In 1807, Wordsworth issued two new volumes of poetry, in 12mo., which contained some of his best pieces; but which, like all his poems, did not gain immediate popularity. It is true that a fourth edition of the “Lyrical Ballads” had been called for, and that this indicated a growing taste in the public mind for Wordsworth’s effusions; but the critics assailed him with the bitterest animosity, and on the whole without much reason. With no reason, in short, so far as the poetic principles—the canon of his poetry—was concerned, and only with some show of reason in the instance of his peculiar mannerism. For although he was often misled by his craving after simplicity, and uttered what might be called without any violation of truth or desecration of the poet’s name and memory—drivel—still he had published poems of a very high order, such as had not been published in the lifetime of any man then living. The critics, however, could not let him alone, could not see the manifest beauties of his poetry, or would not see them, but denounced the whole without reserve or mercy. In the meanwhile Coleridge cheered him on, and on his return to England, in the summer of 1806, Wordsworth read “The Prelude” to him in the gardens of Coleorton, near Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, where the poet was then residing at the invitation of Sir George Beaumont; and the high commendations which Coleridge poured upon this poem animated Wordsworth to increased exertion and perseverance. During his residence at this beautiful house, he composed the noble “Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle,”—the finest thing of the kind in our language; and he left behind him as usual, many records of his feelings at Coleorton. The poet’s letters to Sir George Beaumont and an occasional one to Sir Walter Scott, are amongst the most interesting transcripts we have of his mind at this period.
It was in the beginning of the winter, 1807, that De Quincy paid his first visit to Wordsworth; and I find great fault with Dr. Wordsworth that he makes no allusion to De Quincy in all his memoirs of the poet. This is the more unpardonable, inasmuch as De Quincy is a man of the highest calibre—of the most refined taste,—of the profoundest scholarship, and possessing the widest acquaintance with general literature—to say nothing of his transcendant genius—of any man who has lived in this generation. Unpardonable, likewise, because De Quincy was a devout lover, and a chivalrous defender of Wordsworth, when it was not fashionable to speak well of him, and when a man who praised him stood a fair chance of being estimated, if not called, a madman. Neither can I ever forgive the poet himself for his cold neglect of the great Opium Eater. Such a man as De Quincy is not to be treated with contumely and despite, even by such a man as Wordsworth; for assuredly, in point of genius, both men stood pretty much upon the same level, and Wordsworth was far inferior to De Quincy in the other important matters specified above. De Quincy’s demon did not inspire him to write verses, but to write essays—and what essays! I do not know the writer who has ever taken so wide a range of subjects, and written upon them in such grand and noble English. De Quincy was a prose architect, Wordsworth a poetic one; and this is all the difference between them. In genius they were equal. Some day, perhaps, De Quincy will be better appreciated. We are indebted to De Quincy for the best account existing of the poet, his family, and home at Grasmere and Rydal; and no one would go to Dr. Wordsworth for information when he could go to De Quincy. Not that I have anything to say against Dr. Wordsworth personally, but I dislike his studied exclusiveness. The men who for long years were in constant intercourse with the poet, and on terms of friendship with him—Wilson, for example, as well as De Quincy—cannot be shut out from his biography without manifest injustice both to them and to the poet; and yet this is systematically done. Perhaps the good doctor has a clerical horror of his great-uncle being associated with loose Men of Letters; men, too, of not quite an orthodox cast in their opinions; genial, jovial, and full of all good fellowship besides. But of what avail could such horror so manifested be? The world will know the truth at last; and it is right they should; and one thing is certain enough, that Wordsworth will suffer no dishonour in the companionship of De Quincy and Wilson.
When I first read No. 1, of the “Lake Reminiscences,” by De Quincy, in “Tait’s Magazine,” I could scarcely believe what I read; and nothing would have convinced me of its truth, short of the authority which announced it. I had looked upon Wordsworth as a kind-hearted, generous, and unselfish man; noble, friendly, and without the vanity which has so often blurred the fair page of a great man’s nature. I was sorry to find that I was mistaken in this estimate of the poet; and that he, like me, and all the rest of us, had faults and failings manifold. De Quincy’s own account of his first visit to Wordsworth, the deep reverence with which he regarded him, and the overwhelming feelings which beset him on the occasion, is very affecting; and contrasted with the poet’s subsequent treatment of him, his wanton throwing away of that noble and affectionate heart, and his total disregard of the high intellectual homage which De Quincy offered to him, is still more affecting, and full, likewise, of pain and sorrow. Whilst he was a student at Oxford, De Quincy twice visited the Lake Country, on purpose to pay his respects to Wordsworth; and once, he says, he went forward from Coniston to the very gorge of Hammerscar, “from which the whole vale of Grasmere suddenly breaks upon the view in a style of almost theatrical surprise, with its lovely valley stretching in the distance, the lake lying immediately below, with its solemn boat-like island, of five acres in size, seemingly floating on its surface; its exquisite outline on the opposite shore, revealing all its little bays, and wild sylvan margin, feathered to the edge with wild flowers and ferns!
