at once real and ideal, a truth including exact and accurate detail, and
yet everywhere subordinating mere detail to the spirit of the
whole--this, he affirmed, was the soul and essence not only of
descriptive poetry, but of all poetry. He had often, he told me,
intended to write an essay on poetry, setting forth this principle, and
illustrating it by references to the chief representatives of poetry in
its various departments. It was this twofold truth which made Shakspeare
the greatest of all poets. 'It was well for Shakspeare,' he remarked,
'that he gave himself to the drama. It was that which forced him to be
sufficiently human. His poems would otherwise, from the extraordinarily
metaphysical character of his genius, have been too recondite to be
understood. His youthful poems, in spite of their unfortunate and
unworthy subjects, and his sonnets also, reveal this tendency. Nothing
can surpass the greatness of Shakspeare where he is at his greatest; but
it is wrong to speak of him as if even he were perfect. He had serious
defects, and not those only proceeding from carelessness. For instance,
in his delineations of character he does not assign as large a place to
religious sentiment as enters into the constitution of human nature
under normal circumstances. If his dramas had more religion in them,
they would be truer representations of man, as well as more elevated,
and of a more searching interest.' Wordsworth used to warn young poets
against writing poetry remote from human interest. Dante he admitted to
be an exception; but he considered that Shelley, and almost all others
who had endeavoured to out-soar the humanities, had suffered deplorably
from the attempt. I once heard him say, 'I have often been asked for
advice by young poets. All the advice I can give may be expressed in two
counsels. First, let Nature be your habitual and pleasurable study,
human nature and material nature; secondly, study carefully those
first-class poets whose fame is universal, not local, and learn from
them: learn from them especially how to observe and how to interpret
Nature.'
Those who knew Wordsworth only from his poetry might have supposed that
he dwelt ever in a region too serene to admit of human agitations. This
was not the fact. There was in his being a region of tumult as well as a
higher region of calm, though it was almost wholly in the latter that
his poetry lived. It turned aside from mere _personal_ excitements; and
for that reason, doubtless, it developed more deeply those special
ardours which belong at once to the higher imagination and to the moral
being. The passion which was suppressed elsewhere burned in his 'Sonnets
to Liberty,' and added a deeper sadness to the 'Yew-trees of
Borrowdale.' But his heart, as well as his imagination, was ardent. When
it spoke most powerfully in his poetry it spoke with a stern brevity
unusual in that poetry, as in the poem 'There is a change and I am
poor,' and the still more remarkable one, 'A slumber did my spirit
seal,' a poem impassioned beyond the comprehension of those who fancy
that Wordsworth lacks passion, merely because in him passion is neither
declamatory nor, latently, sensual. He was a man of strong affections,
strong enough on one sorrowful occasion to withdraw him for a time from
poetry.[270]
[270] 'For us the stream of fiction ceased to flow' (Dedicatory Stanzas
to 'The White Doe of Rylstone').
Referring once to two young children of his who had died about forty
years previously, he described the details of their illnesses with an
exactness and an impetuosity of troubled excitement, such as might have
been expected if the bereavement had taken place but a few weeks before.
The lapse of time appeared to have left the sorrow submerged indeed, but
still in all its first freshness. Yet I afterwards heard that at the
time of the illness, at least in the case of one of the two children, it
was impossible to rouse his attention to the danger. He chanced to be
then under the immediate spell of one of those fits of poetic
inspiration which descended on him like a cloud. Till the cloud had
drifted he could see nothing beyond. Under the level of the calm there
was, however, the precinct of the storm. It expressed itself rarely but
vehemently, partaking sometimes of the character both of indignation and
sorrow. All at once the trouble would pass away, and his countenance
bask in its habitual calm, like a cloudless summer sky. His indignation
flamed out vehemently when he heard of a base action. 'I could kick such
a man across England with my naked foot,' I heard him exclaim on such an
occasion. The more impassioned part of his nature connected itself
especially with his political feelings. He regarded his own intellect as
one which united some of the faculties which belong to the statesman
with those which belong to the poet; and public affairs interested him
not less deeply than poetry. It was as patriot, not poet, that he
ventured to claim fellowship with Dante.[271] He did not accept the term
'Reformer,' because it implied an organic change in our institutions,
and this he deemed both needless and dangerous; but he used to say that
while he was a decided Conservative, he remembered that to preserve our
institutions we must be ever improving them. He was, indeed, from first
to last, preÎminently a patriot, an impassioned as well as a thoughtful
one. Yet his political sympathies were not with his own country only,
but with the progress of Humanity. Till disenchanted by the excesses and
follies of the first French revolution, his hopes and sympathies
associated themselves ardently with the new order of things created by
it; and I have heard him say that he did not know how any
generous-minded _young_ man, entering on life at the time of that great
uprising, could have escaped the illusion. To the end his sympathies
were ever with the cottage hearth far more than with the palace. If he
became a strong supporter of what has been called 'the hierarchy of
society,' it was chiefly because he believed the principle of 'equality'
to be fatal to the well-being and the true dignity of the poor.
Moreover, in siding politically with the Crown and the coronets, he
considered himself to be siding with the weaker party in our democratic
days.
[271] See his Sonnet on the seat of Dante, close to the Duomo at
Florence (_Poems of Early and Late Years_).
The absence of love-poetry in Wordsworth's works has often been
remarked upon, and indeed brought as a charge against them. He once told
me that if he had avoided that form of composition, it was by no means
because the theme did not interest him, but because, treated as it
commonly has been, it tends rather to disturb and lower the reader's
moral and imaginative being than to elevate it. He feared to handle it
amiss. He seemed to think that the subject had been so long vulgarised,
that few poets had a right to assume that they could treat it worthily,
especially as the theme, when treated unworthily, was such an easy and
cheap way of winning applause. It has been observed also that the
Religion of Wordsworth's poetry, at least of his earlier poetry, is not
as distinctly 'Revealed Religion' as might have been expected from this
poet's well-known adherence to what he has called emphatically 'The
lord, and mighty paramount of Truths.' He once remarked to me himself on
this circumstance, and explained it by stating that when in youth his
imagination was shaping for itself the channel in which it was to flow,
his religious convictions were less definite and less strong than they
had become on more mature thought, and that when his poetic mind and
manner had once been formed, he feared that he might, in attempting to
modify them, have become constrained. He added that on such matters he
ever wrote with great diffidence, remembering that if there were many
subjects too low for song, there were some too high. Wordsworth's
general confidence in his own powers, which was strong, though far from
exaggerated, rendered more striking and more touching his humility in
all that concerned Religion. It used to remind me of what I once heard
Mr. Rogers say, viz. 'There is a special character of _greatness_ about
humility for it implies that a man can, in an unusual degree, estimate
the _greatness_ of what is above us.' Fortunately his diffidence did not
keep Wordsworth silent on sacred themes; his later poems include an
unequivocal as well as beautiful confession of Christian faith; and one
of them, 'The Primrose of the Rock,' is as distinctly Wordsworthian in
its inspiration as it is Christian in its doctrine. Wordsworth was a
'high churchman,' and also, in his prose mind, strongly anti-Roman
Catholic, partly on political grounds; but that it was otherwise as
regards his mind poetic is obvious from many passages in his Christian
poetry, especially those which refer to the monastic system, and the
Schoolmen, and his sonnet on the Blessed Virgin, whom he addresses as
'Our tainted nature's solitary boast.'
He used to say that the idea of one who was both Virgin and Mother had
sunk so deep into the heart of Humanity, that there it must ever remain.
Wordsworth's estimate of his contemporaries was not generally high. I
remember his once saying to me, 'I have known many that might he called
very _clever_ men, and a good many of real and vigorous _abilities_, but
few of genius; and only one whom I should call "wonderful." That one was
Coleridge. At any hour of the day or night he would talk by the hour, if
there chanced to be _any_ sympathetic listener, and talk better than the
best page of his writings; for a pen half paralysed his genius. A child
would sit quietly at his feet and wonder, till the torrent had passed
by. The only man like Coleridge whom I have known is Sir William
Hamilton, Astronomer Royal of Dublin.' I remember, however, that when I
recited by his fireside Alfred Tennyson's two political poems, 'You ask
me why, though ill at ease,' and 'Of old sat Freedom on the heights,'
the old bard listened with a deepening attention, and when I had ended,
said after a pause, 'I must acknowledge that those two poems are very
solid and noble in thought. Their diction also seems singularly
stately.' He was a great admirer of _Philip van Artevelde_. In the case
of a certain poet since dead, and never popular, he said to me, 'I
consider his sonnets to be the best of modern times;' adding, 'Of course
I am not including my own in any comparison with those of others.' He
was not sanguine as to the future of English poetry. He thought that
there was much to be supplied in other departments of our literature,
and especially he desired a really great History of England; but he was
disposed to regard the roll of English poetry as made up, and as leaving
place for little more except what was likely to be eccentric or
imitational.
In his younger days Wordsworth had had to fight a great battle in
poetry, for both his subjects and his mode of treating them were
antagonistic to the maxims then current. It was fortunate for posterity,
no doubt, that his long 'militant estate' was animated by some mingling
of personal ambition with his love of poetry. Speaking in an early
sonnet of
'The poets, who on earth have made us heirs
Of truth, and pure delight, by heavenly lays,'
he concludes,
'Oh! might my name be numbered among theirs,
Then gladly would I end my mortal days.'
He died at eighty, and general fame did not come to him till about
fifteen years before his death. This perhaps might have been fifteen
years too soon, if he had set any inordinate value on it. But it was not
so. Shelley tells us that' Fame is love disguised;' and it was
intellectual sympathy that Wordsworth had always valued far more than
reputation. 'Give me thy love; I claim no other fee,' had been his
demand on his reader. When Fame had laid her tardy garland at his feet
he found on it no fresher green than his 'Rydalian laurels' had always
worn. Once he said to me, 'It is indeed a deep satisfaction to hope and
believe that my poetry will be, while it lasts, a help to the cause of
virtue and truth--especially among the young. As for myself, it seems
now of little moment how long I may be remembered. When a man pushes off
in his little boat into the great seas of Infinity and Eternity, it
surely signifies little how long he is kept in sight by watchers from
the shore.'
