All this is a burst of quiet, yet beautiful, and almost ecstatic, enthusiasm—the like of which is not to be met with elsewhere, I think, in poetry. Surely, Wordsworth was worthy of his sweet cottage, and sweeter and dearer sister, and his glorious lake, with its one green island,—his mountains, and woods, and dales,—his church, and the cottages, “clustered like stars,” around it; for he had the great heart, and large brain, which Nature makes the condition for all those who would share her communion. And, then, his tastes were so simple, natural, and unaffected; he lived so close to Nature, and knew so many of her secrets, and loved her too, with the passion of a first and only love. Yes, surely, he was worthy of all he enjoyed.
During the three years which elapsed, between the poet’s entering upon the cottage at Grasmere, and his marriage, he was very industriously, and even laboriously, employed in cultivating his art; for he had resolved that poetry should be the business and not the pastime of his life. We find Coleridge urging him to continue the “Recluse,”—by which he meant, as Dr. Wordsworth informs us, the “Prelude;”—in the summer of 1799, and again in October of the same year, he says he will hear of nothing else but the “Recluse;” for in the mood he was in at that time, he was wholly against the publication of any small poems. He desired that his friend should build, what my friend J. H. Stirling calls an “Opus;” but Wordsworth, though still at work upon the foundations of his opus, cannot rest without making little oratories—holy cells—in the pauses of his labour. Hence a new volume of poems was soon ready for publication; and as the 12mo. edition of the “Lyrical Ballads,” was by this time exhausted, Wordsworth determined to reprint them, and add this new volume to the work, calling the two conjointly “Lyrical Ballads, in two Volumes.” The pieces now presented to the public, included some of his finest lyrical effusions. Amongst others, “Lucy Gray,” “Nutting,” “The Brothers,” “Ruth,” “Poor Susan,” “The Waterfall, and the Eglantine.” This new edition was published, in 1800, by Messrs. Longmans, who offered the poet £100 for two editions of the two volumes.
In 1801, Wordsworth presented a copy of the “Lyrical Ballads” to the Right Hon. C. J. Fox, accompanied by a characteristic letter; in reply to which, Mr. Fox expresses his high admiration of many of the poems, particularly of “Harry Gill,” “We are Seven,” “The Mad Mother,” and “The Idiot Boy.” Mr. Fox, however, takes exception to blank verse, as a vehicle for subjects which are to be treated with simplicity.
Other poems of deep interest succeeded these new lyrics; and I will name “The Leech Gatherer,” and the “Ode to Immortality,” because these poems have always been great favourites with me; and, further, because I wish to add here the notes which the poet has furnished respecting them. And first of all “The Leech Gatherer:”—speaking of this poem to his friends he says,—
“I will explain to you in prose, my feelings in writing that poem. I describe myself as having been exalted to the highest pitch of delight by the joyousness and beauty of Nature; and then as depressed, even in the midst of these beautiful objects, to the lowest dejection and despair. A young poet in the midst of the happiness of Nature is described as overwhelmed by the thoughts of the miserable reverses which have befallen the happiest of all men—viz., poets. I think of this till I am so deeply impressed with it, that I consider the manner in which I was rescued from my dejection and despair almost as an interposition of Providence. A person reading the poem with feelings like mine, will have been awed and controlled, expecting something spiritual or supernatural. What is brought forward? A lonely place, ‘a pond by which an old man was, far from all house and home;’ not stood, nor sat, but was. The figure presented in the most naked simplicity possible. This feeling of spirituality or supernaturalness is again referred to as being strong in my mind in this passage. How came he here? thought I, or what can he be doing? I then describe him, whether ill or well is not for me to judge with perfect confidence; but this I can confidently affirm, that though I believe God has given me a strong imagination, I cannot conceive a figure more impressive than that of an old man like this, the survivor of a wife and children, travelling alone among the mountains, and all lonely places, carrying with him his own fortitude in the necessities which an unjust state of society has laid upon him. You speak of his speech as tedious. Everything is tedious when one does not read with the feelings of the author. The ‘Thorn’ is tedious to hundreds; and so is the ‘Idiot Boy.’ It is in the character of the old man to tell his story, which an impatient reader must feel tedious. But, good heavens! should he ever meet such a figure in such a place; a pious, self-respecting, miserably infirm old man telling such a tale!”
Having thus shown the feelings of the poet in writing “The Thorn,” I will quote, secondly and lastly, the note to the celebrated “Ode.” “This,” he says, “was composed during my residence at Town End, Grasmere. Two years at least passed between the writing of the first four stanzas and the remaining part. To the attentive and competent reader the whole sufficiently explains itself; but there may be no harm in adverting here to particular feelings or experiences of my own mind on which the structure of the poem partly rests. Nothing was more difficult for me in childhood than to admit the notion of death as a state applicable to my own being. I have said elsewhere—
“A simple child
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?”
