Line 560. The fountains. Rude fountains built and covered with sheds for the accommodation of the Pilgrims, in their ascent of the mountain. W. W. Line 619. Sourd. An insect so called, which emits a short, melancholy cry, heard at the close of the summer evenings, on the banks of the Loire. W. W. Line 636. majestic course, etc. The duties upon many parts of the French rivers were so exorbitant that the poorer people, deprived of the benefit of water carriage, were obliged to transport their goods by land. W. W. 1791-4 Page 19. GUILT AND SORROW. After the publication of the two little quartos, "An Evening Walk" and Descriptive Sketches," 1793, Wordsworth went to the Isle of Wight with his friend, William Calvert of Windybrow, Keswick. They drove through the New Forest to Salisbury, but their carriage breaking down, Calvert went north on horseback, while Wordsworth walked through South Wales via Bristol, and visited his friend Jones. He spent several days wandering on Salisbury Plain, visiting the valley of the Wye and Goodrich Castle, which gave him material for two other poems: "We are Seven" and "Tintern Abbey." "Stanzas xxii.-xxiv. and xxxviii.-xl. were published in 1798 under title of Female Vagrant.'"E. DOWDEN. Line 81. And, hovering round it often did a raven fly. From a short MS. poem read to me when an undergraduate, by my schoolfellow and friend, Charles Farish, long since deceased. The verses were by a brother of his, a man of promising genius, who died young. W. W. 1795 Page 31. LINES LEFT UPON A SEAT IN A YEW-TREE. After the experiences sketched in the previous poem, Wordsworth returned to Keswick and lived with the Speddings for a time, then joined Dorothy at Mill House, Halifax. He was in suspense as to what his future would be. His relatives were getting anxious for him to do some definite work. Dorothy and he, in 1794, traveled from Halifax to Keswick, Cockermouth, and Whitehaven, returning to the farm at Windybrow, loaned him by William Calvert. Dorothy writes of these days at the 19 farm: "Our breakfast and our supper are of milk and potatoes, and we drink no tea." Here he writes of the reception of his first poems, "An Evening Walk" and "Descriptive Sketches:" "As I had done nothing by which to distinguish myself at the University, I thought these little things might show that I could do something. They have been treated with unmerited contempt by some of the periodicals, and others have spoken in higher terms of them than they deserve." During this year he changed his ideas in regard to the The French Revolution, as may be seen in Prelude," xi. He projected a monthly magazine, but no publisher could be found. In the mean time Calvert's brother, Raisley, became ill and Wordsworth attended him until his death, when it was found that in his will he had left Wordsworth £900. This was suffcient to provide the shade in which he might grow ripe, and the leisure in which to grow wise. The sonnet to the memory of Raisley Calvert, together with the allusion to him in "The Prelude," xiv., reveal the significance of this noble act. It was now possible for Wordsworth to live with his sister, whose unselfish devotion and marvelous insight, born of love, became such a force in his life. They settled at Racedown in Dorsetshire. The old farmhouse on the slope of Blackdown, beautiful for prospect of hill, forest, sun and sky, remains essentially as in Wordsworth's day, and well repays one for a few days' wandering. Dorothy often spoke of it later in life as "the place dearest to my recollections upon the whole surface of the island; it was the first home I had." It is not surprising, therefore, that the first poem written here, through emotion recollected in solitude, should reveal the elements of the genius and passion, as well as the wisdom and truth which were to constitute Wordsworth's essential gift to English poetry. This poem connects the new act in his life with the earlier happy time at Hawkshead. Line 1. The yew-tree was on the eastern side of the lake, about ten minutes' walk from the village. Line 12. The individual spoken of was educated at the university, and was a man of talent and learning. W. W. 1795-6 Page 33. THe Borderers. The years 1796-7 are eventful in the history of English literature. By a remarkable coincidence, Coleridge, who had but recently mar ried, was giving to the world a slender volume of poems, and was preparing to settle at Nether Stowey. On hearing that the author of "Descriptive Sketches " was not far away, he took the first opportunity of visiting him. Of this visit Dorothy writes: "The first thing that was read on that occasion was 'The Ruined Cottage' [now the first book of "The Excur sion"], with which Coleridge was so much delighted; and after tea he repeated to us two acts and a half of