Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth

by William Wordsworth

  Catullus translated literally from the Greek; succeeding Roman writers did not so, because Greek had then become the fashionable, universal language. They did not translate, but they paraphrased; the ideas remaining the same, their dress different. Hence the attention of the poets of the Augustan age was principally confined to the happy selection of the most appropriate words and elaborate phrases; and hence arises the difficulty of translating them.

  The characteristics ascribed by Horace to Pindar in his ode, ‘Pindarum quisquis,’ &c. are not found in his extant writings. Horace had many lyrical effusions of the Theban bard which we have not. How graceful is Horace’s modesty in his ‘Ego apis Matinae More modoque,’ as contrasted with the Dircaean Swan! Horace is my great favourite: I love him dearly.

  I admire Virgil’s high moral tone: for instance, that sublime ‘Aude, hospes, contemnere opes,’ &c. and ‘his dantem jura Catonem!’ What courage and independence of spirit is there! There is nothing more imaginative and awful than the passage,

  ‘ — — Arcades ipsum Credunt se vidisse Jovem,’ &c.

  In describing the weight of sorrow and fear on Dido’s mind, Virgil shows great knowledge of human nature, especially in that exquisite touch of feeling,

  ‘Hoc visum nulli, non ipsi effata sorori.’

  The ministry of Confession is provided to satisfy the natural desire for some relief from the load of grief. Here, as in so many other respects, the Church of Rome adapts herself with consummate skill to our nature, and is strong by our weaknesses. Almost all her errors and corruptions are abuses of what is good.

  I think Buchanan’s ‘Maiae Calendae’ equal in sentiment, if not in elegance, to anything in Horace; but your brother Charles, to whom I repeated it the other day, pointed out a false quantity in it. Happily this had escaped me.

  When I began to give myself up to the profession of a poet for life, I was impressed with a conviction, that there were four English poets whom I must have continually before me as examples — Chaucer, Shakspeare, Spenser, and Milton. These I must study, and equal if I could; and I need not think of the rest.

  I have been charged by some with disparaging Pope and Dryden. This is not so. I have committed much of both to memory. As far as Pope goes, he succeeds; but his Homer is not Homer, but Pope.

  I cannot account for Shakspeare’s low estimate of his own writings, except from the sublimity, the superhumanity, of his genius. They were infinitely below his conception of what they might have been, and ought to have been.

  The mind often does not think, when it thinks that it is thinking. If we were to give our whole soul to anything, as the bee does to the flower, I conceive there would be little difficulty in any intellectual employment. Hence there is no excuse for obscurity in writing.

  ‘Macbeth,’ is the best conducted of Shakspeare’s plays. The fault of ‘Julius Caesar,’ ‘Hamlet,’ and ‘Lear,’ is, that the interest is not, and by the nature of the case could not be, sustained to their conclusion. The death of Julius Caesar is too overwhelming an incident for any stage of the drama but the last. It is an incident to which the mind clings, and from which it will not be torn away to share in other sorrows. The same may be said of the madness of Lear. Again, the opening of ‘Hamlet’ is full of exhausting interest. There is more mind in ‘Hamlet’ than in any other play, more knowledge of human nature. The first act is incomparable.... There is too much of an every-day sick room in the death-bed scene of Catherine, in ‘Henry the Eighth’ — too much of leeches and apothecaries’ vials.... ‘Zanga’ is a bad imitation of ‘Othello.’ Garrick never ventured on Othello: he could not submit to a blacked face. He rehearsed the part once. During the rehearsal Quin entered, and, having listened for some time with attention, exclaimed, ‘Well done, David! but where’s the teakettle?’ alluding to the print of Hogarth, where a black boy follows his mistress with a teakettle in his hand.... In stature Garrick was short.... A fact which conveys a high notion of his powers is, that he was able to act out the absurd stage-costume of those days. He represented Coriolanus in the attire of Cheapside. I remember hearing from Sir G. Beaumont, that while he was venting, as Lear, the violent paroxysms of his rage in the awful tempest scene, his wig happened to fall off. The accident did not produce the slightest effect on the gravity of the house, so strongly had he impregnated every breast with his own emotions.

