Part 13

At last, in 1814, the great poem was published upon which Wordsworth’s fame is built, viz., “The Excursion.” It was met, as usual, with tremendous and most indiscriminate abuse, especially by Jeffrey, in his “This won’t do” article. But despite all this, the poem grew deeply into the public mind, and is still growing there; and ranks, at last, with our highest poetry. All the characters and scenes in it are drawn from life, and there are few more interesting papers than the memoranda which the poet has left respecting these characters and their localities. “The Wanderer,” he acknowledges, is chiefly an embodied idea of what he fancied _his own character might have become_ in the said _Wanderer_’s circumstances. His sister, with her gentle love and sweet remonstrances,--although ready to follow him to the ends of the earth--did in reality save him from this wild nomadic life, by fixing his thoughts upon a _home_, and the genial influences which domestic life would produce and exercise upon his poetic genius. And then his wife, children, and the rich harvests of fortune, which were reaped without any sowing of his, and dropped into his lap, finished the work his sister had begun, and finally settled him as a citizen and a family man. Otherwise, being strong in body, I should, he says, very probably, have “taken to the way of life such as that in which my ‘Wanderer’ passed the greater part of his days.” Much, however, of what the “Wanderer” says and does, was the result, in verse, of the poet’s experience; was what he had actually heard and seen, although refined, of course, as it passed through his imagination. He was fond of talking to all kinds of strange characters;--now treading on the outskirts of social life, or wandering with a wild, vagabond independence amongst the highways of towns and cities. Whatever of romance and adventure they had known, he wormed out of them, or _charmed_ out of them; and he partially instances, as an illustration of this prying curiosity--this insatiable longing after experience, and the history of men--an old Scotchman, who married finally a relation of his wife’s, and settled down at Kendal, and a travelling packman, from whom he learned much, and whose adventures and wisdom are embodied in the character of the “Wanderer.” “The Solitary,” “The Pastor,” “Pedlar,” “Margaret,” “Miser,” and all the dramatis personæ of the poem, are made up of veritable human materials, and had their architypes in the great world of humanity. The reader, however, must go to Dr. Wordsworth for a full relation respecting these matters. All I can add here, respecting the “Excursion,” is that only 500 copies were disposed of in six years; and when, in 1827, another edition, of the same number of copies, was printed, it took seven years more to exhaust it. The poet, however, was not daunted by this culpable neglect of his immortal lines; but conscious of his own greatness, he wrote, in a letter to Southey,--“Let the age continue to love its own darkness; I shall continue to write, with, I trust, the light of heaven upon me.” Jeffrey, in the pride and arrogance of his position, as Executioner General of the Courts of Critical Assize, boasted that HE--poor devil!--had _crushed_ the “Excursion;” and the boast was repeated to Southey:--“Tell him,” said he, Southey “that he could as soon crush Skiddaw!” Bernard Barton,--a writer whose chief merit consists in a letter written to Wordsworth, expressive of his homage and reverence for the Bard of Rydal--alludes, in the said letter, to Jeffrey: “He has taken,” says Wordsworth, in reply, “a perpetual retainer, from his own incapacity, to plead against my claims to public approbation.” So, we see, that the good poet could hit hard if he liked; although he rarely descended to this literary pugilism, thinking it beneath the dignity of his art and character.

