MY DEAR MR. REED,
* * * * *
You give me pleasure by the interest you take in the various passages in
which I speak of the poets, my contemporaries, who are no more: dear
Southey, one of the most eminent, is just added to the list. A few days
ago I went over to Keswick to attend his remains to their last earthly
abode. For upwards of three years his mental faculties have been in a
state of deplorable decay; and his powers of recognition, except very
rarely and but for a moment, have been, during more than half that
period, all but extinct. His bodily health was grievously impaired, and
his medical attendant says that he must have died long since but for the
very great strength of his natural constitution. As to his literary
remains, they must be very considerable, but, except his epistolary
correspondence, more or less unfinished. His letters cannot but be very
numerous, and, if carefully collected and judiciously selected, will, I
doubt not, add greatly to his reputation. He had a fine talent for that
species of composition, and took much delight in throwing off his mind
in that way. Mr. Taylor, the dramatic author, is his literary executor.
Though I have written at great, and I fear tiresome, length, I will add
a few words upon the wish you express that I would pay a tribute to the
English poets of past ages, who never had the fame they are entitled to,
and have long been almost entirely neglected. Had this been suggested to
me earlier in life, or had it come into my thoughts, the thing in all
probability would have been done. At present I cannot hope it will; but
it may afford you some satisfaction to be told, that in the MS. poem
upon my poetic education there is a whole book, of about 600 lines,[192]
upon my obligations to writers of imagination, and chiefly the poets,
though I have not expressly named those to whom you allude, and for
whom, and many others of their age, I have a high respect.
The character of the schoolmaster, about whom you inquire, had, like the
'Wanderer,' in 'The Excursion,' a solid foundation in fact and reality,
but, like him, it was also, in some degree, a composition: I will not,
and need not, call it an invention--it was no such thing; but were I to
enter into details, I fear it would impair the effect of the whole upon
your mind; nor could I do it to my own satisfaction. I send you,
according to your wish, the additions to the 'Ecclesiastical Sonnets,'
and also the last poem from my pen. I threw it off two or three weeks
ago, being in a great measure impelled to it by the desire I felt to do
justice to the memory of a heroine, whose conduct presented, some time
ago, a striking contrast to the inhumanity with which our countrymen,
shipwrecked lately upon the French coast, have been treated.
Ever most faithfully yours,
WM. WORDSWORTH.
I must request that 'Grace Darling' may not be reprinted. I should be
much obliged if you will have the enclosed Sonnets copied and sent to
Bishop Doane, who has not given me his address.
W.W.[193]
[192] Prelude, book v.
[193] _Memoirs_, ii. 394-6.
132. _Offer of the Laureateship on Death of Southey_.
LETTER TO THE RIGHT HON. EARL DE LA WARR, LORD CHAMBERLAIN.
Rydal Mount, Ambleside, April 1. 1843.
MY LORD,
The recommendation made by your Lordship to the Queen, and graciously
approved by her Majesty, that the vacant office of Poet Laureate should
be offered to me, affords me high gratification. Sincerely am I sensible
of this honour; and let me be permitted to add, that the being deemed
worthy to succeed my lamented and revered friend, Mr. Southey, enhances
the pleasure I receive upon this occasion.
The appointment, I feel, however, imposes duties which, far advanced in
life as I am, I cannot venture to undertake, and therefore must beg
leave to decline the acceptance of an offer that I shall always remember
with no unbecoming pride.
Her Majesty will not, I trust, disapprove of a determination forced upon
me by reflections which it is impossible for me to set aside.
Deeply feeling the distinction conferred upon me, and grateful for the
terms in which your Lordship has made the communication,
I have the honour to be,
My Lord,
Your Lordship's most, obedient humble servant,
W.W.
[He thus communicates the particulars of the offer to Lady F. Bentinck:]
The Lord Chamberlain, in terms the most honourable, has, with the
Queen's approbation, offered me the vacant Laureateship. Had I been
several years younger I should have accepted the office with pride and
pleasure; but on Friday I shall enter, God willing, my 74th year, and on
account of so advanced an age I begged permission to decline it, not
venturing to undertake its duties. For though, as you are aware, the
formal task-work of New Year and Birthday Odes was abolished[194] when
the appointment was given to Mr. Southey, he still considered himself
obliged in conscience to produce, and did produce, verses, some of very
great merit, upon important public occasions. He failed to do so upon
the Queen's Coronation, and I know that this omission caused him no
little uneasiness. The same might happen to myself upon some important
occasion, and I should be uneasy under the possibility; I hope,
therefore, that neither you nor Lord Lonsdale, nor any of my friends,
will blame me for what I have done.
[194] Southey's account in his _Life and Correspondence_ renders this
statement questionable.
I was slow to send copies of 'Grace Darling' about, except to female
friends, lest I should seem to attach too much importance to the
production, though it was on a subject which interested the whole
nation. But as the verses seem to have given general pleasure, I now
venture to send the enclosed copies, one for Mr. Colvill, and the other
for my old friend Mr. O'Callaghan, begging that you would present them
at your own convenience. With the best of good wishes, and every kind
and respectful remembrance to Lord Lonsdale, who we are happy to learn
is doing so well, and also not forgetting Miss Thompson, I remain, dear
Lady Frederick,
Most faithfully and affectionately yours,
WM. WORDSWORTH.
[Wordsworth's letter did not, however, prevent the Lord Chamberlain from
pressing the offer upon him, with an assurance that the duties of
Laureate had not recently extended beyond the Annual Ode, and might in
his case be considered as merely nominal, and would not in any way
interfere with his repose and retirement.
The same post brought also the following letter:]
'Whitehall, April 3. 1843.
'MY DEAR SIR,
'I hope you may be induced to reconsider your decision with regard to
the appointment of Poet Laureate.
'The offer was made to you by the Lord Chamberlain, with my entire
concurrence, not for the purpose of imposing on you any onerous or
disagreeable duties, but in order to pay you that tribute of respect
which is justly due to the first of living poets.
'The Queen entirely approved of the nomination, and there is one
unanimous feeling on the part of all who have heard of the proposal
(and it is pretty generally known), that there could not be a question
about the selection.
'Do not be deterred by the fear of any obligations which the appointment
may be supposed to imply. I will undertake that you shall have nothing
_required_ from you.
'But as the Queen can select for this honourable appointment no one
whose claims for respect and honour, on account of eminence as a poet,
can be placed in competition with yours, I trust you will not longer
hesitate to accept it.
'Believe me, my dear Sir,
'With sincere esteem,
'Most faithfully yours,
'ROBERT PEEL.
'I write this in haste, from my place in the House of Commons.'
[These letters had the desired effect in removing the aged Poet's
scruples, and he was well pleased that the laureate wreath should be
twined round his silver hair:
'Lauru cinge volens, Melpomene, comam.'
He replied as follows:]
TO THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL DE LA WARR.
Rydal Mount, Ambleside, April 4. 1843.
MY LORD,
Being assured by your Lordship's letter and by one from Sir Robert Peel,
both received this day, that the appointment to the Laureateship is to
be considered merely honorary, the apprehensions which at first
compelled me to decline accepting the offer of that appointment are
entirely removed.
Sir Robert Peel has also done me the honour of uniting his wish with
that which your Lordship has urged in a manner most gratifying to my
feelings; so that, under these circumstances, and sanctioned as the
recommendation has been by her Majesty's gracious approval, it is with
unalloyed pleasure that I accept this high distinction.
I have the honour to be, my Lord, most gratefully,
Your Lordship's obedient humble servant,
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
TO THE RT. HON. SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART., M.P.
Rydal Mount, Ambleside, April 4. 1843.
DEAR SIR ROBERT,
Having since my first acquaintance with Horace borne in mind the charge
which he tells us frequently thrilled his ear,
'Solve senescentem mature sanus equum, ne
Peccet ad extremum,'
I could not but be deterred from incurring responsibilities which I
might not prove equal to at so late a period of life; but as my mind has
been entirely set at ease by the very kind and most gratifying letter
with which you have honoured me, and by a second communication from the
Lord Chamberlain to the same effect, and in a like spirit, I have
accepted, with unqualified pleasure, a distinction sanctioned by her
Majesty, and which expresses, upon authority entitled to the highest
respect, a sense of the national importance of poetic literature; and so
favourable an opinion of the success with which it has been cultivated
by one who, after this additional mark of your esteem, cannot refrain
from again assuring you how deeply sensible he is of the many and great
obligations he owes to your goodness, and who has the honour to be,
Dear Sir Robert,
Most faithfully,
Your humble servant,
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
133. _Laureateship: Walter Savage Landor and Quillinan: Godson_.
LETTER TO SIR W.R. HAMILTON, DUBLIN.
[Undated: but 1843.]
MY DEAR SIR WILLIAM,
The sight of your handwriting was very welcome, and not the less so
because your sister had led me to expect a letter from you.
The Laureateship was offered to me in the most flattering terms, by the
Lord Chamberlain, of course with the approbation of the Queen; but I
declined it on account of my advanced age. I then received a second
letter from his Lordship, urging my acceptance of it, and assuring me
that it was intended merely as an honorary distinction for the past,
without the smallest reference to any service to be attached to it.
From Sir R. Peel I had also a letter to the same effect, and the
substance and manner of both were such that if I had still rejected the
offer, I should have been little at peace with my own mind.
Thank you for your translations. The longer poem[195] would have given
me more pain than pleasure, but for your addition, which sets all right.
[195] Referring to a translation by Sir W.R.H. of _Die Ideale_ of
Schiller, to which a stanza was added by Sir W.--G.
The attack upon W.S.L. to which you allude was written by my son-in-law;
but without any sanction from me, much less encouragement; in fact I
knew nothing about it or the preceding article of Landor, that had
called it forth, till after Mr. Q.'s had appeared. He knew very well
that I should have disapproved of his condescending to notice anything
that a man so deplorably tormented by ungovernable passion as that
unhappy creature might eject. His character may be given in two or three
words: a mad-man, a bad-man, yet a man of genius, as many a mad-man is.
I have not eyesight to spare for Periodical Literature, so with
exception of a newspaper now and then, I never look into anything of the
kind, except some particular article may be recommended to me by a
friend upon whose judgment I can rely.
You are quite at liberty to print when and where you like any verses
which you may do me the honour of writing upon, or addressing to, me.
Your godson, his sister, and four brothers, are all doing well. He is a
very clever boy, and more than that, being of an original or rather
peculiar structure of intellect, and his heart appears to be not
inferior to his head, so that I trust he will as a man do you no
discredit.
134. _Alston the Painter: Home Occupations_.
LETTER TO PROFESSOR REED.
Rydal Mount, Aug. 2. 1843.
MY DEAR MR. REED,
A few days ago I received a letter from a countryman of yours, the Rev.
R.C. Waterston of Boston, communicating the intelligence of the death of
that admirable artist and amiable man, my old friend, Mr. Alston. Mr. W.
and I are not acquainted, and therefore I take it very kindly that he
should have given me this melancholy information, with most interesting
particulars of the last few hours of the life of the deceased. He also
sent me a copy of verses addressed by himself to me, I presume some
little time ago, and printed in the 'Christian Souvenir.' You have
probably seen the lines, and, if so, I doubt not, you will agree with me
that they indicate a true feeling of the leading characteristics of my
poems. At least I am sure that I wished them such as he represents them
to be, too partially no doubt.
It would give me pleasure could I make this letter, so long due, more
worthy of perusal, by touching upon any topics of a public or private
nature that might interest you; but beyond the assurance which I can
give you, that I and mine are and have been in good health, I know not
where to find them. This Spring I have not left home for London, or
anywhere else; and during the progress of it and the Summer I have had
much pleasure in noting the flowers and blossoms, as they appeared and
disappeared successively; an occupation from which, at least with
reference to my own grounds, a residence in town for the three foregoing
Spring seasons cut me off. Though my health continues, thank God, to be
very good, and I am active as most men of my age, my strength for very
long walks among the mountains is of course diminishing; but, weak or
strong in body, I shall ever remain, in heart and mind,
Faithfully, your much obliged friend,
WM. WORDSWORTH.
P.S. Mr. Southey's literary executors are making a collection of his
letters, which will prove highly interesting to the public, they are so
gracefully and feelingly written.[196]
[196] _Memoirs_, ii. 404-5.
135. _Socinianism_.
LETTER TO JOSEPH COTTLE, ESQ.
Nov. 24. 1843.
MY DEAR MR. COTTLE,
You have treated the momentous subject[197] of Socinianism in a masterly
manner; entirely and absolutely convincing.
[197] The title of Mr. J. Cottle's work is _Essays on Socinianism_, by
Joseph Cottle. Lond.: Longmans.
Believe me to remain, my good old friend,
With great respect,
Faithfully yours,
WM. WORDSWORTH.[198]
136. _Sacred Hymns_.
LETTER TO THE REV. (AFTERWARDS DEAN) HENRY ALFORD.[199]
Rydal Mount, Feb. 28. 1844.
MY DEAR SIR,
I am pleased to hear what you are about, but I am far too advanced in
life to venture upon anything so difficult to do as hymns of devotion.
The one of mine which you allude to is quite at your service; only I
could wish the first line of the fifth stanza to be altered thus:
'Each field is then a hallowed spot.'