  Some of my friends (H.C. for instance) doubt whether poetry on contemporary persons and events can be good. But I instance Spenser’s ‘Marriage,’ and Milton’s ‘Lycidas.’ True, the ‘Persae’ is one of the worst of Aeschylus’s plays; at least, in my opinion.

  Milton is falsely represented by some as a democrat. He was an aristocrat in the truest sense of the word. See the quotation from him in my ‘Convention of Cintra.’ Indeed, he spoke in very proud and contemptuous terms, of the populace. ‘Comus’ is rich in beautiful and sweet flowers, and in exuberant leaves of genius; but the ripe and mellow fruit is in ‘Samson Agonistes.’ When he wrote that, his mind was Hebraized. Indeed, his genius fed on the writings of the Hebrew prophets. This arose, in some degree, from the temper of the times; the Puritan lived in the Old Testament, almost to the exclusion of the New.

  The works of the old English dramatists are the gardens of our language.

  One of the noblest things in Milton is the description of that sweet, quiet morning in the ‘Paradise Regained,’ after that terrible night of howling wind and storm. The contrast is divine.

  What a virulent democrat — — is! A man ill at ease with his own conscience is sure to quarrel with all government, order, and law.

  The influence of Locke’s Essay was not due to its own merits, which are considerable; but to external circumstances. It came forth at a happy opportunity, and coincided with the prevalent opinions of the time. The Jesuit doctrines concerning the papal power in deposing kings, and absolving subjects from their allegiance, had driven some Protestant theologians to take refuge in the theory of the divine right of kings. This theory was unpalatable to the world at large, and others invented the more popular doctrine of a social contract, in its place; a doctrine which history refutes. But Locke did what he could to accommodate this principle to his own system.

  The only basis on which property can rest is right derived from prescription.

  The best of Locke’s works, as it seems to me, is that in which he attempts the least — his Conduct of the Understanding.

  In the Summer of 1827, speaking of some of his contemporaries, Wordsworth said, T. Moore has great natural genius; but he is too lavish of brilliant ornament. His poems smell of the perfumer’s and milliner’s shops. He is not content with a ring and a bracelet, but he must have rings in the ears, rings on the nose — rings everywhere.

  Walter Scott is not a careful composer. He allows himself many liberties, which betray a want of respect for his reader. For instance, he is too fond of inversions; i.e. he often places the verb before the substantive, and the accusative before the verb. W. Scott quoted, as from me,

  ‘The swan on sweet St. Mary’s lake Floats double, swan and shadow,’

  instead of still; thus obscuring my idea, and betraying his own uncritical principles of composition.

  Byron seems to me deficient in feeling. Professor Wilson, I think, used to say that ‘Beppo’ was his best poem; because all his faults were there brought to a height. I never read the ‘English Bards’ through. His critical prognostications have, for the most part, proved erroneous.

  Sir James Mackintosh said of me to M. de Staël, Wordsworth is not a great poet, but he is the greatest man among poets.’ Madame de Staël complained of my style.

  Now whatever may be the result of my experiment in the subjects which I have chosen for poetical composition — be they vulgar or be they not, — I can say without vanity, that I have bestowed great pains on my style, full as much as any of my contemporaries have done on theirs. I yield to none in love for my art. I, therefore, labour at it with reverence, affection, and industry.
My main endeavour as to style has been that my poems should be written in pure intelligible English. Lord Byron has spoken severely of my compositions. However faulty they may be, I do not think that I ever could have prevailed upon myself to print such lines as he has done; for instance,

  ‘I stood at Venice on the Bridge of Sighs, A palace and a prison on each hand.’

  Some person ought to write a critical review, analysing Lord Byron’s language, in order to guard others against imitating him in these respects.

  Shelley is one of the best artists of us all: I mean in workmanship of style.

