THE PRELUDE, OR GROWTH OF A POET'S MIND; AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL POEM. ADVERTISEMENT. The following Poem was commenced in the beginning of the year 1799, and completed in the summer of 1805. The design and occasion of the work are described by the Author in his Preface to the EXCURSION, first published in 1814, where he thus speaks: "Several years ago, when the Author retired to his native mountains with the hope of being enabled to construct a literary work that might live, it was a reasonable thing that he should take a review of his own mind, and examine how far Nature and Education had qualified him for such an employment. "As subsidiary to this preparation, he undertook to record, in verse, the origin and progress of his own powers, as far as he was acquainted with them. "That work, addressed to a dear friend, most distinguished for his knowledge and genius, and to whom the Author's intellect is deeply indebted, has been long finished; and the result of the investigation which gave rise to it, was a determination to compose a philosophical Poem, containing views of Man, Nature, and Society, and to be entitled the 'Recluse ;' as having for its principal subject the sensations and opinions of a poet living in retirement. "The preparatory Poem is biographical, and conducts the 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." Such was the Author's language in the year 1814. It will thence be seen, that the present Poem was intended to be introductory to the RECLUSE, and that the RECLUSE, if completed, would have consisted of Three Parts. Of these, the Second Part alone, viz., the EXCURSION, was finished, and given to the world by the Author. The First Book of the First Part of the RECLUSE still remains in manuscript; but the Third Part was only planned. The materials of which it would have been formed have, however, been incorporated, for the most part, in the Author's other Publications, written subsequently to the EXCURSION. The Friend, to whom the present Poem is addressed, was the late SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, who was resident in Malta, for the restoration of his health, when the greater part of it was composed. Mr Coleridge read a considerable portion of the Poem while he was abroad; and his feelings, on hearing it recited by the Author (after his return to his own country), are recorded in his Verses, addressed to Mr Wordsworth, which will be found in the "Sibylline Leaves," p. 197, ed. 1817, or "Poetical Works, by S. T. Coleridge," vol. i., p. 206. RYDAL MOUNT, July 13th, 1850. This "advertisement" to the first edition of The Prelude-published in 1850, the year of Wordsworth's death-was written by Mr Carter, who edited the volume. Mr Carter was for may years the poet's secretary, and afterwards one of his literary executors. The poem was not only kept back from publication during Wordsworth's life-time, but it remained without a title; being alluded to by himself, when he spoke or wrote of it, as "the poem on my own poetical education," the "poem on my own life," &c. As The Prelude is autobiographical, a large part of Wordsworth's life might be written in the notes appended to it; but, besides breaking up the text of the poem unduly, this plan has many disadvantages, and would render a subsequent and detailed life of the poet either unnecessary or repetitive. The notes which follow will therefore be limited to the explanation of local, historical, and chronological allusions, or to references to Wordsworth's own career that are not obvious without them. It has been occasionally difficult to decide whether some of the allusions, to minute points in ancient history, medieval mythology, and contemporary politics, should be explained or left alone; but I have preferred to err on the side of giving a brief clue to details, with which every scholar is familiar. The Prelude was begun as Wordsworth left the imperial city of Goslar, in Lower Saxony, where he spent part of the last winter of last century, and which he left on the 10th of February 1799. Only the first two paragraphs, however, were composed at that time; and the poem was continued at desultory intervals after the settlement at Grasmere, during 1800, and following years. Large portions of it were dictated during these years to his devoted amanuenses as he walked on the terraces of Lancrigg. Six books were finished by 1805. "The seventh was begun in the opening of that year;" "and the remaining seven were written before the end of June 1805, when his friend Cole ridge was in the island of Malta, for the restoration of his health.”— (The Bishop of Lincoln.) There is, no uncertainty as to the year in which the later books were written; but there is considerable difficulty in fixing the precise date of the earlier ones. Writing from Grasmere to his friend Francis Wrangham-the letter is undated-Wordsworth says, "I am engaged in writing a poem on my own earlier Life. Three books are nearly finished." The Bishop of Lincoln supposes that this letter to Wrangham was written "at the close of 1803, or beginning of 1804." (See Memoirs, Vol. I., p. 303). From the hints which Wordsworth himself supplies in two passages, however-viz., in the sixth and seventh books of The Prelude-I think it must belong to the year 1802. The passages are as follows. At the commencement of the seventh book he says— Six changeful years have vanished since I first Of short-lived transport, like a torrent bursting, I have italicised the clauses which give some clue to the dates of composition. From these it would appear that the "glad preamble," written on leaving Goslar (which, I think, included only the first two paragraphs of book first), was a "short-lived transport;" but that "soon" afterwards "a less impetuous stream" broke