Or you might omit the stanza altogether, if you thought proper, the
piece being long enough without it.
Wishing heartily for your success, and knowing in what able hands the
work is,
I remain, my dear Sir,
Faithfully yours,
WM. WORDSWORTH.[200]
[198] _Memoirs_, ii. 405-6.
[199] This was written in answer to an inquiry whether Wordsworth had by
him any hymns calculated for a collection which I was making, and asking
permission to insert his 'Noon-day Hymn.' _H.A._
[200] _Memoirs_, ii. 406.
137. _Bereavements_.
LETTER TO LADY FREDERICK BENTINCK.
March 31. 1844.
MY DEAR LADY FREDERICK,
We have known each other too long and too intimately for you not to be
well aware of the reasons why I have not earlier condoled with you upon
your bereavement.[201] I feel it deeply, and sympathise with you as much
and as truly as you possibly could wish. I have also grieved for the
rest of your family and household, and not the least for Miss Thompson,
whose faithful and strong attachment to your revered father I have, for
a long time, witnessed with delight and admiration. Through my kind
friend Mr. O'Brien I have heard of you both; and in his second letter he
informs me, to my great sorrow, that Miss Thompson has been exceedingly
ill. God grant that she may soon recover, as you both will stand in need
of all your bodily strength to support you under so sad a loss. But, how
much is there to be thankful for in every part of Lord Lonsdale's life
to its close! How gently was he dealt with in his last moments! and with
what fortitude and Christian resignation did he bear such pains as
attended his decline, and prepared the way for his quiet dissolution! Of
my own feelings upon this loss I shall content myself with saying, that
as long as I retain consciousness I shall cherish the memory of your
father, for his inestimable worth, and as one who honoured me with his
friendship, and who was to myself and my children the best benefactor.
The sympathy which I now offer, dear Lady Frederick, is shared by my
wife and my daughter, and my son William; and will be also participated
in by my elder son, when he hears of the sad event.
[201] Lord Lonsdale's death.
I wrote to Dr. Jackson[202] to inquire whether the funeral was to be
strictly private, and learnt from him that it is to be so; otherwise I
should not have deprived myself of the melancholy satisfaction of
attending. Accept, dear Lady Frederick, my best wishes; and be assured
of my prayers for your support; and believe me,
Your very affectionate friend,
WM. WORDSWORTH.[203]
[202] The respected Rector of Lowther, and Chancellor of the Diocese.
[203] _Memoirs_, ii. 407-8.
138. _Birthday in America and at Home: Church Poetry_.
LETTER TO PROFESSOR REED.
1844.
In your last letter you speak so feelingly of the manner in which my
birthday (April 7) has been noticed, both privately in your country, and
somewhat publicly in my own neighbourhood, that I cannot forbear adding
a word or two upon the subject. It would have delighted you to see the
assemblage in front of our house, some dancing upon the gravel
platform, old and young, as described in Goldsmith's travels; and
others, children, I mean, chasing each other upon the little plot of
lawn to which you descend by steps from the platform. We had music of
our own preparing; and two sets of casual itinerants, Italians and
Germans, came in successively, and enlivened the festivity. There were
present upwards of 300 children, and about 150 adults of both sexes and
all ages, the children in their best attire, and of that happy and, I
may say, beautiful race, which is spread over this highly-favoured
portion of England. The tables were tastefully arranged in the open
air[204]--oranges and gingerbread in piles decorated with evergreens and
Spring flowers; and all partook of tea, the young in the open air, and
the old within doors. I must own I wish that little commemorations of
this kind were more common among us. It is melancholy to think how
little that portion of the community which is quite at ease in their
circumstances have to do in a _social_ way with the humbler classes.
They purchase commodities of them, or they employ them as labourers, or
they visit them in charity for the sake of supplying their most urgent
wants by alms-giving. But this, alas, is far from enough; one would wish
to see the rich mingle with the poor as much as may be upon a footing of
fraternal equality. The old feudal dependencies and relations are almost
gone from England, and nothing has yet come adequately to supply their
place. There are tendencies of the right kind here and there, but they
are rather accidental than aught that is established in general manners.
Why should not great land-owners look for a substitute for what is lost
of feudal paternity in the higher principles of christianised humanity
and humble-minded brotherhood? And why should not this extend to those
vast communities which crowd so many parts of England under one head, in
the different sorts of manufacture, which, for the want of it, are too
often the pests of the social state? We are, however, improving, and I
trust that the example set by some mill-owners will not fail to
influence others.
[204] The fÍte was given by Miss Fenwick, then at Rydal.
It gave me pleasure to be told that Mr. Keble's Dedication of his
'Praelectiones' had fallen in your way, and that you had been struck by
it.[205]
[205] See _Memoirs_, c. xlv.
It is not for me to say how far I am entitled to the honour which he
has done me, but I can sincerely say that it has been the main scope of
my writings to do what he says I have accomplished. And where could I
find a more trustworthy judge?
What you advise in respect to a separate publication of my Church
Poetry, I have often turned in my own mind; but I have really done so
little in that way compared with the magnitude of the subject, that I
have not courage to venture on such a publication. Besides, it would
not, I fear, pay its expenses. The Sonnets were so published upon the
recommendation of a deceased nephew of mine, one of the first scholars
of Europe, and as good as he was learned. The volume did not, I believe,
clear itself, and a great part of the impression, though latterly
offered at a reduced price, still remains, I believe, in Mr. Moxon's
hands. In this country people who do not grudge laying out their money
for new publications on personal or fugitive interests, that every one
is talking about, are very unwilling to part with it for literature
which is unindebted to temporary excitement. If they buy such at all, it
must be in some form for the most part that has little to recommend it
but low price.
And now, my dear Sir, with many thanks for the trouble you have been at,
and affectionate wishes for your welfare,
Believe me faithfully yours,
WM. WORDSWORTH.
139. _Class-fellows and School-fellows_.
LETTER TO BASIL MONTAGU, ESQ.
Rydal Mount, Oct. 1. 1844.
MY DEAR MONTAGU,
Absence from home has prevented my replying earlier to your letter,
which gave me much pleasure on many accounts, and particularly as I
learned from it that you are so industrious, and to such good effect. I
don't wonder at your mention of the friends whom we have lost by death.
Bowles the poet still lives, and Rogers--all that survive of the
poetical fraternity with whom I have had any intimacy. Southey,
Campbell, and Cary, are no more. Of my class-fellows and schoolfellows
very few remain; my _intimate_ associates of my own college are all
gone long since. Myers my cousin, Terrot, Jones my fellow-traveller,
Fleming and his brother Raincock of Pembroke, Bishop Middleton of the
same college--it has pleased God that I should survive them all. Then
there are none left but Joseph Cottle of the many friends I made at
Bristol and in Somersetshire; yet we are only in our 75th year. But
enough of this sad subject; let us be resigned under all dispensations,
and thankful; for that is our duty, however difficult it may be to
perform it. I send you the lock of hair which you desired, white as
snow, and taken from a residue which is thinning rapidly.
You neither mention your own health nor Mrs. Montagu's; I conclude,
therefore, that both of you are doing well. Pray remember me kindly to
her; and believe me, my dear Montagu, your faithful and affectionate
friend,
WM. WORDSWORTH.
In speaking of our Bristol friends I forgot to mention John Pinney, but
him I have neither seen nor heard of for many years.[206]
[206] _Memoirs_, ii. 411-12.
140. _'From Home:' The Queen: Review of Poems, &c._
LETTER TO PROFESSOR REED.
Nov. 18. 1844.
MY DEAR MR. REED,
Mrs. Wordsworth and I have been absent from home for a month past, and
we deferred acknowledging your acceptable letter till our return. Among
the places to which we went on visits to our friends was Cambridge,
where I was happy to learn that great improvement was going on among the
young men. They were become much more regular in their conduct, and
attentive to their duties. Our host was the master of Trinity College,
Dr. Whewell, successor to my brother, Dr. Wordsworth, who filled the
office for more than twenty years highly to his honour, and resigned
before he was disqualified by age, lest, as his years advanced, his
judgment might be impaired, and his powers become unfit for the
responsibility without his being aware of it. This, you will agree with
me, was a noble example: may it be followed by others!
On our return home we were detained two hours at Northampton by the vast
crowd assembled to greet the Queen on her way to Burleigh House. Shouts
and ringing of bells there were in abundance; but these are things of
course. It did please us, however, greatly to see every village we
passed through for the space of twenty-two miles decorated with
triumphal arches, and every cottage, however humble, with its little
display of laurel boughs and flowers hung from the windows and over the
doors. The people, young and old, were all making it holiday, and the
Queen could not but be affected with these universal manifestations of
affectionate loyalty. As I have said, we were detained two hours, and I
much regret that it did not strike me at the moment to throw off my
feelings in verse, for I had ample time to have done so, and might,
perhaps, have contrived to present through some of the authorities the
tribute to my Royal Mistress. How must these words shock your republican
ears! But you are too well acquainted with mankind and their history not
to be aware that love of country can clothe itself in many shapes.
I need not say what pleasure it would give us to see you and Mrs. Reed
in our beautiful place of abode.
I have no wish to see the review of my poems to which you allude, nor
should I read it if it fell in my way. It is too late in life for me to
profit by censure, and I am indifferent to praise merely as such. Mrs.
Wordsworth will be happy to write her opinion of the portrait as you
request.
Believe me, my dear Mr. Reed,
Faithfully yours,
WM. WORDSWORTH.[207]
[207] _Memoirs_, ii. 412-13.
141. _The Laureateship: Contemporaries, &c.: Tennyson_.
LETTER TO PROFESSOR REED.
Rydal Mount, Ambleside, July 1. 1845.
MY DEAR MR. REED,
I have, as usual, been long in your debt, which I am pretty sure you
will excuse as heretofore. It gave me much pleasure to have a glimpse of
your brother under circumstances which no doubt he will have described
to you. He spoke of his health as improved, and I hope it will continue
to do so. I understood from him that it was probable he should call at
Rydal before his return to his own country. I need not say to you I
shall be glad, truly glad, to see him both for his own sake, and as so
nearly connected with you. My absence from home lately was not of more
than three weeks. I took the journey to London solely to pay my respects
to the Queen upon my appointment to the Laureateship upon the decease of
my friend Mr. Southey. The weather was very cold, and I caught an
inflammation in one of my eyes, which rendered my stay in the south very
uncomfortable. I nevertheless did, in respect to the object of my
journey, all that was required. The reception given me by the Queen at
her ball was most gracious. Mrs. Everett, the wife of your minister,
among many others, was a witness to it, without knowing who I was. It
moved her to the shedding of tears. This effect was in part produced, I
suppose, by American habits of feeling, as pertaining to a republican
government. To see a grey-haired man of seventy-five years of age,
kneeling down in a large assembly to kiss the hand of a young woman, is
a sight for which institutions essentially democratic do not prepare a
spectator of either sex, and must naturally place the opinions upon
which a republic is founded, and the sentiments which support it, in
strong contrast with a government based and upheld as ours is. I am not,
therefore, surprised that Mrs. Everett was moved, as she herself
described to persons of my acquaintance, among others to Mr. Rogers the
poet. By the by, of this gentleman, now I believe in his eighty-third
year, I saw more than of any other person except my host, Mr. Moxon,
while I was in London. He is singularly fresh and strong for his years,
and his mental faculties (with the exception of his memory a little) not
at all impaired. It is remarkable that he and the Rev. W. Bowles were
both distinguished as poets when I was a school-boy, and they have
survived almost all their eminent contemporaries, several of whom came
into notice long after them. Since they became known, Burns, Cowper,
Mason the author of 'Caractacus' and friend of Gray, have died. Thomas
Warton, Laureate, then Byron, Shelley, Keats, and a good deal later[208]
Scott, Coleridge, Crabbe, Southey, Lamb, the Ettrick Shepherd, Cary the
translator of Dante, Crowe the author of 'Lewesdon Hill,' and others of
more or less distinction, have disappeared. And now of English poets,
advanced in life, I cannot recall any but James Montgomery, Thomas
Moore, and myself, who are living, except the octogenarian with whom I
began.
[208]
Walter Scott died 21st Sept. 1832. S.T. Coleridge " 25th July 1834.
Charles Lamb " 27th Dec. 1834. Geo. Crabbe " 3rd Feb. 1832. Felicia
Hemans " 16th May 1835. Robert Southey " 21st March 1843.
I saw Tennyson, when I was in London, several times. He is decidedly the
first of our living poets, and I hope will live to give the world still
better things. You will be pleased to hear that he expressed in the
strongest terms his gratitude to my writings. To this I was far from
indifferent, though persuaded that he is not much in sympathy with what
I should myself most value in my attempts, viz. the spirituality with
which I have endeavoured to invest the material universe, and the moral
relations under which I have wished to exhibit its most ordinary
appearances. I ought not to conclude this first portion of my letter
without telling you that I have now under my roof a cousin, who some
time ago was introduced, improperly, I think, she being then a child, to
the notice of the public, as one of the English poetesses, in an article
of the _Quarterly_ so entitled. Her name is Emmeline Fisher, and her
mother is my first cousin. What advances she may have made in latter
years I do not know, but her productions from the age of eight to twelve
were not less than astonishing. She only arrived yesterday, and we
promise ourselves much pleasure in seeing more of her. Our dear friend
Miss Fenwick is also under our roof; so is Katharine Southey, her late
father's youngest daughter, so that we reckon ourselves rich; though our
only daughter is far from us, being gone to Oporto with her husband on
account of her enfeebled frame: and most unfortunately, soon after her
arrival, she was seized with a violent attack of rheumatic fever caused
by exposure to the evening air. We have also been obliged lately to part
with four grandsons, very fine boys, who are gone with their father to
Italy to visit their mother, kept there by severe illness, which sent
her abroad two years ago. Under these circumstances we old people keep
our spirits as well as we can, trusting the end to God's goodness.
