——“the mute phantom’s gone,
Nor will return—but droop not, favoured youth,
The apparition that before thee shone
Obeyed a summons covetous of truth.
From these wild rocks thy footsteps I will guide
To bowers in which thy fortunes may be tried,
And one of the bright three become thy happy bride.”
A fairer subject than this, for the imagination of the true painter, does scarcely exist in poetry. The gorgeous magnificence of Miss Southey—the wild, bird-like nature of Dora, the mystic, spiritual, meditative beauty of Miss Coleridge. Here is material enough for the highest effort of art.
A number of poems followed this exquisite “Triad”—viz., “The Wishing Gate,” in 1828—“The Lawn,” “Presentiments,” “The Primrose on the Rock,” “Devotional Incitements;” these last were written between 1828 and ’32. A number of gold and silver fishes presented to the poet by Miss H. J. Jewsbury, who subsequently died of the cholera in India,—and afterwards removed to the pond already alluded to, under the oak in “Dora’s field,” suggested the verses “Gold and Silver Fishes in a Vase,” and likewise “Liberty,” and “Humanity;” “The Poet and the caged Turtle Dove” was likewise suggested by real circumstances. Miss Jewsbury had given Dora a pair of these beautiful birds; one of them was killed by an un-necessary cat, and not a “harmless one;” the other survived many years, and had a habit of cooing the moment Wordsworth began “booing” his poems, as the country people called it.
Wordsworth gives an amusing account of a visit which he paid about this time to “Chatsworth.” He had undertaken to ride his daughter’s pony from Westmoreland to Cambridge, that she might have the use of it during a visit she was about to make to her uncle at Trinity; and on his way from Bakewell to Matlock, he turned off to see the splendid mansion of the great Duke of Devonshire. By-and-bye a tremendous storm came on, and the poet was drenched through to the very skin, whilst the pony, to make his rider’s seat the more easy, went “slantwise” all the way to Derby. Notwithstanding this, however, and the pelting of the pitiless storm, Wordsworth managed to hold sweet and sad converse with his muse, and composed his “Lines to the Memory of Sir George Beaumont,” who died 7th February, 1827. It is a picture which we cannot readily forget, and shows how completely the poet was master of himself. Sir George Beaumont and his lady were friends and benefactors of Wordsworth—he loved them both intensely. Walking through the grounds and gardens of Coleorton with Sir George—the successor in the Baronetcy to his friend—and after the death of Lady Beaumont, which took place in 1822, he comes suddenly to her ladyship’s grotto, near the fountain, and is overwhelmed with his feelings, and the recollection of the dead, and the happy memories which rush over his mind in connection with this place, so that he cannot speak for tears. On his return home he wrote the elegiac musings, already mentioned in these memoirs, which are full of love, and the sanctity of a sweet sorrow. In the same year (1831) were composed “The Armenian Lady’s Love,” “The Egyptian Maid,” and “The Russian Fugitive,” poems in which all the beauties of language are pressed, along with the simplicity which marks the old English ballads. Lines on his portrait, painted by Pickersgill, and preserved with sacred veneration in St. John’s College, Cambridge, were likewise written in this year, as well as the inscription already quoted, for the stone at Rydal.
Besides these poetical compositions, however, Wordsworth interested himself in public affairs; and having fixed principles of political and social economy in his own mind, regarded all public measures at variance with them, as fatal errors, and subversive in their consequences of the highest human concerns. In 1806, he wrote a letter to a friend, who had consulted him respecting the education of his daughter—in which he gives some sound and excellent advice respecting the training and development of youthful minds. For Wordsworth had at an early period devoted his attention to the subject of education, and had his own views respecting it—views which were marked by the spiritual peculiarity of his mind. When he wrote “The Excursion,” he seems to have had the highest hopes for man, when education should become universal; and insisted that the State should teach those to obey, from whom she exacted allegiance:—
“O for the coming of that glorious time,
When, prizing knowledge, as her noblest work
And best protection, this imperial realm
While she exacts allegiance, shall admit
An obligation on her part to teach
Them who are born to serve her and obey;
Binding herself, by statute, to secure
For all the children whom her soil maintains
The rudiments of letters, and inform
The mind with moral and religious truth,
Both understood, and practised.”