“In one quarter a little wood, stretching for about half a mile towards the outlet of the lake, more directly in opposition to the spectator; a few green fields: and beyond them, just two bow-shots from the water, a little white cottage gleaming from the midst of trees, with a vast and seemingly never-ending series of ascents, rising above it to the height of more than three thousand feet. That little cottage was Wordsworth’s, from the time of his marriage, until 1808. Afterwards, for many a year, it was mine. Catching one glimpse of this loveliest of landscapes, I retreated, like a guilty thing, for fear I might be surprised by Wordsworth, and then returned faint-hearted to Coniston, and so to Oxford, re infecta.—This was in 1806. And thus, from mere excess of nervous distrust in my own powers for sustaining a conversation with Wordsworth, I had for nearly five years shrunk from a meeting for which, beyond all things under heaven, I longed.”
This nervous distrust yielded in after life to a sober confidence, and a matchless power of unfolding his thoughts colloquially. In the meanwhile, that is to say, in 1807, Coleridge returned from Malta, and De Quincy was introduced to him first of all at Bridgewater, and met him again at the Hot-wells, near Bristol,—when, upon discovering that he was anxious to put his wife and children under some friendly escort, on their return homewards to Keswick, De Quincy offered to unite with Mrs. Coleridge in a post-chaise to the north. Accordingly they set out. Hartley Coleridge was then nine years old, Derwent about seven, and the beautiful little daughter about five. In such companionship, then, did De Quincy pay his first visit to Wordsworth, at Grasmere,—a most interesting and artistic account of which he has written in “Tait’s Magazine,” and to which I have been frequently indebted in the compilation of these Memoirs. The cottage has already been described, and the reader who has followed the course of this imperfect history, will remember the portraits of its illustrious inmates. Let us now see how it fared with De Quincy, when he met the mighty man of his heart. He was “stunned,” when Wordsworth shook him cordially by the hand, and went mechanically towards the house, leaving Mrs. Coleridge in the chaise at the door. The re-appearance of the poet, however, after exercising due hospitality to his lady guest, gave him courage, and he found that the said poet was, after all, but a man. His reverence for him, however, continued unabated, and for twenty-five years, during which time De Quincy lived at the lakes, in constant communion with Wordsworth, his reverence for the poet’s genius remained the same, and still remains, although he has long since ceased to respect him in so highly as a man; not, however, because Wordsworth was not of unimpeachable character, and estimable in so many ways, but because he had not that generous love for his friends which friendship demands. De Quincy confesses his estrangement from the poet with sorrow, and some bitterness of heart; and the following extract will throw all the light upon this subject which can be thrown at present:—
“I imagine a case such as this which follows,” says De Quincy, in alluding to the estrangement spoken of above—“the case of a man who for many years has connected himself with the domestic griefs and joys of another, over and above his primary service of giving to him the strength and the encouragement of a profound literary sympathy, at a time of universal scorning from the world; suppose this man to fall into a situation, in which, from want of natural connections, and from his state of insulation in life, it might be most important to his feelings that some support should be lent to him by a friend having a known place and acceptation, and what may be called a root in the country, by means of connections, descent, and long settlement. To look for this might be a most humble demand on the part of one who had testified his devotion in the way supposed. To miss it might—— But enough. I murmur not; complaint is weak at all times; and the hour is passed irrevocably, and by many a year, in which an act of friendship so natural, and costing so little (in both senses so priceless), could have been availing. The ear is deaf that should have been solaced by the sound of welcome. Call, but you will not be heard; shout aloud, but your ‘ave!’ and ‘all hail!’ will now tell only as an echo of departed days, proclaiming the hollowness of human hopes. I, for my part, have long learned the lesson of suffering in silence; and also I have learned to know that, wheresoever female prejudices are concerned, there it will be a trial, more than Herculean, of a man’s wisdom, if he can walk with an even step, and swerve neither to the right nor to the left.”
