WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, the founder of what is called the Lake school of poetry, was born in 1770, of a respectable family, at Cockermouth, in Cumberland. He received his early education at the grammar-school of Hawkshead, where he greatly excelled in his classical studies, and was remarkable for his thoughtful disposition, and taste for Doctry, in which he made his first attempt, when at the age of thirteen. In 1787, he was removed to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B. A. and M. A.; and, in 1793, he published a poetical account of a pedestrian tour on the continent, entitled Descriptive Sketches in Verse, &c., followed by the Evening Walk, an epistle, in verse, addressed to a young lady. In alluding to the Descriptive Sketches, says Coleridge," seldom, if ever, was the emergence of an original poetic genius above the literary horizon more evidently announced." After wandering about in various parts of England, our author took a cottage at Alforton, in Somersetshire, near the then residence of Coleridge, where they were regarded by the good people of the neighbourhood as spies and agents of the French Directory. Our benevolent author, however, appears to have been considered the more dangerous character of the two. "As to Coleridge," one of the parish authorities is said to have remarked, "there is not so much harm in him, for he is a wild brain that talks whatever comes uppermost; but that (Wordsworth) he is the dark traitor. You never hear him say a syllable on the subject." In 1798, he published a volume of his Lyrical Ballads, which met with much abuse and few admirers, but those who applauded, applauded enthusiastically.
In 1803, he married a Miss Mary Hutchinson, of Penrith, and settled at Grassmere, in Westmoreland, for which county, as well as that of Cumberland, he was subsequently appointed distributor of stamps. In 1807, he gave to the public a second volume of his Ballads; and, in 1809, with an intention to recommend a vigorous prosecution of the war with Spain, he published his only prose production, concerning the relations of Great Britain, Spain, and Portugal to each other. In 1814, appeared, in | quarto, his Excursion, a poem, which has been highly extolled, and is undoubtedly one of his most original and best compositions. It was followed, in 1815, by the White Doe of Rylstone; and, in 1819, by his Peter Bell, to the merits of which we must confess ourselves strangers. During the same year, he published his Wagonner, a tale; followed, in 1820, by the River Duddon, a series of sonnets; and Vaudracour and Julia, with other pieces; and Ecclesiastical Sketches. In 1822, he printed Me
morials of a Tour on the Continent; also a De scription of the Scenery of the Lakes in the North of England, with illustrative remarks on the scenery of the Alps. His last publication was Yarrow Revisited, which appeared in 1834.
The genius of Mr. Wordsworth has been a matter of critical dispute ever since he first made pretension to any, and it is yet a question with some, whether his productions are not those of " an inspired idiot." It would be, however, useless to deny him the reputation of a poet, though between the equally extravagant adoration and censure, of which he has been the object, it is difficult to define the exact position which will be ultimately assigned him in the rank of literature. Coleridge, who, as might be expected, 's one of his most enthusiastic admirers, says that, "in imaginative powers, Wordsworth stands nearest of all modern writers to Shakspeare and Milton, and yet in a kind perfectly unborrowed, and his own." The author of an essay on his theory and writings, printed in Blackwood's Magazine for 1830, gives a very fair estimate of his poetical genius. "The variety of subjects," he observes, "which Wordsworth has touched; the varied powers which he has displayed; the passages of redeeming beauty interspersed even amongst the worst and dullest of his productions; the originality of detached thoughts, scattered throughout works, to which, on the whole, we must deny the praise of originality; the deep pathos, and occasional grandeur of his style; the real poetical feeling which generally runs through its many modulations; his accurate observation of external nature; and the success with which he blends the purest and most devotional thoughts with the glories of the visible universe-all these are merits, which so far make up in number what they want in weight,' that, although insufficient to raise him to the shrine, they fairly admit him within the sacred temple of poesy." For our own parts, though we are not among those who call, as some of his admirers do, the poetry of Wordsworth "an actual revelation," we admit to have found in his works beauties which no other poet, perhaps, could have struck out of the peculiar sphere to which he has confined his imagination. His Recollections of Early Childhood, and a few others, are sublime compositions; whilst, on the other hand, his lines to a Glow-worm, et id omne genus, are despicable and ridiculous.
The private character of Mr. Wordsworth has never been impeached by his most virulent enemies, if he has any; and no man is more esteemed and respected for his amiable qualities.