Now, for the enclosed poem,[209] which I wrote the other day, and which
I send to you, hoping it may give you some pleasure, as a scanty
repayment for all that we owe you. Our dear friend, Miss Fenwick, is
especially desirous that her warmest thanks should be returned to you
for all the trouble you have taken about her bonds. But, to return to
the verses: if you approve, pray forward them with my compliments and
thanks for his letter to ----. In his letter he states that with others
he is strenuously exerting himself in endeavours to abolish slavery,
and, as one of the means of disposing the public mind to that measure,
he is about to publish selections from various authors in behalf of
_humanity_. He begs an original composition from me. I have nothing
bearing directly upon slavery, but if you think this little piece would
serve his cause indirectly, pray be so kind as to forward it to him. He
speaks of himself as deeply indebted to my writings.
[209] The poem enclosed is 'The Westmoreland Girl,' dated June 6, 1845.
The text corresponds with that in the one volume edition, with the
exception of the two stanzas added in the next letter; and in the 1st
stanza 'thoughtless' has been substituted for 'simple;' and in the 18th
'is laid' for 'must lie.' _H.R._
I have not left room to subscribe myself more than
Affectionately yours,
WM. WORDSWORTH.[210]
[210] _Memoirs_, ii. 414-17.
142. _'Poems of Imagination:' New Edition, &c.: Portrait, &c._
LETTER TO PROFESSOR REED.
Brinsop Court, Sept. 27 [1845].
MY DEAR MR. REED,
The sight of your letter was very welcome, and its contents proved most
agreeable. It was well that you did not forward my little poem to the
party, he entertaining the opinions he holds, and being of the character
you describe. I shall therefore be gratified if you, as you propose,
write him a note, expressing that I have nothing among my MSS. that
would suit his purpose. The verses are already printed in the new
edition of my poems (double column), which is going through the press.
It will contain about 300 verses not found in the previous edition. I do
not remember whether I have mentioned to you that, following your
example, I have greatly extended the class entitled 'Poems of the
Imagination,' thinking, as you must have done, that if imagination were
predominant in the class, it was not indispensable that it should
pervade every poem which it contained. Limiting the class as I had done
before seemed to imply, and to the uncandid or unobserving it did so,
that the faculty, which is the _primum mobile_ in poetry, had little to
do, in the estimation of the author, with the pieces not arranged under
that head. I, therefore, feel much obliged to you for suggesting by your
practice the plan which I have adopted. In respect to the Prefaces, my
own wish would be that now the Poems should be left to speak for
themselves without them; but I know that this would not answer for the
purposes of sale. They will, therefore, be printed at the end of the
volume; and to this I am in some degree reconciled by the matter they
contain relating to poetry in general, and the principles they
inculcate. I hope that, upon the whole, the edition will please you. In
a very few instances I have altered the expression for the worse, on
account of the same feeling or word occurring rather too near the
passage. For example, the Sonnet on Baptism begins '_Blest_ be the
Church.' But unfortunately the word occurs some three or four lines just
before or after; I have, therefore, though reluctantly, substituted the
less impressive word, '_Dear_ be the Church.' I mention this solely to
prevent blame on your part in this and a few similar cases where an
injurious change has been made. The book will be off my hands I hope in
about two weeks.
* * * * *
Mrs. Wordsworth and I left home four days ago, and do not intend to
return, if all goes well, in less than five or six weeks from this time.
We purpose in our way home to visit York, the cathedral of which city
has been restored; and then we shall go to Leeds, on a visit to our
friend Mr. James Marshall, in full expectation that we shall be highly
delighted by the humane and judicious manner in which his manufactory is
managed, and by inspecting the schools which he and his brother have
established and superintended. We also promise ourselves much pleasure
from the sight of the magnificent church, which, upon the foundation of
the old parish church of that town, has been built through the exertions
and by the munificence of the present incumbent, that excellent and able
man Dr. Hook, whom I have the honour of reckoning among my friends.
This letter is written by the side of my brother-in-law, who, eight
years ago, became a cripple, confined to his chair, by the accident of
his horse falling with him in the high road, where he lay without power
to move either hand or leg, but left in perfect possession of his
faculties. His bodily sufferings are by this time somewhat abated, but
they still continue severe. His patience and cheerfulness are so
admirable that I could not forbear mentioning him to you. He is an
example to us all; and most undeserving should we be if we did not
profit by it. His family have lately succeeded in persuading him to have
his portrait taken as he sits in his arm-chair. It is an excellent
likeness, one of the best I ever saw, and will be invaluable to his
family. This reminds me of Mr. Inman and a promise which he made that he
would send us a copy of your portrait of myself. I say a promise, though
it scarcely amounted to that absolutely, but it was little short of it.
Do you think he could find time to act upon his own wish in this matter?
in which I feel interested on Mrs. Wordsworth's account, who reckons
that portrait much the best both as to likeness and execution of all
that have been made of me, and she is an excellent judge. In adverting
to this subject, I of course presume that you would have no objection to
the picture being copied if the artist were inclined to do it.
My paper admonishes me that I must conclude. Pray let me know in your
next how Mrs. Reed and your family are in health, and present my good
wishes to her.
Ever your faithful and much obliged friend,
WM. WORDSWORTH.[211]
143. _Of the College of Maynooth, &c._
LETTER TO A NEPHEW.
Rydal Mount, June 30. 1845.
MY DEAR C----,
I ought to have acknowledged my debt to you long ago, but the
inflammation in one of my eyes which seized me on my first arrival in
London kept its ground for a long time. I had your two first pamphlets
read to me, and immediately put them into circulation among my friends
in this neighbourhood; but wishing to read them myself I did not like to
write to you till I had done so, as there were one or two passages on
which I wished to make a remark.
[211] _Memoirs_, ii. 418-21.
As to your arguments, they are unanswerable, and the three tracts do you
the greatest possible credit; but the torrent cannot be stemmed, unless
we can construct a body, I will not call it a party, upon a new and true
principle of action, as you have set forth. Certain questions are forced
by the present conduct of government upon the mind of every observing
and thinking person. First and foremost, are we to have a _national_
English Church, or is the Church of England to be regarded merely as a
sect? and is the _right to the Throne to be put on a new foundation_? Is
the present ministry prepared for this, and all that must precede and
follow it? Is Ireland an integral and inseparable portion of the Empire
or not? If it be, I cannot listen to the argument in favour of endowing
Romanism upon the ground of superiority of _numbers_. The Romanists are
not a majority in England and Ireland, taken, as they ought to be,
together. As to Scotland, it has its separate kirk by especial covenant.
Are the ministers prepared to alter fundamentally the basis of the Union
between England and Ireland, and to construct a new one? If they be, let
them tell us so at once. In short, they are involving themselves and the
Nation in difficulties from which there is no escape--for them at least
none. What I have seen of your letter to Lord John M---- I like as well
as your two former tracts, and I shall read it carefully at my first
leisure moment.[212]
[212] _Memoirs_, ii. 151-2.
144. _Of the 'Heresiarch of the Church of Rome.'_
LETTER TO JOSEPH COTTLE, ESQ.
Rydal Mount, Dec. 6. 1845.
MY DEAR OLD FRIEND,
Now for your little tract, 'Heresiarch Church of Rome.' I have perused
it carefully, and go the whole length with you in condemnation of
Romanism, and probably _much further_, by reason of my having passed at
least three years of life in countries where Romanism was the prevailing
or exclusive religion; and if we are to trust the declaration 'By their
fruits ye shall know them,' I have stronger reasons, in the privilege I
have named, for passing a severe condemnation upon leading parts of
their faith, and courses of their practice, than others who have never
been eye-witnesses of the evils to which I allude. Your little
publication is well timed, and will I trust have such an effect as you
aimed at upon the minds of its readers.
And now let me bid you affectionately good bye, with assurance that I do
and shall retain to the last a remembrance of your kindness, and of the
many pleasant and happy hours which, at one of the most interesting
periods of my life, I passed in your neighbourhood, and in your company.
Ever most faithfully yours,
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.[213]
[213] _Memoirs_, ii. 152-3.
145. _Family Trials_.
LETTER TO PROFESSOR REED.
Rydal Mount, Jan. 23. 1846.
MY DEAR MR. REED,
* * * * *
I hope to be able to send you an impression of an engraving, from a
picture of Mr. Haydon, representing me in the act of climbing Helvellyn.
There is great merit in this work, and the sight of it will show my
meaning on the subject of _expression_. This, I think, is attained; but,
then, I am stooping, and the inclination of the head necessarily causes
a foreshortening of the features below the nose, which takes from the
likeness accordingly; so that, upon the whole, yours has the advantage,
especially under the circumstance of your never having seen the
original. Mrs. Wordsworth has been looking over your letters in vain to
find the address of the person in London, through whose hands any parcel
for you might be sent. Pray take the trouble of repeating the address in
your next letter, and your request shall be attended to of sending you
my two letters upon the offensive subject of a Railway to and through
our beautiful neighbourhood.
* * * * *
You will be sorry to hear that Mrs. Wordsworth and I have been, and
still are, under great trouble and anxiety. Our daughter-in-law fell
into bad health between three and four years ago. She went with her
husband to Madeira, where they remained nearly a year; she was then
advised to go to Italy. After a prolonged residence there, her six
children, whom her husband returned to England for, went, at her earnest
request, to that country, under their father's guidance: there he was
obliged, on account of his duty as a clergyman, to leave them. Four of
the number resided with their mother at Rome, three of whom took a fever
there, of which the youngest, as noble a boy, of nearly five years, as
ever was seen, died, being seized with convulsions when the fever was
somewhat subdued. The father, in a distracted state of mind, is just
gone back to Italy; and we are most anxious to hear the result. My only
surviving brother, also, the late Master of Trinity College, Cambridge,
and an inestimable person, is in an alarming state of health; and the
only child of my eldest brother, long since deceased, is now languishing
under mortal illness at Ambleside. He was educated to the medical
profession, and caught his illness while on duty in the Mediterranean.
He is a truly amiable and excellent young man, and will be universally
regretted. These sad occurrences, with others of like kind, have thrown
my mind into a state of feeling, which the other day vented itself in
the two sonnets which Mrs. Wordsworth will transcribe as the best
acknowledgment she can make for Mrs. Reed's and your kindness.
Ever faithfully and affectionately yours,
WM. WORDSWORTH.[214]
[214] _Memoirs_, ii. 422-3.
146. _Bishop White: Mormonites, &c._
LETTER TO PROFESSOR REED.
February 3. 1846.
MY DEAR MR. REED,
I was much shocked to find that my last had been despatched without
acknowledgment for your kindness in sending me the admirable engraving
of Bishop White, which I was delighted, on many accounts, to receive.
This omission was owing to the distressed state of mind in which I
wrote, and which I throw myself on your goodness to excuse. I ought to
have written again by next post, but we really have been, and still are,
in such trouble from various causes, that I could not take up the pen,
and now must beg you to accept this statement as the only excuse which I
can offer. We have had such accounts from my daughter-in-law at Rome,
that her mother and brother are just gone thither to support her, her
mother being seventy years of age.
Do you know anything of a wretched set of religionists in your country,
_Superstitionists_ I ought to say, called Mormonites, or latter-day
saints? Would you believe it? a niece of Mrs. Wordsworth's has just
embarked, we believe at Liverpool, with a set of the deluded followers
of that wretch, in an attempt to join their society. Her name is ----, a
young woman of good abilities and well educated, but early in life she
took from her mother and her connections a methodistical turn, and has
gone on in a course of what she supposes to be piety till she has come
to this miserable close. If you should by chance hear anything about
her, pray let us know.
The report of my brother's decease, which we look for every day, has not
yet reached us. My nephew is still lingering on from day to day.
Ever faithfully and affectionately yours,
WM. WORDSWORTH.
The print of Bishop White is noble, everything, indeed, that could be
wished.[215]
[215] _Memoirs_, ii. 424-5.
147. _Governor Malartie: Lord Hector of Glasgow University, &c._
LETTER TO SIR W. GOMM. &c. &c., PORT LOUIS, MAURITIUS.
Rydal Mount, Ambleside, Nov. 23. 1846.
DEAR SIR WILLIAM,
Your kind letter of the 4th of August I have just received; and I thank
you sincerely for this mark of your attention, and for the gratification
it afforded me. It is pleasing to see fancy amusements giving birth to
works of solid profit, as, under the auspices of Lady Gomm, they are
doing in your island.
Your sonnet addressed to the unfinished monument of Governor Malartie is
conceived with appropriate feeling and just discrimination. Long may the
finished monument last as a tribute to departed worth, and as a check
and restraint upon intemperate desires for change, to which the
inhabitants of the island may hereafter be liable!