Such are my chief recollections of the great poet, whom I knew but in
his old age, but whose heart retained its youth till his daughter Dora's
death. He seemed to me one who from boyhood had been faithful to a high
vocation; one who had esteemed it his office to minister, in an age of
conventional civilisation, at Nature's altar, and who had in his later
life explained and vindicated such life-long ministration, even while he
seemed to apologise for it, in the memorable confession,
'But who is innocent? By grace divine,
Not otherwise, O Nature, are we thine.'[272]
[272] 'Evening Voluntary.'
It was to Nature as first created, not to Nature as corrupted by
'disnatured' passions, that his song had attributed such high and
healing powers. In singing her praise he had chosen a theme loftier than
most of his readers knew--loftier, as he perhaps eventually discovered,
than he had at first supposed it to be. Utterly without Shakspeare's
dramatic faculty, he was richer and wider in the humanities than any
poet since Shakspeare. Wholly unlike Milton in character and in
opinions, he abounds in passages to be paralleled only by Milton in
solemn and spiritual sublimity, and not even by Milton in pathos. It was
plain to those who knew Wordsworth that he had kept his great gift pure,
and used it honestly and thoroughly for that purpose for which it had
been bestowed. He had ever written with a conscientious reverence for
that gift; but he had also written spontaneously. He had composed with
care--not the exaggerated solicitude which is prompted by vanity, and
which frets itself to unite incompatible excellences; but the diligence
which shrinks from no toil while eradicating blemishes that confuse a
poem's meaning, and frustrate its purpose. He regarded poetry as an art;
but he also regarded Art not as the compeer of Nature, much less her
superior, but as her servant and interpreter. He wrote poetry likewise,
no doubt, in a large measure, because self-utterance was an essential
law of his nature. If he had a companion, he discoursed like one whose
thoughts must needs run on in audible current; if he walked alone among
his mountains, he murmured old songs. He was like a pine grove, vocal as
well as visible. But to poetry he had dedicated himself as to the
utterance of the highest truths brought within the range of his life's
experience; and if his poetry has been accused of egotism, the charge
has come from those who did not perceive that it was with a human, not a
mere personal interest that he habitually watched the processes of his
own mind. He drew from the fountain that was nearest at hand what he
hoped might be a refreshment to those far off. He once said, speaking of
a departed man of genius, who had lived an unhappy life and deplorably
abused his powers, to the lasting calamity of his country, 'A great poet
must be a great man; and a great man must be a good man; and a good man
ought to be a happy man.' To know Wordsworth was to feel sure that if he
had been a great poet, it was not merely because he had been endowed
with a great imagination, but because he had been a good man, a great
man, and a man whose poetry had, in an especial sense, been the
expression of a healthily happy moral being.
AUBREY DE VERE.
Curragh Chase, March 31, 1875.
P.S. Wordsworth was by no means without humour. When the Queen on one
occasion gave a masked ball, some one said that a certain youthful poet,
who has since reached a deservedly high place both in the literary and
political world, but who was then known chiefly as an accomplished and
amusing young man of society, was to attend it dressed in the character
of the father of English poetry, grave old Chaucer. 'What,' said
Wordsworth, 'M. go as Chaucer! Then it only remains for me to go as M.!'
* * * * *
PART II.
SONNET--RYDAL WITH WORDSWORTH.
BY THE LATE SIR AUBREY DE VERE.
'What we beheld scarce can I now recall
In one connected picture; images
Hurrying so swiftly their fresh witcheries
O'er the mind's mirror, that the several
Seems lost, or blended in the mighty all.
Lone lakes; rills gushing through rock-rooted trees:
Peaked mountains shadowing vales of peacefulness:
Glens echoing to the flashing waterfall.
Then that sweet twilight isle! with friends delayed
Beside a ferny bank 'neath oaks and yews;
The moon between two mountain peaks embayed;
Heaven and the waters dyed with sunset hues:
And he, the Poet of the age and land,
Discoursing as we wandered hand in hand.'
The above-written sonnet is the record of a delightful day spent by my
father in 1833 with Wordsworth at Rydal, to which he went from the still
more beautiful shores of Ulswater, where he had been sojourning at
Halsteads. He had been one of Wordsworth's warmest admirers, when their
number was small, and in 1842 he dedicated a volume of poems to
him.[273] He taught me when a boy of 18 years old to admire the great
bard. I had been very enthusiastically praising Lord Byron's poetry. My
father calmly replied, 'Wordsworth is the great poet of modern times.'
Much surprised, I asked, 'And what may his special merits be?' The
answer was, 'They are very various, as for instance, depth, largeness,
elevation, and, what is rare in modern poetry, an _entire_ purity. In
his noble "Laodamia" they are chiefly majesty and pathos.' A few weeks
afterwards I chanced to take from the library shelves a volume of
Wordsworth, and it opened on 'Laodamia.' Some strong, calm hand seemed
to have been laid on my head, and bound me to the spot, till I had come
to the end. As I read, a new world, hitherto unimagined, opened itself
out, stretching far away into serene infinitudes. The region was one to
me unknown, but the harmony of the picture attested its reality. Above
and around were indeed
[273] _A Song of Faith, Devout Exercises, and Sonnets_ (Pickering). The
Dedication closed thus: 'I may at least hope to be named hereafter among
the friends of Wordsworth.'
'An ampler ether, a diviner air,
And fields invested with purpureal gleams;'
and when I reached the line,
'Calm pleasures there abide--majestic pains,'
I felt that no tenants less stately could walk in so lordly a precinct.
I had been translated into another planet of song--one with larger
movements and a longer year. A wider conception of poetry had become
mine, and the Byronian enthusiasm fell from me like a bond that is
broken by being outgrown. The incident illustrates poetry in one of its
many characters, that of 'the deliverer.' The ready sympathies and
inexperienced imagination of youth make it surrender itself easily
despite its better aspirations, or in consequence of them, to a false
greatness; and the true greatness, once revealed, sets it free. As early
as 1824 Walter Savage Landor, in his 'Imaginary Conversation' between
Southey and Porson, had pronounced Wordsworth's 'Laodamia' to be 'a
composition such as Sophocles might have exulted to own, and a part of
which might have been heard with shouts of rapture in the regions he
describes'--the Elysian Fields.
Wordsworth frequently spoke of death, as if it were the taking of a new
degree in the University of Life. 'I should like,' he remarked to a
young lady, 'to visit Italy again before I move to another planet.' He
sometimes made a mistake in assuming that others were equally
philosophical. We were once breakfasting at the house of Mr. Rogers,
when Wordsworth, after gazing attentively round the room with a
benignant and complacent expression, turned to our host, and wishing to
compliment him, said, 'Mr. Rogers, I never see this house, so perfect in
its taste, so exquisite in all its arrangements, and decorated with
such well-chosen pictures, without fancying it the very house imaged to
himself by the Roman poet, when, in illustration of man's mortality, he
says, "Linquenda est domus."' 'What is that you are saying?' replied Mr.
Rogers, whose years, between eighty and ninety, had not improved his
hearing. 'I was remarking that your house,' replied Wordsworth, 'always
reminds me of the Ode (more properly called an Elegy, though doubtless
the lyrical measure not unnaturally causes it to be included among
Horace's Odes) in which the Roman poet writes "Linquenda est domus;"
that is, since, ladies being present, a translation may be deemed
desirable, _The house is_, or _has to be, left_; and again, "et placens
uxor"--and the pleasing wife; though, as we must all regret, that part
of the quotation is not applicable on the present occasion.' The Town
Bard, on whom 'no angle smiled' more than the end of St. James's-place,
did not enter into the views of the Bard of the Mountains. His answer
was what children call 'making a great face,' and the ejaculation,
'Don't talk Latin in, the society of ladies.' When I was going away he
remarked, 'What a stimulus the mountain air has on the appetite! I made
a sign to Edmund to hand him the cutlets a second time. I was afraid he
would stick his fork into that beautiful woman who sat next him.'
Wordsworth never resented a jest at his own expense. Once when we had
knocked three times in vain at the door of a London house, I exclaimed,
quoting his sonnet written on Westminster-bridge,
'Dear God, the very houses seem asleep.'
He laughed heartily, then smiled gravely, and lastly recounted the
occasion, and described the early morning on which that sonnet was
written. He did not recite more than a part of it, to the accompaniment
of distant cab and carriage; and I thought that the door was opened too
soon.
Wordsworth, despite his dislike to great cities, was attracted
occasionally in his later years
'To the proud margin of the Thames,
And Lambeth's venerable towers,'
where his society was courted by persons of the most different
character. But he complained bitterly of the great city. It was next to
impossible, he remarked, to tell the truth in it. 'Yesterday I was at
S. House: the Duchess of S., showing me the pictures, observed, "This is
the portrait of my brother" (naming him), "and it is considered very
like." To this I assented, partly perhaps in absence of mind, but
partly, I think, with an impression that her Grace's brother was
probably a person whose face every one knew, or was expected to know; so
that, as I had never met him, my answer was in fact a lie! It is too bad
that, when more than seventy years old, I should be brought from the
mountains to London in order to tell a lie!' He made his complaint
wherever he went, laying the blame, however, not so much on himself, or
on the Duchess, as on the corrupt city; and some of those who learned
how the most truthful man in England had thus quickly been subverted by
metropolitan snares came to the conclusion that within a few years more
no virtue would be left extant in the land. He was likewise maltreated
in lesser ways. 'This morning I was compelled by my engagements to eat
three breakfasts--one with an aged and excellent gentleman, who may
justly be esteemed an accomplished man of letters, although I cannot
honestly concede to him the title of a poet; one at a fashionable party;
and one with an old friend whom no pressure would induce me to
neglect--although for this, my first breakfast to-day, I was obliged to
name the early hour of seven o'clock, as he lives in a remote part of
London.'
