+-------------------------------------------+ | Note: | | | | = around word indicates bold =CAPSULE.= | | _ around word indicated italics Erebus | +-------------------------------------------+
THE POETICAL WORKS
OF
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
VOL. V
THE POETICAL WORKS
OF
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
EDITED BY
WILLIAM KNIGHT
VOL. V
London MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD. NEW YORK: MACMILLAN & CO. 1896
All rights reserved
CONTENTS
PAGE THE EXCURSION-- PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1814 20 BOOK FIRST--THE WANDERER 26 BOOK SECOND--THE SOLITARY 67 BOOK THIRD--DESPONDENCY 105 BOOK FOURTH--DESPONDENCY CORRECTED 142 BOOK FIFTH--THE PASTOR 195 BOOK SIXTH--THE CHURCH-YARD AMONG THE MOUNTAINS 235 BOOK SEVENTH--THE CHURCH-YARD AMONG THE MOUNTAINS--Continued 283 BOOK EIGHTH--THE PARSONAGE 326 BOOK NINTH--DISCOURSE OF THE WANDERER, AND AN EVENING VISIT TO THE LAKE 352 NOTES 383
APPENDIX
NOTE A 391 NOTE B 392 NOTE C 393 NOTE D 396 NOTE E 398
WORDSWORTH'S POETICAL WORKS
THE EXCURSION
Composed 1795-1814.--Published 1814
[Something must now be said of this poem, but chiefly, as has been done through the whole of these notes, with reference to my personal friends, and especially to her who has perseveringly taken them down from my dictation. Towards the close of the first book, stand the lines that were first written,--beginning "Nine tedious years," and ending "Last human tenant of these ruined walls." These were composed in 1795, at Racedown; and for several passages describing the employment and demeanour of Margaret during her affliction, I was indebted to observations made in Dorsetshire, and afterwards at Alfoxden, in Somersetshire, where I resided in 1797 and 1798. The lines towards the conclusion of the fourth book, "Despondency corrected,"--beginning "For the man who in this spirit," to the words "intellectual soul,"--were in order of time composed the next, either at Racedown or Alfoxden, I do not remember which. The rest of the poem was written in the vale of Grasmere, chiefly during our residence at Allan Bank. The long poem on my own education was, together with many minor poems, composed while we lived at the cottage at Town-end. Perhaps my purpose of giving an additional interest to these my poems, in the eyes of my nearest and dearest friends, may be promoted by saying a few words upon the character of the Wanderer, the Solitary, and the Pastor, and some other of the persons introduced. And first of the principal one, the Wanderer.
My lamented friend Southey (for this is written a month after his decease[A]) used to say that had he been born a Papist, the course of life which would in all probability have been his, was the one for which he was most fitted and most to his mind, that of a Benedictine monk, in a convent, furnished, as many once were, and some still are, with an inexhaustible library. Books, as appears from many passages in his writings, and was evident to those who had opportunities of observing his daily life, were in fact his passion; and wandering, I can with truth affirm, was mine; but this propensity in me was happily counteracted by inability from want of fortune to fulfil my wishes.
But had I been born in a class which would have deprived me of what is called a liberal education, it is not unlikely that, being strong in body, I should have taken to a way of life such as that in which my Pedlar passed the greater part of his days. At all events, I am here called upon freely to acknowledge that the character I have represented in his person is chiefly an idea of what I fancied my own character might have become in his circumstances. Nevertheless much of what he says and does had an external existence, that fell under my own youthful and subsequent observation.
An individual, named Patrick, by birth and education a Scotchman, followed this humble occupation for many years, and afterwards settled in the town of Kendal.[B] He married a kinswoman of my wife's, and her sister Sarah was brought up from her ninth year under this good man's roof.[C] My own imaginations I was happy to find clothed in reality, and fresh ones suggested, by what she reported of this man's tenderness of heart, his strong and pure imagination, and his solid attainments in literature, chiefly religious, whether in prose or verse. At Hawkshead also, while I was a schoolboy, there occasionally resided a Packman (the name then generally given to persons of this calling), with whom I had frequent conversations upon what had befallen him, and what he had observed, during his wandering life; and, as was natural, we took much to each other; and, upon the subject of Pedlarism in general, as then followed, and its favourableness to an intimate knowledge of human concerns, not merely among the humbler classes of society, I need say nothing here in addition to what is to be found in The Excursion, and a note attached to it.
Now for the Solitary. Of him I have much less to say. Not long after we took up our abode at Grasmere, came to reside there, from what motive I either never knew or have forgotten, a Scotchman, a little past the middle of life, who had for many years been chaplain to a Highland regiment. He was in no respect, as far as I know, an interesting character, though in his appearance there was a good deal that attracted attention, as if he had been shattered in fortune, and not happy in mind. Of his quondam position I availed myself to connect with the Wanderer, also a Scotchman, a character suitable to my purpose, the elements of which I drew from several persons with whom I had been connected, and who fell under my observation during frequent residences in London at the beginning of the French Revolution. The chief of these was, one may now say, a Mr. Fawcett, a preacher at a Dissenting meeting-house at the Old Jewry. It happened to me several times to be one of his congregation through my connection with Mr. Nicholson of Cateaton Street, Strand, who, at a time when I had not many acquaintances in London, used often to invite me to dine with him on Sundays; and I took that opportunity (Mr. N. being a Dissenter) of going to hear Fawcett, who was an able and eloquent man. He published a poem on War, which had a good deal of merit, and made me think more about him than I should otherwise have done. But his Christianity was probably never very deeply rooted; and, like many others in those times of like shewy talents, he had not strength of character to withstand the effects of the French Revolution, and of the wild and lax opinions which had done so much towards producing it, and far more in carrying it forward in its extremes. Poor Fawcett, I have been told, became pretty much such a person as I have described, and early disappeared from the stage, having fallen into habits of intemperance, which I have heard (though I will not answer for the fact) hastened his death. Of him I need say no more. There were many like him at that time, which the world will never be without, but which were more numerous then, for reasons too obvious to be dwelt upon.
To what is said of the Pastor in the poem, I have little to add but what may be deemed superfluous. It has ever appeared to me highly favourable to the beneficial influence of the Church of England upon all gradations and classes of society, that the patronage of its benefices is in numerous instances attached to the estates of noble families of ancient gentry; and accordingly I am gratified by the opportunity afforded me in The Excursion, to pourtray the character of a country clergyman of more than ordinary talents, born and bred in the upper ranks of society so as to partake of their refinements, and at the same time brought by his pastoral office and his love of rural life into intimate connection with the peasantry of his native district.
To illustrate the relation which in my mind this Pastor bore to the Wanderer, and the resemblances between them, or rather the points of community in their nature, I likened one to an oak, and the other to a sycamore; and having here referred to this comparison, I need only add, I had no one individual in my mind, wishing rather to embody this idea than to break in upon the simplicity of it by traits of individual character, or of any peculiarity of opinion.
And now for a few words upon the scene where these interviews and conversations are supposed to occur.
The scene of the first book of the poem is, I must own, laid in a tract of country not sufficiently near to that which soon comes into view in the second book, to agree with the fact. All that relates to Margaret, and the ruined cottage, etc., was taken from observations made in the south-west of England, and certainly it would require more than seven-league boots to stretch in one morning, from a common in Somersetshire, or Dorsetshire, to the heights of Furness Fells, and the deep valleys they embosom. For thus dealing with space, I need make, I trust, no apology; but my friends may be amused by the truth.