Leaving this sad subject, however, let us return to De Quincy at Grasmere in 1807. Mrs. Coleridge, on leaving the poet’s family for Keswick, invited De Quincy to visit her and Southey, and it was arranged that Wordsworth and the Opium Eater should go together. Accordingly they set off in a farmer’s cart to Ambleside, and from thence mounted the ascent of Kirkstone. Descending towards Brothers’ Water—“a lake which lies immediately below; and about three miles further, through endless woods, and under the shade of mighty fells, immediate dependencies and processes of the still more mighty Helvellyn” they approached the vale of Patterdale, and reached the inn, by moonlight. “All I remember,” says De Quincy is—“that through those romantic woods and rocks of Stybarren—through those silent glens of Glencoin and Glenridding—through that most romantic of parks then belonging to the Duke of Norfolk—viz., Gobarrow Park—we saw alternately for four miles, the most grotesque and the most awful spectacles—
——“Abbey windows
And Moorish temples of the Hindoos,”
all fantastic, all as unreal and shadowy as the moon-light which created them; whilst at every angle of the road, broad gleams came upwards of Ullswater, stretching for nine miles northward, but fortunately for its effect, broken into three watery channels of about equal length, and rarely visible at once.”
The party, (for Miss Wordsworth and the poet’s children were present on this occasion,) passed the night in a house called Ewsmere, and in the morning, leaving his family at this inn, the poet set out, with De Quincy, for a ramble through the woods of Lowther. These are the woods concerning which the poet, in a letter to Sir George Beaumont, dated October 17, 1805, says:—“I believe a more delightful spot is not under the sun. Last summer I had a charming walk along the river, for which I was indebted to this man [alluding to a good quaker, who was Lord Lowther’s arbiter elegantiarum, or master of the grounds, and who was making improvements in them, by virtue of his office], whose intention is to carry the walk along the river side till it joins the great road at Lowther Bridge, which you will recollect, just under Brougham, about a mile from Penrith. This, to my great sorrow! for the manufactured walk, which was absolutely necessary in many places, will, in one place, pass through a few hundred yards of forest-ground, and will there efface the most beautiful specimen of forest pathway ever seen by human eyes, and which I have paced many an hour when I was a youth, with one of those I best loved. There is a continued opening between the trees, a narrow slip of green turf, besprinkled with flowers, chiefly daisies; and here it is that this pretty path plays its pranks, weaving among the turf and flowers at its pleasure.” And it was in these woods, just five days after their introduction to each other, that Wordsworth and De Quincy spent a whole glorious morning in wild ramblings and in conversation. They dined together, towards evening, at Emont Bridge, and then walked on to the house of Captain Wordsworth, at Penrith. The family was absent, and the poet had business which occupied him all the next day; so De Quincy took a walk, sauntering along the road, about seventeen miles, to Keswick, where he enquired for Greta Hall, the residence of the poet Southey. “It stands out of the town a few hundred yards, upon a little eminence, overhanging the river Greta.” Mrs. Coleridge and Southey came to the door to welcome their visitor. “Southey was in person somewhat taller than Wordsworth being about five feet eleven in height, or a trifle more, whilst Wordsworth was about five feet ten; and partly from having slenderer limbs, partly from being more symmetrically formed about the shoulders, than Wordsworth, he struck me as a better and lighter figure, to the effect of which his dress contributed; for he wore, pretty constantly, a short jacket and pantaloons, and had much the air of a Tyrolese mountaineer.... His hair was black, and yet his complexion was fair; his eyes, I believe, hazel, and large, but I will not vouch for that fact; his nose aquiline; and he had a remarkable habit of looking up into the air, as if looking at abstraction. The expression of his face was that of a very acute, and an aspiring man. So far it was even noble, as it conveyed a feeling of serene and gentle pride, habitually familiar with elevating subjects of contemplation. And yet it was impossible that this pride could have been offensive to anybody, chastened as it was by the most unaffected modesty; and this modesty made evident and prominent, by the constant expression of reverence for the great men of the age (when he happened to esteem them such), and for all the great patriarchs of our literature. The point in which Southey, however, failed most in conciliating regard was, in all which related to the external expression of friendliness. No man could be more sincerely hospitable, no man more completely disposed to give up, even his time (the possession which he most valued), to the service of his friends; but, there was an air of reserve and distance about him—the reserve of a lofty, self-respecting mind, but, perhaps, a little too freezing,—in his treatment of all persons who were not amongst the corps of his ancient fireside friends. Still, even towards the veriest strangers, it is but justice to notice his extreme courtesy, in sacrificing his literary employments for the day, whatever they might be, to the duty (for such he made it,) of doing the honors of the lake, and the adjacent mountains.”