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diff --git a/42909-8.txt b/42909-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 29b3b90..0000000 --- a/42909-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,16909 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Collected Writing of Thomas De Quincey, -Vol. II, by Thomas De Quincey - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Collected Writing of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II - -Author: Thomas De Quincey - -Editor: David Maddon - -Release Date: June 10, 2013 [EBook #42909] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WRITING OF THOMAS DE QUINCEY *** - - - - -Produced by Les Galloway, Jason Isbell and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - -Transcriber's Note - -Variations in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained -except in obvious cases of typographical errors. Italics are shown -thus _italic_ and bold thus =bold= - -The letter o written with a macron (straight line) above is marked -[=o]. - - - - - - DE QUINCEY'S COLLECTED WRITINGS - - VOL. II - - AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND LITERARY REMINISCENCES - - - - - THE - COLLECTED WRITINGS - OF - THOMAS - DE QUINCEY - - BY - DAVID MASSON - - EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE - IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH - - VOL. II - - - LONDON - A. & C. BLACK, SOHO SQUARE - 1896 - - - - -[Illustration: Samuel Taylor Coleridge. -From a picture by Peter Vandyke in the National Portrait Gallery] - - -CONTENTS OF VOL. II - - - - PAGE - EDITOR'S PREFACE 1 - - AUTOBIOGRAPHY CONTINUED FROM 1803 TO 1808-- - - CHAP. - I. OXFORD 9 - - II. GERMAN STUDIES AND KANT IN PARTICULAR 81 - - LITERARY AND LAKE REMINISCENCES-- - - CHAP. - I. A MANCHESTER SWEDENBORGIAN AND A LIVERPOOL - LITERARY COTERIE 113 - - II. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 138 - - III. THE LAKE POETS: WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 229 - - IV. THE LAKE POETS: WILLIAM WORDSWORTH AND - ROBERT SOUTHEY 303 - - V. THE LAKE POETS: SOUTHEY, WORDSWORTH, AND - COLERIDGE 335 - - VI. THE SARACEN'S HEAD 348 - - VII. WESTMORELAND AND THE DALESMEN: SOCIETY OF - THE LAKES 360 - - VIII. SOCIETY OF THE LAKES: CHARLES LLOYD 381 - - IX. SOCIETY OF THE LAKES: MISS ELIZABETH SMITH, - THE SYMPSONS, AND THE K---- FAMILY 403 - - X. SOCIETY OF THE LAKES: PROFESSOR WILSON: DEATH - OF LITTLE KATE WORDSWORTH 432 - - XI. RAMBLES FROM THE LAKES: MRS. SIDDONS AND - HANNAH MORE 446 - - - - -EDITOR'S PREFACE - - -The matter of this volume breaks itself into two main divisions, as -follows:-- - - -I.--AUTOBIOGRAPHY CONTINUED FROM 1803 TO 1808 - -Although De Quincey's Autobiography, so far as it was revised by -himself in 1853 for the Edinburgh Collective Edition of his writings, -stopped at 1803, when he went to Oxford, he left a continuation of that -Autobiography, accessible to those that might be curious about it, in -two old papers of his in _Tait's Edinburgh Magazine_. One of these, -bearing the continued general title "Sketches of Life and Manners from -the Autobiography of an English Opium-Eater," but with the sub-title -"Oxford," had appeared, in three successive parts, in the numbers of -the magazine for February, June, and August 1835; the other, forming -but a single article, had appeared in the number for June 1836, with -the simple title, "Autobiography of an English Opium-Eater continued," -but without any sub-title, or any indication of its nature except what -might be conveyed by the head-lines,--"The German Language," "The -German Philosophic Literature," and "The Philosophy of Kant,"--at the -tops of the right-hand pages. As the two papers together carry on the -Autobiography from 1803 to 1808, they are reproduced in this volume -from the columns of the magazine as two chapters of De Quincey's -Autobiography additional to the Revised Autobiography contained in -the preceding volume. The first, and much the larger, is sufficiently -described by the title "Oxford," used as a sub-title for it in _Tait's -Magazine_. It is a careful and very readable account of the system -of Oxford life and education during the five years of De Quincey's -connexion with the University, with glimpses of himself, though not -so numerous or continuous as might be wished, as he moved obscurely -through the academic medium. The other chapter will take most readers -aback. Beginning in a popular vein, and even humorously, it turns -itself, through two-thirds of its extent, into a dissertation on Kant's -philosophy which is one of the toughest things that De Quincey ever -wrote. It is probably on this account that the American Collective -Edition of De Quincey, while gladly reprinting his Oxford paper, omits -this one altogether. That, however, is scarcely allowable. Nor is -it allowable to yield to the natural temptation which would suggest -the omission of the paper in the place where De Quincey put it, and -the reservation of it for some other place in the collection of his -writings where it might be in the company of other demons as abstruse -as itself. It belongs vitally to the autobiographic series, and to -that part of the autobiographic series which deals with De Quincey's -Oxford life from 1803 to 1808. It is as if De Quincey had said to his -readers--as, in fact, he does virtually say in the paper--"It was -during those five years that I betook myself to German studies, and -especially to studies in German Philosophy; they had an immense effect -upon me at the time, and a permanent influence afterwards; and, if -you would understand my subsequent life and mind, you must, at the -risk of a headache yourselves, listen at this point to a description -of the exact nature and symptoms of the headache they caused _me_." To -indicate as precisely as possible this autobiographic purport of the -paper, I have ventured, in the absence of any title to it by De Quincey -himself, to entitle it "German Studies and Kant in particular." It will -be of much interest to some readers; and others can skip it if they -choose. - - -II.--LITERARY AND LAKE REMINISCENCES. - -Concurrently with the series of the expressly autobiographic papers -in _Tait's Magazine_, there had appeared in the same magazine another -series of papers by De Quincey, also autobiographic in a general sense, -but in a more indirect fashion. - -Having known a number of remarkable persons in the course of his life, -some of them of great literary celebrity, it had occurred to him that a -series of sketches of these, from his own recollections and impressions -of them, partly in their relations to himself, but not exclusively -so, would be welcome, and might at all events be made instructively -De Quincey-like. He had begun with Coleridge, and had contributed -four papers of Reminiscences of Coleridge to the numbers of _Tait's -Magazine_ for September, October, and November 1834, and January 1835. -These, though necessarily autobiographic to a pretty large extent, -had been interjected into the series of his expressly autobiographic -articles in the magazine. Then, that expressly autobiographic series -having been finished in 1836 in the above-mentioned papers on his -Oxford life and his first German studies, he had ranged back, in an -article in the magazine for February 1837, for a recollection of -certain literary notabilities of Manchester and Liverpool whom he had -known or seen in his schoolboy days. After that, zig-zagging in his -memory for suitable additions, he had brought in,--sometimes under -cover of the standing general magazine title of "Sketches of Life -and Manners from the Autobiography of an English Opium-Eater," but -sometimes under independent titles,--accounts of other acquaintances of -his, either famous to all the world already, or about whom the world -might be inquisitive. Of these our concern in the present volume, for -chronological reasons, is with Wordsworth and his fellow-celebrities -of the Lake district, whether those that were resident there when De -Quincey first visited it in Coleridge's company in 1807, or those that -were resident there from 1809 onwards, when De Quincey had become a -Lakist too, and was domiciled permanently, as it seemed, close to -Wordsworth at Grasmere. To Wordsworth himself,--always De Quincey's -man of men, or at least poet of poets, of his generation,--there were -devoted three articles in _Tait's Magazine_ for January, February, and -April 1839, entitled "Lake Reminiscences: No. I. William Wordsworth, -No. II. William Wordsworth, No. III. William Wordsworth." These were -followed in July of the same year by a No. IV, entitled "William -Wordsworth and Robert Southey," and in August by a No. V, in which -Coleridge came back for some notice, and which was therefore entitled -"Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge." For the minor celebrities of -the Lakes, after these three _dii majorum gentium_, and for sketches -of Lake scenery and society generally, there was a relapse into the -older magazine title "Sketches of Life and Manners" etc.; and the seven -additional articles required for these straggled through the numbers of -_Tait's Magazine_ from September 1839 to August 1840. - -Save that one of the articles so inventoried goes back beyond the Lake -period of De Quincey's life altogether, and that the main set of the -Coleridge articles treats Coleridge generally and apart from his Lakist -connexion, one might designate them collectively by that title of LAKE -REMINISCENCES which De Quincey did use for some of them. As it is, -however, the title LITERARY AND LAKE REMINISCENCES seems, on the whole, -the fittest. - -One question remains. Whence are we to take the text of these LITERARY -AND LAKE REMINISCENCES left by De Quincey? For the largest number of -the included articles there is no option. They were not reprinted by -De Quincey in the Collective Edition of 1853-60, though he must have -contemplated reprinting them some time; and the text of them must -therefore be taken from the pages of _Tait's Magazine_, in which -they originally appeared. But for a portion of the Reminiscences, and -a very important portion, there is an option. De Quincey did reprint -in his Collective Edition the whole of his special set of Coleridge -Recollections, with the exception of the last article of the four, -throwing all the reprinted articles into one block, after somewhat -careful revision; and he reprinted also in the same way the whole set -of the special articles on Wordsworth, without any omission. These -main Coleridge and Wordsworth papers are therefore reproduced in our -present volume from De Quincey's own revised text of them,--with the -restoration, however, in the case of the Coleridge chapter, of that -fourth of the magazine articles on Coleridge which De Quincey omitted. -The omission was unnecessary; and, as the American Collective Edition -contains the omitted article, the present edition is entitled to the -same benefit. What, however, about the two minor papers of the Lake -Reminiscences which appeared as Nos. IV and V in _Tait's Magazine_ -for July and August 1839, under the titles of "William Wordsworth -and Robert Southey," and "Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge," -respectively? These also De Quincey reprinted in his Collective -Edition, after a fashion; but it was after a fashion which greatly -impaired their interest. He threw them, or rather parts of them, into -one, under the single title "Robert Southey," omitting a great deal of -what was liveliest and best in the original articles. This may have -been caused merely by his hurry at the time, in consequence of the -pressure of the printers for copy in any form; but possibly it had -another cause. De Quincey's Reminiscences of Coleridge, Wordsworth, and -Southey, on their first appearance in _Tait's Magazine_ between 1834 -and 1840, had provoked a good deal of resentment among those concerned. -Coleridge was then dead; but Wordsworth and Dorothy Wordsworth were -still living; as was also Southey. Little wonder that the surviving -relatives of Coleridge felt aggrieved by the extreme frankness of some -of De Quincey's personal recollections of the dead sage, or that the -Wordsworth and Southey families were annoyed and offended on similar -grounds. Wordsworth, with his massive serenity, seems, indeed, to have -tossed the matter aside easily enough; but not so Southey. Carlyle -tells us that, when he first met Southey in London, Southey was full -of the subject of De Quincey's delinquencies in publishing so many -anecdotes of a confidential kind respecting Wordsworth, Coleridge, -and himself, and spoke on the subject in terms which Carlyle, who had -read the articles, thought needlessly angry and vehement. Something -of all this may have been in De Quincey's mind when, in reproducing -his Lake Reminiscences in 1853 for his Collective Edition, he came -to the two _Tait_ articles in which Southey had principally figured. -Hence, perhaps, though Southey had died in 1843, De Quincey's large -excisions from those articles, and his consolidation of them into one -paper, pleasant enough in the main, but comparatively insipid. It was -an editorial mistake on De Quincey's part, and must not bind us now. -The articles in their original livelier and more extensive magazine -form being irrevocable at any rate, and forming part and parcel of the -American Collective Edition, we have acted accordingly. We revert in -the present edition to the text of _Tait's Magazine_ for the particular -articles in question, and print them as they stood there, with their -separate titles. - - * * * * * - -Respecting the present volume as a whole, it will now be understood -that, while a portion of its contents consists of matter derived from -De Quincey's revised edition of 1853-60, considerably the larger -proportion consists of recovered magazine articles that have been -practically inaccessible hitherto to British readers. So composed, the -volume is certainly one of the richest specimens that could be offered -of De Quincey's general characteristics. There are ups and downs in it, -portions inferior to others in literary merit, and occasional lapses -into what may seem spiteful or in bad taste. All in all, however, it -illustrates most variously and most amusingly the shrewdness of De -Quincey's observations of men and things, the range and readiness -of his erudition, the subtlety and originality of his speculative -intellect, his faculty of poetic imagination, his power of mournful -pathos on the one hand and the most whimsical humour on the other, and -the marvellous versatility and flexibility of his style. - D. M. - - - - - AUTOBIOGRAPHY - (_continued_) - - FROM 1803 TO 1808 - - - - - CHAPTER I - - OXFORD - - I[1] - - [1] From _Tait's Magazine_ for February 1835.--M. - - -It was in winter, and in the wintry weather of the year 1803, that I -first entered Oxford with a view to its vast means of education, or -rather with a view to its vast advantages for study. A ludicrous story -is told of a young candidate for clerical orders--that, being asked by -the bishop's chaplain if he had ever "been to Oxford," as a colloquial -expression for having had an academic education, he replied, "No: -but he had twice been to Abingdon": Abingdon being only seven miles -distant. In the same sense I might say that once before I had been -at Oxford: but _that_ was as a transient visitor with Lord W----,[2] -when we were both children. Now, on the contrary, I approached these -venerable towers in the character of a student, and with the purpose -of a long connexion; personally interested in the constitution of the -University, and obscurely anticipating that in this city, or at least -during the period of my nominal attachment to this academic body, the -remoter parts of my future life would unfold before me. All hearts were -at this time occupied with the public interests of the country. The -"sorrow of the time" was ripening to a second harvest. Napoleon had -commenced his Vandal, or rather Hunnish war with Britain, in the spring -of this year, about eight months before; and profound public interest -it was, into which the very coldest hearts entered, that a little -divided with me the else monopolizing awe attached to the solemn act of -launching myself upon the world. That expression may seem too strong -as applied to one who had already been for many months a houseless -wanderer in Wales, and a solitary roamer in the streets of London. -But in those situations, it must be remembered, I was an unknown, -unacknowledged vagrant; and without money I could hardly run much risk, -except of breaking my neck. The perils, the pains, the pleasures, or -the obligations, of the world, scarcely exist in a proper sense for him -who has no funds. Perfect weakness is often secure: it is by imperfect -power, turned against its master, that men are snared and decoyed. Here -in Oxford I should be called upon to commence a sort of establishment -upon the splendid English scale; here I should share in many duties -and responsibilities, and should become henceforth an object of notice -to a large society. Now first becoming separately and individually -answerable for my conduct, and no longer absorbed into the general unit -of a family, I felt myself, for the first time, burthened with the -anxieties of a man, and a member of the world. - - [2] _I.e._ Lord Westport. Sec vol. i. pp. 161-2 _et seq._--M. - -Oxford, ancient Mother! hoary with ancestral honours, time-honoured, -and, haply, it may be, time-shattered power--I owe thee nothing! Of thy -vast riches I took not a shilling, though living amongst multitudes who -owed to thee their daily bread. Not the less I owe thee justice; for -that is a universal debt. And at this moment, when I see thee called -to thy audit by unjust and malicious accusers--men with the hearts of -inquisitors and the purposes of robbers--I feel towards thee something -of filial reverence and duty. However, I mean not to speak as an -advocate, but as a conscientious witness in the simplicity of truth; -feeling neither hope nor fear of a personal nature, without fee, and -without favour. - -I have been assured from many quarters that the great body of the -public are quite in the dark about the whole manner of living in -our English Universities; and that a considerable portion of that -public, misled by the totally different constitution of Universities -in Scotland, Ireland, and generally on the Continent, as well as by -the different arrangements of collegiate life in those institutions, -are in a state worse than ignorant (that is, more unfavourable to -the truth)--starting, in fact, from prejudices, and absolute errors -of fact, which operate most uncharitably upon their construction -of those insulated statements, which are continually put forward -by designing men. Hence, I can well believe that it will be an -acceptable service, at this particular moment [1835], when the very -constitution of the two English Universities is under the unfriendly -revision of Parliament, when some roving commission may be annually -looked for, under a contingency which I will not utter in words (for -I reverence the doctrine of _[Greek: euphêmismos]_), far worse than -Cromwellian, that is, merely personal, and to winnow the existing -corporation from disaffection to the state--a Henry the Eighth -commission of sequestration, and levelled at the very integrity of -the institution--under such prospects, I can well believe that a true -account of Oxford _as it is_ (which will be valid also for Cambridge) -must be welcome both to friend and foe. And instead of giving this -account didactically, or according to a logical classification of the -various items in the survey, I will give it historically, or according -to the order in which the most important facts of the case opened -themselves before myself, under the accidents of my own personal -inquiry. No situation could be better adapted than my own for eliciting -information; for, whereas most young men come to the University under -circumstances of absolute determination as to the choice of their -particular college, and have, therefore, no cause for search or -inquiry, I, on the contrary, came thither in solitary self-dependence, -and in the loosest state of indetermination. - -Every single point of my future position and connection, to what -college I would attach myself, and in which of the two orders open -to my admission I would enrol myself, was left absolutely to my own -election. My coming at all, in this year, arose out of an accident of -conversation. In the latter half of 1803, I was living with my mother -at the Priory of St. J----, a beautiful place which she had in part -planned, and built, but chiefly repaired out of a very ancient Gothic -monastery; when my uncle, a military man, on a visit to England, after -twenty-five years' absence in India, suddenly remarked, that in my case -he should feel it shameful to be "tied to my mother's apron-string," -for was I not eighteen years old? I answered that certainly I was: but -what could I do? My guardians had the power to control my expenditure -until I should be twenty-one; and they, it was certain, would never -aid my purpose of going to Oxford, having quarrelled with me on -that very point. My uncle, a man of restless activity, spoke to my -mother immediately, I presume, for within one hour I was summoned to -her presence. Among other questions, she put this to me, which is -importantly connected with my future experience at Oxford, and my -coming account of it:--"Your guardians," she prefaced, "still continue -to me your school allowance of £100. To this, for the present, when -your sisters cost me such heavy deductions from my own income, I -cannot undertake to make any addition--that is, you are not to count -upon any. But, of course, you will be free to spend your entire Oxford -vacations, and as much time besides as the rules of your college will -dispense with your attendance, at my house, wherever that may be. On -this understanding, are you willing to undertake an Oxford life, upon -so small an allowance as £100 per annum?" My answer was by a cheerful -and prompt assent. For I felt satisfied, and said as much to my mother, -that, although this might sound, and might really prove, on a common -system of expenditure, ludicrously below the demands of the place, -yet in Oxford, no less than in other cities, it must be possible for -a young man of firm mind to live on a hundred pounds annually, if he -pleased to do so, and to live respectably. I guessed even then how the -matter stood; and so in my own experience I found it. If a young man -were known to be of trivial pursuits, with slight habits of study, and -"strong book-mindedness," naturally enough his college peers who should -happen to be idlers would question his right to court solitude. They -would demand a sight of his warrant of exemption from ordinary usages; -and, finding none, they would see a plain argument of his poverty. -And, doubtless, when this happens to be the sole characteristic point -about a man, and is balanced by no form of personal respectability, it -does so far lead to contempt as to make a man's situation mortifying -and painful; but not more so, I affirm, in Oxford than anywhere else. -Mere defect of power, _as_ such, and where circumstances force it into -violent relief, cannot well be other than a degrading feature in any -man's position. Now, in other cities, the man of £100 a-year never can -be forced into such an invidious insulation--he finds many to keep -him in countenance; but in Oxford he is a sort of monster--he stands -alone in the only class with which he can be compared. So that the -pressure upon Oxford predispositions to contempt is far stronger than -elsewhere; and, consequently, there would be more allowance due, if the -actual contempt were also stronger--which I deny. But, no doubt, in -every climate, and under all meridians, it must be humiliating to be -distinguished by pure defect. Now and for ever, to be weak is in some -sense to be miserable; and simple poverty, without other qualification -or adjunct, is merely defect of power. But, on the other hand, in -Oxford, at least, as much as in any other place I ever knew, talents -and severe habits of study are their own justification. And upon the -strongest possible warrant, viz., my own experience in a college then -recently emerging from habits of riotous dissipation, I can affirm that -a man who pleads known habits of study as his reason for secluding -himself, and for declining the ordinary amusements and wine parties, -will meet with neither molestation nor contempt.[3] - - [3] This paragraph is omitted in the American reprint of the - _Tait_ paper, probably because it repeats information given - already. See the chapter entitled "The Priory, Chester," in Vol. - I, and especially the concluding pages of that chapter. As, - however, the paragraph contains some new particulars, and explains - what follows, I have retained it, the rather because it ought to - be the rule not to tamper with De Quincey's text on any such - occasion.--M. - -For my part, though neither giving nor accepting invitations for -the first two years of my residence, never but once had I reason to -complain of a sneer, or indeed any allusion whatever to habits which -might be understood to express poverty. Perhaps even then I had no -reason to complain, for my own conduct in that instance was unwise; and -the allusion, though a personality, and so far ill-bred, might be meant -in real kindness. The case was this: I neglected my dress in one point -habitually; that is, I wore clothes until they were threadbare--partly -in the belief that my gown would conceal their main defects, but much -more from carelessness and indisposition to spend upon a tailor what -I had destined for a bookseller. At length, an official person, of -some weight in the college, sent me a message on the subject through -a friend. It was couched in these terms: That, let a man possess what -talents or accomplishments he might, it was not possible for him to -maintain his proper station in the public respect, amongst so many -servants and people servile to external impressions, without some -regard to the elegance of his dress. A reproof so courteously prefaced -I could not take offence at; and at that time I resolved to spend some -cost upon decorating my person. But always it happened that some book, -or set of books,--that passion being absolutely endless, and inexorable -as the grave,--stepped between me and my intentions; until one day, -upon arranging my toilet hastily before dinner, I suddenly made the -discovery that I had no waistcoat (or _vest_, as it is now called, -through conceit or provincialism) which was not torn or otherwise -dilapidated; whereupon, buttoning up my coat to the throat, and drawing -my gown as close about me as possible, I went into the public "hall" -(so is called in Oxford the public eating-room) with no misgiving. -However, I was detected; for a grave man, with a superlatively grave -countenance, who happened on that day to sit next me, but whom I did -not personally know, addressing his friend sitting opposite, begged to -know if he had seen the last Gazette, because he understood that it -contained an Order in Council laying an interdict upon the future use -of waistcoats. His friend replied, with the same perfect gravity, that -it was a great satisfaction to his mind that his Majesty's Government -should have issued so sensible an order; which he trusted would be -soon followed up by an interdict on breeches, they being still more -disagreeable to pay for. This said, without the movement on either side -of a single muscle, the two gentlemen passed to other subjects; and -I inferred, upon the whole, that, having detected my manoeuvre, they -wished to put me on my guard in the only way open to them. At any rate, -this was the sole personality, or equivocal allusion of any sort, -which ever met my ear during the years that I asserted my right to be -as poor as chose. And, certainly, my censors were right, whatever were -the temper in which they spoke, kind or unkind; for a little extra -care in the use of clothes will always, under almost any extremity of -poverty, pay for so much extra cost as is essential to neatness and -decorum, if not even to elegance. They were right, and I was wrong, in -a point which cannot be neglected with impunity. - -But, to enter upon my own history, and my sketch of Oxford life.--Late -on a winter's night, in the latter half of December, 1803, when a -snow-storm, and a heavy one, was already gathering in the air, a lazy -Birmingham coach, moving at four and a half miles an hour, brought me -through the long northern suburb of Oxford, to a shabby coach-inn, -situated in the Corn Market. Business was out of the question at that -hour. But the next day I assembled all the acquaintances I had in -the University, or had to my own knowledge; and to them, in council -assembled, propounded my first question: What college would they, -in their superior state of information, recommend to my choice? -This question leads to the first great characteristic of Oxford, as -distinguished from most other Universities. Before me at this moment -lie several newspapers, reporting, at length, the installation in -office (as Chancellor) of the Duke of Wellington. The original Oxford -report, having occasion to mention the particular college from which -the official procession moved, had said, no doubt, that the gates -of University, the halls of University, &c., were at such a point -of time thrown open. But most of the provincial editors, not at all -comprehending that the reference was to an individual college, known by -the name of University College, one of twenty-five such establishments -in Oxford, had regularly corrected it into "gates of _the_ University," -&c. Here is the first misconception of all strangers. And this feature -of Oxford it is which has drawn such exclamations of astonishment from -foreigners. Lipsius, for example, protested with fervour, on first -seeing this vast establishment of Oxford, that one college of this -University was greater in its power and splendour, that it glorified -and illustrated the honours of literature more conspicuously by the -pomps with which it invested the ministers and machinery of education, -than any entire University of the Continent. - -What is a University almost everywhere else? It announces little more, -as respects the academic buildings, than that here is to be found the -place of rendezvous--the exchange, as it were, or, under a different -figure, the _palæstra_ of the various parties connected with the -prosecution of liberal studies. This is their "House of Call," their -general place of muster and parade. Here it is that the professors -and the students converge, with the certainty of meeting each other. -Here, in short, are the lecture-rooms in all the faculties. Well: thus -far we see an arrangement of convenience--that is, of convenience for -one of the parties, namely, the professors. To them it spares the -disagreeable circumstances connected with a private reception of their -students at their own rooms. But to the students it is a pure matter -of indifference. In all this there is certainly no service done to the -cause of good learning which merits a state sanction, or the aid of -national funds. Next, however, comes an academic library, sometimes a -good one; and here commences a real use in giving a national station -to such institutions, because their durable and monumental existence, -liable to no flux or decay from individual caprice, or accidents of -life, and their authentic station, as expressions of the national -grandeur, point them out to the bequests of patriotic citizens. They -fall also under the benefit of another principle--the conservative -feeling of amateurship. Several great collections have been bequeathed -to the British Museum, for instance--not chiefly _as_ a national -institution, and under feelings of nationality, but because, being -such, it was also permanent; and thus the painful labours of collecting -were guaranteed from perishing. Independently of all this, I, for -my part, willingly behold the surplus of national funds dedicated -to the consecration, as it were, of learning, by raising temples to -its honour, even where they answer no purpose of direct use. Next -after the service of religion, I would have the service of learning -externally embellished, recommended to the affections of men, and -hallowed by the votive sculptures, as I may say, of that affection, -gathering in amount from age to age. _Magnificabo apostolatum meum_ -is a language almost as becoming to the missionaries and ministers of -knowledge, as to the ambassadors of religion. It is fit that by pompous -architectural monuments a voice may for ever be sounding audibly in -human ears of homage to these powers, and that even alien feelings may -be compelled into secret submission to their influence. Therefore, -amongst the number of those who value such things upon the scale of -direct proximate utility rank not me: that _arithmetica officina_ is -in my ears abominable. But still I affirm that, in our analysis of an -ordinary university, or "college," as it is provincially called, we -have not yet arrived at any element of service rendered to knowledge or -education, large enough to call for very extensive national aid. Honour -has thus far been rendered to the good cause by a public attestation, -and that is well: but no direct promotion has been given to that cause, -no impulse communicated to its progress, such that it can be held out -as a result commensurate to the name and pretensions of a University. -As yet there is nothing accomplished which is beyond the strength of -any little commercial town. And, as to the library in particular, -besides that in all essential departments it might be bought, to order, -by one day's common subscription of Liverpool or Glasgow merchants, -students very rarely indeed have admission to its free use. - -What other functions remain to a University? For those which I have -mentioned of furnishing a point of rendezvous to the great body of -professors and students, and a point of concentration to the different -establishments of implements and machinery for elaborate researches -(as, for instance, of books and MSS., in the first place; secondly, of -maps, charts, and globes; and, thirdly, perhaps of the costly apparatus -required for such studies as sideral astronomy, galvanic chemistry -or physiology, &c.); all these are uses which cannot be regarded in -a higher light than as conveniences merely incidental and collateral -to the main views of the founders. There are, then, two much loftier -and more commanding ends met by the idea and constitution of such -institutions, and which first rise to a rank of dignity sufficient to -occupy the views of a legislator, or to warrant a national interest. -These ends are involved: 1st, in the practice of conferring _degrees_, -that is, formal attestations and guarantees of competence to give -advice, instruction, or aid, in the three great branches of liberal -knowledge applicable to human life; 2d, in that appropriation of fixed -funds to fixed professorships, by means of which the uninterrupted -succession of public and authorised teachers is sustained in all the -higher branches of knowledge, from generation to generation, and from -century to century. By the latter result it is secured that the great -well-heads of liberal knowledge and of severe science shall never -grow dry. By the former it is secured that this unfailing fountain -shall be continually applied to the production and to the _tasting_ of -fresh labours in endless succession for the public service, and thus, -in effect, that the great national fountain shall not be a stagnant -reservoir, but, by an endless _derivation_ (to speak in a Roman -metaphor), applied to a system of national irrigation. These are the -two great functions and qualifications of a collegiate incorporation: -one providing to each separate generation its own separate rights of -heirship to all the knowledge accumulated by its predecessors, and -converting a mere casual life-annuity into an estate of inheritance--a -mere fleeting [Greek: agônisma] into a [Greek: ktêma es aei]; the other -securing for this eternal dowry as wide a distribution as possible: the -one function regarding the dimension of _length_ in the endless series -of ages through which it propagates its gifts; the other regarding -the dimension of _breadth_ in the large application throughout any -one generation of these gifts to the public service. Here are grand -functions, high purposes; but neither one nor the other demands any -edifices of stone and marble; neither one nor the other presupposes any -edifice at all built with human hands. A collegiate incorporation, the -church militant of knowledge, in its everlasting struggle with darkness -and error, is, in this respect, like the Church of Christ--that is, it -is always and essentially invisible to the fleshly eye. The pillars -of this church are human champions; its weapons are great truths so -shaped as to meet the shifting forms of error; its armouries are -piled and marshalled in human memories; its cohesion lies in human -zeal, in discipline, in childlike docility; and all its triumphs, -its pomps, and glories, must for ever depend upon talent, upon the -energies of the will, and upon the harmonious co-operation of its -several divisions. Thus far, I say, there is no call made out for _any_ -intervention of the architect. - -Let me apply all this to Oxford. Among the four functions commonly -recognised by the founders of Universities are--1st, to find a set of -halls or places of meeting; 2d, to find the implements and accessaries -of study; 3d, to secure the succession of teachers and learners; 4th, -to secure the profitable application of their attainments to the -public service. Of these four, the two highest need no buildings; and -the other two, which are mere collateral functions of convenience, -need only a small one. Wherefore, then, and to what end, are the -vast systems of building, the palaces and towers of Oxford? These -are either altogether superfluous, mere badges of ostentation and -luxurious wealth, or they point to some fifth function not so much -as contemplated by other Universities, and, at present, absolutely -and chimerically beyond their means of attainment. Formerly we used -to hear attacks upon the Oxford discipline as fitted to the true -_intellectual_ purposes of a modern education. Those attacks, weak -and most uninstructed in facts, false as to all that they challenged, -and puerile as to what implicitly they propounded for homage, are -silent. But, of late, the battery has been pointed against the Oxford -discipline in its _moral_ aspects, as fitted for the government and -restraint of young men, or even as at all contemplating any such -control. The Beverleys would have us suppose, not only that the great -body of the students are a licentious crew, acknowledging no discipline -or restraints, but that the grave elders of the University, and those -who wield the nominal authority of the place, passively resign the -very shows of power, and connive at general excesses, even when they -do not absolutely authorize them in their personal examples. Now, when -such representations are made, to what standard of a just discipline -is it that these writers would be understood as appealing? Is it to -some ideal, or to some existing and known reality? Would they have -England suppose that they are here comparing the actual Oxford with -some possible hypothetic or imaginable Oxford,--with some ideal case, -that is to say, about which great discussions would arise as to its -feasibility,--or that they are comparing it with some known standard -of discipline actually realized and sustained for generations, in -Leipsic, suppose, or Edinburgh, or Leyden, or Salamanca? This is the -question of questions, to which we may demand an answer; and, according -to that answer, observe the dilemma into which these furciferous -knaves must drop. If they are comparing Oxford simply with some ideal -and better Oxford, in some ideal and better world, in that case all -they have said--waiving its falsehoods of fact--is no more than a -flourish of rhetoric, and the whole discussion may be referred to -the shadowy combats of scholastic declamation-mongers--those mock -gladiators, and _umbratiles doctores_. But if, on the other hand, they -pretend to take their station upon the known basis of some existing -institution,--if they will pretend that, in this impeachment of -Oxford, they are proceeding upon a silent comparison with Edinburgh, -Glasgow, Jena, Leipsic, Padua, &c.,--then are they self-exposed, as -men not only without truth, but without shame. For now comes in, as -a sudden revelation, and as a sort of _deus ex machina_, for the -vindication of the truth, the simple answer to that question proposed -above, Wherefore, and to what end, are the vast edifices of Oxford? A -University, as Universities are in general, needs not, I have shown, to -be a visible body--a building raised with hands. Wherefore, then, is -the _visible_ Oxford? To what _fifth_ end, refining upon the ordinary -ends of such institutions, is the far-stretching system of Oxford -_hospitia_, or monastic hotels, directed by their founders, or applied -by their present possessors? Hearken, reader, to the answer:-- - -These vast piles are applied to an end absolutely indispensable to any -even tolerable system of discipline, and yet absolutely unattainable -upon any commensurate scale in any other University of Europe. They are -applied to the personal settlement and domestication of the students -within the gates and walls of that college to whose discipline they are -amenable. Everywhere else the young men live _where_ they please and -_as_ they please; necessarily distributed amongst the towns-people; -in any case, therefore, liable to no control or supervision whatever; -and, in those cases where the University forms but a small part of -a vast capital city, as it does in Paris, Edinburgh, Madrid, Vienna, -Berlin, and Petersburg, liable to every mode of positive temptation -and distraction which besiege human life in high-viced and luxurious -communities. Here, therefore, it is a mockery to talk of discipline; -of a nonentity there can be no qualities; and we need not ask for the -description of the discipline in situations where discipline there can -be none. One slight anomaly I have heard of as varying _pro tanto_ -the uniform features of this picture. In Glasgow I have heard of an -arrangement by which young academicians are placed in the family of a -professor. Here, as members of a private household, and that household -under the presiding eye of a conscientious, paternal, and judicious -scholar, doubtless they would enjoy as absolute a shelter from peril -and worldly contagion as parents could wish; but not _more_ absolute, -I affirm, than belongs, unavoidably, to the monastic seclusion of an -Oxford college--the gates of which open to no egress after nine o'clock -at night, nor after eleven to any ingress which is not regularly -reported to a proper officer of the establishment. The two forms of -restraint are, as respects the effectual amount of control, equal; and -were they equally diffused, Glasgow and Oxford would, in this point, -stand upon the same level of discipline. But it happens that the -Glasgow case was a personal accident; personal, both as regarded him -who volunteered the exercise of this control, and those who volunteered -to appropriate its benefits; whereas the Oxford case belongs to the -very system, is coextensive with the body of undergraduates, and, -from the very arrangement of Oxford life, is liable to no decay or -intermission. - -Here, then, the reader apprehends the first great characteristic -distinction of Oxford--that distinction which extorted the rapturous -admiration of Lipsius as an exponent of enormous wealth, but which I -now mention as applying, with ruinous effect, to the late calumnies -upon Oxford, as an inseparable exponent of her meritorious discipline. -She, most truly and severely an "Alma Mater," gathers all the juvenile -part of her flock within her own fold, and beneath her own vigilant -supervision. In Cambridge there is, so far, a laxer administration of -this rule, that, when any college overflows undergraduates are allowed -to lodge at large in the town. But in Oxford this increase of peril and -discretionary power is thrown by preference upon the senior graduates, -who are seldom below the age of twenty-two or twenty-three; and the -college accommodations are reserved, in almost their whole extent, for -the most youthful part of the society. This extent is prodigious. Even -in my time, upwards of two thousand persons were lodged within the -colleges; none having fewer than two rooms, very many having three, and -men of rank, or luxurious habits, having often large suites of rooms. -But that was a time of war, which Oxford experience has shown to have -operated most disproportionably as a drain upon the numbers disposable -for liberal studies; and the total capacity of the University was far -from being exhausted. There are now, I believe, between five and six -thousand names upon the Oxford books; and more than four thousand, -I understand, of constant residents. So that Oxford is well able to -lodge, and on a very sumptuous scale, a small army of men; which -expression of her great splendour I now mention (as I repeat) purely -as applying to the question of her machinery for enforcing discipline. -This part of her machinery, it will be seen, is unique, and absolutely -peculiar to herself. Other Universities, boasting no such enormous -wealth, cannot be expected to act upon her system of seclusion. -Certainly, I make it no reproach to other Universities, that, not -possessing the means of sequestering their young men from worldly -communion, they must abide by the evils of a laxer discipline. It is -their misfortune, and not their criminal neglect, which consents to -so dismal a relaxation of academic habits. But let them not urge this -misfortune in excuse at one time, and at another virtually disavow it. -Never let _them_ take up a stone to throw at Oxford, upon this element -of a wise education; since in them, through that original vice in their -constitution, the defect of all means for secluding and insulating -their society, discipline is abolished by anticipation--being, in fact, -an impossible thing; for the walls of the college are subservient to no -purpose of life, but only to a purpose of convenience; they converge -the students for the hour or two of what is called lecture; which over, -each undergraduate again becomes _sui juris_, is again absorbed into -the crowds of the world, resorts to whatsoever haunts he chooses, and -finally closes his day at ---- if, in any sense, at home--at a home -which is not merely removed from the supervision and control, but -altogether from the bare knowledge, of his academic superiors. How -far this discipline is well administered in other points at Oxford, -will appear from the rest of my account. But, thus far, at least, it -must be conceded, that Oxford, by and through this one unexampled -distinction--her vast disposable fund of accommodations for junior -members within her own private cloisters--possesses an advantage which -she could not forfeit, if she would, towards an effectual knowledge -of each man's daily habits, and a control over him which is all but -absolute. - -This knowledge and this control is much assisted and concentrated by -the division of the University into separate colleges. Here comes -another feature of the Oxford system. Elsewhere the University is a -single college; and this college is the University. But in Oxford the -University expresses, as it were, the army, and the colleges express -the several brigades, or regiments. - -To resume, therefore, my own thread of personal narration. On the -next morning after my arrival in Oxford, I assembled a small council -of friends to assist me in determining at which of the various -separate societies I should enter, and whether as a "commoner," or -as a "gentleman commoner." Under the first question was couched the -following latitude of choice: I give the names of the colleges, and -the numerical account of their numbers, as it stood in January 1832; -for this will express, as well as the list of that day (which I do not -accurately know), the _proportions_ of importance amongst them. - - Mem. - 1. University College 207 - 2. Balliol " 257 - 3. Merton " 124 - 4. Exeter " 299 - 5. Oriel " 293 - 6. Queen's " 351 - 7. New " 157 - 8. Lincoln " 141 - 9. All Souls' " 98 - 10. Magdalene " 165 - 11. Brasenose " 418 - 12. Corpus Christi " 127 - 13. Christ Church " 949 - 14. Trinity " 259 - 15. St. John's " 218 - 16. Jesus " 167 - 17. Wadham " 217 - 18. Pembroke " 189 - 19. Worcester " 231 - -Then, besides these colleges, five _Halls_, as they are technically -called (the term _Hall_ implying chiefly that they are societies not -endowed, or not endowed with fellowships as the colleges are), namely: - - Mem. - 1. St. Mary Hall 83 - 2. Magdalen " 178 - 3. New Inn " 10 - 4. St. Alban " 41 - 5. St. Edmund " 96 - -Such being the names, and general proportions on the scale of local -importance, attached to the different communities, next comes the very -natural question, What are the chief determining motives for guiding -the selection amongst them? These I shall state. First of all, a man -not otherwise interested in the several advantages of the colleges -has, however, in all probability, some choice between a small society -and a large one; and thus far a mere ocular inspection of the list -will serve to fix his preference. For my part, supposing other things -equal, I greatly preferred the most populous college, as being that -in which any single member, who might have reasons for standing aloof -from the general habits of expense, of intervisiting, &c., would have -the best chance of escaping a jealous notice. However, amongst those -"other things" which I presumed equal, one held a high place in my -estimation, which a little inquiry showed to be very far from equal. -All the colleges have chapels, but all have not organs; nor, amongst -those which have, is the same large use made of the organ. Some -preserve the full cathedral service; others do not. Christ Church, -meantime, fulfilled _all_ conditions: for the chapel here happens -to be the cathedral of the diocese; the service, therefore, is full -and ceremonial; the college, also, is far the most splendid, both in -numbers, rank, wealth, and influence. Hither I resolved to go; and -immediately I prepared to call on the head. - -The "head," as he is called generically, of an Oxford college (his -_specific_ appellation varies almost with every college--principal, -provost, master, rector, warden, etc.), is a greater man than the -uninitiated suppose. His situation is generally felt as conferring a -degree of rank not much less than episcopal; and, in fact, the head -of Brasenose at that time, who happened to be the Bishop of Bangor, -was not held to rank much above his brothers in office. Such being the -rank of heads generally, _à fortiori_, that of Christ Church was to be -had in reverence; and this I knew. He is always, _ex officio_, dean -of the diocese; and, in his quality of college head, he only, of all -deans that ever were heard of, is uniformly considered a greater man -than his own diocesan. But it happened that the present dean had even -higher titles to consideration. Dr. Cyril Jackson had been tutor to the -Prince of Wales (George IV); he had repeatedly refused a bishopric; -and _that_, perhaps, is entitled to place a man one degree above him -who has accepted one. He was also supposed to have made a bishop, and -afterwards, at least, it is certain that he made his own brother a -bishop. All things weighed, Dr. Cyril Jackson seemed so very great a -personage that I now felt the value of my long intercourse with great -dons in giving me confidence to face a lion of this magnitude. - -Those who know Oxford are aware of the peculiar feelings which have -gathered about the name and pretensions of Christ Church; feelings of -superiority and leadership in the members of that college, and often -enough of defiance and jealousy on the part of other colleges. Hence -it happens that you rarely find yourself in a shop, or other place -of public resort, with a Christ-Church man, but he takes occasion, -if young and frivolous, to talk loudly of the Dean, as an indirect -expression of his own connection with this splendid college; the title -of _Dean_ being exclusively attached to the headship of Christ Church. -The Dean, as maybe supposed, partakes in this superior dignity of his -"House"; he is officially brought into connection with all orders -of the British aristocracy--often with royal personages; and with -the younger branches of the aristocracy his office places him in a -relation of authority and guardianship--exercised, however, through -inferior ministry, and seldom by direct personal interference. The -reader must understand that, with rare exceptions, all the princes -and nobles of Great Britain who choose to benefit by an academic -education resort either to Christ Church College in Oxford, or to -Trinity College in Cambridge: these are the alternatives. Naturally -enough, my young friends were somewhat startled at my determination to -call upon so great a man; a letter, they fancied, would be a better -mode of application. I, however, who did not adopt the doctrine that -no man is a hero to his valet, was of opinion that very few men indeed -are heroes to themselves. The cloud of external pomp, which invests -them to the eyes of the _attoniti_, cannot exist to their own; they do -not, like Kehama entering the eight gates of Padalon at once, meet and -contemplate their own grandeurs; but, more or less, are conscious of -acting a part. I did not, therefore, feel the tremor which was expected -of a novice, on being ushered into so solemn a presence. - - II[4] - - [4] From _Tait's Magazine_ for June 1835. - -The Dean was sitting in a spacious library or study, elegantly, -if not luxuriously, furnished. Footmen, stationed as repeaters, -as if at some fashionable rout, gave a momentary importance to my -unimportant self, by the thundering tone of their annunciations. All -the machinery of aristocratic life seemed indeed to intrench this -great Don's approaches; and I was really surprised that so very great -a man should condescend to rise on my entrance. But I soon found that, -if the Dean's station and relation to the higher orders had made -him lofty, those same relations had given a peculiar suavity to his -manners. Here, indeed, as on other occasions, I noticed the essential -misconception, as to the demeanour of men of rank, which prevails -amongst those who have no personal access to their presence. In the -fabulous pictures of novels (such novels as once abounded), and in -newspaper reports of conversations, real or pretended, between the King -and inferior persons, we often find the writer expressing _his_ sense -of aristocratic assumption, by making the King address people without -their titles. The Duke of Wellington, for instance, or Lord Liverpool, -figures usually, in such scenes, as "Wellington," or "Arthur," and as -"Liverpool." Now, as to the private talk of George IV in such cases, I -do not pretend to depose; but, speaking generally, I may say that the -practice of the highest classes takes the very opposite course. Nowhere -is a man so sure of his titles or official distinctions as amongst -_them_; for it is upon giving to every man the very extreme punctilio -of his known or supposed claims that they rely for the due observance -of their own. Neglecting no form of courtesy suited to the case, they -seek, in this way, to remind men unceasingly of what they expect; and -the result is what I represent--that people in the highest stations, -and such as bring them continually into contact with inferiors, are, -of all people, the least addicted to insolence or defect of courtesy. -Uniform suavity of manner is indeed rarely found _except_ in men of -high rank. Doubtless this may arise upon a motive of self-interest, -jealous of giving the least opening or invitation to the retorts of -ill-temper or low breeding. But, whatever be its origin, such I believe -to be the fact. In a very long conversation of a general nature upon -the course of my studies, and the present direction of my reading, -Dr. Cyril Jackson treated me just as he would have done his equal in -station and in age. Coming, at length, to the particular purpose of my -visit at this time to himself, he assumed a little more of his official -stateliness. He condescended to say that it would have given him -pleasure to reckon me amongst his flock; "But, sir," he said, in a tone -of some sharpness, "your guardians have acted improperly. It was their -duty to have given me at least one year's notice of their intention to -place you at Christ Church. At present I have not a dog-kennel in my -college untenanted." Upon this, I observed that nothing remained for me -to do but to apologize for having occupied so much of his time; that, -for myself, I now first heard of this preliminary application; and -that, as to my guardians, I was bound to acquit them of all oversight -in this instance, they being no parties to my present scheme. The -Dean expressed his astonishment at this statement. I, on my part, -was just then making my parting bows, and had reached the door, when -a gesture of the Dean's, courteously waving me back to the sofa I had -quitted, invited me to resume my explanations; and I had a conviction -at the moment that the interview would have terminated in the Dean's -suspending his standing rule in my favour. But, just at that moment, -the thundering heralds of the Dean's hall announced some man of high -rank: the sovereign of Christ Church seemed distressed for a moment; -but then, recollecting himself, bowed in a way to indicate that I was -dismissed. And thus it happened that I did not become a member of -Christ Church.