JOURNALS

OF

DOROTHY WORDSWORTH

VOL. I

JOURNALS
OF
DOROTHY WORDSWORTH

EDITED BY
WILLIAM KNIGHT

VOL. I

MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd.
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.
1897

All rights reserved

[CONTENTS]

PAGE
Prefatory Note[vii]
I.Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, writtenat Alfoxden (from 20th January to 22nd May 1798)[1]
II.Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal of Daysspent at Hamburgh in September and October 1798[19]
III.Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, writtenat Grasmere (14th May to 21st December 1800)[29]
IV.Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, writtenat Grasmere (from 10th October 1801 to 29th December 1801)[61]
V.Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, writtenat Grasmere (from 1st January 1802 to 8th July 1802)[77]
VI.Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, writtenat Grasmere (9th July 1802 to 11th January 1803)[139]
VII.Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland(A.D. 1803)[159]

[PREFATORY NOTE]

The Journals written by Dorothy Wordsworth, and her reminiscences of Tours made with her brother, are more interesting to posterity than her letters.

A few fragments from her Grasmere Journal were included by the late Bishop of Lincoln in the Memoirs of his uncle, published in 1850. The Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland in 1803, were edited in full by the late Principal Shairp in the year 1874 (third edition 1894). In 1889, I included in my Life of William Wordsworth most of the Journal written at Alfoxden, much of that referring to Hamburg, and the greater part of the longer Grasmere Journal. Some extracts from the Journal of a Tour on the Continent made in 1820 (and of a similar one written by Mrs. Wordsworth), as well as short records of subsequent visits to Scotland and to the Isle of Man, were printed in the same volume. None of these, however, were given in their entirety; nor is it desirable now to print them in extenso, except in the case of the Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland in 1803. All the Journals contain numerous trivial details, which bear ample witness to the "plain living and high thinking" of the Wordsworth household—and, in this edition, samples of these details are given—but there is no need to record all the cases in which the sister wrote, "To-day I mended William's shirts," or "William gathered sticks," or "I went in search of eggs," etc. etc. In all cases, however, in which a sentence or paragraph, or several sentences and paragraphs, in the Journals are left out, the omission is indicated by means of asterisks. Nothing is omitted of any literary or biographical value. Some persons may think that too much has been recorded, others that everything should have been printed. As to this, posterity must judge. I think that many, in future years, will value these Journals, not only as a record of the relations existing between Wordsworth and his sister, his

wife, her family and his friends, but also as an illustration of the remarkable literary brotherhood and sisterhood of the period.

Coming now to details.