But it was only among his own mountains that Wordsworth could be
understood. He walked among them not so much to admire them as to
converse with them. They exchanged thoughts with him, in sunshine or
flying shadow, giving him their own and accepting his. Day and night, at
all hours, and in all weather, he would face them. If it rained, he
might fling his plaid over him, but would take no admonition. He must
have his way. On such occasions, dutiful as he was in higher matters, he
remained incurably wayward. In vain one reminded him that a letter
needed an answer, or that the storm would soon be over. It was very
necessary for him to do what he liked; and one of his dearest friends
said to me, with a smile of the most affectionate humour, 'He wrote his
"Ode to Duty," and then he had done with that matter.' This very
innocent form of lawlessness, corresponding with the classic expression,
'Indulge genio,' seemed to belong to his genius, not less than the
sympathetic reverence with which he looked up to the higher and
universal laws. Sometimes there was a battle between his reverence for
Nature and his reverence for other things. The friend already alluded to
was once remarking on his varying expressions of countenance. 'That
rough old face is capable of high and real beauty; I have seen in it an
expression quite of heavenly peace and contemplative delight, as the May
breeze came over him from the woods while he was slowly walking out of
church on a Sunday morning, and when he had half emerged from the
shadow.' A flippant person present inquired, 'Did you ever chance, Miss
F., to observe that heavenly expression on his countenance, as he was
walking into church, on a fine May morning?' A laugh was the reply. The
ways of Nature harmonised with his feelings in age as well as in youth.
He could understand no estrangement. Gathering a wreath of white thorn
on one occasion, he murmured, as he slipped it into the ribbon which
bound the golden tresses of his youthful companion,
'And what if I enwreathed my own?
'Twere no offence to reason;
The sober hills thus deck their brows
To meet the wintry season.'
* * * * *
(_k_) FROM 'RECOLLECTIONS OF THE LAST DAYS OF SHELLEY AND BYRON.'
BY E.J. TRELAWNY. 1858 (MOXON).
Some days after this conversation I walked to Lausanne, to breakfast at
the hotel with an old friend, Captain Daniel Roberts, of the navy. He
was out sketching, but presently came in accompanied by two English
ladies, with whom he had made acquaintance whilst drawing, and whom he
brought to our hotel. The husband of one of them soon followed. I saw by
their utilitarian garb, as well as by the blisters and blotches on their
cheeks, lips, and noses, that they were pedestrian tourists, fresh from
the snow-covered mountains, the blazing sun and frosty air having acted
on their unseasoned skins as boiling water does on the lobster by dyeing
his dark coat scarlet. The man was evidently a denizen of the north, his
accent harsh, skin white, of an angular and bony build, and
self-confident and dogmatic in his opinions. The precision and
quaintness of his language, as well as his eccentric remarks on common
things, stimulated my mind. Our icy islanders thaw rapidly when they
have drifted into warmer latitudes: broken loose from its anti-social
system, mystic castes, coteries, sets, and sects, they lay aside their
purse-proud, tuft-hunting, and toadying ways, and are very apt to run
risk in the enjoyment of all their senses. Besides, we were compelled to
talk in strange company, if not from good breeding, to prove our breed,
as the gift of speech is often our principal, if not sole, distinction
from the rest of the brute animals.
To return to our breakfast. The travellers, flushed with health,
delighted with their excursion, and with appetites earned by bodily and
mental activity, were in such high spirits that Roberts and I caught the
infection of their mouth; we talked as loud and fast as if under the
exhilarating influence of champagne, instead of such a sedative compound
as _cafÈ au lait_. I can rescue nothing out of oblivion but a few last
words. The stranger expressed his disgust at the introduction of
carriages into the mountain districts of Switzerland, and at the old
fogies who used them.
'As to the arbitrary, pitiless, godless wretches,' he exclaimed, 'who
have removed Nature's landmarks by cutting roads through Alps and
Apennines, until all things are reduced to the same dead level, they
will he arraigned hereafter with the unjust: they have robbed the best
specimens of what men should be of their freeholds in the mountains; the
eagle, the black cock, and the red deer they have tamed or exterminated.
The lover of Nature can nowhere find a solitary nook to contemplate her
beauties. Yesterday,' he continued, 'at the break of day, I scaled the
most rugged height within my reach; it looked inaccessible; this
pleasant delusion was quickly dispelled; I was rudely startled out of a
deep reverie by the accursed jarring, jingling, and rumbling of a
calËche, and harsh voices that drowned the torrent's fall.'
The stranger, now hearing a commotion in the street, sprang on his feet,
looked out of the window, and rang the bell violently.
'Waiter,' he said, 'is that our carriage? Why did you not tells us?
Come, lasses, be stirring; the freshness of the day is gone. You may
rejoice in not having to walk; there is a chance of saving the remnants
of skin the sun has left on our chins and noses; to-day we shall he
stewed instead of barbecued.'
On their leaving the room to get ready for their journey, my friend
Roberts told me the strangers were the poet Wordsworth, his wife and
sister.
Who could have divined this? I could see no trace, in the hard features
and weather-stained brow of the outer man, of the divinity within him.
In a few minutes the travellers reappeared; we cordially shook hands,
and agreed to meet again at Geneva. Now that I knew that I was talking
to one of the veterans of the gentle craft, as there was no time to
waste in idle ceremony, I asked him abruptly what he thought of Shelley
as a poet.
'Nothing,' he replied as abruptly.
Seeing my surprise, he added, 'A poet who has not produced a good poem
before he is twenty-five we may conclude cannot and never will do so.'
'The "Cenci"!' I said eagerly.
'Won't do,' he replied, shaking his head, as he got into the carriage: a
rough-coated Scotch terrier followed him.
'This hairy fellow is our flea-trap,' he shouted out as they started
off.
When I recovered from the shock of having heard the harsh sentence
passed by an elder bard on a younger brother of the Muses, I exclaimed,
'After all, poets are but earth. It is the old story,--envy--Cain and
Abel. Professions, sects, and communities in general, right or wrong,
hold together, men of the pen excepted; if one of their guild is worsted
in the battle, they do as the rooks do by their inky brothers--fly from
him, cawing and screaming; if they don't fire the shot, they sound the
bugle to charge.'
I did not then know that the full-fledged author never reads the
writings of his contemporaries, except to cut them up in a review, that
being a work of love. In after years, Shelley being dead, Wordsworth
confessed this fact; he was then induced to read some of Shelley's
poems, and admitted that Shelley was the greatest master of harmonious
verse in our modern literature. (Pp. 4-8.)[274]
[274] See our Index, under Shelley, G.
(_l_) FROM 'LETTERS, EMBRACING HIS LIFE, OF JOHN JAMES TAYLER, B.A.,
PROFESSOR OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY AND BIBLICAL THEOLOGY, AND PRINCIPAL
OF MANCHESTER NEW COLLEGE. LONDON, 1872' (TWO VOLS. 8vo).
Spring Cottage, Loughrigg, Ambleside, July 26. 1826.
Rydal, where we now are, has an air of repose and seclusion which I have
rarely seen surpassed; the first few days we were here we perfectly
luxuriated in the purity and sweetness of the air and the delicious
stillness of its pastures and woods. It is interesting, too, on another
account, as being the residence of the poet Wordsworth: his house is
about a quarter of a mile from ours; and since Osler joined us we have
obtained an introduction to him, and he favoured us with his company at
tea one evening last week. He is a very interesting man, remarkably
simple in his manners, full of enthusiasm and eloquence in conversation,
especially on the subject of his favourite art--poetry--which he seems
to have studied in a very philosophical spirit, and about which he
entertains some peculiar opinions. Spenser, Shakspeare, and Milton are
his favourites among the English poets, especially the latter, whom he
almost idolises. He expressed one opinion which rather surprised me, and
in which I could not concur--that he preferred the 'Samson Agonistes' to
'Comus.' He recited in vindication of his judgment one very fine passage
from the former poem, and in a very striking manner; his voice is deep
and pathetic, and thrills with feeling. He is Toryish--at least what
would he considered so--in his political principles, though he disclaims
all connection with party, and certainly argues with great fairness and
temper on controverted topics, such as Parliamentary Reform and Catholic
Emancipation. We took a long walk with him the other evening, to the
scene of one of his Pastorals in the neighbourhood of Grasmere. He has a
good deal of general conversation, and has more the manners of a man of
the world than I should have expected from his poems; but his discourse
indicates great simplicity and purity of mind; indeed, nothing renders
his conversation more interesting than the unaffected tone of elevated
morality and devotion which pervades it. We have been reading his long
poem, the 'Excursion,' since we came here. I particularly recommend it
to your notice, barring some few extra vagancies into which his
peculiar theory has led him: his fourth book, the last, contains
specimens both of versification, sentiment, and imagery, scarcely
inferior to what you will find in the best passages of Milton. He spoke
with great plainness, and yet with candour, of his contemporaries. He
admitted the power of Byron in describing the workings of human passion,
but denied that he knew anything of the beauties of Nature, or succeeded
in describing them with fidelity. This he illustrated by examples. He
spoke with deserved severity of Byron's licentiousness and contempt of
religious decorum. He told us he thought the greatest of modern
geniuses, had he given his powers a proper direction, and one decidedly
superior to Byron, was Shelley, a young man, author of 'Queen Mab,' who
died lately at Rome. (Vol. i. pp. 72-4.)
Manchester, July 16. 1830.
....Though I am busy, I feel rather melancholy; and I am continually
reminded how sad my life would be without the society and affection of
those we love, and how terribly awful the dispensation of death must be
to those who cannot anticipate a future reunion, and regard it as the
utter extinction of all human interests and affections. I am solacing
myself with Wordsworth. Do you know, I shall become a thorough convert
to him. Much of his poetry is delicious, and I perfectly adore his
philosophy. To me he seems the purest, the most elevated, and the most
Christian of poets. I delight in his deep and tender piety, and his
spirit of exquisite sympathy with whatever is lovely and grand in the
breathing universe around us. (Vol. i. p. 86.)
* * * * *
(_m_) ANECDOTE OF CRABBE.
FROM 'DIARY OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.'
Talking of Wordsworth, he [W.] told Anne a story, the object of which,
as she understood it, was to show that Crabbe had no imagination.
Crabbe, Sir George Beaumont, and Wordsworth were sitting together in
Murray's room in Albemarle-street. Sir George, after sealing a letter,
blew out the candle which had enabled him to do so, and exchanging a
look with Wordsworth, began to admire in silence the undulating thread
of smoke which slowly arose from the expiring wick, when Crabbe put on
the extinguisher. Anne laughed at the instance, and inquired if the
taper was wax; and being answered in the negative, seemed to think that
there was no call on Mr. Crabbe to sacrifice his sense of smell to their
admiration of beautiful and evanescent forms. In two other men I should
have said, 'Why, it is affectations,' with Sir Hugh Evans ['Merry Wives
of Windsor,' act i. scene 1]; but Sir George is the man in the world
most void of affectation; and then he is an exquisite painter, and no
doubt saw where the _incident_ would have succeeded in painting. The
error is not in you yourself receiving deep impressions from slight
hints, but in supposing that precisely the same sort of impression must
arise in the mind of men otherwise of kindred feeling, or that the
common-place folk of the world can derive such inductions at any time or
under any circumstances.[275]
* * * * *
(_n_) LATER OPINION OF LOUD BROUGHAM.