BEING A PORTION OF THE RECLUSE.
he had not thought that the labour testowed by him upon what he has heretofore and now laid before the public, entitled him to candid attention for such a statement as he thinks necessary to throw light upon his endeavours to please, and he would hope, to benefit his countrymen.-Nothing further need be added, than that the first and third parts of the Recluse will consist chiefly of meditations in the author's own person; and that in the intermediate part (the Excursion) the intervention of characters speaking is employed, and something of a dramatic form adopted.
It is not the author's intention formally to announce a system: it was more animating to him to proceed in a different course; and if he shall succeed in conveying to the mind clear thoughts, lively images, and strong feelings, the reader will have no difficulty in extracting the system for himself. And in the mean time the following passage, taken from the conclusion of the first book of the Recluse, may be acceptable as a kind of prospectus of the design and scope of the whole poem.
"On man, on nature, and on human life, Musing in solitude, I oft perceive Fair trains of imagery before me rise, Accompanied by feelings of delight Pure, or with no unpleasing sadness mixt; And I am conscious of affecting thoughts And dear remembrances whose presence soothes Or elevates the mind, intent to weigh The good and evil of our mortal state.
THE title announces that this is only a portion of a poem; and the reader must be here apprized that it belongs to the second part of a long and laborious work which is to consist of three parts. -The author will candidly acknowledge that, if the first of these had been completed, and in such a manner as to satisfy his own mind, he should have preferred the natural order of publication, and have given that to the world first; but, as the second division of the work was designed to refer more to passing events, and to an existing state of things, than the others were meant to do, more continuous exertion was naturally bestowed upon it, and greater progress made here than in the rest of the poem; and as this part does not depend upon the preceding, to a degree which will materially injure its own peculiar interest, the author, complying with the earnest entreaties of some valued friends, presents the following pages to the public. It may be proper to state whence the poem, of which the Excursion is a part, derives its title of the Recluse. Several years ago, when the author retired to his native mountains, with the hope of being enabled to construct a literary work that might live, it was a reasonable thing that he should take a review of his own mind, and examine how-To these emotions, whensoe'er they come, far nature and education had qualified him for such employment. As subsidiary to this preparation, he undertook to record, in verse, the origin and progress of his own powers, as far as he was acquainted with them. That work, addressed to a dear friend, most distinguished for his knowledge and genius, and to whom the author's intellect is deeply indebted, has been long finished; and the result of the investigation which gave rise to it was a determination to compose a philosophical poem, containing views of man, nature, and society; and to be entitled, the Recluse; as having for its principal subject the sensations and opinions of a poet living in retirement.-The preparatory poem is biographical, and conducts the history of the author's mind to the point when he was imboldened to hope that his faculties were sufficiently matured for entering upon the arduous labour which he had proposed to himself; and the two works have the same kind of relation to each other, if he may so express himself, as the antichapel has to the body of a Gothic church. Continuing this allusion, he may be permitted to add, that his minor pieces, which have been long before the public, when they shall be properly arranged, will be found by the attentive reader to have such connexion with the main work as may give them claim to be likened to the little cells, oratories, and sepulchral recesses, ordinarily included in those edifices.
Whether from breath of outward circumstance, Or from the soul-an impulse to herself, I would give utterance in numerous verse. Of truth, of grandeur, beauty, love, and hope— And melancholy fear subdued by faith; Of blessed consolations in distress; Of moral strength, and intellectual power; Of joy in widest commonalty spread ; Of the individual mind that keeps her own Inviolate retirement, subject there To conscience only, and the law supreme Of that Intelligence which governs all; I sing: fit audience let me find though few !' "So pray'd, more gaining than he ask'd, the bard,
Holiest of men.-Urania, I shall need Thy guidance, or a greater muse, if such Descend to earth or dwell in highest heaven! For I must tread on shadowy ground, must sink Deep-and, aloft ascending, breathe in world To which the heaven of heavens is but a veil. All strength-all terror, single or in bands, That ever was put forth in personal form; Jehovah with his thunder, and the choir Of shouting angels, and the empyreal thrones I pass them unalarm'd. Not chaos, not The darkest pit of lowest Erebus, Nor aught of blinder vacancy-scoop'd out By help of dreams, can breed such fear and awe As fall upon us often when we look The author would not have deemed himself Into our minds, into the mind of man, Justified in saying, upon this occasion, so much of My haunt, and the main region of my song. performances either unfinished, or unpublished, if |—Beauty—a living presence of the earth,