[5] - - [5] Among the students in Christ Church at this time was Charles - Kirkpatrick Sharpe, afterwards so well known as a fellow-resident - with De Quincey in Edinburgh. He was De Quincey's senior by four - years, and had entered Christ Church in 1798. Among his - acquaintances and fellow-students were Lord Gower, afterwards Duke - of Sutherland, Lord Newtown, Elijah Impey (son of the famous - Indian judge of that name), and others of high name and rank. In - the _Memoirs and Correspondence of Kirkpatrick Sharpe_ (published - 1888) there are descriptions of the society of the college, with - sketches of Dean Cyril Jackson, &c., from Sharpe's cynical - pen.--M. - -A few days passed in thoughtless indecision. At the end of that time, -a trivial difficulty arose to settle my determination. I had brought -about fifty guineas to Oxford; but the expenses of an Oxford inn, with -almost daily entertainments to young friends, had made such inroads -upon this sum, that, after allowing for the contingencies incident to -a college initiation, enough would not remain to meet the usual demand -for what is called "caution money." This is a small sum, properly -enough demanded of every student, when matriculated, as a pledge for -meeting any loss from unsettled arrears, such as his sudden death or -his unannounced departure might else continually be inflicting upon -his college. By releasing the college, therefore, from all necessity -for degrading vigilance or persecution, this demand does, in effect, -operate beneficially to the feelings of all parties. In most colleges -it amounts to twenty-five pounds: in one only it was considerably less. -And this trifling consideration it was, concurring with a reputation -_at that time_ for relaxed discipline, which finally determined me -in preferring W---- College[6] to all others. This college had the -capital disadvantage, in my eyes, that its chapel possessed no organ, -and no musical service. But any other choice would have driven me to -an instant call for more money--a measure which, as too flagrantly -in contradiction to the whole terms on which I had volunteered to -undertake an Oxford life, I could not find nerves to face. - - [6] It was Worcester College; and we shall use the full name, - instead of the blank W., in the sequel.--M. - -At Worcester College, therefore, I entered: and here arises the proper -occasion for stating the true costs of an Oxford education. First -comes the question of _lodging_. This item varies, as may be supposed; -but my own case will place on record the two extremes of cost in one -particular college, nowadays differing, I believe, from the general -standard. The first rooms assigned me, being small and ill-lighted, -as part of an old Gothic building, were charged at four guineas a -year. These I soon exchanged for others a little better, and for them -I paid six guineas. Finally, by privilege of seniority, I obtained a -handsome set of well-proportioned rooms, in a modern section of the -college, charged at ten guineas a year. This set was composed of three -rooms; namely, an airy bed-room, a study, and a spacious room for -receiving visitors. This range of accommodation is pretty general in -Oxford, and, upon the whole, may be taken perhaps as representing the -average amount of luxury in this respect, and at the average amount -of cost. The furniture and the fittings up of these rooms cost me -about twenty-five guineas; for the Oxford rule is, that if you take -the rooms (which is at your own option), in that case, you _third_ the -furniture and the embellishments--that is, you succeed to the total -cost diminished by one third. You pay, therefore, two guineas out of -each three to your _immediate_ predecessor. But, as he also may have -succeeded to the furniture upon the same terms, whenever there happens -to have been a rapid succession of occupants, the original cost to -a remote predecessor is sometimes brought down, by this process of -diminution, to a mere fraction of the true value; and yet no individual -occupant can complain of any heavy loss. Whilst upon this subject, I -may observe that, in the seventeenth century, in Milton's time, for -example (about 1624), and for more than sixty years after that era, the -practice of _chumship_ prevailed: every set of chambers was possessed -by two co-occupants; they had generally the same bed-room, and a common -study; and they were called _chums_. This practice, once all but -universal, is now entirely extinct; and the extinction serves to mark -the advance of the country, not so much in luxury as in refinement. - -The next item which I shall notice is that which in college bills is -expressed by the word _Tutorage_. This is the same in all colleges, -I believe: viz., ten guineas per annum. And this head suggests an -explanation which is most important to the reputation of Oxford, and -fitted to clear up a very extensive delusion. Some years ago, a most -elaborate statement was circulated of the number and costly endowment -of the Oxford Professorships. Some thirty or more there were, it -was alleged, and five or six only which were not held as absolute -sinecures. Now, this is a charge which I am not here meaning to -discuss. Whether defensible or not, I do not now inquire. It is the -practical interpretation and construction of this charge which I here -wish to rectify. In most Universities, except those of England, the -Professors are the body on whom devolves the whole duty and burthen of -teaching; they compose the sole fountains of instruction; and if these -fountains fail, the fair inference is, that the one great purpose of -the institution is defeated. But this inference, valid for all other -places, is not so for Oxford and Cambridge. And here, again, the -difference arises out of the peculiar distribution of these bodies -into separate and independent colleges. Each college takes upon itself -the regular instruction of its separate inmates--of these and of no -others; and for this office it appoints, after careful selection, -trial, and probation, the best qualified amongst those of its senior -members who choose to undertake a trust of such heavy responsibility. -These officers are called Tutors; and they are connected by duties -and by accountability, not with the University at all, but with their -own private colleges. The Professors, on the other hand, are _public_ -functionaries, not connected (as respects the exercise of their -duties) with any college whatsoever--not even with their own--but -altogether and exclusively with the whole University. Besides the -public tutors appointed in each college, on the scale of one to each -dozen or score of students, there are also tutors strictly private, -who attend any students in search of special and extraordinary aid, -on terms settled privately by themselves. Of these persons, or their -existence, the college takes no cognisance; but between the two classes -of tutors, the most studious young men--those who would be most likely -to avail themselves of the lectures read by the professors--have their -whole time pretty severely occupied: and the inference from all this -is, not only that the course of Oxford education would suffer little if -no Professors at all existed, but also that, if the existing Professors -were _ex abundanti_ to volunteer the most exemplary spirit of exertion, -however much this spectacle of conscientious dealing might edify the -University, it would contribute but little to the promotion of academic -purposes. The establishment of Professors is, in fact, a thing of -ornament and pomp. Elsewhere, they are the working servants; but, in -Oxford, the ministers corresponding to them bear another name,--they -are called _Tutors_. These are the working agents in the Oxford system; -and the Professors, with salaries in many cases merely nominal, -are persons sequestered, and properly sequestered, to the solitary -cultivation and advancement of knowledge which a different order of men -is appointed to communicate. - -Here let us pause for one moment, to notice another peculiarity in -the Oxford system, upon the tendency of which I shall confidently -make my appeal to the good sense of all unprejudiced readers. I have -said that the _Tutors_ of Oxford correspond to the _Professors_ of -other Universities. But this correspondence, which is absolute and -unquestionable as regards the point then at issue,--viz., where we -are to look for that limb of the establishment on which rests the -main teaching agency,--is liable to considerable qualification, -when we examine the mode of their teaching. In both cases, this is -conveyed by what is termed "lecturing";--but what is the meaning -of a lecture in Oxford and elsewhere? Elsewhere, it means a solemn -dissertation, read, or sometimes histrionically declaimed, by the -Professor. In Oxford, it means an exercise performed orally by the -students, occasionally assisted by the tutor, and subject, in its -whole course, to his corrections, and what may be called his scholia, -or collateral suggestions and improvements. Now, differ as men may as -to other features of the Oxford, compared with the hostile system, -here I conceive that there is no room for doubt or demur. An Oxford -lecture imposes a real _bona fide_ task upon the student; it will not -suffer him to fall asleep, either literally or in the energies of his -understanding; it is a real drill, under the excitement, perhaps, of -personal competition, and under the review of a superior scholar. But, -in Germany, under the declamations of the Professor, the young men are -often literally sleeping; nor is it easy to see how the attention can -be kept from wandering, on this plan, which subjects the auditor to -no risk of sudden question or personal appeal. As to the prizes given -for essays, etc., by the Professors, these have the effect of drawing -forth latent talent, but they can yield no criterion of the attention -paid to the Professor; not to say that the competition for these prizes -is a matter of choice. Sometimes it is true that examinations take -place; but the Oxford lecture is a daily examination; and, waiving -_that_, what chance is there (I would ask) for searching examinations, -for examinations conducted with the requisite _auctoritas_ (or weight -of influence derived from personal qualities), if--which may Heaven -prevent!--the German tenure of Professorships were substituted for -our British one: that is, if for independent and liberal teachers -were substituted poor mercenary haberdashers of knowledge--cap in -hand to opulent students--servile to their caprices--and, at one -blow, degrading the science they profess, the teacher, and the pupil? -Yet I hear that such advice was given to a Royal Commission, sent to -investigate one or more of the Scottish Universities. In the German -Universities, every Professor holds his situation, not on his good -behaviour, but on the capricious pleasure of the young men who resort -to his market. He opens a shop, in fact: others, without limit, -generally men of no credit or known respectability, are allowed to -open rival shops; and the result is, sometimes, that the whole kennel -of scoundrel Professors ruin one another; each standing with his -mouth open, to leap at any bone thrown amongst them from the table of -the "Burschen"; all hating, fighting, calumniating each other, until -the land is sick of its base knowledge-mongers, and would vomit the -loathsome crew, were any natural channel open to their instincts of -abhorrence. The most important of the Scottish Professorships--those -which are fundamentally morticed to the moral institutions of the -land--are upon the footing of Oxford tutorships, as regards emoluments; -that is, they are not suffered to keep up a precarious mendicant -existence, upon the alms of the students, or upon their fickle -admirations. It is made imperative upon a candidate for admission into -the ministry of the Scottish Kirk, that he shall show a certificate of -attendance through a given number of seasons at given lectures. - -The next item in the quarterly (or, technically, the _term_) bills of -Oxford is for servants. This, in my college, and, I believe, in all -others, amounted, nominally, to two guineas a year. That sum, however, -was paid to a principal servant, whom, perhaps, you seldom or never -saw; the actual attendance upon yourself being performed by one of -his deputies; and to this deputy--who is, in effect, a _factotum_, -combining in his single person all the functions of chamber-maid, -valet, waiter at meals, and porter or errand-boy--by the custom of the -place and your own sense of propriety, you cannot but give something -or other in the shape of perquisites. I was told, on entering, that -half a guinea a quarter was the customary allowance,--the same sum, in -fact, as was levied by the college for his principal; but I gave mine a -guinea a quarter, thinking that little enough for the many services he -performed; and others, who were richer than myself, I dare say, often -gave much more. Yet, sometimes, it struck me, from the gratitude which -his looks testified, on my punctual payment of this guinea,--for it -was the only bill with regard to which I troubled myself to practise -any severe punctuality,--that perhaps some thoughtless young man -might give him less, or might even forget to give anything; and, at -all events, I have reason to believe that half that sum would have -contented him. These minutiæ I record purposely; my immediate object -being to give a rigorous statement of the real expenses incident to -an English university education, partly as a guide to the calculations -of parents, and partly as an answer to the somewhat libellous -exaggerations which are current on this subject, in times like these, -when even the truth itself, and received in a spirit of candour the -most indulgent, may be all too little to defend these venerable seats -of learning from the ruin which seems brooding over them. Yet, no! -Abominable is the language of despair even in a desperate situation. -And, therefore, Oxford, ancient mother! and thou, Cambridge, twin-light -of England! be vigilant and erect, for the enemy stands at all your -gates! Two centuries almost have passed since the boar was within -your vineyards, laying waste and desolating your heritage. Yet that -storm was not final, nor that eclipse total. May this also prove but -a trial and a shadow of affliction! which affliction, may it prove to -you, mighty incorporations, what, sometimes, it is to us, poor, frail -_homunculi_--a process of purification, a solemn and oracular warning! -And, when that cloud is overpast, then, rise, ancient powers, wiser and -better--ready, like the [Greek: lampadêphoroi] of old, to enter upon -a second _stadium_, and to transmit the sacred torch through a second -period of twice[7] five hundred years. So prays a loyal _alumnus_, -whose presumption, if any be, in taking upon himself a monitory tone, -is privileged by zeal and filial anxiety. - - [7] Oxford may confessedly claim a duration of that extent; and - the pretensions of Cambridge, in that respect, if less aspiring, - are, however, as I believe, less accurately determined. - -To return, however, into the track from which I have digressed. The -reader will understand that any student is at liberty to have private -servants of his own, as many and of what denomination he pleases. -This point, as many others of a merely personal bearing, when they -happen to stand in no relation to public discipline, neither the -University nor the particular college of the student feels summoned -or even authorized to deal with. Neither, in fact, does any other -University in Europe; and why, then, notice the case? Simply thus: if -the Oxford discipline, in this particular chapter, has nothing special -or peculiar about it, yet the case to which it applies _has_, and -is almost exclusively found in our Universities. On the Continent -it happens most rarely that a student has any funds disposable for -luxuries so eminently such as grooms or footmen; but at Oxford and -Cambridge the case occurs often enough to attract notice from the -least vigilant eye. And thus we find set down to the credit account of -other Universities the non-existence of luxury in this or other modes, -whilst, meantime, it is well known to the fair inquirer that each or -all are indulgences not at all or so much as in idea proscribed by -the sumptuary edicts of those Universities, but, simply, by the lower -scale of their general revenues. And this lower scale, it will be -said--how do you account for that? I answer, not so much by the general -inferiority of Continental Europe to Great Britain in _diffusive_ -wealth (though that argument goes for something, it being notorious -that, whilst immoderate wealth, concentrated in a small number of -hands, exists in various continental states upon a larger scale than -with us, moderately large estates, on the other hand, are, with them, -as one to two hundred, or even two hundred and fifty, in comparison -with ours), but chiefly upon this fact, which is too much overlooked, -that the foreign Universities are not peopled from the wealthiest -classes, which are the classes either already noble, or wishing to -become such. And why is that? Purely from the vicious constitution of -society on the Continent, where all the fountains of honour lie in -the military profession or in the diplomatic. We English, haters and -revilers of ourselves beyond all precedent, disparagers of our own -eminent advantages beyond all sufferance of honour or good sense, and -daily playing into the hands of foreign enemies, who hate us out of -mere envy or shame, have amongst us some hundreds of writers who will -die or suffer martyrdom upon this proposition--that aristocracy, and -the spirit and prejudices of aristocracy, are more operative (more -effectually and more extensively operative) amongst ourselves than in -any other known society of men. Now, I, who believe all errors to arise -in some narrow, partial, or angular view of truth, am seldom disposed -to meet any sincere affirmation by a blank, unmodified denial. Knowing, -therefore, that some acute observers do really believe this doctrine as -to the aristocratic forces, and the way in which they mould English -society, I cannot but suppose that some symptoms do really exist of -such a phenomenon; and the only remark I shall here make on the case -is this, that, very often, where any force or influence reposes upon -deep realities, and upon undisturbed foundations, _there_ will be the -least heard of loquacious and noisy expressions of its power; which -expressions arise most, not where the current is most violent, but -where (being possibly the weakest) it is most fretted with resistance. - -In England, the very reason why the aristocratic feeling makes -itself so sensibly felt and so distinctly an object of notice to the -censorious observer is, because it maintains a troubled existence -amongst counter and adverse influences, so many and so potent. This -might be illustrated abundantly. But, as respects the particular -question before me, it will be sufficient to say this: With us the -profession and exercise of knowledge, as a means of livelihood, is -honourable; on the Continent it is not so. The knowledge, for instance, -which is embodied in the three learned professions, does, with us, lead -to distinction and civil importance; no man can pretend to deny this; -nor, by consequence, that the Professors personally take rank with the -highest order of gentlemen. Are they not, I demand, everywhere with us -on the same footing, in point of rank and consideration, as those who -bear the king's commission in the army and navy? Can this be affirmed -of the Continent, either generally, or, indeed, partially? I say, -_no_. Let us take Germany as an illustration. Many towns (for anything -I know, all) present us with a regular bisection of the resident -_notables_, or wealthier class, into two distinct (often hostile) -coteries: one being composed of those who are "_noble_"; the other, -of families equally well educated and accomplished, but _not_, in the -continental sense, "noble." The meaning and value of the word is so -entirely misapprehended by the best English writers,--being, in fact, -derived from our own way of applying it,--that it becomes important to -ascertain its true value. A "nobility" which is numerous enough to fill -a separate ball-room in every sixth-rate town, it needs no argument to -show, cannot be a nobility in any English sense. In fact, an _edelmann_ -or nobleman, in the German sense, is strictly what we mean by a _born -gentleman_; with this one only difference, that, whereas, with us, the -rank which denominates a man such passes off by shades so insensible, -and almost infinite, into the ranks below, that it becomes impossible -to assign it any strict demarkation or lines of separation, on the -contrary, the Continental noble points to certain fixed barriers, in -the shape of privileges, which divide him, _per saltum_, from those who -are below his own order. But, were it not for this one legal benefit -of accurate circumscription and slight favour, the Continental noble, -whether Baron of Germany, Count of France, or Prince of Sicily and -of Russia, is simply on a level with the common landed _esquire_ of -Britain, and _not_ on a level in very numerous cases. Such being the -case, how paramount must be the spirit of aristocracy in Continental -society! Our _haute noblesse_--our genuine nobility, who are such -in the general feeling of their compatriots--will do _that_ which -the phantom of nobility of the Continent will not: the spurious -nobles of Germany will not mix, on equal terms, with their untitled -fellow-citizens living in the same city and in the same style as -themselves; they will not meet them in the same ball or concert-room. -Our great territorial nobility, though sometimes forming exclusive -circles (but not, however, upon any principle of high birth), do -so daily. They mix as equal partakers in the same amusements of -races, balls, musical assemblies, with the baronets (or _élite_ of -the gentry); with the landed esquires (or middle gentry); with the -superior order of tradesmen (who, in Germany, are absolute ciphers, for -political weight, or social consideration, but, with us, constitute -the lower and broader stratum of the _nobilitas_,[8] or gentry). The -obscure baronage of Germany, it is undeniable, insist upon having -"an atmosphere of their own"; whilst the Howards, the Stanleys, the -Talbots, of England, the Hamiltons, the Douglases, the Gordons, of -Scotland, are content to acknowledge a sympathy with the liberal part -of their untitled countrymen, in that point which most searchingly -tries the principle of aristocratic pride, viz., in their pleasures. -To have the same pursuits of business with another may be a result of -accident or position; to have the same pleasures, being a matter of -choice, argues a community of nature in the _moral_ sensibilities, in -that part of our constitution which differences one man from another in -the capacities of greatness and elevation. - - [8] It may be necessary to inform some readers that the word - _noble_, by which so large a system of imposition and fraud, as to - the composition of foreign society, has long been practised upon - the credulity of the British, corresponds to our word - _gentlemanly_ (or, rather, to the vulgar word _genteel_, if that - word were ever used legally, or _extra gradum_), not merely upon - the argument of its _virtual_ and operative value in the general - estimate of men (that is, upon the argument that a count, baron, - &c., does not, _qua_ such, command any deeper feeling of respect - or homage than a British esquire), but also upon the fact, that, - originally, in all English registers, as, for instance, in the - Oxford matriculation registers, all the upper gentry (knights, - esquires, &c.) are technically designated by the word - _nobiles_.--_See Chamberlayne, &c._ - -As with their amusements, so with their graver employments; the same -mutual repulsion continues to divide the two orders through life. -The nobles either live in gloomy seclusion upon their private funds, -wherever the privilege of primogeniture has enabled them to do so; -or, having no funds at all (the case of ninety-nine in one hundred), -they go into the army; that profession, the profession of arms, being -regarded as the only one compatible with an _edelmann's_ pretensions. -Such was once the feeling in England; such is still the feeling on the -Continent. It is a prejudice naturally clinging to a semi-barbarous -(because growing out of a barbarous) state, and, in its degree, -clinging to every stage of imperfect civilization; and, were there no -other argument, this would be a sufficient one, that England, under -free institutions, has outrun the Continent, in real civilization, by a -century; a fact which is concealed by the forms of luxurious refinement -in a few exclusive classes, too often usurping the name and honours of -radical civilization. - -From the super-appreciation of the military profession arises a -corresponding contempt of all other professions whatsoever _paid by -fellow-citizens_, and not by the King or the State. The clerical -profession is in the most abject degradation throughout Southern -Germany; and the reason why this forces itself less imperiously upon -the public notice is, that, in rural situations, from the absence of a -resident gentry (speaking generally), the pastor is brought into rare -collision with those who style themselves _noble_; whilst, in towns, -the clergy find people enough to countenance those who, being in the -same circumstances as to comfort and liberal education, are also -under the same ban of rejection from the "nobility," or born gentry. -The legal profession is equally degraded; even a barrister or advocate -holds a place in the public esteem little differing from that of an -Old Bailey attorney of the worst class. And this result is the less -liable to modification from personal qualities, inasmuch as there is no -great theatre (as with us) for individual display. Forensic eloquence -is unknown in Germany, as it is too generally on the Continent, from -the defect of all popular or open judicatures. A similar defect of -deliberative assemblies--such, at least, as represent any popular -influences and debate with open doors--intercepts the very possibility -of senatorial eloquence.[9] That of the pulpit only remains. But even -of this--whether it be from want of the excitement and contagious -emulation from the other fields of oratory, or from the peculiar genius -of Lutheranism--no models have yet arisen that could, for one moment, -sustain a comparison with those of England or France. The highest names -in this department would not, to a foreign ear, carry with them any -of that significance or promise which surrounds the names of Jeremy -Taylor or Barrow, Bossuet or Bourdaloue, to those even who have no -personal acquaintance with their works. This absence of all fields for -gathering public distinctions co-operates, in a very powerful way, -with the contempt of the born gentry, to degrade these professions; -and this double agency is, a third time, reinforced by those political -arrangements which deny every form of state honour or conspicuous -promotion to the very highest description of excellence, whether of -the bar, the pulpit, or the civic council. Not "the fluent Murray," -or the accomplished Erskine, from the English bar--not Pericles or -Demosthenes, from the fierce democracies of Greece--not Paul preaching -at Athens--could snatch a wreath from public homage, nor a distinction -from the state, nor found an influence, nor leave behind them an -operative model, in Germany, as now constituted. Other walks of -emolument are still more despised. Alfieri, a Continental "noble," that -is, a born gentleman, speaks of bankers as we in England should of a -Jewish usurer, or tricking money-changer. The liberal trades, such as -those which minister to literature or the fine arts, which, with us, -confer the station of gentleman upon those who exercise them, are, in -the estimate of a Continental "noble," fitted to assign a certain rank -or place in the train and equipage of a gentleman, but not to entitle -their most eminent professors to sit down, except by sufferance, in -his presence. And, upon this point, let not the reader derive his -notions from the German books: the vast majority of German authors are -not "noble"; and, of those who are, nine tenths are liberal in this -respect, and speak the language of liberality, not by sympathy with -their own order, or as representing _their_ feelings, but in virtue of -democratic or revolutionary politics. - - [9] The subject is amusingly illustrated by an anecdote of Goethe, - recorded by himself in his autobiography. Some physiognomist, or - phrenologist, had found out, in Goethe's structure of head, the - sure promise of a great orator. "Strange infatuation of nature!" - observes Goethe, on this assurance, "to endow me so richly and - liberally for that particular destination which only the - institutions of my country render impossible. Music for the deaf! - Eloquence without an audience!" - -Such as the rank is, and the public estimation of the leading -professions, such is the natural condition of the Universities which -rear them. The "nobles" going generally into the army, or leading lives -of indolence, the majority by far of those who resort to Universities -do so as a means of future livelihood. Few seek an academic life in -Germany who have either money to throw away on superfluities and -external show, or who have such a rank to support as might stimulate -their pride to expenses beyond their means. Parsimony is, therefore, in -these places, the governing law; and pleasure, not less fervently wooed -than at Oxford or at Cambridge, putting off her robes of elegance and -ceremony, descends to grossness, and not seldom to abject brutality. - -The sum of my argument is--that, because, in comparison of the army, no -other civil profession is, in itself, held of sufficient dignity, and -not less, perhaps, because, under governments essentially unpopular, -none of these professions has been so dignified artificially by the -state, or so attached to any ulterior promotion, either through the -state or in the state, as to meet the demands of aristocratic pride, -none of them is cultivated as a means of distinction, but originally -as a means of livelihood; that the Universities, as the nurseries of -these unhonoured professions, share naturally in _their_ degradation, -and that, from this double depreciation of the place and its final -objects, few or none resort thither who can be supposed to bring -any extra funds for supporting a system of luxury; that the general -temperance, or sobriety of demeanour, is far enough, however, from -keeping pace with the absence of costly show; and that, for this -absence even, we are to thank their poverty rather than their will. -It is to the great honour, in my opinion, of our own country, that -those often resort to her fountains who have no motive but that of -disinterested reverence for knowledge; seeking, as all men perceive, -neither emolument directly from University funds, nor knowledge as the -means of emolument. Doubtless, it is neither dishonourable, nor, on -a large scale, possible to be otherwise, that students should pursue -their academic career chiefly as ministerial to their capital object of -a future livelihood. But still I contend that it is for the interest -of science and good letters that a considerable body of volunteers -should gather about their banners without pay or hopes of preferment. -This takes place on a larger scale at Oxford and Cambridge than -elsewhere; and it is but a trivial concession in return, on the part -of the University, that she should allow, even if she had the right -to withhold, the privilege of living within her walls as they would -have lived at their fathers' seats; with one only reserve, applied to -all modes of expense that are, in themselves, immoral excesses, or -occasions of scandal, or of a nature to interfere too much with the -natural hours of study, or specially fitted to tempt others of narrower -means to ruinous emulation. - -Upon these principles, as it seems to me, the discipline of the -University is founded. The keeping of hunters, for example, is -unstatutable. Yet, on the other hand, it is felt to be inevitable that -young men of high spirit, familiar with this amusement, will find -means to pursue it in defiance of all the powers, however exerted, -that can properly be lodged in the hands of academic officers. The -range of the proctor's jurisdiction is limited by positive law; and -what should hinder a young man, bent upon his pleasure, from fixing -the station of his hunter a few miles out of Oxford, and riding to -cover on a hack, unamenable to any censure? For, surely, in this age, -no man could propose so absurd a thing as a general interdiction of -riding. How, in fact, does the University proceed? She discountenances -the practice; and, if forced upon her notice, she visits it with -censure, and that sort of punishment which lies within her means. But -she takes no pains to search out a trespass, which, by the mere act -of seeking to evade public display in the streets of the University, -already tends to limit itself; and which, besides, from its costliness, -can never become a prominent nuisance. This I mention as illustrating -the spirit of her legislation; and, even in this case, the reader -must carry along with him the peculiar distinction which I have -pressed with regard to English Universities, in the existence of a -large volunteer order of students seeking only the liberalization, -and not the profits, of academic life. In arguing upon their case, -it is not the fair logic to say, These pursuits taint the decorum of -the studious character; it is not fair to calculate how much is lost -to the man of letters by such addiction to fox-hunting, but, on the -contrary, what is gained to the fox-hunter, who would, at any rate, be -such, by so considerable a homage paid to letters, and so inevitable -a commerce with men of learning. Anything whatsoever attained in this -direction is probably so much more than would have been attained under -a system of less toleration. _Lucro ponamus_, we say, of the very least -success in such a case. But, in speaking of toleration as applied to -acts or habits positively against the statutes, I limit my meaning -to those which, in their own nature, are morally indifferent, and -are discountenanced simply as indirectly injurious, or as peculiarly -open to excess. Because, on graver offences (as gambling, &c.), the -malicious impeachers of Oxford must well have known that no toleration -whatsoever is practised or thought of. Once brought under the eye of -the University in a clear case and on clear evidence, it would be -punished in the most exemplary way open to a limited authority; by -_rustication_, at least--that is, banishment for a certain number -of terms, and consequent loss of these terms--supposing the utmost -palliation of circumstances; and, in an aggravated case, or on a second -offence, most certainly by final expulsion. But it is no part of duty -to serve the cause even of good morals by impure means; and it is as -difficult beforehand to prevent the existence of vicious practices so -long as men have, and ought to have, the means of seclusion liable to -no violation, as it is afterwards difficult, without breach of honour, -to obtain proof of their existence. Gambling has been known to exist -in some dissenting institutions; and, in my opinion, with no blame to -the presiding authorities. As to Oxford in particular, no such habit -was generally prevalent in my time; it is not an English vice; nor did -I ever hear of any great losses sustained in this way. But, were it -otherwise, I must hold, that, considering the numbers, rank, and great -opulence, of the students, such a habit would impeach the spirit and -temper of the age rather than the vigilance or magisterial fidelity -of the Oxford authorities. They are limited, like other magistrates, -by honour and circumstances, in a thousand ways; and if a knot of -students will choose to meet for purposes of gaming, they must always -have it in their power to baffle every honourable or becoming attempt -at detecting them. But upon this subject I shall make two statements, -which may have some effect in moderating the uncharitable judgments -upon Oxford discipline. The first respects the age of those who are -the objects of this discipline; on which point a very grave error -prevails. In the last Parliament, not once, but many times over, Lord -Brougham and others assumed that the students of Oxford were chiefly -_boys_; and this, not idly or casually, but pointedly, and with a -view to an ulterior argument; for instance, by way of proving how -little they were entitled to judge of those thirty-nine articles to -which their assent was demanded. Now, this argued a very extraordinary -ignorance; and the origin of the error showed the levity in which their -legislation was conducted. These noble lords had drawn their ideas of -a University exclusively from Glasgow. Here, it is well known, and I -mention it neither for praise nor blame, that students are in the habit -of coming at the early age of fourteen. These may allowably be styled -_boys_. But, with regard to Oxford, eighteen is about the _earliest_ -age at which young men begin their residence: twenty and upwards is, -therefore, the age of the majority; that is, twenty is the _minimum_ -of age for the vast majority, as there must always be more men of -three years' standing than of two or of one. Apply this fact to the -question of discipline: young men beyond twenty, generally,--that -is to say, of the age which qualifies men for seats in the national -council,--can hardly, with decency, either be called or treated as -boys; and many things become impossible as applied to _them_, which -might be of easy imposition upon an assemblage _really_ childish. In -mere justice, therefore, when speculating upon this whole subject of -Oxford discipline, the reader must carry along with him, at every -step, the recollection of that signal difference as to age which I -have now stated between Oxonians and those students whom the hostile -party contemplate in their arguments.[10] Meantime, to show that, -even under every obstacle presented by this difference of age, the -Oxford authorities do, nevertheless, administer their discipline with -fidelity, with intrepidity, and with indifference as respects the high -and the low, I shall select from a crowd of similar recollections two -anecdotes, which are but trifles in themselves, and yet are not such to -him who recognizes them as expressions of a uniform system of dealing. - - [10] Whilst I am writing, a debate of the present Parliament, - reported on Saturday, March 7, 1835, presents us with a - determinate repetition of the error which I have been exposing; - and, again, as in the last Parliament, this error is not _inert_, - but is used for a hostile (apparently a malicious) purpose; nay, - which is remarkable, it is the _sole_ basis upon which the - following argument reposes. Lord Radnor again assumes that the - students of Oxford are "boys"; he is again supported in this - misrepresentation by Lord Brougham; and again the - misrepresentation is applied to a purpose of assault upon the - English Universities, but especially upon Oxford. And the nature - of the assault does not allow any latitude in construing the word - _boys_, nor any room for evasion as respects the total charge, - except what goes the length of a total retraction. The charge is, - that, in a requisition made at the very threshold of academic - life, upon the understanding and the honour of the students, the - University burdens their consciences to an extent which, in after - life, when reflection has enlightened them to the meaning of their - engagements, proves either a snare to those who trifle with their - engagements, or an insupportable burden to those who do not. For - the inculpation of the party imposing such oaths, it is essential - that the party taking them should be in a childish condition of - the moral sense, and the sense of responsibility; whereas, amongst - the Oxonian _under_-graduates, I will venture to say that the - number is larger of those who rise above than of those who fall - below twenty; and, as to sixteen (assumed as the representative - age by Lord Radnor), in my time, I heard of only one student, - amongst, perhaps, sixteen hundred, who was so young. I grieve to - see that the learned prelate who replied to the assailants was so - much taken by surprise; the defence might have been made - triumphant. With regard to oaths incompatible with the spirit of - modern manners, and yet formally unrepealed--_that_ is a case of - neglect and indolent oversight. But the _gravamen_ of that - reproach does not press exclusively upon Oxford; all the ancient - institutions of Europe are tainted in the same way, more - especially the monastic orders of the Romish church. - -A great Whig Lord (Earl C----) happened (it may be ten years ago) to -present himself one day at Trinity (the leading college of Cambridge), -for the purpose of introducing Lord F----ch, his son, as a future -member of that splendid society. Possibly it mortified his aristocratic -feelings to hear the head of the college, even whilst welcoming the -young nobleman in courteous terms, yet suggesting, with some solemnity, -that, before taking any final resolution in the matter, his lordship -would do well to consider whether he were fully prepared to submit -himself to college discipline; for that, otherwise, it became his -own duty frankly to declare that the college would not look upon his -accession to their society as any advantage. This language arose out -of some recent experience of refractory and turbulent conduct upon -the part of various young men of rank; but it is very possible that -the noble Earl, in his surprise at a salutation so uncourtly, might -regard it, in a Tory mouth, as having some lurking reference to his -own Whig politics. If so, he must have been still more surprised to -hear of another case, which would meet him before he left Cambridge, -and which involved some frank dealing as well as frank speaking, when -a privilege of exception might have been presumed, if Tory politics, -or services the most memorable, could ever create such a privilege. -The Duke of W---- had two sons at Oxford. The affair is now long past; -and it cannot injure either of them to say, that one of the brothers -trespassed against the college discipline, in some way which compelled -(or was thought to compel) the presiding authorities into a solemn -notice of his conduct. Expulsion appeared to be the appropriate penalty -of his offences: but, at this point, a just hesitation arose. Not in -any servile spirit, but under a proper feeling of consideration for -so eminent a public benefactor as this young nobleman's father. The -rulers paused--and at length signified to him that he was at liberty -to withdraw himself privately from the college, but also, and at the -same time, from the University. He did so, and his brother, conceiving -him to have been harshly treated, withdrew also; and both transferred -themselves to Cambridge. That could not be prevented: but there they -were received with marked reserve. One was _not_ received, I believe, -in a technical sense; and the other was received conditionally; and -such restrictions were imposed upon his future conduct as served most -amply, and in a case of great notoriety, to vindicate the claims of -discipline, and, in an extreme case, a case so eminently an extreme one -that none like it is ever likely to recur, to proclaim the footing upon -which the very highest rank is received at the English Universities. -Is that footing peculiar _to them_? I willingly believe that it is -not; and, with respect to Edinburgh and Glasgow, I am persuaded that -their weight of dignity is quite sufficient, and would be exerted to -secure the same subordination from men of rank, if circumstances should -ever bring as large a number of that class within their gates, and if -their discipline were equally applicable to the habits of students not -domiciled within their walls. But, as to the smaller institutions for -education within the pale of dissent, I feel warranted in asserting, -from the spirit of the anecdotes which have reached me, that they have -not the _auctoritas_ requisite for adequately maintaining their dignity. - -So much for the aristocracy of our English Universities: their glory -is, and the happiest application of their vast influence, that they -have the power to be republican, as respects their internal condition. -Literature, by substituting a different standard of rank, tends to -republican equality; and, as one instance of this, properly belonging -to the chapter of _servants_, which originally led to this discussion, -it ought to be known that the class of "servitors," once a large -body in Oxford, have gradually become practically extinct under the -growing liberality of the age. They carried in their academic dress a -mark of their inferiority; they waited at dinner on those of higher -rank, and performed other menial services, humiliating to themselves, -and latterly felt as no less humiliating to the general name and -interests of learning. The better taste, or rather the relaxing -pressure of aristocratic prejudice, arising from the vast diffusion -of trade and the higher branches of mechanic art, have gradually -caused these functions of the order (even where the law would not -permit the extinction of the order) to become obsolete. In my time, -I was acquainted with two servitors: but one of them was rapidly -pushed forward into a higher station; and the other complained of no -degradation, beyond the grievous one of exposing himself to the notice -of young women in the streets with an untasselled cap; but this he -contrived to evade, by generally going abroad without his academic -dress. The _servitors_ of Oxford are the _sizars_ of Cambridge; and I -believe the same changes[11] have taken place in both. - - [11] These changes have been accomplished, according to my - imperfect knowledge of the case, in two ways: first, by dispensing - with the services whenever that could be done; and, secondly, by a - wise discontinuance of the order itself in those colleges which - were left to their own choice in this matter. - -One only account with the college remains to be noticed; but this is -the main one. It is expressed in the bills by the word _battels_, -derived from the old monkish word _patella_ (or batella), a plate; -and it comprehends whatsoever is furnished for dinner and for supper, -including malt liquor, but not wine, as well as the materials for -breakfast, or for any casual refreshment to country visitors, excepting -only groceries. These, together with coals and faggots, candles, -wine, fruit, and other more trifling _extras_, which are matters of -personal choice, form so many private accounts against your name, and -are usually furnished by tradesmen living near to the college, and -sending their servants daily to receive orders. Supper, as a meal -not universally taken, in many colleges is served privately in the -student's own room; though some colleges still retain the ancient -custom of a public supper. But dinner is, in all colleges, a public -meal, taken in the refectory or "hall" of the society; which, with the -chapel and library, compose the essential public _suite_ belonging to -every college alike. No absence is allowed, except to the sick, or to -those who have formally applied for permission to give a dinner-party. -A fine is imposed on all other cases of absence. Wine is not generally -allowed in the public hall, except to the "high table," that is, -the table at which the fellows and some other privileged persons are -entitled to dine. The head of the college rarely dines in public. -The other tables, and, after dinner, the high table, usually adjourn -to their wine, either upon invitations to private parties, or to -what are called the "common rooms" of the several orders--graduates -and undergraduates, &c. The dinners are always plain, and without -pretensions--those, I mean, in the public hall; indeed, nothing _can_ -be plainer in most colleges--a simple choice between two or three sorts -of animal food, and the common vegetables. No fish, even as a regular -part of the fare; no soups, no game; nor, except on some very rare -festivity, did I ever see a variation from this plain fare at Oxford. -This, indeed, is proved sufficiently by the average amount of the -_battels_. Many men "battel" at the rate of a guinea a week: I did so -for years: that is, at the rate of three shillings a day for everything -connected with meals, excepting only tea, sugar, milk, and wine. It is -true that wealthier men, more expensive men, and more careless men, -often "battelled" much higher; but, if they persisted in this excess, -they incurred censures, more and more urgent, from the head of the -college. - -Now, let us sum up; promising that the extreme duration of residence -in any college at Oxford amounts to something under thirty weeks. It -is possible to keep "short terms," as the phrase is, by a residence of -thirteen weeks, or ninety-one days; but, as this abridged residence is -not allowed, except in here and there a college, I shall assume--as -something beyond the strict _maximum_ of residence--thirty weeks as my -basis. The account will then stand thus: - - 1. Rooms £10 10 0 - 2. Tutorage 10 10 0 - 3. Servants (subject to the explanations made above), - say 5 5 0 - 4. Battels (allowing one shilling a day beyond what - I and others spent in much dearer times; that - is, allowing twenty-eight shillings weekly), for - thirty weeks 40 4 0 - --------- - £66 9 0 - -This will be a liberal calculation for the college bill. What remains? -1. Candles, which the reader will best calculate upon the standard -of his own general usage in this particular. 2. Coals, which are -remarkably dear at Oxford--dearer, perhaps, than anywhere else in -the island; say, three times as dear as at Edinburgh. 