own laws, and from that he anticipated "better days to all mankind." During this winter of 1791-2, he was also busy with the work of writing a "descriptive sketch" in verse of his tour in the Alps with Jones. The style of the poem is Pope's, and its form is that of Goldsmith; yet the voice is the voice of Wordsworth. But a critical estimate of the poem must be postponed. Early in the spring of 1792, Wordsworth went from Orleans to Blois, and on the 17th of May he wrote thus to his friend Mathews : The horrors excited by the relation of the events consequent upon the commencement of hostilities is general. Not but that there are some men who felt a gloomy satisfaction from a measure which seemed to put the patriot army out of a possibility of success. An ignominious flight, the massacre of their general, a dance performed with savage joy round his burning body, the murder of six prisoners, are events which would have arrested the attention of the reader of the annals of Morocco." He then expresses his fear that the patriot army would be routed by the invaders. But "suppose," he adds, "that the German army is at the gates of Paris, what will be the consequence? It will be impossible for it to make any material alterations in the constitution; impossible to reinstate the clergy in its ancient guilty splendour; impossible to restore an existence to the noblesse similar to that it before enjoyed; impossible to add much to the authority of the king. Yet there are in France some (millions ?)—I speak without exaggeration-who expect that this will take place." * We do not know much of how Wordsworth spent his * See Memoirs, vol. i. p. 75. time at Blois. But there is a passage in The Prelude which refers to it, though not given in its chronological place in that poem. In the eighth book he tells us that for two and twenty summers Man had been subordinate to Nature in his regards Nature "a passion, a rapture often," Man only "a delight occasional," "his hour being not yet come." Now Wordsworth's twenty-second summer was the one he spent at Blois; and while there was less to attract him in the scenery of Blois than there had been in England, these late conversations with Beaupuis, and the fresh incidents of every day, were such as now to give Man the first place in his thoughts,-Man in his aspirations and struggles, in his individual nature, and his social destiny. The "September massacres" had taken place in the first week of that month, while Wordsworth was still at Blois. When he reached Paris, Louis the XVI. was dethroned, and in prison with his wife and children. The Republic had been decreed on the 22nd September, but Wordsworth thought that the "dire work of massacre" being over, and the "earth free of them for ever," France would at once reach the promised goal of universal brotherhood. He went to the prison where the king was in captivity, the Tuilleries, the Place du Carousal, where the dead had lain so lately, "upon the dying heaped." These things were mysteries to him. He likened them to the contents of a book, written in a tongue he could not read. He went back to his lodging, a high lonely room at the top of a large hotel, and all night kept watch, reading by the light of a small taper, thinking of the massacres and their results. He remembered that the tides come again, that the earthquakes and the hurricanes return; "all things have second birth." The place he was in appeared defenceless, as a wood where wild beasts roam; and, in the weird silence, he seemed to hear a voice crying out to the whole city of Paris, "Sleep no more." Next day he had some experience of how rapidly the tides of revolution do turn. In the streets hawkers were bawling, "Denunciation of the Crimes of Maximilian Robespierre." He heard Louvet denounce him from the Tribune, but noted the failure of his charge. He saw that Liberty, and the issues of Life and Death, were again in the hands of those few men who ruled the metropolis. Here was tyranny coming back hydra-headed. His inmost soul was agitated. He not only grieved, but he thought of remedies, and would himself have willingly undertaken personal service in the cause. He thought how much depended in all great crises on the action of individuals, and how a true and strong soul, faithful to duty, can guide the unreasoning masses. But he remembered that those who have not been trained for action are unfit to mingle in the thick of social struggles. It would have been an utterly quixotic enterprise for him to have attempted to do so. He believed, however, that if "one paramount mind” had arisen, it could have ended the chaos, and "cleared a passage for just government." In this frame of mind he left Paris, and returned to England in December 1792. He had spent fully two months in the French capital. Had he not left it at the time he did, he would have been soon led to make common cause with the Brissotins, with many of whom he was intimate, and would doubtless have fallen a victim along with them to the rival Jacobin party in the following year. While Wordsworth was in France we do not hear much of his sister's life at Forncett; but a letter addressed to Miss Pollard, on the 6th of May 1792, may be quoted, and the substance of another given. "FORNCETT, Tuesday, May 6th, 1792. [She speaks of a prospect of going to Windsor in the autumn, but while pleased to go, was more pleased in prospect of returning to the quiet of Forncett. John had spent four months at Forncett; was now in London, upon his road into Cumberland, and intended to sail from Whitehaven for the West Indies.] "I promised to transcribe some of William's compositions. As I made the promise I will give you a little sonnet, but all the same I charge you, as you value our friendship, not to read it, or to show it to any one-to your sister, or any other person. I take the first that offers. It is only valuable to me because the lane which gave birth to it was the favourite evening walk of my dear William and me. "Sweet was the walk along the narrow lane At noon, the bank and hedgerows all the way Quiet and dark; for through the thick-wove trees [She adds] "I have not chosen this sonnet because of any particular beauty it has; it was the first I laid my hands upon." WINDSOR, October 16th, 1792. [Left Forncett, July 31st. In London, August 1st. Did not like London at all; was heartily rejoiced to quit it for Windsor, a week after arrival. Went to the top of St Paul's. Reached Windsor on the 9th August. Charmed with it. Met the Royal Family walking on the terrace every evening, and admired the King in his conversation with her uncle and aunt, and his interest (and that of the Princesses) in the children of her uncle and aunt. From the terrace above watches the Queen driving a phaeton with four white ponies in the Lower Park, and is charmed with the fairy-like scene; is taken country drives, and to see races, and to several balls. Describes the Windsor cloisters.] In December 1792 Wordsworth had again reached London. He doubtless went to his eldest brother Richard's house, the solicitor. His sister writes from Forncett, December 22: 'William is in London. He writes to me regularly." He seems to have gone down to Forncett almost immediately, for Dorothy speaks in a letter (June 16, 1793)* of his having spent Christmas there, and of their daily walks in the garden of the Rectory. Here doubtless it was that the publication of The Evening Walk, dedicated to his sister, was talked of and definitely decided. It is extremely likely that it was copied out for press by her; and it must have been published early in 1793, for on February 16th she writes to Miss Pollard of a review of the book. Wordsworth's movements during the earlier months of 1793 are not easily traced. Probably the publication of The Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches occupied him a good deal in London. Mr Myers, on the evidence of an MS. letter of Dorothy Wordsworth's, thinks that these poems were published in 1792; but this letter has no date. appended to it by the writer, except "Forncett, February 16," and internal evidence shows that it was written in 1793. Besides, the first edition of the poems are dated, and speak for themselves. The work of seeing these earliest volumes through the press would take some time. But Wordsworth also says that, now a "patriot of the world," he could not at once return to his * See p. 86. |