his tragedy Osorio.' The next morning William read his tragedy The Borderers."" "The Borderers' was born out of the Reign of Terror, and Oswald, like the actors in the terrible tragedy, kills an innocent man in the belief that he is punishing a guilty one.”E. LEGOUIS. Wordsworth is here revealed in the depths of moral despondency, and in "The Ruined Cottage as restored to health. This Dramatic Piece, as noticed in its title-page, was composed in 1795-96. It lay nearly from that time till within the last two or three months unregarded among my papers, without being mentioned even to my most intimate friends. Having, however, impressions upon my mind which made me unwilling to destroy the MS., I determined to undertake the responsibility of publishing it during my own life, rather than impose upon my successors the task of deciding its fate. Accordingly it has been revised with some care; but, as it was at first written, and is now published, without any view to its exhibition upon the stage, not the slightest alteration has been made in the conduct of the story, or the composition of the characters; above all, in respect to the two leading Persons of the Drama, I felt no inducement to make any change. The study of human nature suggests this awful truth; that as in the trials to which life subjects us, sin and crime are apt to start from their very opposite qualities, so are there no limits to the hardening of the heart and the perversion of the understanding to which they may carry their slaves. During my long residence in France, while the Revolution was rapidly advancing to its extreme of wickedness, I had frequent opportunities of being an eye-witness of this process, and it was while that knowledge was fresh upon my memory that the Tragedy of 'The Borderers' was composed." W. W. 1797 Page 70. THE REVERIE OF POOR SUSAN. In the edition of 1800 the following was added to the poem : "Poor Outcast! return, to receive thee once more 1798 Page 71. WE ARE SEVEN. A new era in the history of English literature began with this first meeting of Wordsworth and Coleridge at Racedown, for then it was that the epoch-making volume, the Lyrical Ballads, had its origin. William and Dorothy returned this visit soon, and, concluding that thirty miles was too far for daily walks, they decided to leave Racedown and settle at Alfoxden. Alfoxden was a large mansion, beautifully located on a slope of the Quantock Hills, in sight of Bristol Channel. Woods of old oaks and large hollies, with abundant fern and foxglove, stretch in every direction, broken here and there by pleasant downs and valleys through which the brooks run singing to the sea. Dorothy wrote: The deer dwell here, and the sheep, so that we have a lively prospect; walks extend for miles over the hilltops." This was the poet's spring-time of energy and imaginative insight. The visitor of to-day will find the country but little changed from what it was when she described it. The student of these poets should not fail to visit the Quantocks with their wealth of romantic loveliness which called forth such outbursts of poetical enthusiasm in that annus mirabilis of the two poets. At each of three critical periods in the world's history mankind has learned its wisest lessons by gazing into the face of the child. In the early days of Christianity the spirit by which the new revelation was to be grasped was that of the child; at the breaking up of the Middle Ages modern life again breathed its highest conceptions of art in the person of a child; and in our own day, through the influence of this little poem, and others of like nature, Wordsworth flashed the great truths anew and asked "What intimations of life eternal are here?" Page 81. LINES WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING. In the unambitious loveliness of this little poem and that which follows is revealed that conception of Nature-the most original of all those which Wordsworth added to English poetry as having its own peculiar life, an infinite activity of giving and receiving love and joy in itself, but also in the association of man. This life is none other than the Spirit of God consciously active in all parts, as well as in the individual whole which we call Nature. This idea reaches sublime heights in all his characteristic work, and becomes a protest against any mechanical theory of the Universe. Lines 21-24. This is the only immediate complaint breathed by Wordsworth's poetry, and it must be admitted that even here sorrow for mankind is outweighed by joy in nature.". E. LEGOUIS. This dell remains essentially as in the poet's time, and will repay a visit. It is now known as Wordsworth's Glen. Page 83. EXPOSTULATION AND REPLY. 