3. Groceries. -4. Wine. 5. Washing. This last article was, in my time, regulated by -the college, as there were certain privileged washerwomen, between -whom and the students it was but fair that some proper authority -should interfere to prevent extortion, in return for the monopoly -granted. Six guineas was the regulated sum; but this paid for -everything,--table-linen, &c., as well as for wearing apparel; and -it was understood to cover the whole twenty-eight or thirty weeks. -However, it was open to every man to make his own arrangements, -by insisting on a separate charge for each separate article. All -other expenses of a merely personal nature, such as postage, public -amusements, books, clothes, &c., as they have no special connection -with Oxford, but would, probably, be balanced by corresponding, if -not the very same, expenses in any other place or situation, I do not -calculate. What I have specified are the expenses which would accrue -to a student in consequence of leaving his father's house. The rest -would, in these days, be the same, perhaps, everywhere. How much, then, -shall we assume as the total charge on account of Oxford? Candles, -considering the quantity of long days amongst the thirty weeks, may -be had for one shilling and sixpence a week; for few students--unless -they have lived in India, after which a physical change occurs in the -sensibility of the nostrils--are finical enough to burn wax-lights. -This will amount to two pounds five shillings. Coals, say sixpence a -day; for three-pence a day will amply feed one grate in Edinburgh; and -there are many weeks in the thirty which will demand no fire at all. -Groceries and wine, which are all that remain, I cannot calculate. But -suppose we allow for the first a shilling a day, which will be exactly -ten guineas for thirty weeks; and for the second, nothing at all. Then -the extras, in addition to the college bills, will stand thus: - - Washing for thirty weeks, at the privileged rate £6 6 0 - Candles 2 5 0 - Fire 5 5 0 - Groceries 10 10 0 - ----------- - £24 6 0 - -The college bills, therefore, will be £66: 9s.; the extras, not -furnished by the college, will be about £24: 6s.,--making a total -amount of £90: 15s. And for this sum, annually, a man may defray -_every_ expense incident to an Oxford life, through a period of weeks -(viz., thirty) something more than he will be permitted to reside. It -is true, that, for the _first_ year, there will be, in addition to -this, his outfit: and for _every_ year there will be his journeys. -There will also be twenty-two weeks uncovered by this estimate; but for -these it is not my business to provide, who deal only with Oxford. - -That this estimate is true, I know too feelingly. Would that it were -_not_! would that it were false! Were it so, I might the better justify -to myself that commerce with fraudulent Jews which led me so early -to commence the dilapidation of my small fortune. It _is_ true; and -true for a period (1804-8) far dearer than this. And to any man who -questions its accuracy I address this particular request--that he will -lay his hand upon the special item which he disputes. I anticipate that -he will answer thus: "I dispute none: it is not by positive things -that your estimate errs, but by negations. It is the absence of all -allowance for indispensable items that vitiates the calculation." Very -well: but to this, as to other things, we may apply the words of Dr. -Johnson--"Sir, the reason I drink no wine, is because I can practise -abstinence, but not temperance." Yes: in all things, abstinence is -easier than temperance; for a little enjoyment has invariably the -effect of awaking the sense of enjoyment, irritating it, and setting -it on edge. I, therefore, recollecting my own case, have allowed for -_no_ wine-parties. Let our friend, the abstraction we are speaking -of, give breakfast-parties, if he chooses to give any; and certainly -to give none at all, unless he were dedicated to study, would seem -very churlish. Nobody can be less a friend than myself to monkish and -ascetic seclusion, unless it were for twenty-three hours out of the -twenty-four. - -But, however this be settled, let no mistake be made; nor let that be -charged against the system which is due to the habits of individuals. -Early in the last century, Dr. Newton, the head of a college in Oxford, -wrote a large book against the Oxford system, as ruinously expensive. -But then, as now, the real expense was due to no cause over which the -colleges could exercise any effectual control. It is due exclusively to -the habits of social intercourse amongst the young men; from which _he_ -may abstain who chooses. But, for any academic authorities to interfere -by sumptuary laws with the private expenditure of grown men, many of -them, in a legal sense, _of age_, and all near it, must appear romantic -and extravagant, for this (or, indeed, any) stage of society. A tutor -being required, about 1810, to fix the amount of allowance for a young -man of small fortune, nearly related to myself, pronounced three -hundred and twenty pounds little enough. He had this allowance, and was -ruined in consequence of the credit which it procured for him, and the -society it connected him with. The majority have two hundred pounds a -year: but my estimate stands good, for all that. - -Having stated, generally, the expenses of the Oxford system, I am -bound, in candour, to mention one variety in the mode of carrying -this system into effect, open to every man's adoption, which confers -certain privileges, but, at the same time (by what exact mode, I know -not), considerably increases the cost, and in that degree disturbs -my calculation. The great body of undergraduates, or students, are -divided into two classes--_Commoners_, and _Gentlemen Commoners_. -Perhaps nineteen out of twenty belong to the former class; and it is -for that class, as having been my own, that I have made my estimate. -The other class of _Gentlemen Commoners_ (who, at Cambridge, bear -the name of _Fellow Commoners_) wear a peculiar dress, and have some -privileges which naturally imply some corresponding increase of cost; -but why this increase should go to the extent of doubling the total -expense, as it is generally thought to do, or how it _can_ go to -that extent, I am unable to explain. The differences which attach -to the rank of "Gentlemen Commoners" are these: At his entrance he -pays double "caution money"; that is, whilst Commoners in general -pay about twenty-five guineas, he pays fifty; but this can occur -only once; and, besides, in strict point of right, this sum is only -a deposit, and is liable to be withdrawn on leaving the University, -though it is commonly enough finally presented to the college in the -shape of plate. The next difference is, that, by comparison with the -Commoner, he wears a much more costly dress. The Commoner's gown is -made of what is called _prince's stuff_, and, together with the cap, -costs about five guineas. But the Gentleman Commoner has two gowns--an -undress for the morning, and a full dress-gown for the evening; both -are made of silk, and the latter is very elaborately ornamented. The -cap also is more costly, being covered with velvet instead of cloth. -At Cambridge, again, the tassel is made of gold fringe or bullion, -which, in Oxford, is peculiar to the caps of noblemen; and there -are many other varieties in that University, where the dress for -"pensioners" (that is, the Oxford "Commoners") is specially varied in -almost every college; the object being, perhaps, to give a ready means -to the academic officers for ascertaining, at a glance, not merely the -general fact that such or such a delinquent is a gownsman (which is all -that can be ascertained at Oxford), but also the particular college -to which he belongs. Allowance being made for these two items of -"dress" and "caution-money," both of which apply only to the original -outfit, I know of no others in which the expenditure of a Gentleman -Commoner ought to exceed, or could with propriety exceed, that of a -Commoner. He has, indeed, a privilege as regards the choice of rooms; -he chooses first, and probably chooses those rooms which, being best, -are dearest; that is, they are on a level with the best; but usually -there are many sets almost equally good; and of these the majority -will be occupied by Commoners. So far, there is little opening for -a difference. More often, again, it will happen that a man of this -aristocratic class keeps a private servant; yet this happens also to -Commoners, and is, besides, no properly college expense. Tutorage is -charged double to a Gentleman Commoner--namely, twenty guineas a year: -this is done upon a fiction (as it sometimes turns out) of separate -attention, or aid given in a private way to his scholastic pursuits. -Finally, there arises naturally another and peculiar source of expense -to the "Gentleman Commoner," from a fact implied in his Cambridge -designation of "_Fellow_ Commoner," _commensalis_--viz., that he -associates at meals with the "fellows" and other authorities of the -college. Yet this again expresses rather the particular shape which -his expenditure assumes than any absolute increase in its amount. He -subscribes to a regular mess, and pays, therefore, whether present or -not; but so, in a partial sense, does the Commoner, by his forfeits -for "absent commons." He subscribes also to a regular fund for wine; -and, therefore, he does not enjoy that immunity from wine-drinking -which is open to the Commoner. Yet, again, as the Commoner does but -rarely avail himself of this immunity, as he drinks no less wine than -the Gentleman Commoner, and, generally speaking, wine not worse in -quality, it is difficult to see any ground for a regular assumption -of higher expenditure in the one class than the other. However, the -universal impression favours that assumption. All people believe that -the rank of Gentleman Commoner imposes an expensive burden, though -few people ever ask why. As a matter of fact, I believe it to be true -that Gentlemen Commoners spend more by a third, or a half, than any -equal number of Commoners, taken without selection. And the reason is -obvious: those who become Gentlemen Commoners are usually determined -to that course by the accident of having very large funds; they are -eldest sons, or only sons, or men already in possession of estates, or -else (which is as common a case as all the rest put together) they are -the heirs of newly-acquired wealth--sons of the _nouveaux riches_--a -class which often requires a generation or two to rub off the insolence -of a too conscious superiority. I have called them an "aristocratic" -class; but, in strictness, they are not such; they form a privileged -class, indeed, but their privileges are few and trifling, not to add -that these very privileges are connected with one or two burdens, more -than outweighing them in the estimate of many; and, upon the whole, the -chief distinction they enjoy is that of advertising themselves to the -public as men of great wealth, or great expectations, and, therefore, -as subjects peculiarly adapted to fraudulent attempts. Accordingly, it -is not found that the sons of the nobility are much inclined to enter -this order: these, if they happen to be the eldest sons of earls, -or of any peers above the rank of viscount, so as to enjoy a title -themselves by the courtesy of England, have special privileges in both -Universities as to length of residence, degrees, &c.; and their rank -is ascertained by a special dress. These privileges it is not usual to -forgo; though sometimes that happens, as, in my time, in the instance -of Lord George Grenville (now Lord Nugent); he neither entered at the -aristocratic college (Christ Church), nor wore the dress of a nobleman. -Generally, however, an elder son appears in his true character of -nobleman; but the younger sons rarely enter the class of Gentlemen -Commoners. They enter either as "Commoners," or under some of those -various designations ("_scholars_," "_demies_," "_students_," "_junior -fellows_") which imply that they stand upon the foundation of the -college to which they belong, and are aspirants for academic emoluments. - -Upon the whole, I am disposed to regard this order of Gentlemen -Commoners as a standing temptation held out by authority to expensive -habits, and a very unbecoming proclamation of honour paid to the -aristocracy of wealth. And I know that many thoughtful men regard -it in the same light with myself, and regret deeply that any such -distribution of ranks should be authorized, as a stain upon the -simplicity and general manliness of the English academic laws. It is -an open profession of homage and indulgence to wealth, _as_ wealth--to -wealth disconnected from everything that might ally it to the ancestral -honours and heraldries of the land. It is also an invitation, or rather -a challenge, to profuse expenditure. Regularly, and by law, a Gentleman -Commoner is liable to little heavier burdens than a Commoner; but, to -meet the expectations of those around him, and to act up to the part -he has assumed, he must spend more, and he must be more careless in -controlling his expenditure, than a moderate and prudent Commoner. In -every light, therefore, I condemn the institution, and give it up to -the censures of the judicious. So much in candour I concede. But, to -show equal candour on the other side, it must be remembered that this -institution descends to us from ancient times, when wealth was not so -often divided from territorial or civic honours, conferring a real -precedency. - - III[12] - - [12] From _Tait's Magazine_ for August 1835 - -There was one reason why I sought solitude at that early age, and -sought it in a morbid excess, which must naturally have conferred -upon my character some degree of that interest which belongs to all -extremes. My eye had been couched into a secondary power of vision, -by misery, by solitude, by sympathy with life in all its modes, by -experience too early won, and by the sense of danger critically -escaped. Suppose the case of a man suspended by some colossal arm over -an unfathomed abyss,--suspended, but finally and slowly withdrawn,--it -is probable that he would not smile for years. That was my case: for -I have not mentioned in the "Opium Confessions" a thousandth part of -the sufferings I underwent in London and in Wales; partly because -the misery was too monotonous, and, in that respect, unfitted for -description; but still more because there is a mysterious sensibility -connected with real suffering, which recoils from circumstantial -rehearsal or delineation, as from violation offered to something -sacred, and which is, or should be, dedicated to privacy. Grief does -not parade its pangs, nor the anguish of despairing hunger willingly -count again its groans or its humiliations. Hence it was that Ledyard, -the traveller, speaking of his Russian experiences, used to say that -some of his miseries were such that he never _would_ reveal them. -Besides all which, I really was not at liberty to speak, without many -reserves, on this chapter of my life, at a period (1821) not twenty -years removed from the actual occurrences, unless I desired to court -the risk of crossing at every step the existing law of libel, so full -of snares and man-traps, to the careless equally with the conscientious -writer. This is a consideration which some of my critics have lost -sight of in a degree which surprises me. One, for example, puts it to -his readers whether any house such as I describe as the abode of my -money-lending friend could exist "_in_ Oxford-street"; and, at the -same time, he states, as circumstances drawn from my description, but, -in fact, pure coinages of his own, certain romantic impossibilities, -which, doubtless, could as little attach to a house in Oxford-street -as they could to a house in any other quarter of London. Meantime, I -had sufficiently indicated that, whatsoever street _was_ concerned in -that affair, Oxford-street was _not_: and it is remarkable enough, as -illustrating this amiable reviewer's veracity, that no one street in -London was absolutely excluded _but_ one, and that one, Oxford-street. -For I happened to mention that, on such a day (my birth-day), I had -turned aside _from_ Oxford-street to look at the house in question. I -will now add that this house was in Greek-street: so much it may be -safe to say. But every candid reader will see that both prudential -restraints, and also disinterested regard to the feelings of possibly -amiable descendants from a vicious man, would operate with any -thoughtful writer, in such a case, to impose reserve upon his pen. -Had my guardians, had my money-lending friend of Jewry, and others -concerned in my memoirs, been so many shadows, bodiless abstractions, -and without earthly connections, I might readily have given my own -names to my own creations, and have treated them as unceremoniously as -I pleased. Not so under the real circumstances of the case. My chief -guardian, for instance, though obstinate to a degree which risked the -happiness and the life of his ward, was an upright man otherwise; and -his children are entitled to value his memory. Again, my Greek-street -[Greek: trapezitês], the "_foenerator Alpheus_," who delighted to -reap where he had not sown, and too often (I fear) allowed himself in -practices which not impossibly have long since been found to qualify -him for distant climates and "Botanic" regions,--even he, though I -might truly describe him as a mere highwayman whenever he happened -to be aware that I had received a friendly loan, yet, like other -highwaymen of repute, and "gentle thieves," was not inexorable to the -petitions of his victim: he would sometimes toss back what was required -for some instant necessity of the road; and at _his_ breakfast-table -it was, after all, as elsewhere recorded, that I contrived to support -life; barely, indeed, and most slenderly, but still with the final -result of escaping absolute starvation. With that recollection before -me, I could not allow myself to probe his frailties too severely, -had it even been certainly safe to do so. But enough; the reader -will understand that a year spent either in the valleys of Wales, -or upon the streets of London, by a wanderer too often houseless -in both situations, might naturally have peopled the mind of one -constitutionally disposed to solemn contemplations with memorials of -human sorrow and strife too profound to pass away for years. - -Thus, then, it was. Past experience of a very peculiar kind, the -agitations of many lives crowded into the compass of a year or two, in -combination with a peculiar structure of mind, offered one explanation -of the very remarkable and unsocial habits which I adopted at college; -but there was another not less powerful, and not less unusual. In -stating this, I shall seem, to some persons, covertly designing an -affront to Oxford. But that is far from my intention. It is noways -peculiar to Oxford, but will, doubtless, be found in every University -throughout the world, that the younger part of the members--the -undergraduates, I mean, generally, whose chief business must have -lain amongst the great writers of Greece and Rome--cannot have found -leisure to cultivate extensively their own domestic literature. -Not so much that time will have been wanting; but that the whole -energy of the mind, and the main course of the subsidiary studies -and researches, will naturally have been directed to those difficult -languages amongst which lie their daily tasks. I make it no subject -of complaint or scorn, therefore, but simply state it as a fact, that -few or none of the Oxford undergraduates, with whom parity of standing -threw me into collision at my first outset, knew anything at all of -English Literature. The _Spectator_ seemed to me the only English -book of a classical rank which they had read; and even this less for -its inimitable delicacy, humour, and refined pleasantry in dealing -with manners and characters, than for its insipid and meagre essays, -ethical or critical. This was no fault of theirs: they had been sent -to the book chiefly as a subject for Latin translations, or of other -exercises; and, in such a view, the vague generalities of superficial -morality were more useful and more manageable than sketches of manner -or character, steeped in national peculiarities. To translate the -terms of Whig politics into classical Latin would be as difficult as -it might be for a Whig himself to give a consistent account of those -politics from the year 1688. Natural, however, and excusable, as this -ignorance might be, to myself it was intolerable and incomprehensible. -Already, at fifteen, I had made myself familiar with the great English -poets. About sixteen, or not long after, my interest in the story -of Chatterton had carried me over the whole ground of the Rowley -controversy; and that controversy, by a necessary consequence, had so -familiarised me with the "Black Letter" that I had begun to find an -unaffected pleasure in the ancient English metrical romances; and in -Chaucer, though acquainted as yet only with part of his works, I had -perceived and had felt profoundly those divine qualities which, even -at this day, are so languidly acknowledged by his unjust countrymen. -With this knowledge, and this enthusiastic knowledge of the elder -poets--of those most remote from easy access--I could not well be a -stranger in other walks of our literature, more on a level with the -general taste, and nearer to modern diction, and, therefore, more -extensively multiplied by the press. Yet, after all--as one proof how -much more commanding is that part of a literature which speaks to the -elementary affections of men than that which is founded on the mutable -aspects of manners--it is a fact that, even in our elaborate system -of society, where an undue value is unavoidably given to the whole -science of social intercourse, and a continual irritation applied to -the sensibilities which point in that direction, still, under all these -advantages, Pope himself is less read, less quoted, less thought of, -than the elder and graver section of our literature. It is a great -calamity for an author such as Pope, that, generally speaking, it -requires so much experience of life to enjoy his peculiar felicities -as must argue an age likely to have impaired the general capacity for -enjoyment. For my part, I had myself a very slender acquaintance with -this chapter of our literature; and what little I had was generally, -at that period of my life, as with most men it continues to be to -the end of life, a reflex knowledge, acquired through those pleasant -miscellanies, half gossip, half criticism--such as Warton's _Essay on -Pope_, Boswell's _Johnson_, Mathias's _Pursuits of Literature_, and -many scores besides of the same indeterminate class: a class, however, -which do a real service to literature, by diffusing an indirect -knowledge of fine writers in their most effective passages, where -else, in a direct shape, it would often never extend. - -In some parts, then, having even a profound knowledge of our -literature, in all parts having some, I felt it to be impossible that I -should familiarly associate with those who had none at all; not so much -as a mere historical knowledge of the literature in its capital names -and their chronological succession. Do I mention this in disparagement -of Oxford? By no means. Among the undergraduates of higher standing, -and occasionally, perhaps, of my own, I have since learned that many -might have been found eminently accomplished in this particular. But -seniors do not seek after juniors; they must be sought; and, with my -previous bias to solitude, a bias equally composed of impulses and -motives, I had no disposition to take trouble in seeking any man for -any purpose. - -But, on this subject, a fact still remains to be told, of which I -am justly proud; and it will serve, beyond anything else that I can -say, to measure the degree of my intellectual development. On coming -to Oxford, I had taken up one position in advance of my age by full -thirty years: that appreciation of Wordsworth, which it has taken full -thirty years to establish amongst the public, I had already made, and -had made operative to my own intellectual culture, in the same year -when I clandestinely quitted school. Already, in 1802, I had addressed -a letter of fervent admiration to Mr. Wordsworth. I did not send it -until the spring of 1803; and, from misdirection, it did not come into -his hands for some months. But I had an answer from Mr. Wordsworth -before I was eighteen; and that my letter was thought to express the -homage of an enlightened admirer may be inferred from the fact that his -answer was long and full. On this anecdote I do not mean to dwell; but -I cannot allow the reader to overlook the circumstances of the case. -At this day [1835] it is true, no journal can be taken up which does -not habitually speak of Mr. Wordsworth as of _a_ great, if not _the_ -great, poet of the age. Mr. Bulwer, living in the intensest pressure of -the world, and though recoiling continually from the judgments of the -world, yet never in any violent degree ascribes to Mr. Wordsworth (in -his _England and the English_, p. 308) "an influence of a more noble -and purely intellectual character than _any_ writer of our age or -nation has exercised." Such is the opinion held of this great poet in -1835; but what were those of 1805-15,--nay, of 1825? For twenty years -after the date of that letter to Mr. Wordsworth above referred to, -language was exhausted, ingenuity was put on the rack, in the search -after images and expressions vile enough, insolent enough, to convey -the unutterable contempt avowed for all that he had written by the -fashionable critics. One critic--who still, I believe, edits a rather -popular journal, and who belongs to that class, feeble, fluttering, -ingenious, who make it their highest ambition not to lead, but, with -a slave's adulation, to obey and to follow all the caprices of the -public mind--described Mr. Wordsworth as resembling, in the quality -of his mind, an old nurse babbling in her paralytic dotage to sucking -babies. If this insult was peculiarly felt by Mr. Wordsworth, it was on -a consideration of the unusual imbecility of him who offered it, and -not because in itself it was baser or more insolent than the language -held by the majority of journalists who then echoed the public voice. -_Blackwood's Magazine_ (1817) first accustomed the public ear to the -language of admiration coupled with the name of Wordsworth. This began -with Professor Wilson; and well I remember--nay, the proofs are still -easy to hunt up--that, for eight or ten years, this singularity of -opinion, having no countenance from other journals, was treated as a -whim, a paradox, a bold extravagance, of the _Blackwood_ critics. Mr. -Wordsworth's neighbours in Westmoreland, who had (generally speaking) a -profound contempt for him, used to rebut the testimony of _Blackwood_ -by one constant reply--"Ay, _Blackwood_ praises Wordsworth, but who -else praises him?" In short, up to 1820, the name of Wordsworth was -trampled under foot; from 1820 to 1830, it was militant; from 1830 to -1835, it has been triumphant. In 1803, when I entered at Oxford, that -name was absolutely unknown; and the finger of scorn, pointed at it in -1802 by the first or second number of the _Edinburgh Review_, failed to -reach its mark from absolute defect of knowledge in the public mind. -Some fifty besides myself knew who was meant by "that poet who had -cautioned his friend against growing double," etc.; to all others it -was a profound secret. - -These things must be known and understood properly to value the -prophetic eye and the intrepidity of two persons, like Professor Wilson -and myself, who, in 1802-3, attached themselves to a banner not yet -raised and planted; who outran, in fact, their contemporaries by one -entire generation, and did _that_ about 1802 which the rest of the -world are doing in chorus about 1832. - -Professor Wilson's period at Oxford exactly coincided with my own; yet, -in that large world, we never met. I know, therefore, but little of his -policy in regard to such opinions or feelings as tended to dissociate -him from the mass of his coëvals. This only I know, that he lived as -it were in public, and must, therefore, I presume, have practised a -studied reserve as to his deepest admirations; and, perhaps, at that -day (1803-8) the occasions would be rare in which much dissimulation -would be needed. Until Lord Byron had begun to pilfer from Wordsworth -and to abuse him, allusions to Wordsworth were not frequent in -conversations; and it was chiefly on occasions of some question -arising about poetry in general, or about the poets of the day, that -it became difficult to dissemble. For my part, hating the necessity -for dissimulation as much as the dissimulation itself, I drew from -this peculiarity also of my own mind a fresh reinforcement of my other -motives for sequestering myself; and, for the first two years of my -residence in Oxford, I compute that I did not utter one hundred words. - -I remember distinctly the first (which happened also to be the last) -conversation that I ever held with my tutor. It consisted of three -sentences, two of which fell to his share, one to mine. On a fine -morning, he met me in the Quadrangle, and, having then no guess of the -nature of my pretensions, he determined (I suppose) to probe them. -Accordingly, he asked me, "What I had been lately reading?" Now, the -fact was that I, at that time immersed in metaphysics, had really been -reading and studying very closely the _Parmenides_, of which obscure -work some Oxford man, early in the last century, published a separate -edition. Yet, so profound was the benignity of my nature that, in -those days, I could not bear to witness, far less to cause, the least -pain or mortification to any human being. I recoiled, indeed, from -the society of most men, but not with any feelings of dislike. On the -contrary, in order that I _might_ like all men, I wished to associate -with none. Now, then, to have mentioned the _Parmenides_ to one who, -fifty thousand to one, was a perfect stranger to its whole drift and -purpose, looked too _méchant_, too like a trick of malice, in an age -when such reading was so very unusual. I felt that it would be taken -for an express stratagem for stopping my tutor's mouth. All this -passing rapidly through my mind, I replied, without hesitation, that I -had been reading Paley. My tutor's rejoinder I have never forgotten: -"Ah! an excellent author; excellent for his matter; only you must be -on your guard as to his style; he is very vicious _there_." Such was -the colloquy; we bowed, parted, and never more (I apprehend) exchanged -one word. Now, trivial and trite as this comment on Paley may appear -to the reader, it struck me forcibly that more falsehood, or more -absolute falsehood, or more direct inversion of the truth, could -not, by any artifice or ingenuity, have been crowded into one short -sentence. Paley, as a philosopher, is a jest, the disgrace of the age; -and, as regards the two Universities, and the enormous responsibility -they undertake for the books which they sanction by their official -examinations for degrees, the name of Paley is their great opprobrium. -But, on the other hand, for style, Paley is a master. Homely, racy, -vernacular English, the rustic vigour of a style which intentionally -forgoes the graces of polish on the one hand, and of scholastic -precision on the other--that quality of merit has never been attained -in a degree so eminent. This first interchange of thought upon a -topic of literature did not tend to slacken my previous disposition -to retreat into solitude; a solitude, however, which at no time was -tainted with either the moroseness or the pride of a cynic. - -Neither must the reader suppose that, even in that day, I belonged -to the party who disparage the classical writers, or the classical -training of the great English schools. The Greek drama I loved and -revered. But, to deal frankly, because it is a subject which I shall -hereafter bring before the public, I made great distinctions. I was -not that indiscriminate admirer of Greek and Roman literature which -those too generally are who admire it at all. This protesting spirit -against a false and blind idolatry was with me, at that time, a matter -of enthusiasm--almost of bigotry. I was a bigot against bigots. Let -us take the Greek oratory, for example:--What section of the Greek -literature is more fanatically exalted, and studiously in depreciation -of our own? Let us judge of the sincerity at the base of these hollow -affectations, by the downright facts and the producible records. -To admire, in any sense which can give weight and value to your -admiration, pre-supposes, I presume, some acquaintance with its object. -As the earliest title to an opinion, one way or other, of the Greek -eloquence, we ought to have studied some of its most distinguished -artists; or, say _one_, at least; and this one, we may be sure, will -be, as it ought to be, Demosthenes. Now, it is a fact, that all the -copies of Demosthenes sold within the last hundred years would not -meet the demand of one considerable town, were that orator a subject -of study amongst even classical scholars. I doubt whether, at this -day, there exist twenty men in Europe who can be said to have even -once read Demosthenes; and, therefore, it was that, when Mr. Mitford, -in his "History of Greece," took a new view of this orator's political -administration--a view which lowered his character for integrity--he -found an unresisting acceder to his doctrines in a public having no -previous opinion upon the subject, and, therefore, open to any casual -impression of malice or rash judgment. Had there been any acquaintance -with the large remains which we still possess of this famous orator, -no such wrong could have been done. I, from my childhood, had been a -reader, nay, a student, of Demosthenes; and simply for this reason, -that, having meditated profoundly on the true laws and philosophy -of diction, and of what is vaguely denominated style, and finding -nothing of any value in modern writers upon this subject, and not much -as regards the grounds and ultimate principles even in the ancient -rhetoricians, I have been reduced to collect my opinions from the great -artists and practitioners, rather than from the theorists; and, among -those artists, in the most plastic of languages, I hold Demosthenes to -have been the greatest. - -The Greek is, beyond comparison, the most plastic of languages. It -was a material which bent to the purposes of him who used it beyond -the material of other languages; it was an instrument for a larger -compass of modulations; and it happens that the peculiar theme of -an orator imposes the very largest which is consistent with a prose -diction. One step further in passion, and the orator would become a -poet. An orator can exhaust the capacities of a language--an historian, -never. Moreover, the age of Demosthenes was, in my judgment, the age -of highest development for arts dependent upon social refinement. -That generation had fixed and ascertained the use of words; whereas -the previous generation of Thucydides, Xenophon, Plato, &c., was a -transitional period: the language was still moving, and tending to -a meridian not yet attained; and the public eye had been directed -consciously upon language, as in and for itself an organ of -intellectual delight, for too short a time to have mastered the whole -art of managing its resources. All these were reasons for studying -Demosthenes, as the one great model and standard of Attic prose; and -studied him I _had_, more than any other prose writer whatever. _Pari -passu_, I had become sensible that others had _not_ studied him. One -monotonous song of applause I found raised on every side; something -about being "like a torrent, that carries everything before it." This -original image is all we get in the shape of criticism, and never any -attempt even at illustrating what is greatest in him, or characterising -what is most peculiar. The same persons who discovered that Lord -Brougham was the modern Bacon have also complimented him with the title -of the English Demosthenes. Upon this hint, Lord Brougham, in his -address to the Glasgow students, has deluged the great Athenian with -wordy admiration. There is an obvious prudence in lodging your praise -upon an object from which you count upon a rebound to yourself. But -here, as everywhere else, you look in vain for any marks or indications -of a personal and _direct_ acquaintance with the original orations. -The praise is built rather upon the popular idea of Demosthenes than -upon the real Demosthenes. And not only so, but even upon style itself, -and upon the art of composition _in abstracto_, Lord Brougham does not -seem to have formed any clear conceptions,--principles he has none. -Now, it is useless to judge of an artist until you have some principles -on the art. The two capital secrets in the art of prose composition -are these: 1st, The philosophy of transition and connection, or the -art by which one step in an evolution of thought is made to arise -out of another: all fluent and effective composition depends on the -_connections_;--2dly, The way in which sentences are made to modify -each other; for the most powerful effects in written eloquence arise -out of this reverberation, as it were, from each other in a rapid -succession of sentences; and, because some limitation is necessary -to the length and complexity of sentences, in order to make this -interdependency felt: hence it is that the Germans have no eloquence. -The construction of German prose tends to such immoderate length of -sentences that no effect of intermodification can ever be apparent. -Each sentence, stuffed with innumerable clauses of restriction, and -other parenthetical circumstances, becomes a separate section--an -independent whole. But, without insisting on Lord Brougham's -oversights, or errors of defect, I will digress a moment to one -positive caution of his, which will measure the value of his philosophy -on this subject. He lays it down for a rule of indefinite application -that the Saxon part of our English idiom is to be favoured at the -expense of that part which has so happily coalesced with the language -from the Latin or Greek. This fancy, often patronized by other writers, -and even acted upon, resembles that restraint which some metrical -writers have imposed upon themselves--of writing a long copy of verses -from which some particular letter, or from each line of which some -different letter, should be carefully excluded. What followed? Was the -reader sensible, in the practical effect upon his ear, of any beauty -attained? By no means; all the difference, sensibly perceived, lay in -the occasional constraints and affectations to which the writer had -been driven by his self-imposed necessities. The same chimera exists -in Germany; and so much further is it carried that one great puritan -in this heresy (Wolf) has published a vast dictionary, the rival of -Adelung's, for the purpose of expelling every word of foreign origin -and composition out of the language, by assigning some equivalent term -spun out from pure native Teutonic materials. _Bayonet_, for example, -is patriotically rejected, because a word may be readily compounded -tantamount to _musket-dirk_; and this sort of composition thrives -showily in the German, as a language running into composition with -a fusibility only surpassed by the Greek. But what good purpose is -attained by such caprices? In three sentences the sum of the philosophy -may be stated. It has been computed (see _Duclos_) that the Italian -opera has not above six hundred words in its whole vocabulary: so -narrow is the range of its emotions, and so little are these emotions -disposed to expand themselves into any variety of thinking. The same -remark applies to that class of simple, household, homely passion, -which belongs to the early ballad poetry. Their passion is of a quality -more venerable, it is true, and deeper than that of the opera, because -more permanent and coextensive with human life; but it is not much -wider in its sphere, nor more apt to coalesce with contemplative or -philosophic thinking. Pass from these narrow fields of the intellect, -where the relations of the objects are so few and simple, and the -whole prospect so bounded, to the immeasurable and sea-like arena -upon which Shakspeare careers--co-infinite with life itself--yes, and -with something more than life. Here is the other pole, the opposite -extreme. And what is the choice of diction? What is the _lexis_? Is -it Saxon exclusively, or is it Saxon by preference? So far from that, -the Latinity is intense--not, indeed, in his construction, but in his -choice of words; and so continually are these Latin words used with a -critical respect to their earliest (and, where _that_ happens to have -existed, to their unfigurative) meaning, that, upon this one argument I -would rely for upsetting the else impregnable thesis of Dr. Farmer as -to Shakspeare's learning. Nay, I will affirm that, out of this regard -to the Latin acceptation of Latin words, may be absolutely explained -the Shakspearian meaning of certain words which has hitherto baffled -all his critics. For instance, the word _modern_, of which Dr. Johnson -professes himself unable to explain the _rationale_ or principle -regulating its Shakspearian use, though he felt its value, it is to -be deduced thus: First of all, change the pronunciation a little, by -substituting for the short o, as we pronounce it in _modern_, the long -_o_, as heard in _modish_, and you will then, perhaps, perceive the -process of analogy by which it passed into the Shakspearian use. The -_matter_ or substance of a thing is, usually, so much more important -than its fashion or _manner_, that we have hence adopted, as one way -for expressing what is important as opposed to what is trivial, the -word _material_. Now, by parity of reason, we are entitled to invert -this order, and to express what is unimportant by some word indicating -the mere fashion or external manner of an object as opposed to its -substance. This is effected by the word _modal_ or _m[=o]dern_, as -the adjective from _modus_, a fashion or manner; and in that sense -Shakspeare employs the word. Thus, Cleopatra, undervaluing to Cæsar's -agent the bijouterie which she has kept back from inventory, and which -her treacherous steward had betrayed, describes them as mere trifles-- - - "Such gifts as we greet modern friends withal"; - -where all commentators have _felt_ that modern must from the position -mean slight and inconsiderable, though perplexed to say how it came -by such a meaning. A _modern_ friend is, in the Shakspearian sense, -with relation to a real and serviceable friend, that which the fashion -of a thing is by comparison with its substance. But a still better -illustration may be taken from a common line, quoted every day, and -ludicrously misinterpreted. In the famous picture of life--"All the -world's a stage"--the justice of the peace is described as - - "Full of wise saws and modern instances"; - -which (_horrendum dictu!_) has been explained, and, I verily believe, -is generally understood to mean, _full of wise sayings and modern -illustrations_. The true meaning is--full of proverbial maxims of -conduct and of trivial arguments; that is, of petty distinctions, or -verbal disputes, such as never touch the point at issue. The word -_modern_ I have already deduced; the word _instances_ is equally Latin, -and equally used by Shakspeare in its Latin sense. It is originally -the word _instantia_, which, by the monkish and scholastic writers, -is uniformly used in the sense of an argument, and originally of an -argument urged in objection to some previous argument.[13] - - [13] I cannot for a moment believe that the original and most - eloquent critic in _Blackwood_ is himself the dupe of an argument - which he has alleged against this passage, under too open a hatred - of Shakspeare, as though it involved a contradiction to common - sense, by representing _all_ human beings of such an age as - school-boys, all of such another age as soldiers, of such another - as magistrates, &c. Evidently the logic of the famous passage is - this,--that, whereas every age has its peculiar and appropriate - temper, that profession or employment is selected for the - exemplification which seems best fitted, in each case, to embody - the characteristic or predominating quality. Thus, because - impetuosity, self-esteem, and animal or irreflective courage, are - qualities most intense in youth, next it is considered in what - profession those qualities find their most unlimited range; and, - because that is obviously the military profession, therefore it is - that the soldier is selected as the representative of young men. - For the same reason, as best embodying the peculiar temper of - garrulous old age, the magistrate comes forward as supporting the - part of that age. Not that old men are not also soldiers; but that - the military profession, so far from strengthening, moderates and - tempers the characteristic temper of old age. - -I affirm, therefore, that Lord Brougham's counsel to the Glasgow -students is not only bad counsel,--and bad counsel for the result, as -well as for the grounds, which are either capricious or nugatory,--but -also that, in the exact proportion in which the range of thought -expands, it is an impossible counsel, an impracticable counsel--a -counsel having for its purpose to embarrass and lay the mind in -fetters, where even its utmost freedom and its largest resources will -be found all too little for the growing necessities of the intellect. -"Long-tailed words in _osity_ and _ation_!" What does _that_ describe? -Exactly the Latin part of our language. Now, those very terminations -speak for themselves:--All high abstractions end in _ation_; that -is, they are Latin; and, just in proportion as the abstracting power -extends and widens, do the circles of thought widen, and the horizon or -boundary (contradicting its own Grecian name) melts into the infinite. -On this account it was that Coleridge (_Biographia Literaria_) remarks -on Wordsworth's philosophical poetry, that, in proportion as it goes -into the profound of passion and of thought, do the words increase -which are vulgarly called "_dictionary_ words." Now, these words, -these "dictionary" words, what are they? Simply words of Latin or -Greek origin: no other words, no Saxon words, are ever called by -illiterate persons dictionary words. And these dictionary words are -indispensable to a writer, not only in the proportion by which he -transcends other writers as to extent and as to subtlety of thinking, -but also as to elevation and sublimity. Milton was not an extensive -or discursive thinker, as Shakspeare was; for the motions of his mind -were slow, solemn, sequacious, like those of the planets; not agile -and assimilative; not attracting all things within its own sphere; not -multiform: repulsion was the law of his intellect--he moved in solitary -grandeur. Yet, merely from this quality of grandeur, unapproachable -grandeur, his intellect demanded a larger infusion of Latinity into his -diction. For the same reason (and without such aids he would have had -no proper element in which to move his wings) he enriched his diction -with Hellenisms and with Hebraisms[14]; but never, as could be easy to -show, without a full justification in the result. Two things may be -asserted of all his exotic idioms--1st, That they express what could -not have been expressed by any native idiom; 2d, That they harmonize -with the English language, and give a colouring of the antique, but not -any sense of strangeness, to the diction. Thus, in the double negative, -"Nor did they not perceive," &c., which is classed as a Hebraism--if -any man fancy that it expresses no more than the simple affirmative, -he shows that he does not understand its force; and, at the same time, -it is a form of thought so natural and universal that I have heard -English people, under corresponding circumstances, spontaneously -fall into it. In short, whether a man differ from others by greater -profundity or by greater sublimity, and whether he write as a poet -or as a philosopher, in any case, he feels, in due proportion to the -necessities of his intellect, an increasing dependence upon the Latin -section of the English language; and the true reason why Lord Brougham -failed to perceive this, or found the Saxon equal to his wants, is one -which I shall not scruple to assign, inasmuch as it does not reflect -personally on Lord Brougham, or, at least, on him exclusively, but -on the whole body to which he belongs. That thing which he and they -call by the pompous name of statesmanship, but which is, in fact, -_statescraft_--the art of political intrigue--deals (like the opera) -with ideas so few in number, and so little adapted to associate -themselves with other ideas, that, possibly, in the one case equally -as in the other, six hundred words are sufficient to meet all their -demands. - - [14] The diction of Milton is a case absolutely unique in - literature: of many writers it has been said, but of him only - with truth, that he created a peculiar language. The value must be - tried by the result, not by inferences from _a priori_ principles; - such inferences might lead us to anticipate an unfortunate result; - whereas, in fact, the diction of Milton is such that no other - could have supported his majestic style of thinking. The final - result is a _transcendent_ answer to all adverse criticism; but - still it is to be lamented that no man properly qualified has - undertaken the examination of the Miltonic diction as a separate - problem. Listen to a popular author of this day (Mr. Bulwer). He, - speaking on this subject, asserts (_England and the English_, p. - 329) that "_there is scarcely an English idiom which Milton has - not violated, or a foreign one which he has not borrowed_." Now, - in answer to this extravagant assertion, I will venture to say - that the two following are the sole cases of questionable idiom - throughout Milton:--1st, "Yet virgin of Proserpina from Jove"; - and, in this case, the same thing might be urged in apology which - Aristotle urges in another argument, namely, that [Greek: anônumon - to pathos], the case is unprovided with _any_ suitable expression. - How would it be possible to convey in good English the - circumstances here indicated: viz. that Ceres was yet in those - days of maiden innocence, when she had borne no daughter to Jove? - 2d, I will cite a case which, so far as I remember, has been - noticed by no commentator; and, probably, because they have failed - to understand it. The case occurs in the "Paradise Regained"; but - where I do not at this moment remember. "Will they _transact_ with - God?" [The only case of the use of the word _transact_ by Milton - registered in the Verbal Indexes is in _Par. Lost_, vi. 286, where - Satan says, "Easier to transact with me."--M.] This is the - passage; and a most flagrant instance it offers of pure Latinism. - _Transigere_, in the language of the civil law, means to make a - compromise; and the word _transact_ is here used in that sense--a - sense utterly unknown to the English language. This is the worst - case in Milton; and I do not know that it has been ever noticed. - Yet even here it may be doubted whether Milton is not defensible; - asking if they proposed to terminate their difference with God - after the fashion in use amongst courts of law, he points properly - enough to these worldly settlements by the technical term which - designated them. Thus might a divine say: Will he arrest the - judgments of God by a _demurrer_? Thus, again, Hamlet - apostrophises the lawyer's skull by the technical terms used in - actions for assault, &c. Besides, what proper term is there in - English for expressing a compromise? Edmund Burke, and other much - older authors, express the idea by the word _temperament_; but - that word, though a good one, was at one time considered an exotic - term--equally a Gallicism and a Latinism. - -I have used my privilege of discursiveness to step aside from -Demosthenes to another subject, no otherwise connected with the -Attic orator than, first, by the common reference of both subjects -to rhetoric; but, secondly, by the accident of having been jointly -discussed by Lord Brougham in a paper which (though now forgotten) -obtained, at the moment, most undue celebrity. For it is one of the -infirmities of the public mind with us, that whatever is said or done -by a public man,--any opinion given by a member of Parliament, however -much out of his own proper jurisdiction and range of inquiry,--commands -an attention not conceded even to those who speak under the known -privilege of professional knowledge. Thus, Cowper was not discovered -to be a poet worthy of any general notice until Charles Fox, a most -slender critic, had vouchsafed to quote a few lines, and that not so -much with a view to the poetry as to its party application. But now, -returning to Demosthenes, I affirm that his case is the case of nearly -all the classical writers,--at least, of all the prose writers. It is, -I admit, an extreme one; that is, it is the general case in a more -intense degree. Raised almost to divine honours, never mentioned but -with affected rapture, the classics of Greece and Rome are seldom read, -most of them never; are they, indeed, the closet companions of any man? -Surely it is time that these follies were at an end; that our practice -were made to square a little better with our professions, and that our -pleasures were sincerely drawn from those sources in which we pretend -that they lie. - -The Greek language, mastered in any eminent degree, is the very rarest -of all accomplishments, and precisely because it is unspeakably the -most difficult. Let not the reader dupe himself by popular cant. To -be an accomplished Grecian demands a very peculiar quality of talent; -and it is almost inevitable that one who is such should be vain of a -distinction which represents so much labour and difficulty overcome. -For myself, having, as a school-boy, attained to a very unusual mastery -over this language, and (though as yet little familiar with the -elaborate science of Greek metre) moving through all the obstacles and -resistances of a Greek book with the same celerity and ease as through -those of the French and Latin, I had, in vanquishing the difficulties -of the language, lost the main stimulus to its cultivation. Still, I -read Greek daily; but any slight vanity which I might connect with a -power so rarely attained, and which, under ordinary circumstances, so -readily transmutes itself into a disproportionate admiration of the -author, in me was absolutely swallowed up in the tremendous hold taken -of my entire sensibilities at this time by our own literature. With -what fury would I often exclaim: He who loveth not his brother whom he -hath seen, how shall he love God whom he hath not seen? You, Mr. A, L, -M, O, you who care not for Milton, and value not the dark sublimities -which rest ultimately (as we all feel) upon dread realities, how -can you seriously thrill in sympathy with the spurious and fanciful -sublimities of the classical poetry--with the nod of the Olympian -Jove, or the seven-league strides of Neptune? Flying Childers had the -most prodigious stride of any horse on record; and at Newmarket that -is justly held to be a great merit; but it is hardly a qualification -for a Pantheon. The parting of Hector and Andromache--that is tender, -doubtless; but how many passages of far deeper, far diviner tenderness, -are to be found in Chaucer! Yet in these cases we give our antagonist -the benefit of an appeal to what is really best and most effective in -the ancient literature. For, if we should go to Pindar, and some other -great names, what a revelation of hypocrisy as respects the _fade_ -enthusiasts for the Greek poetry! - -Still, in the Greek tragedy, however otherwise embittered against -ancient literature by the dismal affectations current in the scenical -poetry, at least I felt the presence of a great and original power. -It might be a power inferior, upon the whole, to that which presides -in the English tragedy; I believed that it was; but it was equal and -appealed equally to real and deep sensibilities in our nature. Yet, -also, I felt that the two powers at work in the two forms of the -drama were essentially different; and, without having read a line of -German at that time, or knowing of any such controversy, I began to -meditate on the elementary grounds of difference between the Pagan -and the Christian forms of poetry. The dispute has since been carried -on extensively in France, not less than in Germany, as between the -_classical_ and the _romantic_. But I will venture to assert that not -one step in advance has been made, up to this day. The shape into which -I threw the question it may be well to state; because I am persuaded -that out of that one idea, properly pursued, might be evolved the whole -separate characteristics of the Christian and the Antique. Why is it, -I asked, that the Christian idea of _sin_ is an idea utterly unknown -to the Pagan mind? The Greeks and Romans had a clear conception of a -moral ideal, as we have; but this they estimated by a reference to the -will; and they called it virtue, and the antithesis they called vice. -The _lacheté_ or relaxed energy of the will, by which it yielded to -the seductions of sensual pleasure, that was vice; and the braced-up -tone by which it resisted these seductions was virtue. But the idea -of holiness, and the antithetic idea of sin, as a violation of this -awful and unimaginable sanctity, was so utterly undeveloped in the -Pagan mind, that no word exists in classical Greek or classical Latin -which approaches either pole of this synthesis; neither the idea of -_holiness_, nor of its correlate, _sin_, could be so expressed in Latin -as at once to satisfy Cicero and a scientific Christian. Again (but -this was some years after), I found Schiller and Goethe applauding -the better taste of the ancients, in symbolizing the idea of death by -a beautiful youth, with a torch inverted, &c., as compared with the -Christian types of a skeleton and hourglasses, &c. And much surprised -I was to hear Mr. Coleridge approving of this German sentiment. Yet, -here again, I felt, the peculiar genius of Christianity was covertly -at work moving upon a different road, and under opposite ideas, to a -just result, in which the harsh and austere expression yet pointed to -a dark reality, whilst the beautiful Greek adumbration was, in fact, -a veil and a disguise. The corruptions and the other "dishonours" of -the grave, and whatsoever composes the sting of death in the Christian -view, is traced up to sin as its ultimate cause. Hence, besides the -expression of Christian humility, in thus nakedly exhibiting the wrecks -and ruins made by sin, there is also a latent profession indicated -of Christian hope. For the Christian contemplates steadfastly, though -with trembling awe, the lowest point of his descent; since, for him, -that point, the last of his fall, is also the first of his re-ascent, -and serves, besides, as an exponent of its infinity; the infinite -depth becoming, in the rebound, a measure of the infinite re-ascent. -Whereas, on the contrary, with the gloomy uncertainties of a Pagan -on the question of his final restoration, and also (which must not -be overlooked) with his utter perplexity as to the nature of his -restoration, if any were by accident in reserve, whether in a condition -tending downwards or upwards, it was the natural resource to consult -the general feeling of anxiety and distrust, by throwing a thick -curtain and a veil of beauty over the whole too painful subject. To -place the horrors in high relief could here have answered no purpose -but that of wanton cruelty; whereas, with the Christian hopes, the -very saddest memorials of the havocks made by death are antagonist -prefigurations of great victories in the rear. - -These speculations, at that time, I pursued earnestly; and I then -believed myself, as I yet do, to have ascertained the two great and -opposite laws under which the Grecian and the English tragedy has each -separately developed itself. Whether wrong or right in that belief, -sure I am that those in Germany who have treated the case of Classical -and Romantic are not entitled to credit for any discovery at all. The -Schlegels, who were the hollowest of men, the windiest and wordiest (at -least, Frederick was so), pointed to the distinction; barely indicated -it; and that was already some service done, because a presumption -arose that the antique and the modern literatures, having clearly some -essential differences, might, perhaps, rest on foundations originally -distinct, and obey different laws. And hence it occurred that many -disputes, as about the unities, &c., might originate in a confusion -of these laws. This checks the presumption of the shallow criticism, -and points to deeper investigations. Beyond this, neither the German -nor the French disputers on the subject have talked to any profitable -purpose. - -I have mentioned Paley as accidentally connected with my _début_ in -literary conversation; and I have taken occasion to say how much I -admired his style and its unstudied graces, how profoundly I despised -his philosophy. I shall here say a word or two more on that subject. As -respects his style, though secretly despising the opinion avowed by my -tutor (which was, however, a natural opinion for a stiff lover of the -artificial and the pompous), I would just as unwillingly be supposed -to adopt the extravagant opinions, in the other extreme, of Dr. Parr -and Mr. Coleridge. These two gentlemen, who privately hated Paley, -and, perhaps, traduced him, have hung like bees over one particular -paragraph in his Evidences, as though it were a flower transplanted -from Hymettus. Dr. Parr pronounced it the finest sentence in the -English language. It is a period (that is, a cluster of sentences) -moderately well, but not _too_ well, constructed, as the German -nurses are accustomed to say. Its felicity depends on a trick easily -imitated--on a balance happily placed (namely, "_in which the wisest -of mankind would rejoice to find an answer to their doubts and rest to -their inquiries_)." As a _bravura_, or _tour de force_, in the dazzling -fence of rhetoric, it is surpassed by many hundreds of passages which -might be produced from rhetoricians; or, to confine myself to Paley's -contemporaries, it is very far surpassed by a particular passage in -Burke's letter upon the Duke of Bedford's base attack upon him in -the House of Lords; which passage I shall elsewhere produce, because -I happen to know, on the authority of Burke's executors, that Burke -himself considered it the finest period which he had ever written. -At present, I will only make one remark, viz. that it is always -injudicious, in the highest degree, to cite for admiration that which -is not a _representative_ specimen of the author's manner. In reading -Lucian, I once stumbled on a passage of German pathos, and of German -effect. Would it have been wise, or would it have been intellectually -just, to quote this as the text of an eulogium on Lucian? What -false criticism it would have suggested to every reader! what false -anticipations! To quote a formal and periodic pile of sentences was to -give the feeling that Paley was what the regular rhetorical artists -designate as a periodic writer, when, in fact, no one conceivable -character of style more pointedly contradicted the true description of -his merits. - -But, leaving the style of Paley, I must confess that I agree with Mr. -Bulwer (_England and the English_) in thinking it shocking and almost -damnatory to an English University, the great well-heads of creeds, -moral and evangelical, that authors such in respect of doctrine as -Paley and Locke should hold that high and influential station as -teachers, or rather oracles of truth, which has been conceded to them. -As to Locke, I, when a boy, had made a discovery of one blunder full -of laughter and of fun, which, had it been published and explained -in Locke's lifetime, would have tainted his whole philosophy with -suspicion. It relates to the Aristotelian doctrine of syllogism, -which Locke undertook to ridicule. Now, a flaw, a hideous flaw, in -the _soi-disant_ detecter of flaws, a ridicule in the exposer of the -ridiculous--_that_ is fatal; and I am surprised that Lee, who wrote a -folio against Locke in his lifetime, and other examiners, should have -failed in detecting this. I shall expose it elsewhere; and, perhaps, -one or two other exposures of the same kind will give an impetus to -the descent of this falling philosophy. With respect to Paley, and -the naked _prudentialism_ of his system, it is true that in a longish -note Paley disclaims that consequence. But to this we may reply, with -Cicero, _Non quæro quid neget Epicurus, sed quid congruenter neget_. -Meantime, waiving all this as too notorious, and too frequently -denounced, I wish to recur to this trite subject, by way of stating -an objection made to the Paleyan morality in my seventeenth year, and -which I have never since seen reason to withdraw. It is this:--I affirm -that the whole work, from first to last, proceeds upon that sort of -error which the logicians call _ignoratio elenchi_, that is, ignorance -of the very question concerned--of the point at issue. For, mark, in -the very vestibule of ethics, two questions arise--two different and -disconnected questions, A and B; and Paley has answered the wrong one. -Thinking that he was answering A, and meaning to answer A, he has, -in fact, answered B. One question arises thus: Justice is a virtue; -temperance is a virtue; and so forth. Now, what is the common principle -which ranks these several species under the same genus? What, in the -language of logicians, is the common differential principle which -determines these various aspects of moral obligation to a common -genus? Another question, and a more interesting question to men in -general, is this,--What is the motive to virtue? By what impulse, law, -or motive, am I impelled to be virtuous rather than vicious? Whence -is the motive derived which should impel me to one line of conduct in -preference to the other? This, which is a practical question, and, -therefore, more interesting than the other, which is a pure question -of speculation, was that which Paley believed himself to be answering. -And his answer was,--that utility, a perception of the resulting -benefit, was the true determining motive. Meantime, it was objected -that often the most obvious results from a virtuous action were far -otherwise than beneficial. Upon which, Paley, in the long note referred -to above, distinguished thus: that, whereas actions have many results, -some proximate, some remote, just as a stone thrown into the water -produces many concentric circles, be it known that he, Dr. Paley, in -what he says of utility, contemplates only the final result, the very -outermost circle; inasmuch as he acknowledges a possibility that the -first, second, third, including the penultimate circle, may all happen -to clash with utility; but then, says he, the outermost circle of all -will never fail to coincide with the absolute maximum of utility. -Hence, in the first place, it appears that you cannot apply this test -of utility in a practical sense; you cannot say, This is useful, -_ergo_, it is virtuous; but, in the inverse order, you must say, This -is virtuous, _ergo_, it is useful. You do not rely on its usefulness -to satisfy yourself of its being virtuous; but, on the contrary, you -rely on its virtuousness, previously ascertained, in order to satisfy -yourself of its usefulness. And thus the whole practical value of this -test disappears, though in that view it was first introduced; and a -vicious circle arises in the argument; as you must have ascertained -the virtuousness of an act, in order to apply the test of its being -virtuous. But, _secondly_, it now comes out that Paley was answering a -very different question from that which he supposed himself answering. -Not any practical question as to the motive or impelling force in -being virtuous, rather than vicious,--that is, to the _sanctions_ -of virtue,--but a purely speculative question, as to the essence of -virtue, or the common _vinculum_ amongst the several modes or species -of virtue (justice, temperance, &c.)