the proper season, a sheep was drawn from their small mountain flock, and killed for the use of the family; and a cow, towards the close of the year, was salted and dried for winter provision: the hide was tanned to furnish them with shoes.—By these various resources, this venerable clergyman reared a[Pg 278] numerous family, not only preserving them, as he affectingly says, "from wanting the necessaries of life"; but affording them an unstinted education, and the means of raising themselves in society. In this they were eminently assisted by the effects of their father's example, his precepts, and injunctions: he was aware that truth-speaking, as a moral virtue, is best secured by inculcating attention to accuracy of report even on trivial occasions; and so rigid were the rules of honesty by which he endeavoured to bring up his family, that if one of them had chanced to find in the lanes or fields anything of the least use or value without being able to ascertain to whom it belonged, he always insisted upon the child's carrying it back to the place from which it had been brought.[GU]
No one it might be thought could, as has been described, convert his body into a machine, as it were, of industry for the humblest uses, and keep his thoughts so frequently bent upon secular concerns, without grievous injury to the more precious parts of his nature. How could the powers of intellect thrive, or its graces be displayed, in the midst of circumstances apparently so unfavourable, and where, to the direct cultivation of the mind, so small a portion of time was allotted? But, in this extraordinary man, things in their nature adverse were reconciled. His conversation was remarkable, not only for being chaste and pure, but for the degree in which it was fervent and eloquent; his written style was correct, simple, and animated. Nor did his affections suffer more than his intellect; he was tenderly alive to all the duties of his pastoral office: the poor and needy "he never sent empty away," the stranger was fed and refreshed in passing that unfrequented vale,—the sick were visited; and the feelings of humanity found further exercise among the distresses and embarrassments in the worldly estate of his neighbours, with which his talents for business made him acquainted; and the disinterestedness, impartiality, and uprightness which he maintained in the management of all affairs confided to him, were virtues seldom separated in his own conscience from religious obligation. Nor could such conduct fail to remind those who witnessed it of a spirit nobler than law or custom: they felt convictions which, but for such intercourse, could not have been afforded, that, as in the practice of their pastor, there was no guile, so in his faith there was nothing hollow; and we are warranted in believing, that upon these occasions, selfishness, obstinacy, and discord would often give[Pg 279] way before the breathings of his goodwill and saintly integrity. It may be presumed also—while his humble congregation were listening to the moral precepts which he delivered from the pulpit, and to the Christian exhortations that they should love their neighbours as themselves, and do as they would be done unto—that peculiar efficacy was given to the preacher's labours by recollections in the minds of his congregation, that they were called upon to do no more than his own actions were daily setting before their eyes.
The afternoon service in the chapel was less numerously attended than that of the morning, but by a more serious auditory; the lesson from the New Testament, on those occasions, was accompanied by Burkitt's Commentaries. These lessons he read with impassioned emphasis, frequently drawing tears from his hearers, and leaving a lasting impression upon their minds. His devotional feelings and the powers of his own mind were further exercised, along with those of his family, in perusing the Scriptures: not only on the Sunday evenings, but on every other evening, while the rest of the household were at work, some one of the children, and in her turn the servant, for the sake of practice in reading, or for instruction, read the Bible aloud; and in this manner the whole was repeatedly gone through. That no common importance was attached to the observance of religious ordinances by his family, appears from the following memorandum by one of his descendants, which I am tempted to insert at length, as it is characteristic, and somewhat curious. "There is a small chapel in the county palatine of Lancaster, where a certain clergyman has regularly officiated above sixty years, and a few months ago administered the sacrament of the Lord's Supper in the same, to a decent number of devout communicants. After the clergyman had received himself, the first company out of the assembly who approached the altar, and kneeled down to be partakers of the sacred elements, consisted of the parson's wife, to whom he had been married upwards of sixty years; one son and his wife; four daughters, each with her husband; whose ages, all added together, amount to above 714 years. The several and respective distances from the place of each of their abodes, to the chapel where they all communicated, will measure more than 1000 English miles. Though the narration will appear surprising, it is without doubt a fact that the same persons, exactly four years before, met at the same place, and all joined in performance of the same venerable duty."