66 In this and the poem which follows we have Wordsworth's protest against a mechanical conception of education. He knows that it is only in love and humility, "in a wise passiveness," that our essential selves, What Is," meets and responds to the essential life in nature and art. The eye sees and the ear hears the life of things, the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge, only when man is potentially soul. When the physical and the intellectual are wedded to the spiritual in love and holy passion, the poetic imagination is created - the supreme intellectual faculty. Page 91. LINES COMPOSED A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY. The early months of 1798 were spent in arranging for the publication of the Lyrical Ballads, when the lease of Alfoxden expired. Wordsworth did not ask for a renewal of the lease, as he was planning a visit to Germany in order to study the language. It is evident from Coleridge's letters at this time that after the advent of the Revolutionist, Thelwall, some suspicions grew up in regard to the character of the three which reflected upon Thomas Poole, the patron both of Coleridge and Wordsworth. It is certain that a government spy was sent to watch their movements. In June the Wordsworths left Alfoxden, and after spending a week with Coleridge, visiting Cottle at Bristol to arrange details of bringing out the Lyrical Ballads, they took the ramble on the Wye out of which grew this poem, which more than any yet written by him reveals the mastery of all the elements that go to make a work of art; thought, feeling, will, are fused by impassioned contemplation; it is the triumph of imagination contemplative. In purity and dignity of diction, in strength and majesty of conception, in richness and delicacy of imaginative insight, it is not surpassed by Shakespeare or Milton; while in its revelation of the recesses of man's being it moves in a region quite apart from anything yet written in English poetry. The Lyrical Ballads were issued anonymously in September. The volume contained four poems by Coleridge and nineteen by Wordsworth. The first poem was the "Ancient Mariner" and the last "Tintern Abbey." The great truths which the poet here reveals through the poetic imagination have at last been affirmed by modern science, and the best commentary on them is to be found in John Fiske's Through Nature to God, where the reality of the Unseen Universe is so splendidly set forth. He says: "We have at length reached a stage where it is becoming daily more and more apparent that with the deeper study of Nature the old strife between faith and knowledge is drawing to a close; and disentangled at last from that ancient slough of despond the Human Mind will breathe a freer air and enjoy a vastly extended horizon." Line 4. inland murmur. The river is not affected by the tides a few miles above Tintern. W. W. Line 97. Tennyson called this almost the grandest line in the English language, giving the sense of the abiding in the transient. Page 93. THE OLD CUMBERLAND BEGGAR. Here, as in "The Excursion," Wordsworth is using material gathered from his Hawkshead experiences. The "Growth of a Poet's Mind" as Wordsworth has revealed it to us in "The Prelude " shows the means which Nature used to educate him into the poet of humanity. Humble men and women, the village dames, the thrifty dalesmen, and the hardy shepherds "Of these, said I, shall be my song, of these That justice may be done, obeisance paid For this work his early associations and the inspiration of the great Peasant Poet of Scotland had predisposed him. In order to see what a giant stride these poems took in advance of the age, we need to compare them with the poems which preceded. Of man as found in the abodes of wealth and refinement, preceding poetry had been mindful; and Wordsworth was too broad not to recognize that from hence had proceeded much that was pure and unworldly, yet he believed that rich veins of poetic feeling lay hidden in the lives of homely men and women. This was, as Frederick Robertson says, a high and holy work," and for it both the rich and the poor praise him. Lines 1-66. Plain imagination and severe could hardly produce a more distinct picture of one who, to the eye of the economist, had outlived all usefulness. "Wordsworth's is the poetry of intellect and of feeling of humanity in the abstracts chiefly; and yet what is more human than The Old Cumberland Beggar?"" - DR. JOHN BROWN. Lines 67-87. See note on "Lines Left upon a Seat in a Yew-Tree." Page 96. ANIMAL TRANQUILLITY AND DE CAY. "In the edition of 1798 this Poem was called 'Old Man travelling; animal tranquillity and decay.'"-KNIGHT. Page 96. PETER BELL. A TALE. One of the most interesting studies of this poem, so often the subject of critical sarcasm, is that of Mr. Walter Raleigh, in his work on Wordsworth, London, 1903. Mr. Raleigh calls "Peter Bell" Wordsworth's Ancient Mariner." 