Surpassing the most fair ideal forms Which craft of delicate spirits hath composed From earth's materials-waits upon my steps; Pitches her tents before me as I move, An hourly neighbour. Paradise, and groves Elysian, fortunate fields-like those of old Sought in th' Atlantic main, why should they be A history only of departed things,
Or a mere fiction of what never was For the discerning intelleet of man, When wedded to this goodly universe In love and holy passion, shall find these A simple produce of the common day. -I, long before the blissful hour arrives, Would chant, in lonely peace, the spousal verse Of this great consummation;-and, by words Which speak of nothing more than what we are, Would I arouse the sensual from their sleep Of death, and win the vacant and the vain To noble raptures; while my voice proclaims How exquisitely the individual mind (And the progressive powers perhaps no less Of the whole species) to the external world Is fitted; and how exquisitely, too, Theme this but little heard of among men, Th' external world is fitted to the mind; And the creation (by no lower name Can it be call'd) which they with blended might Accomplish:-this is our high argument. -Such grateful haunts foregoing, if I oft Must turn elsewhere-to travel near the tribes And fellowships of men, and see ill sights Of madding passions mutually inflamed; Must hear humanity in fields and groves Pipe solitary anguish ; or must hang Brooding above the fierce confederate storm Of sorrow, barricadoed evermore
Within the walls of cities; may these sounds Have their authentic comment,-that even these Hearing, I be not downcast or forlorn? -Descend, prophetic spirit! that inspirest The human soul* of universal earth, Dreaming on things to come; and dost possess A metropolitan temple in the hearts Of mighty poct3; upon me bestow
A gift of genuine insight; that my song With star-like virtue in its place may shine; Shedding benignant influence, and secure, Itself, from all malevolent effect
Of those mutations that extend their sway Throughout the nether sphere !-And if with this I mix more lowly matter; with the thing Contemplated, describe the mind and man Contemplating, and who, and what he was, The transitory being that beheld
This vision,—when and where, and how he lived; Be not this labour useless. If such theme May sort with highest objects, then, dread power, Whose gracious favour is the primal source Of all illumination, may my life Express the image of a better time,
More wise desires, and simpler manners; -nurse
*Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul Of the wide world dreaming on things to come. Shakspeare's Sonnets. VOL. III.-27
My heart in genuine freedom :-all pure thoughts Be with me ;-so shall thy unfailing love Guide, and support, and cheer me to the end!"
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
WILLIAM, EARL OF LONSDALE, K. G. &c. &c.
OFT, through thy fair domains, illustrious peer! In youth I roam'd, on youthful pleasures bent; And mused in rocky cell or sylvan tent, Beside swift-flowing Lowther's current clear. -Now, by thy care befriended, I appear Before thee, Lonsdale, and this work present, A token (may it prove a monument!) Of high respect and gratitude sincere. Gladly would I have waited till my task Hau reached its close; but life is insecure, And hope full oft fallacious as a dream: Therefore, for what is here produced I ask Thy favour; trusting that thou wilt not deem The offering, though imperfect, premature. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Rydal Mount, Westmoreland, July 29, 814.
A summer forenoon. The author reaches a ruined cottage upon a common, and there meets with a revered friend the Wanderer, of whom he gives an account. The Wan. derer while resting under the shade of the trees that surround the cottage relates the history of its last inha bitant.
"TWAS summer, and the sun had mounted high: Southward the landscape indistinctly glared Through a pale steam: but all the northern downs, In clearest air ascending, show'd far off A surface dappled o'er with shadows flung From brooding clouds: shadows that lay in spots Determined and unmoved, with steady beams Of bright and pleasant sunshine interposed; Pleasant to him who on the soft cool moss Extends his careless limbs along the front Of some huge cave, whose rocky ceiling casts A twilight of its own, an ample shade,
Where the wien warbles; while the dreaming man
Half conscious of the soothing melody, With sidelong eye looks out upon the scene, By power of that impending covert thrown To finer distance. Other lot was mine; Yet with good hope that soon I should obtain As grateful resting-place, and livelier joy. Across a bare wide common I was toiling With languid steps that by the slippery ground Were baffled; nor could my weak arm disperse The host of insects gathering round my face, And ever with me as I paced along.
Upon that open level stood a grove,
The wish'd for port to which my course was Dound
Thither I came, and there, amid the gloom Spread by a brotherhood of lofty elms, Appear'd a roofless hut; four naked walls That stared upon each other! I looked round, And to my wish and to my hope espied Him whom I sought; a man of reverend age, But stout and hale, for travel unimpair'd. There was he seen upon the cottage bench, Recumbent in the shade, as if asleep ; An iron-pointed staff lay at his side.
