WORDSWORTH'S POETICAL WORKS PETER BELL: A TALE* Composed 1798.+-Published 1819 What's in a Name?‡ Brutus will start a Spirit as soon as Cæsar ! § TO ROBERT SOUTHEY, ESQ., P.L., ETC., ETC. MY DEAR FRIEND-The Tale of Peter Bell, which I now introduce to your notice, and to that of the Public, has, in its Manuscript state, nearly survived its minority:—for it first saw the light in the summer of 1798. During this long interval, pains have been taken at different times to make the production less unworthy of a favourable reception; or, rather, to fit it for filling permanently a station, however humble, in the Literature of our Country. This has, indeed, been the aim of all my endeavours in Poetry, which, you know, have been sufficiently laborious to prove that I deem the Art not lightly to be * The title in the two editions of 1819 was Peter Bell: A Tale in Verse. -ED. In Dorothy Wordsworth's Alfoxden Journal the following occurs, under date April 20, 1798: "The moon crescent. Peter Bell begun."-ED. Romeo and Juliet, act II. scene ii. 1. 44. This motto first appeared on the half-title of Peter Bell, second edition, 1819, under the advertisement of Benjamin the Waggoner, its first line being "What's a Name?" When The Waggoner appeared, a few days afterwards, the motto stood on its title-page. In the collective edition of the Poems (1820), it disappeared; but reappeared, in its final position, in the edition of 1827.-ED. § Julius Cæsar, act I. scene ii. 1. 147.-ED. approached; and that the attainment of excellence in it, may laudably be made the principal object of intellectual pursuit by any man, who, with reasonable consideration of circumstances, has faith in his own impulses. The Poem of Peter Bell, as the Prologue will show, was composed under a belief that the Imagination not only does not require for its exercise the intervention of supernatural agency, but that, though such agency be excluded, the faculty may be called forth as imperiously and for kindred results of pleasure, by incidents, within the compass of poetic probability, in the humblest departments of daily life. Since that Prologue was written, you have exhibited most splendid effects of judicious daring, in the opposite and usual course. Let this acknowledgment make my peace with the lovers of the supernatural; and I am persuaded it will be admitted, that to you, as a Master in that province of the art, the following Tale, whether from contrast or congruity, is not an unappropriate offering. Accept it, then, as a public testimony of affectionate admiration from one with whose name yours has been often coupled (to use your own words) for evil and for good; and believe me to be, with earnest wishes that life and health may be granted you to complete the many important works in which you are engaged, and with high respect, Most faithfully yours, RYDAL MOUNT, April 7, 1819. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. [Written at Alfoxden. Founded upon an anecdote which I read in a newspaper, of an ass being found hanging his head over a canal in a wretched posture. Upon examination a dead body was found in the water, and proved to be the body of its master. The countenance, gait, and figure of Peter were taken from a wild rover with whom I walked from Builth, on the river Wye, downwards, nearly as far as the town of Hay. He told me strange stories. It has always been a pleasure to me through life, to catch at every opportunity that has occurred in my rambles of becoming acquainted with this class of people. The number of Peter's wives was taken from the trespasses, in this way, of a lawless creature, who lived in the county of Durham, and used to be attended by many women, sometimes not less than half a dozen, as disorderly as himself, and a story went in the country that he had been heard to say, while they were quarrelling, "Why can't ye be quiet, there's none so many of you?" Benoni, or the child of sorrow, I knew when I was a schoolboy. His mother had been deserted by a gentleman in the neighbourhood, she herself being a gentlewoman by birth. The circumstances of her story were told me by my dear old dame, Ann Tyson, who was her confidante. The lady died broken-hearted. In the woods of Alfoxden I used to take great delight in noticing the habits, tricks, and physiognomy of asses; and I have no doubt that I was thus put upon writing the poem out of liking for the creature that is often so dreadfully abused. The crescent moon, which makes such a figure in the prologue, assumed this character one evening while I was watching its beauty in front of Alfoxden House. I intended this poem for the volume before spoken of, but it was not published for more than twenty years afterwards. The worship of the Methodists, or Ranters, is often heard during the stillness of the summer evening, in the country, with affecting accompaniments of rural beauty. In both the psalmody and voice of the preacher there is, not unfrequently, much solemnity likely to impress the feelings of the rudest characters under favourable circumstances.-I. F.] Classed by Wordsworth among his "Poems of the Imagination."--ED. PROLOGUE THERE'S something in a flying horse, Shaped like 2 the crescent-moon. And now I have a little Boat, In shape a very crescent-moon : Fast through the clouds my boat can sail; The woods, my Friends, are round you roaring, 1 The noise of danger's in 1 your ears, Meanwhile untroubled I admire 2 Away we go, my Boat and I- Away we go-and what care we Up goes my Boat among 4 the stars I soberly admire |