history of the Author's mind to the point when he was emboldened to hope that his faculties were sufficiently matured for entering upon the arduous labour which he had proposed to himself; and the two Works have the same kind of relation to each other, if he may so express himself, as the ante-chapel has to the body of a gothic church. Continuing this allusion, he may be permitted. to add, that his minor Pieces, which have been long before the Public, when they shall be properly arranged,* will be found by the attentive Reader to have such connection with the main Work as may give them claim to be likened to the little cells, oratories, and sepulchral recesses, ordinarily included in those edifices. The Author would not have deemed himself justified in saying, upon this occasion, so much of performances either unfinished, or unpublished, if he had not thought that the labour bestowed by him upon what he has heretofore and now laid before the Public, entitled him to candid attention for such a statement as he thinks necessary to throw light upon his endeavours to please and, he would hope, to benefit his countrymen.-Nothing further need be added, than that the first and third parts of The Recluse will consist chiefly of meditations in the Author's own person; and that in the intermediate part (The Excursion) the intervention of characters speaking is employed, and something of a dramatic form adopted. It is not the Author's intention formally to announce a system: it was more animating to him to proceed in a different course; and if he shall succeed in conveying to the mind clear thoughts, lively images, and strong feelings, the Reader will have no difficulty in extracting the system for himself. And in the mean time the following passage, taken from the conclusion of the first book of The Recluse, may be acceptable as a kind of Prospectus of the design and scope of the whole Poem. *As they were-according to their Author's somewhat arbitrary classification-in the editions of 1815 and subsequent years.-ED. "On Man, on Nature, and on Human Life, Musing in solitude, I oft perceive Fair trains of imagery before me rise, Pure, or with no unpleasing sadness mixed; 5 And dear remembrances, whose presence soothes -To these emotions, whencesoe'er they come, Of Truth, of Grandeur, Beauty, Love, and Hope, Of the individual Mind that keeps her own To Conscience only, and the law supreme I sing :-'fit audience let me find though few !' * ΙΟ 15 20 "So prayed, more gaining than he asked, the Bard— In holiest mood.1 Urania,† I shall need 1 1845. Holiest of Men. * See Paradise Lost, book vii. 1. 31.-ED. 1814. 25 30 t "Daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne. She was regarded as the Muse of Astronomy, and was represented with a celestial globe, to which she points with a little staff" (Hirt. Mythol. Bilderb. p. 210).-ED. All strength-all terror, single or in bands, Nor aught of blinder vacancy, scooped out By help of dreams—can breed such fear and awe 35 Into our Minds, into the Mind of Man-The he Swestrell within," My haunt, and the main region of my song. Or a mere fiction of what never was? (And the progressive powers perhaps no less * Compare The Prelude, book i. 1. 191 (see vol. iii. p. 138, notes * and †); Strabo, 1; Pliny, 6, c. 31 and 32; Horace, Odes iv., 8, v. 27; Plutarch, The Life of Sertorius.-ED. Is fitted :—and how exquisitely, too— Can it be called) which they with blended might Must turn elsewhere-to travel near the tribes Within the walls of cities—may these sounds A gift of genuine insight; that my Song Of those mutations that extend their sway This Vision; when and where, and how he lived ;Be not this labour useless. If such theme 70 75 80 85 90 95 1 1827. 1814. * See Wordsworth's note (p. 383).-ED. May sort with highest objects, then-dread Power! Express the image of a better time, More wise desires, and simpler manners ;- -nurse ΙΟΙ My Heart in genuine freedom :-all pure thoughts 105 Book First THE WANDERER * ARGUMENT A summer forenoon-The Author reaches a ruined Cottage upon a Common, and there meets with a revered Friend, the Wanderer, of whose education and course of life he gives an account1- The Wanderer, while resting under the shade of the Trees that surround the Cottage, relates the History of its last Inhabitant. 'TWAS summer, and the sun had mounted high: In clearest air ascending, showed far off A surface dappled o'er with shadows flung 1 1836. the Wanderer, of whom he gives an account― 1814. 5 * In a copy of the quarto edition of The Excursion (1814) bequeathed by the Poet to his grandson, the Rev. John Wordsworth, there are numerous changes of text in his own handwriting, or that of his wife. The majority of these were incorporated in later editions. Several of them, however, were not. These are reproduced in this edition, wherever it has been thought expedient to preserve them, and are indicated as "MS." readings. On the fly-leaf of the same presentation copy of the 1814 edition, Mrs. Wordsworth wrote out Mr. R. P. Gillies' sonnet, addressed to the author of The Excursion.-ED. + Compare An Evening Walk (vol. i. p. 9)—– When, in the south, the wan noon, brooding still, ED. |