I am just come from breakfasting with Henry Taylor to meet Wordsworth;
the same party as when he had Southey--Mill, Elliot, Charles Villiers.
Wordsworth may be bordering on sixty; hard-featured, brown, wrinkled,
with prominent teeth and a few scattered gray hairs, but nevertheless
not a disagreeable countenance; and very cheerful, merry, courteous, and
talkative, much more so than I should have expected from the grave and
didactic character of his writings. He held forth on poetry, painting,
politics, and metaphysics, and with a great deal of eloquence; he is
more conversible and with a greater flow of animal spirits than Southey.
He mentioned that he never wrote down as he composed, but composed
walking, riding, or in bed, and wrote down after; that Southey always
composes at his desk. He talked a great deal of Brougham, whose talents
and domestic virtues he greatly admires; that he was very generous and
affectionate in his disposition, full of duty and attention to his
mother, and had adopted and provided for a whole family of his brother's
children, and treats his wife's children as if they were his own. He
insisted upon taking them both with him to the Drawing-room the other
day when he went in state as Chancellor. They remonstrated with him, but
in vain.[276]
[275] 'Diary of Sir Walter Scott,' _Life_, by Lockhart, as before, vol.
ix. pp. 62-3.
[276] _The Greville Memoirs_. A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV.
and King William IV. By the late Charles C.F. Greville, Esq., Clerk of
the Council to those Sovereigns. Edited by Henry Reeve, Registrar of the
Privy Council. 3 vols. 8vo, fourth edition, 1875. Vol. ii. p. 120.
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
P. 5. Footnotes: 5a, 'Intake.' Cf. p. 436 (bottom).
P. 6, l. 6. 'Gives one bright glance,' &c. From 'The Seasons,' l. 175,
from the end of 'Summer.' Originally (1727) this line ran, 'Gives one
faint glimmer, and then disappears.'
P. 17, l. 2. Shelvocke's 'Voyages:' 'A Voyage round the World, by the
Way of the Great South Sea.' 1726, 8vo; 2d edition, 1757.
P. 22, l. 27. Milton, History of England, &c. 'The History of Britain,
that Part especially now called England; from the first traditional
Beginning, continued to the Norman Conquest. In six Books.' Lond. 1670.
(Works by Mitford, Prose, iii. pp. 1-301.)
P. 24, l. 28. Hearne's 'Journey,' &c.; viz. Samuel Hearne's 'Journey
from the Prince of Wales's Fort in Hudson's Bay to the Northern Ocean.'
1795, 4to.
P. 31, l. 12. Waterton's 'Wanderings,' &c.; viz. Charles Waterton's
'Wanderings in South America, the North-West of the United States, and
the Antilles.' 1825, 4to. Many subsequent editions, being a book that
has taken its place beside Walton's 'Angler' and White's 'Selborne.'
P. 32, l. 11. James Montgomery's 'Field Flower.' Nothing gratified this
'sweet Singer' so much as these words of Wordsworth. He used to point
them out to visitors if the conversation turned, or was directed, to
Wordsworth. The particular poem is a daintily-touched one, found in all
the editions of his Poems.
P. 32, l. 33. 'Has not Chaucer noticed it [the small Celandine]'?
Certainly not under this name, nor apparently under any other.
P. 33, l. 2. 'Frederica Brun.' More exactly Frederike. She was a minor
poetess; imitator of Matthison, whose own poems can hardly be called
original. (See Gostwick and Harrison's 'Outlines of German Literature,'
p. 355, cxxiii., 7th period, 1770-1830.)
P. 36, ll. 13-15. Quotation from Thomson, 'The Seasons,' 'Summer,' l.
980.
P. 44, l. 17. Quotation from Sir John Beaumont, 'The Battle of Bosworth
Field,' l. 100. (Poems in the Fuller Worthies' Library, p. 29.)
Accurately it is, 'The earth assists thee with the cry of blood.'
P. 47, ll. 17-19. 'The Triad.' Sara Coleridge thus wrote of this poem:
'Look at "The Triad," written by Mr. Wordsworth four-or five-and-twenty
years ago. That poem contains a poetical glorification of Edith Southey
(now W.), of Dora, and of myself. There is _truth_ in the sketch of
Dora, poetic truth, though such as none but a poet-father would have
seen. She was unique in her sweetness and goodness. I mean that her
character was most peculiar--a compound of vehemence of feeling and
gentleness, sharpness and lovingness, which is not often seen' ('Memoirs
and Letters of Sara Coleridge, edited by her Daughter,' 2 vols. 8vo, 3d
edition, 1873, p. 68). Later: 'I do confess that I have never been able
to rank "The Triad" among Mr. Wordsworth's immortal works of genius. It
is just what he came into the poetical world to condemn, and both by
practice and theory to supplant. It is to my mind _artificial_ and
_unreal_. There is no truth in it as a whole, although bits of truth,
glazed and magnified, are embodied in it, as in the lines, "Features to
old ideal grace allied"--a most unintelligible allusion to a likeness
discovered in dear Dora's contour of countenance to the great Memnon
head in the British Museum, with its overflowing lips and width of
mouth, which seems to be typical of the ocean. The poem always strikes
me as a mongrel,' &c. (p. 352).
P. 56, l. 7. 'Mr. Duppa.' See note in Vol. II. on p. 163, l. 2.
P. 56, l. 27. '179--.' _Sic_ in the MS. He died in January 1795.
P. 60, l. 16. 'Mr. Westall;' viz. William Westall's 'View of the Caves
near Ingleton, Gosdale Scar, and Malham Cove, in Yorkshire.' 1818,
folio.
P. 62, l. 31. 'The itinerant Eidouranian philosopher,' &c. Query--the
Walker of the book on the Lakes noticed in Vol. II. on p. 217?
P. 63, l. 6. 'I have reason,' &c. Cf. Letter to Sir W.R. Hamilton, first
herein printed, pp. 310-11.
P. 68, l. 24. Dampier's' Voyages, 'etc.; viz.' Collection of Voyages.'
London, 1729, 4 vols. 8vo.
P. 72, l. 29. 'Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke.' His complete Works in Verse
and Prose are given in the Fuller Worthies' Library, 4 vols.
P. 76, l. 14. Spenser. An apparent misrecollection of the 'Fairy Queen,'
b. iii. c. viii. st. 32, l. 7, 'Had her from so infamous fact assoyld.'
P. 78, l. 6. 'Armstrong;' _i.e._ Dr. John Armstrong, whose 'Art of
Preserving Health,' under an unpromising title, really contains splendid
things. His portrait in the 'Castle of Indolence' is his most certain
passport to immortality.
P. 80, l. 21. 'The Last Supper of Leonardo da Vinci.' A reproduction of
the head of our Blessed Lord, taken from the fresco (photograph), is
given in the quarto edition of Southwell's complete Poems in the Fuller
Worthies' Library--none the less precious that it pathetically reveals
the marks of Time's 'effacing fingers.' No engraving approaches the
'power' of this autotype of the supreme original.
P. 88, l. 32. 'Faber.' Among the treasures (unpublished) of the
Wordsworth Correspondence are various remarkable letters of Faber--one,
very singular, announcing his going over to the Church of Rome.
P. 90, l. 34. 'Mr. Robinson.' Cf. 'Reminiscences' onward.
P. 97, ll. 9-10, &c. 'Dyer.' Cf. note, Vol. II., on p. 296, l. 35.
P. 97, l. 18. 'Mr. Crowe;' _i.e._ Rev. William Crowe, Public Orator of
Oxford. His poem was originally published in 1786 (4to); reprinted 1804
(12mo).
P. 98, l. 19. 'Armstrong.' See on p. 78, l. 6.
P. 98, l. 20. 'Burns.' Verse-Epistle to William Simpson, st. 13; but for
'nae' read 'na,' and for 'na' read 'no.'
P. 101, l. 9. 'Rev. Joseph Sympson.' This poet, so pleasantly noticed by
Wordsworth, appears in none of the usual bibliographical authorities.
Curiously enough, his 'Vision of Alfred' was republished in the United
States--Philadelphia.
P. 116, ll. 33-34. Quotation, Shakspeare, 'Henry VIII.' iii. 2.
P. 120, l. 22. Quotation from Milton, 'Paradise Lost,' viii. l. 282.
P. 125, l. 4. 'Mr. Hazlitt quoted,' &c. See Index, _s.n._ for
Wordsworth's estimate of Hazlitt; also our Preface.
P. 130, l. 17. Hill at St. Alban's. See 'Eccl. Hist.' _s.n._
P. 130, l. 31. 'Germanus.' Bede, 'Eccl. Hist.' b. ii. c. xvi.
P. 131, l. 10. 'Fuller;' viz. his 'Church History.'
P. 131, l. 16. 'Turner.' The late laborious Sharon Turner, whose
'Histories' are still kept in print (apparently).
P. 131, l. 21. 'Paulinus.' Bede, 'Eccl. Hist.' b. ii. c. xvi.
P. 131, l. 26. 'King Edwin.' Bede, 'Eccl. Hist.' b. ii. c. xiii.
P. 136, l. 28. 'An old and much-valued friend in Oxfordshire;' viz. Rev.
Robert Jones, as before.
P. 137, l. 10. 'Dyer's History of Cambridge,' 2 vols. 8vo, 1814.
P. 137, l. 14. 'Burnet,' in his 'History of the Reformation;' many
editions.
P. 119, ll. 4-5. Latin verse-quotation, Ovid, 'Metam.' viii. 163, 164.
P. 151, l. 11. 'Charlotte Smith.' It seems a pity that the Poems of this
genuine Singer should have gone out of sight.
P. 155, l. 31. 'Russel.' Should be Russell. Some very beautiful Sonnets
of his appear in Dyce's well-known collection, and to it doubtless
Wordsworth was indebted for his knowledge of Russell. He has cruelly
passed out of memory.
