four: but these errors are trifles. The other, as to the Pantisocracy, is a piece of reprehensible negligence.-Ever faithfully WM. WORDSWORTH." yours, 6 66 To-day, as I rode up Ullswater side, while the vapours were curling with unconfirmed content' on the mountainsides, and the blue lake was streaked with silver light, I felt as if no country could be more beautiful than ours; and certainly there is one point in which our scenery has a striking advantage over that of the greatest parts of the Continent. Our forest trees are preserved from that horrible mutilation. which prevails almost everywhere in Italy, and disfigures the Austrian and Bavarian lakes woefully." I wished you and yours could have been with us last Tuesday when upwards of three hundred children, and nearly half as many adults, were entertained in the grounds and rooms of Rydal Mount. It went off delightfully with music, singing, dancing, etc., young and old, gentle and simple, mingling in everything." visitors." No date. Yesterday we had two sons of the poet Burns as "27th Jan. 1845. Mr. Robinson, who leaves us to-day, will report to you all I think about your proposal of printing my prose writings in a separate volume." Speaking of Mr. Quillinan: "As to any literary work of his own, I am sure it would never sell, unless he condescended -which he will never do-to traffic in the trade of praise, with London authorlings, who write in newspapers, magazines, and reviews. . . ." "10th April 1845. Having long wished that an edition of my Poems should be published without the Prefaces and Supplements, etc., I submit to you whether that would not be well; printing, however, the prose now attached to the volumes as a portion of the prose volume which you meditate. The Prefaces, etc., contain many important observations upon poetry; but they were written solely to gratify Coleridge; and for my own part, being quite against anything of the kind, and having always been of opinion that poetry should stand upon its own merits, I would not even attach to the Poems any explanation of the grounds of their arrangement. I can't muster courage to face the fatigue and late dinners of London, and therefore don't think it likely I shall leave home." "18th April 1845. An invitation from the Lord Chamberlain to attend the Queen's ball on the 25th May left me without a choice as to visiting London. . . I have another favour to ask, which is that you would mention my errand to Mr. Rogers, and perhaps he could put me in the way of being properly introduced, and instructed how to behave in a situation I am sorry to say altogether new to me." Wordsworth went to Court in Rogers' suit, and must have been a curious spectacle, as the men were of a very different height and size. On his return from London, he wrote: : "Rydal Mount, 12th May 1845. I was enchanted when I came into the Lake District, a little above Bowness, that beautiful romance of Nature. Every object -fields, woods, lakes, mountains, sunshine and shade-seen. all the way in the utmost perfection of spring beauty." "June 1845. I think I mentioned to you that I had an utter dislike to the print from Pickersgill prefixed to the Poems. It does me, and him also, great injustice. What would be the expense of an engraving of Chantrey's bust? That I should like infinitely better." "14th July. We have had Mr. Bryant, the American poet, and a friend here." "November 5th, 1845. I have considered and reconsidered the title [to be given to the new volume of his Poems], and I cannot make up my mind to adhere to any but simply The Poems William Wordsworth. I hope that you won't object to this, bold as it is. If thou indeed desire thy light from Heaven, which the printer has been directed to place before the Poems. I mean it to serve as a sort of Preface. All the prose prefaces, and, in fact, all the prose except a few brief notes (printed at the bottom of the pages), will be printed at the end of the volume; it being now my wish that the Poems should be left to speak for themselves, though I did not think it prudent to suppress any considerable portion of the prose." "25th Nov. 1845. Miss Martineau called here to-day. She is in excellent health and spirits, very busy with house-building and bookwriting, by which latter I hope you will profit. Remember me most kindly to Mr. Rogers and his sister, and to dear old Miss Lamb." The drawing of Rydal Mount which appears in the 1845 double column edition of the Poems was done by Miss Fletcher; Chantrey's bust was engraved for the same edition by Mr. Finden. In writing to Mr. Moxon on the 17th November 1845, Wordsworth comments on the print, and adds: The print of the house is faulty as to the porch, and this was probably in consequence of a defect in the drawing, which was not by a professional artist. The porch looks more like a substantial adjunct to the house than trellis-work (which it is), and open in front. Could this effect be given by the engraver? It would be a great improvement,-only a few flowers and plants hanging against and upon the trellis-work. The draw ing was taken from a distance, by which all the lower windows are hidden. I should like one to be seen by taking away a few of the boughs which hide it, but perhaps that is impossible. . . ." "Rydal Mount, Dec. 20, 1845. .. Yesterday I had a letter from a gentleman of St. Andrews, unknown to me, who says that he has already given eight copies among his relations and friends, and means to make presents of more in the same way. . . . On the 23d February 1846, he mentions the Queen's acknowledgment of a presentation copy of the Poems, and Her Majesty's expression of admiration of the verses on the fly-leaf, and her gift of the portraits of her children. On October 12, of the same year, he refers to Miss Barrett (Elizabeth Barrett Browning). "Miss Barrett, I am pleased to learn, is so far recovered as to have taken to herself a husband. He is a very able man. Doubtless they will speak more intelligibly to each other than they have yet done to the public." "Nov. 13, 1846. I have not alluded to the Lord Rectorship of the Glasgow University. I am glad I was not elected (I knew nothing of having been nominated), as I should have much disliked being compelled to go to Glasgow, and above all things being compelled to make a public exhibition of myself, and to stumble through a speech, a work in which I have had no experience whatever." CHAPTER XLIV. DOMESTIC LIFE AND INCIDENTS-1841-1843. THERE was little to disturb the even tenor of Wordsworth's life at Rydal Mount during the year 1841, except the marriage of his daughter, referred to in a previous chapter. On the 19th January, he wrote to his friend John Peace, the city librarian at Bristol, thus: "Though I can make but little use of my eyes in writing or reading, I have lately been reading Cowper's Task aloud; and in so doing was tempted to look over the parallelisms, for which Mr. Southey, in his edition, was indebted to you. Knowing how comprehensive your acquaintance with poetry is, I was rather surprised that you did not notice the identity of the thought, and accompanying illustrations of it, in a passage of Shenstone's Ode upon Rural Elegance, compared with one in The Task, where Cowper speaks of the inextinguishable love of the country as manifested by the inhabitants of cities in their culture of plants and flowers, where the want of air, cleanliness, and light is so unfavourable to their growth and beauty. The germ of the main thought is to be found in Horace : * See The Task, Book IV.— It is a flame that dies not even there, compared with Shenstone's Ode to the Duchess of Somerset Her impulse nothing may restrain. |