Before this letter reaches you the newspapers will probably have told
you that I have been recently put in nomination, unknown to myself, for
the high office of Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow; and that
there was a majority of twenty-one votes in my favour, in opposition to
the premier, Lord John Russell. The forms of the election, however,
allowed Lord John Russell to be returned, through the single vote of the
sub-rector voting for his superior. To say the truth, I am glad of this
result; being too advanced in life to undertake with comfort any
considerable public duty, and it might have seemed ungracious to decline
the office.
Men of rank, or of high station, with the exception of the poet
Campbell, who was, I believe, educated at this university, have almost
invariably been chosen for a rector of this ancient university; and that
another exception was made in my favour by a considerable majority
affords a proof that literature, independent of office, does not want
due estimation. I should not have dwelt so long upon this subject, had
anything personal to myself occurred in which you could have taken
interest.
As you do not mention your own health, or that of Lady Gomm, I infer
with pleasure that the climate agrees with you both. That this may
continue to be so is my earnest and sincere wish, in which Mrs.
Wordsworth cordially unites.
Believe me, dear Sir William,
Faithfully yours,
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.[216]
148. _Death of 'Dora.'_
[Received July 10. 1847.]
MY DEAR C----,
Last night (I ought to have said a quarter before one this morning), it
pleased God to take to Himself the spirit of our beloved daughter, and
your truly affectionate cousin. She had latterly much bodily suffering,
under which she supported herself by prayer, and gratitude to her
heavenly Father, for granting her to the last so many of His blessings.
[216] _Memoirs_, ii. 432-3.
I need not write more. Your aunt bears up under this affliction as
becomes a Christian.
Kindest love to Susan, of whose sympathy we are fully assured.
Your affectionate uncle, and the more so for this affliction,
WM. WORDSWORTH.[217]
Pray for us!
149. _Of the Same: Sorrow_.
We bear up under our affliction as well as God enables us to do. But oh!
my dear friend, our loss is immeasurable. God bless you and yours.[218]
Our sorrow, I feel, is for life; but God's will be done![219]
[217] _Memoirs_, ii. 434.
[218] To Mr. Moxon, Aug. 9, 1847.
[219] 29th Dec. 1847.
150.
TO JOHN PEACE, ESQ.
Brigham [Postmark, 'Cockermouth,
Nov. 18. 1848'].
MY DEAR FRIEND,
Mrs. Wordsworth has deputed to me the acceptable office of answering
your friendly letter, which has followed us to Brigham, upon the banks
of the river Derwent, near Cockermouth, the birthplace of four brothers
and their sister. Of these four, I, the second, am now the only one
left. Am I wrong in supposing that you have been here? The house was
driven out of its place by a railway, and stands now nothing like so
advantageously for a prospect of this beautiful country, though at only
a small distance from its former situation.
We are expecting Mr. Cuthbert Southey to-day, from his curacy, seven or
eight miles distant. He is busy in carrying through the press the first
volume of his father's letters, or rather, collecting and preparing them
for it. Do you happen to have any in your possession? If so, be so kind
as to let me or his son know what they are, if you think they contain
anything which would interest the public.
* * * * *
Mrs. W. and I are, thank God, both in good health, and possessing a
degree of strength beyond what is usual at our age, being both in our
seventy-ninth year. The beloved daughter whom it has pleased God to
remove from this anxious and sorrowful world, I have not mentioned; but
I can judge of the depth of your fellow-feeling for us. Many thanks to
you for referring to the text in Scripture which I quoted to you so long
ago.[220] 'Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.' He who does not find
support and consolation there, will find it nowhere. God grant that it
may he continued to me and mine, and to all sufferers! Believe me, with
Mrs. W.'s very kind remembrance,
Faithfully yours,
WM. WORDSWORTH.
* * * * *
When you see Mr. Cottle, pray remember us most affectionately to him,
with respectful regards to his sister.[221]
151. _Illness and Death of a Servant at Rydal Mount_.
Our anxieties are over, and our sorrow is not without heartfelt, I may
say heavenly, consolation. Dear, and good, and faithful, and dutiful
Jane breathed her last about twelve o'clock last night. The doctor had
seen her at noon; he found her much weaker. She said to him, 'I cannot
stand now,' but he gave us no reason to believe her end was so very
near. You shall hear all particulars when we are permitted to meet,
which God grant may be soon. Nothing could be more gentle than her
departure.
Yesterday Mary read to her in my presence some chapters from the New
Testament, and her faculties were as clear as any one's in perfect
health, and so they have ever been to the last.[222]
[220] [Note by Mr. Peace.] At Rydal Mount in 1838. Ephesians v. 20. 'My
favourite text,' said he.
[221] _Memoirs_, ii. 435-6.
[222] _Ibid._ ii. 501-2.
152. _Humility_.
Writing to a friend, he says: 'I feel myself in so many respects
unworthy of your love, and too likely to become more so.' (This was in
1844.) 'Worldly-minded I am not; on the contrary, my wish to benefit
those within my humble sphere strengthens seemingly in exact proportion
to my inability to realise those wishes. What I lament most is, that the
spirituality of my nature does not expand and rise the nearer I
approach the grave, as yours does, and as it fares with my beloved
partner. The pleasure which I derive from God's works in His visible
creation is not with me, I think, impaired, but reading does not
interest me as it used to do, and I feel that I am becoming daily a less
instructive companion to others. Excuse this egotism. I feel it
necessary to your understanding what I am, and how little you would gain
by habitual intercourse with me, however greatly I might benefit from
intercourse with you.'[223]
153. _Hopefulness_.
Writing to a friend at a time of public excitement, he thus speaks:
'After all (as an excellent Bishop of the Scotch Church said to a
friendly correspondent of mine), "Be of good heart; the affairs of the
world will be conducted as heretofore,--by the foolishness of man and
the wisdom of God."'[224]
[223] _Memoirs_, ii. 502-3.
[224] _Ibid._ ii. 503.
III. CONVERSATIONS AND PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF WORDSWORTH.
(_a_) FROM 'SATYRANE'S LETTERS:' KLOPSTOCK.
(_b_) PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF THE HON. MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE.
(_c_) RECOLLECTIONS OF A TOUR IN ITALY, BY H.C. ROBINSON.
(_d_) REMINISCENCES OF LADY RICHARDSON AND MRS. DAVY.
(_e_) CONVERSATIONS AND REMINISCENCES RECORDED BY THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN.
(_f_) REMINISCENCES OF REV. R.P. GRAVES, M.A., DUBLIN.
(_g_) ON DEATH OF COLERIDGE.
(_h_) FURTHER REMINISCENCES AND MEMORABILIA, BY REV. R.P. GRAVES, M.A.,
DUBLIN, NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.
(_i_) AN AMERICAN'S REMINISCENCES.
(_j_) RECOLLECTIONS OF AUBREY DE VERE, ESQ., NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.
(_k_) FROM 'RECOLLECTIONS OF THE LAST DAYS OF SHELLEY AND BYRON,' BY
E.J. TRELAWNY, ESQ.
(_l_) FROM LETTERS OF PROFESSOR TAYLER (1872).
(_m_) ANECDOTE OF CRABBE, FROM DIARY OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.
(_n_) WORDSWORTH'S LATER OPINION OF LORD BROUGHAM.
NOTE.
On these 'Personal Reminiscences' see the Preface in Vol. I. G.
(_a_) KLOPSTOCK: NOTES OF HIS CONVERSATION.
From 'Satyrane's Letters' (_Biographia Literaria_, vol. ii. pp. 228-254,
ed. 1847).
Ratzeburg.
No little fish thrown back again into the water, no fly unimprisoned
from a child's hand, could more buoyantly enjoy its element, than I this
clean and peaceful house, with this lovely view of the town, groves, and
lake of Ratzeburg, from the window at which I am writing. My spirits
certainly, and my health I fancied, were beginning to sink under the
noise, dirt, and unwholesome air of our Hamburg hotel. I left it on
Sunday, Sept. 23rd. with a letter of introduction from the poet
Klopstock, to the _Amtmann_ of Ratzeburg. The _Amtmann_ received me with
kindness, and introduced me to the worthy pastor, who agreed to board
and lodge me for any length of time not less than a month. The vehicle,
in which I took my place, was considerably larger than an English
stage-coach, to which it bore much the same proportion and rude
resemblance, that an elephant's ear does to the human. Its top was
composed of naked boards of different colours, and seeming to have been
parts of different wainscots. Instead of windows there were leathern
curtains with a little eye of glass in each: they perfectly answered the
purpose of keeping out the prospect and letting in the cold. I could
observe little, therefore, but the inns and farm-houses at which we
stopped. They were all alike, except in size: one great room, like a
barn, with a hay-loft over it, the straw and hay dangling in tufts
through the boards which formed the ceiling of the room, and the floor
of the loft. From this room, which is paved like a street, sometimes
one, sometimes two smaller ones, are enclosed at one end. These are
commonly floored. In the large room the cattle, pigs, poultry, men,
women, and children, live in amicable community: yet there was an
appearance of cleanliness and rustic comfort. One of these houses I
measured. It was an hundred feet in length. The apartments were taken
off from one corner. Between these and the stalls there was a small
interspace, and here the breadth was forty-eight feet, but thirty-two
where the stalls were; of course, the stalls were on each side eight
feet in depth. The faces of the cows &c. were turned towards the room;
indeed they were in it, so that they had at least the comfort of seeing
each other's faces. Stall-feeding is universal in this part of Germany,
a practice concerning which the agriculturist and the poet are likely to
entertain opposite opinions--or at least, to have very different
feelings. The wood-work of these buildings on the outside is left
unplastered, as in old houses among us, and, being painted red and
green, it cuts and tesselates the buildings very gaily. From within
three miles of Hamburg almost to Molln, which is thirty miles from it,
the country, as far as I could see it was a dead flat, only varied by
woods. At Molln it became more beautiful. I observed a small lake nearly
surrounded with groves, and a palace in view belonging to the King of
Great Britain, and inhabited by the Inspector of the Forests. We were
nearly the same time in travelling the thirty-five miles from Hamburg to
Ratzeburg, as we had been in going from London to Yarmouth, one hundred
and twenty-six miles.
The lake of Ratzeburg runs from south to north, about nine miles in
length, and varying in breadth from three miles to half a mile. About a
mile from the southernmost point it is divided into two, of course very
unequal, parts by an island, which, being connected by a bridge and a
narrow slip of land with the one shore, and by another bridge of immense
length with the other shore, forms a complete isthmus. On this island
the town of Ratzeburg is built. The pastor's house or vicarage, together
with the _Amtmann's, Amtsschreiber's_, and the church, stands near the
summit of a hill, which slopes down to the slip of land and the little
bridge, from which, through a superb military gate, you step into the
island-town of Ratzeburg. This again is itself a little hill, by
ascending and descending which, you arrive at the long bridge, and so to
the other shore. The water to the south of the town is called the Little
Lake, which however almost engrosses the beauties of the whole: the
shores being just often enough green and bare to give the proper effect
to the magnificent groves which occupy the greater part of their
circumference. From the turnings, windings, and indentations of the
shore, the views vary almost every ten steps, and the whole has a sort
of majestic beauty, a feminine grandeur. At the north of the Great
Lake, and peeping over it, I see the seven church towers of Lubec, at
the distance of twelve or thirteen miles, yet as distinctly as if they
were not three. The only defect in the view is, that Ratzeburg is built
entirely of red bricks, and all the houses roofed with red tiles. To the
eye, therefore, it presents a clump of brick-dust red. Yet this evening,
Oct. 10th. twenty minutes past five, I saw the town perfectly beautiful,
and the whole softened down into _complete keeping_, if I may borrow a
term from the painters. The sky over Ratzeburg and all the east was a
pure evening blue, while over the west it was covered with light sandy
clouds. Hence a deep red light spread over the whole prospect, in
undisturbed harmony with the red town, the brown-red woods, and the
yellow-red reeds on the skirts of the lake. Two or three boats, with
single persons paddling them, floated up and down in the rich light,
which not only was itself in harmony with all, but brought all into
harmony.
I should have told you that I went back to Hamburg on Thursday (Sept.
27th.) to take leave of my friend, who travels southward, and returned
hither on the Monday following. From Empfelde, a village half way from
Ratzeburg, I walked to Hamburg through deep sandy roads and a dreary
flat: the soil everywhere white, hungry, and excessively pulverised; but
the approach to the city is pleasing. Light cool country houses, which
you can look through and see the gardens behind them, with arbours and
trellis work, and thick vegetable walls, and trees in cloisters and
piazzas, each house with neat rails before it, and green seats within
the rails. Every object, whether the growth of Nature or the work of
man, was neat and artificial. It pleased me far better, than if the
houses and gardens, and pleasure fields, had been in a nobler taste: for
this nobler taste would have been mere apery. The busy, anxious,
money-loving merchant of Hamburg could only have adopted, he could not
have enjoyed the simplicity of Nature. The mind begins to love Nature by
imitating human conveniences in Nature; but this is a step in intellect,
though a low one--and were it not so, yet all around me spoke of
innocent enjoyment and sensitive comforts, and I entered with
unscrupulous sympathy into the enjoyments and comforts even of the busy,
anxious, money-loving merchants of Hamburg. In this charitable and
_catholic_ mood I reached the vast ramparts of the city. These are huge
green cushions, one rising above the other, with trees growing in the
interspaces, pledges and symbols of a long peace. Of my return I have
nothing worth communicating, except that I took extra post, which
answers to posting in England. These north German post chaises are
uncovered wicker carts. An English dust-cart is a piece of finery, a
_chef d'œuvre_ of mechanism, compared with them: and the horses!--a
savage might use their ribs instead of his fingers for a numeration
table. Wherever we stopped, the postilion fed his cattle with the brown
rye bread of which he eat himself, all breakfasting together; only the
horses had no gin to their water, and the postilion no water to his gin.