He was indeed most zealously attached to the doctrine and frame of the Established Church. We have seen him congratulating himself that he had no dissenters in his cure of any denomination. Some allowance must be made for the state of opinion when his first religious impressions were received, before the reader will acquit him of bigotry, when I mention, that at the time of the augmentation of the cure, he refused to invest part of the money in the purchase of an estate offered to him upon advantageous terms, because the proprietor was a Quaker;—whether from scrupulous apprehension that a blessing would not attend a contract framed for the benefit of the church between persons not in religious sympathy with each other; or, as a seeker of peace, he was afraid of the uncomplying disposition which at one time was too frequently conspicuous in that sect. Of this an instance had fallen under his own notice; for, while he taught school at Loweswater, certain persons of that denomination had refused to pay annual interest due[GV] under the title of Church-stock;[GW] a great hardship upon the incumbent, for the curacy of Loweswater was then scarcely less poor than that of Seathwaite. To what degree this prejudice of his was blameable need not be determined;—certain it is, that he was not only desirous, as he himself says, to live in peace, but in love, with all men. He was placable, and charitable in his judgments; and, however correct in conduct and rigorous to himself, he was ever ready to forgive the trespasses of others, and to soften the censure that was cast upon their frailties.—It would be unpardonable to omit that, in the maintenance of his virtues, he received due support from the partner of his long life. She was equally strict, in attending to her share of their joint cares, nor less diligent in her appropriate occupations. A person who had been some time their servant in the latter part of their lives, concluded the panegyric of her mistress by saying to me, "She was no less excellent than her husband; she was good to the poor, she was good to every thing!" He survived for a short time this virtuous companion. When she died, he ordered that her body should be borne to the grave by three of her daughters and one grand-daughter; and, when the corpse was lifted from the threshold, he insisted upon lending his aid, and feeling about,[Pg 281] for he was then almost blind, took hold of a napkin fixed to the coffin; and, as a bearer of the body, entered the chapel, a few steps from the lowly parsonage.
What a contrast does the life of this obscurely-seated, and, in point of worldly wealth, poorly-repaid Churchman, present to that of a Cardinal Wolsey!
We have been dwelling upon images of peace in the moral world, that have brought us again to the quiet enclosure of consecrated ground, in which this venerable pair lie interred. The sounding brook, that rolls close by the churchyard, without disturbing feeling or meditation, is now unfortunately laid bare; but not long ago it participated, with the chapel, the shade of some stately ash-trees, which will not spring again. While the spectator from this spot is looking round upon the girdle of stony mountains that encompasses the vale,—masses of rock, out of which monuments for all men that ever existed might have been hewn—it would surprise him to be told, as with truth he might be, that the plain blue slab dedicated to the memory of this aged pair is a production of a quarry in North Wales. It was sent as a mark of respect by one of their descendants from the vale of Festiniog, a region almost as beautiful as that in which it now lies!
Upon the Seathwaite Brook, at a small distance from the parsonage, has been erected a mill for spinning yarn; it is a mean and disagreeable object, though not unimportant to the spectator, as calling to mind the momentous changes wrought by such inventions in the frame of society—changes which have proved especially unfavourable to these mountain solitudes. So much had been effected by those new powers, before the subject of the preceding biographical sketch closed his life, that their operation could not escape his notice, and doubtless excited touching reflections upon the comparatively insignificant results of his own manual industry. But Robert Walker was not a man of times and circumstances: had he lived at a later period, the principle of duty would have produced application as unremitting; the same energy of character would have been displayed, though in many instances with widely different effects.
With pleasure I annex, as illustrative and confirmatory of the above account, extracts from a paper in the Christian Remembrancer, October 1819: it bears an assumed signature, but is known to be the work of the Rev. Robert Bamford, vicar of Bishopton, in the county of Durham; a great-grandson of Mr. Walker, whose worth it commemorates, by a record not the less valuable for being written in very early youth.