--this was the real question -which he was answering. I have often remarked that the largest and -most subtle source of error in philosophic speculations has been the -confounding of the two great principles so much insisted on by the -Leibnitzians, viz., the _ratio cognoscendi_ and the _ratio essendi_. -Paley believed himself to be assigning--it was his full purpose to -assign--the _ratio cognoscendi_; but, instead of that, unconsciously -and surreptitiously, he has actually assigned the _ratio essendi_, and, -after all, a false and imaginary _ratio essendi_. - - - APPENDED NOTE - -As De Quincey's long and interesting Chapter on Oxford from 1803 to -1808 leaves the incidents of his own passage through the University -rather hazy, the following condensation of particulars on the subject -may not be unwelcome. They are partly from one of his own conversations -in 1821 with Richard Woodhouse (the notes of which conversations are -appended to Mr. Garnett's edition in 1885 of the _Confessions of -an English Opium-Eater_), partly from an article in the _Quarterly -Review_ for July 1861 containing information supplied by Dr. Cotton of -Worcester College, and partly from information collected by Mr. Page -for his _Life of De Quincey_:--Admitted into Worcester College on the -17th of December 1803, he did for the first two years of his residence -lead, as he tells us, a very solitary life, withdrawing himself from -wine-parties, and frequenting chiefly the society of a German named -Schwartzburg. Even then, however, he had the reputation with some in -the college of being, though of shy and quaint ways, a man of uncommon -genius and erudition; and, latterly, as this reputation spread in the -college, and some inevitable appearances of his in college declamations -and the like confirmed it, he became the object of more general -attention, and was urged to go up for honours in taking his degree. He -did attend the first examination for B.A. honours at Michaelmas in the -year 1808, with the result that Dr. Goodenough of Christ Church, who -was one of the examiners, is said to have told one of the Worcester -College dons, "You have sent us to-day the cleverest man I ever met -with; if his _vivâ voce_ examination to-morrow correspond with what he -has done in writing, he will carry everything before him." De Quincey's -own account to Mr. Woodhouse was that the examination was an oral one -and in Latin; which agrees more with the possibility of such a report -from Dr. Goodenough on the same day. De Quincey further adds that this -examination was on a Saturday, and that the remaining examination, -which was to follow on Monday, was to be in Greek. He had been looking -forward to this examination with much interest, his Greek readings -having been of wide range and in many directions out of the ordinary -academic track; and his interest had been increased by the regulation -that the answers to the questions were to be wholly or largely in the -Greek tongue itself. The fact that this rule had been altered at the -last moment had, however, disgusted him; and this, together with "his -contempt for his examiners" and the thought that the examination would -be of a kind that would leave his real resources untested, had such -an effect upon him that, "when the time came, he was _non inventus_." -Mr. Woodhouse's report from himself is that "on the Sunday morning -he left Oxford"; the Worcester College tradition, which is equally -precise as to the main fact that he "packed up his things and walked -away from Oxford," makes the flight occur in the night following the -first examination. Whatever other causes there may have been for the -break-down, the opium-eating habit must have been chiefly responsible. -That habit had been formed by De Quincey in 1804 in one of those -visits of his to London which, with visits to other places, are to be -understood as having varied the monotony of his Oxford residence. The -habit had grown upon him in his solitude in his college rooms; and part -of the college tradition respecting his break-down is that, having -taken a large dose of the drug to stimulate him sufficiently for the -first day's examination, he was wrecked by the reaction. He took no -University degree; and, though his name remained on the college books -to as late as 15th December 1810, his real connexion with Oxford ceased -in 1808.--D. M. - - - - - CHAPTER II - - GERMAN STUDIES AND KANT IN PARTICULAR[15] - - [15] From _Tait's Magazine_ for June 1836. See _ante_, Preface, - pp. 1, 2.--M. - - -Using a New Testament, of which (in the narrative parts at least) -any one word being given will suggest most of what is immediately -consecutive, you evade the most irksome of the penalties annexed to the -first breaking ground in a new language: you evade the necessity of -hunting up and down a dictionary. Your own memory, and the inevitable -suggestions of the context, furnish a dictionary _pro hac vice_. And -afterwards, upon advancing to other books, where you are obliged to -forgo such aids, and to swim without corks, you find yourself already -in possession of the particles for expressing addition, succession, -exception, inference--in short, of all the forms by which transition -or connexion is effected (_if_, _but_, _and_, _therefore_, _however_, -_notwithstanding_), together with all those adverbs for modifying -or restraining the extent of a subject or a predicate, which in all -languages alike compose the essential frame-work or _extra-linear_ -machinery of human thought. The filling-up--the _matter_ (in a -scholastic sense)--may differ infinitely; but the _form_, the -periphery, the determining moulds into which this matter is fused--all -this is the same for ever: and so wonderfully limited in its extent is -this frame-work, so narrow and rapidly revolving is the clock-work of -connexions among human thoughts, that a dozen pages of almost any book -suffice to exhaust all the [Greek: epea pteroenta][16] which express -them. To have mastered these [Greek: epea pteroenta] is in effect to -have mastered seven-tenths, at the least, of any language; and the -benefit of using a New Testament, or the familiar parts of an Old -Testament, in this preliminary drill, is, that your own memory is thus -made to operate as a perpetual dictionary or nomenclator. I have heard -Mr. Southey say that, by carrying in his pocket a Dutch, Swedish, or -other Testament, on occasion of a long journey performed in "_muggy_" -weather, and in the inside of some venerable "old heavy"--such as used -to bestow their tediousness upon our respectable fathers some thirty -or forty years ago--he had more than once turned to so valuable an -account the doziness or the dulness of his fellow-travellers, that, -whereas he had "booked" himself at the coach-office utterly [Greek: -analphabêtos], unacquainted with the first rudiments of the given -language, he had made his parting bows to his coach brethren (secretly -returning thanks to them for their stupidity) in a condition for -grappling with any common book in that dialect. One of the polyglot Old -or New Testaments published by Bagster would be a perfect Encyclopædia, -or _Panorganon_, for such a scheme of coach discipline, upon dull roads -and in dull company. As respects the German language in particular, I -shall give one caution from my own experience to the self-instructor: -it is a caution which applies to the German language exclusively, or -to that more than to any other, because the embarrassment which it -is meant to meet grows out of a defect of taste characteristic of -the German mind. It is this: elsewhere, you would naturally, as a -beginner, resort to _prose_ authors, since the license and audacity of -poetic thinking, and the large freedom of a poetic treatment, cannot -fail to superadd difficulties of individual creation to the general -difficulties of a strange dialect. But this rule, good for every -other case, is _not_ good for the literature of Germany. Difficulties -there certainly are, and perhaps in more than the usual proportion, -from the German peculiarities of poetic treatment; but even these are -overbalanced in the result by the single advantage of being limited -in the extent by the metre, or (as it may happen) by the particular -stanza. To German poetry there is a known, fixed, calculable limit. -Infinity, absolute infinity, is impracticable in any German metre. Not -so with German prose. Style, in any sense, is an inconceivable idea -to a German intellect. Take the word in the limited sense of what the -Greeks called [Greek: Synthesis onomatôn]--_i.e._, the construction -of sentences--I affirm that a German (unless it were here and there a -Lessing) cannot admit such an idea. Books there are in German, and, -in other respects, very good books too, which consist of one or two -enormous sentences. A German sentence describes an arch between the -rising and the setting sun. Take Kant for illustration: he has actually -been complimented by the cloud-spinner, Frederick Schlegel, who is now -in Hades, as a most original artist in the matter of style. "Original" -Heaven knows he was! His idea of a sentence was as follows:--We have -all seen, or read of, an old family coach, and the process of packing -it for a journey to London some seventy or eighty years ago. Night and -day, for a week at least, sate the housekeeper, the lady's maid, the -butler, the gentleman's gentlemen, &c., packing the huge ark in all -its recesses, its "imperials," its "wells," its "Salisbury boots," -its "sword-cases," its front pockets, side pockets, rear pockets, its -"hammer-cloth cellars" (which a lady explains to me as a corruption -from _hamper-cloth_, as originally a cloth for hiding a hamper, stored -with _viaticum_), until all the uses and needs of man, and of human -life, savage or civilized, were met with separate provision by the -infinite chaos. Pretty nearly upon the model of such an old family -coach packing did Kant institute and pursue the packing and stuffing of -one of his regular sentences. Everything that could ever be needed in -the way of explanation, illustration, restraint, inference, by-clause, -or indirect comment, was to be crammed, according to this German -philosopher's taste, into the front pockets, side pockets, or rear -pockets, of the one original sentence. Hence it is that a sentence will -last in reading whilst a man - - "Might reap an acre of his neighbour's corn." - -Nor is this any peculiarity of Kant's. It is common to the whole family -of prose-writers of Germany, unless when they happen to have studied -French models, who cultivate the opposite extreme. As a caution, -therefore, practically applied to this particular anomaly in German -prose-writing, I advise all beginners to choose between two classes -of composition--ballad poetry, or comedy--as their earliest school -of exercise: ballad poetry, because the form of the stanza (usually -a quatrain) prescribes a very narrow range to the sentences; comedy, -because the form of dialogue, and the imitation of daily life in its -ordinary tone of conversation, and the spirit of comedy, naturally -suggesting a brisk interchange of speech, all tend to short sentences. -These rules I soon drew from my own experience and observation. And -the one sole purpose towards which I either sought or wished for aid -respected the pronunciation; not so much for attaining a just one -(which I was satisfied could not be realized out of Germany, or, at -least, out of a daily intercourse with Germans) as for preventing -the formation, unawares, of a radically false one. The guttural and -palatine sounds of the _ch_, and some other German peculiarities, -cannot be acquired without constant practice. But the false Westphalian -or Jewish pronunciation of the vowels, diphthongs, &c., may easily -be forestalled, though the true delicacy of Meissen should happen to -be missed. Thus much guidance I purchased, with a very few guineas, -from my young Dresden tutor, who was most anxious for permission to -extend his assistance; but this I would not hear of: and, in the spirit -of fierce (perhaps foolish) independence, which governed most of my -actions at that time of life, I did all the rest for myself. - - "It was a banner broad unfurl'd, - The picture of that western world." - -These, or words like these, in which Wordsworth conveys the sudden -apocalypse, as by an apparition, to an ardent and sympathising -spirit, of the stupendous world of America, rising, at once, like an -exhalation, with all its shadowy forests, its endless savannas, and -its pomp of solitary waters--well and truly might I have applied to my -first launching upon that vast billowy ocean of the German literature. -As a past literature, as a literature of inheritance and tradition, the -German was nothing. Ancestral titles it had none; or none comparable to -those of England, Spain, or even Italy; and there, also, it resembled -America, as contrasted with the ancient world of Asia, Europe, and -North Africa.[17] But, if its inheritance were nothing, its prospects, -and the scale of its present development, were in the amplest style of -American grandeur. _Ten thousand_ new books, we are assured by Menzel, -an author of high reputation--a _literal myriad_--is considerably below -the number annually poured from all quarters of Germany into the vast -reservoir of Leipsic: spawn infinite, no doubt, of crazy dotage, of -dreaming imbecility, of wickedness, of frenzy, through every phasis of -Babylonian confusion; yet, also, teeming and heaving with life and the -instincts of truth--of truth hunting and chasing in the broad daylight, -or of truth groping in the chambers of darkness; sometimes seen as it -displays its cornucopia of tropical fruitage; sometimes heard dimly, -and in promise, working its way through diamond mines. Not the tropics, -not the ocean, not life itself, is such a type of variety, of infinite -forms, or of creative power, as the German literature in its recent -motions (say for the last twenty years), gathering, like the Danube, a -fresh volume of power at every stage of its advance. A banner it was, -indeed, to me of miraculous promise, and suddenly unfurled. It seemed, -in those days, an El Dorado as true and undeceiving as it was evidently -inexhaustible. And the central object in this interminable wilderness -of what then seemed imperishable bloom and verdure--the very tree of -knowledge in the midst of this Eden--was the new or transcendental -philosophy of Immanuel Kant. - - [16] 2 [Greek: Epea pteroenta] literally _winged words_. To - explain the use and origin of this phrase to non-classical - readers, it must be understood that, originally, it was used by - Homer to express the few, rapid, and significant words which - conveyed some hasty order, counsel, or notice, suited to any - sudden occasion or emergency: _e.g._ "To him flying from the field - the hero addressed these winged words--'Stop, coward, or I will - transfix thee with my spear.'" But by Horne Tooke the phrase was - adopted on the title-page of his _Diversions of Purley_, as a - pleasant symbolic expression for all the non-significant - particles, the _articuli_ or joints of language, which in his - well-known theory are resolved into abbreviations or compendious - forms (and therefore rapid, flying, _winged_ forms), substituted - for significant forms of greater length. Thus, _if_ is a - non-significant particle, but it is an abbreviated form of an - imperative in the second person--substituted for gif, or give, or - grant the case--put the case that. All other particles are shewn - by Horne Tooke to be equally short-hand (or _winged_) - substitutions. - - [17] It has been rather too much forgotten that Africa, from the - northern margin of Bilidulgerid and the Great Desert, - southwards--everywhere, in short, beyond Egypt, Cyrene, and the - modern Barbary States--belongs, as much as America, to the New - World, the world unknown to the ancients. - -I have described the gorgeousness of my expectations in those early -days of my prelusive acquaintance with German literature. I have a -little lingered in painting that glad aurora of my first pilgrimage to -the fountains of the Rhine and of the Danube, in order adequately to -shadow out the gloom and blight which soon afterwards settled upon the -hopes of that golden dawn. In Kant, I had been taught to believe, were -the keys of a new and a creative philosophy. Either "_ejus ductu_," or -"_ejus auspiciis_"--that is, either directly under his guidance, or -indirectly under any influence remotely derived from his principles--I -looked confidingly to see the great vistas and avenues of truth laid -open to the philosophic inquirer. Alas! all was a dream. Six weeks' -study was sufficient to close my hopes in that quarter for ever. The -philosophy of Kant--so famous, so commanding in Germany from about -the period of the French Revolution--already, in 1805, I had found to -be a philosophy of destruction, and scarcely in any one chapter so -much as _tending_ to a philosophy of reconstruction. It destroys by -wholesale, and it substitutes nothing. Perhaps, in the whole history of -man, it is an unexampled case that such a scheme of speculation--which -offers nothing seducing to human aspirations, nothing splendid to the -human imagination, nothing even positive and affirmative to the human -understanding--should have been able to found an interest so broad and -deep among thirty-five millions of cultivated men. The English reader -who supposes this interest to have been confined to academic bowers, -or the halls of philosophic societies, is most inadequately alive to -the case. Sects, heresies, schisms, by hundreds, have arisen out of -this philosophy; many thousands of books have been written by way of -teaching it, discussing it, extending it, opposing it. And yet it is a -fact that all its doctrines are negative--teaching, in no case, what -we _are_, but simply what we are _not_, to believe--and that all its -truths are barren. Such being its unpopular character, I cannot but -imagine that the German people have received it with so much ardour -from profound incomprehension of its meaning, and utter blindness to -its drift: a solution which may seem extravagant, but is not so; for, -even amongst those who have expressly commented on this philosophy, -not one of the many hundreds whom I have myself read but has retracted -from every attempt to explain its dark places. In these dark places -lies, indeed, the secret of its attraction. Were light poured into -them, it would be seen that they are _culs-de-sac_, passages that -lead to nothing; but, so long as they continue dark, it is not known -whither they lead, how far, in what direction, and whether, in fact, -they may not issue into paths connected directly with the positive -and the infinite. Were it known that upon every path a barrier faces -you insurmountable to human steps--like the barriers which fence in -the Abyssinian valley of Rasselas--the popularity of this philosophy -would expire at once; for no popular interest can long be sustained -by speculations which, in every aspect, are known to be essentially -negative and essentially finite. Man's nature has something of infinity -within itself, which requires a corresponding infinity in its objects. -We are told, indeed, by Mr. Bulwer, that the Kantian system has ceased -to be of any authority in Germany--that it is defunct, in fact--and -that we have first begun to import it into England after its root -had withered, or begun to wither, in its native soil. But Mr. Bulwer -is mistaken. The philosophy has never withered in Germany. It cannot -even be said that its fortunes have retrograded: they have oscillated: -accidents of taste and ability in particular professors, or caprices of -fashion, have given a momentary fluctuation to this or that new form -of Kantianism--an ascendency, for a period, to various, and, in some -respects, conflicting modifications of the transcendental system; but -all alike have derived their power mediately from Kant. No weapons, -even if employed as hostile weapons, are now forged in any armoury but -that of Kant; and, to repeat a Roman figure which I used above, all -the modern polemic tactics of what is called metaphysics are trained -and made to move either _ejus ductu_ or _ejus auspiciis_. Not one of -the new systems affects to call back the Leibnitzian philosophy, the -Cartesian, or any other of earlier or later date, as adequate to the -purposes of the intellect in this day, or as capable of yielding -even a sufficient terminology. Let this last fact decide the question -of Kant's vitality. _Qui bene distinguit bene docet._ This is an old -adage. Now, he who imposes new names upon all the acts, the functions, -and the objects of the philosophic understanding must be presumed -to have distinguished most sharply, and to have ascertained with -most precision, their general relations--_so long as his terminology -continues to be adopted_. This test, applied to Kant, will show that -his spirit yet survives in Germany. Frederick Schlegel, it is true, -twenty years ago, in his lectures upon Literature, assures us that -even the disciples of the great philosopher have agreed to abandon his -philosophic nomenclature. But the German philosophic literature, since -that date, tells another tale. Mr. Bulwer is, therefore, wrong; and, -without going to Germany, looking only to France, he will see cause to -revise his sentence. Cousin--the philosophic Cousin, the only great -name in philosophy for modern France--familiar as he is with North -Germany, can hardly be presumed unacquainted with a fact so striking, -if it _were_ a fact, as the extinction of a system once so triumphantly -supreme as that of Kant; and yet Mr. Bulwer, admiring Cousin as he -does, cannot but have noticed his efforts to naturalize Kant in France. -Meantime, if it were even true that transcendentalism had lost its -hold of the public mind in Germany, _prima facie_, this would prove -little more than the fickleness of that public which must have been -wrong in one of the two cases--either when adopting the system, or when -rejecting it. Whatever there may be of truth and value in the system -will remain unimpeached by such caprices, whether of an individual or -of a great nation; and England would still be in the right to import -the philosophy, however late in the day, if it were true even (which I -doubt greatly) that she _is_ importing it. - -Both truth and value there certainly _is_ in one part of the Kantian -philosophy; and that part is its foundation. I had intended, at this -point, to introduce an outline of the transcendental philosophy--not, -perhaps, as entering by logical claim of right into any biographical -sketch, but as a very allowable digression in the record of that man's -life to whom, in the way of hope and of profound disappointment, -it had been so memorable an object. For two or three years before I -mastered the language of Kant,[18] it had been a pole-star to my hopes, -and _in hypothesi_, agreeably to the uncertain plans of uncertain -knowledge, the luminous guide to my future life--as a life dedicated -and set apart to philosophy. Such it was some years _before_ I knew -it: for at least ten long years _after_ I came into a condition of -valuing its true pretensions and measuring its capacities, this same -philosophy shed the gloom of something like misanthropy upon my views -and estimates of human nature; for man was an abject animal if the -limitations which Kant assigned to the motions of his speculative -reason were as absolute and hopeless as, under _his_ scheme of the -understanding and _his_ genesis of its powers, too evidently they were. -I belonged to a reptile race, if the wings by which we had sometimes -_seemed_ to mount, and the buoyancy which had _seemed_ to support our -flight, were indeed the fantastic delusions which he represented them. -Such, and so deep and so abiding in its influence upon my life, having -been the influence of this German philosophy, according to all logic of -proportions, in selecting the objects of my notice, I might be excused -for setting before the reader, in its full array, the analysis of its -capital sections. However, in any memorial of a life which professes to -keep in view (though but as a secondary purpose) any regard to popular -taste, the logic of proportions must bend, after all, to the law of -the occasion--to the proprieties of time and place. For the present, -therefore, I shall restrict myself to the few sentences in which it -may be proper to gratify the curiosity of _some_ readers, the two or -three in a hundred, as to the peculiar distinctions of this philosophy. -Even to these two or three out of each hundred I shall not venture -to ascribe a larger curiosity than with respect to the most general -"whereabouts" of its position--from what point it starts, whence and -from what aspect it surveys the ground, and by what links from this -starting point it contrives to connect itself with the main objects of -philosophic inquiry. - - [18] I might have mastered the philosophy of Kant without waiting - for the German language, in which all his capital works are - written; for there is a Latin version of the whole by Born, and a - most admirable digest of the cardinal work (admirable for its - fidelity and the skill by which that fidelity is attained) in the - same language by Rhiseldek, a Danish professor. But this fact, - such was the slight knowledge of all things connected with Kant in - England, I did not learn for some years. - -Immanuel Kant was originally a dogmatist in the school of Leibnitz -and Wolf; that is, according to his trisection of all philosophy -into dogmatic, sceptical, and critical, he was, upon all questions -disposed to a strong _affirmative_ creed, without courting any -particular examination into the grounds of this creed, or into its -assailable points. From this slumber, as it is called by himself, he -was suddenly aroused by the Humian doctrine of cause and effect. This -celebrated essay on the nature of necessary connexion--so thoroughly -misapprehended at the date of its first publication to the world by -its _soi-disant_ opponents, Oswald, Beattie, &c., and so imperfectly -comprehended since then by various _soi-disant_ defenders--became in -effect the "occasional cause" (in the phrase of the logicians) of the -entire subsequent philosophic scheme of Kant; every section of which -arose upon the accidental opening made to analogical trains of thought -by this memorable effort of scepticism applied by Hume to one capital -phenomenon among the necessities of the human understanding. What is -the nature of Hume's scepticism as applied to this phenomenon? What is -the main thesis of his celebrated Essay on Cause and Effect? For few, -indeed, are they who really know anything about it. If a man really -understands it, a very few words will avail to explain the _nodus_. -Let us try. It is a necessity of the _human_ understanding (very -probably not a necessity of a higher order of intelligences) to connect -its experiences by means of the idea of _cause_ and its correlate, -_effect_: and, when Beattie, Oswald, Reid, &c., were exhausting -themselves in proofs of the indispensableness of this idea, they were -fighting with shadows; for no man had ever questioned the practical -necessity for such an idea to the coherency of human thinking. Not the -practical necessity, but the internal consistency of this notion, and -the original right to such a notion, was the point of inquisition. For, -attend, courteous reader, and three separate propositions will set -before your eyes the difficulty. _First Prop._, which, for the sake of -greater precision, permit me to throw into Latin:--_Non datur aliquid_ -[A] _quo posito ponitur aliud_ [B] _a priori_; that is, in other words, -You cannot lay your hands upon that one object or phenomenon [A] in the -whole circle of natural existences, which, being assumed, will entitle -you to assume _a priori_, any other object whatsoever [B] as succeeding -it. You could not, I say, of any object or phenomenon whatever, assume -this succession _a priori_--that is, _previously to experience_. -_Second Prop._ But, if the succession of B to A be made known to you, -not _a priori_ (by the involution of B in the idea of A), but by -experience, then you cannot ascribe _necessity_ to the succession: -the connection between them is not necessary but contingent. For the -very widest experience--an experience which should stretch over all -ages, from the beginning to the end of time--can never establish a -_nexus_ having the least approximation to necessity; no more than a -rope of sand could gain the cohesion of adamant by repeating its links -through a billion of successions. _Prop. Third._ Hence (_i.e._ from -the two preceding propositions), it appears that no instance or case -of _nexus_ that ever can have been offered to the notice of any human -understanding has in it, or by possibility could have had, anything -of necessity. Had the _nexus_ been necessary, you would have seen -it beforehand; whereas, by Prop. 1, _Non datur aliquid, quo posito -ponitur aliud a priori_. This being so, now comes the startling fact, -that the notion of a _cause_ includes the notion of necessity. For, -if A (the cause) be connected with B (the effect) only in a casual -or accidental way, you do not feel warranted in calling it a cause. -If heat, applied to ice (A) were sometimes followed by a tendency to -liquefaction (B) and sometimes not, you would not consider A connected -with B as a cause, but only as some variable accompaniment of the true -and unknown cause, which might allowably be present or be absent. -This, then, is the startling and mysterious phenomenon of the human -understanding--that, in a certain notion, which is indispensable to the -coherency of our whole experience, indispensable to the establishing -any _nexus_ between the different parts and successions of our whole -train of notions, we include an accessary notion of necessity, which -yet has no justification or warrant, no assignable derivation from -any known or possible case of human experience. We have one idea at -least--viz. the idea of causation--which transcends our possible -experience by one important element, the element of _necessity_, that -never can have been derived from the only source of ideas recognised -by the philosophy of this day. A Lockian never can find his way out of -this dilemma. The experience (whether it be the experience of sensation -or the experience of reflection) which he adopts for his master-key -never will unlock this case; for the sum total of human experience, -collected from all ages, can avail only to tell us what _is_, but never -what _must be_. The idea of necessity is absolutely transcendent to -experience, _per se_, and must be derived from some other source. From -what source? Could Hume tell us? No: he, who had started the game so -acutely (for, with every allowance for the detection made in Thomas -Aquinas of the original suggestion, as recorded in the _Biographia -Literaria_ of Coleridge, we must still allow great merit of a secondary -kind to Hume for his modern revival and restatement of the doctrine), -this same acute philosopher broke down confessedly in his attempt to -hunt the game down. His solution is worthless. - -Kant, however, having caught the original scent from Hume, was -more fortunate. He saw, at a glance, that here was a test applied -to the Lockian philosophy, which showed, at the very least, -its _insufficiency_. If it were good even for so much as it -explained--which Burke is disposed to receive as a sufficient warrant -for the favourable reception of a new hypothesis--at any rate, it now -appeared that there was something which it could _not_ explain. But, -next, Kant took a large step in advance _proprio marte_. Reflecting -upon the one idea adduced by Hume as transcending the ordinary source -of ideas, he began to ask himself whether it were likely that this idea -should stand alone? Were there not other ideas in the same predicament; -other ideas including the same element of necessity, and, therefore, -equally disowning the parentage assigned by Locke? Upon investigation, -he found that there were: he found that there were eleven others in -exactly the same circumstances. The entire twelve he denominated -categories; and the mode by which he ascertained their number--that -there were so many and no more--is of itself so remarkable as to -merit notice in the most superficial sketch. But, in fact, this one -explanation will put the reader in possession of Kant's system, so -far as he could understand it without an express and toilsome study. -With this explanation, therefore, of the famous categories, I shall -close my slight sketch of the system. Has the reader ever considered -the meaning of the term _Category_--a term so ancient and so venerable -from its connexion with the most domineering philosophy that has yet -appeared amongst men? The doctrine of the Categories (or, in its -Roman appellation, of the _Predicaments_) is one of the few wrecks -from the Peripatetic philosophy which still survives as a doctrine -taught by public authority in the most ancient academic institutions -of Europe.[19] It continues to form a section in the code of public -instruction; and perhaps under favour of a pure accident. For, though, -strictly speaking, a _metaphysical_ speculation, it has always been -prefixed as a sort of preface to the Organon (or _logical_ treatises) -of Aristotle, and has thus accidentally shared in the immortality -conceded to that most perfect of human works. Far enough were the -Categories from meriting such distinction. Kant was well aware of this: -he was aware that the Aristotelian Categories were a useless piece -of scholastic lumber: unsound in their first conception; and, though -illustrated through long centuries by the schoolmen, and by still -earlier Grecian philosophers, never in any one known instance turned -to a profitable account. Why, then, being aware that even in idea they -were false, besides being practically unsuitable, did Kant adopt or -borrow a name laden with this superfetation of reproach--all that is -false in theory superadded to all that is useless in practice? He did -so for a remarkable reason: he felt, according to his own explanation, -that Aristotle had been _groping_ (the German word expressive of his -blind procedure is _herumtappen_)--groping in the dark, but under a -semi-conscious instinct of truth. Here is a most remarkable case or -situation of the human intellect, happening alike to individuals -and to entire generations--in the situation of yearning or craving, -as it were, for a great idea as yet unknown, but dimly and uneasily -prefigured. - - [19] De Quincey was so fastidious in the matter of grammatical - correctness that he would have been shocked to find that he had - let this sentence go forth in print.--M. - -Sometimes the very brink, as it may be called, of such an idea is -approached; sometimes it is even imperfectly discovered; but with marks -in the very midst of its imperfections which serve as indications to a -person coming better armed for ascertaining the sub-conscious thought -which had governed their tentative motions. As it stands in Aristotle's -scheme, the idea of a category is a mere lifeless abstraction. -Rising through a succession of species to genera, and from these to -still higher genera, you arrive finally at a highest genus--a naked -abstraction, beyond which no farther regress is possible. This highest -genus, this _genus generalissimum_, is, in peripatetic language, a -category; and no purpose or use has ever been assigned to any one of -these categories, of which ten were enumerated at first, beyond that -of classification--_i.e._ a purpose of mere convenience. Even for as -trivial a purpose as this, it gave room for suspecting a failure, -when it was afterwards found that the original ten categories did -not exhaust the possibilities of the case; that other supplementary -categories (_post-proedicamenta_) became necessary. And, perhaps, -"more last words" might even yet be added, supplementary supplements, -and so forth, by a hair-splitting intellect. Failures as gross as -these, revisals still open to revision, and amendments calling for -amendments, were at once a broad confession that here there was no -falling in with any great law of nature. The paths of nature may -sometimes be arrived at in a tentative way; but they are broad and -determinate; and, when found, vindicate themselves. Still, in all this -erroneous subtilisation, and these abortive efforts, Kant perceived a -grasping at some real idea--fugitive indeed and coy, which had for the -present absolutely escaped; but he caught glimpses of it continually -in the rear; he felt its necessity to any account of the human -understanding that could be satisfactory to one who had meditated on -Locke's theory as probed and searched by Leibnitz. And in this uneasy -state--half sceptical, half creative, rejecting and substituting, -pulling down and building up--what was, in sum and finally, the course -which he took for bringing his trials and essays to a crisis? He -states this himself, somewhere in the Introduction to his _Critik der -reinen Vernunft_; and the passage is a memorable one. Fifteen years -at the least have passed since I read it; and, therefore, I cannot -pretend to produce the words; but the substance I shall give; and I -appeal to the candour of all his readers whether they have been able -to apprehend his meaning. I certainly did not for years. But, now -that I do, the passage places his procedure in a most striking and -edifying light. Astronomers, says Kant, had gone on for ages, assuming -that the earth was the central body of our system; and insuperable -were the difficulties which attended that assumption. At length, it -occurred to try what would result from inverting the assumption. Let -the earth, instead of offering a fixed centre for the revolving motions -of other heavenly bodies, be supposed itself to revolve about some -one of these, as the sun. That supposition was tried, and gradually -all the phenomena which, before, had been incoherent, anomalous, -or contradictory, began to express themselves as parts of a most -harmonious system. "Something," he goes on to say, "analogous to this -I have practised with regard to the subject of my inquiry--the human -understanding. All others had sought their central principle of the -intellectual phenomena out of the understanding, in something external -to the mind. I first turned my inquiries upon the mind itself. I first -applied my examination to the very analysis of the understanding." In -words not precisely these, but pretty nearly equivalent to them, does -Kant state, by contradistinction, the value and the nature of his own -procedure. He first, according to his own representation, thought of -applying his investigation to the mind itself. Here was a passage which -for years (I may say) continued to stagger and confound me. What! he, -Kant, in the latter end of the 18th century, about the year 1787--he -the first who had investigated the mind! This was not arrogance so -much as it was insanity. Had he said--I, first, upon just principles, -or with a fortunate result, investigated the human understanding, he -would have said no more than every fresh theorist is bound to suppose, -as his preliminary apology for claiming the attention of a busy world. -Indeed, if a writer, on any part of knowledge, does _not_ hold himself -superior to all his predecessors, we are entitled to say--Then, why do -you presume to trouble us? It may _look_ like modesty, but _is_, in -effect, downright effrontery, for you to think yourself no better than -other critics; you were at liberty to think so whilst no claimant of -public notice--as being so, it is most arrogant in you to be modest. -This would be the criticism applied justly to a man who, in Kant's -situation, as the author of a new system, should use a language of -unseasonable modesty or deprecation. To have spoken boldly of himself -was a duty; we could not tolerate his doing otherwise. But to speak of -himself in the exclusive terms I have described does certainly seem, -and for years did seem to myself, little short of insanity. Of this I -am sure,--that no student of Kant, having the passage before him, can -have known heretofore what consistent, what rational interpretation -to give it; and, in candour, he ought to own himself my debtor for -the light he will now receive. Yet, so easy is it to imagine, after a -meaning is once pointed out, and the station given from which it shows -itself _as_ the meaning--so easy, under these circumstances, is it -to imagine that one has, or that one could have, found it for one's -self--that I have little expectation of reaping much gratitude for -my explanation. I say this, not as of much importance one way or the -other in a single case of the kind, but because a general consideration -of this nature has sometimes operated to make me more indifferent or -careless as to the publication of commentaries on difficult systems -when I had found myself able to throw much light on the difficulties. -The very success with which I should have accomplished the task--the -perfect removal of the obstacles in the student's path--were the very -grounds of my assurance that the service would be little valued. For -I have found what it was occasionally, in conversation, to be too -luminous--to have explained, for instance, too clearly a dark place -in Ricardo. In such a case, I have known a man of the very greatest -powers mistake the intellectual effort he had put forth to apprehend my -elucidation, and to meet it half way, for his own unassisted conquest -over the difficulties; and, within an hour or two after, I have had, -perhaps, to stand, as an attack upon myself, arguments entirely and -recently furnished by myself. No case is more possible: even to -apprehend complex explanation, a man cannot be passive; he must exert -considerable energy of mind; and, in the fresh consciousness of this -energy, it is the most natural mistake in the world for him to feel -the argument which he has by considerable effort appropriated to be an -argument which he has originated. Kant is the most unhappy champion of -his own doctrines, the most infelicitous expounder of his own meaning, -that has ever existed. Neither has any other commentator succeeded in -throwing a moonlight radiance upon his philosophy. Yet certain I am -that, were I, or any man, to disperse all his darkness, exactly in -that proportion in which we did so--exactly in the proportion in which -we smoothed all hindrances--exactly in that proportion would it cease -to be known or felt that there had ever been any hindrances to be -smoothed. This, however, is digression, to which I have been tempted -by the interesting nature of the grievance. In a jesting way, this -grievance is obliquely noticed in the celebrated couplet-- - - "Had you seen but these roads before they were made, - You'd lift up your hands and bless Marshal Wade." - -The pleasant bull here committed conceals a most melancholy truth, -and one of large extent. Innumerable are the services to truth, to -justice, or society, which never _can_ be adequately valued by those -who reap their benefits, simply because the transition from the early -and bad state to the final or improved state cannot be retraced or kept -alive before the eyes. The record perishes. The last point gained is -seen; but the starting point, the point _from_ which it was gained, -is forgotten. And the traveller never _can_ know the true amount of -his obligations to Marshal Wade, because, though seeing the roads -which the Marshal has created, he can only guess at those which he -superseded. Now, returning to this impenetrable passage of Kant, I will -briefly inform the reader that he may read it into sense by connecting -it with a part of Kant's system from which it is in his own delivery -entirely dislocated. Going forwards some thirty or forty pages, he -will find Kant's development of his own categories. And, by placing -in juxtaposition with that development this blind sentence, he will -find a reciprocal light arising. All philosophers, worthy of that -name, have found it necessary to allow of some great cardinal ideas -that transcended all the Lockian origination--ideas that were larger -in their compass than any possible notices of sense or any reflex -notices of the understanding; and those who have denied such ideas -will be found invariably to have supported their denial by a _vitium -subreptionis_, and to have deduced their pretended genealogies of -such ideas by means of a _petitio principii_--silently and stealthily -putting _into_ some step of their _leger-de-main_ process everything -that they would pretend to have extracted _from_ it. But, previously -to Kant, it is certain that all philosophers had left the origin of -these higher or transcendent ideas unexplained. Whence came they? In -the systems to which Locke replies they had been called _innate_ or -_connate._ These were the Cartesian systems. Cudworth, again, who -maintained certain "_immutable ideas_" of morality, had said nothing -about their origin; and Plato had supposed them to be reminiscences -from some higher mode of existence. Kant first attempted to assign them -an origin within the mind itself, though not in any Lockian fashion of -reflection upon sensible impressions. And this is doubtless what he -means by saying that he first had investigated the mind--that is, he -first for such a purpose. - -Where, then, is it, in what act or function of the mind, that Kant -finds the matrix of these transcendent ideas? Simply in the logical -forms of the understanding. Every power exerts its agency under some -_laws_--that is, in the language of Kant, by certain _forms_. We -leap by certain laws--viz., of equilibrium, of muscular motion, of -gravitation. We dance by certain laws. So also we reason by certain -laws. These laws, or _formal_ principles, under a particular condition, -become the categories. - -Here, then, is a short derivation, in a very few words, of those -ideas transcending sense which all philosophy, the earliest, has been -unable to dispense with, and yet none could account for. Thus, for -example, every act of reasoning must, in the first place, express -itself in distinct propositions; that is, in such as contain a subject -(or that concerning which you affirm or deny something), a predicate -(that which you affirm or deny), and a copula, which connects them. -These propositions must have what is technically called, in logic, a -certain _quantity_, or compass (viz., must be universal, particular, -or singular); and again they must have what is called _quality_ (that -is, must be affirmative, or negative, or infinite): and thus arises a -ground for certain corresponding ideas, which are Kant's categories of -quantity and quality. - -But, to take an illustration more appropriately from the very idea -which first aroused Kant to the sense of a vast hiatus in the received -philosophies--the idea of _cause_, which had been thrown as an apple -of discord amongst the schools by Hume. How did Kant deduce this? -Simply thus: it is a doctrine of universal logic that there are three -varieties of syllogism--viz., 1st, Categoric, or directly declarative -[_A is B_]; 2d, Hypothetic, or conditionally declarative [_If C is D, -then A is B_]; 3d, Disjunctive, or declarative by means of a choice -which exhausts the possible cases [_A is either B, or C, or D; but not -C or D, ergo B_]. Now, the idea of _causation,_ or, in Kant's language, -the category of Cause and Effect, is deduced immediately, and most -naturally, as the reader will acknowledge on examination, from the 2d -or hypothetic form of syllogism, when the relation of dependency is -the same as in the idea of causation, and the _necessary_ connexion a -direct type of that which takes place between a cause and its effect. - -Thus, then, without going one step further, the reader will find -grounds enough for reflection, and for reverence towards Kant, -in these two great results: 1st, That an order of ideas has been -established which all deep philosophy has demanded, even when it -could not make good its claim. This postulate is fulfilled. 