Now and henceforward for subjects of more interest to you, and to the
objects in search of which I loft you: namely, the _literati_ and
literature of Germany.
Believe me, I walked with an impression of awe on my spirits, as W----
and myself accompanied Mr. Klopstock to the house of his brother, the
poet, which stands about a quarter of a mile from the city gate. It is
one of a row of little common-place summer-houses, (for so they looked,)
with four or five rows of young meagre elm trees before the windows,
beyond which is a green, and then a dead flat intersected with several
roads. Whatever beauty, (thought I,) may be before the poet's eyes at
present, it must certainly be purely of his own creation. We waited a
few minutes in a neat little parlour, ornamented with the figures of two
of the Muses and with prints, the subjects of which were from
Klopstock's odes.[225]
[225] 'There is a rhetorical amplitude and brilliancy in the Messias,'
says Mr. Carlyle, 'which elicits in our critic (Mr. Taylor) an instinct
truer than his philosophy is. Neither has the still purer spirit of
Klopstock's odes escaped him. Perhaps there is no writing in our
language that offers so correct an emblem of him as this analysis.' I
remember thinking Taylor's 'clear outline' of the Messias the most
satisfying account of a poem I ever read: it fills the mind with a
vision of pomp and magnificence, which it is pleasanter to contemplate,
as it were, from afar, massed together in that general survey, than to
examine part by part. Mr. Taylor and Mr. Carlyle agree in exalting that
ode of Klopstock's, in which he represents the Muse of Britain and the
Muse of Germany running a race. The piece seems to me more rhetorical
than strictly poetical; and if the younger Muse's power of keeping up
the race depends on productions of this sort, I would not give a penny
for her chance, at least if the contest relates to pure poetry.
Klopstock's _Herman_ (mentioned afterwards,) consists of three
chorus-dramas, as Mr. Taylor calls them: _The Battle of Herman_, _Herman
and the Princes_, and _The Death of Herman_. Herman is the Arminius of
the Roman historians. S.C.
The poet entered. I was much disappointed in his countenance, and
recognised in it no likeness to the bust. There was no comprehension in
the forehead, no weight over the eye-brows, no expression of
peculiarity, moral or intellectual, on the eyes, no massiveness in the
general countenance. He is, if anything, rather below the middle size.
He wore very large half-boots, which his legs filled, so fearfully were
they swollen. However, though neither W---- nor myself could discover
any indications of sublimity or enthusiasm in his physiognomy, we were
both equally impressed with his liveliness, and his kind and ready
courtesy. He talked in French with my friend, and with difficulty spoke
a few sentences to me in English. His enunciation was not in the least
affected by the entire want of his upper teeth. The conversation began
on his part by the expression of his rapture at the surrender of the
detachment of French troops under General Humbert. Their proceedings in
Ireland with regard to the committee which they had appointed, with the
rest of their organizing system, seemed to have given the poet great
entertainment. He then declared his sanguine belief in Nelson's victory,
and anticipated its confirmation with a keen and triumphant pleasure.
His words, tones, looks, implied the most vehement Anti-Gallicanism. The
subject changed to literature, and I inquired in Latin concerning the
history of German poetry and the elder German poets. To my great
astonishment he confessed, that he knew very little on the subject. He
had indeed occasionally read one or two of their elder writers, but not
so as to enable him to speak of their merits. Professor Ebeling, he
said, would probably give me every information of this kind: the subject
had not particularly excited his curiosity. He then talked of Milton and
Glover, and thought Glover's blank verse superiour to Milton's.[226]
[226] _Leonidus_, an epic poem, by R. Glover, first appeared in May,
1737: in the fifth edition, published in 1770, it was corrected and
extended from nine books to twelve. Glover was the author of Boadicea
and Medea, tragedies, which had some success on the stage. I believe
that _Leonidas_ has more merit in the conduct of the design, and in the
delineation of character, than as poetry.
'He write an epic poem,' said Thomson, 'who never saw a mountain!'
Glover had seen the sun and moon, yet he seems to have looked for their
poetical aspects in Homer and Milton, rather than in the sky. 'There is
not a single simile in _Leonidas_,' says Lyttleton, 'that is borrowed
from any of the ancients, and yet there is hardly any poem that has such
a variety of beautiful comparisons.' The similes of Milton come so flat
and dry out of Glover's mangle, that they are indeed quite _another
thing_ from what they appear in the poems of that Immortal: _ex. gr._
Like wintry clouds, which, opening for a time,
Tinge their black folds with gleams of scattered light:--
Is not this Milton's 'silver lining' stretched and mangled?
The Queen of Night
Gleam'd from the centre of th' etherial vault,
And o'er the raven plumes of darkness shed
Her placid light.
This is flattened from the well-known passage in Comus.
Soon will savage Mars
Deform the lovely _ringlets of thy shrubs_.
A genteel improvement upon Milton's 'bush with frizzled hair implicit.'
Then we have
--delicious to the sight
Soft dales meand'ring show their flowery laps
Among rude piles of nature,
spoiled from
--the flowery lap
Of some irriguous valley spread its store.
Thus does this poet shatter and dissolve the blooming sprays of another
man's plantation, instead of pushing through them some new shoots of his
own to crown them with fresh blossoms.
Milton himself borrowed as much as Glover. Aye, ten times more; yet
every passage in his poetry is Miltonic,--more than anything else. On
the other hand, his imitators _Miltonize_, yet produce nothing worthy of
Milton, the important characteristic of whose writings my father well
expressed, when he said 'The reader of Milton must be always on his
duty: _he is surrounded with sense_.' A man must have his sense to
imitate him worthily. How we look through his words at the Deluge, as he
floods it upon us in Book xi. l. 738-53!--The Attic bees produce honey
so flavoured with the thyme of Hymettus that it is scarcely eatable,
though to smell the herb itself in a breezy walk upon that celebrated
Mount would be an exceeding pleasure; thus certain epic poems are
overpoweringly flavoured with herbs of Milton, while yet the fragrant
balm and fresh breeze of his poetry is not to be found in them. S.C.
W---- and myself expressed our surprise: and my friend gave his
definition and notion of harmonious verse, that it consisted, (the
English iambic blank verse above all,) in the apt arrangement of pauses
and cadences, and the sweep of whole paragraphs,
----'with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out,'
and not in the even flow, much less in the prominence or antithetic
vigour, of single lines, which were indeed injurious to the total
effect, except where they were introduced for some specific purpose.
Klopstock assented, and said that he meant to confine Glover's
superiority to single lines.[227]
[227] The 'abrupt and laconic structure' of Glover's periods appears at
the very commencement of _Leonidas_, which has something military in its
movement, but rather the stiff gait of the drilled soldier than the
proud march of the martial hero.
The virtuous Spartan who resign'd his life
To save his country at th' Oetaen straits,
Thermopylae, when all the peopled east
In arms with Xerxes filled the Grecian plains,
O Muse record! The Hellespont they passed
O'erpowering Thrace. The dreadful tidings swift
To Corinth flew. Her Isthmus was the seat
Of Grecian council. Orpheus thence returns
To Lacedaemon. In assembly full, &c.
Glover's best passages are of a soft character. This is a pleasing
_Homerism_:
Lycis dies,
For boist'rous war ill-chosen. He was skill'd
To tune the lulling flute, and melt the heart;
Or with his pipe's awak'ning strains allure
The lovely dames of Lydia to the dance.
They on the verdant level graceful mov'd
In vary'd measures; while the cooling breeze
Beneath their swelling garments wanton'd o'er
Their snowy breasts, and smooth Cayster's streams
Soft-gliding murmur'd by. The hostile blade, &c. Bk. VIII.
And here is a pleasing expansion of Pindar, Olymp. II. 109:
Placid were his days,
Which flow'd through blessings. As a river pure,
Whose sides are flowery, and whose meadows fair,
Meets in his course a subterranean void;
There dips his silver head, again to rise,
And, rising, glide through flow'rs and meadows new;
So shall OÔleus in those happier fields,
Where never tempests roar, nor humid clouds
In mists dissolve, nor white descending flakes
Of winter violate th' eternal green;
Where never gloom of trouble shades the mind,
Nor gust of passion heaves the quiet breast,
Nor dews of grief are sprinkled. Bk. X. S.C.
He told us that he had read Milton, in a prose translation, when he was
fourteen.[228] I understood him thus myself, and W--- interpreted
Klopstock's French as I had already construed it. He appeared to know
very little of Milton or indeed of our poets in general. He spoke with
great indignation of the English prose translation of his MESSIAH. All
the translations had been bad, very bad--but the English was _no_
translation--there were pages on pages not in the original: and half the
original was not to be found in the translation. W--- told him that I
intended to translate a few of his odes as specimens of German
lyrics--he then said to me in English, 'I wish you would render into
English some select passages of THE MESSIAH, and _revenge_ me of your
countryman!'
[228] This was accidentally confirmed to me by an old German gentleman
at Helmstadt, who had been Klopstock's school and bed-fellow. Among
other boyish anecdotes, he related that the young poet set a particular
value on a translation of the PARADISE LOST, and always slept with it
under his pillow.
It was the liveliest thing which he produced in the whole conversation.
He told us, that his first ode was fifty years older than his last. I
looked at him with much emotion--I considered him as the venerable
father of German poetry; as a good man as a Christian; seventy-four
years old; with legs enormously swollen; yet active, lively, cheerful,
and kind, and communicative. My eyes felt as if a tear were swelling
into them. In the portrait of Lessing there was a toupee periwig, which
enormously injured the effect of his physiognomy--Klopstock wore the
same, powdered and frizzled. By the bye, old men ought never to wear
powder--the contrast between a large snow-white wig and the colour of an
old man's skin is disgusting, and wrinkles in such a neighbourhood
appear only channels for dirt. It is an honour to poets and great men,
that you think of them as parts of Nature; and anything of trick and
fashion wounds you in them, as much as when you see venerable yews
clipped into miserable peacocks.--The author of THE MESSIAH should have
worn his own grey hair.--His powder and periwig were to the eye what
_Mr_. Virgil would be to the ear.
Klopstock dwelt much on the superiour power which the German language
possessed of concentrating meaning. He said, he had often translated
parts of Homer and Virgil, line by line, and a German line proved always
sufficient for a Greek or Latin one. In English you cannot do this. I
answered, that in English we could commonly render one Greek heroic line
in a line and a half of our common heroic metre, and I conjectured that
this line and a half would be found to contain no more syllables than
one German or Greek hexameter. He did not understand me:[229] and I, who
wished to hear his opinions, not to correct them, was glad that he did
not.
[229] Klopstock's observation was partly true and partly erroneous. In
the literal sense of his words, and, if we confine the comparison to the
average of space required for the expression of the same thought in the
two languages, it is erroneous. I have translated some German hexameters
into English hexameters, and find, that on the average three English
lines will express four lines German. The reason is evident: our
language abounds in monosyllables and dissyllables. The German, not less
than the Greek, is a polysyllable language. But in another point of view
the remark was not without foundation. For the German possessing the
same unlimited privilege of forming compounds, both with prepositions
and with epithets, as the Greek, it can express the richest single Greek
word in a single German one, and is thus freed from the necessity of
weak or ungraceful paraphrases. I will content myself with one example
at present, viz. the use of the prefixed participles _ver_, _zer_,
_ent_, and _weg_: thus _reissen_ to rend, _verreissen_ to rend away,
_zerreissen_ to rend to pieces, _entreissen_ to rend off or out of a
thing, in the active sense: or _schmelzen_ to melt--_ver_, _zer_, _ent_,
_schmelzen_--and in like manner through all the verbs neuter and active.
If you consider only how much we should feel the loss of the prefix
_be_, as in bedropt, besprinkle, besot, especially in our poetical
language, and then think that this same mode of composition is carried
through all their simple and compound prepositions, and many of their
adverbs; and that with most of these the Germans have the same privilege
as we have of dividing them from the verb and placing them at the end of
the sentence; you will have no difficulty in comprehending the reality
and the cause of this superior power in the German of condensing
meaning, in which its great poet exulted. It is impossible to read half
a dozen pages of Wieland without perceiving that in this respect the
German has no rival but the Greek. And yet I feel, that concentration or
condensation is not the happiest mode of expressing this excellence,
which seems to consist not so much in the less time required for
conveying an impression, as in the unity and simultaneousness with which
the impression is conveyed. It tends to make their language more
picturesque: it _depictures_ images better. We have obtained this power
in part by our compound verbs derived from the Latin: and the sense of
its great effect no doubt induced our Milton both to the use and the
abuse of Latin derivatives. But still these prefixed particles,
conveying no separate or separable meaning to the mere English reader,
cannot possibly act on the mind with the force or liveliness of an
original and homogeneous language such as the German is, and besides are
confined to certain words.