P. 165, ll. 7-9. 'Is not the first stanza of Gray's,' etc. Gray himself
prefixed these lines from Aeschylus, 'Agam.' 181:
[Greek: ZÍna
* * * * *
ton phronein brotous hodÙ-
santa, ton pathos
thenta kuriÙs echein.]
He seems to have been rather indebted to Dionysius' Ode to Nemesis, v.
Aratus.
P. 182, l. 9. 'Dr. Darwin's _Zoonomia_;' _i.e._ 'The Laws of Organic
Life,' 1794-96, 2 vols. 4to.
P. 182, l. 24. 'Peter Henry Bruce ... entertaining Memoirs.' Published
1782, 4to.
P. 185, ll. 2-3. Verse-quotation, from Milton, 'Il Penseroso,' ll.
109-110.
P. 190, l. 27. 'Light will be thrown,' &c. We have still to deplore that
the Letters of Lamb are even at this later day either withheld or
sorrowfully mutilated; _e.g._ among the Wordsworth Correspondence
(unpublished) is a whole sheaf of letters in their finest vein from Lamb
and his sister. Some of the former are written in black and red ink in
alternate lines, and overflow with all his deepest and quaintest
characteristics. His sister's are charming. The same might be said of
nearly all Wordsworth's greatest contemporaries. Surely these MSS. will
not much longer be kept in this inexplicable and, I venture to say,
scarcely pardonable seclusion?
P. 192, foot-note. This deliciously _naÔve_ note of 'Dora' to her
venerated father suggests that it is due similarly to demur--with all
respect--to the representation given of Mrs. Hemans (pp. 193-4). Three
things it must be permitted me to recall: (_a_) That the 'brevity's
sake' hardly condones the fulness of statement of an imagined ignorance
of 'housewifery' on the part of Mrs. Hemans. (_b_) That a visitor for a
few days in a family could scarcely be expected to set about using her
needle in home duties. (_c_) That unquestionable testimony, furnished me
by those who knew her intimately, warrant me to state that Wordsworth
was mistaken in supposing that Mrs. Hemans 'could as easily have managed
the spear of Minerva as her needle.' Her brave and beautiful life, and
her single-handed upbringing of her many boys worthily, make one deeply
regret that such sweeping generalisation from a narrow and hasty
observation should have been indulged in. My profound veneration for
Wordsworth does not warrant my suppression of the truth in this matter.
Be it remembered, too, that other expressions of Wordsworth largely
qualify the present ungracious judgment.
P. 209, l. 8. 'Lord Ashley.' Now the illustrious and honoured Earl of
Shaftesbury.
P. 212, l. 17. 'Burnet;' _i.e._ Thomas Burnet, whose Latin treatise was
published in 1681 and 1689; in English, 1684 and 1689. Imaginative
genius will be found in this uncritical and unscientific book.
P. 214, l. 12. 'The Hurricane,' &c.; viz. 'The Hurricane; a Theosophical
and Western Eclogue,' &c. 1797; reprinted 1798.
P. 216, ll. 4-5. Quotation from Coleridge, from 'Sibylline Leaves,'
Inscription for a Fountain on a Heath.
P. 216, l. 29. 'Dr. Bell.' Southey edited the bulky Correspondence of
this pioneer of our better education, in 3 vols. 8vo.
P. 233, ll. 34-36. 'They have been treated,' &c. ('Evening Walk,' &c.,
1794.)
P. 247, foot-note [A]. De Quincey, in his 'Recollections of the Lakes
and the Lake Poets, Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Southey' (Works, vol. ii.
pp. 151-6), gives a very realistic _exposÈ_ of the Lonsdales--abating
considerably the glow of Wordsworth's recurring praise and homage.
P. 255, l. 31. 'History of Cleveland.' The book is by the Rev. John
Graves, and is entitled 'The History of Cleveland in the North Riding of
the County of York.' Carlisle, 1808. Wordsworth is unjust: it is a
deserving work, if o' times inevitably dry.
P. 285, l.1. 'Francis Edgeworth's "Dramatic Fragment."' This was Francis
Beaufort Edgeworth, half-brother of Maria Edgeworth.
P. 285, ll. 29-30. 'Spectator.' From No. 46, April 23, 1711, one of
Addison's own charming papers in his lighter vein of raillery.
P. 280, ll. 13-16. 'Mr. Page;' viz. Frederick Page, author of (_a_) 'The
Principle of the English Poor Laws illustrated and defended by an
Historical View of Indigence in Civil Society.' Bath, 1822. (_b_)
'Observations on the State of the Indigent Poor in Ireland, and the
existing Institutions for their Relief.' London, 1830.
P. 290, ll. 25-27. Verse-quotation, from Milton, 'Paradise Regained,' b.
iii. ll. 337-9.
P. 293, l. 1. Letter to Hamilton. The Rev. R.P. Graves,
M.A.--Wordsworth's friend--is engaged in preparing a Life of this
preeminent mathematician and many-gifted man of genius, than whom there
seems to have been no contemporary who so deeply impressed Wordsworth
intellectually, or so won his heart. The 'Poems' of Miss Hamilton (1
vol. 1838) sparkle with beauties, often unexpected as the flash of gems.
Space can only be found for one slight specimen of her gift in 'Lines
written in Miss Dora Wordsworth's Album,' as follows:
'It is not now that I can speak, while still
Thy lakes, thy hills, thyself are in my sight;
I would be quiet--for the thoughts that fill
My spirit's urn are a confused delight;
They must have time to settle to the clear
Untroubled calm of memory, ere they show,
True as the water-depths around thee here,
These images, that then will come and go,
An everlasting joy. Far, far away
As life, extends the shadow of to-day;
And keenlier present from the past will come
Thy sweet laugh's freshness pure, with all the poet's home.
'_Rydal Mount_. 1830.'
'The Boys' School' is the title of Miss Hamilton's poem referred to by
Wordsworth. It occurs in the volume, pp. 126-131. Her brother's was one
commencing, 'It haunts me yet.' The 'Mr. Nimmo' of this letter was a
civil engineer connected with the Ordnance Survey of Ireland.
P. 299, l. 18; 300, l. 8, &c. 'Countess of Winchelsea.' Sad to say, a
collection of this remarkable English gentlewoman's Poems remains still
an unfurnished _desideratum_.
P. 306, l. 11. 'The Duchess of Newcastle.' Edward Jenkins, Esq. M.P.,
has recently collected some of the Poems of this lady and her lord in a
pretty little volume, which he entitles, 'The Cavalier and the Lady.'
P. 312, l. 32. 'Eschylus and the eagle. 'The reference doubtless is to
Aeschylus' 'Prometheus Vinctus,' l. 1042:
[Greek:
Dids de toi
ptÍnos kuÙn, daphoinos aietos.]
Compare
'Aischulos' bronze-throat _eagle-bark_ at blood
Has somehow spoiled my taste for twitterings.'
Robert Browning, 'Aristophanes' Apology' (1875), p. 94.
P. 321, ll. 32-3. Verse-quotation, from 'Macbeth,' viz. i. 3.
P. 333, l. 2. 'Russell.' Before misspelled 'Russel' (p. 155).
P. 337, ll. 17-18. 'Auld Robin Grey' [= Gray], by Lady Ann Lindsay.
'Lament for the Defeat,' &c., viz. 'The Flowers of the Forest,' by (1)
Mrs. Cockburn; 'I've seen the smiling,' &c. (2), Miss Jane Elliot. 'I've
heard the lilting,' &c.
P. 342, l. 1. 'Shakspeare.' Quotation from Sonnet lxxiii.
P. 380, ll. 6-7. Horace, Ep. i. l, 8-9.
P. 382, ll. 27-9. Southey's Letters. Admirably done by his son Cuthbert
in many volumes. The seeming over-quantity have been reduced (to the
look) by the American reproduction in a single handsome volume.
P. 394. Heading of Letter 144. 'Of the' has by misadventure slipped in a
second time here. Read, 'Of the Heresiarch Church of Rome.'
P. 449, l. 34 onward. Mrs. Wordsworth. My excellent Correspondent the
Rev. R.P. Graves, of Dublin, thus writes me of Mrs. Wordsworth: 'I
forget whether it has been put on record, as it certainly deserves to
be, that Wordsworth habitually referred to his wife for the help of her
judgment on his poems. Mrs. Wordsworth did not indeed possess the
creative and colouring power of imagination that belonged to his sister
as well as to himself; but her simple truthfulness, her strong good
sense (which no sophistry could impose upon), and her delicate feeling
for propriety, rendered her judgment a test of utmost value with regard
to any subjects of which it could take adequate cognisance. And these
were confined within no narrow range--the workings of Nature as it lived
and moved around her, social equities and charities, religious and moral
truth, tried by the heart as well as by the head, and verbal expression,
required by her to avoid the regions of the merely abstract and
philosophical, and keep to the lower but more poetical ground of
idiomatic strength and transparent logic.'
P. 457, l. 18. 'The (almost) contemporary notice of Milton.' A still
more significant contemporary notice of Milton than the well-known one
of the text occurs in 'The Censure of the Rota upon Mr. Milton's book
entituled The Ready and Easie Way to establish a Free Commonwealth,
1660, by James Harrington,' as comes out at p. 16 ('_my_ Oceana'). As it
seems to have escaped the commentators, a short quotation must be given
here: 'Though you have scribled your eyes out, your works have never
been printed but for the company of Chandlers and Tobacco-Men, who are
your Stationers, and the onely men that vend your Labors' (pp. 4-5). 'He
[a member of the Rota] said that he himself reprieved the Whole _Defence
of the People of England_ for a groat, that was sentenced to vile
_Mundungus_, and had suffer'd inevitably (but for him), though it cost
you much oyle and the Rump 300_l._ a year,' &c. (ibid.). This of the
'Defence'!!!
P. 459, l. 7 onward. Horace, Ode iv. 2, 1; ibid. 2, 27.
P. 462, l. 15. 'Walter Scott is not a careful composer,' &c. This recurs
in Mr. Aubrey do Vere's 'Recollections' (p. 487 onward). I venture as a
Scot to observe that for this one slight misquotation by Scott, on which
so large a conclusion is built, the quotations by Wordsworth from others
would furnish twenty-fold. He was singularly inexact in quotation, as
even these Notes and Illustrations will satisfy in the places--scarcely
in a single instance being verbally accurate. 'Sweet' certainly was a
perfectly fitting word for the sequestered lake of St. Mary in its
serene summer beauty. Moreover, swans are not usually found singly, but
in pairs; and a pair surely differenced not greatly the symbol of
loneliness. The latter remark points to Wordsworth's further objection,
as stated to Mr. de Vere (as _supra_).