2dly, The -postulate is fulfilled without mysticism or Platonic reveries. Ideas, -however indispensable to human needs, and even to the connexion of -our thoughts, which came to us from nobody knew whence must for ever -have been suspicious; and, as in the memorable instance cited from -Hume, must have been liable for ever to a question of validity. But, -deduced as they now are from a matrix within our own minds, they cannot -reasonably fear any assaults of scepticism. - -Here I shall stop. A reader new to these inquiries may think all this -a trifle. But he who reflects a little will see that, even thus far, -and going no step beyond this point, the Kantian doctrine of the -Categories answers a standing question hanging aloft as a challenge -to human philosophy, fills up a _lacuna_ pointed out from the era of -Plato. It solves a problem which has startled and perplexed every age: -viz. this--that man is in possession, nay, in the hourly exercise, of -ideas larger than he can show any title to. And, in another way, the -reader may measure the extent of this doctrine, by reflecting that, -even so far as now stated, it is precisely coextensive with the famous -scheme of Locke. For what is the capital thesis of that scheme? Simply -this--that all necessity for supposing immediate impressions made -upon our understandings by God, or other supernatural, or antenatal, -or connatal, agencies, is idle and romantic; for that, upon examining -the furniture of our minds, nothing will be found there which cannot -adequately be explained out of our daily experience; and, until we find -something that cannot be solved by this explanation, it is childish -to go in quest of higher causes. Thus says Locke: and his whole work, -upon its first plan, is no more than a continual pleading of this -single thesis, pursuing it through all the plausible objections. -Being, therefore, as large in its extent as Locke, the reader must -not complain of the transcendental scheme as too narrow, even in that -limited section of it here brought under his notice. - -For the purpose of repelling it, he must do one of two things: either -he must shew that these categories or transcendent notions are not -susceptible of the derivation and genesis here assigned to them--that -is, from the forms of the _logos_ or formal understanding; or, if -content to abide by that derivation, he must allege that there are -other categories besides those enumerated, and unprovided with any -similar parentage. - -Thus much in reply to him who complains of the doctrine here stated -as, 1st, Too narrow, or, 2d, As insufficiently established. But, 3d, -in reply to him who wishes to see it further pursued or applied, I say -that the possible applications are perhaps infinite. With respect to -those made by Kant himself, they are chiefly contained in his main and -elementary work, the _Critik der reinen Vernunft_; and they are of a -nature to make any man melancholy. Indeed, let a man consider merely -this one notion of _causation_; let him reflect on its origin; let him -remember that, agreeably to this origin, it follows that we have no -right to view anything _in rerum naturâ_ as objectively, or in itself, -a cause; that, when, upon the fullest philosophic proof, we call A -the cause of B, we do in fact only subsume A under the notion of a -cause--we invest it with that function under that relation; that the -whole proceeding is merely with respect to a _human_ understanding, and -by way of indispensable _nexus_ to the several parts of our experience; -finally, that there is the greatest reason to doubt whether the idea -of _causation_ is at all applicable to any other world than this, or -any other than a human experience. Let a man meditate but a little on -this or other aspects of this transcendental philosophy, and he will -find the steadfast earth itself rocking as it were beneath his feet; -a world about him which is in some sense a world of deception; and a -world before him which seems to promise a world of confusion, or "_a -world not realised_." All this he might deduce for himself without -further aid from Kant. However, the particular purposes to which Kant -applies his philosophy, from the difficulties which beset them, are -unfitted for anything below a regular treatise. Suffice it to say here, -that, difficult as these speculations are from one or two embarrassing -doctrines on the Transcendental Consciousness, and depressing as they -are from their general tendency, they are yet painfully irritating to -the curiosity, and especially so from a sort of _experimentum crucis_ -which they yield in the progress of their development on behalf of the -entire doctrine of Kant--a test which, up to this hour, has offered -defiance to any hostile hand. The test or defiance which I speak -of takes the shape of certain _antinomies_ (so they are termed), -severe adamantine arguments, affirmative and negative, on two or -three celebrated problems, with no appeal to any possible decision, -but one which involves the Kantian doctrines. A _quæstio vexata_ is -proposed--for instance, the _infinite divisibility of matter_; each -side of this question, _thesis_ and _antithesis_, is argued; the logic -is irresistible, the links are perfect, and for each side alternately -there is a verdict, thus terminating in the most triumphant _reductio -ad absurdum_,--viz. that A, at one and the same time and in the same -sense, is and is not B,--from which no escape is available but through -a Kantian solution. On any other philosophy, it is demonstrated that -this opprobrium of the human understanding, this scandal of logic, -cannot be removed. This celebrated chapter of _antinomies_ has been of -great service to the mere polemics of the transcendental philosophy: -it is a glove or gage of defiance, constantly lying on the ground, -challenging the rights of victory and supremacy so long as it is _not_ -taken up by any antagonist, and bringing matters to a short decision -when it _is._ - -One section, and that the introductory section, of the transcendental -philosophy, I have purposely omitted, though in strictness not to be -insulated or dislocated from the faithful exposition even of that which -I have given. It is the doctrine of Space and Time. These profound -themes, so confounding to the human understanding, are treated by -Kant under two aspects--_1st_, as Anschauungen, or _Intuitions_--(so -the German word is usually translated for want of a better); _2dly_, -as forms, _a priori_, of all our other intuitions. Often have I -laughed internally at the characteristic exposure of Kant's style of -thinking--that he, a man of so much worldly sagacity, could think of -offering, and of the German scholastic habits, that any modern nation -could think of accepting such cabalistic phrases, such a true and very -"_Ignotium per Ignotius_," in part payment of an explanatory account -of Time and Space. Kant repeats these words--as a charm before which -all darkness flies; and he supposes continually the case of a man -denying his explanations or demanding proofs of them, never once the -sole imaginable case--viz., of all men demanding an explanation of -these explanations. Deny them! Combat them! How should a man deny, why -should he combat, what might, for anything to the contrary appearing, -contain a promissory note at two months after date for 100 guineas? No; -it will cost a little preliminary work before _such_ explanations will -much avail any scheme of philosophy, either for the _pro_ or the _con_. -And yet I do myself really profess to understand the dark words; and -a great service it would be to sound philosophy amongst us, if this -one word _anschauung_ were adequately unfolded and naturalized (as -naturalized it might be) in the English philosophic dictionary, by some -full Grecian equivalent. Strange that no man acquainted with German -philosophy should yet have been struck by the fact--or, being struck, -should not have felt it important to call public attention to the -fact,--of our inevitable feebleness in a branch of study for which as -yet we want the indispensable words. Our feebleness is at once argued -by this want, and partly caused. Meantime, as respects the Kantian way -of viewing space, by much the most important innovation which it makes -upon the old doctrines is--that it considers space as a _subjective_ -not an _objective_ aliquid; that is, as having its whole available -foundation lying ultimately in ourselves, not in any external or alien -tenure. This one distinction, as applied to space, for ever secures -(what nothing else _can_ secure or explain) the cogency of geometrical -evidence. Whatever is true for any determinations of a space originally -included in ourselves, must be true for such determinations for ever, -since they cannot become objects of consciousness to us but in and -by that very mode of conceiving space, that very form of schematism -which originally presented us with these determinations of space, or -any whatever. In the uniformity of our own space-conceiving faculty we -have a pledge of the absolute and _necessary_ uniformity (or internal -agreement among themselves) of all future or possible determinations of -space; because they could no otherwise become to us conceivable forms -of space than by adapting themselves to the known conditions of our -conceiving faculty. Here we have the _necessity_ which is indispensable -to all geometrical demonstration: it is a necessity founded in our -human organ, which cannot admit or conceive a space, unless as -preconforming to these original forms or schematisms. Whereas, on -the contrary, if space were something _objective_, and consequently, -being a separate existence, independent of a human organ, then it is -altogether impossible to find any intelligible source of _obligation_ -or cogency in the evidence--such as is indispensable to the very nature -of geometrical demonstration. Thus we will suppose that a regular -demonstration has gradually, from step to step downwards, through a -series of propositions--No. 8 resting upon 7, that upon 5, 5 upon 3--at -length reduced you to the elementary axiom that Two straight lines -cannot enclose a space. Now, if space be _subjective_ originally--that -is to say, founded (as respects us and our geometry) in ourselves--then -it is impossible that two such lines can enclose a space, because -the possibility of anything whatever relating to the determinations -of space is exactly co-extensive with (and exactly expressed by) our -power to conceive it. Being thus able to affirm its impossibility -universally, we can build a demonstration upon it. But, on the other -hypothesis, of space being _objective_, it is impossible to guess -whence we are to draw our proof of the alleged inaptitude in two -straight lines for enclosing a space. The most we could say is, that -hitherto no instance has been found of an enclosed space circumscribed -by two straight lines. It would not do to allege our human inability -to conceive, or in imagination to draw, such a circumscription. For, -besides that such a mode of argument is exactly the one supposed to -have been rejected, it is liable to this unanswerable objection, so -long as space is assumed to have an _objective_ existence, viz. that -the human inability to conceive such a possibility only argues (what -in fact is often found in other cases) that the _objective_ existence -of space--_i.e._ the existence of space in itself, and in its absolute -nature--is far larger than its subjective existence--_i.e._ than -its mode of existing _quoad_ some particular subject. A being more -limited than man might be so framed as to be unable to conceive curve -lines; but this subjective inaptitude for those determinations of -space would not affect the objective reality of curves, or even their -subjective reality for a higher intelligence. Thus, on the hypothesis -of an objective existence for space, we should be thrown upon an ocean -of possibilities, without a test for saying what was--what was not -possible. But, on the other hypothesis, having always in the last -resort what is _subjectively_ possible or impossible (_i.e._ what is -conceivable or not by us, what can or cannot be drawn or circumscribed -by a human imagination), we have the means of demonstration in our -power, by having the ultimate appeals in our power to a known uniform -test--viz. a known human faculty. - -This is no trifling matter, and therefore no trifling advantage on the -side of Kant and his philosophy, to all who are acquainted with the -disagreeable controversies of late years among French geometricians of -the first rank, and sometimes among British ones, on the question of -mathematical evidence. Legendre and Professor Leslie took part in one -such a dispute; and the temper in which it was managed was worthy of -admiration, as contrasted with the angry controversies of elder days, -if, indeed, it did not err in an opposite spirit, by too elaborate and -too calculating a tone of reciprocal flattery. But, think as we may -of the discussion in this respect, most assuredly it was painful to -witness so infirm a philosophy applied to an interest so mighty. The -whole aerial superstructure--the heaven-aspiring pyramid of geometrical -synthesis--all tottered under the palsying logic of evidence, to which -these celebrated mathematicians appealed. And wherefore?--From the want -of any philosophic account of space, to which they might have made -a common appeal, and which might have so far discharged its debt to -truth as at least to reconcile its theory with the great outstanding -phenomena in the most absolute of sciences. Geometry is the _science_ -of space: therefore, in any _philosophy_ of space, geometry is entitled -to be peculiarly considered, and used as a court of appeal. Geometry -has these two further claims to distinction--that, 1st, It is the most -perfect of the sciences, so far as it has gone; and, 2dly, That it -has gone the farthest. A philosophy of space which does not consider -and does not reconcile to its own doctrines the facts of geometry, -which, in the two points of beauty and of vast extent, is more like -a work of nature than of man, is, _prima facie_, of no value. A -philosophy of space _might_ be false which should harmonize with the -facts of geometry--it _must_ be false if it contradict them. Of Kant's -philosophy it is a capital praise that its very opening section--that -section which treats the question of space--not only quadrates with -the facts of geometry, but also, by the _subjective_ character which -it attributes to space, is the very first philosophic scheme which -explains and accounts for the cogency of geometrical evidence. - -These are the two primary merits of the transcendental theory--_1st_, -Its harmony with mathematics, and the fact of having first, by its -doctrine of space, applied philosophy to the nature of geometrical -evidence; _2dly_, That it has filled up, by means of its doctrine -of categories, the great _hiatus_ in all schemes of the human -understanding from Plato downwards. All the rest, with a reserve -as to the part which concerns the _practical_ reason (or will), is -of more questionable value, and leads to manifold disputes. But I -contend that, had transcendentalism done no other service than that -of laying a foundation, sought but not found for ages, to the human -understanding--namely, by showing an intelligible genesis to certain -large and indispensable ideas--it would have claimed the gratitude -of all profound inquirers. To a reader still disposed to undervalue -Kant's service in this respect, I put one parting question--Wherefore -he values Locke? What has _he_ done, even if value is allowed in full -to his pretensions? Has the reader asked himself _that_? He gave a -_negative_ solution at the most. He told his reader that certain -disputed ideas were _not_ deduced thus and thus. Kant, on the other -hand, has given him at the least a _positive_ solution. He teaches him, -in the profoundest revelation, by a discovery in the most absolute -sense on record, and the most entirely a single act--without parts, or -contributions, or stages, or preparations from other quarters--that -these long disputed ideas could not be derived from the experience -assigned by Locke, inasmuch as they are themselves _previous conditions -under which any experience at all is possible_: he teaches him that -these ideas are not mystically originated, but are, in fact, but -another phasis of the functions or forms of his own understanding; and, -finally, he gives consistency, validity, and a charter of authority, -to certain modes of _nexus_ without which the sum total of human -experience would be a rope of sand. - -In terminating this slight account of the Kantian philosophy, I may -mention that, in or about the year 1818-19, Lord Grenville, when -visiting the lakes of England, observed to Professor Wilson that, after -five years' study of this philosophy, he had not gathered from it one -clear idea. Wilberforce, about the same time, made the same confession -to another friend of my own. - -It is not usual for men to meet with their capital disappointments -in early life, at least not in youth. For, as to disappointments in -love, which are doubtless the most bitter and incapable of comfort, -though otherwise likely to arise in youth, they are in this way made -impossible at a very early age, that no man can be in love to the -whole extent of his capacity until he is in full possession of all -his faculties, and with the sense of dignified maturity. A perfect -love, such as is necessary to the anguish of a perfect disappointment, -presumes also for its object not a mere girl, but woman, mature -both in person and character, and womanly dignity. This sort of -disappointment, in a degree which could carry its impression through -life, I cannot therefore suppose occurring earlier than at twenty-five -or twenty-seven. My disappointment--the profound shock with which I -was repelled from German philosophy, and which thenceforwards tinged -with cynical disgust towards man in certain aspects a temper which -originally I will presume to consider the most benign that can ever -have been created--occurred when I was yet in my twentieth year. In a -poem under the title of _Saul_, written many years ago by Mr. Sotheby, -and perhaps now forgotten, having never been popular, there occurs a -passage of some pathos, in which Saul is described as keeping amongst -the splendid equipments of a royal wardrobe that particular pastoral -habit which he had worn in his days of earliest manhood, whilst yet -humble and undistinguished by honour, but also yet innocent and -happy. There, also, with the same care, he preserved his shepherd's -crook, which, in hands of youthful vigour, had been connected with -remembrances of heroic prowess. These memorials, in after times of -trouble or perplexity, when the burthen of royalty, its cares, or its -feverish temptations, pointed his thoughts backwards, for a moment's -relief, to scenes of pastoral gaiety and peace, the heart-wearied -prince would sometimes draw from their repository, and in solitude -would apostrophise them separately, or commune with the bitter-sweet -remembrances which they recalled. In something of the same spirit--but -with a hatred to the German philosopher such as men are represented as -feeling towards the gloomy enchanter, Zamiel or whomsoever, by whose -hateful seductions they have been placed within a circle of malign -influences--did I at times revert to Kant: though for me his power had -been of the very opposite kind; not an enchanter's, but the power of -a disenchanter--and a disenchanter the most profound. As often as I -looked into his works, I exclaimed in my heart, with the widowed queen -of Carthage, using her words in an altered application-- - - "Quæsivit lucem--_ingemuitque repertâ_." - -Had the transcendental philosophy corresponded to my expectations, -and had it left important openings for further pursuit, my purpose -then was to have retired, after a few years spent in Oxford, to the -woods of Lower Canada. I had even marked out the situation for a -cottage and a considerable library, about seventeen miles from Quebec. -I planned nothing so ambitious as a scheme of _Pantisocracy_. My -object was simply profound solitude, such as cannot now be had in any -part of Great Britain--with two accessary advantages, also peculiar -to countries situated in the circumstances and under the climate -of Canada: viz. the exalting presence in an under-consciousness of -forests endless and silent, the everlasting sense of living amongst -forms so ennobling and impressive, together with the pleasure attached -to natural agencies, such as frost, more powerfully manifested than -in English latitudes, and for a much longer period. I hope there is -nothing fanciful in all this. It is certain that in England, and in -all moderate climates, we are too slightly reminded of nature or the -forces of nature. Great heats, or great colds (and in Canada there are -both), or great hurricanes, as in the West Indian latitudes, recall us -continually to the sense of a powerful presence, investing our paths on -every side; whereas in England it is possible to forget that we live -amongst greater agencies than those of men and human institutions. Man, -in fact, "too much man," as Timon complained most reasonably in Athens, -was then, and is now, our greatest grievance in England. Man is a weed -everywhere too rank. A strange place must that be with us from which -the sight of a hundred men is not before us, or the sound of a thousand -about us. - -Nevertheless, being in this hotbed of man inevitably for some years, no -sooner had I dismissed my German philosophy than I relaxed a little -that spirit of German abstraction which it had prompted; and, though -never mixing freely with society, I began to look a little abroad. It -may interest the reader, more than anything else which I can record of -this period, to recall what I saw within the ten first years of the -century that was at all noticeable or worthy of remembrance amongst the -literati, the philosophers, or the poets of the time. For, though I am -now in my academic period from 1804 to 1808, my knowledge of literary -men--or men distinguished in some way or other, either by their -opinions, their accomplishments, or their position and the accidents -of their lives--began from the first year of the century, or, more -accurately, from the year 1800; which, with some difficulty and demurs, -and with some arguments from the Laureate Pye, the world was at length -persuaded to consider the last year of the eighteenth century.[20] - - [20] Those who look back to the newspapers of 1799 and 1800 will - see that considerable discussion went on at that time upon the - question whether the year 1800 was entitled to open the 19th - century or to close the 18th. Mr. Laureate Pye wrote a poem with a - long and argumentative preface on the point. - - [21] From _Tait's Magazine_ for February 1837, where the title was - "A Literary Novitiate."--M. - - - - - LITERARY & LAKE REMINISCENCES - - CHAPTER I - - A MANCHESTER SWEDENBORGIAN AND A LIVERPOOL LITERARY COTERIE[21] - - -It was in the year 1801, whilst yet at school, that I made my first -literary acquaintance. This was with a gentleman now dead, and little, -at any time, known in the literary world; indeed, not at all; for his -authorship was confined to a department of religious literature as -obscure and as narrow in its influence as any that can be named--viz. -Swedenborgianism. - -Already, on the bare mention of that word, a presumption arises -against any man, that, writing much (or writing at all) for a body of -doctrines so apparently crazy as those of Mr. Swedenborg, a man must -have bid adieu to all good sense and manliness of mind. Indeed, this -is so much of a settled case, that even to have written _against_ Mr. -Swedenborg would be generally viewed as a suspicious act, requiring -explanation, and not very easily admitting of it. _Mr._ Swedenborg I -call him, because I understand that his title to call himself "Baron" -is imaginary; or rather he never _did_ call himself by any title -of honour--that mistake having originated amongst his followers in -this country, who have chosen to designate him as the "Honourable" -and as the "Baron" Swedenborg, by way of translating, to the ear of -England, some one or other of those irrepresentable distinctions, -_Legations-Rath_, _Hofrath_, _&c._, which are tossed about with so -much profusion in the courts of continental Europe, on both sides the -Baltic. For myself, I cannot think myself qualified to speak of any -man's writings without a regular examination of some one or two among -those which his admirers regard as his best performances. Yet, as any -happened to fall in my way, I have looked into them; and the impression -left upon my mind was certainly not favourable to their author. They -laboured, to my feeling, with two opposite qualities of annoyance, but -which I believe not uncommonly found united in lunatics--excessive -dulness or matter-of-factness in the execution, with excessive -extravagance in the conceptions. The result, at least, was most -unhappy: for, of all writers, Swedenborg is the only one I ever heard -of who has contrived to strip even the shadowy world beyond the grave -of all its mystery and all its awe. From the very heaven of heavens, -he has rent away the veil; no need for seraphs to "tremble while they -gaze"; for the familiarity with which all objects are invested makes it -impossible that even poor mortals should find any reason to tremble. -Until I saw this book, I had not conceived it possible to carry an -atmosphere so earthy, and steaming with the vapours of earth, into -regions which, by early connexion in our infant thoughts with the -sanctities of death, have a hold upon the reverential affections such -as they rarely lose. In this view, I should conceive that Swedenborg, -if it were at all possible for him to become a popular author, would, -at the same time, become immensely mischievous. He would dereligionize -men beyond all other authors whatsoever. - -Little could this character of Swedenborg's writings--this, indeed, -least of all--have been suspected from the temper, mind, or manners -of my new friend. He was the most spiritual-looking, the most saintly -in outward aspect, of all human beings whom I have known throughout -life. He was rather tall, pale, and thin; the most unfleshly, the most -of a sublimated spirit dwelling already more than half in some purer -world, that a poet could have imagined. He was already aged when I -first knew him, a clergyman of the Church of England; which may seem -strange in connexion with his Swedenborgianism; but he was, however, -so. He was rector of a large parish in a large town, the more active -duties of which parish were discharged by his curate; but much of -the duties within the church were still discharged by himself, and -with such exemplary zeal that his parishioners, afterwards celebrating -the fiftieth anniversary, or _golden_ jubilee of his appointment to -the living (the twenty-fifth anniversary is called in German the -silver--the fiftieth, the golden jubilee), went farther than is -usual in giving a public expression and a permanent shape to their -sentiments of love and veneration. I am surprised, on reflection, -that this venerable clergyman should have been unvexed by Episcopal -censures. He might, and I dare say would, keep back the grosser parts -of Swedenborg's views from a public display; but, in one point, it -would not be easy for a man so conscientious to make a compromise -between his ecclesiastical duty and his private belief; for I have -since found, though I did not then know it, that Swedenborg held a very -peculiar creed on the article of atonement. From the slight pamphlet -which let me into this secret I could not accurately collect the exact -distinctions of his creed; but it was very different from that of the -English Church. - -However, my friend continued unvexed for a good deal more than fifty -years, enjoying that peace, external as well as internal, which, -by so eminent a title, belonged to a spirit so evangelically meek -and dovelike. I mention him chiefly for the sake of describing his -interesting house and household, so different from all which belong -to this troubled age, and his impressive style of living. The house -seemed almost monastic; and yet it stood in the centre of one of the -largest, busiest, noisiest towns in England; and the whole household -seemed to have stepped out of their places in some Vandyke, or even -some Titian, picture, from a forgotten century and another climate. On -knocking at the door, which of itself seemed an outrage to the spirit -of quietness which brooded over the place, you were received by an -ancient manservant in the sober livery which belonged traditionally -to Mr. ----'s[22] family; for he was of a gentleman's descent, and -had had the most finished education of a gentleman. This venerable old -butler put me in mind always, by his noiseless steps, of the Castle -of Indolence, where the porter or usher walked about in shoes that -were shod with felt, lest any rude echoes might be roused. An ancient -housekeeper was equally venerable, equally gentle in her deportment, -quiet in her movements, and inaudible in her tread. One or other of -these upper domestics,--for the others rarely crossed my path,--ushered -me always into some room expressing by its furniture, its pictures, -and its coloured windows, the solemn tranquillity which, for half a -century, had reigned in that mansion. Among the pictures were more -than one of St. John, the beloved apostle, by Italian masters. Neither -the features nor the expression were very wide of Mr. Clowes's own -countenance; and, had it been possible to forget the gross character -of Swedenborg's reveries, or to substitute for these fleshly dreams -the awful visions of the Apocalypse, one might have imagined easily -that the pure, saintly, and childlike evangelist had been once again -recalled to this earth, and that this most quiet of mansions was -some cell in the island of Patmos. Whence came the stained glass of -the windows I know not, and whether it were stained or painted. The -revolutions of that art are known from Horace Walpole's account; and, -nine years after this period, I found that, in Birmingham, where the -art of staining glass was chiefly practised, no trifling sum was -charged even for a vulgar lacing of no great breadth round a few -drawing-room windows, which one of my friends thought fit to introduce -as an embellishment. These windows, however, of my clerical friend were -really "_storied_ windows," having Scriptural histories represented -upon them. A crowning ornament to the library or principal room was a -sweet-toned organ, ancient, and elaborately carved in its wood-work, at -which my venerable friend readily sate down, and performed the music -of anthems as often as I asked him, sometimes accompanying it with -his voice, which was tremulous from old age, but neither originally -unmusical, nor (as might be perceived) untrained. - - [22] As De Quincey has divulged the name of this clergyman in his - Autobiography (see vol. i. pp. 136-138), there is no need for - concealing it here. He was the Rev. John Clowes, Rector of St. - John's Church, Manchester, and we shall substitute the full name - for the blank in the sequel.--M. - -Often, from the storms and uproars of this world, I have looked back -upon this most quiet and, I believe, most innocent abode (had I said -saintly I should hardly have erred), conneacting it in thought with -_Little Gidding_, the famous mansion (in Huntingdonshire, I believe) -of the Farrers, an interesting family in the reigns of James I. -and Charles I. Of the Farrers there is a long and circumstantial -biographical account, and of the conventual discipline maintained at -Little Gidding. For many years it was the rule at Gidding--and it was -the wish of the Farrers to have transmitted that practice through -succeeding centuries--that a musical or cathedral service should be -going on at every hour of night and day in the chapel of the mansion. -Let the traveller, at what hour he would, morning or evening, summer -or winter, and in what generation or century soever, happen to -knock at the gate of Little Gidding, it was the purpose of Nicholas -Farrer--a sublime purpose--that always he should hear the blare of -the organ, sending upwards its surging volumes of melody, God's -worship for ever proceeding, anthems of praise for ever ascending, -and _jubilates_ echoing without end or known beginning. One stream -of music, in fact, never intermitting, one vestal fire of devotional -praise and thanksgiving, was to connect the beginnings with the ends -of generations, and to link one century into another. Allowing for -the sterner asceticism of N. Farrer--partly arising out of the times, -partly out of personal character, and partly, perhaps, out of his -travels in Spain--my aged friend's arrangement of the day, and the -training of his household, might seem to have been modelled on the -plans of Mr. Farrer; whom, however, he might never have heard of. -There was also, in each house, the same union of religion with some -cultivation of the ornamental arts, or some expression of respect -for them. In each case, a monastic severity, that might, under other -circumstances, have terminated in the gloom of a La Trappe, had been -softened by English sociality, and by the habits of a gentleman's -education, into a devotional pomp, reconcilable with Protestant views. -When, however, remembering this last fact in Mr. Clowes's case (the -fact I mean of his liberal education), I have endeavoured to explain -the possibility of one so much adorned by all the accomplishments -of a high-bred gentleman, and one so truly pious, falling into the -grossness, almost the sensuality, which appears to besiege the visions -of Swedenborg, I fancy that the whole may be explained out of the same -cause which occasionally may be descried, through a distance of two -complete centuries, as weighing heavily upon the Farrers--viz. the dire -monotony of daily life, when visited by no irritations either of hope -or fear--no hopes from ambition, no fears from poverty. - -Nearly (if not quite) sixty years did my venerable friend inhabit -that same parsonage house, without any incident more personally -interesting to himself than a cold or a sore throat. And I suppose -that he resorted to Swedenborg--reluctantly, perhaps, at the first--as -to a book of fairy tales connected with his professional studies. And -one thing I am bound to add in candour, which may have had its weight -with him, that more than once, on casually turning over a volume of -Swedenborg, I have certainly found most curious and felicitous passages -of comment--passages which extracted a brilliant meaning from numbers, -circumstances, or trivial accidents, apparently without significance -or object, and gave to things, without a place or a habitation in the -critic's regard, a value as hieroglyphics or cryptical ciphers, which -struck me as elaborately ingenious. This acknowledgment I make not so -much in praise of Swedenborg, whom I must still continue to think a -madman, as in excuse for Mr. Clowes. It may easily be supposed that a -person of Mr. Clowes's consideration and authority was not regarded -with indifference by the general body of the Swedenborgians. At his -motion it was, I believe, that a society was formed for procuring and -encouraging a translation into English of Swedenborg's entire works, -most of which are written in Latin. Several of these translations are -understood to have been executed personally by Mr. Clowes; and in -this obscure way, for anything I know, he may have been an extensive -author. But it shows the upright character of the man that never, in -one instance, did he seek to bias my opinions in this direction. Upon -every other subject, he trusted me confidentially--and, notwithstanding -my boyish years (15-16), as his equal. His regard for me, when thrown -by accident in his way, had arisen upon his notice of my fervent -simplicity, and my unusual thoughtfulness. Upon these merits, I had -gained the honourable distinction of a general invitation to his -house, without exception as to days and hours, when few others could -boast of any admission at all. The common ground on which we met was -literature--more especially the Greek and Roman literature; and much -he exerted himself, in a spirit of the purest courtesy, to meet my -animation upon these themes. But the interest on his part was too -evidently a secondary interest in _me_, for whom he talked, and not in -the subject: he spoke much from memory, as it were of things that he -had once felt, and little from immediate sympathy with the author; and -his animation was artificial, though his courtesy, which prompted the -effort, was the truest and most unaffected possible. - -The connexion between us must have been interesting to an observer; -for, though I cannot say with Wordsworth, of old Daniel and his -grandson, that there were "ninety good years of fair and foul weather" -between us, there were, however, sixty, I imagine, at the least; -whilst as a bond of connexion there was nothing at all that I know -of beyond a common tendency to reverie, which is a bad link for a -_social_ connexion. The little ardour, meantime, with which he had, -for many years, participated in the interests of this world, or all -that it inherits, was now rapidly departing. Daily and consciously he -was loosening all ties which bound him to earlier recollections; and, -in particular, I remember--because the instance was connected with my -last farewell visit, as it proved--that for some time he was engaged -daily in renouncing with solemnity (though often enough in cheerful -words) book after book of classical literature in which he had once -taken particular delight. Several of these, after taking his final -glance at a few passages to which a pencil reference in the margin -pointed his eye, he delivered to me as memorials in time to come of -himself. The last of the books given to me under these circumstances -was a Greek "Odyssey," in Clarke's edition. "This," said he, "is nearly -the sole book remaining to me of my classical library--which, for some -years, I have been dispersing amongst my friends. Homer I retained to -the last, and the 'Odyssey,' by preference to the 'Iliad,' both in -compliance with my own taste, and because this very copy was my chosen -companion for evening amusement during my freshman's term at Trinity -College, Cambridge--whither I went early in the spring of 1743. Your -own favourite Grecian is Euripides; but still you must value--we must -all value--Homer. I, even as old as I am, could still read him with -delight; and, as long as any merely human composition ought to occupy -my time, I should have made an exception in behalf of this solitary -author. But I am a soldier of Christ; the enemy, the last enemy, cannot -be far off; _sarcinas colligere_ is, at my age, the watchword for every -faithful sentinel, hourly to keep watch and ward, to wait and to be -vigilant. This very day I have taken my farewell glance at Homer, for -I must no more be found seeking my pleasure amongst the works of man; -and, that I may not be tempted to break my resolution, I make over this -my last book to you." - -Words to this effect, uttered with his usual solemnity, accompanied his -gift; and, at the same time, he added, without any separate comment, -a little pocket Virgil--the one edited by Alexander Cunningham, the -bitter antagonist of Bentley--with a few annotations placed at the end. -The act was in itself a solemn one; something like taking the veil for -a nun--a final abjuration of the world's giddy agitations. And yet to -him--already and for so long a time linked so feebly to anything that -could be called the world, and living in a seclusion so profound--it -was but as if an anchorite should retire from his outer to his inner -cell. Me, however, it impressed powerfully in after years; because -this act of self-dedication to the next world, and of parting from -the intellectual luxuries of this, was also, in fact, though neither -of us at the time knew it to be such, the scene of his final parting -with myself. Immediately after his solemn speech, on presenting me -with the "Odyssey," he sat down to the organ, sang a hymn or two, then -chanted part of the liturgy, and, finally, at my request, performed the -anthem so well known in the English Church service--the collect for the -seventh Sunday after Trinity--(_Lord of all power and might, &c._) It -was summer--about half after nine in the evening; the light of day was -still lingering, and just strong enough to illuminate the Crucifixion, -the Stoning of the Protomartyr, and other grand emblazonries of the -Christian faith, which adorned the rich windows of his library. Knowing -the early hours of his household, I now received his usual fervent -adieus--which, without the words, had the sound and effect of a -benediction--felt the warm pressure of his hand, saw dimly the outline -of his venerable figure, more dimly his saintly countenance, and -quitted that gracious presence, which, in this world, I was destined -no more to revisit. The night was one in the first half of July 1802; -in the second half of which, or very early in August, I quitted school -clandestinely, and consequently the neighbourhood of Mr. Clowes. Some -years after, I saw his death announced in all the public journals, -as having occurred at Leamington Spa, then in the springtime of its -medicinal reputation. Farewell, early friend! holiest of men whom it -has been my lot to meet! Yes, I repeat, thirty-five years are past -since then, and I have yet seen few men approaching to this venerable -clergyman in paternal benignity--none certainly in child-like purity, -apostolic holiness, or in perfect alienation of heart from the spirit -of this fleshly world. - -I have delineated the habits and character of Mr. Clowes at some -length, chiefly because a connexion is rare and interesting between -parties so widely asunder in point of age--one a schoolboy, and the -other almost an octogenarian, to quote a stanza from one of the most -spiritual sketches of Wordsworth-- - - "We talked with open heart and tongue, - Affectionate and free-- - A pair of friends, though I was young, - And Matthew seventy-three." - -I have stated a second reason for this record, in the fact that Mr. -Clowes was the first of my friends who had any connexion with the -press. At one time I have reason to believe that this connexion was -pretty extensive, though not publicly avowed, and so far from being -lucrative that at first I believe it to have been expensive to him, -and whatever profits might afterwards arise were applied, as much -of his regular income, to the benefit of others.[23] Here, again, -it seems surprising that a spirit so beneficent and, in the amplest -sense, charitable, could coalesce in any views with Swedenborg, who, -in some senses, was not charitable. Swedenborg had been scandalized -by a notion which, it seems, he found prevalent amongst the poor -of the Continent--viz., that, if riches were a drag and a negative -force on the road to religious perfection, poverty must be positive -title _per se_ to the favour of Heaven. Grievously offended with this -error, he came almost to hate poverty as a presumptive indication of -this offensive heresy; scarcely would he allow it an indirect value, -as removing in many cases the occasions or incitements of evil. No: -being in itself neutral and indifferent, he argued that it had become -erroneously a ground of presumptuous hope; whilst the rich man, aware -of his danger, was, in some degree, armed against it by fear and -humility. And, in this course of arguing and of corresponding feeling, -Mr. Swedenborg had come to hate the very name of a poor candidate for -Heaven, as bitterly as a sharking attorney hates the applications of a -pauper client. Yet so entirely is it true that "to the pure, all things -are pure," and that perfect charity "thinketh no ill," but is gifted -with a power to transmute all things into its own resemblance--so -entirely is all this true, that this most spiritual, and, as it were, -disembodied of men, could find delight in the dreams of the very -"fleshliest incubus" that has intruded amongst heavenly objects; -and, secondly, this benignest of men found his own pure feelings not -outraged by one who threw a withering scowl over the far larger half of -his fellow-creatures. - - [23] In a recent [1889] catalogue of a Manchester book-sale I find - this entry:--"Clowes (John, of Manchester, the Church of England - Swedenborgian). Sermons, Translations, etc., with a Life of him by - Theo. Crompton, principally published in Manchester from 1799 to - 1850. 17 vols."--M. - - * * * * * - -Concurrently with this acquaintance, so impressive and so elevating -to me, from the unusual sanctity of Mr. Clowes's character, I formed -another with a well-known coterie, more avowedly, and in a more -general sense, literary, resident at Liverpool or its neighbourhood. -In my sixteenth year [1801] I had accompanied my mother and family -on a summer's excursion to Everton, a well-known village upon the -heights immediately above Liverpool; though by this time I believe -it has thrown out so many fibres of connexion as to have become a -mere quarter or suburban "process" (to speak by anatomical phrase) -of the great town below it. In those days, however, distant by one -third of a century from ours, Everton was still a distinct village -(for a mile of ascent is worth three of level ground in the way of -effectual separation); it was delightfully refreshed by marine breezes, -though raised above the sea so far that its thunders could be heard -only under favourable circumstances. There we had a cottage for some -months; and the nearest of our neighbours happened to be that Mr. -Clarke, the banker, to whom acknowledgments are made in the _Lorenzo -the Magnificent_, for aid in procuring MSS. and information from Italy. -This gentleman called on my mother, merely in the general view of -offering neighbourly attentions to a family of strangers. I, as the -eldest of my brothers, and already with strong literary propensities, -had received a general invitation to his house. Thither I went, indeed, -early and late; and there I met Mr. Roscoe, Dr. Currie (who had just at -that time published his Life and Edition of Burns), and Mr. Shepherd of -Gatacre, the author of some works on Italian literature (particularly -a Life of _Poggio Bracciolini_), and, since then, well known to all -England by his Reform politics. - -There were other members of this society--some, like myself, visitors -merely to that neighbourhood; but those I have mentioned were the -chief. Here I had an early opportunity of observing the natural -character and tendencies of merely literary society--by which society -I mean all such as, having no strong distinctions in power of thinking -or in native force of character, are yet raised into circles of -pretension and mark by the fact of having written a book, or of -holding a notorious connexion with some department or other of the -periodical press. No society is so vapid and uninteresting in its -natural quality, none so cheerless and petrific in its influence upon -others. Ordinary people, in such company, are in general repressed from -uttering with cordiality the natural expression of their own minds or -temperaments, under a vague feeling of some peculiar homage due, or -at least customarily paid, to those lions: such people are no longer -at their ease, or masters of their own natural motions in their own -natural freedom; whilst indemnification of any sort is least of all to -be looked for from the literary dons who have diffused this unpleasant -atmosphere of constraint. They disable others, and yet do nothing -themselves to fill up the void they have created. One and all--unless -by accident people of unusual originality, power, and also nerve, so -as to be able without trepidation to face the expectations of men--the -literary class labour under two opposite disqualifications for a good -tone of conversation. From causes visibly explained, they are either -spoiled by the vices of reserve, and of over-consciousness directed -upon themselves--this is one extreme; or, where manliness of mind has -prevented this, beyond others of equal or inferior natural power, they -are apt to be desperately commonplace. The first defect is an accident -arising out of the rarity of literary pretensions, and would rapidly -subside as the proportion became larger of practising literati to the -mass of educated people. But the other is an adjunct scarcely separable -from the ordinary prosecution of a literary career, and growing in fact -out of literature _per se_, as literature is generally understood. -That same day, says Homer, which makes a man a slave robs him of -half his value. That same hour which first awakens a child to the -consciousness of being observed, and to the sense of admiration, strips -it of its freedom and unpremeditated graces of motion. Awkwardness at -the least--and too probably, as a consequence of _that_, affectation -and conceit--follow hard upon the consciousness of special notice or -admiration. The very attempt to disguise embarrassment too often issues -in a secondary and more marked embarrassment. - -Another mode of reserve arises with some literary men, who believe -themselves to be in possession of novel ideas. Cordiality of -communication, or ardour of dispute, might betray them into a -revelation of those golden thoughts, sometimes into a necessity of -revealing them, since, without such aid, it might be impossible -to maintain theirs in the discussion. On this principle it was--a -principle of deliberate unsocial reserve--that Adam Smith is said to -have governed his conversation; he professed to put a bridle on his -words, lest by accident a pearl should drop out of his lips amongst the -vigilant bystanders. And in no case would he have allowed himself to -be engaged in a disputation, because both the passions of dispute and -the necessities of dispute are alike apt to throw men off their guard. -A most unamiable reason it certainly is, which places a man in one -constant attitude of self-protection against petty larceny. And yet, -humiliating as that may be to human nature, the furtive propensities -or instincts of petty larceny are diffused most extensively through -all ranks--directed, too, upon a sort of property far more tangible -and more ignoble, as respects the possible motives of the purloiner, -than any property in subjects purely intellectual. Rather more than ten -years ago, a literary man of the name of Alton published, some little -time before his own death, a very searching essay upon this chapter -of human integrity--arraying a large list of common cases (cases of -hats, gloves, umbrellas, books, newspapers, &c.) where the claim -of ownership, left to itself and unsupported by accidents of shame -and exposure, appeared to be weak indeed amongst classes of society -prescriptively "respectable." And yet, for a double reason, literary -larceny is even more to be feared; both because it is countenanced by -a less ignoble quality of temptation, and because it is far more easy -of achievement--so easy, indeed, that it may be practised without any -clear accompanying consciousness. - -I have myself witnessed or been a party to a case of the following -kind:--A new truth--suppose for example, a new doctrine or a new -theory--was communicated to a very able man in the course of -conversation, not _didactically_, or directly _as_ a new truth, -but _polemically_,--communicated as an argument in the current of -a dispute. What followed? Necessarily it followed that a very able -man would not be purely _passive_ in receiving this new truth; that -he would _co-operate_ with the communicator in many ways--as by -raising objections, by half dissipating his own objections, and in a -variety of other co-agencies. In such cases, a very clever man does -in effect half-generate the new idea for himself, but then he does -this entirely under your leading; you stand ready at each point of -possible deviation, to warn him away from the wrong turn--from the turn -which leads nowhither or the turn which leads astray. Yet the final -result has been that the _catechumen_, under the full consciousness -of _self_-exertion, has so far confounded his just and true belief of -having contributed to the evolution of the doctrine, _quoad_ his own -apprehension of it, with the far different case of having evolved the -truth itself into light, as to go off with the firm impression that the -doctrine had been a product of his own.[24] There is therefore ground -enough for the jealousy of Adam Smith, since a robbery may be committed -unconsciously; though, by the way, it is not a peril peculiarly -applicable to himself, who has not so much succeeded in discovering new -truths as in establishing a logical connexion amongst old ones. - - [24] For a similar passage, see _ante_, pp. 96, 97.--M. - -On the other hand, it is not by reserve, whether of affectation or of -Smithian jealousy, that the majority of literary people offend--at -least not by the latter; for, so far from having much novelty to -protect against pirates, the most general effect of literary pursuits -is to tame down all points of originality to one standard of insipid -monotony. I shall not go into the reasons for this. I make my appeal -to the matter of fact. Try a Parisian populace, very many of whom are -highly cultivated by reading, against a body of illiterate rustics. Mr. -Scott of Aberdeen,[25] in his "Second Tour to Paris" (1815), tells us -that, on looking over the shoulder of poor stall women selling trifles -in the street, he usually found them reading Voltaire, Rousseau, -or even (as I think he adds) Montesquieu; but, notwithstanding the -polish which such reading both presumes as a previous condition and -produces as a natural effect, yet no people could be more lifeless in -their minds, or more barren of observing faculties, than they; and -so he describes them. Words! words! nothing but words! On the other -hand, listen to the conversation of a few scandalous village dames -collected at a tea-table. Vulgar as the spirit may be which possesses -them, and not seldom malicious, still how full of animation and of -keen perception it will generally be found, and of a learned spirit -of connoisseurship in human character, by comparison with the _fade_ -generalities and barren recollections of mere literati! - - [25] He was first editor of the _London Magazine_, and was killed - in an unfortunate duel in February 1821.--M. - -All this was partially illustrated in the circle to which I was now -presented. Mr. Clarke was not an author, and he was by much the most -interesting person of the whole. He had travelled, and, particularly, -he had travelled in Italy--then an aristocratic distinction; had a -small, but interesting, picture gallery; and, at this time, amused -himself by studying Greek, for which purpose he and myself met at -sunrise every morning through the summer, and read Æschylus together. -These meetings, at which we sometimes had the company of any stranger -who might happen to be an amateur in Greek, were pleasant enough to -my schoolboy vanity--placing me in the position of teacher and guide -to men old enough to be my grandfathers. But the dinner parties, at -which the literati sometimes assembled in force, were far from being -equally amusing. Mr. Roscoe[26] was simple and manly in his demeanour; -but there was the feebleness of a mere _belle-lettrist_, a mere man of -_virtù_, in the style of his sentiments on most subjects. Yet he was -a politician, and took an ardent interest in politics, and wrote upon -politics--all which are facts usually presuming some vigour of mind. -And he wrote, moreover, on the popular side, and with a boldness which, -in that day, when such politics were absolutely disreputable, seemed -undeniably to argue great moral courage. But these were accidents -arising out of his connexion with the Whig party, or (to speak more -accurately) with the _Opposition_ party in Parliament; by whom he was -greatly caressed. Mr. Fox, the Duchess of Devonshire, Mr. Sheridan, -and all the _powers_ on that side of the question, showed him the -most marked attention in a great variety of forms; and this it was, -not any native propensity for such speculations, which drove him into -pamphleteering upon political questions. Mr. Fox (himself the very -feeblest of party writers) was probably sincere in his admiration of -Mr. Roscoe's pamphlets; and did seriously think him, as I know that he -described him in private letters, an antagonist well matched against -Burke; and _that_ he afterwards became in form. The rest of the world -wondered at his presumption, or at his gross miscalculation of his -own peculiar powers. An eminent person, in after years (about 1815), -speaking to me of Mr. Roscoe's political writings, especially those -which had connected his name with Burke, declared that he always felt -of him in that relation not so much as of a feeble man, but absolutely -as of a _Sporus_ (that was his very expression), or a man emasculated. -Right or wrong in his views, he showed the most painful defect of good -sense and prudence in confronting his own understanding, so plain and -homely, with the Machiavelian Briareus of a hundred arms--the Titan -whom he found in Burke; all the advantages of a living antagonist over -a dead one could not compensate odds so fearful in original power. - - [26] William Roscoe (1753-1831), author of _Life of Lorenzo de' - Medici_, _Life and Pontificate of Leo X_, and other works, was a - native of Liverpool, and spent the main part of his life as a - banker in that town.