We now took our leave. At the beginning of the French Revolution
Klopstock wrote odes of congratulation. He received some honorary
presents from the French Republic, (a golden crown I believe,) and, like
our Priestley, was invited to a seat in the legislature, which he
declined. But when French liberty metamorphosed herself into a fury, he
sent back these presents with a _palinodia_, declaring his abhorrence of
their proceedings: and since then he has been perhaps more than enough
an Anti-Gallican. I mean, that in his just contempt and detestation of
the crimes and follies of the Revolutionists, he suffers himself to
forget that the revolution itself is a process of the Divine Providence;
and that as the folly of men is the wisdom of God, so are their
iniquities instruments of his goodness. From Klopstock's house we walked
to the ramparts, discoursing together on the poet and his conversation,
till our attention was diverted to the beauty and singularity of the
sunset and its effects on the objects around us. There were woods in the
distance. A rich sandy light, (nay, of a much deeper colour than sandy,)
lay over these woods that blackened in the blaze. Over that part of the
woods which lay immediately under the intenser light, a brassy mist
floated. The trees on the ramparts, and the people moving to and fro
between them, were cut or divided into equal segments of deep shade and
brassy light. Had the trees, and the bodies of the men and women, been
divided into equal segments by a rule or pair of compasses, the portions
could not have been more regular. All else was obscure. It was a fairy
scene!--and to increase its romantic character, among the moving
objects, thus divided into alternate shade and brightness, was a
beautiful child, dressed with the elegant simplicity of an English
child, riding on a stately goat, the saddle, bridle, and other
accoutrements of which were in a high degree costly and splendid. Before
I quit the subject of Hamburg, let me say, that I remained a day or two
longer than I otherwise should have done, in order to be present at the
feast of St. Michael, the patron saint of Hamburg, expecting to see the
civic pomp of this commercial Republic. I was however disappointed.
There were no processions, two or three sermons were preached to two or
three old women in two or three churches, and St. Michael and his
patronage wished elsewhere by the higher classes, all places of
entertainment, theatre, &c. being shut up on this day. In Hamburg, there
seems to be no religion at all; in Lubec it is confined to the women.
The men seem determined to be divorced from their wives in the other
world, if they cannot in this. You will not easily conceive a more
singular sight, than is presented by the vast aisle of the principal
church at Lubec seen from the organ-loft: for, being filled with female
servants and persons in the same class of life, and all their caps
having gold and silver cauls, it appears like a rich pavement of gold
and silver.
I will conclude this letter with the mere transcription of notes, which
my friend W---- made of his conversations with Klopstock, during the
interviews that took place after my departure. On these I shall make but
one remark at present, and that will appear a presumptuous one, namely,
that Klopstock's remarks on the venerable sage of Kˆnigsburg are to my
own knowledge injurious and mistaken; and so far is it from being true,
that his system is now given up, that throughout the Universities of
Germany there is not a single professor who is not either a Kantean or a
disciple of Fichte, whose system is built on the Kantean, and
presupposes its truth; or lastly who, though an antagonist of Kant, as
to his theoretical work, has not embraced wholly or in part his moral
system, and adopted part of his nomenclature. 'Klopstock having wished
to see the CALVARY of Cumberland, and asked what was thought of it in
England, I went to Remnant's (the English bookseller) where I procured
the Analytical Review, in which is contained the review of Cumberland's
CALVARY. I remembered to have read there some specimens of a blank verse
translation of THE MESSIAH. I had mentioned this to Klopstock, and he
had a great desire to see them. I walked over to his house and put the
book into his hands. On adverting to his own poem, he told me he began
THE MESSIAH when he was seventeen: he devoted three entire years to the
plan without composing a single line. He was greatly at a loss in what
manner to execute his work. There were no successful specimens of
versification in the German language before this time. The first three
cantos he wrote in a species of measured or numerous prose. This, though
done with much labour and some success, was far from satisfying him. He
had composed hexameters both Latin and Greek as a school exercise, and
there had been also in the German language attempts in that style of
versification. These were only of very moderate merit.--One day he was
struck with the idea of what could be done in this way--he kept his room
a whole day, even went without his dinner, and found that in the evening
he had written twenty-three hexameters, versifying a part of what he had
before written in prose. From that time, pleased with his efforts, he
composed no more in prose. To-day he informed me that he had finished
his plan before he read Milton. He was enchanted to see an author who
before him had trod the same path. This is a contradiction of what he
said before. He did not wish to speak of his poem to any one till it was
finished: but some of his friends who had seen what he had finished,
tormented him till he had consented to publish a few books in a journal.
He was then, I believe, very young, about twenty-five. The rest was
printed at different periods, four books at a time. The reception given
to the first specimens was highly flattering. He was nearly thirty years
in finishing the whole poem, but of these thirty years not more than two
were employed in the composition. He only composed in favourable
moments; besides he had other occupations. He values himself upon the
plan of his odes, and accuses the modern lyrical writers of gross
deficiency in this respect. I laid the same accusation against Horace:
he would not hear of it--but waived the discussion. He called
Rousseau's ODE TO FORTUNE a moral dissertation in stanzas.[230] I spoke
of Dryden's ST. CECILIA; but be did not seem familiar with our writers.
He wished to know the distinctions between our dramatic and epic blank
verse.
[230] (A la Fortune. Liv. II. Ode vi. Œuvres de Jean Baptiste Rousseau,
p.121, edit. 1820. One of the latter strophes of this ode concludes with
two lines, which, as the editor observes, have become a proverb, and of
which the thought and expression are borrowed from Lucretius: _cripitur
persona, manet res:_ III. v. 58.
Montrez nous, guerriers magnanimes,
Votre vertu dans tout son jour:
Voyons comment vos coeurs sublimes
Du sort soutiendront le retour.
Tant que sa faveur vous seconde,
Vous Ètes les maÓtres du monde,
Votre gloire nous Èblouit:
Mais au moindre revers funeste,
_Le masque tombe, l'homme reste,
Et le heros s'Èvanouit_.
Horace, says the Editor, en traitant ce mÍme sujet, liv. X. ode XXXV. et
Pindare en l'esquissant ‡ grands traits, au commencement de sa douziËme
Olympique, n'avoient laissÈ ‡ leurs successeurs que son cÙtÈ moral ‡
envisager, et c'est le parti que prit Rousseau. The general sentiment of
the ode is handled with great dignity in Paradise Regained. Bk. III. l.
43--157--a passage which, as Thyer says, contains the quintessence of
the subject. Dante has some noble lines on Fortune in the viith canto of
the _Inferno_,--lines worthy of a great mystic poet. After referring to
the vain complaints and maledictions of men against this Power, he
beautifully concludes:
Ma ella s'Ë beata e ciÚ non ode:
Con l'altre prime creature lieta
_Volve sua spera, e beata si gode_.
J.B. Rousseau was born in 1669, began his career at the close of the age
of Louis Quatorze, died at Brussels, March 17, 1741. He had been
banished from France, by an intrigue, on a false charge, as now seems
clear, of having composed and distributed defamatory verses, in 1712;
and it was engraved upon his tomb that he was 'thirty years an object of
envy and thirty of compassion.' Belonging to the classical school of the
17th century, of which he was the last survivor, he came somewhat into
conflict with the spirit of the 18th, which was preparing a new vintage,
and would have none but new wine in new bottles. Rousseau, however, was
a very finished writer in his way, and has been compared to Pindar,
Horace, Anacreon and Malherbe. His ode to _M. le Comte du Luc_ is as
fine an example as I know of the modern classical style. This is quite
different from that which is exemplified in Wordsworth's Laodamia and
Serjeant Talfourd's Ion; for in them the subjects only are ancient,
while both the form and spirit are modern; whereas in the odes of
Rousseau a modern subject is treated, as far as difference of times and
language will allow, in the manner and tone of the Ancients. Samson
Agonistes and Goethe's Iphigenia in Tauris are conformed to ancient
modes of thought, but in them the subject also is taken from antiquity.
Rousseau's works consist of Odes, Epistles in verse, Cantatas, Epigrams,
&c. &c. He wrote for the stage at the beginning of his literary life,
but with no great success. S.C.)
He recommended me to read his HERMANN before I read either THE MESSIAH
or the odes. He flattered himself that some time or other his dramatic
poems would be known in England. He had not heard of Cowper. He thought
that Voss in his translation of THE ILIAD had done violence to the idiom
of the Germans, and had sacrificed it to the Greeks, not remembering
sufficiently that each language has its particular spirit and
genius.[231] He said Lessing was the first of their dramatic writers. I
complained of NATHAN as tedious. He said there was not enough of action
in it; but that Lessing was the most chaste of their writers. He spoke
favourably of Goethe; but said that his SORROWS OF WERTER was his best
work, better than any of his dramas: he preferred the first written to
the rest of Goethe's dramas. Schiller's ROBBERS he found so extravagant,
that he could not read it. I spoke of the scene of the setting sun.[232]
He did not know it. He said Schiller could not live. He thought DON
CARLOS the best of his dramas; but said that the plot was
inextricable.--It was evident he knew little of Schiller's works:
indeed, he said, he could not read them. B¸rger, he said, was a true
poet, and would live; that Schiller, on the contrary, must soon be
forgotten; that he gave himself up to the imitation of Shakespeare, who
often was extravagant, but that Schiller was ten thousand times more
so.[233]
[231] Voss, who lived from Feb. 20, 1751, to March, 1826, was author of
the Luise, 'a rural epopaea of simple structure divided into three
idyls, which relate the betrothment and marriage of the heroine.' This
is a pleasing and very peculiar poem, composed in hexameter verse. 'The
charm of the narrative,' says Mr. T., 'consists in the minute
description of the local domestic manners of the personages.' The charm
consists, I think, in the blending of these manners with the beauty of
Nature, and the ease and suitability of the versification. Voss's
translation of the Odyssey is praised for being so perfect an imitation
of the original. The Greek has been rendered, 'with a fidelity and
imitative harmony so admirable, that it suggests to the scholar the
original wording, and reflects, as from a mirror, every beauty and every
blemish of the ancient poem.' Hist. Survey, pp. 61-68. S. C.
[232] Act III. Sc. 2. The night scene, which is the 5th of Act iv, is
fine too in a frantic way. The songs it contains are very spirited. That
sung by the Robbers is worthy of a Thug; it goes beyond our notions of
any European bandit, and transports us to the land of Jaggernat. S. C.
[233] The works of B¸rger, who was born on the first day of 1748, died
June 8, 1794, consist of Poems (2 vols.), Macbeth altered from
Shakespeare, (pronounced by Taylor,--no good judge of _Shakespeare_,--in
some respects superiour to the original,) Muncha¸sen's Travels;
Translations; (of the six first books of the Iliad, and some others);
Papers philological and political. His fame rests chiefly on three
ballads, The Wild Hunter, The Parson's Daughter, and Lenore. The
powerful diction and admirable harmony,--rhythm, sound, rhyme of these
compositions Mr. Taylor describes as the result of laborious art; it
strikes me, from the outline which he has given of B¸rger's history,
that the violent feelings, the life-like expression of which constitutes
their power and value, may have been partly the reflex of the poet's own
mind. His seems to have been a life of mismanagement from youth till
middle age. Like Milton, he lost a beloved second wife by childbed in
the first year of marriage: like him, he married a third time, but
without his special necessity--blindness and unkind daughters. He wedded
a lady who had fallen in love with his poetry, or perhaps his poetical
reputation: an union founded, as it appears, in vanity, ended in
vexation of spirit: and as Death, which had deprived him of two wives,
did not release him from a third, he obtained his freedom, at the end of
little more than three years, from a court of justice. Why did Klopstock
undervalue, by preference of such a poet, the lofty-minded Schiller--the
dearest to England of all German bards; perhaps because the author of
Wallenstein was a philosopher, and had many things in his philosophy
which the author of The Messiah could not find in _his_ heaven and
earth. S.C.
He spoke very slightingly of Kotzebue, as an immoral author in the
first place, and next, as deficient in power. At Vienna, said he, they
are transported with him; but we do not reckon the people of Vienna
either the wisest or the wittiest people of Germany. He said Wieland was
a charming author, and a sovereign master of his own language: that in
this respect Goethe could not be compared to him, nor indeed could any
body else. He said that his fault was to be fertile to exuberance. I
told him the OBERON had just been translated into English. He asked me
if I was not delighted with the poem. I answered, that I thought the
story began to flag about the seventh or eighth book; and observed, that
it was unworthy of a man of genius to make the interest of a long poem
turn entirely upon animal gratification. He seemed at first disposed to
excuse this by saying, that there are different subjects for poetry, and
that poets are not willing to be restricted in their choice. I answered,
that I thought the _passion_ of love as well suited to the purposes of
poetry as any other passion; but that it was a cheap way of pleasing to
fix the attention of the reader through a long poem on the mere
_appetite_. Well! but, said he, you see, that such poems please every
body. I answered, that it was the province of a great poet to raise
people up to his own level, not to descend to theirs. He agreed, and
confessed, that on no account whatsoever would he have written a work
like the OBERON. He spoke in raptures of Wieland's style, and pointed
out the passage where Retzia is delivered of her child, as exquisitely
beautiful.[234]
[234] Oberon, Canto viii. stanzas 69-80. The little touch about the new
born babe's returning its mother's kiss is very romantic: though put
modestly in the form of a query:
--Und scheint nicht jeden Kuss
Sein kleiner mund dem ihren zu entsaugen?