"His house was a nursery of virtue. All the inmates were industrious, and cleanly, and happy. Sobriety, neatness, quietness, characterised the whole family. No railings, no idleness, no indulgence of passion were permitted. Every child, however young, had its appointed engagements; every hand was busy. Knitting, spinning, reading, writing, mending clothes, making shoes, were by the different children constantly performing. The father himself sitting amongst them, and guiding their thoughts, was engaged in the same occupations....
"He sate up late, and rose early; when the family were at rest, he retired to a little room which he had built on the roof of his house. He had slated it, and fitted it up with shelves for his books, his stock of cloth, wearing apparel, and his utensils. There many a cold winter's night, without fire, while the roof was glazed with ice, did he remain reading or writing, till the day dawned. He taught the children in the chapel, for there was no schoolhouse. Yet in that cold, damp place he never had a fire. He used to send the children in parties either to his own fire at home, or make them run up the mountain side.
* * * * * *
"It may be further mentioned, that he was a passionate admirer of Nature; she was his mother, and he was a dutiful child. While engaged on the mountains, it was his greatest pleasure to view the rising sun; and in tranquil evenings, as it slided behind the hills, he blessed its departure. He was skilled in fossils and plants; a constant observer of the stars and winds: the atmosphere was his delight. He made many experiments on its nature and properties. In summer he used to gather a multitude of flies and insects, and, by his entertaining description, amuse and instruct his children. They shared all his daily employments, and derived many sentiments of love and benevolence from his observations on the works and productions of nature. Whether they were following him in the field, or surrounding him in school, he took every opportunity[Pg 283] of storing their minds with useful information.—Nor was the circle of his influence confined to Seathwaite. Many a distant mother has told her child of Mr. Walker, and begged him to be as good a man.
* * * * * *
"Once, when I was very young, I had the pleasure of seeing and hearing that venerable old man in his 90th year, and even then, the calmness, the force, the perspicuity of his sermon, sanctified and adorned by the wisdom of grey hairs, and the authority of virtue, had such an effect upon my mind, that I never see a hoary-headed clergyman, without thinking of Mr. Walker.... He allowed no dissenter or methodist to interfere in the instruction of the souls committed to his cure: and so successful were his exertions, that he had not one dissenter of any denomination whatever in the whole parish. Though he avoided all religious controversies, yet when age had silvered his head, and virtuous piety had secured to his appearance reverence and silent honour, no one, however determined in his hatred of apostolic descent, could have listened to his discourse on ecclesiastical history and ancient times, without thinking, that one of the beloved apostles had returned to mortality, and in that vale of peace had come to exemplify the beauty of holiness in the life and character of Mr. Walker.
* * * * * *
"Until the sickness of his wife, a few months previous to her death, his health and spirits and faculties were unimpaired. But this misfortune gave him such a shock, that his constitution gradually decayed. His senses, except sight, still preserved their powers. He never preached with steadiness after his wife's death. His voice faltered: he always looked at the seat she had used. He could not pass her tomb without tears. He became, when alone, sad and melancholy, though still among his friends kind and good-humoured. He went to bed about twelve o'clock the night before his death. As his custom was, he went, tottering and leaning upon his daughter's arm, to examine the heavens, and meditate a few moments in the open air. 'How clear the moon shines to-night!' He said these words, sighed, and laid down. At six next morning he was found a corpse. Many a tear, and many a heavy heart, and many a grateful blessing followed him to the grave."[GY]
Having mentioned in this narrative the vale of Loweswater as a place where Mr. Walker taught school, I will add a few memoranda from its parish register, respecting a person apparently of desires as moderate, with whom he must have been intimate during his residence there.
"Henry Forest came to Loweswater, 1708, being twenty-five years of age."
"This curacy was twice augmented by Queen Anne's Bounty. The first payment, with great difficulty, was paid to Mr. John Curwen of London, on the 9th of May, 1724, deposited by me, Henry Forest, curate of Loweswater. Ye said 9th of May, ye said Mr. Curwen went to the office, and saw my name registered there, etc. This, by the Providence of God, came by lot to this poor place.
"Hæc testor H. Forest."
In another place he records, that the sycamore trees were planted in the churchyard in 1710.