P. 492, l. 26. 'In the case of a certain poet since dead,' &c. I may
record what his own son has not felt free to do, that this was Sir
Aubrey de Vere, whose 'Song of Faith, and other Poems,' has not yet
gathered its ultimate renown. Wordsworth greatly admired the modest
little volume. See one of his Sonnets on page 495. Nor with the
Laureate's poem-play of 'Queen Mary' (Tudor) winning inevitable welcome
ought it to be forgotten--as even prominent critics of it are
sorrowfully forgetting--that Sir Aubrey de Vere, so long ago as 1847,
published _his_ drama of 'Mary Tudor.' I venture to affirm that it takes
its place--a lofty one--beside 'Philip van Artevelde,' and that it need
fear no comparison with 'Queen Mary.' Early and comparatively modern
supreme poetry somehow gets out of sight for long.
P. 497, 1. 15. Read 'no angel smiled.' I can only offer the plea of an
old Worthy, who said, 'Errata are inevitable, for we are human; and to
have none would imply eyes behind as well as before, or the wallet of
our errors all in front.' G.
INDEX.
* * * As pointed out in the places, the 'Contents' of Vol. III. give the
details of topics in the 'Notes and Illustrations of the Poems' and of
'Letters and Extracts of Letters' so minutely, as to obviate their
record here; thus lightening the Index. G.
A.
Abuses, i. 284.
Acquiescence, not choice, i. 19.
Action, springs of, i. 160.
_Addresses, Two, to the Freeholders of Westmoreland_, i. 211-270;
occasion of writing, i. 214.
Addison, i. 357, iii. 508.
Adventurers, i. 241.
_Advice to the Young_, i. 295-326.
Admiration, unqualified, i. 312.
Advancement and preferment of youth, i. 352.
'Age, present,' supposed moral inferiority of, i. 310.
Agitators, i. 249.
Alpedrinha, i. 56.
Allies, to be supported, i. 138;
how, 138-9, _et seqq._
Alban's, St., ii. 46.
Alston, ii. 193.
'Altering' of poems, ii. 207.
Alfoxden, iii. 16.[277]
[277] This first mention of Alfoxden in the 'Notes and Illustrations of
the Poems' leads the Editor to record here the title-page of a truly
delightful privately-printed volume, by the Rev. W.L. Nichols, M.A.,
Woodlands: _The Quantocks and their Associations_ (1873), 41 pp. and
Appendix, xxxii, pp. A photograph of 'Wordsworth's glen, Alfoxden' (p.
6) is exquisite. G.
'Amends,' how to make, i. 130-1, _et seqq._
American war, i. 135-6.
American edition of poems, iii. 483-4.
Ambleside, ii. 224-6;
road from, to Keswick, ii. 227-8.
Anxiety, moderate, i. 324.
_Appendix_
_to Bishop Watson's Sermon_, i. 24-30;
_to Contention of Cintra_, i 175-179.
(See preface, I. xiv.-xix.)
_Apology for the French Revolution_, i. 1-23.
(See preface, I. x.-xix.)
Arbitrary,
distinctions, i. 16-17;
power, i. 158-9.
Aristocracy, i. 19.
Aristarchus, ii. 17.
Armistice, i. 84;
preamble of, i. 86;
articles of, i. 88-94.
Armstrong, Dr., iii. 506.
Army,
British, departure of, i. 38;
Spanish, the people, i. 47;
French, and the French government, i. 95.
'Arrow,' i. 21.
Artevelde, van, Philip, iii. 492.
Art and nature, ii. 157-61.
Arts and science, i. 154;
fine, i. 323.
Ashe, i. 360.
Ashley, iii. 507.
Assembly, i. 147.
Asturias, i. 52-3.
B.
'_Bad_ people,' ii. 41.
'Babes in the wood,' ii. 98.
Bacon,
quotation from, i. 357;
and Shakespeare, iii. 457.
Beia, i. 55.
Benevolence, i. 171.
'Beck.' i. 336.
Beaumont, Sir George H. and Lady,
_letters to_, ii. 146-201;
drawings by Sir George, ii. 151.
Beaumont, Sir John, ii 346, iii. 505.
Bell, Peter, ii. 182.
Bell, Dr., iii. 507.
Bede, iii. 506.
Biscayans, i. 60.
Biography, of authors, ii. 11-12.
Birthday, iii. 443-4.
Bonaparte, i. 37;
acknowledgment of titles, i. 84-5;
influence of concession on, i. 93-4;
ravager of Europe, i. 115;
formidable yet weak, i. 163-4;
to decrease, i. 200, ii. 18, _et alibi frequenter_.
Books, religious, i. 335.
'Bolton, Mr.,' i. 350.
Boswell's Johnson, ii. 9.
Bran [misprinted Braw], iii. 69.
Bleeding, good, i. 86.
Britain, history of a noble one, i. 101-2.
Brougham,
public life of, i. 225, _et seqq._, 242-8, _et seqq._
later opinion of, iii. 504.
Bruce, Michael, ii. 21, 343.
Bruce, P.H.. iii. 507.
Browne, Sir Thomas, ii. 23.
Browning, Robert,
_letter to the Editor_, i. xxxiv.;
quotation from poem of, iii. 508.
Brun, Frederica, iii. 505.
Brooke, Lord, iii. 560.
Burke, i. 21, 357.
Burns, Robert, Cottar's Saturday-night, i. 356, 360;
_letter to a friend of_, ii. 1-19;
Gilbert, ii. 5, 19, 343;
fitted to tell the whole truth of, ii. 6-7;
quotations from, ii. 7, 13-14, 331, 343 (bis), 347, iii. 436, 506.
Building and gardening, ii. 184-191.
Buttermere and Crummock, ii. 230.
Burnet, Thomas, ii. 327, 507.
Burnet, Bishop, iii. 506.
Buchanan, iii. 459.
Byron, iii. 462-3, 503.
C.
Calamity, how to be regarded, i. 52.
Castile, council of, i. 59.
Cadiz, governor of, i. 92.
_Catholic Relief Bill_, i. 259-70.
Camden, ii. 27, 343-4.
Carter, Miss, 'Spring,' iii. 426.
Campbell, odd forgetfulness of, ii. 445.
Celandine, small, iii. 505.
Church of England, servility of its clergy, i. 3-4;
notices of, i. 262-4, 283, _et seqq._
Chamber, personal character of and its chief, ii. 140-1.
Child and man, i. 170.
Charles I., tyranny of, i. 310;
epitaph of, ii. 49;
Sydney and, ii. 50.
Chatterton, ii. 21, 343.
Churchyard, village, ii. 33-4;
country, ii. 41, _et seqq._;
on sea-coast, ii. 434.
Chiabiera, ii. 58, 68, _et seqq._
Christabelle, ii. 427.
Chronological classification of poems, iii. 474.
Clark, Mrs., ii. 66-7, 344-5.
Clergyman, the, i. 286-7, _et seqq._
Classical study, iii. 479.
Cleveland, history of, iii. 508.
Courts, corruption of, i. 14.
Corruption, i. 20.
_Contention of Cintra_, i. 31-172;
occasion of writing, i. 35, 129;
importance of, i. 37, 143;
impression produced by the, i. 37;
condemned, i. 65;
reception by the people, i. 69;
results of, as a military act, i. 70-1;
critical examination of its terms, i. 71, _et seqq._;
not necessary, i. 82;
military results, i. 84, _et seqq._;
conditions of, thus far examined, i. 99;
injury done to British character, i. 99, 100, 101-2;
sorrow of the nation over, i. 103-4;
punishment demanded, i. 104-5;
to be repudiated, i. 105-6;
disgrace of, i. 121;
_Vindication of the Opinions on_, i. 195 209.
(See preface. Vol. I. xiv.-xix.)
Courage, i. 50;
intellectual, lacking, i. 74-5.
Constancy, i. 51.
Condemnation, inevitable, i. 82-3.
Cortes, i. 147.
Companions, i. 229.
Contradictions, i. 237.
Counters and stakes, i. 81.
County elections, entire charge of, i. 251-2.
Conciliation and concession, i. 265.
Commissioners, report of, i. 274.
'Compulsory' relief, i. 278.
Coˆperation of working people, i. 282.
Continuous education, i. 355-6.
Cotton, Charles, and Walton, ii. 89, 345.
Cotton, Dr., ii. 142-4.
Contempt, ii, 18.
'Common life,' ii. 81-2, _et seqq._
Cowper, ii. 104, 211, 346.
Collins, ii. 120, iii. 419.
Coleridge, ii. 155-6, 163, 164, 166, 167,
168, 170, 174-5, 183-4, 193, iii. 427,
441, 442, 444, 469-70, 492, 507,
_et alibi frequenter_.
Coleridge, Hartley, iii. 482, _et alibi_.
Coleridge, the Lord, i. xxxiii.
Coniston, ii. 226-7.
Conversations and personal reminiscences of Wordsworth, iii. 403-504.
Cowley, iii. 465.
Copyright, international, iii. 483.
Cockburn, Mrs., iii. 509.
Criticism, false, ii. 175-181;
result of in _Edinburgh Review_ and _Quarterly_, iii. 437;
a low ability for, iii. 438-9;
verbal, iii. 474-5.
Critic, decision of, ii. 110.
Crabbe, iii. 503, _et alibi_.
Crashaw, ii. 344.
Crowe, iii. 506.
Cromwell, i. 166, 359.
Curates, i. 285-6.
Currie, Dr., ii. 5;
indignation with, ii. 7-8, 12.
Cuckoo, ii. 136-7.
Cumberland's Calvary, iii. 415.
D.
Dalrymple, Sir Hew, i. 72, _et frequenter_.
Daughter, education of a, i. 329-33.
Dante, i. 359, _et alibi_.
Da Vinci, Leonardo, iii. 506.
Darwin, Dr., iii. 507.
D'Abrantes, title of, wrongly acknowledged, i. 68, 357.
Delusions, i. 19.
Debt, national, i. 20.
'Declarations,' i. 43-4.
Defeats and disasters, i. 44-45.
