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visit to Major Campbell; but it rained incessantly, and we were obliged to give up our intention of going to Staffa. The rain pursued us to Tyndrum, where the next sonnet was composed in a storm.

The Avon. "Yet is it one that other rivulets bear." -There is the Shakespeare Avon, the Bristol Avon, the one that flows by Salisbury, and a small river in Wales, I believe, bear the name; Avon being, in the ancient tongue, the general name for river.

Inglewood Forest. The extensive forest of Inglewood has been inclosed within my memory. I was well acquainted with it in its ancient state. The hart's-horn tree, mentioned in the next sonnet, was one of its remarkable objects, as well as another tree that grew upon an eminence not far from Penrith. It was single and conspicuous, and, being of a round shape, though it was universally known to be a 'sycamore," it was always called the "round thorn," so difficult is it to chain fancy down to fact.

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Fancy and Tradition. — Suggested by the recollection of Juliana's bower and other traditions connected with this ancient forest.

Highland Broach.

On ascending a hill that leads from Loch Awe towards Inverary, I fell into conversation with a woman of the humbler class, who wore one of these Highland. broaches. I talked with her about it, and upon parting with her, when I said, with a kindness I truly felt, "May the broach continue in your family for many generations to come, as you have already possessed it," she thanked me most be comingly, and seemed not a little moved.

VOLUME IV.

Page 1.

The White Doe of Rylstone.

"The earlier half of this poem was composed at Stocktonupon-Tees, when Mary and I were on a visit to her eldest

brother, Mr. Hutchinson, at the close of the year 1807. The country is flat, and the weather was rough. I was accustomed every day to walk to and fro under the shelter of a row of stacks, in a field at a small distance from the town, and there poured forth my verses aloud, as freely as they would

come.

"When, from the visit just mentioned, we returned to Town-End, Grasmere, I proceeded with the poem."

Mr. Wordsworth here mentioned, obiter, that in his walks at this time he received a wound in his foot; " and though," he added, "I desisted from walking, I found that the irritation of the wounded part was kept up by the act of composition, to a degree that made it necessary to give my constitution a holi day. A rapid cure was the consequence.

"Poetic excitement, when accompanied by protracted la bor in composition, has throughout my life brought on more or less bodily derangement. Nevertheless I am, at the close of my seventy-third year, in what may be, called excellent health. So that intellectual labor is not, necessarily, unfavorable to longevity. But perhaps I ought here to add, that mine has been generally carried on out of doors.

"Let me here say a few words of this poem, by way of criticism. The subject being taken from feudal times has led to its being compared to some of Walter Scott's poems, that belong to the same age and state of society. The comparison is inconsiderate. Sir Walter pursued the customary and very natural course of conducting an action, presenting various turns of fortune, to some outstanding point on which the mind might rest as a termination or catastrophe. The course I at tempted to pursue is entirely different. Everything that is attempted by the principal personages in the 'White Doe' fails, so far as its object is external and substantial: so far as it is moral and spiritual, it succeeds. The heroine of the poem knows that her duty is not to interfere with the current of events, either to forward or delay them; but

'To abide

The shock, and finally secure

O'er pain and grief a triumph pure.

This she does in obedience to her brother's injunction, as most suitable to a mind and character that, under previous trials, had been proved to accord with his. She achieves this, not without aid from the communication with the inferior creature, which often leads her thoughts to revolve upon the past with a tender and humanizing influence, that exalts rather than depresses her. The anticipated beatification, if I may so say, of her mind, and the apotheosis of the companion of her solitude, are the points at which the poem aims, and constitute its legitimate catastrophe; far too spiritual a one for instant or widely spread sympathy, but not therefore the less fitted to make a deep and permanent impression upon that class of minds, who think and feel more independently than the many do of the surfaces of things and interests transitory, because belonging more to the outward and social forms of life than to its internal spirit.

"How insignificant a thing, for example, does personal prowess appear, compared with the fortitude of patience and heroic martyrdom; in other words, with struggles for the sake of principle, in preference to victory gloried in for its own sake!"