--M. - -It was a striking illustration of the impotence of mere literature -against natural power and mother wit that the only man who was -considered indispensable in these parties, for giving life and impulse -to their vivacity, was a tailor; and not, I was often assured, a -person deriving a designation from the craft of those whose labours -he supported as a capitalist, but one who drew his own honest daily -bread from his own honest needle, except when he laid it aside for the -benefit of drooping literati, who needed to be watered with his wit. -Wit, perhaps, in a proper sense, he had not--it was rather drollery, -and sometimes even buffoonery. - -These, in the lamentable absence of the tailor, could be furnished of -an inferior quality by Mr. Shepherd,[27] who (as may be imagined from -this fact) had but little dignity in private life. I know not how far -he might alter in these respects; but certainly, at the time (1801-2), -he was decidedly, or could be, a buffoon, and seemed even ambitious -of the title, by courting notice for his grotesque manner and coarse -stories, more than was altogether compatible with the pretensions -of a scholar and a clergyman. I must have leave to think that such -a man could not have emerged from any great University, or from any -but a sectarian training. Indeed, about Poggio himself there were -circumstances which would have indisposed any regular clergyman of -the Church of England, or of the Scottish Kirk, to usher him into the -literature of his country. With what coarseness and low buffoonery -have I heard this Mr. Shepherd in those days run down the bishops then -upon the bench, but especially those of any public pretensions or -reputation, as Horsley and Porteus, and, in connexion with them, the -pious Mrs. Hannah More! Her he could not endure. - - [27] The Rev. William Shepherd, author of a _Life of Poggio - Bracciolini_ (Liverpool, 1802) and _Paris in 1802 and 1814_ - (London, 1814), and joint author of a work in two volumes called - _Systematic Education, or Elementary Instruction in the various - Departments of Literature and Science_ (London, 1815).--M. - -Of this gentleman, having said something disparaging, I am bound to go -on and add, that I believe him to have been at least a truly upright -man--talking often wildly, but incapable of doing a conscious wrong to -any man, be his party what it might; and, in the midst of fun or even -buffoonery, a real, and, upon occasion, a stern patriot, Mr. Canning -and others he opposed to the teeth upon the Liverpool hustings, and -would take no bribe, as others did, from literary feelings of sympathy, -or (which is so hard for an amiable mind to resist) from personal -applications of courtesy and respect. Amusing it is to look back upon -any political work of Mr. Shepherd's, as upon his "Tour to France," -published in 1815, and to know that the pale pink of his Radicalism was -then accounted deep, deep scarlet. - -Nothing can better serve to expound the general force of intellect -amongst the Liverpool coterie than the quality of their poetry, and the -general standard which they set up in poetry. Not that even in their -errors, as regarded poetry, they were of a magnitude to establish any -standard or authority in their own persons. Imitable or seducing there -could be nothing in persons who wrote verses occasionally, and as a -[Greek: parergon] or by-labour, and were themselves the most timid of -imitators. But to me, who, in that year, 1801, already knew of a grand -renovation of poetic power--of a new birth in poetry, interesting -not so much to England as to the human mind--it was secretly amusing -to contrast the little artificial usages of their petty traditional -knack with the natural forms of a divine art--the difference being -pretty much as between an American lake, Ontario, or Superior, and -a carp pond or a tench preserve. Mr. Roscoe had just about this -time published a translation from the _Balia_ of Luigi Tansillo--a -series of dullish lines, with the moral purpose of persuading young -women to suckle their own children. The brilliant young Duchess of -Devonshire, some half century ago, had, for a frolic--a great lady's -caprice--set a precedent in this way; against which, however, in that -rank, medical men know that there is a good deal to be said; and in -ranks more extensive than those of the Duchess it must be something of -an Irish bull to suppose any _general_ neglect of this duty, since, -upon so large a scale, whence could come the vicarious nurses? There -is, therefore, no great sense in the fundamental idea of the poem, -because the abuse denounced cannot be large enough; but the prefatory -sonnet, addressed to the translator's wife, as one at whose maternal -breast "six sons successive" had hung in infancy--this is about the -one sole bold, natural thought, or natural expression of feeling, to -which Mr. Roscoe had committed himself in verse. Everywhere else, -the most timid and blind servility to the narrowest of conventional -usages, conventional ways of viewing things, conventional forms of -expression, marks the style. For example, Italy is always _Italia_, -Scotland _Scotia_, France _Gallia_; so inveterately had the mind, in -this school of feeling, been trained, alike in the highest things and -in the lowest, to a horror of throwing itself boldly upon the great -_realities_ of life: even names must be fictions for _their_ taste. Yet -what comparison between "_France_, an Ode," and "_Gallia_, an Ode"? - -Dr. Currie was so much occupied with his professional duties that of -him I saw but little. His edition of Burns was just then published (I -think in that very month), and in everybody's hands. At that time, -he was considered not unjust to the memory of the man, and (however -constitutionally phlegmatic, or with little enthusiasm, at least in -external show) not much below the mark in his appreciation of the -poet.[28] - - [28] Dr. James Currie, born 1756, a native of Dumfriesshire, - settled in Liverpool, in medical practice, in 1781. His edition of - Burns, with memoir and criticism, published in 1800, was for the - benefit of the widow and children of the poet, and realised £1400. - Currie died in 1805.--M. - -So stood matters some twelve or fourteen years; after which period a -"craze" arose on the subject of Burns, which allowed no voice to be -heard but that of zealotry and violent partisanship. The first impulse -to this arose out of an oblique collision between Lord Jeffrey and -Mr. Wordsworth; the former having written a disparaging critique -upon Burns's pretensions--a little, perhaps, too much coloured by -the fastidiousness of long practice in the world, but, in the main, -speaking some plain truths on the quality of Burns's understanding, as -expressed in his epistolary compositions. Upon which, in his celebrated -letter to Mr. James Gray, the friend of Burns, himself a poet, and then -a master in the High School of Edinburgh, Mr. Wordsworth commented -with severity, proportioned rather to his personal resentments towards -Lord Jeffrey than to the quantity of wrong inflicted upon Burns. -Mr. Wordsworth's letter, in so far as it was a record of embittered -feeling, might have perished; but, as it happened to embody some -profound criticisms, applied to the art of biography, and especially -to the delicate task of following a man of original genius through his -personal infirmities or his constitutional aberrations--this fact, -and its relation to Burns and the author's name, have all combined to -embalm it.[29] Its momentary effect, in conjunction with Lord Jeffrey's -article, was to revive the interest (which for some time had languished -under the oppression of Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron) in all that -related to Burns. Fresh Lives appeared in a continued succession, -until, upon the death of Lord Byron in 1824, Mr. Allan Cunningham, who -had personally known Burns, so far as a boy _could_ know a mature man, -gave a new impulse to the interest, by an impressive paper in which -he contrasted the circumstances of Burns's death with those of Lord -Byron's, and also the two funerals--both of which, one altogether, -and the other in part, Mr. Cunningham had personally witnessed. A -man of genius, like Mr. Cunningham, throws a new quality of interest -upon all which he touches; and, having since brought fresh research -and the illustrative power of the arts to bear upon the subject, and -all this having gone on concurrently with the great modern revolution -in literature--that is, the great extension of a _popular_ interest, -through the astonishing reductions of price--the result is, that Burns -has, at length, become a national, and, therefore, in a certain sense, -a privileged subject; which, in a perfect sense, he was _not_, until -the controversial management of his reputation had irritated the public -attention. Dr. Currie did not address the same alert condition of the -public feeling, nor, by many hundred degrees, so _diffused_ a condition -of any feeling which might imperfectly exist, as a man must consciously -address in these days, whether as the biographer or the critic of -Burns. The lower-toned enthusiasm of the public was not of a quality to -irritate any little enthusiasm which the worthy Doctor might have felt. -The public of that day felt with regard to Burns exactly as with regard -to Bloomfield--not that the quality of his poems was then the staple of -the interest, but the extraordinary fact that a ploughman or a lady's -shoemaker should have written any poems at all. The sole difference in -the two cases, as regarded by the public of that day, was that Burns's -case was terminated by a premature, and, for the public, a very sudden -death: this gave a personal interest to his case which was wanting in -the other; and a direct result of this was that his executors were able -to lay before the world a series of his letters recording his opinions -upon a considerable variety of authors, and his feelings under many -ordinary occasions of life. - - [29] Wordsworth's publication was in 1816, under the title _A - Letter to a Friend of Robert Burns, occasioned by an intended - Republication of the Account of the Life of Burns by Dr. Currie_. - _By William Wordsworth._--M. - -Dr. Currie, therefore, if phlegmatic, as he certainly was, must be -looked upon as upon a level with the public of his own day--a public -how different, different by how many centuries, from the world of -this present 1837! One thing I remember which powerfully illustrates -the difference. Burns, as we all know, with his peculiarly wild -and almost ferocious spirit of independence, came a generation too -soon. In this day, he would have been forced to do that, clamorously -called upon to do that, and would have found his pecuniary interest -in doing that, which in his own generation merely to attempt doing -loaded him with the reproach of Jacobinism. It must be remembered that -the society of Liverpool wits on whom my retrospect is now glancing -were all Whigs--all, indeed, fraternizers with French Republicanism. -Yet so it was that--not once, not twice, but daily almost, in the -numerous conversations naturally elicited by this Liverpool monument -to Burns's memory--I heard every one, clerk or layman, heartily -agreeing to tax Burns with ingratitude and with pride falsely directed, -because he sate uneasily or restively under the bridle-hand of his -noble self-called "_patrons_." Aristocracy, then, the essential -spirit of aristocracy--this I found was not less erect and clamorous -amongst partisan democrats--democrats who were such merely in a party -sense of supporting his Majesty's Opposition against his Majesty's -Servants--than it was or could be among the most bigoted of the -professed feudal aristocrats. For my part, at this moment, when all -the world was reading Currie's monument to the memory of Burns and the -support of his family, I felt and avowed my feeling most loudly--that -Burns was wronged, was deeply, memorably wronged. A £10 bank note, -by way of subscription for a few copies of an early edition of his -poems--this is the outside that I could ever see proof given of Burns -having received anything in the way of _patronage_; and doubtless -this would have been gladly returned, but from the dire necessity of -dissembling. - -Lord Glencairn is the "patron" for whom Burns appears to have felt the -most sincere respect. Yet even he--did he give him more than a seat at -his dinner table? Lord Buchan again, whose liberalities are by this -time pretty well appreciated in Scotland, exhorts Burns, in a tone -of one preaching upon a primary duty of life, to exemplary gratitude -towards a person who had given him absolutely nothing at all. The man -has not yet lived to whose happiness it was more essential that he -should live unencumbered by the sense of obligation; and, on the other -hand, the man has not lived upon whose independence as professing -benefactors so many people practised, or who found so many others ready -to ratify and give value to their pretences.[30] Him, whom beyond most -men nature had created with the necessity of conscious independence, -all men besieged with the assurance that he was, must be, ought to -be dependent; nay, that it was his primary duty to be grateful for -his dependence. I have not looked into any edition of Burns, except -once for a quotation, since this year 1801--when I read the whole of -Currie's edition, and had opportunities of meeting the editor--and once -subsequently, upon occasion of a fifth or supplementary volume being -published. I know not, therefore, how this matter has been managed -by succeeding editors, such as Allan Cunningham, far more capable of -understanding Burns's situation, from the previous struggles of their -own honourable lives, and Burns's feelings, from something of congenial -power. - - [30] Jacobinism--although the seminal principle of all political - evil in all ages alike of advanced civilization--is natural to the - heart of man, and, in a qualified sense, may be meritorious. A - good man, a high-minded man, in certain circumstances, _must_ be a - Jacobin in a certain sense. The aspect under which Burns's - Jacobinism appears is striking: there is a thought which an - observing reader will find often recurring, which expresses its - peculiar bitterness. It is this: the necessity which in old - countries exists for the labourer humbly to beg _permission_ that - he may labour. To eat in the sweat of a man's brow--that is bad; - and that is a curse, and pronounced such by God. But, when _that_ - is all, the labourer is by comparison happy. The second curse - makes _that_ a jest: he must sue, he must sneak, he must fawn like - an Oriental slave, in order to win his fellow-man, in Burns's - indignant words, "to give him _leave_ to toil." That was the - scorpion thought that was for ever shooting its sting into Burns's - meditations, whether forward-looking or backward-looking; and, - that considered, there arises a world of allowance for that vulgar - bluster of independence which Lord Jeffrey, with so much apparent - reason charges upon his prose writings. - -I, in this year, 1801, when in the company of Dr. Currie, did not -forget, and, with some pride I say that I stood alone in remembering, -the very remarkable position of Burns: not merely that, with his -genius, and with the intellectual pretensions generally of his family, -he should have been called to a life of early labour, and of labour -unhappily not prosperous, but also that he, by accident about the -proudest of human spirits, should have been by accident summoned, -beyond all others, to eternal recognitions of some mysterious gratitude -which he owed to some mysterious patrons little and great, whilst yet, -of all men, perhaps, he reaped the least obvious or known benefit from -any patronage that has ever been put on record. Most men, if they reap -little from patronage, are liberated from the claims of patronage, -or, if they are summoned to a galling dependency, have at least the -fruits of their dependency. But it was this man's unhappy fate--with an -early and previous irritability on this very point--to find himself -saddled, by his literary correspondents, with all that was odious in -dependency, whilst he had every hardship to face that is most painful -in unbefriended poverty. - -On this view of the case, I talked, then, being a schoolboy, with and -against the first editor of Burns:--I did not, and I do not, profess -to admire the letters (that is, the prose), all or any, of Burns. I -felt that they were liable to the charges of Lord Jeffrey, and to -others beside; that they do not even express the natural vigour of -Burns's mind, but are at once vulgar, tawdry, coarse, and commonplace; -neither was I a person to affect any profound sympathy with the general -character and temperament of Burns, which has often been described -as "of the earth, earthy"--unspiritual--animal--beyond those of most -men equally intellectual. But still I comprehended his situation; I -had for ever ringing in my ears, during that summer of 1801, those -groans which ascended to heaven from his over-burthened heart--those -harrowing words, "_To give him leave to toil_," which record almost a -reproach to the ordinances of God--and I felt that upon him, amongst -all the children of labour, the primal curse had fallen heaviest and -sunk deepest. Feelings such as these I had the courage to express: a -personal compliment, or so, I might now and then hear; but all were -against me on the _matter_. Dr. Currie said--"Poor Burns! such notions -had been his ruin"; Mr. Shepherd continued to draw from the subject -some scoff or growl at Mr. Pitt and the Excise; the laughing tailor -told us a good story of some proud beggar; Mr. Clarke proposed that I -should write a Greek inscription for a cenotaph which he was to erect -in his garden to the memory of Burns;--and so passed away the solitary -protestation on behalf of Burns's jacobinism, together with the wine -and the roses, and the sea-breezes of that same Everton, in that same -summer of 1801. Mr. Roscoe is dead, and has found time since then to -be half forgotten; Dr. Currie, the physician, has been found "unable -to heal himself"; Mr. Shepherd of Gatacre is a name and a shadow; Mr. -Clarke is a shadow without a name; the tailor, who set the table in a -roar, is dust and ashes; and three men at the most remain of all who -in those convivial meetings held it right to look down upon Burns as -upon one whose spirit was rebellious overmuch against the institutions -of man, and jacobinical in a sense which "men of property" and master -manufacturers will never brook, albeit democrats by profession.[31] - - [31] De Quincey's strictures in this paper of 1837 on the - Liverpool literary coterie of 1801 gave great offence in that - town. The Liverpool papers attacked him for it; and Dr. Shepherd - of Gatacre, apparently then the sole survivor of the coterie, - addressed a letter of remonstrance to the editor of _Tait's - Magazine_. It appeared in the number of the magazine for May 1837, - with some editorial comments. "The question of which I have to - treat," wrote Dr. Shepherd, "is a question of accuracy of - recollection; and I am constrained to remark that, as, from the - appellation by which, with an extraordinary kind of taste, Mr. De - Quincey chooses to designate himself in his literary character, he - seems to have been at one period of his life the slave of a - deleterious drug, which shakes the nerves, and, inflaming the - brain, impairs the memory, whilst _I_ have avoided that poison - even in its medical application, therefore _my_ recollection is - more likely to be correct that his." The letter proceeds to - vindicate Dr. Currie, Mr. Roscoe, and the writer himself, from the - charge of defective appreciation of the manly demeanour of Burns - in his relations with the Scottish aristocracy and lairds; after - which come some words of special self-defence of the writer in the - matters of his political consistency and his jests at Hannah More. - The letter altogether is destitute of effective point; and the - editor of _Tait_ was quite justified in standing by De Quincey. - This is done in every particular of the offending paper, with this - included sting: "It may tempt a smile from the few who are likely - to trouble themselves about this foolish affair to find that, - though solemnly assuming the office of advocate-general for the - other members of the extinct coterie, Dr. Shepherd, as well as the - newspaper writers, has entirely overlooked the vivacious tailor - celebrated by Mr. De Quincey, of whom we think none of his - literary friends have the least reason to be ashamed."----The main - matter of interest now in this little controversy of 1837 respects - De Quincey's own estimate of Burns. Although he had taken up the - cudgels for Burns in that particular in which he thought Dr. - Currie and the rest of the Liverpool coterie of 1801, professed - democrats though they were, had done Burns injustice,--viz. his - spirit of manly independence and superiority to considerations of - mere worldly rank,--it remains true that De Quincey's own estimate - of Burns all in all fell woefully beneath the proper mark. There - are evidences of this in the present paper, and there are other - evidences at different points of De Quincey's life. Wordsworth in - this respect differed immensely from his friend De Quincey, and - might have taught him better. In that letter of Wordsworth's which - is referred to by De Quincey (_ante_, p. 131) precisely because it - had deprecated the republication in 1816 of Dr. Currie's _Life of - Burns_ in 1800, how enthusiastic was the feeling for Burns and his - memory compared with anything that De Quincey seems ever to have - permitted himself! And, as long before as 1803, had not - Wordsworth, in his lines _At the Grave of Burns_, given expression - to the same feeling in more personal shape? Who can forget that - deathless stanza in which, remembering that Burns had died so - recently, and that, though they had never met, they had been near - neighbours by their places of habitation, the new poet of England - had confessed his own indebtedness to the example of the Scottish - ploughman bard?-- - - "I mourned with thousands, but as one - More deeply grieved; for He was gone - Whose light I hailed, when first it shone - And showed my youth - How verse may build a princely throne - On humble truth." - - In connexion with the fact of De Quincey's defective appreciation of - Burns even so late as 1837, it is additionally significant that, though - he refers in the present paper, with modified approbation, to Jeffrey's - somewhat captious article on Burns in the _Edinburgh Review_ for - January 1809, he does not mention the compensation which had appeared, - with Jeffrey's own editorial sanction, in the shape of Carlyle's essay - on Burns in the same _Review_ for December 1828.--M. - - - - - CHAPTER II - - SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE[32] - - [32] This chapter is composed of four articles contributed to - _Tait's Magazine_ under the title of "Samuel Taylor Coleridge: By - the English Opium-Eater." They appeared, respectively, in the - numbers of the Magazine for September, October, and November 1834, - and January 1835. Three of these articles were revised by De - Quincey, and thrown into one paper for Vol. II of the Collective - Edition of his writings, published in 1854. The fourth article was - not included in that paper; but it is added to the reprint of the - paper in the American Collective Edition of De Quincey, and is - necessary to complete his sketch of Coleridge. It is therefore - reproduced here. The reader will understand, accordingly, that as - far as to p. 208 we follow De Quincey's revised text of three of - his Coleridge articles; after which we have to print the fourth - article as it originally stood in _Tait_.--M. - - -It was, I think, in the month of August, but certainly in the summer -season, and certainly in the year 1807, that I first saw this -illustrious man. My knowledge of him as a man of most original genius -began about the year 1799. A little before that time Wordsworth had -published the first edition (in a single volume) of the "Lyrical -Ballads,"[33] and into this had been introduced Mr. Coleridge's poem -of the "Ancient Mariner," as the contribution of an anonymous friend. -It would be directing the reader's attention too much to myself if -I were to linger upon this, the greatest event in the unfolding of -my own mind. Let me say, in one word, that, at a period when neither -the one nor the other writer was valued by the public--both having -a long warfare to accomplish of contumely and ridicule before they -could rise into their present estimation--I found in these poems -"the ray of a new morning," and an absolute revelation of untrodden -worlds teeming with power and beauty as yet unsuspected amongst men. I -may here mention that, precisely at the same time, Professor Wilson, -entirely unconnected with myself, and not even known to me until ten -years later, received the same startling and profound impressions -from the same volume.[34] With feelings of reverential interest, -so early and so deep, pointing towards two contemporaries, it may -be supposed that I inquired eagerly after their names. But these -inquiries were self-baffled; the same deep feelings which prompted -my curiosity causing me to recoil from all casual opportunities of -pushing the inquiry, as too generally lying amongst those who gave -no sign of participating in my feelings; and, extravagant as this -may seem, I revolted with as much hatred from coupling my question -with any occasion of insult to the persons whom it respected, as a -primitive Christian from throwing frankincense upon the altars of -Cæsar, or a lover from giving up the name of his beloved to the coarse -license of a Bacchanalian party. It is laughable to record for how -long a period my curiosity in this particular was thus self-defeated. -Two years passed before I ascertained the two names. Mr. Wordsworth -published _his_ in the second and enlarged edition of the poems[35]; -and for Mr. Coleridge's I was "indebted" to a private source; but I -discharged that debt ill, for I quarrelled with my informant for what -I considered his profane way of dealing with a subject so hallowed in -my own thoughts. After this I searched, east and west, north and south, -for all known works or fragments of the same authors. I had read, -therefore, as respects Mr. Coleridge, the Allegory which he contributed -to Mr. Southey's "Joan of Arc."[36] I had read his fine Ode entitled -"France,"[37] his Ode to the Duchess of Devonshire, and various -other contributions, more or less interesting, to the two volumes -of the "Anthology" published at Bristol, about 1799-1800, by Mr. -Southey[38]; and, finally, I had, of course, read the small volume of -poems published under his own name. These, however, as a juvenile and -immature collection, made expressly with a view to pecuniary profit, -and therefore courting expansion at any cost of critical discretion, -had in general greatly disappointed me.[39] - - [33] Published in 1798.--M. - - [34] See _ante_, p. 61.--M. - - [35] Published in 1800.--M. - - [36] The first edition of Southey's epic was published in 1796, - the second in 1798, both at Bristol.--M. - - [37] Published, with other political pieces, in 1798, after having - appeared in the _Morning Post_ newspaper.--M. - - [38] _English Anthology_ for 1799-1800, in 2 vols., published at - Bristol, and edited by Southey.--M. - - [39] The first edition, entitled _Poems on Various Subjects, by S. - T. Coleridge, late of Jesus College, Cambridge_, was published at - Bristol in 1796; the second at London in 1797; the third at London - in 1803.--M. - -Meantime, it had crowned the interest which to me invested his name, -that about the year 1804 or 1805 I had been informed by a gentleman -from the English Lakes, who knew him as a neighbour, that he had for -some time applied his whole mind to metaphysics and psychology--which -happened to be my own absorbing pursuit. From 1803 to 1808, I was a -student at Oxford; and, on the first occasion when I could conveniently -have sought for a personal knowledge of one whom I contemplated with so -much admiration, I was met by a painful assurance that he had quitted -England, and was then residing at Malta, in the quality of secretary to -the Governor. I began to inquire about the best route to Malta; but, -as any route at that time promised an inside place in a French prison, -I reconciled myself to waiting; and at last, happening to visit the -Bristol Hotwells in the summer of 1807, I had the pleasure to hear -that Coleridge was not only once more upon English ground, but within -forty and odd miles of my own station. In that same hour I bent my -way to the south; and, before evening, reaching a ferry on the river -Bridgewater, at a village called, I think, Stogursey (_i.e._, Stoke de -Courcy, by way of distinction from some other Stoke), I crossed it, and -a few miles farther attained my object--viz., the little town of Nether -Stowey, amongst the Quantock Hills. Here I had been assured that I -should find Mr. Coleridge, at the house of his old friend Mr. Poole. On -presenting myself, however, to that gentleman, I found that Coleridge -was absent at Lord Egmont's, an elder brother (by the father's side) -of Mr. Perceval, the Prime Minister, assassinated five years later; -and, as it was doubtful whether he might not then be on the wing to -another friend's in the town of Bridgewater, I consented willingly, -until his motions should be ascertained, to stay a day or two with -this Mr. Poole--a man on his own account well deserving a separate -notice; for, as Coleridge afterwards remarked to me, he was almost -an ideal model for a useful member of Parliament.[40] I found him a -stout, plain-looking farmer, leading a bachelor life, in a rustic, -old-fashioned house; the house, however, upon further acquaintance, -proving to be amply furnished with modern luxuries, and especially with -a good library, superbly mounted in all departments bearing at all -upon political philosophy; and the farmer turning out a polished and -liberal Englishman, who had travelled extensively, and had so entirely -dedicated himself to the service of his humble fellow-countrymen--the -hewers of wood and drawers of water in this southern part of -Somersetshire--that for many miles round he was the general arbiter of -their disputes, the guide and counsellor of their difficulties; besides -being appointed executor and guardian to his children by every third -man who died in or about the town of Nether Stowey. - - [40] For a full account of this interesting Mr. Poole see _Thomas - Poole and his Friends_, by Mrs. Henry Sandford, 2 vols., 1888. He - was born 1765, and died 1837.--M. - -The first morning of my visit, Mr. Poole was so kind as to propose, -knowing my admiration of Wordsworth, that we should ride over to -Alfoxton[41]--a place of singular interest to myself, as having been -occupied in his unmarried days by that poet, during the minority of Mr. -St. Aubyn, its present youthful proprietor. At this delightful spot, -the ancient residence of an ancient English family, and surrounded by -those ferny Quantock Hills which are so beautifully glanced at in the -poem of "Ruth," Wordsworth, accompanied by his sister, had passed a -good deal of the interval between leaving the University (Cambridge) -and the period of his final settlement amongst his native lakes of -Westmoreland: some allowance, however, must be made--but how much I do -not accurately know--for a long residence in France, for a short one -in North Germany, for an intermitting one in London, and for a regular -domestication with his sister at Race Down in Dorsetshire. - - [41] More properly spelt _Alfoxden_.--M. - -Returning late from this interesting survey, we found ourselves -without company at dinner; and, being thus seated _tête-à-tête_, -Mr. Poole propounded the following question to me, which I mention -because it furnished me with the first hint of a singular infirmity -besetting Coleridge's mind:--"Pray, my young friend, did you ever -form any opinion, or, rather, did it ever happen to you to meet -with any rational opinion or conjecture of others, upon that most -revolting dogma of Pythagoras about beans? You know what I mean: that -monstrous doctrine in which he asserts that a man might as well, for -the wickedness of the thing, eat his own grandmother as meddle with -beans."[42] - - [42] In the abrupt phrasing of Mr. Poole's question De Quincey - must surely have recollected the similar question put by the clown - in _Twelfth Night_ to the supposed madman Malvolio to test his - sanity--"_Clown_. What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning - wild fowl?"--M. - -"Yes," I replied; "the line is, I believe, in the Golden Verses. I -remember it well." - -P.--"True: now, our dear excellent friend Coleridge, than whom God -never made a creature more divinely endowed, yet, strange it is to -say, sometimes steals from other people, just as you or I might do; I -beg your pardon--just as a poor creature like myself might do, that -sometimes have not wherewithal to make a figure from my own exchequer: -and the other day, at a dinner party, this question arising about -Pythagoras and his beans, Coleridge gave us an interpretation which, -from his manner, I suspect to have been not original. Think, therefore, -if you have anywhere read a plausible solution." - -"I have: and it was a German author. This German, understand, is a poor -stick of a man, not to be named on the same day with Coleridge: so -that, if Coleridge should appear to have robbed him, be assured that he -has done the scamp too much honour." - -P.--"Well: what says the German?" - -"Why, you know the use made in Greece of beans in voting and balloting? -Well: the German says that Pythagoras speaks symbolically; meaning that -electioneering, or, more generally, all interference with political -intrigues, is fatal to a philosopher's pursuits and their appropriate -serenity. Therefore, says he, follower of mine, abstain from public -affairs as you would from parricide." - -P.--"Well, then, Coleridge _has_ done the scamp too much honour: for, -by Jove, that is the very explanation he gave us!" - -Here was a trait of Coleridge's mind, to be first made known to me by -his best friend, and first published to the world by me, the foremost -of his admirers! But both of us had sufficient reasons:--Mr. Poole knew -that, stumbled on by accident, such a discovery would be likely to -impress upon a man as yet unacquainted with Coleridge a most injurious -jealousy with regard to all he might write: whereas, frankly avowed -by one who knew him best, the fact was disarmed of its sting; since -it thus became evident that, where the case had been best known and -most investigated, it had not operated to his serious disadvantage. On -the same argument,--to forestall, that is to say, other discoverers, -who would make a more unfriendly use of the discovery,--and also as -matters of literary curiosity, I shall here point out a few others of -Coleridge's unacknowledged obligations, noticed by myself in a very -wide course of reading.[43] - - [43] With respect to all these cases of apparent plagiarism, see - an explanatory Note at the end of this chapter. - -1. The Hymn to Chamouni is an expansion of a short poem in stanzas, -upon the same subject, by Frederica Brun, a female poet of Germany, -previously known to the world under her maiden name of Münter. The -mere framework of the poem is exactly the same--an appeal to the most -impressive features of the regal mountain (Mont Blanc), adjuring them -to proclaim their author: the torrent, for instance, is required to say -by whom it had been arrested in its headlong raving, and stiffened, as -by the petrific touch of Death, into everlasting pillars of ice; and -the answer to these impassioned apostrophes is made by the same choral -burst of rapture. In mere logic, therefore, and even as to the choice -of circumstances, Coleridge's poem is a translation. On the other hand, -by a judicious amplification of some topics, and by its far deeper tone -of lyrical enthusiasm, the dry bones of the German outline have been -awakened by Coleridge into the fulness of life. It is not, therefore, a -paraphrase, but a re-cast of the original. And how was this calculated, -if frankly avowed, to do Coleridge any injury with the judicious? - -2. A more singular case of Coleridge's infirmity is this:--In a very -noble passage of "France," a fine expression or two occur from "Samson -Agonistes." Now, to take a phrase or an inspiriting line from the great -fathers of poetry, even though no marks of quotation should be added, -carries with it no charge of plagiarism. Milton is justly presumed to -be as familiar to the ear as nature to the eye; and to steal from him -as impossible as to appropriate, or sequester to a private use, some -"bright particular star." And there is a good reason for rejecting the -typographical marks of quotation: they break the continuity of the -passion, by reminding the reader of a printed book; on which account -Milton himself (to give an instance) has not marked the sublime words, -"tormented all the air" as borrowed; nor has Wordsworth, in applying to -an unprincipled woman of commanding beauty the memorable expression "a -weed of glorious feature," thought it necessary to acknowledge it as -originally belonging to Spenser. Some dozens of similar cases might be -adduced from Milton. But Coleridge, when saying of republican France -that, - - "_Insupportably advancing_, - Her arm made mockery of the warrior's tramp," - -not satisfied with omitting the marks of acknowledgment, thought fit -positively to deny that he was indebted to Milton. Yet who could -forget that semi-chorus in the "Samson" where the "bold Ascalonite" is -described as having "fled from his lion ramp"? Or who, that was not -in this point liable to some hallucination of judgment, would have -ventured on a public challenge (for virtually it was that) to produce -from the "Samson" words so impossible to be overlooked as those of -"insupportably advancing the foot"? The result was that one of the -critical journals placed the two passages in juxtaposition and left the -reader to his own conclusions with regard to the poet's veracity. But, -in this instance, it was common sense rather than veracity which the -facts impeach. - -3. In the year 1810 I happened to be amusing myself by reading, in -their chronological order, the great classical circumnavigations of -the earth; and, coming to Shelvocke, I met with a passage to this -effect:--That Hatley, his second captain (_i.e._ lieutenant), being a -melancholy man, was possessed by a fancy that some long season of foul -weather, in the solitary sea which they were then traversing, was due -to an albatross which had steadily pursued the ship; upon which he shot -the bird, but without mending their condition. There at once I saw -the germ of the "Ancient Mariner"; and I put a question to Coleridge -accordingly. Could it have been imagined that he would see cause -utterly to disown so slight an obligation to Shelvocke? Wordsworth, a -man of stern veracity, on hearing of this, professed his inability to -understand Coleridge's meaning; the fact being notorious, as he told -me, that Coleridge had derived from the very passage I had cited the -original hint for the action of the poem; though it is very possible, -from something which Coleridge said on another occasion, that, before -meeting a fable in which to embody his ideas, he had meditated a poem -on delirium, confounding its own dream-scenery with external things, -and connected with the imagery of high latitudes. - -4. All these cases amount to nothing at all as cases of plagiarism, -and for this reason expose the more conspicuously that obliquity of -feeling which could seek to decline the very slight acknowledgments -required. But now I come to a case of real and palpable plagiarism; -yet that, too, of a nature to be quite unaccountable in a man of -Coleridge's attainments. It is not very likely that this particular -case will soon be detected; but others will. Yet who knows? Eight -hundred or a thousand years hence, some reviewer may arise who having -read the "Biographia Literaria" of Coleridge, will afterwards read the -"Philosophical----"[44] of Schelling, the great Bavarian professor--a -man in some respects worthy to be Coleridge's assessor; and he will -then make a singular discovery. In the "Biographia Literaria" occurs -a dissertation upon the reciprocal relations of the _Esse_ and the -_Cogitare_,--that is, of the _objective_ and the _subjective_: and an -attempt is made, by inverting the postulates from which the argument -starts, to show how each might arise as a product, by an intelligible -genesis, from the other. It is a subject which, since the time of -Fichte, has much occupied the German metaphysicians; and many thousands -of essays have been written on it, or indirectly so, of which many -hundreds have been read by many tens of persons. Coleridge's essay, -in particular, is prefaced by a few words in which, aware of his -coincidence with Schelling, he declares his willingness to acknowledge -himself indebted to so great a man in any case where the truth would -allow him to do so; but, in this particular case, insisting on the -impossibility that he could have borrowed arguments which he had -first seen some years after he had thought out the whole hypothesis -_proprio marte_. After this, what was my astonishment to find that -the entire essay, from the first word to the last, is a _verbatim_ -translation from Schelling, with no attempt in a single instance to -appropriate the paper by developing the arguments or by diversifying -the illustrations? Some other obligations to Schelling, of a slighter -kind, I have met with in the "Biographia Literaria"; but this was a -barefaced plagiarism, which could in prudence have been risked only -by relying too much upon the slight knowledge of German literature in -this country, and especially of that section of the German literature. -Had, then, Coleridge any need to borrow from Schelling? Did he borrow -_in forma pauperis_? Not at all: there lay the wonder. He spun daily, -and at all hours, for mere amusement of his own activities, and from -the loom of his own magical brain, theories more gorgeous by far, and -supported by a pomp and luxury of images such as neither Schelling--no, -nor any German that ever breathed, not John Paul--could have emulated -in his dreams. With the riches of El Dorado lying about him, he would -condescend to filch a handful of gold from any man whose purse he -fancied, and in fact reproduced in a new form, applying itself to -intellectual wealth, that maniacal propensity which is sometimes well -known to attack enormous proprietors and millionaires for acts of petty -larceny. The last Duke of Anc---- could not abstain from exercising his -furtive mania upon articles so humble as silver spoons; and it was the -nightly care of a pious daughter, watching over the aberrations of her -father, to have his pockets searched by a confidential valet, and the -claimants of the purloined articles traced out. - - [44] I forget the exact title, not having seen the book since - 1823, and then only for one day; but I believe it was Schelling's - "Kleine Philosophische Werke." - -Many cases have crossed me in life of people, otherwise not wanting in -principle, who had habits, or at least hankerings, of the same kind. -And the phrenologists, I believe, are well acquainted with the case, -its signs, its progress, and its history. Dismissing, however, this -subject, which I have at all noticed only that I might anticipate, -and (in old English) that I might _prevent_, the uncandid interpreter -of its meaning, I will assert finally that, after having read for -thirty years in the same track as Coleridge--that track in which few -of any age will ever follow us, such as German metaphysicians, Latin -schoolmen, thaumaturgic Platonists, religious Mystics--and having thus -discovered a large variety of trivial thefts, I do, nevertheless, -most heartily believe him to have been as entirely original in all -his capital pretensions as any one man that ever has existed; as -Archimedes in ancient days, or as Shakspere in modern. Did the reader -ever see Milton's account of the rubbish contained in the Greek and -Latin Fathers?[45] Or did he ever read a statement of the monstrous -chaos with which an African Obeah man stuffs his enchanted scarecrows? -Or, take a more common illustration, did he ever amuse himself by -searching the pockets of a child--three years old, suppose--when -buried in slumber after a long summer's day of out-o'-doors intense -activity? I have done this; and, for the amusement of the child's -mother, have analyzed the contents, and drawn up a formal register -of the whole. Philosophy is puzzled, conjecture and hypothesis are -confounded, in the attempt to explain the law of selection which _can_ -have presided in the child's labours; stones remarkable only for -weight, old rusty hinges, nails, crooked skewers stolen when the cook -had turned her back, rags, broken glass, tea-cups having the bottom -knocked out, and loads of similar jewels, were the prevailing articles -in this _procès-verbal_. Yet, doubtless, much labour had been incurred, -some sense of danger perhaps had been faced, and the anxieties of a -conscious robber endured, in order to amass this splendid treasure. -Such in value were the robberies of Coleridge; such their usefulness to -himself or anybody else; and such the circumstances of uneasiness under -which he had committed them. I return to my narrative. - - [45] "Whatever Time, or the heedless hand of blind Chance, hath - drawn down from of old to this present in her huge drag-net, - whether fish, or seaweed, shells or shrubs, unpicked, unchosen, - these are the Fathers." Milton's Tract _Of Prelatical Episcopacy_, - published in 1641.--M. - -Two or three days had slipped away in waiting for Coleridge's -re-appearance at Nether Stowey, when suddenly Lord Egmont called -upon Mr. Poole, with a present for Coleridge: it was a canister of -peculiarly fine snuff, which Coleridge now took profusely. Lord -Egmont, on this occasion, spoke of Coleridge in the terms of excessive -admiration, and urged Mr. Poole to put him upon undertaking some great -monumental work, that might furnish a sufficient arena for the display -of his various and rare accomplishments; for his multiform erudition -on the one hand, for his splendid power of theorizing and combining -large and remote notices of facts on the other. And he suggested, -judiciously enough, as one theme which offered a field at once large -enough and indefinite enough to suit a mind that could not show its -full compass of power unless upon very plastic materials--a History -of Christianity, in its progress and in its chief divarications into -Church and Sect, with a continual reference to the relations subsisting -between Christianity and the current philosophy; their occasional -connexions or approaches, and their constant mutual repulsions. "But, -at any rate, let him do something," said Lord Egmont; "for at present -he talks very much like an angel, and does nothing at all." Lord Egmont -I understood from everybody to be a truly good and benevolent man; and -on this occasion he spoke with an earnestness which agreed with my -previous impression. Coleridge, he said, was now in the prime of his -powers--uniting something of youthful vigour with sufficient experience -of life; having the benefit, beside, of vast meditation, and of reading -unusually discursive. No man had ever been better qualified to revive -the heroic period of literature in England, and to give a character of -weight to the philosophic erudition of the country upon the Continent. -"And what a pity," he added, "if this man were, after all, to vanish -like an apparition, and you, I, and a few others, who have witnessed -his grand _bravuras_ of display, were to have the usual fortune of -ghost-seers, in meeting no credit for any statements that we might -vouch on his behalf!" - -On this occasion we learned, for the first time, that Lord Egmont's -carriage had, some days before, conveyed Coleridge to Bridgewater, with -a purpose of staying one single day at that place, and then returning -to Mr. Poole's. From the sort of laugh with which Lord Egmont taxed -his own simplicity, in having confided at all in the stability of any -Coleridgian plan, I now gathered that procrastination in excess was, -or had become, a marking feature in Coleridge's daily life. Nobody who -knew him ever thought of depending on any appointment he might make: -spite of his uniformly honourable intentions, nobody attached any -weight to his assurances _in re futura_: those who asked him to dinner -or any other party, as a matter of course, sent a carriage for him, and -went personally or by proxy to fetch him; and, as to letters, unless -the address were in some female hand that commanded his affectionate -esteem, he tossed them all into one general _dead-letter bureau_, and -rarely, I believe, opened them at all.[46] Bourrienne mentions a mode -of abridging the trouble attached to a very extensive correspondence, -by which infinite labour was saved to himself, and to Napoleon, when -First Consul. Nine out of ten letters, supposing them letters of -business with official applications of a special kind, he contends, -answer themselves: in other words, time alone must soon produce events -which virtually contain the answer. On this principle the letters were -opened periodically, after intervals, suppose, of six weeks; and, at -the end of that time, it was found that not many remained to require -any further more particular answer. Coleridge's plan, however, was -shorter: he opened none, I understood, and answered none. At least -such was his habit at that time. But, on that same day, all this, -which I heard now for the first time, and with much concern, was fully -explained; for already he was under the full dominion of opium, as he -himself revealed to me, and with a deep expression of horror at the -hideous bondage, in a private walk of some length which I took with him -about sunset. - - [46] This might pass as a description of De Quincey himself in his - later years, if not all through his life.--M. - -Lord Egmont's information, and the knowledge now gained of Coleridge's -habits, making it very uncertain when I might see him in my present -hospitable quarters, I immediately took my leave of Mr. Poole, and went -over to Bridgewater. I had received directions for finding out the -house where Coleridge was visiting; and, in riding down a main street -of Bridgewater, I noticed a gateway corresponding to the description -given me. Under this was standing, and gazing about him, a man whom I -will describe. In height he might seem to be about five feet eight (he -was, in reality, about an inch and a-half taller, but his figure was -of an order which drowns the height); his person was broad and full, -and tended even to corpulence; his complexion was fair, though not -what painters technically style fair, because it was associated with -black hair; his eyes were large, and soft in their expression; and it -was from the peculiar appearance of haze or dreaminess which mixed -with their light that I recognised my object. This was Coleridge.[47] -I examined him steadfastly for a minute or more; and it struck me -that he saw neither myself nor any other object in the street. He was -in a deep reverie; for I had dismounted, made two or three trifling -arrangements at an inn-door, and advanced close to him, before he had -apparently become conscious of my presence. The sound of my voice, -announcing my own name, first awoke him; he started, and for a moment -seemed at a loss to understand my purpose or his own situation; for he -repeated rapidly a number of words which had no relation to either of -us. There was no _mauvaise honte_ in his manner, but simple perplexity, -and an apparent difficulty in recovering his position amongst daylight -realities. This little scene over, he received me with a kindness of -manner so marked that it might be called gracious. The hospitable -family with whom he was domesticated were distinguished for their -amiable manners and enlightened understandings: they were descendants -from Chubb, the philosophic writer, and bore the same name. For -Coleridge they all testified deep affection and esteem--sentiments -in which the whole town of Bridgewater seemed to share; for in the -evening, when the heat of the day had declined, I walked out with him; -and rarely, perhaps never, have I seen a person so much interrupted -in one hour's space as Coleridge, on this occasion, by the courteous -attentions of young and old. - - [47] At the date of this first meeting of De Quincey with - Coleridge, De Quincey was twenty-two years of age and Coleridge - nearly thirty-seven.