payment. The peer's reply was, 'I will not pay a farthing; do your worst.' He was, I understand (says Mr Montagu) much accustomed to consider his will as law. After various remonstrances, the children brought an action. When the case came on for trial at Carlisle, lo! his lordship had retained every counsel on the circuit, and came down with a cloud of five-score witnesses. The judge ordered the cause to stand over. Lord L. survived this many years, but seems to have had no compunctious visitings, for he never paid one sixpence of the debt, which the sequel proved to be justly due. After his death, his successor, the present Earl, most generously, most nobly, and immediately, paid all that had been claimed, with interest and costs, the whole then amounting to £25,000.” This, as the sequel will show, was but the first of many acts of kindness on the part of the Lonsdale family towards the poet and his household. The following letter from Wordsworth to his friend Richard Sharp was written in February 1805. It refers to the district of the Lakes in very characteristic fashion. Its strong language is more than pardonable; it is refreshing in its outspokenness and the honesty of its indignation :— "MY DEAR SIR,-. . . We have no tidings of poor Coleridge. For heaven's sake, should you hear of him, write to me; and also do let me know whether we shall see you, as you said, this next June. Woe to poor Grasmere for ever and ever! A wretched creature, wretched in name and nature, of the name of Crump, goaded on by his still more wretched wife-(for by-the-bye, the man, though a Liverpool attorney, is, I am told, a very good sort of fellow, but the wife as ambitious as Semiramis)—this same wretch has at last begun to put his long impending threats in execution; and when you next enter the sweet paradise of Grasmere you will see staring you in the face, upon that beautiful ridge that elbows out into the vale, (behind the church, and towering far above its steeple), a temple of abomination, in which are to be enshrined Mr and Mrs Crump. Seriously, this is a great vexation to us, as this house will stare you in the face from every part of the Vale, and entirely destroy its character of simplicity and seclusion. I now see no newspapers-not even a weekly one-so that I am in utter ignorance of what is going on in the world. My poem advances, quick or slow as the fit comes; but I wish sadly to have it finished, in order that, after a reasonable respite, I may fall to my principal work. I purpose to make a tour somewhere next summer, if I can possibly muster the cash, but where I have not fixed. I incline much to Norway, but five or six weeks' sea voyage -as thither and back again it will be-frightens me; else I could sail most conveniently from Stockton-upon-Tees, Mrs Wordsworth having a brother who is a timber merchant, and has vessels regularly passing to and fro. Could you give me any information that would be of use in case of such a scheme taking effect? . . friend, yours with great respect, -Believe me, my dear Whether roused to it by the urgency of Coleridge and of others, or by his own desire to finish an undertaking begun long ago, but continued at very irregular intervals, Wordsworth seems to have devoted the years 1804 and 1805 mainly to the completion of the poem on his own life. He wrote 2000 lines of it during the last ten weeks of 1804, and finished it in May 1805. the Elegiac Stanzas on his brother John, along with The Waggoner, and the Stanzas suggested by Sir George Beaumont's Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm, were the most important minor poems of these years. His relations to the The Ode to Duty, and Beaumont family will be spoken of in a subsequent chapter. Meanwhile, two letters to Sir George, written from Grasmere in the summer of 1805, when The Prelude was being finished, are important links in the chain of biographic narrative: "GRASMERE, May 1, 1805. MY DEAR SIR GEORGE,-I have wished to write to you every day this long time, but I have also had another wish, which has interfered to prevent me; I mean the wish to resume my poetical labours: time was stealing away fast from me, and nothing done, and my mind still seeming unfit to do anything. At first I had a strong impulse to write a poem that should record my brother's virtues, and be worthy of his memory. I began to give vent to my feelings, with this view, but I was overpowered by my subject, and could not proceed. I composed much, but it is all lost except a few lines, as it came from me in such a torrent that I was unable to remember it. I could not hold the pen myself, and the subject was such that I could not employ Mrs Wordsworth or my sister as my amanuensis. This work must therefore rest a while till I am something calmer; I shall, however, never be at peace till, as far as in me lies, I have done justice to my departed brother's memory. His heroic death (the particulars of which I have now accurately collected from several of the survivors) exacts this from me, and still more his singularly interesting character, and virtuous and innocent life. 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 be not 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 incurable. The fault lies too deep, and is in the first conception. If you see Coleridge before I do, do not speak of this to him, as I should like to have his judgment unpreoccupied by such an apprehension. I wish much to have your further opinion of the young Roscius, above all of his Hamlet.' It is certainly impossible that he should understand the character, that is, the composition of the character. But many of the sentiments which are put into Hamlet's mouth he may be supposed to be capable of feeling, and to a certain degree of entering into the spirit of some of the situations. I never saw 'Hamlet' acted myself, nor do I know what kind of a play they make of it. I think I have heard that some parts which I consider among the finest, are omitted; in particular, Hamlet's wild language after the ghost has disappeared. The players have taken intolerable liberties with Shakespeare's Plays, especially with Richard the Third,' which, though a character admirably conceived and drawn, is in some scenes bad enough in Shakespeare himself; but the play, as it is now acted, has always appeared to me a disgrace to the English stage. 'Hamlet,' I suppose, is treated by them with more reverence. They are both characters very far above the abilities of any actor whom I have ever seen. Henderson was before my time, and, of course, Garrick. We are looking anxiously for Coleridge: perhaps he may be with you now. Is your building going on? I was mortified that the sweet little valley, of which you spoke some time ago, was no longer in the possession of your family. It is the place, I believe, where that illustrious and most extraordinary man, Beaumont the poet, and his brother, were born. One is astonished when one thinks of that man having been only eight-and-twenty years of age, for I believe he was no more, when he died. Shakespeare, we are told, had scarcely written a single play at that age. I hope, for the sake of poets, you are proud of these men. I Lady Beaumont mentioned some time ago that you were painting a picture from The Thorn: is it finished? should like to see it; the poem is a favourite with me, and I shall love it the better for the honour you have done it. We shall be most happy to have the other drawing which you promised us some time ago. The dimensions of the Applethwaite one are eight inches high, and a very little above ten broad; this, of course, exclusive of the margin. I am anxious to know how your health goes on: we are better than we had reason to expect. When we look back upon this spring, it seems like a dreary dream to us. But I trust in God that we shall yet bear up and steer right onward.' Farewell. I am, your affectionate friend, W. WORDSWORTH." |