Delicacy, no, i. 98.
Defence of fellow-countrymen, i. 113.
Despotism i. 139-40, 229.
Despond, those who, i. 171 2.
Detraction, no, ii. 42.
Dedication, to the Queen, i. v.;
of 1815, ii. 144.
De Vere, Sir Aubrey, iii. 495, 509-10.
De Quincey, i. xxxiii.-iv., iii. 507.
_Diction, of poetic_, ii. 101-5.
'Difficulties,' i. 72.
Diogenes, i. 238.
Disabilities, civil, i. 269.
Dissenters, i. 262.
'Dignity,' individual, i. 292.
Discrimination in epitaphs, ii. 37-8.
Doe, White, the, iii. 430, _et alibi_.
Double sense, ii. 45-6.
Drummond, Miss. ii. 65-6.
Dryden, ii. 118, iii. 416, 419.
Duty, i. 40-1, 129, 326, 349.
Dupont, i. 358.
Duppa, ii. 162, 346, iii. 506.
Dubartas, ii. 111-12.
Dyer, John, ii. 196-7, 346, iii. 216, 405, 506, _et alibi_.
E.
Economists, unfortunate, i. 233.
_Education, of_, i. 327-56;
what it is, i. 343-4, _et seqq._,
moral, i. 346-7;
of Scotland, i. 348;
continuous, i. 355-6.
_Edinburgh Review_, censured, ii. 16, _et alibi_.
Edwards, John, ii. 33, 344.
Edgeworth, Francis, iii. 508.
Egle, bank of, iii. 508.
Election, free, i. 234.
Elizabeth, i. 310.
Elliot, Jane, iii. 509.
Emerson, i. xxxiv., _et alibi_.
Ends, i. 80-1.
Enthusiasm, i. 149.
_Epitaphs, upon, from 'The Friend,'_ ii. 27-40;
laws of, 31, _et seqq._;
requisites of, ii. 35, _et seqq._;
a perfect, ii. 39;
_The country Churchyard, and critical Examination of ancient_, ii. 41-59;
in Germany, ii. 44;
homeliness, ii. 46-7;
in Westmoreland, ii. 51-2;
of Pope, criticised, ii. 55, _et seqq._;
_Celebrated Epitaphs considered_, ii. 60-75;
favourable examples, ii. 72, _et seqq._ (See preface, I. xxiv.-v.)
Equality, i. 14, 288.
Established church and priesthood, i. 232;
preservation of, i. 290.
Eschylus, iii. 508.
'Estate,' gift of, ii. 151.
Europe, state of, i. 220-1.
Evil, ii. 91.
Excursion, ii. 145-8, 168-9.
Executive, the power, i. 13.
F.
Faith, ii. 109-10.
Fancy and imagination, ii. 134-5, _et seqq._
'Favourite spots,' ii. 424.
Fame, posthumous, iii. 458, 493.
Faber, iii. 488, 566.
Family, a single, 215-16. _et seqq._;
defence of the, I. 217-18. _et seqq._
Feelings, i. 65. 158, ii. 83-4, _et seqq._;
rely on our, ii. 99.
Ferguson, General, i. 137.
Fermor, Mrs., ii. 178.
Fenwick, Miss, i. xxvi.-xxx.
Ferdinand VII., i. 358.
'Fire.' i. 118-19.
Flowers, iii. 447.
Florus, i. 359.
Fortitude, ancient, i. 205-6.
Forebodings, i. 249-50.
Fore-feeling, ii. 344.
Founders of a school to be remembered, i. 351.
Fool, in Lear, iii. 419.
Fools, Paradise of, ii. 18.
_Fox, letter to, on poems_, ii. 202-5;
reply, ii. 205-6.
Frere, i. 67-8, 96, 358.
French armies, character of, i. 79-80;
to surrender at discretion, i. 81;
under French government, i. 90.
'Free,' a nation resolved to be, i. 146.
Franchise, i. 223, 239.
Fuller, iii. 506.
G.
Gardening, ii. 174;
and building, ii. 184-191.
Generals, British, bearing of, i. 79;
political, i. 95;
incompetent and competent, i. 143.
Girl, peasant, iii. 466-7;
education of, i. 341.
Goldsmith, ii. 154, 333.
Goethe, iii. 435-6, 465.
Grievances, national, i. 4.
Gregoire, i. 4-5, 357.
Gratifications, what, i. 315-16.
Gratuitous instruction, i. 346.
Grammar, &c., i. 353.
Gray, ii. 41, 67-8, 85-6, 327, 344, 345, iii. 507.
Gray, James, ii. 5, 343.
Grimm, Baron, ii. 113.
Gratitude for kindnesses, ii. 149.
Grasmere, ii. 229.
Graves, Rev. R.P., M.A., i. xxxv.-vi.;
prayer by, i. 359-60.
_Guide through the District of the Lakes_, ii. 215-313. (See under
_Lakes_ and different places.)
H.
Hamlet, i. 22.
Hakewell, ii. 113, 345.
Hamilton, Sir R.W., iii. 492, 506, 508, _et frequenter_.
Hamilton, Miss, iii. 508.
Hazlitt, i. xxiv., ii. 168, 177, iii. 125, _et alibi_.
Hearne, iii. 505.
Hemans, Mrs., iii. 507.
Hessians, i. 136.
High-minded men, i. 76.
Hope, i. 41, 123-4, 148, 169, 322-3.
Honour, i. 78.
Home influences, i. 345.
Houbraken, ii. 170, 346.
Homer and the classics, iii. 458-9.
Horace, i. 357, iii. 509 (_bis_).
Humanity, i. 78, 274.
Humility, iii. 491.
Humour, iii. 495, 496.
'Hurricane,' iii. 507.
I.
Idiots, ii. 212.
Impulses, grand, i. 115.
Imagination, i. 154;
and taste, ii. 126, _et seqq._;
and fancy, ii. 134-5, _et seqq._
Immoral, the perishable, i. 163.
Improvement, process of intellectual, i. 318-20.
Immortality, ii. 27-30.
Imbecility, i. 172.
Imagery and imagination, iii. 464-5.
Independence and liberty, i. 102-3;
of Spain, i. 151.
'Indifferent,' i. 110.
Invasion of our country, supposed, i. 114.
Infancy and childhood, i. 318.
Intellect, sharpening of, i. 340.
Infant-schools, i. 343.
Inscriptions at Coleorton, ii. 191-2, 195-6.
'Intimations of immortality,' iii. 464.
Individual character, iii. 467-8.
Intake, iii. 505.
Ireland, i. 267-8, _et alibi_.
J.
James I., ii. 47-8.
Johnson, Dr., ii. 98, 103-4.
Jones, Rev. Robert, iii. 506.
Judges in England, i. 12.
Junot, i. 55-6.
'Judicature, court of,' not essential to a verdict on wrong, i. 108-10.
Justice, i. 116;
moral, i. 118.
K.
Kant, iii. 420.
Keble, iii. 441.
_Kendal and Windermere Railway_, two letters on, ii. 321-41, iii. 448-9.
Keswick, vale of, ii. 229.
Kirkstone, pass of, ii. 314-15.
Klopstock, iii. 405-23.
Knowledge, life and spirit of, i. 309;
for virtue, i. 320.
L.
Laws, partial and oppressive, i. 12-13.
Laws, delay, i. 20.
Labour, dishonoured, i. 18.
Lament for England, i. 112.
Land, i. 239.
Landscape gardens, i. 248.
Lakes, the country of, as formed by Nature, ii. 235-6;
as affected by its inhabitants, ii. 256-69;
changes and rules of taste for preventing their bad effects, ii. 269-86;
miscellaneous observations, ii. 287-301;
excursions to the top of Scawfell, &c., ii. 302-15;
itinerary of, ii. 316-19.
(See preface, I. xxv.-vi.)
Laodamia, iii. 496.
Laing, Malcom, ii. 345.
Lamb, letters of, iii. 507.
Leon, i. 60.
_Legislation for the Poor_, &c., i. 271-94.
Letter-writing, difficulty of, ii. 149-50.
Leech-gatherer, ii. 206-7.
Letters and extracts of Letters, ii. 217-401.
(See preface, I. xxx.-ii.)
Liberty, i. 6;
against oppression, i. 52;
and independence, i. 155-6.
Life, i. 77-8, 280.
Library for poor, i. 337-8.
Lindsay, Lady Ann, iii. 509.
Louis XVI., 'royal martyr' (so-called), i. 4-5, _et seqq._
Loyalty, enthusiasm of, i. 46.
Lowther family, i. 235, iii. 507-8.
'Lower orders,' i. 273.
Loughrigg Tarn, ii. 155.
Loweswater, ii. 230.
Locke, iii. 461.
Loison, i. 357.
Luff, Mr., ii. 172.
Lucretius, ii. 347.
Lyttleton, Lucy, ii. 52;
Lord, monody criticised, ii. 53-4.
Lyrical ballads, defence of, ii. 79-100.
Lying, iii. 497-8.
M.
Massaredo, i. 56-8, 357.
Manufactories, workmen in, i. 282-3.
_Mathetes, Letter of_, i. 297-308;
_Answer to_, i. 309-26.
Madras, system of education, i. 341, 343.
Malignity, ii. 17.
Mason, William, ii. 62, _et seqq._
Matter-of-fact and poetry, ii. 86.
Macpherson, ii. 122, _et seqq._
Madoc, ii. 169, 171.
Manner in conversation, iii. 480.
Means, i. 80.
Memory, ii. 41.
Metrical language, ii. 95-6, _et seqq._
Mearely, ii. 344.
Mirza, vision of, i. 3.
Military spirit, i. 48-9;
men to be judged by the people, i. 83-4.
'Ministry,' the conduct of the, i. 105-6.
Might, i. 116.
Miscarriages, national, i. 128-9.
Misery, effects of, i. 281.
Milton, i. 358 (_bis_), 359, 360. ii. 6, 40, 114-15, 136,
142 _et seqq._, 344, 345, 346, iii. 430-1, 449, 453-4,
461, 505, 506, 507, 508;
contemporary notice of, iii. 509, _et alibi frequenter_.
Monarchy, objections to, i. 13, _et seqq._
'Moral' superiority, i. 165.
_Monuments to Literary Men_, ii. 20-22;
beauty of, ii. 31-2;
monition of, ii. 32-3;
near churches, ii. 34-5;
in churches, iii. 450-1.