But it was not so much from the source of animal vivacity that my difficulties came, as from a source of the indomitableness of the spirit within me. I used to brood over the stories of Enoch and Elijah, and almost to persuade myself that, whatever might become of others, I should be translated in something of the same way to heaven. With a feeling congenial to this, I was often unable to think of external things as having externally existence, and I communed with all that I saw as something not apart from, but inherent in my own immaterial nature. Many times, when going to school, have I grasped at a wall or tree to recall myself from this abyss of idealism to the reality. At that time I was afraid of such processes. In later periods of life I have deplored, as we have all reason to do, a subjugation of an opposite character, and have rejoiced over the remembrances, as is expressed in the lines “Obstinate Questionings,” &c. To that dream-like vividness of splendour which invests objects of sight in childhood, every one, I believe, if he would look back, could bear testimony, and I need not dwell upon it here; but having in the poem regarded it as presumptive evidence of a prior state of existence, I think it right to protest against such a conclusion which has given pain to some good and pious persons, that I meant to inculcate such a belief. It is far too shadowy a notion to be recommended to faith as more than an element in our instincts of immortality. But let us bear in mind that, though the idea is not advanced in revelation, there is nothing there to contradict it, and the fall of man presents an analogy in its favour. Accordingly, a pre-existent state has entered into the popular creeds of many nations, and among all persons acquainted with classic literature is known as an ingredient in Platonic philosophy. Archimedes said that he could move the world if he had a point whereon to rest his machine. Who has not felt the same aspirations as regards the world of his own mind? Having to wield some of its elements when I was impelled to write this poem on the ‘Immortality of the Soul,’ I took hold of the notion of pre-existence, as having sufficient foundation in humanity for authorising me to make for my purpose the best use of it I could as a poet.”
Now, in this note, and in the “Ode” which it illustrates, will be found the key to all Wordsworth’s philosophy, and to the secret of his mind as a poet. The mystic spiritualism which imbues all his writings, is the great distinguishing feature which marks and separates him from merely didactic and descriptive poets; and, were this element wanting in him, we should have a fine reporter of Nature’s doings—a fine painter of objective effects—but no creator—no idealist, and therefore, properly speaking, no poet, in the high signification of that term. Luckily, however, for Wordsworth and for the world, he possessed the spiritual faculty, and kept it always active; so that his eye, even in the presence of the meanest objects, was open to the ideal things of which the symbols they were. The infinite was ever present to his mind, and he saw all objects through that medium of light and relationship. But the great band of critics outside the fine region in which Wordsworth dwelt, could not of course understand this “Ode,” or the general tone of Wordsworth’s poetry, and therefore they denounced it, as incomprehensible, mystic, and absurd. But because they had no faculty with which to appreciate spiritual representation, or even to believe in spirituality as a fact belonging to the nature of man, that was no reason in the estimation of our poet, that he should cease to sing his wonted strains in his wonted manner. In alluding to this depreciation of his poems, he very sorrowfully says, somewhere in his letters or notes, that it is a fact that “nineteen out of every twenty persons are unable to appreciate poetry;” and we are bound to confess that this hard judgment is truth. Even the better sort of “Reviews,” in which we should have expected at least a recognition of the genius and noble aims of the poet, stood out dead against him; and Jeffrey’s “This will never do,” in speaking of “The Excursion,” shows how blindly bigotted and intolerant were such critics in those days. As a sample of the abuse, and utter want of judgment which characterised Wordsworth’s critics, take the following anecdotes, which are recorded by the writer on “Wordsworth,” (Chamber’s Tracts) as a good joke, or I will hope, as a picture of the folly of the time.
“A writer in Blackwood for November, 1829, gives an amusing sketch of a party where the ‘Intimations of Immortality,’ revered by the initiated as the ‘Revelation,’ was read aloud by a true disciple, in a kind of unimaginable chant then peculiar to the sect. There were one or two believers present, with a few neophytes, and one or two absolute and wicked sceptics! No sooner had the recitation fairly commenced, than one of the sceptics, of laughing propensities, crammed his handkerchief half-way down his throat; the others looked keen and composed: the disciples groaned, and the neophytes shook their heads in deep conviction.’ The reciter proceeded with deeper unction, till on being asked by a neophyte to give an explanation, which he was unable to give, he got angry, and ‘roundly declared, that things so out of the common way, so sublime, and so abstruse, could be conveyed in no language but their own. When the reciter came to the words, ‘Callings from us,’ the neophyte again timidly requested an explanation, and was informed by one of the sceptics, that they meant the child’s transitory gleams of a glorious pre-existence, that fall away and vanish almost as soon as they appear. The obstinate neophyte only replied, in a tone of melancholy, ‘When I think of my childhood, I have only visions of traps and balls, and whippings. I never remember being “haunted by the eternal mind.” To be sure I did ask a great many questions, and was tolerably obstinate, but I fear these are not the “obstinate questionings” of which Mr. Wordsworth speaks.’ This is but a small sample of the Wordsworthian scenes and disputations then of every-day occurrence. In 1816 a kind of shadow of Horace Smith again took the field. It seems that Hogg intended to publish an anthology of the living British bards, and had written to some of them for specimens. A wag, who had heard of the project, immediately issued an anthology, purporting to be this, but containing merely the coinage of his own brain. As may be imagined, Wordsworth occupied a prominent corner; and indeed some of the imitations—for most were imitations rather than parodies—did him no discredit. ‘The Flying Tailor,’ however, was not an infelicitous burlesque of the poet’s blank verse:—