To these remarks may be added the following, in a letter from the writer to his friend, Archdeacon Wrangham :

"Thanksgiving Day, Jan. 1816. Rydal Mount.

"Of 'The White Doe' I have little to say, but that I hope it will be acceptable to the intelligent, for whom alone it is written. It starts from a high point of imagination, and comes round, through various wanderings of that faculty, to a still higher, nothing less than the apotheosis of the animal who gives the first of the two titles to the poem. And as the poem thus begins and ends with pure and lofty imagination, every motive and impetus that actuates the persons introduced is from the same source; a kindred spirit pervades, and is intended to harmonize the whole. Throughout, objects (the banner, for instance) derive their influence, not from properties inherent in them, not from what they are actually in themselves, but from such as are bestowed upon them by the minds

of those who are conversant with or affected by those objects. Thus the poetry, if there be any in the work, proceeds, as it ought to do, from the soul of man, communicating its creative energies to the images of the external world. But too much of this.

"Most faithfully yours,

"W. WORDSWORTH.'

Wordsworth considered "The White Doe" as, in conception, the highest work he had ever produced. The mere physical action was all unsuccessful; but the true action of the poem was spiritual, the subduing of the will, and all inferior passions, to the perfect purifying and spiritualizing of the intellectual nature; while the Doe, by connection with Emily, is raised, as it were, from its mere animal nature, into something mysterious and saint-like. He said he should de vote much labor to perfecting the execution of it in the mere business parts, in which, from anxiety "to get on" with the more important parts, he was sensible that imperfections had crept in, which gave the style a feebleness of character.

Page 72.

Ecclesiastical Sonnets.

My purpose in writing this series was, as much as possible, to confine my view to the introduction, progress, and opera tion of the CHURCH in ENGLAND, both previous and subsequent to the Reformation. The Sonnets were written long before Ecclesiastical History and points of doctrine had ex cited the interest with which they have been recently investi gated and discussed. The former particular is mentioned as an excuse for my having fallen into error in respect to an in cident which had been selected as setting forth the height to which the power of the Popedom over temporal sovereignty had attained, and the arrogancy with which it was displayed. I allude to the last sonnet but one in the first series, where Pope Alexander the Third, at Venice, is described as setting his foot on the neck of the Emperor Barbarossa.. Though this is related as a fact in history, I am told it is a mere legend

of no authority. Substitute for it an undeniable truth, not less fitted for my purpose, namely, the penance inflicted by Gregory the Seventh upon the Emperor Henry the Fourth, at Canosa.

Before I conclude my notice of these Sonnets, let me observe that the opinion I pronounced in favor of Laud (long before the Oxford Tract movement), and which had brought censure upon me from several quarters, is not in the least changed. Omitting here to examine into his conduct in respect to the persecuting spirit with which he has been charged, I am persuaded that most of his aims to restore spiritual practices which had been abandoned were good and wise, whatever errors he might commit in the manner he sometimes attempted to enforce them. I firmly believe, that had not he, and others who shared his opinions and felt as he did, stood up in opposition to the Reformers of that period, it is question. able whether the Church would ever have recovered its lost ground, and become the blessing it now is, and will, I trust, become in a still greater degree, both to those of its commun ion, and those who unfortunately are separated from it.

I saw the figure of a lovely maid. Sonnet I. Part III. When I came to this part of the series I had the dream de. scribed in this Sonnet. The figure was that of my daughter, and the whole passed exactly as here represented. The sonnet was composed on the middle road leading from Grasmere to Ambleside: it was begun as I left the last house in the vale, and finished, word for word as it now stands, before I came in view of Rydal. I wish I could say the same of the five or six hundred I have written: most of them were frequently retouched in the course of composition, and not a few labori ously.

I have only further to observe, that the intended church which prompted these Sonnets was erected on Coleorton Moor, towards the centre of a very populous parish, between three and four miles from Ashby-de-la-Zouch, on the road to Loughorough, and has proved, I believe, a great benefit to the neighborhood.

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