It was Wordsworth’s custom to compose in the open air; and as his servant once said to a visitor, “This, sir, is my master’s library--his study is out of doors.” He had a great and sickening dread of writing; and his sister, or some other member of his family was always at hand to perform for him the office of amanuensis. In the year 1807, when on a visit to his wife’s brother at Stockton-on-Tees, the weather being very boisterous, and the winds rough, he used to pace up and down under the lee of a row of corn-stacks in a field near that town--and it was here that he composed the earlier part of “White Doe of Ryletone,” chaunting his verses aloud to the astonished stacks. The poem was not published until 1815, and has been much misinterpreted, and consequently abused. The truth is, that Wordsworth wrote always upon principle, and a carefully premeditated plan; there was always a high purpose in his poems, both moral and intellectual. His poetical canons were likewise his own, and his mode of treating a subject was always in conformity with them, or illustrations of them. Superficial readers, who had been accustomed to the _objective_ poetry of Scott, could not understand Wordsworth, therefore; for he was studiously _subjective_, and the interest of his poems hangs nearly always upon the development of mere spiritual forces, and their progress, if I may so speak, _outwards_, in the subjugation of the external world or in the strengthening of the soul to bear the ills and mishaps of life with a sublime fortitude. “The White Doe” is a memorable example of this spiritual aim. “Every thing,” says Wordsworth, ‘attempted by the principal personages in this poem _fails_, so far as its object is external and substantial; so far as it is moral and spiritual it _succeeds_. The heroine of the poem knows that her duty is not to interfere with the current of events, either to forward or delay them; but

“To abide The shock, and finally secure O’er pain and grief a triumph pure.”

This she does in obedience to her brother’s injunction, as most suitable to a mind and character that, under previous trials, had been proved to accord with his. She achieves this, not without aid from the communication with the inferior creature which often leads her thoughts to revolve upon the past with a tender and humanising influence that exalts rather than depresses her. Her anticipated beatification of the mind, and the apotheosis of the companion of her solitude, are the points at which the poem aims, and constitutes its legitimate catastrophe.” All this is widely different from the usual mode of conducting dramatic action, and yet the action of the poem in question is complete and satisfactory, and is artistically developed from its own spiritual germ, or starting point.

Whilst walking, and composing “The White Doe,” Wordsworth received a wound in his foot; and it is curious to remark that, even when he ceased walking, the _act of composition_ increased the irritation of the wound, whilst a mental holiday produced a rapid cure. “Poetic excitement,” he says, “when accompanied by protracted labour in composition, has throughout my life brought on more or less of bodily derangement. Nevertheless I am, at the close of my seventy-third year, in what may be called excellent health. But I ought to add, that my intellectual labour has generally been carried on out of doors.”

The next group of poems--and two of them certainly amongst the grandest triumphs of poetic art, were composed respectively as follows:--“Laodamia,” in 1814; “Dion,” in 1816; and the “Ode to Lycoris,” in 1817. The first and second of these poems were entirely Greek in their character and form, and Keates’ “Hyperion” is the only modern poem (and this a fragment) which is worthy to be placed in comparison with them. It is singular how the idea of these poems originated in the mind of the poet. He had been preparing his son for the University, and had to read up his old classics for this purpose. Hence the Classic Spirit took up its abode with him, and urged him to these beautiful and plastic productions. About this time, and with the same object in view--viz., the education of his son--he translated one of the earlier books of the “Æneid” into rhyme. Coleridge, in writing to the author respecting this translation, says, he has attempted an impossibility, and regrets he should have wasted his time on a work (viz., of translation) so much below him. Wordsworth was always attached to the classics; and before he read Virgil, he was so fond of Ovid, that he invariably got into a passion when he found this author placed below Virgil. He was never weary of travelling over the scenes through which Homer led him. “Classical literature,” he says, “affected me by its own beauty.”

“Peter Bell” appeared in 1819. It was composed twenty years before, as already related; and sold better than any of Wordsworth’s previous poems, notwithstanding the abuse of the critics. Five hundred copies were exhausted before one month, between April and May of this one year (1819). “The Waggoner” was published at the same time, but was not so successful, perhaps on account of its mere local interest. The “Sonnets on the River Duddon” appeared about the same time, and were dedicated to the Rev. Dr. Wordsworth, the poet’s brother, who was at that time Rector of Lambeth. “The river Duddon has its main source[J] in the mountain range near the “Three Shire Stones,” as they were called, where the three counties, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Lancashire meet. It flows to the south through Seathwaite, by Broughton, to the Duddon Sands, and into the Irish Sea.”--Wordsworth’s first acquaintance with this stream commenced in his boyhood, during the time that he was so passionately fond of angling: upon one of his fishing excursions he joined an old weather-beaten man, and went far away from home, seduced by the dear delight of his art. On their return, the embryo poet was so wearied, that the old man had to carry him on his back. He says that his earliest recollections of this stream were full of distress and disappointment; but in later times he visited it with so many beloved persons, that its waters flowed through him in streams of music--in anthems of affectionate song.