He died in 1741, having been curate thirty-four years. It is not improbable that H. Forest was the gentleman who assisted Robert Walker in his classical studies at Loweswater.
To this parish register is prefixed a motto, of which the following verses are a part:—
FOOTNOTES:
[GT] Many archaic spellings, in this and other papers, are retained.—Ed.
[GU] The last sentence first appeared in the edition of 1837.—Ed.
[GV] To pay, or be distrained upon, for the accustomed annual interest due from them, among others.—W. W. 1820.
[GW] Mr. Walker's charity being of that kind which "seeketh not her own," he would rather forego his rights than distrain for dues which the parties liable refused to pay as a point of conscience.—W. W. 1827.
[GX] See King Henry VIII., act III. scene 2, ll. 384, 385.—Ed.
[GY] The paragraphs from "With pleasure" (p. 282) to "to the grave" (p. 283) were first printed in the edition of 1832.—Ed.
Composed 1821-2.—Published 1822
[I set out in company with my wife and sister, and Mr. and Mrs. Monkhouse, then just married, and Miss Horrocks. These two ladies, sisters, we left at Berne, while Mr. Monkhouse took the opportunity of making an excursion with us among the Alps as far as Milan. Mr. H. C. Robinson joined us at Lucerne, and when this ramble was completed we rejoined at Geneva the two ladies we had left at Berne and proceeded to Paris, where Mr. Monkhouse and H. C. R. left us, and where we spent five weeks, of which there is not a record in these poems.—I. F.]
See Dorothy Wordsworth's itinerary (Note A) of this tour, and Henry Crabb Robinson's account of it in his Diary and Correspondence, vol. ii. pp. 166-192 (Note B to this volume).—Ed.
(Sent with these Poems, in MS., to ——)[467]
Rydal Mount, Nov. 1821[470]
VARIANTS:
[467] Not in the editions of 1822-1832.
[468] 1837.
[469] 1827.
[470] 1837.
FOOTNOTES:
[GZ] The Fellow-travellers were Mrs. Wordsworth, Dorothy Wordsworth, Mr. and Mrs. Monkhouse, Miss Horrocks, and Henry Crabb Robinson.—Ed.
[HA] Compare L'Allegro, l. 138.—Ed.
"If in this Sonnet I should seem to have borne a little too hard upon the personal appearance of the worthy Poissardes of Calais, let me take shelter under the authority of my lamented friend, the late Sir George Beaumont. He, a most accurate observer, used to say of them, that their features and countenances seemed to have conformed to those of the creatures they dealt in; at all events the resemblance was striking."—W. W. 1822.
In Mrs. Wordsworth's Journal of this Tour on the Continent,—which, in a letter to her daughter Dorothy (dated 20th February 1821), she calls "hasty notes made by snatches during our journey,"—the following occurs:—"Passing through the gates of the city, we had before us a line of white-capped Fish-women, with thin brown faces. The fish very foul, yet at dinner the same sort proved excellent."
In Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal of the same Tour, the following occurs:—"Tuesday, 11th July. Calais.—With one consent we stopped to gaze at a group—rather a line of women and girls, seated beside dirty fish baskets under the old gate-way and ramparts—their white night caps, brown and puckered faces, bright eyes, etc. etc., very striking. The arrangements—how unlike those of a fish-market in the South of England!...
"Every one is struck with the excessive ugliness (if I may apply the word to any human creatures) of the fish-women of Calais, and that no one can forget."—Ed.
Henry Crabb Robinson wrote of this sonnet:—"Of the sonnets there is one remarkable and unique; the humour and naïveté, and the exquisitely refined sentiment of the Calais fish-women, are a combination of excellencies quite novel." (Diary, etc., vol. ii. p. 224.)—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[471] 1837.
[472] 1822.
[473] 1827.
FOOTNOTE:
[HB] Amphitrite, herself a daughter of Nereus, was married to Posidon, and was therefore Queen of the Sea. The name Amphitrite is probably derived from the noise of waters pouring through the rifts of rocks, and there may be an allusion to this in the concluding lines of the sonnet.—Ed.