--M. - -All the people of station and weight in the place, and apparently all -the ladies, were abroad to enjoy the lovely summer evening; and not a -party passed without some mark of smiling recognition, and the majority -stopping to make personal inquiries about his health, and to express -their anxiety that he should make a lengthened stay amongst them. -Certain I am, from the lively esteem expressed towards Coleridge at -this time by the people of Bridgewater, that a very large subscription -might, in that town, have been raised to support him amongst them, in -the character of a lecturer, or philosophical professor. Especially I -remarked that the young men of the place manifested the most liberal -interest in all that concerned him; and I can add my attestation -to that of Mr. Coleridge himself, when describing an evening spent -amongst the enlightened tradesmen of Birmingham, that nowhere is -more unaffected good sense exhibited, and particularly nowhere more -elasticity and _freshness_ of mind, than in the conversation of -the reading men in manufacturing towns. In Kendal, especially, in -Bridgewater, and in Manchester, I have witnessed more interesting -conversations, as much information, and more natural eloquence in -conveying it, than usually in literary cities, or in places professedly -learned. One reason for this is that in trading towns the time is more -happily distributed; the day given to business and active duties--the -evening to relaxation; on which account, books, conversation, and -literary leisure are more cordially enjoyed: the same satiation never -can take place which too frequently deadens the genial enjoyment of -those who have a surfeit of books and a monotony of leisure. Another -reason is that more simplicity of manner may be expected, and more -natural picturesqueness of conversation, more open expression of -character, in places where people have no previous name to support. Men -in trading towns are not afraid to open their lips for fear they should -disappoint your expectations, nor do they strain for showy sentiments -that they may meet them. But, elsewhere, many are the men who stand -in awe of their own reputation: not a word which is unstudied, not -a movement in the spirit of natural freedom, dare they give way to, -because it might happen that on review something would be seen to -retract or to qualify--something not properly planed and chiselled to -build into the general architecture of an artificial reputation. But to -return:-- - -Coleridge led me to a drawing-room, rang the bell for refreshments, -and omitted no point of a courteous reception. He told me that there -would be a very large dinner party on that day, which, perhaps, might -be disagreeable to a perfect stranger; but, if not, he could assure -me of a most hospitable welcome from the family. I was too anxious to -see him under all aspects to think of declining this invitation. That -point being settled, Coleridge, like some great river, the Orellana, -or the St. Lawrence, that, having been checked and fretted by rocks -or thwarting islands, suddenly recovers its volume of waters and its -mighty music, swept at once, as if returning to his natural business, -into a continuous strain of eloquent dissertation, certainly the most -novel, the most finely illustrated, and traversing the most spacious -fields of thought by transitions the most just and logical, that it -was possible to conceive. What I mean by saying that his transitions -were "just" is by way of contradistinction to that mode of conversation -which courts variety through links of _verbal_ connexions. Coleridge, -to many people, and often I have heard the complaint, seemed to wander; -and he seemed then to wander the most when, in fact, his resistance to -the wandering instinct was greatest--viz., when the compass and huge -circuit by which his illustrations moved travelled farthest into remote -regions before they began to revolve. Long before this coming round -commenced most people had lost him, and naturally enough supposed that -he had lost himself. They continued to admire the separate beauty of -the thoughts, but did not see their relations to the dominant theme. -Had the conversation been thrown upon paper, it might have been easy -to trace the continuity of the links; just as in Bishop Berkeley's -"Siris,"[48] from a pedestal so low and abject, so culinary, as Tar -Water, the method of preparing it, and its medicinal effects, the -dissertation ascends, like Jacob's ladder, by just gradations, into the -Heaven of Heavens and the thrones of the Trinity. But Heaven is there -connected with earth by the Homeric chain of gold; and, being subject -to steady examination, it is easy to trace the links; whereas, in -conversation, the loss of a single word may cause the whole cohesion to -disappear from view. However, I can assert, upon my long and intimate -knowledge of Coleridge's mind, that logic the most severe was as -inalienable from his modes of thinking as grammar from his language. - - [48] _Seiris_ ought to have been the title--_i.e._ [Greek: - Seiris], a chain. From this defect in the orthography, I did not - in my boyish days perceive, nor could obtain any light upon, its - meaning. - -On the present occasion, the original theme, started by myself, was -Hartley and the Hartleian theory. I had carried as a little present to -Coleridge a scarce Latin pamphlet, "De Ideis," written by Hartley about -1746,--that is, about three years earlier than the publication of his -great work. He had also preluded to this great work in a little English -medical tract upon Joanna Stephens's medicine for the stone; for indeed -Hartley was the person upon whose evidence the House of Commons had -mainly relied in giving to that same Joanna a reward of £5000 for her -idle medicines--an application of public money not without its use, in -so far as it engaged men by selfish motives to cultivate the public -service, and to attempt public problems of very difficult solution; but -else, in that particular instance, perfectly idle, as the groans of -three generations since Joanna's era have too feelingly established. It -is known to most literary people that Coleridge was, in early life, so -passionate an admirer of the Hartleian philosophy that "Hartley" was -the sole baptismal name which he gave to his eldest child; and in an -early poem, entitled "Religious Musings," he has characterized Hartley -as - - "Him of mortal kind - Wisest, him first who mark'd the ideal tribes - Up the fine fibres through the sentient brain - Pass in fine surges." - -But at present (August 1807) all this was a forgotten thing. Coleridge -was so profoundly ashamed of the shallow Unitarianism of Hartley, and -so disgusted to think that he could at any time have countenanced that -creed, that he would scarcely allow to Hartley the reverence which is -undoubtedly his due; for I must contend that, waiving all question of -the extent to which Hartley would have pushed it (as though the law of -association accounted not only for our complex pleasures and pains, but -also might be made to explain the act of ratiocination),--waiving also -the physical substratum of nervous vibrations and miniature vibrations -to which he has chosen to marry his theory of association;--all this -apart, I must contend that the "Essay on Man, his Frame, his Duty, -and his Expectations" stands forward as a specimen almost unique -of elaborate theorizing, and a monument of absolute beauty in the -impression left of its architectural grace. In this respect it has, to -my mind, the spotless beauty and the ideal proportions of some Grecian -statue. However, I confess that, being myself, from my earliest years, -a reverential believer in the doctrine of the Trinity, simply because I -never attempted to bring all things within the mechanic understanding, -and because, like Sir Thomas, Browne, my mind almost demanded mysteries -in so mysterious a system of relations as those which connect us with -another world, and also because the farther my understanding opened the -more I perceived of dim analogies to strengthen my creed, and because -nature herself, mere physical nature, has mysteries no less profound; -for these, and for many other "_becauses_," I could not reconcile with -my general reverence for Mr. Coleridge the fact, so often reported to -me, that he was a Unitarian. But, said some Bristol people to me, not -only is he a Unitarian--he is also a Socinian. In that case, I replied, -I cannot hold him a Christian. I am a liberal man, and have no bigotry -or hostile feelings towards a Socinian; but I can never think that man -a Christian who has blotted out of his scheme the very powers by which -only the great offices and functions of Christianity can be sustained; -neither can I think that any man, though he make himself a marvellously -clever disputant, ever could tower upwards into a very great -philosopher unless he should begin or should end with Christianity. -Kant is a dubious exception. Not that I mean to question his august -pretensions, so far as they went, and in his proper line. Within his -own circle none durst tread but he. But that circle was limited. He -was called by one who weighed him well, the _alles-zermalmender_, the -world-shattering Kant. He could destroy--his intellect was essentially -destructive. He was the Gog and he was the Magog of Hunnish desolation -to the existing schemes of Philosophy. He probed them; he showed the -vanity of vanities which besieged their foundations--the rottenness -below, the hollowness above. But he had no instincts of creation or -restoration within his Apollyon mind; for he had no love, no faith, no -self-distrust, no humility, no childlike docility; all which qualities -belonged essentially to Coleridge's mind, and waited only for manhood -and for sorrow to bring them forward. - -Who can read without indignation of Kant that, at his own table, in -social sincerity and confidential talk, let him say what he would -in his books, he exulted in the prospect of absolute and ultimate -annihilation; that he planted his glory in the grave, and was -ambitious of rotting for ever? The King of Prussia, though a personal -friend of Kant's, found himself obliged to level his state thunders -at some of his doctrines, and terrified him in his advance; else I -am persuaded that Kant would have formally delivered Atheism from -the professor's chair, and would have enthroned the horrid Ghoulish -creed (which privately he professed) in the University of Königsberg. -It required the artillery of a great king to make him pause: his -menacing or warning letter to Kant is extant. The general notion -is, that the royal logic applied so austerely to the public conduct -of Kant in his professor's chair was of that kind which rests its -strength "upon thirty legions." My own belief is that the king had -private information of Kant's ultimate tendencies as revealed in his -table-talk. The fact is that, as the stomach has been known, by means -of its own potent acid secretion, to attack not only whatsoever alien -body is introduced within it, but also (as John Hunter first showed) -sometimes to attack itself and its own organic structure, so, and with -the same preternatural extension of instinct, did Kant carry forward -his destroying functions, until he turned them upon his own hopes and -the pledges of his own superiority to the dog, the ape, the worm. But -"_exoriare aliquis_"--and some philosopher, I am persuaded, _will_ -arise; and "one sling of some victorious arm" ("Paradise Lost," B. x.) -will yet destroy the destroyer, in so far as he has applied himself -to the destruction of Christian hope. For my faith is that, though a -great man may, by a rare possibility, be an infidel, an intellect of -the highest order must build upon Christianity. A very clever architect -may choose to show his power by building with insufficient materials; -but the supreme architect must require the very best, because the -perfection of the forms cannot be shown but in the perfection of the -matter. - -On these accounts I took the liberty of doubting, as often as I heard -the reports I have mentioned of Coleridge; and I now found that he -disowned most solemnly (and I may say penitentially) whatever had been -true in these reports. Coleridge told me that it had cost him a painful -effort, but not a moment's hesitation, to abjure his Unitarianism, from -the circumstance that he had amongst the Unitarians many friends, to -some of whom he was greatly indebted for great kindness. In particular, -he mentioned Mr. Estlin of Bristol, a distinguished Dissenting -clergyman, as one whom it grieved him to grieve. But he would not -dissemble his altered views. I will add, at the risk of appearing to -dwell too long on religious topics, that, on this my first introduction -to Coleridge, he reverted with strong compunction to a sentiment which -he had expressed in earlier days upon prayer. In one of his youthful -poems, speaking of God, he had said-- - - "Of whose omniscient and all-spreading love - Aught to implore were impotence of mind." - -This sentiment he now so utterly condemned that, on the contrary, he -told me, as his own peculiar opinion, that the act of praying was the -very highest energy of which the human heart was capable; praying, that -is, with the total concentration of the faculties; and the great mass -of worldly men, and of learned men, he pronounced absolutely incapable -of prayer. - -For about three hours he had continued to talk, and in the course -of this performance he had delivered many most striking aphorisms, -embalming more weight of truth, and separately more deserving to be -themselves embalmed, than would easily be found in a month's course -of select reading. In the midst of our conversation, if that can be -called conversation which I so seldom sought to interrupt, and which -did not often leave openings for contribution, the door opened, -and a lady entered. She was in person full and rather below the -common height; whilst her face showed to my eye some prettiness of -rather a commonplace order. Coleridge paused upon her entrance; his -features, however, announced no particular complacency, and did not -relax into a smile. In a frigid tone he said, whilst turning to me, -"Mrs. Coleridge"; in some slight way he then presented me to her: I -bowed; and the lady almost immediately retired. From this short but -ungenial scene, I gathered, what I afterward learned redundantly, that -Coleridge's marriage had not been a very happy one. But let not the -reader misunderstand me. Never was there a baser insinuation, viler in -the motive, or more ignoble in the manner, than that passage in some -lampoon of Lord Byron's, where, by way of vengeance on Mr. Southey (who -was the sole delinquent), he described both him and Coleridge as having -married "two milliners from Bath." Everybody knows what is _meant_ -to be conveyed in that expression, though it would be hard, indeed, -if, even at Bath, there should be any class under such a fatal curse, -condemned so irretrievably, and so hopelessly prejudged, that ignominy -must, at any rate, attach, in virtue of a mere name or designation, to -the mode by which they gained their daily bread, or possibly supported -the declining years of a parent. However, in this case, the whole -sting of the libel was a pure falsehood of Lord Byron's. Bath was -not the native city, nor at any time the residence, of the ladies in -question, but Bristol. As to the other word, "_milliners_," that is -not worth inquiring about. Whether they, or any one of their family, -ever _did_ exercise this profession, I do not know; they were, at all -events, too young, when removed by marriage from Bristol, to have -been much tainted by the worldly feelings which may beset such a mode -of life. But, what is more to the purpose, I heard, at this time, -in Bristol, from Mr. Cottle, the author, a man of high principle, -as also from his accomplished sisters,--from the ladies, again, who -had succeeded Mrs. Hannah More in her school, and who enjoyed her -entire confidence,--that the whole family of four or five sisters had -maintained an irreproachable character, though naturally exposed, by -their personal attractions, to some peril, and to the malevolence of -envy. This declaration, which I could strengthen by other testimony -equally disinterested, if it were at all necessary, I owe to truth; and -I must also add, upon a knowledge more personal, that Mrs. Coleridge -was, in all circumstances of her married life, a virtuous wife and a -conscientious mother; and, as a mother, she showed at times a most -meritorious energy. In particular, I remember that, wishing her -daughter to acquire the Italian language, and having in her retirement -at Keswick no means of obtaining a master, she set to work resolutely, -under Mr. Southey's guidance, to learn the language herself, at a time -of life when such attainments are not made with ease or pleasure. She -became mistress of the language in a very respectable extent, and then -communicated her new accomplishment to her most interesting daughter. - -I go on, therefore, to say, that Coleridge afterwards made me, as -doubtless some others, a confidant in this particular. What he had -to complain of was simply incompatibility of temper and disposition. -Wanting all cordial admiration, or indeed comprehension, of her -husband's intellectual powers, Mrs. Coleridge wanted the original basis -for affectionate patience and candour. Hearing from everybody that -Coleridge was a man of most extraordinary endowments, and attaching -little weight, perhaps, to the distinction between popular talents -and such as by their very nature are doomed to a slower progress in -the public esteem, she naturally looked to see, at least, an ordinary -measure of worldly consequence attend upon their exercise. Now, had -Coleridge been as persevering and punctual as the great mass of -professional men, and had he given no reason to throw the _onus_ of -the different result upon his own different habits, in that case this -result might, possibly and eventually, have been set down to the -peculiar constitution of his powers, and their essential mal-adaptation -to the English market. But, this trial having never fairly been made, -it was natural to impute his non-success exclusively to his own -irregular application, and to his carelessness in forming judicious -connexions. In circumstances such as these, however, no matter how -caused or how palliated, was laid a sure ground of discontent and -fretfulness in any woman's mind, not unusually indulgent or unusually -magnanimous. Coleridge, besides, assured me that his marriage was not -his own deliberate act, but was in a manner forced upon his sense of -honour by the scrupulous Southey, who insisted that he had gone too -far in his attentions to Miss Fricker for any honourable retreat. On -the other hand, a neutral spectator of the parties protested to me, -that, if ever in his life he had seen a man under deep fascination, and -what he would have called desperately in love, Coleridge, in relation -to Miss F., was that man. Be that as it might, circumstances occurred -soon after the marriage which placed all the parties in a trying -situation for their candour and good temper. I had a full outline of -the situation from two of those who were chiefly interested, and a -partial one from a third: nor can it be denied that all the parties -offended in point of prudence. A young lady became a neighbour, and -a daily companion of Coleridge's walks, whom I will not describe -more particularly than by saying that intellectually she was very -much superior to Mrs. Coleridge. That superiority alone, when made -conspicuous by its effects in winning Coleridge's regard and society, -could not but be deeply mortifying to a young wife. However, it was -moderated to her feelings by two considerations:--1. That the young -lady was much too kind-hearted to have designed any annoyance in this -triumph, or to express any exultation; 2. That no shadow of suspicion -settled upon the moral conduct or motives of either party: the young -lady was always attended by her brother; she had no personal charms; -and it was manifest that mere intellectual sympathies, in reference -to literature and natural scenery, had associated them in their daily -walks. - -Still, it is a bitter trial to a young married woman to sustain any -sort of competition with a female of her own age for any part of her -husband's regard, or any share of his company. Mrs. Coleridge, not -having the same relish for long walks or rural scenery, and their -residence being, at this time, in a very sequestered village, was -condemned to a daily renewal of this trial.[49] Accidents of another -kind embittered it still further: often it would happen that the -walking party returned drenched with rain; in which case, the young -lady, with a laughing gaiety, and evidently unconscious of any liberty -that she was taking, or any wound that she was inflicting, would run -up to Mrs. Coleridge's wardrobe, array herself, without leave asked, -in Mrs. Coleridge's dresses, and make herself merry with her own -unceremoniousness and Mrs. Coleridge's gravity. In all this, she took -no liberty that she would not most readily have granted in return; -she confided too unthinkingly in what she regarded as the natural -privileges of friendship; and as little thought that she had been -receiving or exacting a favour, as, under an exchange of their relative -positions, she would have claimed to confer one. But Mrs. Coleridge -viewed her freedoms with a far different eye: she felt herself no -longer the entire mistress of her own house; she held a divided -empire; and it barbed the arrow to her womanly feelings that Coleridge -treated any sallies of resentment which might sometimes escape her as -narrow-mindedness; whilst, on the other hand, her own female servant, -and others in the same rank of life, began to drop expressions which -alternately implied pity for her as an injured woman, or contempt for -her as a very tame one. - - [49] Another sentence of faulty grammar: a rare thing with De - Quincey.--M. - -The reader will easily apprehend the situation, and the unfortunate -results which it boded to the harmony of a young married couple, -without further illustration. Whether Coleridge would not, under -any circumstances, have become indifferent to a wife not eminently -capable of enlightened sympathy with his own ruling pursuits, I do not -undertake to pronounce. My own impression is, that neither Coleridge -nor Lord Byron could have failed, eventually, to quarrel with _any_ -wife, though a Pandora sent down from heaven to bless him. But, -doubtless, this consummation must have been hastened by a situation -which exposed Mrs. Coleridge to an invidious comparison with a more -intellectual person; as, on the other hand, it was most unfortunate -for Coleridge himself to be continually compared with one so ideally -correct and regular in his habits as Mr. Southey. Thus was their -domestic peace prematurely soured: embarrassments of a pecuniary nature -would be likely to demand continual sacrifices; no depth of affection -existing, these would create disgust or dissension; and at length -each would believe that their union had originated in circumstances -overruling their own deliberate choice. - -The gloom, however, and the weight of dejection which sat upon -Coleridge's countenance and deportment at this time could not be -accounted for by a disappointment (if such it were) to which time -must, long ago, have reconciled him. Mrs. Coleridge, if not turning -to him the more amiable aspects of her character, was at any rate a -respectable partner. And the season of youth was now passed. They had -been married about ten years; had had four children, of whom three -survived; and the interests of a father were now replacing those of a -husband. Yet never had I beheld so profound an expression of cheerless -despondency. And the restless activity of Coleridge's mind, in chasing -abstract truths, and burying himself in the dark places of human -speculation, seemed to me, in a great measure, an attempt to escape -out of his own personal wretchedness. I was right. In this instance, -at least, I had hit the mark; and Coleridge bore witness himself at an -after period to the truth of my divination by some impressive verses. -At dinner, when a very numerous party had assembled, he knew that he -was expected to talk, and exerted himself to meet the expectation. But -he was evidently struggling with gloomy thoughts that prompted him to -silence, and perhaps to solitude: he talked with effort, and passively -resigned himself to the repeated misrepresentations of several amongst -his hearers. The subject chiefly discussed was Arthur Young, not for -his Rural Economy, but for his Politics.[50] It must be to this period -of Coleridge's life that Wordsworth refers in those exquisite "Lines -written in my pocket copy of the 'Castle of Indolence.'" The passage -which I mean comes after a description of Coleridge's countenance, and -begins in some such terms as these:-- - - "A piteous sight it was to see this man, - When he came back to us, a wither'd flow'r," &c. - -Withered he was, indeed, and to all appearance blighted. At night he -entered into a spontaneous explanation of this unhappy overclouding -of his life, on occasion of my saying accidentally that a toothache -had obliged me to take a few drops of laudanum. At what time or on -what motive he had commenced the use of opium, he did not say; but the -peculiar emphasis of horror with which he warned me against forming a -habit of the same kind impressed upon my mind a feeling that he never -hoped to liberate himself from the bondage. My belief is that he never -_did_. About ten o'clock at night I took leave of him; and, feeling -that I could not easily go to sleep after the excitement of the day, -and fresh from the sad spectacle of powers so majestic already besieged -by decay, I determined to return to Bristol through the coolness of -the night. The roads, though, in fact, a section of the great highway -between seaports so turbulent as Bristol and Plymouth, were as quiet -as garden-walks. Once only I passed through the expiring fires of a -village fair or wake: that interruption excepted, through the whole -stretch of forty miles from Bridgewater to the Hot-wells, I saw no -living creature but a surly dog, who followed me for a mile along a -park-wall, and a man, who was moving about in the half-way town of -Cross. The turnpike-gates were all opened by a mechanical contrivance -from a bedroom window; I seemed to myself in solitary possession of the -whole sleeping country. The summer night was divinely calm; no sound, -except once or twice the cry of a child as I was passing the windows of -cottages, ever broke upon the utter silence; and all things conspired -to throw back my thoughts upon that extraordinary man whom I had just -quitted. - - [50] Arthur Young's numerous works, published between 1768 and - 1812, are mainly on agricultural subjects, in the form of tours - and statistics, but include political doctrines and theories.--M. - -The fine saying of Addison is familiar to most readers--that Babylon -in ruins is not so affecting a spectacle, or so solemn, as a human -mind overthrown by lunacy. How much more awful, then, when a mind -so regal as that of Coleridge is overthrown, or threatened with -overthrow, not by a visitation of Providence, but by the treachery of -its own will, and by the conspiracy, as it were, of himself against -himself! Was it possible that this ruin had been caused or hurried -forward by the dismal degradations of pecuniary difficulties? That -was worth inquiring. I will here mention briefly that I _did_ inquire -two days after; and, in consequence of what I heard, I contrived that -a particular service should be rendered to Mr. Coleridge, a week -after, through the hands of Mr. Cottle of Bristol, which might have -the effect of liberating his mind from anxiety for a year or two, and -thus rendering his great powers disposable to their natural uses. That -service was accepted by Coleridge.[51] To save him any feelings of -distress, all names were concealed; but, in a letter written by him -about fifteen years after that time, I found that he had become aware -of all the circumstances, perhaps through some indiscretion of Mr. -Cottle's. A more important question I never ascertained, viz. whether -this service had the effect of seriously lightening his mind. For some -succeeding years, he did certainly appear to me released from that load -of despondency which oppressed him on my first introduction. Grave, -indeed, he continued to be, and at times absorbed in gloom; nor did I -ever see him in a state of perfectly natural cheerfulness. But, as he -strove in vain, for many years, to wean himself from his captivity to -opium, a healthy state of spirits could not be much expected. Perhaps, -indeed, where the liver and other organs had, for so large a period -in life, been subject to a continual morbid stimulation, it might be -impossible for the system ever to recover a natural action. Torpor, -I suppose, must result from continued artificial excitement; and, -perhaps, upon a scale of corresponding duration. Life, in such a case, -may not offer a field of sufficient extent for unthreading the fatal -links that have been wound about the machinery of health, and have -crippled its natural play. - - [51] The service consisted in a gift by De Quincey of £300 - conveyed to Coleridge through the Bristol bookseller Cottle. - Coleridge's receipt to Cottle for the money is dated 12th November - 1807. Coleridge knew nothing more at the time than that the gift - came from "a young man of fortune who admired his talents." De - Quincey, who had but recently attained his majority, had then - plenty of money. He wanted, indeed, to make the gift £500; but - Cottle insisted on reducing the sum.--M. - -Meantime--to resume the thread of my wandering narrative--on this -serene summer night of 1807, as I moved slowly along, with my eyes -continually settling upon the northern constellations, which, like -all the fixed stars, by their immeasurable and almost spiritual -remoteness from human affairs, naturally throw the thoughts upon the -perishableness of our earthly troubles, in contrast with their own -utter peace and solemnity--I reverted, at intervals, to all I had ever -heard of Coleridge, and strove to weave it into some continuous sketch -of his life. I hardly remember how much I then knew; I know but little -now: that little I will here jot down upon paper. - - * * * * * - -Samuel Taylor Coleridge was the son of a learned clergyman--the vicar -of Ottery St. Mary, in the southern quarter of Devonshire.[52] It is -painful to mention that he was almost an object of persecution to his -mother; why, I could never learn. His father was described to me, by -Coleridge himself, as a sort of Parson Adams, being distinguished -by his erudition, his inexperience of the world, and his guileless -simplicity. I once purchased in London, and, I suppose, still possess, -two elementary books on the Latin language by this reverend gentleman; -one of them, as I found, making somewhat higher pretensions than a -common school grammar.[53] In particular, an attempt is made to -reform the theory of the cases; and it gives a pleasant specimen of -the rustic scholar's _naïveté_, that he seriously proposes to banish -such vexatious terms as the _accusative_; and, by way of simplifying -the matter to tender minds, that we should call it, in all time to -come, the "_quale-quare-quidditive_" case, upon what incomprehensible -principle I never could fathom. He used regularly to delight his -village flock, on Sundays, with Hebrew quotations in his sermons, which -he always introduced as the "immediate language of the Holy Ghost." -This proved unfortunate to his successor: he also was a learned man, -and his parishioners admitted it, but generally with a sigh for past -times, and a sorrowful complaint that he was still far below Parson -Coleridge--for that _he_ never gave them any "immediate language -of the Holy Ghost." I presume that, like the reverend gentleman so -pleasantly sketched in "St. Ronan's Well," Mr. Coleridge, who resembled -that person in his oriental learning, in his absence of mind, and in -his simplicity, must also have resembled him in shortsightedness, -of which his son used to relate this ludicrous instance. Dining in -a large party, one day, the modest divine was suddenly shocked by -perceiving some part, as he conceived, of his own snowy shirt emerging -from a part of his habiliments, which we will suppose to have been -his waistcoat. It was _not_ that; but for decorum we will so call -it. The stray portion of his own supposed tunic was admonished of -its errors by a forcible thrust back into its proper home; but still -another _limbus_ persisted to emerge, or seemed to persist, and still -another, until the learned gentleman absolutely perspired with the -labour of re-establishing order. And, after all, he saw with anguish -that some arrears of the snowy indecorum still remained to reduce -into obedience. To this remnant of rebellion he was proceeding to -apply himself--strangely confounded, however, at the obstinacy of the -insurrection--when, the mistress of the house rising to lead away the -ladies from the table, and all parties naturally rising with her, it -became suddenly apparent to every eye that the worthy Orientalist had -been most laboriously stowing away into the capacious receptacles of -his own habiliments--under the delusion that it was his own shirt--the -snowy folds of a lady's gown, belonging to his next neighbour; and so -voluminously that a very small portion of it, indeed, remained for the -lady's own use; the natural consequence of which was, of course, that -the lady appeared inextricably yoked to the learned theologian, and -could not in any way effect her release, until after certain operations -upon the vicar's dress, and a continued refunding and rolling out of -snowy mazes upon snowy mazes, in quantities which at length proved too -much for the gravity of the company. Inextinguishable laughter arose -from all parties, except the erring and unhappy doctor, who, in dire -perplexity, continued still refunding with all his might--perspiring -and refunding--until he had paid up the last arrears of his long debt, -and thus put an end to a case of distress more memorable to himself and -his parishioners than any "_quale-quare-quidditive_" case that probably -had ever perplexed his learning. - - [52] Coleridge was born there 21st October 1772, the youngest of a - family of nine brothers and four sisters, three of the sisters by - a previous marriage of his father.--M. - - [53] _A Critical Latin Grammar_, published for the author in 1772, - and _Sententiæ Excerptæ, explaining the Rules of Grammar_, printed - for the author in 1777. He also published a political sermon. - Besides being vicar of Ottery St. Mary, he was master of the - grammar school there.--M. - -In his childish days, and when he had become an orphan, Coleridge was -removed to the heart of London, and placed on the great foundation -of Christ's Hospital.[54] He there found himself associated, as a -school-fellow, with several boys destined to distinction in after -life; particularly the brilliant Leigh Hunt, and more closely with one -who, if not endowed with powers equally large and comprehensive as his -own, had, however, genius not less original or exquisite--viz. the -inimitable Charles Lamb. But, in learning, Coleridge outstripped all -competitors, and rose to be the captain of the school. It is, indeed, -a memorable fact to be recorded of a boy, that, before completing his -fifteenth year, he had translated the Greek Hymns of Synesius into -English Anacreontic verse. This was not a school task, but a labour of -love and choice. Before leaving school, Coleridge had an opportunity -of reading the sonnets of Bowles, which so powerfully impressed his -poetic sensibility that he made forty transcripts of them with his own -pen, by way of presents to youthful friends. From Christ's Hospital, -by the privilege of his station at school, he was transferred to Jesus -College, Cambridge.[55] It was here, no doubt, that his acquaintance -began with the philosophic system of Hartley, for that eminent person -had been a Jesus man. Frend also, the mathematician, of heretical -memory (he was judicially tried, and expelled from his fellowship, on -some issue connected with the doctrine of the Trinity), belonged to -that college, and was probably contemporary with Coleridge.[56] What -accident, or imprudence, carried him away from Cambridge before he had -completed the usual period of study, I never heard. He had certainly -won some distinction as a scholar, having obtained the prize for a -Greek ode in Sapphic metre, of which the sentiments (as he observes -himself) were better than the Greek. Porson was accustomed, meanly -enough, to ridicule the Greek _lexis_ of this ode; which was to break -a fly upon the wheel. The ode was clever enough for a boy; but to such -skill in Greek as could have enabled him to compose with critical -accuracy Coleridge never made pretensions. - - [54] This was in July 1782.--M. - - [55] In February 1791.--M. - - [56] The Rev. William Frend (1757-1831), a very eminent scholar, - had been ejected from his tutorship in Jesus College in 1788, - because of his Unitarian opinions and general liberalism, but was - still about the University in Coleridge's time, battling stoutly - with the authorities. - -The incidents of Coleridge's life about this period, and some account -of a heavy disappointment in love, which probably it was that -carried him away from Cambridge, are to be found embodied (with what -modifications I know not) in the novel of "Edmund Oliver," written by -Charles Lloyd. It is well known that, in a frenzy of unhappy feeling -at the rejection he met with from the lady of his choice, Coleridge -enlisted as a private into a dragoon regiment.[57] He fell off his -horse on several occasions, but perhaps not more than raw recruits are -apt to do when first put under the riding-master. But Coleridge was -naturally ill framed for a good horseman. - - [57] He enlisted in the 15th Light Dragoons, 3d December 1793, - under the name of Silas Titus Comberback. So says a very minute - memoir of him prefixed to Messrs. Macmillan's edition of his - Poetical and Dramatic Works in four volumes, 1880.--M. - -He is also represented in "Edmund Oliver" as having found peculiar -difficulty or annoyance in grooming his horse. But the most romantic -incident in that scene of his life was in the circumstances of his -discharge. It is said (but I vouch for no part of the story) that -Coleridge, as a private, mounted guard at the door of a room in -which his officers were giving a ball. Two of them had a dispute upon -some Greek word or passage when close to Coleridge's station. He -interposed his authentic decision of the case. The officers stared as -though one of their own horses had sung "Rule Britannia"; questioned -him; heard his story; pitied his misfortune; and finally subscribed -to purchase his discharge. So the story has been told; and also -otherwise.[58] Not very long after this, Coleridge became acquainted -with the two celebrated Wedgwoods of Etruria, both of whom, admiring -his fine powers, subscribed to send him into North Germany, where, -at the University of Göttingen, he completed his education according -to his own scheme. The most celebrated professor whose lectures he -attended was the far-famed Blumenbach, of whom he continued to speak -through life with almost filial reverence. Returning to England, he -attended Mr. Thomas Wedgwood, as a friend, throughout the afflicting -and anomalous illness which brought him to the grave. It was supposed -by medical men that the cause of Mr. Wedgwood's continued misery was a -stricture of the colon. The external symptoms were torpor and morbid -irritability, together with everlasting restlessness. By way of some -relief to this latter symptom, Mr. Wedgwood purchased a travelling -carriage, and wandered up and down England, taking Coleridge as -his companion. And, as a desperate attempt to rouse and irritate -the decaying sensibility of his system, I have been assured, by a -surviving friend, that Mr. Wedgwood at one time opened a butcher's -shop, conceiving that the affronts and disputes to which such a -situation would expose him might act beneficially upon his increasing -torpor. This strange expedient[59] served only to express the anguish -which had now mastered his nature; it was soon abandoned; and this -accomplished but miserable man at length sank under his sufferings. -What made the case more memorable was the combination of worldly -prosperity which forced into strong relief and fiery contrast this -curse written in the flesh. He was rich, he was young, he was popular, -distinguished for his scientific attainments, publicly honoured for -patriotic services, and had before him, when he first fell ill, every -prospect of a career even nationally splendid. - - [58] Somewhat otherwise in the memoir mentioned in last note, - where the date of his discharge is given as 10th April 1794, and - the place as Hounslow. He returned to Cambridge for a few months, - and then, after shifting about a little, settled in Bristol with - Southey, where he married, 4th October 1795, Sara Fricker, the - sister of Southey's wife. De Quincey seems to misdate his first - visit to Germany.--M. - - [59] Which, however, his brother denied as a pure fable. On - reading this account, he wrote to me, and in very courteous terms - assured me that I had been misinformed. I now retain the story - simply as a version, partially erroneous, no doubt, of perhaps - some true anecdote that may have escaped the surviving Mr. - Wedgwood's knowledge; my reason for thinking thus being that the - same anecdote essentially but varied in the circumstances, has - reached me at different periods from parties having no connexion - whatsoever. - -By the death of Mr. Wedgwood, Coleridge succeeded to a regular annuity -of £75, which that gentleman had bequeathed to him. The other Mr. -Wedgwood granted him an equal allowance. Now came his marriage, his -connexion with politics and political journals, his residence in -various parts of Somersetshire, and his consequent introduction to -Mr. Wordsworth. In his politics, Mr. Coleridge was most sincere and -most enthusiastic. No man hailed with profounder sympathy the French -Revolution; and, though he saw cause to withdraw his regard from -many of the democratic zealots in this country, and even from the -revolutionary interest as it was subsequently conducted, he continued -to worship the original revolutionary cause in a pure Miltonic spirit; -and he continued also to abominate the policy of Mr. Pitt in a degree -which I myself find it difficult to understand. The very spirited -little poem of "Fire, Famine, and Slaughter," who are supposed to meet -in conference, to describe their horrid triumphs, and then to ask in -a whisper _who_ it was that unchained them,--to which each in turn -replies, - - "Letters four do form his name!"-- - -expresses his horror of Mr. Pitt personally in a most extravagant -shape, but merely for the purpose of poetic effect; for he had no real -unkindness in his heart towards any human being; and I have often heard -him disclaim the hatred which is here expressed for Mr. Pitt, as he -did also very elaborately and earnestly in print. Somewhere about this -time, Coleridge attempted, under Sheridan's countenance, to bring a -tragedy upon the stage of Drury Lane; but his prospect of success, as I -once heard or read, was suddenly marred by Mr. Sheridan's inability to -sacrifice what he thought a good jest. One scene presented a cave with -streams of water weeping down the sides; and the first words were, in a -sort of mimicry of the sound, "Drip, drip, drip!" Upon which Sheridan -repeated aloud to the assembled green-room, expressly convoked for the -purpose of hearing the play read, "Drip, drip, drip!--why, God bless -me, there's nothing here but _dripping_!" and so arose a chorus of -laughter amongst the actors fatal for the moment to the probationary -play. - -About the latter end of the century, Coleridge visited North Germany -again, in company with Mr. and Miss Wordsworth.[60] Their tour was -chiefly confined to the Hartz Forest and its neighbourhood. But the -incident most worthy of remembrance in their excursion was a visit -made to Klopstock; either at Hamburgh, or, perhaps, at the Danish -town of Altona, on the same river Elbe; for Klopstock was a pensioner -of the Danish king. An anonymous writer, who attacked Coleridge -most truculently in an early number of "Blackwood," and with an -_acharnement_ that must astonish the neutral reader, has made the -mistake of supposing Coleridge to have been the chief speaker, who -did not speak at all. The case was this: Klopstock could not speak -English, though everybody remembers the pretty broken English[61] -of his second wife. Neither Coleridge nor Wordsworth, on the other -hand, was able to _speak_ German with any fluency. French, therefore, -was the only medium of free communication; that being pretty equally -familiar to Wordsworth and to Klopstock. But Coleridge found so much -difficulty even in _reading_ French that, wherever (as in the case of -Leibnitz's "Theodicée") there was a choice between an original written -in French and a translation, though it might be a very faulty one, -in German, he always preferred the latter. Hence it happened that -Wordsworth, on behalf of the English party, was the sole supporter of -the dialogue. The anonymous critic says another thing, which certainly -has an air of truth--viz. that Klopstock plays a very secondary _rôle_ -in the interview (or words to that effect). But how was this to be -avoided in reporting the case, supposing the fact to have been such? -Now, the plain truth is that Wordsworth, upon his own ground, was -an incomparable talker; whereas "Klubstick" (as Coleridge used to -call him) was always a feeble and slovenly one, because a loose and -incoherent thinker. Besides, he was now old and decaying. Nor at any -time, nor in any accomplishment, could Klopstock have shone, unless in -the respectable art of skating. _There_ he had a real advantage. The -author of "The Messiah," I have authority for saying, skated with the -ease and grace of a regular artist; whereas the poet of the "Excursion" -sprawled upon the ice like a cow dancing a cotillon. Wordsworth did the -very opposite of that with which he was taxed; for, happening to look -down at Klopstock's swollen legs, and recollecting his age, he felt -touched by a sort of filial pity for his helplessness. And he came to -the conclusion that it would not seem becoming in a young and as yet -obscure author to report too consciously the real superiority which he -found it easy to maintain in such a colloquy. - - [60] He was absent on this tour in Germany from September 1798 to - November 1799.--M. - - [61] Published in Richardson's Correspondence. - -But neither had Klopstock the pretensions as a poet which the -Blackwood writer seems to take for granted. Germany, the truth is, -wanted a great epic poet. Not having produced one in that early and -plastic stage of her literary soil when such a growth is natural and -spontaneous, the next thing was to bespeak a substitute. The force -of Coleridge's well-known repartee, when, in reply to a foreigner -asserting for Klopstock the rank of German Milton, he said, "True, -sir; a very _German_ Milton," cannot be fully appreciated but by one -who is familiar with the German poetry, and the small proportion in -which it is a natural, racy, and domestic growth. It has been often -noticed as the misfortune of the Roman literature that it grew up too -much under the oppression of Grecian models, and of Grecian models -depraved by Alexandrian art--a fact, so far as it _was_ a fact, which -tended to cripple the _genial_ and characteristic spirit of the -national mind. But this evil, after all, did not take effect except -in a partial sense. Rome had cast much of her literature in her own -moulds before these exotic models had begun to domineer. In fact, the -reproach is in a very narrow sense true. Not so with Germany. Her -literature, since its revival in the last century (and the revival upon -the impulse of what cattle!--Bodmer on the one hand, and Gottsched, -the never-enough-to-be-despised Gottsched, on the other!) has hardly -moved a step in the freedom of natural grace. England for nineteen, and -France for the twentieth, of all her capital works, has given the too -servile law: and, with regard to Klopstock, if ever there was a good -exemplification of the spurious and the counterfeit in literature, seek -it in "The Messiah." He is verily and indeed the _Birmingham_ Milton. -This Klopstockian dialogue, by the way, was first printed (hardly -_published_) in the original, or Lake edition of "The Friend." In the -recast of that work it was omitted; nor has it been printed anywhere -else that I am aware of. - -About the close of the first revolutionary war it must have been, or -in the brief interval of peace, that Coleridge resorted to the English -Lakes as a place of residence.[62] Wordsworth had a natural connexion -with that region, by birth, breeding, and family alliances. Wordsworth -must have attracted Coleridge to the Lakes; and Coleridge, through his -affinity to Southey, eventually attracted _him_. Southey, as is known -to all who take an interest in the Lake colony, married a sister of -Mrs. Coleridge's; and, as a singular eccentricity in the circumstances -of that marriage, I may mention that, on his wedding-day, and from -the very portico of the church, Southey left his bride to embark for -Lisbon. His uncle, Dr. Herbert, was chaplain to the English factory in -that city; and it was to benefit by the facilities in that way opened -to him for seeing Portugal that Southey now went abroad. He extended -his tour to Spain; and the result of his notices was communicated to -the world in a volume of travels. By such accidents of personal or -family connexion as I have mentioned was the Lake colony gathered; -and the critics of the day, unaware of the real facts, supposed them -to have assembled under common views in literature--particularly with -regard to the true functions of poetry, and the true theory of poetic -diction. Under this original blunder, laughable it is to mention -that they went on to _find_ in their writings all the agreements and -common characteristics which their blunder had presumed; and they -incorporated the whole community under the name of the _Lake School_. -Yet Wordsworth and Southey never had one principle in common; their -hostility was even flagrant. Indeed, Southey troubled himself little -about abstract principles in anything; and, so far from agreeing with -Wordsworth to the extent of setting up a separate school in poetry, he -told me himself (August 1812) that he highly disapproved both of Mr. -Wordsworth's theories and of his practice. It is very true that one man -may sympathize with another, or even follow his leading, unconscious -that he does so; or he may go so far as, in the very act of virtual -imitation, to deem himself in opposition; but this sort of blind -agreement could hardly be supposed of two men so discerning and so -self-examining as Wordsworth and Southey. And, in fact, a philosophic -investigation of the difficult questions connected with this whole -slang about schools, Lake schools, &c., would show that Southey has -not, nor ever had, any _peculiarities_ in common with Wordsworth, -beyond that of exchanging the old prescriptive diction of poetry, -introduced between the periods of Milton and Cowper, for the simpler -and profounder forms of daily life in some instances, and of the -Bible in others. The bold and uniform practice of Wordsworth was here -adopted, on perfectly independent views, by Southey. In this respect, -however, Cowper had already begun the reform; and his influence, -concurring with the now larger influence of Wordsworth, has operated so -extensively as to make their own original differences at this day less -perceptible. - - [62] It was in 1800 that Coleridge removed from London to Keswick, - Wordsworth being then at Grasmere.--M. - -By the way, the word _colony_ reminds me that I have omitted to mention -in its proper place some scheme for migrating to America which had -been entertained by Coleridge and Southey about the year 1794-95, -under the learned name of _Pantisocracy_. So far as I ever heard, it -differed little, except in its Grecian name, from any other scheme for -mitigating the privations of a wilderness by settling in a cluster of -families, bound together by congenial tastes and uniform principles, -rather than in self-depending, insulated households. Steadily pursued, -it might, after all, have been a fortunate plan for Coleridge. -"Soliciting my food from daily toil," a line in which Coleridge alludes -to the scheme, implies a condition of life that would have upheld -Coleridge's health and happiness somewhat better than the habits of -luxurious city life as now constituted in Europe. But, returning[63] -to the Lakes, and to the Lake colony of poets: So little were Southey -and Wordsworth connected by any personal intercourse in those days, -and so little disposed to be connected, that, whilst the latter had -a cottage in Grasmere, Southey pitched his tent at Greta Hall, on a -little eminence rising immediately from the river Greta and the town -of Keswick. Grasmere is in Westmoreland; Keswick in Cumberland; and -they are thirteen good miles apart. Coleridge and his family were -domiciliated in Greta Hall; sharing that house, a tolerably large one, -on some principle of amicable division, with Mr. Southey. But Coleridge -personally was more often to be found at Grasmere--which presented the -threefold attractions of loveliness so complete as to eclipse even the -scenery of Derwentwater; a pastoral state of society, free from the -deformities of a little town like Keswick; and, finally, for Samuel -Taylor Coleridge, the society of Wordsworth. Not before 1815 or 1816 -could it be said that Southey and Wordsworth were even upon friendly -terms; so entirely is it untrue that they combined to frame a school of -poetry. Up to that time, they viewed each other with mutual respect, -but also with mutual dislike; almost, I might say, with mutual disgust. -Wordsworth disliked in Southey the want of depth, or the apparent want, -as regards the power of philosophic abstraction. Southey disliked in -Wordsworth the air of dogmatism, and the unaffable haughtiness of his -manner. Other more trivial reasons combined with these. - - [63] This peculiar usage of an unrelated participle is pretty - frequent with De Quincey, and is perhaps the only recurring - peculiarity of his grammar to which a purist would object.--M. - -At this time, when Coleridge first settled at the Lakes, or not long -after, a romantic and somewhat tragical affair drew the eyes of all -England, and, for many years, continued to draw the steps of tourists, -to one of the most secluded Cumberland valleys, so little visited -previously that it might be described almost as an undiscovered -chamber of that romantic district. Coleridge was brought into a closer -connexion with this affair than merely by the general relation of -neighbourhood; for an article of his in a morning paper, I believe, -unintentionally furnished the original clue for unmasking the base -impostor who figured as the central actor in this tale. The tale was -at that time dramatized, and scenically represented by some of the -minor theatres in London, as noticed by Wordsworth in the "Prelude." -But other generations have arisen since that time, who must naturally -be unacquainted with the circumstances; and on their account I will -here recall them:--One day in the Lake season there drove up to the -Royal Oak, the principal inn at Keswick, a handsome and well-appointed -travelling carriage, containing one gentleman of somewhat dashing -exterior. The stranger was a picturesque-hunter, but not of that order -who fly round the ordinary tour with the velocity of lovers posting to -Gretna, or of criminals running from the police; his purpose was to -domiciliate himself in this beautiful scenery, and to see it at his -leisure. From Keswick, as his head-quarters, he made excursions in -every direction amongst the neighbouring valleys; meeting generally a -good deal of respect and attention, partly on account of his handsome -equipage, and still more from his visiting cards, which designated him -as "The Hon. Augustus Hope." Under this name, he gave himself out for -a brother of Lord Hopetoun's. Some persons had discernment enough to -doubt of this; for the man's breeding and deportment, though showy, -had an under-tone of vulgarity about it; and Coleridge assured me that -he was grossly ungrammatical in his ordinary conversation. However, -one fact, soon dispersed by the people of a little rustic post-office, -laid asleep all demurs; he not only received letters addressed to -him under this assumed name--_that_ might be through collusion with -accomplices--but he himself continually _franked_ letters by that name. -Now, this being a capital offence, being not only a forgery, but (as -a forgery on the Post-Office) sure to be prosecuted, nobody presumed -to question his pretensions any longer; and, henceforward, he went to -all places with the consideration attached to an earl's brother. All -doors flew open at his approach; boats, boatmen, nets, and the most -unlimited sporting privileges, were placed at the disposal of the -"Honourable" gentleman: and the hospitality of the district was put on -its mettle, in offering a suitable reception to the patrician Scotsman. -It could be no blame to a shepherd girl, bred in the sternest solitude -which England has to show, that she should fall into a snare which many -of her betters had not escaped. Nine miles from Keswick, by the nearest -bridle-road through Newlands, but fourteen or fifteen by any route -which the honourable gentleman's travelling-carriage could traverse, -lies the Lake of Buttermere. Its margin, which is overhung by some of -the loftiest and steepest of the Cumbrian mountains, exhibits on either -side few traces of human neighbourhood; the level area, where the -hills recede enough to allow of any, is of a wild pastoral character, -or almost savage; the waters of the lake are deep and sullen; and the -barrier mountains, by excluding the sun for much of his daily course, -strengthen the gloomy impressions. At the foot of this lake (that is, -at the end where its waters issue) lie a few unornamented fields, -through which rolls a little brook-like river, connecting it with the -larger lake of Crummock; and at the edge of this miniature domain, -upon the roadside, stands a cluster of cottages, so small and few that -in the richer tracts of England they would scarcely be complimented -with the name of hamlet. One of these, and I believe the principal, -belonged to an independent proprietor, called, in the local dialect, -a "_Statesman_"[64]; and more, perhaps, for the sake of attracting a -little society than with much view to pecuniary profit at that era, -this cottage offered the accommodations of an inn to the traveller -and his horse. Rare, however, must have been the mounted traveller in -those days, unless visiting Buttermere for itself, and as a _terminus -ad quem_; since the road led to no further habitations of man, with -the exception of some four or five pastoral cabins, equally humble, in -Gatesgarthdale. - - [64] _i.e._--A 'Statesman elliptically for an Estatesman,--a - native dalesman possessing and personally cultivating a - patrimonial landed estate. - -Hither, however, in an evil hour for the peace of this little -brotherhood of shepherds, came the cruel spoiler from Keswick. His -errand was, to witness or to share in the char-fishing; for in -Derwentwater (the Lake of Keswick) no char is found, which breeds only -in the deep waters, such as Windermere, Crummock, Buttermere, and -Coniston--never in the shallow ones. But, whatever had been his first -object, _that_ was speedily forgotten in one more deeply interesting. -The daughter of the house, a fine young woman of eighteen, acted as -waiter.[65] In a situation so solitary, the stranger had unlimited -facilities for enjoying her company, and recommending himself to her -favour. Doubts about his pretensions never arose in so simple a place -as this; they were overruled before they could well have arisen by the -opinion now general in Keswick, that he really was what he pretended to -be: and thus, with little demur, except in the shape of a few natural -words of parting anger from a defeated or rejected rustic admirer, the -young woman gave her hand in marriage to the showy and unprincipled -stranger. I know not whether the marriage was, or could have been, -celebrated in the little mountain chapel of Buttermere. If it were, -I persuade myself that the most hardened villain must have felt a -momentary pang on violating the altar of such a chapel; so touchingly -does it express, by its miniature dimensions, the almost helpless -humility of that little pastoral community to whose spiritual wants -it has from generation to generation administered. It is not only -the very smallest chapel by many degrees in all England, but is so -mere a toy in outward appearance that, were it not for its antiquity, -its wild mountain exposure, and its consecrated connexion with the -final hopes and fears of the adjacent pastoral hamlet--but for these -considerations, the first movement of a stranger's feelings would be -towards loud laughter; for the little chapel looks not so much a mimic -chapel in a drop-scene from the Opera House as a miniature copy from -such a scene; and evidently could not receive within its walls more -than half a dozen of households. From this sanctuary it was--from -beneath the maternal shadow, if not from the very altar,[66] of this -lonely chapel--that the heartless villain carried off the flower of -the mountains. Between this place and Keswick they continued to move -backwards and forwards, until at length, with the startling of a -thunder-clap to the affrighted mountaineers, the bubble burst: officers -of justice appeared: the stranger was easily intercepted from flight, -and, upon a capital charge, was borne away to Carlisle. At the ensuing -assizes he was tried for forgery on the prosecution of the Post-Office, -found guilty, left for execution, and executed accordingly.