66 PART FIRST. Line 11. A Potter. In the dialect of the North, a hawker of earthenware is thus designated. W. W. Those who have passed by "Peter Bell" with a contemptuous smile may be surprised at the following in Morley's Life of Gladstone, vol. i. p. 222: To the great veteran poet of the time Mr. Gladstone's fidelity was unchanging, even down to compositions that the ordinary Wordsworthian gives up: "Read aloud Wordsworth's "Cumberland Beggar" and "Peter Bell." The former is generally acknowledged to be a noble poem, the same justice is not done to the latter; I was more than ever struck with the vivid power of the descriptions, the strong touches of feeling, the skill and order with which the plot upon Peter's conscience is arranged, and the depth of inter est which is made to attach to the humblest of quadrupeds. It must have cost great labour, and is an extraordinary poem both as a whole and in detail.'" It is interesting to note that the twofold aspect of the Quantocks is to be found in the poems of Coleridge and Wordsworth. To Coleridge we look for the poetical presentation of the landscape of the Quantocks, the loveliness of dell and comb, the glorious prospects of widespreading woods and the loud sounding sea; and to Wordsworth for a corresponding rendering of the life of the inhabitants of the district, cottages, toilers in the field and shepherds in the hills. 1799 Page 109. THE SIMPLON PASS. Wordsworth, Dorothy, and Coleridge left England on the 16th of September, 1798, before the critics had time to level their guns on the frail craft of the Lyrical Ballads. On arriving in Germany they received this cheerful news from Mrs. Coleridge: The Lyrical Ballads are not liked at all by any." Coleridge soon left the Wordsworths to study the German language, literature, and philosophy at Ratzeburg and Göttingen, and they settled down for the winter in the old imperial town of Goslar, at the foot of the Hartz Mountains. Here in the coldest winter of the century, with little of that harmony without which had evolved the Lyrical Ballads, recollections of Hawkshead and Stowey again aroused the harmony within. This poem will be found in the sixth book of "The Prelude." It was first published in the collected edition, 1845. It refers to Wordsworth's first visit to Switzerland in 1790. poems on Lucy, pearls gathered upon a golden thread. Five short poems are all we have of her whom we know not, save as she is here enshrined with an "artlessness which only art can know." To analyze such poems as these is almost a sin; as well might one attempt to ascertain by the microscope the source of beauty in the flower. They are genuine love-poems, and yet how far removed from that species of love-poetry which encourages vulgar curiosity, or the parade of the inmost sanctuary of the heart. All that is given us is that Lucy once lived, is now no more. Those who are able to comprehend these poems will be least disposed to discuss them. It is significant that these are almost the only poems as to which the poet was silent in his autobiographical notes. Page 113. A POET'S EPITAPH. Lines 37-56. In this portrait of Wordsworth's ideal poet we find clearly marked those characteristics which he himself possessed. Page 114. ADDRESS TO THE SCHOLARS OF THE VILLAGE SCHOOL OF —. The subject of this poem, and the three which follow it, was the master of Hawkshead School, Rev. William Taylor, the third of the masters who taught Wordsworth. Lines 3, 4. These lines were no doubt suggested by the fact that just before his death the master sent for the boys of the upper class, among them Wordsworth, and gave them his blessing. He was buried in Cartmell Churchyard. See The Prelude," x. 534. 6. first forty lines of "The Prelude." At this time Wordsworth had in mind a poem in three parts and an introduction. The introduction was to deal with events in the development of his own life, while the main work, in three parts, was to be a philosophical discussion of the great principles pertaining to man, Nature, and human life. This poem was to be called The Recluse." Only the introduction, “The Prelude," the second part, "The Excursion," and the first book of the first part were completed. "The Excursion" was the only part published during his life. "The Prelude was published in 1850, and the first part of "The Recluse " not until 1888. This selection and the one fol lowing from "The Recluse were first published by the bishop of Lincoln in his Memoirs of the poet, 1851. They relate to the settlement at Grasmere, and I place them here on the supposition that they were written not far from 1800. On returning to England Wordsworth and his sister visited their relatives, the Hutchinsons, at Sockburn-on-Tees, County Durham; there they remained