“The principal object proposed was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible, in a selection of language really used by men, and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect; and further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting, by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature; chiefly as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement. Humble and rustic life was generally chosen, because, in that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak in plainer and more emphatic language; because in that condition of life our elementary feelings coexist in a state of greater simplicity, and, consequently, may be more accurately contemplated and more forcibly communicated; because the manners of rural life germinate from these feelings, and from the necessary character of rural occupations, are more easily comprehended and are more durable; and lastly, because in that condition, the passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of Nature. The language, too, of these men has been adopted (purified indeed from what appear to be its real defects, from all lasting and rational causes of dislike or disgust), because such men hourly communicate with the best objects from which the best part of language is originally derived; and, because, from their rank in society, and the sameness and narrow circle of their intercourse, being less under the influence of social vanity, they convey their feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated expression. Accordingly, such a language, arising out of repeated experience and regular feelings, is a more permanent, and a far more philosophical language, than that which is frequently substituted for it by poets, who think that they are conferring honour upon themselves and their art in proportion as they separate themselves from the sympathies of men, and indulge in arbitrary and capricious habits of expression, in order to furnish food for fickle tastes, and fickle appetites, of their own creation.”
It will be seen from this extract, that Wordsworth has no sympathy with the inflammations of Literature. His mission is with the ordinary, the beauty and philosophy of which he has devoted his life to expound. He has flung a charm over existences which Nature did not seem before him to love as her children; and we honour him for the great work which he has accomplished.
MEMOIR OF
William Wordsworth was born at Cockermouth, in Cumberland, on the 7th of April, 1770. His father, John Wordsworth, was an attorney, and law-agent to Sir James Lowther, who was afterwards raised to the peerage, and created Earl of Lonsdale. His mother’s name was Anne Cookson, only daughter of William Cookson, a mercer of Penrith, and of “Dorothy, born at Crackenthorpe, of the ancient family of that name, who, from the time of Edward the Third, had lived in Newbiggen Hall, Westmorland.”[B] His grandfather was the first of the name of Wordsworth who came into Westmorland, where he purchased the small estate of Stockbridge. His ancestors had lived at Peniston, in Yorkshire, probably before the time of the Norman Conquest. “Their names,” says Wordsworth, in his Autobiographic Memoranda, “appear on different occasions in all the transactions, personal and public, connected with that parish; and I possess, through the kindness of Colonel Beaumont, an almery made in 1525, at the expense of a William Wordsworth, as is expressed in a Latin inscription carved upon it, which carries the pedigree of the family back four generations from himself.”
The poet was second son of his father, and spent most of his early days at Cockermouth. He was subsequently removed to Hawkshead grammar school. And here, properly speaking, his true history begins. In the “Prelude,” a poem but lately published, we have a full account of his boyish ways, and experiences, and a complete record of the development of his mind.
This poem is, therefore, doubly valuable, both as a psychological and literary performance. True it is that, like all Wordsworth’s poems, on their first appearance, it has been exceedingly well abused, and that too by men who have eyes to see, and understandings wherewith to understand; which is singular; but the poem is not the less a great vestibule, or outer porch to a great poetic temple for all that. In reading it, I seem to be walking up through the long dim avenues of eternity with the young soul of the poet, and listening to its half remembered ideas of the unspeakable glory from which it has come—itself radiant with immortal lustres—and bursting out, ever and anon, in an ecstacy of rapturous wonder at the mystic and beautiful revelations of Time—the grand and everflowing pageantry of nature,—its woods, mountains, streams, and heavenly hosts of stars. For it is certain that this, or something like this, is the impression one receives, whilst following the poet, in the manifold disclosures which he makes of his own spiritual and mental development: he will not let go the glory of his birth, but cleaves to it, as to the title of some grand heritage, which he shall one day possess. And it is this, and its kindred spiritual ideas, which give the mystic tinge and colouring to all Wordsworth’s higher poetry, as if it had been baptised in an element altogether alien to sensuous experience, and to the common world of man.
It was a long time, however, before Wordsworth could understand Nature,—before he could make out what she would be at, in dodging him in his ordinary paths, and haunting him in his solitary hours. True, he was always very fond of the beautiful and terrible Mother; loved her storm-wrath, and wind-wrath; her golden and voluptuous sunshine; her rivers and brooklets; her mountains, lakes, dells, and the flowery bespanglement of her green and rustling kirtle. But this was all. He did not know that this love was merely initial,—the basework of a deeper passion—the basement of a divine wisdom. And although he was always a wayward and lonely boy, yet he was a boy, and his roots did not strike up precociously, and burst him into a man at once; but took time to grow; so that the boy was father to the man. Neither would Nature allow him to brood too intently over her wonders and loveliness, but took him gently captive, in a sort of side-winds, or brief revelations of herself, in his rambles and hunting sports; for he was made of too good stuff to be spoilt by any over-doings—and she was jealous of her favourite.
It was very fortunate for Wordsworth that his early life was cast in the midst of such magnificent scenery, as that of Cumberland, for it acted powerfully upon his mind, and helped to mould his character, and develope his genius. School did very little for him, nor College, nor even books, until a comparatively late period of his life. But both nature and poetry had always a great and transcendent charm for him. As a boy, at Cockermouth he obtained the rudiments of learning from the Rev. W. Gillbanks; and his father, who was a man of vigorous character, and considerable culture and scholarship, initiated him into the pantheon of poetry, by repeating to him the finest passages of Shakspeare, Milton, and Spenser, which the boy subsequently committed to memory. But he was frequently refractory in his conduct, and peevish in his temper. His mother, whom he loved much, and who died before he was eight years of age, had at times terrible misgivings about her darling son, on these accounts, although I find no record to justify her in her forebodings. He was certainly a wild little fellow, full of animal spirits, which never flagged, with a little of the dare-devil in him: but this is natural enough in a healthy boy. Wordsworth, in alluding to his mother’s dread of the “evil chance” of his life, gives us an anecdote, with the intention of justifying her, which seems to me very comical in such connection.
“I remember going once,” he says, “into the attics of my grandfather’s house at Penrith, upon some indignity having been put upon me, with an intention of destroying myself with one of the foils which I knew was kept there. I took the foil in my hand, but my heart failed me.