Excursion, Book ix.
He was an avowed enemy, however, at a later period—for his views respecting the modus operandi of teaching, had undergone some change since “The Excursion” was written—to all Infant Schools, Madras Systems, and Bell Systems. The former he regarded as usurping the functions of motherly duty; the latter, as dead mechanism. Speaking of the education of girls, he says:—“I will back Shenstone’s ‘School Mistress,’ by her winter fire, and in her summer garden seat, against all Dr. Bell’s sour-looking teachers in petticoats. What is the use of pushing on the education of girls so fast, and moving by the stimulus of Emulation, who, to say nothing worse of her, is cousin-german to Envy? What are you to do with these girls? What demand is there for the ability that they may have prematurely acquired? Will they not be indisposed to bend to any kind of hard labour or drudgery? And yet many of them must submit to it, or go wrong. The mechanism of the Bell System is not required in small places; praying after the fugleman, is not like praying at a mother’s knee. The Bellites overlook the difference: they talk about moral discipline; but wherein does it encourage the imaginative feelings? in short, what she practically understands is of little amount, and too apt to become the slave of the bad passions. I dislike display in everything; above all, in education.... The old dame (Shenstone’s) did not affect to make theologians and logicians; but she taught to read; and she practised the memory, often no doubt by rote, but still the faculty was improved; something, perhaps, she explained, but trusted the rest to parents and masters, and to the pastor of the parish. I am sure as good daughters, as good servants, as good mothers and wives, were brought up at that time as now, when the world is so much less humble-minded. A hand full of employment, and a head not above it, with such principles and habits as may be acquired without the Madras machine, are the best security for the chastity of wives of the lower rank.”
The above extract is from a letter dated 1828, and addressed to the Rev. Hugh Jones Rose, formerly principal of King’s College, London. It exemplifies, in a very striking manner, the change which had come over Wordsworth’s mind upon the subject of education, and does not strike me as being particularly creditable to him.
On the 13th of April, 1836, Wordsworth took part in the ceremony of laying the foundation-stone of certain new schools, about to be erected at Bowness, Windermere, and made a speech upon the occasion; in which he advocates a very humble kind of instruction for the working classes; forgetting that man is to be educated because he is a man, and not neglected because he happens to be one of the “lower orders.” I have no sympathy with this foolish cant about educating people according to their station, and am sorry that Wordsworth’s sanction can be quoted in its favour. I must reserve what I have to say upon this subject, however, for my analysis of the mind and writings of the poet.
In 1835, Wordsworth published his “Yarrow Revisited, and other Poems.” Speaking of “Yarrow Re-visited,” he says: “In the autumn of 1831, my daughter and I set off from Rydal, to visit Sir Walter Scott, before his departure for Italy. This journey had been delayed by an inflammation in my eyes, till we found that the time appointed for his leaving home would be too near for him to receive us without considerable inconvenience. Nevertheless we proceeded, and reached Abbotsford on Monday. I was then scarcely able to lift up my eyes to the light. How sadly changed did I find him from the man I had seen so healthy, gay, and hopeful, a few years before, when he said, at the inn at Patterdale, in my presence, his daughter, Ann, also being there, with Mr. Lockhart, my own wife and daughter, and Mr. Quillinan: ‘I mean to live till I am eighty, and shall write as long as I live.’ Though we had none of us the least thought of the cloud of misfortune which was then going to break upon his head, I was startled, and almost shocked, at that bold saying, which could scarcely be uttered by such a man, without a momentary forgetfulness of the instability of human life. But to return to Abbotsford. The inmates and guests we found there, were Sir Walter, Major Scott, Anne Scott, and Mr. and Mrs. Lockhart; Mr. Laidlaw, a very old friend of Sir Walter’s; one of Burns’s sons, an officer of the Indian service, had left the house the day before, and had kindly expressed his regret that he could not wait my arrival, a regret that I may truly say was mutual. In the evening, Mr. and Mrs. Liddell sang, and Mrs. Lockhart chaunted old ballads to her harp; and Mr. Allan, hanging over the back of a chair, told, and acted, odd stories in a humourous way. With this exhibition, and his daughters’ singing, Sir Walter was much amused, and, indeed, so were we all, as far as circumstances would allow.”