This is not the first poetical tribute which in our times has been paid to this beautiful City. Mr. Southey, in the Poet's Pilgrimage, speaks of it in lines which I cannot deny myself the pleasure of connecting with my own.
"In this city are many vestiges of the splendour of the Burgundian Dukedom, and the long black mantle universally worn by the females is probably a remnant of the old Spanish connection, which, if I do not much deceive myself, is traceable in the grave deportment of its inhabitants. Bruges is comparatively little disturbed by that curious contest, or rather conflict, of Flemish with French propensities in matters of taste, so conspicuous through other parts of Flanders. The hotel to which we drove at Ghent furnished an odd instance. In the passages were paintings and statues, after the antique, of Hebe and Apollo; and in the garden, a little pond, about a yard and a half in diameter, with a weeping willow bending over it, and under the shade of that tree, in the centre of the pond a wooden painted statue of a Dutch or Flemish boor, looking ineffably tender upon his mistress, and embracing her. A living duck, tethered at the feet of the sculptured lovers, alternately tormented a miserable eel and itself with endeavours to escape from its bonds and prison. Had we chanced to espy the hostess of the hotel in this quaint rural retreat, the exhibition would have been complete. She was a true Flemish figure, in the dress of the days of Holbein; her symbol of office, a weighty bunch of keys, pendent from her portly waist. In Brussels, the modern taste in costume, architecture, etc., has got the mastery; in Ghent there is a struggle: but in Bruges old images are still paramount, and an air of monastic life among the quiet goings-on of a thinly-peopled city is inexpressibly soothing; a pensive grace seems to be cast over all, even the very children." (Extract from Journal.)—W. W. 1822.
From Mrs. Wordsworth's Journal:—"Thursday, 13th July....—Bruges. What a place. D. and I walked out as soon as we could after our arrival.... Went into the old church. The nuns, the different worshippers, the pictures, the place, the quiet stately streets, grand buildings, graceful nun-like women in their long cloaks, treading with swan-like motions those[Pg 290] silent avenues of majestic architecture, I must leave to D. to describe. My own mind was uplifted by a sort of devotional elevation as if striving to fit itself to become worthy of what these temples would lead to."
"... Friday, 14th.—At Bruges all is silence, grace, and unmixed dignity.... You felt a sort of veneration for everything you looked upon. Nothing of this here" [i.e. at Ghent]; "yet what a splendid place! The evening too suited its character, for the sun went down in brightness. Yesterday was not a sunny day, and Bruges wanted no sunshine, its own outline in the gloom of evening needed no golden lustre. Yet this William witnessed, when D. and I were not with him, the great Tower of the Market House bathed in gold!"
The following is from Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal:—"Thursday, 13th July. Dunkirk.—We entered Bruges by a long gently-winding street, and were so animated with pleasure in our hasty course that it seemed we too soon reached the inn. W. and Mr. M. walked out immediately, eager to view the city in the warm light of the setting sun....
"Continued to walk through the silent town till ten o'clock—no carts—no chaises—a cloistral silence felt in every corner and every open space, yet the large square was scattered over with groups of people; or passengers walking to and fro, no lights in the houses!"—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[474] 1837.
[475] 1827.
[476] 1827.
See the note to the last sonnet. The following is from Mrs. Wordsworth's Journal:—"Friday, 14th. Bruges.—Rose at five o'clock, paced the town again, and visited, but with disturbed mind (for I had left William in bed hurting himself with a sonnet), the churches of St. Salvador and Notre Dame.... I joined W. in our carriage, and have here written down the sonnet, Jones' Parsonage, so I hope he will be at rest."