Him had I mark'd the day before-alone And station'd in the public way, with face
His graces unreveal'd and unproclaim'd. But, as the mind was fill'd with inward light, So not without distinction had he lived, Beloved and honour'd-far as he was known. And some small portion of his eloquent speech, And something that may serve to set in view The feeling pleasures of his loneliness, His observations, and the thoughts his mind Had dealt with-I will here record in verse; Which, if with truth it correspond, and sink Or rise as venerable nature leads,
The high and tender muses shall accept
Turn'd toward the sun then setting, while that staff With gracious smile, deliberately pleased,
Afforded to the figure of the man
Detain'd for contemplation or repose,
Graceful support; his countenance meanwhile Was hidden from my view, and he remain'd Unrecognised; but, stricken by the sight, With slacken'd footsteps I advanced, and soon A glad congratulation we exchanged, At such unthought of meeting.-For the night We parted, nothing willingly; and now He by appointment waited for me here, Beneath the shelter of these clustering elms.
We were tried friends: amid a pleasant vale, In the antique market village where were pass'd My school-days, an apartment he had own'd, To which at intervals the Wanderer drew, And found a kind of home or harbour there. He loved me; from a swarm of rosy boys Singled out me, as he in sport would say, For my grave looks-too thoughtful for my years. As I grew up, it was my best delight To be his chosen comrade. Many a time, On holydays, we rambled through the woods: We sate-we walk'd; he pleased me with report Of things which he had seen; and often touch'd Abstrusest matter, reasonings of the mind Turn'd inward; or at my request would sing Old songs-the product of his native hills; A skilful distribution of sweet sounds, Feeding the soul, and eagerly imbibed A3 cool, refreshing water by the care
Of the industrious husbandman, diffused [drought, Through a parch'd meadow-ground, in time of Still deeper welcome found his pure discourse: How precious when in riper days I learn'd To weigh with care his words, and to rejoice In the plain presence of his dignity!
O many are the poets that are sown By nature; men endow'd with highest gifts, The vision and the faculty divine; Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse, (Which, in the docile season of their youth, It was denied them to acquire, through lack Of culture and th' inspiring aid of books, Or haply by a temper too severe, Or a nice backwardness afraid of shame,) Not having here as life advanced, been led By circumstance to take unto the height The measure of themselves, these favour'd beings, All but a scatter'd few, live out their time, Husbanding that which they possess within, And go to the grave unthought of. Strongest minds Are often those of whom the noisy world Hears least; else surely this man had not left
And listening time reward with sacred praise. Among the hills of Athol he was born; Where, on a small hereditary farm,
An unproductive slip of rugged ground,
His parents, with their numerous offspring, dwelt A virtuous household, though exceeding poor! Pure livers were they all, austere and grave, And fearing God; the very children taught Stern self-respect, a reverence for God's word, And an habitual piety, maintain'd
With strictness scarcely known on English ground From his sixth year, the boy of whom I speak, In summer tended cattle on the hills; But, through th' inclement and the perilous days Of long-continuing winter, he repair'd, Equipp'd with satchel, to a school, that stood Sole building on a mountain's dreary edge, Remote from view of city spire, or sound Of minster clock! From that bleak tenement He, many an evening, to his distant home In solitude returning, saw the hills Grow larger in the darkness, all alone Beheld the stars come out above his head, And travell'd through the wood, with no one acar To whom he might confess the things he saw. So the foundations of his mind were laid. In such communion, not from terror free, While yet a child, and long before his time, He had perceived the presence and the power Of greatness; and deep feelings had impress'd Great objects on his mind, with portraiture And colour so distinct, that on his mind They lay like substances, and almost seem'd To haunt the bodily sense. He had received A precious gift; for, as he grew in years, With these impressions would he still compare All his remembrances, thoughts, shapes, and forms And, being still unsatisfied with aught Of dimmer character, he thence attain'd An active power to fasten images Upon his brain; and on their pictured lines Intensely brooded, even till they acquired The liveliness of dreams. Nor did he fail, While yet a child, with a child's eagerness Incessantly to turn his ear and eye On all things which the moving seasons brought To feed such appetite: nor this alone Appeased his yearning:-in the after day Of boyhood, many an hour in caves forlorn, And mid the hollow depths of naked crags He sate, and e'en in their fix'd lineam.ents, Or from the power of a peculiar eye, Or by creative feeling overborne.
Or by predominance of thought oppress'd, E'en in their fix'd and steady lineaments He traced an ebbing and a flowing mind, Expression ever varying!