In 1820 Wordsworth made another tour to the Continent, in company with his wife and sister, Mr. and Mrs. Monkhonse, then just married, and Miss Herricks. They left these two ladies at Berne, while Mr. Monkhouse went with the poet and his retinue, on an excursion amongst the Alps, as far as Milan. They were joined at Lucerne by Mr. H. C. Robinson; and the two ladies, whom they had left at Berne, rejoined them at Geneva, when the whole party went to Paris, where they remained five weeks.

In 1822 Wordsworth published a volume of Sonnets, and other Poems, as the result of this tour, entitled, “Memorials of a Tour on the Continent.”

In two letters to Lord Lonsdale--one dated from Lucerne, August 19th, 1820, and the other from Paris, dated October 7, 1820,--the poet has given a general outline of this tour and its incidents.[K] I ought to add that Wordsworth visited Waterloo, amongst other places of interest, at this time. The party returned by way of Boulogne, November 2nd, and had a narrow escape of shipwreck,--the vessel striking upon a sand-bank, and being then driven with violence on a rocky road in the harbour, where she was battered about until the ebbing of the tide set her at liberty--at least from the violence of the sea; “and, blessed be God,” says Wordsworth, in his Journal, “for our preservation!”

They arrived at Dover on the 7th, and at London on the 9th, where they met Rogers, Lamb, and Talfourd, amongst other noted persons and friends. Wordsworth walked on to visit Coleridge, from Hampstead Heath, on the 18th, and then went down to Cambridge, to congratulate his brother, Dr. Wordsworth, on his appointment to the Mastership of Trinity College.

They returned to Rydal Mount on Christmas Eve, visiting Sir George and Lady Beaumont, at Coleorton, by the way. Sir George was then about to build a church on his estate, and this fact led to conversation on Church History, and eventually to the production of the “Ecclesiastical Sonnets.” In the third part of the first of these Sonnets occurs the following line:--

“I saw the figure of a lovely maid.”

And the note attached to it, by the poet, is so interesting, that I must transcribe it:--

“When I came to this part of the series, I had the dream described in this sonnet. The _figure was that of my daughter_, and the whole passed exactly as here represented. The sonnet was composed on the middle road leading from Grasmere to Ambleside; it was began as I left the last house in the vale, and finished, word for word, as it now stands, before I came in view of Rydal. I wish I could say the same of the five or six hundred I have written; most of them were frequently retouched, in the course of composition, and not a few laboriously.”

Here is the sonnet in question:--

“I saw the figure of a lovely maid, Seated, alone, beneath a darksome tree, Whose fondly-overhanging canopy Set off her brightness with a pleasing shade. No spirit was she; that my heart betrayed, For she was one I loved exceedingly; But while I gazed in tender reverie (Or was it sleep that with my fancy played?), The bright corporeal presence--form and face-- Remaining still distinct, grew thin and rare, Like sunny mists; at length the golden hair, Shape, limbs, and heavenly features, keeping pace, Each with the other, in a lingering race Of dissolution, melted into air.”