The following is from Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal:—"Friday, 14th July. Bruges.—The morning was bright, sunshine and shade falling upon the lines of houses, and the out-juttings of the more noble buildings. In the bright light of morning the same tender melancholy was over the city as in the sober time of twilight, yet with intervening images of rural life. A few peasants were now entering the town, and the rattling of a rustic cart, prettily laden with vegetables fresh from the soil, gave a gentle stirring to the fancy. Early as it was, people of all ages were abroad chiefly on their way to the churches: the figure, gait, and motions of the women in harmony with the collegiate air of the streets, and the processions and solemnities of Catholic worship. Such figures might have walked through these streets, two hundred years ago; streets bearing no stamp of progress or of decay. One might fancy that as the city had been built so it had remained. We first went to the Church of St. Salvador, a venerable Gothic edifice. Within the Church, our walk between the lofty pillars was very solemn. We saw in perspective the marble floor scattered over, at irregular distances, with people of all ages—standing, or upon their knees, silent, yet making such motions as the order of their devotions prescribed, crossing themselves, beating their breasts, or telling their beads. Such the general appearance of the worshippers: but the gestures of some were more impassioned....
"We spent some time in admiring the beauty of the choir, and every other part of this noble building, adorned as it is with statues; and pictures not in the paltry style of the Churches at Calais and Fernes; but works of art that would be interesting anywhere, and are much more so in these sacred places, where the wretched and the happy, the poor and the rich are alike invited to cast away worldly feelings, and may be elevated by the representations of Scripture history, or of the sufferings and glory of martyrs and saints."
In the final arrangement of his poems, Wordsworth placed the one entitled Incident at Brugès—which belonged to the year 1828—after the two sonnets on Brugès in these "Memorials of a Tour on the Continent in 1820." In the present edition the former poem is restored to its chronological place (see vol. vii.), where it is associated with A Jewish Family. As a consequence the numbering of the poems differs slightly from that which Wordsworth finally adopted.—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[477] 1827.
[478] 1837.
[479] 1827.
[480] 1837.
"Namur, Tuesday 18th.—Our ride yesterday, except for the intervention of Waterloo, and its interests, which were so melancholy that I do not like to touch upon them, was a dull one, though the road was pleasant through the forest of Soignies. Waterloo, its pretty chapel, the walls within covered with monuments, recording the fall of many of our brave countrymen, and some few others as brave, La Haye Sainte, La Belle Alliance, Quatre Bras. Dined at Genappe; two bullet shots in the wainscot of the room, which, during the battle, had been heaped with dead and dying." (From Mrs. Wordsworth's Journal.)
"Monday, 17th July, Brussels.—I could understand little till we got to the field of battle, where we stood upon an elevation; and thence, looking round upon every memorable spot, by help of gesture and action, and the sounds 'les Anglois, les Francois,' etc. etc., I gathered up a small portion of the story, helped out by a few monuments erected to the memory of the slain; but all round, there was no other visible record of slaughter: the wide fields were covered with luxuriant crops, just as they had been before the battles, except that now the corn was nearly ripe, and then it was green. We stood upon grass, and corn fields where heaps of our countrymen lay buried beneath our feet. There was little to be seen, but much to be felt; sorrow and sadness, and even something like horror breathed out of the ground as we stood upon it!" (From Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, vol. i.) Compare the two sonnets Occasioned by the Battle of Waterloo, February, 1816, also the Thanksgiving Ode.—Ed.
VARIANT:
[481] 1827.
[The scenery on the Meuse pleases me more, upon the whole, than that of the Rhine, though the river itself is much inferior in grandeur. The rocks, both in form and colour, especially between Namur and Liege, surpass any upon the Rhine, though[Pg 294] they are in several places disfigured by quarries, whence stones were taken for the new fortifications. This is much to be regretted, for they are useless, and the scars will remain perhaps for thousands of years. A like injury to a still greater degree has been inflicted, in my memory, upon the beautiful rocks of Clifton, on the banks of the Avon. There is probably in existence a very long letter of mine to Sir Uvedale Price, in which was given a description of the landscapes on the Meuse as compared with those on the Rhine.
Details in the spirit of these sonnets are given both in Mrs. Wordsworth's Journals and my Sister's, and the reperusal of them has strengthened a wish long entertained that somebody would put together, as in one work, the notices contained in them, omitting particulars that were written down merely to aid our memory, and bringing the whole into as small a compass as is consistent with the general interests belonging to the scenes, circumstances, and objects touched on by each writer.—I. F.]
The following extract from Mrs. Wordsworth's Journal illustrates this sonnet, and explains the Fenwick note. The "long entertained" "wish" of the poet, expressed in that note, has never yet been accomplished. It may be realised in one of the volumes which follow, in this edition.