  At Calgarth, dining with Mrs. and the Miss Watsons ... a very fine portrait of the late Bishop in the dining-room.... Mr. Wordsworth there: a very agreeable party. Walked home with him in the evening to Rydal. It rained all the way. We met a poor woman in the road. She sobbed as she passed us. Mr. Wordsworth was much affected with her condition: she was swollen with dropsy, and slowly hobbling along with a stick, having been driven from one lodging to another. It was a dark stormy night. Mr. Wordsworth brought her back to the Lowwood Inn, where, by the landlord’s leave, she was housed in one of his barns.

  One day I met Mr. M.T. Sadler at the late Archbishop’s. Sadler did not know me; and before dinner he began to launch forth in a critical dissertation on contemporary English Poetry. ‘Among living poets, your Grace may know there is one called Wordsworth, whose writings the world calls childish and puerile, but I think some of them wonderfully pathetic.’ ‘Now, Mr. Sadler,’ said the Archbishop, ‘what a scrape you are in! here is Mr. Wordsworth: but go down with him to dinner, and you will find that, though a great poet, he does not belong to the “genus irritabile.”‘ This was very happy.

  After returning one day from church at Addington, I took the liberty of saying a few words on the sermon we had heard. It was a very homely performance. ‘I am rather surprised, my Lord Archbishop, that when your Grace can have the choice of so many preachers in England, you do not provide better for yourself.’ ‘Oh!’ said he, ‘I think I can bear bad preaching better than most people, and I therefore keep it to myself.’ This seemed to me a very pleasing trait in the gentle and loveable character of that admirable man.

  Patriarchal usages have not quite deserted us of these valleys. This morning (new year’s day) you were awakened early by the minstrels playing under the eaves, ‘Honour to Mr. Wordsworth!’ ‘Honour to Mrs. Wordsworth!’ and so to each member of the household by name, servants included, each at his own window. These customs bind us together as a family, and are as beneficial as they are delightful. May they never disappear!

  In my Ode on the ‘Intimations of Immortality in Childhood,’ I do not profess to give a literal representation of the state of the affections and of the moral being in childhood. I record my own feelings at that time — my absolute spirituality, my ‘all-soulness,’ if I may so speak. At that time I could not believe that I should lie down quietly in the grave, and that my body would moulder into dust.

  Many of my poems have been influenced by my own circumstances when I was writing them. ‘The Warning’ was composed on horseback, while I was riding from Moresby in a snow-storm. Hence the simile in that poem,

  ‘While thoughts press on and feelings overflow, And quick words round him fall like flakes of snow.’

  In the ‘Ecclesiastical Sonnets,’ the lines concerning the Monk (Sonnet xxi.),

  ‘Within his cell. Round the decaying trunk of human pride. At morn, and eve, and midnight’s silent hour, Do penitential cogitations cling: Like ivy round some ancient elm they twine In grisly folds and strictures serpentine; Yet while they strangle, a fair growth they bring For recompence — their own perennial bower;’ —

  were suggested to me by a beautiful tree clad as thus described, which you may remember in Lady Fleming’s park at Rydal, near the path to the upper waterfall.

  S — — , in the work you mentioned to me, confounds imagery and imagination. Sensible objects really existing, and felt to exist, are imagery; and they may form the materials of a descriptive poem, where objects are delineated as they are. Imagination is a subjective term: it deals with objects not as they are, but as they appear to the mind of the poet.

  The imagination is that intellectual lens through the medium of which the poetical observer sees the objects of his observation, modified both in form and colour; or it is that inventive dresser of dramatic tableaux, by which the persons of the play are invested with new drapery, or placed in new attitudes; or it is that chemical faculty by which elements of the most different nature and distant origin are blended together into one harmonious and homogeneous whole.

  A beautiful instance of the modifying and investive power of imagination may be seen in that noble passage of Dyer’s ‘Ruins of Rome,’ where the poet hears the voice of Time; and in Thomson’s description of the streets of Cairo, expecting the arrival of the caravan which had perished in the storm,

  Read all Cowley; he is very valuable to a collector of English sound sense.... Burns’s ‘Scots wha hae’ is poor as a lyric composition.