In 1823, Wordsworth again visited the Continent, making a short tour, with his wife, in Belgium and Holland. As usual, a journal of travel was kept by the poet, and is printed, partly at least, in the “Memoirs.” At the close of the summer, in the next year, he made a short excursion in North Wales, the records of which are contained in a letter to Sir George Beaumont, dated Hindwell, Radnor, September 20, 1824.[L] Again, in 1828, the poet, accompanied by his daughter, Dora, made an excursion to see Coleridge, through Belgium, and up the Rhine. And it was at this time that the “Incident at Bruges” was written, concerning which the poet says:--“Dora and I, while taking a walk along a retired part of the town, heard the voice as here described, and were afterwards informed that it was a Convent, in which were many English. We were both much touched, I may say, affected, and Dora moved, as appears in the verses.” The “Lines on a Jewish Family,” were likewise written on this tour. The poet, his daughter, and Coleridge were at St. Goar, when they first saw this family. They had provided themselves with a basket of provisions for the day, and offered the poor people a share of them. The mother refused for the rest, because it was a fast-day, adding, that whether such observances were right or wrong, it was her duty to keep them. They were all poor, ragged, and hungry, but exceedingly beautiful, and the self-command, self-respect, and self-sacrifice of the woman is the moral of this little story, I think, although no allusion is made to it in the poem.

In 1829, Wordsworth made a tour in Ireland, with J. Marshall, Esq., M.P. of Leeds. All through his life Wordsworth had a horror of Popery; and this journey, with his Continental tours, tended to confirm it with still greater intensity. He hated Popery because it was the avowed enemy of freedom, and he would not sanction the Catholic Emancipation Bill, because he thought that by giving freedom to the Catholic religion, the Government were but paving the way for a frightful domination over the souls and bodies of men. Still he loved freedom--as his sonnets to “Liberty,” and his enthusiastic sympathies with republican France, at the outbreak of the first revolution sufficiently show. He was a Churchman, however, devotedly attached to the traditions, forms, and doctrines of the Church, and there was no moving him from these foundations. He attributed the distress and misery of Ireland to the priests--Catholic, of course--and to the false tenures of the land. The country, he said, had never been fully conquered, and this was another and a chief cause of the degradation of Ireland. The people were under the control--absolute control--of the priests, ready to do their bidding, let that bidding be what it might. And he trembled--as well he might--for the power of the Irish Church! God forgive us, we are all at the best but short-sighted mortals, and few can see the truth, save through the medium of prejudice. The Irish Church, if _my_ vision be clear, is one of the many stumbling blocks, and rubbish heaps in the way of Irish civilization; and certainly the Roman Catholic Church is another.

This tour supplied Wordsworth with very few materials for poetry. The lines, however, in the fine poem on the “Power of Sound,” one of the _finest_ poems which Wordsworth has written, commencing

“Thou too be heard, lone eagle!”

were, he says, suggested near the Giant’s Causeway, where he saw a pair of eagles wheel over his head, and then dart off “as if to hide themselves in a blaze of sky made by the setting sun.”

It was about this time also that the sweet poem, entitled “The Triad,” was written, in which the daughters of Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge, are bound together in the most musical and flowery forms, as the three Graces. Wordsworth often promised these fair children to send them down to immortality in his verses, but it was long before the mood seized him, and the _modus operandi_ was made plain to him. At last the ideas embodied in “The Triad” struck him, and the result is something finer than the most vivid sculpture. The poet commences--

“Shew me the noblest youth of present time, Whose trembling fancy would to love give birth; Some god or hero from the Olympian clime Returned to seek a consort upon earth; Or, in no doubtful prospect let me see, The brightest star of ages yet to be, And I will mate and match him blissfully.”

So confident is he of the beauty and virtue of the three fair girls hidden amongst the recesses of the hills, that he boasts of their worthiness to match even the noblest of gods or heroes. And then he invokes them to appear, whilst a youth expectant at his side, and breathless as they,

“Looks to the earth and to the vacant air; And with a wandering air that seems to chide, Asks of the clouds what occupants they hide.”

And now the poet will fulfil his promise, and show the golden youth this beautiful triad of Graces.