He had small need of books; for many a tale Traditionary, round the mountains hung, And many a legend, peopling the dark woods, Nourish'd imagination in her growth, And gave the mind that apprehensive power By which she is made quick to recognise The moral properties and scope of things. But eagerly he read, and read again, Whate'er the minister's old shelf supplied; The life and death of martyrs, who sustain❜d, With will inflexible, those fearful pangs Triumphantly display'd in records left Of persecution, and the covenant-times Whose echo rings through Scotland to this hour! And there, by lucky hap, had been preserved A straggling volume, torn and incomplete, That left half told the preternatural tale, Romance of giants, chronicle of fiends, Profuse in garniture of wooden cuts Strange and uncouth; dire faces, figurés dire, Sharp-kneed, sharp-elbow'd, and lean-ankled too, With long and ghostly shanks-forms which once
Could never be forgotten!
In his heart, Where fear sate thus, a cherish'd visitant, Was wanting yet the pure delight of love By sound diffused, or by the breathing air, Or by the silent looks of happy things, Or flowing from the universal face
O then how beautiful, how bright appear'd The written promise! Early had he learn'd To reverence the volume that displays The mystery, the life which cannot die; But in the mountains did he feel his faith. All things, responsive to the writing, there Breathed immortality, revolving life, And greatness still revolving; infinite; There littleness was not; the least of things Seem'd infinite; and there his spirit shaped Her prospects, nor did he believe, he saw. What wonder if his being thus became Sublime and comprehensive! Low desires, Low thoughts had there no place; yet was his heart Lowly; for he was meek in gratitude,
Oft as he call'd those ecstasies to mind,
And whence they flow'd; and from them he acquired Wisdom, which works through patience; thence
In oft-recurring hours of sober thought To look on nature with a humble heart, Self-question'd where it did not understand, And with a superstitious eye of love.
So pass'd the time; yet to the nearest town He duly went with what small overplus His earnings might supply, and brought away The book that most had tempted his desires While at the stall he read. Among the hills He gazed upon that mighty orb of song, The divine Milton. Lore of different kind, The annual savings of a toilsome life, His schoolmaster supplied: books that explain The purer elements of truth involved In lines and numbers, and, by charm severe, (Especially perceived where nature droops And feeling is suppress'd) preserve the mind Busy in solitude and poverty.
These occupations oftentimes deceived The listless hours, while in the hollow vale, Hollow and green, he lay on the green turf In pensive idleness. What could he do, Thus daily thirsting, in that lonesome life, With blind endeavours? Yet still uppermost, Nature was at his heart as if he felt, look'd-Though yet he knew not how, a wasting power In all things that from her sweet influence Might tend to wean him. Therefore with her hues Her forms, and with the spirit of her forms,
Of earth and sky. But he had felt the powe Of nature, and already was prepared, By his intense conceptions, to receive Deeply the lesson deep of love which he, Whom nature, by whatever means, has taught To feel intensely, cannot but receive. Such was the boy-but for the growing youth What soul was his, when, from the naked top Of some bold headland, he beheld the sun Rise up, and bathe the world in light! He Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth And ocean's liquid mass, beneath him lay In gladness and deep joy. The clouds were touch'd, And in their silent faces did he read Unutterable love. Sound needed none, Nor any voice of joy; his spirit drank The spectacle; sensation, soul, and form, All melted into him; they swallow'd up His animal being; in them did he live, And by them did he live; they were his life. In such access of mind, in such high hour Of visitation from the living God, Thought was not; in enjoyment it expired. No thanks he breathed, he proffer'd no request; Rapt into still communion that transcends Th' imperfect offices of prayer and praise. His mind was a thanksgiving to the power That made him, it was blessedness and love! A herdsman on the lonely mountain tops, Such intercourse was his, and in this sort Was his existence oftentimes possess'd.
He clothed the nakedness of austere truth. While yet he linger'd in the rudiments Of science, and among her simplest laws, His triangles-they were the stars of heaven, The silent stars! Oft did he take delight To measure the altitude of some small crag That is the eagle's birthplace, or some peak Familiar with forgotten years, that shows Inscribed, as with the silence of the thought, Upon its bleak and visionary sides, The history of many a winter storm, Or obscure records of the path of fire.
And thus before his eighteenth year was told, Accumulated feelings press'd his heart With still increasing weight; he was o'erpower'd By nature, by the turbulence subdued
Of his own mind; by mystery and hope,
And the first virgin passion of a soul
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