Montrose, Marquis of, ii. 49, 51, 344.
_Morning Post_, letter to, ii. 321-41.
Morla, i. 357-8.
Montgomery, James, iii. 505.
N.
Nations, the two suffering, i. 63-4;
to speak to representatives of, i. 144-5.
Nature, i. 317, ii. 60, iii. 493-4;
and art, ii. 157-161.
Needpath Castle, sonnet on, ii. 152, 345-6.
Nelson, Lord, ii. 173.
Necklace, diamond, i. 357.
Newcastle, Duchess of, iii. 508.
Nobility, hereditary, a wrong, i. 17.
_Notes and Illustrations of the Poems_
(_a_), the notes originally added to the first and successive editions;
(_b_) the whole of the I.F. MSS., iii 1-216.
(For details of these Notes, see minute 'Contents' of Vol. III.)
O.
Obliquities of admiration, ii. 116.
Observation and description, ii. 131-144.
'Occurrences,' i. 98.
Offices, i. 18-19.
Oligarchy, i. 147.
'Oppression,' i. 168-9.
'Opposition,' in House of Commons needed, i. 219;
the party of, i. 222;
degenerated, i. 225.
Originality, ii. 126.
Oviedo, i. 63.
Oversight, culpable, i. 68.
Ovid, iii. 506.
P.
Paine, Thomas, i. 14, 357.
Parchment, 'dead,' i. 21.
Past, retrospect of, i. 43-4.
Passions and passion, i. 115-16, ii. 127, _et seqq._;
in poetry, iii. 473-4;
though not declamatory, iii. 489.
'Party,' i. 144, 219.
Patriot, the, i. 150.
Palafox, i. 167, 359.
Pasley, letter to, i. 195-206;
essay on the military policy of Great Britain, i. 197, 205, _et seqq._
Palmers, ii. 46.
Page, Frederic, iii. 508.
'People,' the, i. 10, 11;
Spanish, i. 47-8;
_their ways and needs_, i. 334-339.
Peasants and mechanics, i. 11-12;
peasantry, i. 159.
'Petition,' vindication of, i. 107-8, 110.
'Petty' things, i. 120.
Peninsula, southern, i. 122-3.
'Peace,' i. 221.
Peterkin, ii. 5, 343.
'Pedlar,' ii. 163, 346.
Pelayo and Cid, i. 358.
Petrarch, i. 359.
Philosophy, i. 316.
Pity, i. 5.
Pitt, ii. 174.
Pluralities, i. 284.
Pleasures, poetic, ii. 13;
production of, ii. 90.
Portugal, i. 80-1.
Portugeze, i. 43, 54-5, 67, 86, 97, 100-1, _et seqq._
'Political' generals, i. 78-9, 95.
Policy, i. 116.
Poor, laws to be reformed, i. 232;
amendment act, i. 273-4, _et seqq._;
just claims of the, i. 274-7, 278-9.
Pope, ii. 55, _et seqq._, 116, iii. 419.
_Poetry, of the Principles of and the 'Lyrical Ballads,'_ ii. 79-100;
_as a study_, ii. 106-130;
kinds of readers of, ii. 106;
_as observation and description_, ii. 131-144;
forms of, ii. 132-3;
of the principle of and Wordsworth's own poems, ii. 208-14.
(See preface, I. xxv.-vi.)
Poet, what is a, ii. 87, _et seqq._
'Popular,' ii. 129;
vox populi, ii. 130.
Poems, classification of, ii. 133, _et seqq._
Power without right, i. 159-60.
Priesthood, French, i. 6-7.
Principles, i. 39, 43, 74-5, 144, 145;
of poetry, ii. 79-100.
Primogeniture, i. 16.
Prostitution, i. 18.
'Precautions,' i. 45, 61.
Prudence, i. 58-9.
Private, a, individual, i. 83.
Private property, i. 89-90.
Preface, Editor's, i. vii-xxxviii.
Prisoners of war, i. 89.
Property, a sound basis, i. 240.
Protestantism and Popery, i. 261.
Progress, i. 314-15.
Prosaisms, ii. 85.
Prose, more of but for Coleridge, iii. 457.
Purpose, worthy, ii. 82.
Public, not the people, ii. 130.
Puny, ii. 347.
Pyrrhus, i. 359.
Q.
Qualities, moral, i. 49-50.
Queen, dedication and poem to the, i. v.-vi.
R.
Racine, i. 5-6.
'Rash' politicians, i. 248.
Reputation, i. 3.
Republic, American, i. 10.
Republican, Wordsworth a, i. 3, 10;
republicanism defended, i. 9, 10, _et seqq._
Revolution, i. 6;
war against the French, i. 135, iii. 490.
Reform, parliamentary, i. 22.
Representation, universal, i. 11.
'Rejoicing,' deplorable, i. 69, 105.
Regeneration, national, i. 122.
'Remonstrance,' i. 127.
Representation of Westmoreland, i. 215.
Religion, in poetry, ii. 108-9, _et seqq._
Religious instruction, i. 354.
Reserve, biographical, ii. 9.
'Reliques,' ii. 120, _et seqq._
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, ii. 153-7, 161-2, 345.
'Recluse,' the, ii. 163, 105.
Revision of Authorised Version, &c., iii. 471-3.
Riddance, i. 115.
Royalty, no more, in France, i. 5.
Road, anecdote, i. 22;
old, iii. 428.
Robespierre, ii. 18.
Roscius, Young, ii. 164, 165.
Robinson Crusoe, ii. 468.
Rogers, iii. 516, _et alibi_.
'Ruin mouldering.' i. 237.
Russell, iii. 507, 509.
S.
Saragossa, i. 117, 121, 166, 357.
Sass, Padre St. Iago, i. 167, 359.
Scott, i. xiv., iii. 442-30, 445, 457, 462, 487;
vindication of, 509: _et alibi frequenter_.
Scotland, critics of, ii. 116.
Schiller, iii. 417.
Seville, i. 1-3, 60.
Shelvocke, iii. 505.
Shelley, iii. 489, 493, 501, 503.
Shakespeare, ii. 113, 114, 136, 139, 140, 141, 345, 346,
iii. 460, 488, 506, 509, _et alibi frequenter_.
Silence, ii. 10.
Simonides, ii. 30.
Sincerity, ii. 48.
Slavery, i. 77.
Smith, Charlotte, iii. 507.
Southey's Letters, iii. 509.
Spain and Britain, i. 41-2, 161-2, _et seqq._
Spanish people, patriotism of, i. 45-7, _et seqq._, 125-6, _et seqq._
Spenser, i. 322, ii. 111-12, 345, 347, iii. 466, 506, _et alibi_.
_Speech on laying the Foundation stone of Bowness School_, i. 350-6.
Spelling and style, iii. 452-3.
Struggle, how the, ought to have been carried on, i. 116.
Statesmen and courtiers, minds of, i. 130-1, _et seqq._
Stagnation, apparent, i. 313.
Statistical account of Scotland, ii. 44.
Style, ii. 84, _et seqq._
Stevens, George, ii. 113-14.
Steamboats and railways, ii. 340.
Superstition, i. 117.
Superiority, i. 321.
Sword, not pen, i. 95.
Sympathy, ii. 38.
Sydney, Sir Philip, ii. 49-50.
Sympson, Rev. John, iii. 506.
T.
Tam o'Shanter, ii. 13-14.
Tempers and dispositions, i. 279.
Teacher, enlightened, i. 325.
Tenderness, iii. 480, 489.
Tennyson, iii. 390, 492, _et alibi_.
Things, if not men, i. 142.
Thomson, ii. 117, _et seqq._, 160, iii. 505, _et alibi_.
Timidity, i. 231.
Tourist, directions and information for the, ii. 221, _et seqq._
Traitors, i. 23.
Tranquillity from 'Relief Bill' not possible, i. 266-7.
Truth, love of, i. 323, iii. 488.
Trespass, iii. 425.
Tree-planting, iii. 436.
Transcendental world, iii. 467.
Triad, iii. 505-6.
Turner, Sharon, iii. 506.
Tyrant, the, i. 70, _et seqq._
Tyranny, French, basis of, i. 139, 148.
U.
Ulpha, Kirk, ii. 227.
Ullswater, ii. 230-4.
Union of nations, i. 152-3.
Unworthy objects, i. 326.
V.
Vane, Sir George, ii. 47.
Verse, why write in, ii. 93-4.
Veracity and ideality, iii. 486.
Vespers, Sicilian, i. 359.
Vimiera, i. 43, 75.
Vindication of opinions, &c. i. 195-209.
Vice and Virtue, ii, 42-3, 61.
Virgil, i. 358 (_bis_), iii. 469, _et alibi_.
(See II. 274-9.)
Virgin, the, iii. 492.
Voice of the people, i. 113.
Volunteers, i. 234.
W.
Watson, Bp., i. 3, _et seqq._
(See preface, I. x.-iiv.)
Watson, Thomas, ii. 313.
War, just and necessary, i. 39-40;
opponents of, i. 40;
with France, wished still, i. 201-2, _et seqq._;
varied opinions of, i. 226-7.
Warrior, happy, ii. 173-4.
Wales, North, excursion in, ii. 197-201.
Wastdale, ii. 230.
Walks, iii. 423.
Warwick, Sir Philip, i. 359.
Walker, A., book on the lakes overlooked, ii. 346-7, iii. 506(?).
Waterton, iii. 506.
Wealth, i. 15, 189.
Westmoreland, two letters to freeholders of, i. xix.-xxi., 211, _et seqq._
Wellesley (= Wellington), i. 65-6, 68-9, 126-7, _et seqq., et alibi_.
Weever, John, ii. 27, 50, 344.
Westall, iii. 506.
Wickedness, prodigious, i. 170.
Wilson, Alexander, ii. 346.
Wilson, Professor, ii. 208-14.
(See under _Mathetes_.)
Windermere, ii. 223-4.
Wieland, iii. 418.
Winchelsea, Countess of, iii. 508.
Wordsworth, Mrs. iii. 509.
Workmen in manufactories, i. 282-3.
Worthlessnesses swept away, i. 311.
Woman, iii. 457.
Y.
_Young, Advice to the_. i. 295-326, _et alibi_.
(See under Education.)
Z.
Zaragoza, i. 167.
FINIS.