“Fear not a constraining measure! --Yielding to the gentle spell, Lucida! from domes of pleasure, Or from cottage-sprinkled dell, Comes to regions solitary, Where the eagle builds her aery, Above the hermit’s long-forsaken cell! --She comes!--behold That figure, like a ship with silver sail! Nearer she draws; a breeze uplifts her veil; Upon her coming wait As pure a sunshine, and as soft a gale, As e’er, on herbage-covering earthly mold, Tempted the bird of Juno to unfold His richest splendour,--when his veering gait, And every motion of his starry train, Seem governed by a strain Of music, audible to him alone.”

And then we have a picture of the lady:--

“worthy of earth’s proudest throne! Nor less, by excellence of nature, fit Beside an unambitious hearth to sit Domestic queen, where grandeur is unknown; What living man could fear The worst of fortune’s malice, wer’t thou near, Humbling that lily stem, thy sceptre meek, That its fair flowers may brush from off his cheek The too, too, happy tear? --Queen, and handmaid lowly! Whose skill can speed the day with lively cares, And banish melancholy By all that mind invents, or hand prepares; O thou, against whose lip, without its smile And in its silence even, no heart is proof; Whose goodness, sinking deep, would reconcile The softest nursling of a gorgeous palace, To the bare life beneath the hawthorn roof Of Sherwood’s archer, or in caves of Wallace-- Who that hath seen thy beauty could content His soul with but a _glimpse_ of heavenly day? Who that hath loved thee, but would lay His strong hand on the wind, if it were bent To take thee in thy majesty away? Pass onward (even the glancing deer Till we depart intrude not here;) That mossy slope, o’er which the woodbine throws A canopy, is smooth’d for thy repose!”

The next lady that he invokes before the astonished youth is his own daughter--sweet Dora--the previous one was Miss Southey.

“Come, if the notes thine ear may pierce, Come, youngest of the lovely three, Submissive to the mighty verse And the dear voice of harmony, By none more deeply felt than thee! I sang; and lo! from pastures virginal She hastens to the haunts Of Nature, and the lonely elements. _Air sparkles round her with a dazzling sheen_; And mark, her glowing cheek, her vesture green! And, as if wishful to disarm Or to repay the potent charm, She bears the stringed lute of old romance, That cheered the trellissed arbour’s privacy, And soothed war-wearied knights in raftered hall. How vivid, yet how delicate, her glee! So tripped the muse, inventress of the dance; So, truant in waste woods, the blithe Euphrosyne!”

But the ringlets of that head, Why are they ungarlanded? Why bedeck her temples less Than the simplest shepherdess? Is it not a brow inviting Choicest flowers that ever breathed, Which the myrtle would delight in, With Idalian rose enwreathed? But her humility is well content With _one_ wild floweret (call it not forlorn),-- FLOWER OF THE WINDS--beneath her bosom worn-- Yet more for love than ornament.”

Then follows that beautiful description of her moral graces, already quoted in these pages, beginning--

“Open ye thickets! let her fly, Swift as a Thracian nymph, o’er field and height;”

the whole picture being as fine a conception, and as rich an embodyment, of this sweet Dora,--judging from her portrait in the second volume of the “Memoirs,” and from numerous written and spoken reports of her person and character,--as the highest genius and the highest art combined, could possibly have produced. And now for Miss Coleridge:--

“Last of the three, tho’ eldest born, Reveal thyself, like pensive morn Touched by the skylark’s earliest note, E’er humble-gladness be afloat. But whether in the semblance drest Of dawn, or eve, fair vision of the west, Come, with each anxious hope subdued By woman’s gentle fortitude, Each grief, thro’ meekness, settling into rest. --Or I would hail thee when some high-wrought page Of a closed volume, lingering in thine hand, Has raised thy spirit to a peaceful stand Among the glories of a happy age.”

And, behold! she is here:--