"July 18. Departure from Namur, road out of the town beautiful, wide, disk-like valley, gardens, groves, town standing upon its two rivers. Ramparts towering above, very impressive[Pg 295] to cast the eyes back upon. Market people flocking in in groups, variety of dresses, of all gay colours. Flowers seem to be the delight of the peasantry. They are worn in their hats, upon their breasts, carried in the mouth when their hands are at work sometimes, or stuck behind the ear. Road excellent all the way down the Meuse. Villages in all situations,—among the rocks, now one peeps out of a recess, again another upon a knoll with its spire rising from among trees. More and more beautiful as you proceed down the river—rocks on the banks of the most fantastic forms, something like those on the Wye. Sometimes the valley reminded us of the trough of the Clyde. Huy. Church handsome, the high tower struck by lightning fourteen years ago; new fortifications, most picturesque and romantic situation. Crossed the Meuse here, charming view from the bridge.... Road very delightful, rocks, woods, chateau, convent, vineyards, hanging gardens, orchards with profusion of fruit, shrubs, and flowers, and corn lands, all in the most luxuriant state. So beautiful a day's journey I never before travelled."
The following is from Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, vol. i.:—"Tuesday, July 18. Namur.—Having traversed the Vale, we travel downwards, with the stately, though muddy, river to our left—pass under limestone rocks resembling abbeys or castles—the opening prospect still presenting something new. Backwards, a noble view of the vale, terminated by the city and fortifications of Namur at the distance of, perhaps, two miles or more—our last farewell view! Still, as we go on, the rocks change their shapes, in prospect far off; or as we roll swiftly away beneath them. Villages not to be numbered by the hasty traveller, rise up, with spires and towers; cottages embowered in gardens and orchards, and sometimes an old chateau or modern villa. All these (in succession or together) vary the scene, while, the abundance of flowers, fruit, vegetables, and corn, interbedded and intermingled, give an image of plenty and happy industry."—Ed.
VARIANT:
[482] 1837.
Where unremitting frosts the rocky crescent bleach.
"Let a wall of rocks be imagined from three to six hundred feet in height, and rising between France and Spain, so as physically to separate the two kingdoms—let us fancy this wall curved like a crescent with its convexity towards France. Lastly, let us suppose, that in the very middle of the wall a breach of 300 feet wide has been beaten down by the famous Roland, and we may have a good idea of what the mountaineers call the 'Breche de Rolend.'" (Raymond's Pyrenees.)—W. W. 1822.
"Thursday, 20th July.—... Descend towards the town of Aix-la-Chapelle, a chapel on the opposite side of the vale upon a high knoll, overlooking the spires and towers.... Wm., T. M., and myself walked to the chapel we had seen on the heights, said to be built by Charlemagne: a very interesting view of the town, and over a large space of the country beyond, and into the country looking the other way. Wm. went higher to a monument recording that Buonaparte visited the spot with one attendant. We were too late to be satisfied here, the darkness only allowing us to form a notion of the outline, and to catch here and there a spire or a tower in the distance. The[Pg 297] chapel here alluded to was not larger in appearance than the tiny rocky edifice at Buttermere. A Christ under the branches of a spreading oak, brought to my mind by contrast, a gay image of a brightly painted fox, on a sign board, among the branches of a flowing chestnut tree, which William and I saw gleaming in the setting sun, when walking through the village of Souldren." (From Mrs. Wordsworth's Journal.)
"Thursday, 20th July. Aix-la-Chapelle.—I went to the Cathedral, a curious Building where are to be seen the chair of Charlemagne, on which the Emperors were formerly crowned, some marble pillars much older than his time; and many pictures; but I could not stay to examine any of these curiosities, and gladly made my way alone back to the inn to rest there. The market-place is a fine old square; but at Aix-la-Chapelle there is always a mighty preponderance of poverty and dulness, except in a few of the showiest of the streets, and even there, a flashy meanness, a slight patchery of things falling to pieces is everywhere visible." (From Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, vol. i.)—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[483] 1837.