until autumn. In September Wordsworth, his brother John, and Coleridge made an excursion through the Lake District. They were greatly pleased with the vale of Grasmere and the cottage at Town-End which bore the sign of The Dove and Olive Bough. Wordsworth leased the cottage and on the 19th of December, 1799, they set out for their new home. After a journey of three days over snow and ice, turning aside to see the frozen waterfalls and watch the changing aspect of cloud and sunshine, they reached Dove Cottage on the 21st. During the years of residence here, by dint of "plain living and high thinking, was produced that poetry which placed Wordsworth among the Immortals. Dove Cottage is perhaps more often thought of in connection with the poet than is Rydal, the home of his later years. The situation is beautiful for prospect, being on the right of the road over White Moss Common as you approach Grasmere from Ambleside. The garden, so often alluded to in his poetry, slopes upward to the wooded heights, and has not suffered much alteration since 1800. Here still bloom the primroses and daffodils. From the terrace, approached by stone steps cut by Wordsworth himself, one gets a beautiful view across the lake to Silver How, Red Bank, and Loughrigg, on the west and south: while to the east and north the eye ranges from Fairfield, Helvellyn, and Dunmail Raise, to Helm Crag and Easdale. The view from the front of the house has become obstructed by cottages and a pretentious modern hotel. The house and garden are now the property of trustees, and will forever remain memorials of the great poet. At Dove Cottage was begun Dorothy's Grasmere Journal, which, besides revealing the manner of plain living, gives us a clear insight into her own rare poetic nature, and discloses the day and hour, with attendant incidents, of the birth of most of the poems her brother wrote here. 1799-1805 Page 124. THE PRELUDE. The history of "The Prelude " is interesting in many ways, as it is, in the nature of its revelations, the most significant poem he ever wrote. It was begun on Feb. 10, 1799, as he turned toward England after an absence of six months in Germany. His Republican ardor had somewhat cooled and he had come to know, in a very real sense, the spirit of his native land. On settling at Grasmere "The Prelude " became his serious work until 1805, when it was completed. It was mainly composed on the terrace walk at Under Lancrigg, and was written by his faithful amanuenses, his sister Dorothy and Mrs. Wordsworth. It was written primarily for himself, as a test of his own powers, at a time when he was diffident as to his ability to serve the muse on any more arduous subject. When it was completed he found the reality so far short of his expectation that no steps were taken to publish it. The fact that it pleased Coleridge, "the brother of his soul." made large amends for his own disappointment, and he occasionally revised it until 1839. As late as 1839 Miss Fenwick alludes to Wordsworth's revision of "The Prelude." At that time she writes to Sir Henry Taylor: "Our journey was postponed for a week, that the beloved old poet might accomplish the work that he had in hand, the revision of his grand autobiographical poem." It remained in MS. and without a title until the year of his death, when it was published by Mr. Carter, the poet's secretary, with the "Advertisement which now appears at its head, and the title The Prelude" given it by Mrs. Wordsworth. Dur ing the half century which has elapsed since its publication it has steadily gained in favor until it is acknowledged to be the greatest poem of its kind in any language, free from every taint of vanity, a biography minute and authentie which can be read with implicit confidence. Coleridge once said: "Wordsworth ought never to abandon the contemplative position. proper title is spectator ab extra.' The growth of Wordsworth's poetic nature, as seen in "The Prelude," affords us an introduction, not only to all his own later work, but also to much of modern poetry in general. It reveals the source of that genius and passion, wisdom and truth, which characterizes his great work as poet and philosopher. As it deals with the period of his life before 1800, it should be read here as an introduction to the Grasmere period. The student is advised to read with "The Prelude," La Jeunesse de Wordsworth by the, distinguished French scholar and critic, M. Emile Legouis. This singularly interesting study of "The Prelude " is one of the most illuminating contributions to Wordsworthian literature. It has recently been translated into English. His BOOK FIRST. Lines 1-40. In the spring of 1799 the Wordsworths, after a cold dreary winter at Goslar, returned to England; as they left the city and felt the breeze fan their |