  Ariosto and Tasso are very absurdly depressed in order to elevate Dante. Ariosto is not always sincere; Spenser always so.

  I have tried to read Goethe. I never could succeed. Mr. — — refers me to his ‘Iphigenia,’ but I there recognise none of the dignified simplicity, none of the health and vigour which the heroes and heroines of antiquity possess in the writings of Homer. The lines of Lucretius describing the immolation of Iphigenia are worth the whole of Goethe’s long poem. Again, there is a profligacy, an inhuman sensuality, in his works which is utterly revolting. I am not intimately acquainted with them generally. But I take up my ground on the first canto of ‘Wilhelm Meister;’ and, as the attorney-general of human nature, I there indict him for wantonly outraging the sympathies of humanity. Theologians tell us of the degraded nature of man; and they tell us what is true. Yet man is essentially a moral agent, and there is that immortal and unextinguishable yearning for something pure and spiritual which will plead against these poetical sensualists as long as man remains what he is.

  Scientific men are often too fond of aiming to be men of the world. They crave too much for titles, and stars, and ribbons. If Bacon had dwelt only in the court of Nature, and cared less for that of James the First, he would have been a greater man, and a happier one too.

  I heard lately from young Mr. Watt a noble instance of magnanimity in an eminent French chemist. He had made a discovery, which he was informed would, if he took out a patent, realise a large fortune. ‘No,’ said he, ‘I do not live to amass money, but to discover Truth; and as long as she attends me in my investigations so long will I serve her and her only.’

  Sir — — I know from my own experience was ruined by prosperity. The age of Leo X. would have shone with greater brilliance if it had had more clouds to struggle with. The age of Louis XIV. was formed by the Port Royal amid the storms and thunders of the League. Racine lived in a court till it became necessary to his existence, as his miserable death proved. Those petty courts of Germany have been injurious to its literature. They who move in them are too prone to imagine themselves to be the whole world, and compared with the whole world they are nothing more than these little specks in the texture of this hearth-rug.

  As I was riding Dora’s pony from Rydal to Cambridge, I got off, as I occasionally did, to walk. I fell in with a sweet-looking peasant girl of nine or ten years old. She had been to carry her father’s dinner, who was working in the fields, and she was wheeling a little wheelbarrow, in which she collected manure from the roads for her garden at home. After some talk I gave her a penny, for which she thanked me in the sweetest way imaginable. I wish I had asked her whether she could read, and whether she went to school. But I could not help being struck with the happy arrangement which Nature has made for the education of the heart, an arrangement which it seems the object of the present age to counteract instead of to cherish and confirm. I imagined the happy delight of the father in
seeing his child at a distance, and watching her as she approached to perform her errand of love. I imagined the joy of the mother in seeing her return. I am strongly of opinion (an opinion you, perhaps, have seen expressed by me in a letter to Mr. Rose) that this is the discipline which is more calculated by a thousand degrees to make a virtuous and happy nation than the all-engrossing, estranging, eleemosynary institutions for education, which perhaps communicate more knowledge. In these institutions what the pupils gain in knowledge they often lose in wisdom. This is a distinction which must never be lost sight of.

  Education should never be wholly eleemosynary. But must the parent suffer privations for the sake of the child? Yes; for these privations endear the child to the parent, and the parent to the child; and whatever education the parent may thus gain or lose for his child, he has thus gained the noblest result of the most liberal education for himself — the habit of self-denial.

  Next to your principles, and affections, and health, value your time.

  (f) REMINISCENCES OF THE REV. R.P. GRAVES, M.A., FORMERLY OF WINDERMERE, NOW OF DUBLIN.

  I remember Mr. Wordsworth saying that, at a particular stage of his mental progress, he used to be frequently so rapt into an unreal transcendental world of ideas that the external world seemed no longer to exist in relation to him, and he had to reconvince himself of its existence by clasping a tree, or something that happened to be near him. I could not help connecting this fact with that obscure passage in his great Ode on the ‘Intimations of Immortality,’ in which he speaks of