[484] 1837.
FOOTNOTE:
[HC] Compare Paradise Lost, book vi. l. 251—
"Friday, July 21. Cologne.—... The Cathedral, a most magnificent edifice. Tower unfinished (this I perceived, but took it for a ruin at ten miles distance), built 700 years ago. The outside reminds you of Westminster Abbey in parts; and, had the Projector's wish been fulfilled, within and without, this would have been a much more sumptuous pile. It affectingly called to my mind William's lines—
Within the fluted Pillars are very grand; the dimensions, 180 German feet high, 700 long, and 500 broad. A curious old picture, 450 years old. Subject, the 3 Kings of Cologne in the centre (for it was divided into three parts, and kept shut up to protect it), and on the sides Ursula and the 11,000 virgins, by Ralfe; mounted 250 steps to the top of the unfinished Tower, and had a fine prospect of the river winding its way towards Dusseldorf.... The cathedral—that august and solemnly impressive Temple.... William in his musing way...." (From Mrs. Wordsworth's Journal.)
"Friday, 21st July. Cologne.—I cannot attempt to describe the Cathedral; nor indeed could any skill of mine do justice to that august pile, even if I might have lingered half a day among its walls. At our entrance, the evening sunshine rested upon portions of some of the hundred massy columns; while the shade and gloom, spread through the edifice, were deepened by those brilliant touches of golden light. Some of the painted windows were beautified by the melting together and the intermingling of colours, reflected upon the stone-work, colours and shapes, to the eye as unsubstantial as light itself, and visionary as the rainbow. The choir is hung with tapestry, designed by Rubens. It does, I think, to an unlearned eye somewhat resemble Henry the Seventh's chapel at Westminster, but is much loftier and larger. The long lancet-shaped painted windows are beautiful. The pillars and arches through the aisles of this Cathedral are of grey stone, sober, solemn, of great size, yet exquisitely proportioned; and no paltry images or tinselled altars disturb the one impression of awful magnificence, an[Pg 299] impression received at once, and not to be overcome by regrets, that only the Choir and side aisles are finished. The nave, at half its destined height, is covered with a ceiling of boards. The exterior of this stupendous edifice is of massy, though most beautiful, architecture. Some of the lighter wreaths of stone-work (if great things may be compared with small) made me think of the Chapel of Roslin in its sequestered dell, where the adder's tongue and fern are mingled with green-grown flowers, and leaves of stone that neither fall nor fade. Flowers and bushes here grow out of the gigantic ruins—yet ruins they are not; for as the Builder's hand left the unfinished work, so it appears to have remained in firmness and strength unshakable, while Nature has made her own of ornaments framed in imitation of her works, having overspread them with her colouring, and blended them with the treasures of her lonely places." (From Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, vol. i.)—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[485] 1837.
[486] 1827.
FOOTNOTES:
[HD] The cathedral of Cologne was completed on October 15, 1880.—Ed.
[HE] The reference is to the sonnet on Malham Cove (see p. 185), and the Fenwick note to The Excursion.—Ed.
"Saturday 22nd.—We were anxious, at least Wm. was, to be in Switzerland, and we must follow our destiny. Leaving the rich plain, came to the fine range of mountains we saw yesterday, and to the side of the glorious river, by which we have since travelled. Magnificent heights on its banks. The most abrupt and fantastic outlines; Convents (what an exquisite one that first which pushed itself forward on the green shore, where the river bends in its course); Ruined Castles, looking at each other from aloft, or down upon the convents, lurk in the woody clefts; picturesque Villages with their spires, at every turn of this stately winding river; beautiful road following its windings; every variety of form given to the rocks; and affecting intimations brought to mind, by the frequent oratories and crosses, here neither tawdry nor obtrusive. After changing horses at Remengen, lost sight for a while of our noble companion, which soon reappeared stretching along a more widely-spread vale; the green hills softly retiring, vineyards climbing up their sides, and into every crevice; corn yellow-green, the different crops richly filling the centre of the vale; the fine road, bordered now by apple-trees laden with fruit, now open to the undivided plain. Again the hills approached, and never w