The word _entsaugen (suck off)_ is expressive--it very naturally
characterises the kiss of an infant five minutes of age. Wieland had
great nursery experience. 'My sweetest hours,' says he, in a letter
quoted in the Survey,' are those in which I see about me, in all their
glee of childhood, my whole posse of little half-way things between apes
and angels.'
Mr. Sotheby's translation of the Oberon made the poem popular in this
country. The original first appeared in 1780. S. C.
I said that I did not perceive any very striking passages; but that I
made allowance for the imperfections of a translation. Of the thefts of
Wieland, he said, they were so exquisitely managed, that the greatest
writers might be proud to steal as he did. He considered the books and
fables of old romance writers in the light of the ancient mythology, as
a sort of common property, from which a man was free to take whatever he
could make a good use of. An Englishman had presented him with the odes
of Collins, which he had read with pleasure. He knew little or nothing
of Gray, except his ELEGY written in a country CHURCH-YARD. He
complained of the fool in LEAR. I observed that he seemed to give a
terrible wildness to the distress; but still he complained. He asked
whether it was not allowed, that Pope had written rhymed poetry with
more skill than any of our writers--I said I preferred Dryden, because
his couplets had greater variety in their movement. He thought my reason
a good one; but asked whether the rhyme of Pope were not more exact.
This question I understood as applying to the final terminations, and
observed to him that I believed it was the case; but that I thought it
was easy to excuse some inaccuracy in the final sounds, if the general
sweep of the verse was superiour. I told him that we were not so exact
with regard to the final endings of lines as the French. He did not seem
to know that we made no distinction between masculine and feminine (i.e.
single or double,) rhymes: at least he put inquiries to me on this
subject. He seemed to think, that no language could be so far formed as
that it might not be enriched by idioms borrowed from another tongue. I
said this was a very dangerous practice; and added, that I thought
Milton had often injured both his prose and verse by taking this liberty
too frequently. I recommended to him the prose works of Dryden as models
of pure and native English. I was treading upon tender ground, as I have
reason to suppose that he has himself liberally indulged in the
practice.
The same day I dined at Mr. Klopstock's, where I had the pleasure of a
third interview with the poet. We talked principally about indifferent
things. I asked him what he thought of Kant. He said that his reputation
was much on the decline in Germany. That for his own part he was not
surprised to find it so, as the works of Kant were to him utterly
incomprehensible--that he had often been pestered by the Kanteans; but
was rarely in the practice of arguing with them. His custom was to
produce the book, open it and point to a passage, and beg they would
explain it. This they ordinarily attempted to do by substituting their
own ideas. I do not want, I say, an explanation of your own ideas, but
of the passage which is before us. In this way I generally bring the
dispute to an immediate conclusion. He spoke of Wolfe as the first
Metaphysician they had in Germany. Wolfe had followers; but they could
hardly be called a sect, and luckily till the appearance of Kant, about
fifteen years ago, Germany had not been pestered by any sect of
philosophers whatsoever; but that each man had separately pursued his
inquiries uncontrolled by the dogmas of a master. Kant had appeared
ambitious to be the founder of a sect; that he had succeeded: but that
the Germans were now coming to their senses again. That Nicolai and
Engel had in different ways contributed to disenchant the nation;[235]
but above all the incomprehensibility of the philosopher and his
philosophy. He seemed pleased to hear, that as yet Kant's doctrines had
not met with many admirers in England--did not doubt but that we had too
much wisdom to be duped by a writer who set at defiance the common sense
and common understandings of men. We talked of tragedy. He seemed to
rate highly the power of exciting tears--I said that nothing was more
easy than to deluge an audience, that it was done every day by the
meanest writers.'
I must remind you, my friend, first, that these notes are not intended
as specimens of Klopstock's intellectual power, or even '_colloquial
prowess_,' to judge of which by an accidental conversation, and this
with strangers, and those two foreigners, would be not only
unreasonable, but calumnious. Secondly, I attribute little other
interest to the remarks than what is derived from the celebrity of the
person who made them. Lastly, if you ask me, whether I have read THE
MESSIAH, and what I think of it? I answer--as yet the first four books
only: and as to my opinion--(the reasons of which hereafter)--you may
guess it from what I could not help muttering to myself, when the good
pastor this morning told me, that Klopstock was the German Milton----'a
very _German_ Milton indeed!!!'----Heaven preserve you,
and S.T. COLERIDGE.
[235] These _disenchanters_ put one in mind of the ratcatchers, who are
said and supposed to rid houses of rats, and yet the rats, somehow or
other, continue to swarm. The Kantean rats were not aware, I believe,
when Klopstock spoke thus, of the extermination that had befallen them:
and even to this day those acute animals infest the old house, and steal
away the daily bread of the children,--if the old notions of Space and
Time, and the old proofs of religious verities by way of the
_understanding_ and _speculative reason,_ must be called such. Whether
or no these are their true spiritual sustenance, or the necessary guard
and vehicle of it, is perhaps a question.
But who were Nicolai and Engel, and what did they against the famous
enchanter? The former was born in 1733, at Berlin, where he carried on
his father's business of book-selling, pursued literature with marked
success, and attained to old age, full of literary honours. By means of
three critical journals (the _Literatur-Briefe,_ the _Bibliothek der
Schˆnen Wissenschaftern,_ and the _Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek,_)
which he conducted with the powerful cooperation of Lessing, and of his
intimate friend Mendelssohn, and to which he contributed largely
himself, he became very considerable in the German world of letters, and
so continued for the space of twenty years. Jˆrdens, in his Lexicon,
speaks highly of the effect of Nicolai's writings in promoting freedom
of thought, enlightened views in theology and philosophy, and a sound
taste in fine literature--describes him as a brave battler with
intolerance, hypocrisy, and confused conceptions in religion; with empty
subtleties, obscurities, and terminologies, that can but issue in vain
fantasies, in his controversial writings on the 'so-named critical
philosophy.' He engaged with the _Kritik der reinen Vernunft,_ on its
appearance in 1781, in the _Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek;_ first
explained his objections to it in the 11th vol. of his
_Reisebeschreibung_, (Description of a Journey through Germany and
Switzerland in the year 1781,) and afterwards, in his romance entitled
The Life and Opinions of Sempronius Gundibert, a German Philosopher,
sought to set forth the childish crotchets and abuses imputable to many
disciples of this philosophy in their native absurdity. The _ratsbone_
alluded to by Klopstock, was doubtless contained in the above-named
romance, which the old poet probably esteemed more than Nicolai's more
serious polemics.
Gundibert has had its day, but in a fiction destined to a day of longer
duration,--Goethe's Faust,--the Satirist is himself most effectively
satirised. There he is, in that strange yet beautiful temple, pinned to
the wall in a ridiculous attitude, to be laughed at as long as the
temple itself is visited and admired. This doom came upon him, not so
much for his campaign against the Kanteans, as for his _Joys of
Werter_,--because he had dared to ridicule a book, which certainly
offered no small temptations to the parodist. Indeed he seems to have
been engaged in a series of hostilities with Fichte, Lavater, Wieland,
Herder, and Goethe.
(See Mr. Hayward's excellent translation of Faust, of which I have heard
a literary German say that it gave a better notion of the original than
any other which he had seen.)
In the _Walpurgisnacht_ of the Faust he thus addresses the goblin
dancers:--
Ihr seyd noch immer da! Nein das ist unerhˆrt!
Verschwindet doch! Wir haben ja aufgekl‰rt!
'Fly! Vanish! Unheard of impudence! What, still there!
In this enlightened age too, when you have been
Proved not to exist?'--_Shelley's Translation_.
Do we not see the doughty reviewer before us magisterially waving his
hand and commanding the apparitions to vanish?--then with despondent
astonishment exclaiming:
Das Teufelspack es fragt nach keiner Regel.
Wir sind so klug und dennoch spukt's in Tegel.
So wise we are! yet what fantastic fooleries still stream forth from my
contemporary's brains; how are we still haunted! The speech of Faust
concerning him is mis-translated by Shelley, who understood the humour
of the piece, as well as the poetry, but not the particular humours of
it. Nothing can be more expressive of a conceited, narrow-minded
reviewer. 'Oh he!--he is absolutely everywhere,--What others dance, he
must decide upon. If he can't chatter about every step, 'tis as good as
not made at all. _Nothing provokes him so much as when we go forward_.
If you'd turn round and round in a circle, as he does in his old mill,
he'd approve of that perhaps; especially if you'd consult him about it.'
'A man of such spirited habitudes,' says Mr. Carlyle, after affirming
that Nicolai wrote against Kant's philosophy without comprehending it,
and judged of poetry, as of Brunswick Mum, by its utility, 'is now by
the Germans called a _Philister_. Nicolai earned for himself the painful
pre-eminence of being _Erz Philister_, Arch Philistine.' 'He, an old
enemy of Goethe's,' says Mr. Hill, in explanation of the title in which
he appears in the _Walpurgisnacht_, 'had published an account of his
phantasmal illusions, pointing them against Fichte's system of idealism,
which he evidently confounded with what Coleridge would have called
Subjective Idolism.'
Such was this wondrous _disenchanter_ in the eyes of later critics than
Klopstock: a man strong enough to maintain a long fight against genius,
not wise enough to believe in it and befriend it. How many a
controversialist seems a mighty giant to those who are predisposed to
his opinions, while, in the eyes of others, he is but a blind
floundering Polyphemus, who knows not how to direct his heavy blows; if
not a menacing scarecrow, with a stake in his hand, which he has no
power to drive home! I remember reading a thin volume in which all
metaphysicians that had ever left their thoughts behind them were
declared utterly in the wrong--all up to, but not including, the valiant
author himself. The world had lain in darkness till he appeared, like a
new Phoebus, on the scene. This great man despatched Kant's
system--(never having read a syllable of any work of Kant's)--in a page
and a quarter! and the exploit had its celebraters and admirers. Yet
strange to say, the metaphysical world went on just as if nothing had
happened!--after the sun was up, it went groping about, as if it had
never been enlightened, and actually ever since has continued to talk as
if Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, and other metaphysicians understood the
nature of the things they wrote about rather _more_ than the mass of
mankind, instead of _less! Verschwindet doch_! might this author say, as
Nicolai said to the spectres of the Brocken and the phantoms of
literature,
Verschwindet doch! _Wir haben ja aufgekl‰rt_.
Engel opposed Kant in philosophical treatises, one of which is entitled
_Zwei Gerpr‰che den Werth der Kritik betreffend_. He too occupied a
considerable space in Literature--his works fill twelve volumes, besides
a few other pieces. 'To him,' says Jˆrdens, 'the criticism of taste and
of art, speculative, practical, and popular philosophy, owe many of
their later advances in Germany.' Jˆrdens pronounces his romance,
entitled _Lorenz Stark_, a masterpiece in its way, and says of his
plays, that they deserve a place beside the best of Lessing's. He was
the author of a miscellaneous work, entitled The Philosopher for the
World, and is praised by Cousin as a meritorious anthropologist. Engel
was born September 11, 1741, at Parchim, of which his father was pastor,
in Mecklenburg-Schwerin; died June 28, 1802. Neither Nicolai nor Engel
is noticed by Cousin among the adversaries of Kant's doctrine: the
intelligent adversaries,--who assailed it with skill and knowledge,
rather proved its strength than discovered its weakness. _Fortius acri
ridiculum_; but this applies only to transient triumphs, where the
object of attack, though it furnishes _occasion_ for ridicule, affords
no just _cause_ for it. S.C.
* * * * *
(_b_) PERSONAL REMINISCENCES (1836), BY THE HON. MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE.
In the summer of 1836 I went on the Northern Circuit with Baron Parke.
We took Bowness and Storrs, in our way from Appleby to Lancaster; and I
visited Wordsworth, and my dear friend Arnold from Storrs. It was my
fortune to have to try the great Hornby Castle cause, as it was called;
this I did at the end of the circuit, returning from Liverpool to
Lancaster for the purpose. Arnold was kind enough to lend me his house
(Foxhow) for the vacation; and when the circuit ended, my wife and
children accompanied me to it, and we remained there six weeks. During
that time Mr. and Mrs. Wordsworth were our only neighbours, and we
scarcely saw any one besides; but we needed no other addition to the
lovely and loveable country in which we were. He was extremely kind,
both in telling us where to go, and very often going with us. He was
engaged in correcting the press for a new edition of his poems. The
London post, I think, went out at 2 P.M., and then, he would say, he was
at our service. A walk with him in that country was a real treat: I
never met with a man who seemed to know a country and the people so
well, or to love them better, nor one who had such exquisite taste for
rural scenery: he had evidently cultivated it with great care; he not
only admired the beauties, but he could tell you what were the peculiar
features in each scene, or what the incidents to which it owed its
peculiar charm. He combined, beyond any man with whom I ever met, the
unsophisticated poetic delight in the beauties of nature with a somewhat
artistic skill in developing the sources and conditions of them. In
examining the parts of a landscape he would be minute; and he dealt with
shrubs, flower-beds, and lawns with the readiness of a practiced
landscape-gardener. His own little grounds afforded a beautiful specimen
of his skill in this latter respect; and it was curious to see how he
had imparted the same faculty in some measure to his gardener--James
Dixon, I think, was his name. I found them together one morning in the
little lawn by the Mount. 'James and I,' said he, 'are in a puzzle here.