forth, which, after the settlement at Grasmere, "flowed awhile with unabating strength,” and then "stopped for years." Now the above passage, recording these things, was written in 1805, and in the late autumn of that year; (as is evident from the reference which immediately follows to the "choir of red breasts" and the approach of winter). We must therefore assign the flowing of the "less impetuous stream," to 1802; in order to leave room for the intervening "years," in which it ceased to flow, till it was audible again in 1804, "last primrose-time.” The second reference to date occurs in the sixth book, entitled "Cambridge and the Alps," in which he says, Four years and thirty told this very week, Have I been now a sojourner on earth," &c. This fixes definitely enough the exact date of the composition of that part of the work, viz., April 1804, which corresponds exactly to the "last primrose-time" of the previous extract from the seventh book, in which he tells us that after its long silence, his Muse was heard again. So much for Wordsworth's own allusions to date. But there are other hints supplied by his letters, especially those to Sir George Beaumont. On the 23d of December 1804 he wrote, "I am at present chiefly engaged on a Poem, on my own earlier life, or the growth of my own mind. . . . I have written upwards of 2000 verses during the last ten weeks." From this it appears that 2000 lines of The Prelude was written in October, November, and December of 1804; and, as the seventh book was begun "six changeful years" after the "glad preamble" of February 1799, I conclude-counting back 2000 lines from book seventh-that the lines in question are the whole of the fourth, fifth, and sixth books, and part of the third, beginning probably with the paragraph, But peace to vain regrets! (See p. 184.) This would correspond with what Wordsworth says to his friend Wrangham, in the undated letter of 1802, that he had then composed nearly three books, i.e., the first, the second, and the third probably down to the line By moonshine through mere lack of taper light. (See p. 184.) ""less Thus I conclude that these three books contain the "stream," impetuous" than the Goslar prologue of 1798. There are difficulties, however, as to date; and the "2000 verses which Wordsworth told Sir George Beaumont, on Christmas Day 1804, that he had written "during the last ten weeks," may have included parts of The Recluse; for, although he goes on to say that he was chiefly occupied on The Prelude, he adds that The Recluse was the chief object on which his thoughts had been fixed for many years. It is certain that the remaining books of The Prelude were all written in the spring and early summer of 1805; the seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, and part of the twelfth being finished about the middle of April; the last 300 lines of book twelfth in the last week of April; and the two remaining books-the thirteenth and fourteenthbefore the 20th of May. The following extracts from letters of Wordsworth to Sir George Beaumont make this clear, and also cast light on matters much more important than the mere dates of composition. GRASMERE, Dec. 25, 1804. "My dear Sir George,-You will be pleased to hear that I have been advancing with my work: I have written upwards of 2000 verses during the last ten weeks. I do not know if you are exactly acquainted with the plan of my poetical labour: It is twofold; first, a Poem, to be called 'The Recluse ;' in which it will be my object to express in verse my most interesting feelings concerning man, nature, and society; and next, a poem (in which I am at present chiefly engaged) on my earlier life, or the growth of my own mind, taken up upon a large scale. This latter work I expect to have finished before the month of May; and then I purpose to fall with all my might on the former, which is the chief object upon which my thoughts have been fixed these many years." GRASMERE, May 1, 1805. "Unable to proceed with this work, I turned my thoughts again to the Poem on my own Life, and you will be glad to hear that I have added 300 lines to it in the course of last week. Two books more will conclude it. It will not be much less than 9000 lines,—not hundred but thousand lines long,- —an alarming length! and a thing unprecedented in literary history that a man should talk so much about himself. It is not self-conceit, as you will know well, that has induced me to do this, but real humility. I began the work because I was unprepared to treat any more arduous subject, and diffident of my own powers. Here, at least, I hoped that to a certain degree I should be sure of succeeding, as I had nothing to do but describe what I had felt and thought, and therefore could not easily be bewildered. This might have been done in narrower compass by a man of more address; but I have done my best. If, when the work shall be finished, it appears to the judicious to have redundancies, they shall be lopped off, if possible; but this is very difficult to do, when a man has written with thought; and this defect, whenever I have suspected it or found it to exist in any writings of mine, I have always found it incurable. The fault lies too deep, and is in the first conception." GRASMERE, June 3, 1805. "I have the pleasure to say that I finished my poem about a fortnight ago. I had looked forward to the day as a most happy one; . . . But it was not a happy day for me; I was dejected on many accounts: when I looked back upon the performance, it seemed to have a dead weight about it, the reality so far short of the expectation. was the first long labour that I had finished; and the doubt whether I should ever live to write The Recluse, and the sense which I had of this poem being so far below what I seemed capable of executing, It |