men, is inconceivable by those who have only had an opportunity of observing hired labourers, farmers, and the manufacturing poor. Their little tract of land serves as a kind of permanent rallying point for their domestic feelings, as a tablet on which they are written, which makes them objects of memory in a thousand instances, when they would otherwise be forgotten. It is a fountain fitted to the nature of social man, from which supplies of affection as pure as his heart was intended for, are daily drawn. This class of men is rapidly disappearing. The two poems that I have mentioned were written with a view to show that men who do not wear fine clothes can feel deeply. 'Pectus enim est quod disertos facit, et vis mentis. Ideoque imperitis quoque, si modo sint aliquo affectu concitati, verba non desunt.' The poems are faithful copies from nature; and I hope whatever effect they may have upon you, you will at least be able to perceive that they may excite profitable sympathies in many kind and good hearts; and may in some small degree enlarge our feelings of reverence for our species, and our knowledge of human nature, by showing that our best qualities are possessed by men whom we are too apt to consider, not with reference to the points in which they resemble us, but to those in which they manifestly differ from us." (See Correspondence of Sir Thomas Hanmer, by Sir Henry Burnbury, p. 436.) A number of fragments, originally meant to be parts of Michael,- —or at least written with such a possibility in view,— will be found in the Appendix to the eighth volume of this edition.-ED. 180 1 The Sparrow's Nest, and the sonnet on Skiddaw, along with some translations from Chaucer, belong to the year 1801. During this year, however, The Excursion was in progress. In its earlier stages, and before the plan of The Recluse was matured, the introductory part was familiarly known, and talked of in the Wordsworth household, by the name of "The Pedlar." The following extracts from Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal of 1801 will show the progress that was being made with it :"Dec. 21.-Wm. sate beside me, and wrote The Pedlar.' 22nd.-W. composed a few lines of 'The Pedlar.' 23rd.William worked at 'The Ruined Cottage" " (this was the name of the first part of The Excursion, in which 'The Pedlar' was included), "and made himself very ill," etc.-ED. THE SPARROW'S NEST Composed 1801.-Published 1807 ་ At the end [Written in the orchard, Town-end, Grasmere. of the garden of my father's house at Cockermouth was a high terrace that commanded a fine view of the river Derwent and Cockermouth Castle. This was our favourite play-ground. The terrace wall, a low one, was covered with closely-clipt privet and roses, which gave an almost impervious shelter to birds who built their nests there. The latter of these stanzas * alludes to one of those nests.-I. F.] This poem was first published in the series entitled "Moods of my own Mind," in 1807. In 1815 it was included among *So it stands in the Fenwick note; but it should evidently read, "The following stanzas allude."-ED. the "Poems founded on the Affections," and in 1845 was transferred to the "Poems referring to the Period of Childhood."-ED. 66 BEHOLD, within the leafy shade, Those bright blue eggs together laid! The home and sheltered bed, The Sparrow's dwelling, which, hard by 2 She looked at it and seemed to fear it; The Blessing of my later years She gave me eyes, she gave me ears; 5 ΙΟ 15 20 Wordsworth's "sister Emmeline” was his only sister, Dorothy; and in the MS. sent originally to the printer the line was My sister Dorothy and I." This poem is referred to in a subsequent one, A Farewell, 1. 56. See page 326 of this volume.-ED. 238 PELION AND OSSA FLOURISH SIDE BY SIDE "PELION AND OSSA FLOURISH SIDE Composed 1801.-Published 1815 One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets." From 1836 onwards it bore the title 1801.-ED. PELION and Ossa flourish side by side, Yet round our sea-girt shore they rise in crowds : Mount Skiddaw? In his natural sovereignty Our British Hill is nobler 2 far; he shrouds His double front among Atlantic clouds,3 And pours forth streams more sweet than Castaly. SELECTIONS FROM CHAUCER MODERNISED 5 ΙΟ Wordsworth's modernisations of Chaucer were all written in Two of them were from the Canterbury Tales, but his 1801. * See Spenser's translation of Virgil's Gnat, ll. 21-2 Or where on Mount Parnasse, the Muses brood, ED. version of one of these-The Manciple's Tale-has never been printed. Of the three poems which were published, the firstThe Prioress' Tale-was included in the edition of 1820. The Troilus and Cressida and The Cuckoo and the Nightingale were included in the "Poems of Early and Late Years (1842); but they had been published the year before, in a small volume entitled The Poems of Geoffrey Chaucer Modernised (London, 1841), a volume to which Elizabeth Barrett, Leigh Hunt, R. H. Horne, Thomas Powell, and others contributed. Wordsworth wrote thus of the project to Mr. Powell, in an unpublished and undated letter, written probably in 1840 :—“I am glad that you enter so warmly into the Chaucerian project, and that Mr. L. Hunt is disposed to give his valuable aid to it. For myself, I cannot do more than I offered, to place at your disposal The Prioress' Tale already published, The Cuckoo and the Nightingale, The Manciple's Tale, and I rather think (but I cannot just now find it) a small portion of the Troilus and Cressida. You ask my opinion about that poem. Speaking from a recollection only, of many years past, I should say it would be found too long and probably tedious. The Knight's Tale is also very long; but, though Dryden has executed it, in his own way observe, with great spirit and harmony, he has suffered so much of the simplicity, and with that of the beauty and occasional pathos of the original to escape, that I should be pleased to hear that a new version was to be attempted upon my principle by some competent person. It would delight me to read every part of Chaucer over again-for I reverence and admire him above measure-with a view to your work; but my eyes will not permit me to do so. Who will undertake the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales? For your publication that is indispensable, and I fear it will prove very difficult. It is written, as you know, in the couplet measure; and therefore I have nothing to say upon its metre, but in respect to the poems in stanza, neither in The Prioress' Tale nor in The Cuckoo and Nightingale have I kept to the rule of the original as to the form, and number, and position of the rhymes; thinking it enough if I kept the same number of lines in each stanza; and this is, I think, all that is necessary, and all that can be done without sacrificing the substance of sense too often to the mere form of sound." In a subsequent letter to Professor Henry Reed of Philadelphia, dated "Rydal Mount, January 13th, 1841," Wordsworth said: "So great is my admiration of Chaucer's genius, |