The grass here has spots which offend the eye; and I told him we must
cover them with soap-lees. "That," he says, "will make the green there
darker than the rest." "Then," I said, "we must cover the whole." He
objected: "That will not do with reference to the little lawn to which
you pass from this." "Cover that," I said. To which he replies, "You
will have an unpleasant contrast with the foliage surrounding it."'
Beside this warm feeling and exquisite taste, which made him so
delightful a guide, his favourite spots had a human interest engrafted
on them,--some tradition, some incident, some connection with his own
poetry, or himself, or some dear friend. These he brought out in a
striking way. Apart from these, he was well pleased to discourse on
poetry or poets; and here appeared to me to be his principal
scholarship. He was extremely well read in English poetry; and he would
in his walk review a poem or a poet with admirable precision and
fairness. He did not intrude his own poetry or himself, but he did not
decline to talk about either; and he spoke of both simply, unboastingly,
and yet with a manly consciousness of their worth. It was clear he
thought he had achieved a high place among poets: it had been the aim of
his life, humanly speaking; and he had taken worthy pains to accomplish
and prepare himself for the enterprise. He never would sacrifice
anything he thought right on reflection, merely to secure present
popularity, or avert criticism which he thought unfounded; but he was a
severe critic on himself, and would not leave a line or an expression
with which he was dissatisfied until he had brought it to what he liked.
He thought this due to the gift of poetry and the character of the poet.
Carelessness in the finish of composition he seemed to look on almost as
an offence. I remember well, that after speaking with love and delight
of a very popular volume of poetry, he yet found great fault with the
want of correctness and finish. Reciting one of the poems, and pointing
out inaccuracies in it, he said, 'I like the volume so much, that, if I
was the author, I think I should never rest till I had nearly rewritten
it.' No doubt he carried this in his own case to excess, when he
corrected so largely, in the decline of life, poems written in early
manhood, under a state of feelings and powers which it was impossible to
reproduce, and yet which was necessary, generally speaking, for
successful alteration. I cannot but agree with many who think that on
this account the earlier copies of his poems are more valuable than the
later.
1836. _September_. Wednesday 21.--Wordsworth and I started in my
carriage for Lowther, crossed Kirkstone to Paterdale, by Ulleswater,
going through the Glenridding Walks,[236] and calling at Hallsteads. We
reached the castle time enough before dinner for him to give me a walk.
[236] I remember well, asking him if we were not trespassing on private
pleasure-grounds here. He said, no; the walks had, indeed, been
inclosed, but he remembered them open to the public, and he always went
through them when he chose. At Lowther, we found among the visitors, the
late Lord W----; and describing our walk, _he_ made the same
observation, that we had been trespassing; but Wordsworth maintained his
point with somewhat more warmth than I either liked, or could well
account for. But afterwards, when we were alone, he told me he had
purposely answered Lord W---- stoutly and warmly, because he had done a
similar thing with regard to some grounds in the neighbourhood of
Penrith, and excluded the people of Penrith from walking where they had
always enjoyed the right before. He had evidently a pleasure in
vindicating these rights, and seemed to think it a duty. J.T.C.
After luncheon, on Thursday 22d, we had an open carriage, and proceeded
to Haweswater. It is a fine lake, entirely unspoilt by bad taste. On one
side the bank rises high and steep, and is well clothed with wood; on
the other it is bare and more sloping. Wordsworth conveyed a personal
interest in it to me, by telling me that it was the first lake which my
uncle[237] had seen on his coming into this country: he was in company
with Wordsworth and his brother John. Wordsworth pointed out to me
somewhere about the spot on the hill-side, a little out of the track,
from which they first saw the lake; and said, he well remembered how his
face brightened, and how much delight he appeared to feel. Yesterday
morning we returned to this place. We called on our way and took our
luncheon at Hallsteads, and also called at Paterdale Hall. At both it
was gratifying to see the cordial manner of W.'s reception: he seemed
loved and honoured; and his manner was of easy, hearty, kindness to
them.
[237] See _Memoirs_, vol. i. pp. 147-8.
My tour with him was very agreeable, and I wish I could preserve in my
memory more of his conversation than I shall be able to do. I was
anxious to get from him anecdotes of himself and my uncle, and of their
works. He told me of himself, that his first verses were a Popian copy
written at school on the 'Pleasure of Change;' then he wrote another on
the 'Second Centenary of the School's Foundation;' that he had written
these verses on the holidays, and on the return to school; that he was
rather the poet of the school. The first verses from which he remembered
to have received great pleasure, were Miss Carter's 'Poem on Spring,' a
poem in the six-line stanza, which he was particularly fond of, and had
composed much in, for example, 'Ruth.' He said there was some foundation
in fact, however slight, for every poem he had written of a narrative
kind; so slight indeed, sometimes, as hardly to deserve the name; for
example, 'The Somnambulist' was wholly built on the fact of a girl at
Lyulph's Tower being a sleep-walker; and 'The Water Lily,' on a ship
bearing that name. 'Michael' was founded on the son of an old couple
having become dissolute and run away from his parents; and on an old
shepherd having been seven years in building up a sheepfold in a
solitary valley: 'The Brothers,' on a young shepherd, in his sleep,
having fallen down a crag, his staff remaining suspended midway. Many
incidents he seemed to have drawn from the narration of Mrs. Wordsworth,
or his sister, 'Ellen' for example, in 'The Excursion;' and they must
have told their stories well, for he said his principle had been to give
the oral part as nearly as he could in the very words of the speakers,
where he narrated a real story, dropping, of course, all vulgarisms or
provincialisms, and borrowing sometimes a Bible turn of expression:
these former were mere accidents, not essential to the truth in
representing how the human heart and passions worked; and to give these
last faithfully was his object. If he was to have any name hereafter,
his hope was on this, and he did think he had in some instances
succeeded;[238] that the sale of his poems increased among the classes
below the middle; and he had had, constantly, statements made to him of
the effect produced in reading 'Michael' and other such of his poems. I
added my testimony of being unable to read it aloud without interruption
from my own feelings. 'She was a phantom of delight' he said was written
on 'his dear wife,' of whom he spoke in the sweetest manner; a manner
full of the warmest love and admiration, yet with delicacy and reserve.
He very much and repeatedly regretted that my uncle had written so
little verse; he thought him so eminently qualified, by his very nice
ear, his great skill in metre, and his wonderful power and happiness of
expression. He attributed, in part, his writing so little, to the
extreme care and labour which he applied in elaborating his metres. He
said, that when he was intent on a new experiment in metre, the time and
labour he bestowed were inconceivable; that he was quite an epicure in
sound. Latterly he thought he had so much acquired the habit of
analysing his feelings, and making them matter for a theory or argument,
that he had rather dimmed his delight in the beauties of nature and
injured his poetical powers. He said he had no idea how 'Christabelle'
was to have been finished, and he did not think my uncle had ever
conceived, in his own mind, any definite plan for it; that the poem had
been composed while they were in habits of daily intercourse, and almost
in his presence, and when there was the most unreserved intercourse
between them as to all their literary projects and productions, and he
had never heard from him any plan for finishing it. Not that he doubted
my uncle's _sincerity_ in his subsequent assertions to the contrary;
because, he said, schemes of this sort passed rapidly and vividly
through his mind, and so impressed him, that he often fancied he had
arranged things, which really and upon trial proved to be mere embryos.
I omitted to ask him, what seems obvious enough now, whether, in
conversing about it, he had never asked my uncle how it would end. The
answer would have settled the question. He regretted that the story had
not been made to end the same night in which it begun. There was
difficulty and danger in bringing such a personage as the witch to the
daylight, and the breakfast-table; and unless the poem was to have been
long enough to give time for creating a second interest, there was a
great probability of the conclusion being flat after such a
commencement.
[238] You could not walk with him a mile without seeing what a loving
interest he took in the play and working of simple natures. As you
ascend Kirkstone from Paterdale, you have a bright stream leaping down
from rock to rock, on your right, with here and there silent pools. One
of Wordsworth's poor neighbours worked all the week over Kirkstone, I
think in some mines; and returning on Saturday evenings, used to fish up
this little stream. We met him with a string of small trout. W. offered
to buy them, and bid him take them to the Mount. 'Nay,' said the man, 'I
cannot sell them, Sir; the little children at home look for them for
supper, and I can't disappoint them.' It was quite pleasant to see how
the man's answer delighted the Poet. J.T.C.
* * * * *
A great number of my uncle's sonnets, he said, were written from the
'Cat and Salutation,' or a public-house with some such name, in
Smithfield, where my uncle imprisoned himself for some time; and they
appeared in a newspaper, I think he said the _Morning Chronicle_.
He remembered his writing a great part of the translation of
'Wallenstein,' and he said there was nothing more astonishing than the
ease and rapidity with which it was done.
_Sept. 29th, Foxhow_.--We are just setting out, in a promising day, for
a second trip to Keswick, intending, if possible, to penetrate into
Wastdale, over the Sty Head. Before I go, I wish to commemorate a walk
with the Poet, on a drizzly muddy day, the turf sponging out water at
every step, through which he stalked as regardless as if he were of
iron, and with the same fearless, unchanged pace over rough and smooth,
slippery and sound. We went up by the old road[239] from Ambleside to
Keswick, and struck off from the table-land on the left, over the fell
ground, till he brought me out on a crag, bounded, as it were, by two
ascents, and showing me in front, as in a frame, Grasmere Lake, 'the one
green island,' the church, village, &c., and the surrounding mountains.
It is a lovely scene, strikingly described in his verses beginning,
'When to the attractions of the busy world,
Preferring studious leisure,' &c.[240]
_Oct. 7th_.--Yesterday Wordsworth drove me to Low-wovel; and then we
ascended a great way towards Kirkstone by Troutbeck, passing by many
interesting cots, barns, and farm-houses, where W. had constantly
something to point out in the architecture, or the fringes of moss,
fern, &c., on the roofs or walls. We crossed the valley, and descended
on Troutbeck Church, whence we came down to the turnpike road, and I
left the Poet, who was going on to assist Sir T. Pasley in laying out
his grounds. I turned homeward, till I met my horse.
* * * * *
[239] This old road was very steep, after the fashion of former days,
crossing the hill straight over its highest point. A new cut had been
made, somewhat diminishing the steepness, but still leaving it a very
inconvenient and difficult ascent. At length another alteration was
made, and the road was carried on a level round the foot of the hill. My
friend Arnold pointed these out to me, and, quizzing my politics, said,
the first denoted the old Tory corruption, the second bit by bit, the
third Radical Reform. J.T.C.
[240] See Poems on the naming of Places.
As we walked, I was admiring the never-ceasing sound of water, so
remarkable in this country. 'I was walking,' he said, 'on the mountains,
with ----, the Eastern traveller; it was after rain, and the torrents
were full. I said, "I hope you like your companions--these bounding,
joyous, foaming streams." "No," said the traveller, pompously, "I think
they are not to be compared in delightful effect with the silent
solitude of the Arabian Desert." My mountain blood was up. I quickly
observed that he had boots and a stout great-coat on, and said, "I am
sorry you don't like this; perhaps I can show you what will please you
more." I strode away, and led him from crag to crag, hill to vale, and
vale to hill, for about six hours; till I thought I should have had to
bring him home, he was so tired.'
* * * * *
_October 10th_.--I have passed a great many hours to-day with
Wordsworth, in his house. I stumbled on him with proof sheets before
him. He read me nearly all the sweet stanzas written in his copy of the
'Castle of Indolence,'[241] describing himself and my uncle; and he and
Mrs. W. both assured me the description of the latter at that time was
perfectly accurate; that he was almost as a great boy in feelings, and
had all the tricks and fancies there described. Mrs. W. seemed to look
back on him, and those times, with the fondest affection. Then he read
me some lines, which formed part of a suppressed portion of 'The
Waggoner;' but which he is now printing 'on the Rock of Names,' so
called because on it they had carved out their initials:
W.W. Wm. Wordsworth.
M.H. Mary W.
D.W. Dorothy Wordsworth.
S.T.C. Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
J.W. John Wordsworth.
S.H. Sarah Hutchinson.
[241] Poems founded on the Affections.
This rock was about a mile beyond Wythburn Chapel, to which they used to
accompany my uncle, in going to Keswick from Grasmere, and where they
would meet him when he returned. This led him to read much of 'The
Waggoner' to me. It seems a very favourite poem of his, and he read me
splendid descriptions from it. He said his object in it had not been
understood. It was a play of the fancy on a domestic incident and lowly
character: he wished by the opening descriptive lines to put his reader
into the state of mind in which he wished it to be read. If he failed in
doing that, he wished him to lay it down. He pointed out, with the same
view, the glowing lines on the state of exultation in which Ben and his
companions are under the influence of liquor. Then he read the sickening
languor of the morning walk, contrasted with the glorious uprising of
Nature, and the songs of the birds. Here he has added about six most
exquisite lines.