[67] On -the day of his condemnation, Wordsworth and Coleridge passed through -Carlisle, and endeavoured to obtain an interview with him. Wordsworth -succeeded; but, for some unknown reason, the prisoner steadily refused -to see Coleridge; a caprice which could not be penetrated. It is true -that he had, during his whole residence at Keswick, avoided Coleridge -with a solicitude which had revived the original suspicions against him -in some quarters, after they had generally gone to sleep. But for this -his motive had then been sufficient: he was of a Devonshire family, -and naturally feared the eye, or the inquisitive examination of one -who bore a name immemorially associated with the southern part of that -county. - - [65] "_Waiter_":--Since this was first written, social changes in - London, by introducing females very extensively into the office - (once monopolized by men) of attending the visitors at the tables - of eating-houses have introduced a corresponding new word--viz., - _waitress_; which word, twenty-five years back, would have been - simply ludicrous; but now is become as indispensable to precision - of language as the words traitress, heiress, inheritrix, &c. - - [66] My doubt is founded upon the varying tenure of these secluded - chapels as to privileges of marrying or burying. The mere name of - chapel, though, of course, in regular connexion with some mother - church, does not of itself imply whether it has or has not the - power to solemnize a marriage. - - [67] At Carlisle, 3d September 1803. His marriage with Mary - Robinson, the Beauty of Buttermere, had been on 3d October 1802, - when he was forty-three years of age. Originally he had been a - commercial traveller; and his early marriage with an illegitimate - daughter of a younger son of an English nobleman seems to have had - much to do with his subsequent career. Deserting this wife and her - children in 1782, he had lived a life of swindling ever since, had - married a second wife and deserted her, and was wooing a young - Irish lady at the very time when the Buttermere girl became his - victim. "His manners were extremely polished and insinuating, and - he was possessed of qualities which might have rendered him an - ornament of society," is the pleasant character I find of him in - one _Newgate Calendar_ compendium.--M. - -Coleridge, however, had been transplanted so immaturely from his -native region that few people in England knew less of its family -connexions. That, perhaps, was unknown to this malefactor; but, at -any rate, he knew that all motive was now at an end for disguise of -any sort; so that his reserve, in this particular, had now become -unintelligible. However, if not him, Coleridge saw and examined his -very interesting papers. These were chiefly letters from women whom he -had injured, pretty much in the same way, and by the same impostures, -as he had so recently practised in Cumberland; and, as Coleridge -assured me, were in part the most agonizing appeals that he had ever -read to human justice and pity. The man's real name was, I think, -Hatfield. And amongst the papers were two separate correspondences, of -some length, with two young women, apparently of superior condition -in life (one the daughter of an English clergyman), whom this villain -had deluded by marriage, and, after some cohabitation, abandoned,--one -of them with a family of young children. Great was the emotion of -Coleridge when he recurred to his remembrance of these letters, and -bitter, almost vindictive, was the indignation with which he spoke -of Hatfield. One set of letters appeared to have been written under -too certain a knowledge of _his_ villany to whom they were addressed; -though still relying on some possible remains of humanity, or perhaps -(the poor writer might think) on some lingering preference for herself. -The other set was even more distressing; they were written under the -first conflicts of suspicions, alternately repelling with warmth the -gloomy doubts which were fast arising, and then yielding to their -afflicting evidence; raving in one page under the misery of alarm, in -another courting the delusions of hope, and luring back the perfidious -deserter,--here resigning herself to despair, and there again labouring -to show that all might yet be well. Coleridge said often, in looking -back upon that frightful exposure of human guilt and misery, that the -man who, when pursued by these heart-rending apostrophes, and with -this litany of anguish sounding in his ears, from despairing women -and from famishing children, could yet find it possible to enjoy the -calm pleasures of a Lake tourist, and deliberately to hunt for the -picturesque, must have been a fiend of that order which fortunately -does not often emerge amongst men. It is painful to remember that, -in those days, amongst the multitudes who ended their career in the -same ignominious way, and the majority for offences connected with -the forgery of bank notes, there must have been a considerable number -who perished from the very opposite cause--viz., because they felt, -too passionately and profoundly for prudence, the claims of those who -looked up to them for support. One common scaffold confounds the most -flinty hearts and the tenderest. However, in this instance, it was -in some measure the heartless part of Hatfield's conduct which drew -upon him his ruin: for the Cumberland jury honestly declared their -unwillingness to hang him for having forged a frank; and both they, -and those who refused to aid his escape when first apprehended, were -reconciled to this harshness entirely by what they heard of his conduct -to their injured young fellow-countrywoman. - -She, meantime, under the name of _The Beauty of Buttermere_, became -an object of interest to all England; melodramas were produced in the -London suburban[68] theatres upon her story; and, for many a year -afterwards, shoals of tourists crowded to the secluded lake, and the -little homely cabaret, which had been the scene of her brief romance; -It was fortunate for a person in her distressing situation that -her home was not in a town: the few and simple neighbours, who had -witnessed her imaginary elevation, having little knowledge of worldly -feelings, never for an instant connected with her disappointment any -sense of the ludicrous, or spoke of it as a calamity to which her -vanity might have co-operated. They treated it as unmixed injury, -reflecting shame upon nobody but the wicked perpetrator. Hence, without -much trial to her womanly sensibilities, she found herself able to -resume her situation in the little inn; and this she continued to hold -for many years. In that place, and that capacity, I saw her repeatedly, -and shall here say a word upon her personal appearance, because the -Lake poets all admired her greatly. Her figure was, in my eyes, good; -but I doubt whether most of my readers would have thought it such. She -was none of your evanescent, wasp-waisted beauties; on the contrary, -she was rather large every way; tallish, and proportionably broad. Her -face was fair, and her features feminine; and, unquestionably, she -was what all the world would have agreed to call "good-looking." But, -except in her arms, which had something of a statuesque beauty, and -in her carriage, which expressed a womanly grace, together with some -degree of dignity and self-possession, I confess that I looked in vain -for any _positive_ qualities of any sort or degree. _Beautiful_, in -any emphatic sense, she was not. Everything about her face and bust -was negative; simply without offence. Even this, however, was more -than could be said at all times; for the expression of her countenance -_could_ be disagreeable. This arose out of her situation; connected -as it was with defective sensibility and a misdirected pride. Nothing -operates so differently upon different minds and different styles of -beauty as the inquisitive gaze of strangers, whether in the spirit of -respectful admiration or of insolence. Some I have seen upon whose -angelic beauty this sort of confusion settled advantageously, and like -a softening veil; others, in whom it meets with proud resentment, are -sometimes disfigured by it. In Mary of Buttermere it roused mere anger -and disdain; which, meeting with the sense of her humble and dependent -situation, gave birth to a most unhappy aspect of countenance. Men who -had no touch of a gentleman's nature in their composition sometimes -insulted her by looks and by words, supposing that they purchased -the right to do this by an extra half-crown; and she too readily -attributed the same spirit of impertinent curiosity to every man whose -eyes happened to settle steadily upon her face. Yet, once at least, -I must have seen her under the most favourable circumstances: for, -on my first visit to Buttermere, I had the pleasure of Mr. Southey's -company, who was incapable of wounding anybody's feelings, and to Mary, -in particular, was well known by kind attentions, and I believe by -some services. Then, at least, I saw her to advantage, and perhaps, -for a figure of her build, at the best age; for it was about nine or -ten years after her misfortune, when she might be twenty-seven or -twenty-eight years old. We were alone, a solitary pair of tourists: -nothing arose to confuse or distress her. She waited upon us at dinner, -and talked to us freely. "This is a respectable young woman," I said -to myself; but nothing of that enthusiasm could I feel which beauty, -such as I _have_ beheld at the Lakes, would have been apt to raise -under a similar misfortune. One lady, not very scrupulous in her -embellishments of facts, used to tell an anecdote of her which I hope -was exaggerated. Some friend of hers (as she affirmed), in company with -a large party, visited Buttermere within one day after that upon which -Hatfield suffered; and she protested that Mary threw upon the table, -with an emphatic gesture, the Carlisle paper containing an elaborate -account of his execution. - - [68] In connexion with this mention of "suburban" and minor - theatres, it is but fair to cite a passage expressly relating to - Mary of Buttermere from the Seventh Book (entitled "Residence in - London") of Wordsworth's "Prelude":-- - - "Here, too, were _forms and pressures of the time_, - Rough, bold, as Grecian comedy display'd - When Art was young; dramas of living men, - And recent things yet warm with life; a sea-fight, - Shipwreck, or some domestic incident - Divulged by Truth, and magnified by Fame; - Such as the daring brotherhood of late - Set forth, too serious theme for that light place-- - I mean, O distant friend! a story drawn - From our own ground--the Maid of Buttermere, - And how, unfaithful to a virtuous wife, - Deserted and deceived, the spoiler came - And wooed the artless daughter of the hills, - And wedded her, in cruel mockery - Of love and marriage bonds. These words to thee - Must needs bring back the moment when we first, - Ere the broad world rang with the maiden's name, - Beheld her serving at the cottage inn, - Both stricken, as she enter'd or withdrew, - With admiration of her modest mien - And carriage, mark'd by unexampled grace. - We since that time not unfamiliarly - Have seen her--her discretion have observed, - Her just opinions, delicate reserve, - Her patience and humility of mind, - Unspoiled by commendation and the excess - Of public notice--an offensive light - To a meek spirit suffering inwardly." - - The "distant friend" here apostrophized is Coleridge, then at Malta. - But it is fair to record this memorial of the fair mountaineer--going - perhaps as much beyond the public estimate of her pretensions as my own - was below it. It should be added that William Wordsworth and Samuel - Taylor Coleridge (to whom the writer appeals as in general sympathy - with himself) had seen Mary more frequently, and had conversed with her - much more freely, than myself. - -It is an instance of Coleridge's carelessness that he, who had as -little of fixed ill-nature in his temper as any person whom I have ever -known, managed, in reporting this story at the time of its occurrence, -to get himself hooked into a personal quarrel, which hung over his -head unsettled for nine or ten years. A Liverpool merchant, who was -then meditating a house in the Vale of Grasmere, and perhaps might -have incurred Coleridge's anger by thus disturbing, with inappropriate -intrusions, this loveliest of all English landscapes, had connected -himself a good deal with Hatfield during his Keswick masquerade; and -was said even to have carried his regard to that villain so far as -to have christened one of his own children by the names of "Augustus -Hope." With these and other circumstances, expressing the extent of -the infatuation amongst the swindler's dupes, Coleridge made the -public merry. Naturally, the Liverpool merchant was not amongst those -who admired the facetiousness of Coleridge on this occasion, but -swore vengeance whenever they should meet. They never _did_ meet, -until ten years had gone by; and then, oddly enough, it was in the -Liverpool man's own house--in that very nuisance of a house which had, -I suppose, first armed Coleridge's wrath against him. This house, by -time and accident, in no very wonderful way, had passed into the hands -of Wordsworth as tenant. Coleridge, as was still less wonderful, had -become the visitor of Wordsworth on returning from Malta; and the -Liverpool merchant, as was also natural, either seeking his rent, or on -the general errand of a friendly visit, calling upon Wordsworth, met -Coleridge in the hall. Now came the hour for settling old accounts. I -was present, and can report the case. Both looked grave, and coloured -a little. But ten years work wonders: an armistice of that duration -heals many a wound; and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, requesting his enemy's -company in the garden, entered upon a long metaphysical dissertation, -bordering upon what you might call _philosophical rigmarole_, and -rather puzzling to answer. It seemed to be an expansion, by Thomas -Aquinas, of that parody upon a well-known passage in Shenstone, where -the writer says-- - - "He kick'd me down-stairs with such a sweet grace - That I thought he was handing me up." - -And, in the upshot, this conclusion _eventuated_ (to speak -Yankeeishly), that purely on principles of good neighbourhood and -universal philanthropy could Coleridge have meditated or executed the -insult offered in the "Morning Post." The Liverpool merchant rubbed his -forehead, and seemed a little perplexed; but he was a most good-natured -man; and he was eminently a gentleman. At length, considering, perhaps, -how very like Duns Scotus, or Albertus Magnus, Coleridge had shown -himself in this luminous explanation, he might begin to reflect that, -had any one of those distinguished men offered a similar affront, it -would have been impossible to resent it; for who could think of kicking -the "Doctor Seraphicus," or would it tell to any man's advantage -in history that he had caned Thomas Aquinas? On these principles, -therefore, without saying one word, Liverpoliensis held out his hand, -and a lasting reconciliation followed. - -Not very long, I believe, after this affair of Hatfield, Coleridge went -to Malta.[69] His inducement to such a step must have been merely a -desire to see the most interesting regions of the Mediterranean under -the shelter and advantageous introduction of an official station. -It was, however, an unfortunate chapter of his life: for, being -necessarily thrown a good deal upon his own resources in the narrow -society of a garrison, he there confirmed and cherished, if he did not -there form, his habit of taking opium in large quantities. I am the -last person in the world to press conclusions harshly or uncandidly -against Coleridge; but I believe it to be notorious that he first began -the use of opium, not as a relief from any bodily pains or nervous -irritations (since his constitution was strong and excellent), but as -a source of luxurious sensations. It is a great misfortune, at least it -is a great peril, to have tasted the enchanted cup of youthful rapture -incident to the poetic temperament. That fountain of high-wrought -sensibility once unlocked experimentally, it is rare to see a -submission afterwards to the insipidities of daily life. Coleridge, to -speak in the words of Cervantes, wanted better bread than was made of -wheat; and, when youthful blood no longer sustained the riot of his -animal spirits, he endeavoured to excite them by artificial stimulants. - - [69] In April 1804.--M. - -At Malta he became acquainted with Commodore Decatur and other -Americans of distinction; and this brought him afterwards into -connexion with Allston, the American artist. Of Sir Alexander Ball, -one of Lord Nelson's captains in the battle of the Nile, and Governor -of Malta, he spoke and wrote uniformly in a lavish style of panegyric, -for which plainer men found it difficult to see the slightest ground. -It was, indeed, Coleridge's infirmity to project his own mind, and his -own very peculiar ideas, nay, even his own expressions and illustrative -metaphors, upon other men, and to contemplate these reflex images -from himself as so many characters having an absolute ground in some -separate object. "Ball and Bell"--"Bell and Ball,"[70] were two of -these pet subjects; he had a "craze" about each of them; and to each -he ascribed thoughts and words to which, had they been put upon the -rack, they never would have confessed. - - [70] "_Ball and Bell_"--"_Bell and Ball_":--viz. Sir Alexander - Ball, Governor of Malta, and Dr. Andrew Bell, the importer into - England from Madras of that machinery for facilitating popular - education which was afterwards fraudulently appropriated by Joseph - Lancaster. The Bishop of Durham (Shute Barrington) gave to Dr. - Bell, in reward of his Madras services, the princely Mastership of - Sherborne Hospital. The doctor saved in this post £125,000, and - with this money founded Trinity College, Glenalmond, in - Perthshire. Most men have their enemies and calumniators: Dr. Bell - had _his_, who happened rather indecorously to be his wife--from - whom he was legally separated, or (as in Scotch law it is called) - _divorced_; not, of course, divorced _à vinculo matrimonii_ (which - only amounts to a divorce in the English sense--such a divorce as - enables the parties to contract another marriage), but simply - divorced _à mensâ et thoro_. This legal separation, however, did - not prevent the lady from persecuting the unhappy doctor with - everlasting letters, indorsed outside with records of her enmity - and spite. Sometimes she addressed her epistles thus:--"To that - supreme of rogues, who looks the hang-dog that he is, Doctor (such - a doctor!) Andrew Bell." Or again:--"To the ape of apes, and the - knave of knaves, who is recorded to have once paid a debt--but a - small one, you may be sure, it was that he selected for this - wonderful experiment--in fact, it was 4-1/2d. Had it been on the - other side of 6d., he must have died before he could have achieved - so dreadful a sacrifice." Many others, most ingeniously varied in - the style of abuse, I have heard rehearsed by Coleridge, Southey, - Lloyd, &c.; and one, in particular, addressed to the doctor, when - spending a summer at the cottage of Robert Newton, an old soldier, - in Grasmere, presented on the back two separate adjurations: one - specially addressed to Robert himself, pathetically urging him to - look sharply after the rent of his lodgings; and the other more - generally addressed to the unfortunate person, as yet undisclosed - to the British public (and in this case turning out to be myself) - who might be incautious enough to pay the postage at Ambleside. - "Don't grant him an hour's credit," she urged upon the person - unknown, "if I had any regard to my family." "_Cash down!_" she - wrote twice over. Why the doctor submitted to these annoyances, - nobody knew. Some said it was mere indolence; but others held it - to be a cunning compromise with her inexorable malice. The letters - were certainly open to the "public" eye; but meantime the "public" - was a very narrow one; the clerks in the post-office had little - time for digesting such amenities of conjugal affection; and the - chance bearer of the letters to the doctor would naturally solve - the mystery by supposing an _extra_ portion of madness in the - writer, rather than an _extra_ portion of knavery in the reverend - receiver. - -From Malta, on his return homewards,[71] he went to Rome and Naples. -One of the cardinals, he tells us, warned him, by the Pope's wish, -of some plot, set on foot by Bonaparte, for seizing him as an -anti-Gallican writer. This statement was ridiculed by the anonymous -assailant in "Blackwood" as the very consummation of moonstruck -vanity; and it is there compared to John Dennis's frenzy in retreating -from the sea-coast, under the belief that Louis XIV had commissioned -emissaries to land on the English shore and make a dash at his person. -But, after all, the thing is not so entirely improbable. For it is -certain that some orator of the Opposition (Charles Fox, as Coleridge -asserts) had pointed out all the principal writers in the "Morning -Post" to Napoleon's vengeance, by describing the war as a war "of that -journal's creation."[72] And, as to the insinuation that Napoleon was -above throwing his regards upon a simple writer of political essays, -_that_ is not only abundantly confuted by many scores of established -cases, but also is specially put down by a case circumstantially -recorded in the Second Tour to Paris by the celebrated John Scott of -Aberdeen.[73] It there appears that, on no other ground whatever than -that of his connexion with the London newspaper press, some friend of -Mr. Scott's had been courted most assiduously by Napoleon during the -_Hundred Days_. Assuredly Coleridge deserved, beyond all other men -that ever were connected with the daily press, to be regarded with -distinction. Worlds of fine thinking lie buried in that vast abyss, -never to be disentombed or restored to human admiration. Like the sea, -it has swallowed treasures without end, that no diving-bell will bring -up again. But nowhere, throughout its shoreless magazines of wealth, -does there lie such a bed of pearls confounded with the rubbish and -"purgamenta" of ages, as in the political papers of Coleridge. No more -_appreciable_ monument could be raised to the memory of Coleridge than -a republication of his essays in the "Morning Post," and afterwards -in the "Courier." And here, by the way, it may be mentioned that -the sagacity of Coleridge, as applied to the signs of the times, is -illustrated by this fact, that distinctly and solemnly he foretold the -restoration of the Bourbons, at a period when most people viewed such -an event as the most romantic of visions, and not less chimerical than -that "march upon Paris" of Lord Hawkesbury's which for so many years -supplied a theme of laughter to the Whigs. - - [71] He left Malta 27th September 1805.--M. - - [72] Coleridge had long been a contributor to the _Morning - Post_.--M. - - [73] _Paris Revisited in 1815 by way of Brussels_ is the title of - this publication in 1816 of the Aberdonian John Scott. He had - previously published _A Visit to Paris in 1814_. He wrote other - things, and was editor of the _London Magazine_ from January 1820 - till his death, February 1821, the result of a duel.--M. - -Why Coleridge left Malta, is as difficult to explain upon any -principles of ordinary business, as why he had ever gone thither. The -post of secretary, if it imposed any official attendance of a regular -kind, or any official correspondence, must have been but poorly filled -by _him_; and Sir Alexander Ball, if I have collected his character -justly, was not likely to accept the gorgeous philosophy of Coleridge -as an indemnification for irregular performance of his public duties. -Perhaps, therefore, though on the best terms of mutual regard, mutually -they might be pleased to part. Part they did, at any rate, and poor -Coleridge was sea-sick the whole of his homeward (as he had been -through the whole of his outward) voyage. - - * * * * * - -It was not long after this event that my own introduction to Coleridge -occurred. At that time some negotiation was pending between him and the -Royal Institution, which ended in their engaging him to deliver a course -of lectures on Poetry and the Fine Arts during the ensuing winter. -For this series (twelve or sixteen, I think) he received a sum of one -hundred guineas. And, considering the slightness of the pains which -he bestowed upon them, he was well remunerated. I fear that they did -not increase his reputation; for never did any man treat his audience -with less respect, or his task with less careful attention. I was in -London for part of the time, and can report the circumstances, having -made a point of attending duly at the appointed hours. Coleridge was -at that time living uncomfortably enough at the "Courier" office, in -the Strand.[74] In such a situation, annoyed by the sound of feet -passing his chamber-door continually to the printing-rooms of this -great establishment, and with no gentle ministrations of female hands -to sustain his cheerfulness, naturally enough his spirits flagged; and -he took more than ordinary doses of opium. I called upon him daily, and -pitied his forlorn condition. There was no bell in the room; which for -many months answered the double purpose of bedroom and sitting-room. -Consequently, I often saw him, picturesquely enveloped in nightcaps, -surmounted by handkerchiefs indorsed upon handkerchiefs, shouting from -the attics of the "Courier" office, down three or four flights of -stairs, to a certain "Mrs. Brainbridge," his sole attendant, whose -dwelling was in the subterranean regions of the house. There did I -often see the philosopher, with the most lugubrious of faces, invoking -with all his might this uncouth name of "Brainbridge," each syllable -of which he intonated with long-drawn emphasis, in order to overpower -the hostile hubbub coming downwards from the creaking press, and the -roar from the Strand, which entered at all the front windows. "Mistress -Brainbridge! I say, Mistress Brainbridge!" was the perpetual cry, -until I expected to hear the Strand, and distant Fleet Street, take -up the echo of "Brainbridge!" Thus unhappily situated, he sank more -than ever under the dominion of opium; so that, at two o'clock, when -he should have been in attendance at the Royal Institution, he was too -often unable to rise from bed. Then came dismissals of audience after -audience, with pleas of illness; and on many of his lecture days I have -seen all Albemarle Street closed by a "lock" of carriages, filled with -women of distinction, until the servants of the Institution or their -own footmen advanced to the carriage-doors with the intelligence that -Mr. Coleridge had been suddenly taken ill. This plea, which at first -had been received with expressions of concern, repeated too often, -began to rouse disgust. Many in anger, and some in real uncertainty -whether it would not be trouble thrown away, ceased to attend. And we -that were more constant too often found reason to be disappointed with -the quality of his lecture. His appearance was generally that of a -person struggling with pain and overmastering illness. His lips were -baked with feverish heat, and often black in colour; and, in spite -of the water which he continued drinking through the whole course -of his lecture, he often seemed to labour under an almost paralytic -inability to raise the upper jaw from the lower. In such a state, it -is clear that nothing could save the lecture itself from reflecting -his own feebleness and exhaustion, except the advantage of having -been precomposed in some happier mood. But that never happened: most -unfortunately he relied upon his extempore ability to carry him -through. Now, had he been in spirits, or had he gathered animation, -and kindled by his own motion, no written lecture could have been -more effectual than one of his unpremeditated colloquial harangues. -But either he was depressed originally below the point from which -any re-ascent was possible, or else this re-action was intercepted by -continual disgust from looking back upon his own ill-success; for, -assuredly, he never once recovered that free and eloquent movement -of thought which he could command at any time in a private company. -The passages he read, moreover, in illustrating his doctrines, were -generally unhappily chosen, because chosen at haphazard, from the -difficulty of finding at a moment's summons those passages which his -purpose required. Nor do I remember any that produced much effect, -except two or three, which I myself put ready marked into his hands, -among the Metrical Romances edited by Ritson. - - [74] The very accurate memoir prefixed to Messrs. Macmillan's - four-volume edition of Coleridge's Poetical Works states that - Stuart, who had been proprietor of the _Morning Post_, and had - become proprietor of the _Courier_, gave Coleridge apartments in - the _Courier_ office to save expense in his contributorship to - that newspaper.--M. - -Generally speaking, the selections were as injudicious and as -inappropriate as they were ill delivered; for, amongst Coleridge's -accomplishments, good reading was not one; he had neither voice -(so, at least, _I_ thought) nor management of voice. This defect is -unfortunate in a public lecturer; for it is inconceivable how much -weight and effectual pathos can be communicated by sonorous depth and -melodious cadences of the human voice to sentiments the most trivial; -nor, on the other hand, how the grandest are emasculated by a style of -reading which fails in distributing the lights and shadows of a musical -intonation. However, this defect chiefly concerned the immediate -impression; the most afflicting to a friend of Coleridge's was the -entire absence of his own peculiar and majestic intellect; no heart, -no soul, was in anything he said; no strength of feeling in recalling -universal truths; no power of originality or compass of moral relations -in his novelties: all was a poor faint reflection from jewels once -scattered in the highway by himself in the prodigality of his early -opulence--a mendicant dependence on the alms dropped from his own -overflowing treasury of happier times. - -The next opportunity I had of seeing Coleridge was at the Lakes, in -the winter of 1809, and up to the autumn of the following year. During -this period it was that he carried on the original publication of "The -Friend"[75]; and for much the greater part of the time I saw him -daily. He lived as a visitor in the house occupied by Mr. Wordsworth. -This house (Allan Bank by name) was in Grasmere; and in another part -of the same vale, at a distance of barely one mile, I myself had a -cottage, and a considerable library. Many of my books being German, -Coleridge borrowed them in great numbers. Having a general license -from me to use them as he would, he was in the habit of accumulating -them so largely at Allan Bank (the name of Mr. Wordsworth's house) -that sometimes as many as five hundred were absent at once: which -I mention in order to notice a practice of Coleridge's, indicating -his very scrupulous honour in what regarded the rights of ownership. -Literary people are not always so strict in respecting property of this -description; and I know more than one celebrated man who professes -as a maxim that he holds it no duty of honour to restore a borrowed -book; not to speak of many less celebrated persons, who, without -openly professing such a principle, do however, in fact, exhibit a lax -morality in such cases. The more honourable it was to poor Coleridge, -who had means so trifling of buying books for himself, that, to prevent -my flocks from mixing and being confounded with the flocks already -folded at Allan Bank (his own and Wordsworth's), or rather that they -_might_ mix without danger, he duly inscribed my name in the blank -leaves of every volume; a fact which became rather painfully made known -to me; for, as he had chosen to dub me _Esquire_, many years after -this it cost myself and a female friend some weeks of labour to hunt -out these multitudinous memorials and to erase this heraldic addition; -which else had the appearance to a stranger of having been conferred by -myself. - - [75] The first number of this celebrated but unfortunate - periodical, "printed on stamped paper by a printer of the name of - Brown at Penrith," was issued, the already cited memoir of - Coleridge informs us, on Thursday, 1st June 1809, and the last on - 15th March 1810.--M. - -"The Friend," in its original publication, was, as a pecuniary -speculation, the least judicious, both for its objects and its means, -I have ever known. It was printed at Penrith, a town in Cumberland, on -the outer verge of the Lake district, and precisely twenty-eight miles -removed from Coleridge's abode. This distance, enough of itself, in -all conscience, was at least trebled in effect by the interposition -of Kirkstone, a mountain which is scaled by a carriage ascent of -three miles long, and so steep in parts that, without four horses, -no solitary traveller can persuade the neighbouring innkeepers to -carry him. Another road, by way of Keswick, is subject to its own -separate difficulties. And thus, in any practical sense, for ease, for -certainty, and for despatch, Liverpool, ninety-five miles distant, -was virtually nearer. Dublin even, or Cork, was more eligible. Yet, -in this town, so situated as I have stated, by way of purchasing -such intolerable difficulties at the highest price, Coleridge was -advised, and actually persuaded, to set up a printer, to buy, to lay -in a stock of paper, types, &c., instead of resorting to some printer -already established in Kendal, a large and opulent town not more than -eighteen miles distant, and connected by a daily post, whereas between -himself and Penrith there was no post at all. Building his mechanical -arrangements upon this utter "upside-down" inversion of all common -sense, it is not surprising (as "madness ruled the hour") that in all -other circumstances of plan or execution the work moved by principles -of downright crazy disregard to all that a judicious counsel would -have suggested. The subjects were chosen obstinately in defiance of -the popular taste; they were treated in a style studiously disfigured -by German modes of thinking, and by a German terminology; no attempt -was made to win or conciliate public taste; and the plans adopted for -obtaining payment were of a nature to insure a speedy bankruptcy to -the concern. Coleridge had a list--nobody could ever say upon whose -authority gathered together--of subscribers. He tells us himself that -many of these renounced the work from an early period; and some (as -Lord Corke) rebuked him for his presumption in sending it unordered, -but (as Coleridge asserts) neither returned the copies nor remitted -the price. And even those who were conscientious enough to do this -could not remit four or five shillings for as many numbers without -putting Coleridge to an expense of treble postage at the least. This -he complains of bitterly in his "Biographia Literaria," forgetting -evidently that the evil was due exclusively to his own defective -arrangements. People necessarily sent their subscriptions through -such channels as were open to them, or such as were pointed out by -Coleridge himself. It is also utterly unworthy of Coleridge to have -taxed, as he does, many of his subscribers (or really, for anything -that appears, the whole body) with neglecting to pay at all. Probably -not one neglected. And some ladies, to my knowledge, scrupulously -anxious about transmitting their subscriptions, paid three times over. -Managed as the reader will collect from these indications, the work -was going down-hill from the first. It never gained any accessions of -new subscribers; from what source, then, was the continual dropping -off of names to be supplied? The printer became a bankrupt: Coleridge -was as much in arrear with his articles as with his lectures at the -Royal Institution. _That_ he was from the very first; but now he -was disgusted and desponding; and with No. 28 or 29 the work came -to a final stop. Some years after, it was re-cast and re-published. -But, in fact, this re-cast was altogether and absolutely a new work. -The sole contributors to the original work had been, first of all, -Wordsworth who gave a very valuable paper on the principles concerned -in the composition of Epitaphs; and, secondly, Professor Wilson, who, -in conjunction with Mr. (now Dr.) Blair, an early friend,[76] then -visiting Mr. W. on Windermere, wrote the letter signed "Mathetes," the -reply to which came from Wordsworth. - - [76] Alexander Blair, LL.D., Professor of English Literature in - University College, London, from 1830 to 1836.--M. - -At the Lakes, and summoned abroad by scenery so exquisite--living, too, -in the bosom of a family endeared to him by long friendship and by -sympathy the closest with all his propensities and tastes--Coleridge -(it may be thought) could not sequester himself so profoundly as at -the "Courier" Office within his own shell, or shut himself out so -completely from that large dominion of eye and ear amongst the hills, -the fields, and the woods, which once he had exercised so delightfully -to himself, and with a participation so immortal, through his exquisite -poems, to all generations. He was not now reduce to depend upon "Mrs. -Brainbridge"----(Mistress Brain--Brain--Brainbridge, I say----Oh -heavens! _is_ there, can there, was there, _will_ there ever at any -future period be, an undeniable use in saying and in pressing upon the -attention of the Strand and Fleet Street at their earliest convenience -the painful subject of Mistress Brain--Brain--Brainbridge, I say---- -Do you hear, Mrs. Brain--Brain--Brainbridge----? Brain or Bain, it -matters little--Bran or Brain, it's all one, I conceive):--here, on -the contrary, he looked out from his study windows upon the sublime -hills of _Seat Sandal_ and _Arthur's Chair_, and upon pastoral cottages -at their feet; and all around him he heard hourly the murmurings of -happy life, the sound of female voices, and the innocent laughter of -children. But apparently he was not happy; opium, was it, or what was -it, that poisoned all natural pleasure at its sources? He burrowed -continually deeper into scholastic subtleties and metaphysical -abstractions; and, like that class described by Seneca in the luxurious -Rome of _his_ days, he lived chiefly by candlelight. At two or four -o'clock in the afternoon he would make his first appearance. Through -the silence of the night, when all other lights had disappeared in the -quiet cottages of Grasmere, _his_ lamp might be seen invariably by the -belated traveller, as he descended the long steep from Dunmailraise; -and at seven or eight o'clock in the morning, when man was going forth -to his labour, this insulated son of reverie was retiring to bed. - -Society he did not much court, because much was not to be had; but -he did not shrink from any which wore the promise of novelty. At -that time the leading person about the Lakes, as regarded rank and -station, amongst those who had any connexion with literature, was -Dr. Watson, the well-known Bishop of Llandaff.[77] This dignitary I -knew myself as much as I wished to know him; he _was_ interesting; -yet also _not_ interesting; and I will speak of him circumstantially. -Those who have read his Autobiography, or are otherwise acquainted -with the outline of his career, will be aware that he was the son of -a Westmoreland schoolmaster. Going to Cambridge, with no great store -of classical knowledge, but with the more common accomplishment of -Westmoreland men, and one better suited to Cambridge, viz. a sufficient -basis of mathematics, and a robust though commonplace intellect for -improving his knowledge according to any direction which accident -should prescribe--he obtained the Professorship of Chemistry without -one iota of chemical knowledge up to the hour when he gained it; and -then, setting eagerly to work, that he might not disgrace the choice -which had thus distinguished him, long before the time arrived for -commencing his prelections he had made himself capable of writing -those beautiful essays on that science which, after a revolution and a -counter-revolution so great as succeeding times have witnessed, still -remain a cardinal book of introductory discipline to such studies: -an opinion deliberately expressed to myself by the late Sir Humphry -Davy, and in answer to an earnest question which I took the liberty -of proposing to him on that point. Sir Humphry said that he could -scarcely imagine a time, or a condition of the science, in which the -Bishop's "Essays" would be superannuated.[78] With this experimental -proof that a Chemical Chair might be won and honoured without previous -knowledge even of the chemical alphabet, he resolved to play the same -feat with the Royal Chair of Divinity; one far more important for -local honour and for wealth. Here, again, he succeeded; and this time -he extended his experiment; for, whereas both Chairs had been won -without _previous_ knowledge, he resolved that in this case it should -be maintained without _after_ knowledge. He applied himself simply to -the improvement of its income, which he raised from £300 to at least -£1000 per annum. All this he had accomplished before reaching the age -of thirty-five. - - [77] Bishop Richard Watson (1737-1816) is perhaps best remembered - now for his _Apology for the Bible_; of which George III said, - when he heard of it, "What, what! Apology for the Bible! Didn't - know that it needed an apology." There were, however, two - _Apologies_, published together in 1806,--one for Christianity - against Gibbon, the other for the Bible against Thomas Paine.--M. - - [78] _Chemical Essays_, in 5 vols., published 1781-7.--M. - -Riches are with us the parent of riches; and success, in the hands of -an active man, is the pledge of further success. On the basis of this -Cambridge preferment Dr. Watson built upwards, until he had raised -himself, in one way or other, to a seat in the House of Lords, and to a -commensurate income. For the latter half of his life, he--originally a -village schoolmaster's son--was able to associate with the _magnates_ -of the land upon equal terms. And that fact, of itself, without another -word, implies, in this country, a degree of rank and fortune which one -would think a sufficient reward even for merit as unquestionable as -was that of Dr. Watson, considering that in _quality_ it was merit of -so vulgar a class. Yet he was always a discontented man, a railer at -the government and the age which could permit merit such as his to pine -away ingloriously in one of the humblest amongst the bishoprics, with -no other addition to its emoluments than the richest professorship in -Europe, and such other accidents in life as gave him in all, perhaps, -not above five thousand per annum! Poor man!--only five thousand per -annum! What a trial to a man's patience!--and how much he stood in need -of philosophy, or even of religion, to face so dismal a condition! - -This bishop was himself, in a secondary way, no uninteresting study. -What I mean is, that, though originally the furthest removed from -an interesting person, being a man remarkable indeed for robust -faculties, but otherwise commonplace in his character, worldly-minded, -and coarse, even to obtuseness, in his sensibilities, he yet became -interesting from the strength of _degree_ with which these otherwise -repulsive characteristics were manifested. He was one of that numerous -order in whom even the love of knowledge is subordinate to schemes -of advancement; and to whom even his own success, and his own honour -consequent upon that success, had no higher value than according to -their use as instruments for winning further promotion. Hence it -was that, when by such aids he had mounted to a certain eminence, -beyond which he saw little promise of further ascent through any -assistance of _theirs_--since at this stage it was clear that party -connexion in politics must become his main reliance--he ceased to -regard his favourite sciences with interest. The very organs of his -early advancement were regarded with no gratitude or tenderness, when -it became clear that they could yield no more. Even chemistry was -now neglected. This, above all, was perplexing to one who did not -understand his character. For hither one would have supposed he might -have retreated from his political disappointments, and have found a -perpetual consolation in honours which no intrigues could defeat, -and in the esteem, so pure and untainted, which still attended the -honourable exertions of his youth. But he had not feeling enough for -that view; he looked at the matter in a very different light. Other -generations had come since then, and "other palms were won." To keep -pace with the advancing science, and to maintain his station amongst -his youthful competitors, would demand a youthful vigour and motives -such as theirs. But, as to himself, chemistry had given all it _could_ -give. Having first raised himself to distinction by that, he had since -married into an ancient family--one of the leaders amongst the landed -aristocracy of his own county: he had thus entitled himself to call -the head of that family--a territorial potentate with ten thousand per -annum--by the contemptuous sobriquet of "Dull Daniel"; he looked down -upon numbers whom, twenty years before, he scarcely durst have looked -up to, except perhaps as a cat is privileged to look at a king; he had -obtained a bishopric. Chemistry had done all this for him; and had, -besides, co-operating with luck, put him in the way of reaping a large -estate from the gratitude and early death of his pupil, Mr. Luther. All -this chemistry had effected. Could chemistry do anything more? Clearly -not. It was a burnt-out volcano. And here it was that, having lost his -motives for cultivating it farther, he regarded the present improvers -of the science, not with the feelings natural to a disinterested -lover of such studies on their own account, but with jealousy, as men -who had eclipsed or had bedimmed his own once brilliant reputation. -Two revolutions had occurred since his own "palmy days"; Sir Humphry -Davy, he said, might be right; and all might be gold that glistened; -but, for his part, he was too old to learn new theories--he must be -content to hobble to his grave with such old-fashioned creeds as had -answered in his time, when, for aught he could see, men prospered as -much as in this newfangled world. Such was the tone of his ordinary -talk; and, in one sense--as regards personal claims, I mean--it was -illiberal enough; for the leaders of modern chemistry never overlooked -_his_ claims. Professor Thomson of Glasgow always spoke of his "Essays" -as of a book which hardly any revolution could antiquate; and Sir -Humphry Davy, in reply to a question which I put to him upon that -point in 1813, declared that he knew of no book better qualified as -one of introductory discipline to the youthful experimenter, or as an -apprenticeship to the taste in elegant selection of topics. - -Yet, querulous and discontented as the bishop was, when he adverted -either to chemistry or to his own position in life, the reader must not -imagine to himself the ordinary "complement" and appurtenances of that -character--such as moroseness, illiberality, or stinted hospitalities. -On the contrary, his lordship was a joyous, jovial, and cordial host. -He was pleasant, and even kind, in his manners; most hospitable in his -reception of strangers, no matter of what party; and I must say that -he was as little overbearing in argument, and as little stood upon his -privilege in his character of a church dignitary, as any "big wig" I -have happened to know. He was somewhat pompous, undoubtedly; but that, -in an old academic hero, was rather agreeable, and had a characteristic -effect. He listened patiently to all your objections; and, though -steeped to the lips in prejudice, he was really candid. I mean to say -that, although, generally speaking, the unconscious pre-occupation of -his understanding shut up all avenues to new convictions, he yet did -his best to open his mind to any views that might be presented at the -moment. And, with regard to his querulous egotism, though it may appear -laughable enough to all who contrast his real pretensions with their -public appreciation as expressed in his acquired opulence and rank, -and who contrast, also, _his_ case with that of other men in his own -profession--with that of Paley, for example--yet it cannot be denied -that fortune had crossed his path, latterly, with foul winds, no less -strikingly than his early life had been seconded by her favouring -gales. In particular, Lord Holland[79] mentioned to a friend of my -own the following anecdote:--"What you say of the bishop may be very -true" (they were riding past his grounds at the time, which had turned -the conversation upon his character and public claims): "but to _us_" -(Lord Holland meant to the Whig party) "he was truly honourable and -faithful; insomuch that my uncle" (meaning, of course, Charles Fox) -"had agreed with Lord Grenville to make him Archbishop of York, _sede -vacante_;--all was settled; and, had we staid in power a little -longer, he would, beyond a doubt, have had that dignity." - - [79] It was _Lady_ Holland. I know not how I came to make such a - mistake. And the friend was Wordsworth. - -Now, if the reader happens to recollect how soon the death of -Dr. Markham followed the sudden dissolution of that short-lived -administration in 1807, he will see how narrowly Dr. Watson missed -this elevation; and one must allow for a little occasional spleen -under such circumstances. How grand a thing, how princely, to be an -English archbishop! Yet, what an archbishop! He talked openly, at his -own table, as a Socinian; ridiculed the miracles of the New Testament, -which he professed to explain as so many chemical tricks, or cases -of legerdemain; and certainly had as little of devotional feeling as -any man that ever lived. It is, by comparison, a matter of little -consequence that, so slightly regarding the Church of which he called -himself a member in her spiritual interest, he should, in her temporal -interests, have been ready to lay her open to any assaults from almost -any quarter. He could naturally have little reverence for the rights -of the shepherds, having so very little for the pastoral office -itself, or for the manifold duties it imposes. All his public, all his -professional duties, he systematically neglected. He was a lord in -Parliament, and for many a year he never attended in his place: he was -a bishop, and he scarcely knew any part of his diocese by sight, living -three hundred miles away from it: he was a professor of divinity, -holding the richest professorship in Europe--the weightiest, for its -functions, in England--drawing, by his own admission, one thousand -per annum from its endowments (deducting some stipend to his _locum -tenens_ at Cambridge), and for thirty years he never read a lecture, or -performed a public exercise. Spheres how vast of usefulness to a man -as able as himself!--subjects of what bitter anguish on his deathbed -to one who had been tenderly conscientious! In his political purism, -and the unconscious partisanship of his constitutional scruples, he -was a true Whig, and thoroughly diverting. That Lord Lonsdale or that -the Duke of Northumberland should interfere with elections, this he -thought scandalous and awful; but that a lord of the house of Cavendish -or Howard, a Duke of Devonshire or Norfolk, or an Earl of Carlisle, -should traffic in boroughs, or exert the most despotic influence as -landlords, _mutato nomine_, he viewed as the mere natural right of -property; and so far was he from loving the pure-hearted and unfactious -champions of liberty, that, in one of his printed works, he dared -to tax Milton with having knowingly, wilfully, deliberately told a -falsehood.[80] - - [80] This supposed falsehood respected the sect called Brownists, - and occurs in the "Defensio pro Pop. Anglicano." The whole charge - is a blunder, and rests upon the bishop's own imperfect Latinity. - -Could Coleridge--was it possible that he could reverence a man -like this? Ordinary men might, because they were told that he had -defended Christianity against the vile blasphemers and impotent -theomachists of the day. But Coleridge had too pure an ideal of a -Christian philosopher, derived from the age of the English Titans -in theology, to share in that estimate. It is singular enough, and -interesting to a man who has ever heard Coleridge talk, but especially -to one who has _assisted_ (to speak in French phrase) at a talking -party between Coleridge and the Bishop, to look back upon an article -in the "Quarterly Review," where, in connexion with the Bishop's -Autobiography, some sneers are dropped with regard to the intellectual -character of the neighbourhood in which he had settled. I have been -told, on pretty good authority, that this article was written by the -late Dr. Whittaker of Craven, the topographical antiquarian; a pretty -sort of person, doubtless, to assume such a tone, in speaking of a -neighbourhood so dazzling in its intellectual pretensions as that -region at that time. Listen, reader, and judge! - -The Bishop had fixed his abode on the banks of Windermere. In a small, -but by the necessity of its situation a beautiful park, he had himself -raised a plain, but handsome and substantial mansion; Calgarth, or -Calgarth Park, was its name. Now, at Keswick (I am looking back to the -sneer of the "Quarterly Review") lived Southey; twenty miles distant, -it is true, but still, for a bishop with a bishop's equipage, not -beyond a morning's drive. At Grasmere, about eight miles from Calgarth, -were to be found Wordsworth and Coleridge. At Brathay, about four -miles from Calgarth, lived Charles Lloyd; and he, far as he might be -below the others I have mentioned, could not in candour be considered -a common man. Common! he was a man never to be forgotten! He was -somewhat too _Rousseauish_; but he had, in conversation, the most -extraordinary powers for analysis of a certain kind, applied to the -philosophy of manners, and the most delicate _nuances_ of social life; -and his translation of "Alfieri," together with his own poems, shows -him to have been an accomplished scholar. Then, not much above a mile -from Calgarth, at his beautiful creation of Elleray, lived Professor -Wilson; of whom I need not speak. He, in fact, and Mr. Lloyd were on -the most intimate terms with the Bishop's family. The meanest of these -persons was able to have "taken the conceit" out of Dr. Whittaker and -all his tribe. But even in the town of Kendal, about nine miles from -Calgarth, there were many men of information, at least as extensive as -Dr. Watson's, and amply qualified to have met him upon equal terms in -conversation. Mathematics, it is well known, are extensively cultivated -in the north of England. Sedburgh, for many years, was a sort of -nursery or rural chapel-of-ease to Cambridge. Dawson of Sedburgh was -a luminary better known than ever Dr. Watson was, by mathematicians -both foreign and domestic. Gough, the blind mathematician and botanist -of Kendal, is known to this day; but many others in that town had -accomplishments equal to his; and, indeed, so widely has mathematical -knowledge extended itself throughout Northern England that, even -amongst the poor Lancashire weavers, mechanic labourers for their daily -bread, the cultivation of pure geometry, in the most refined shape, has -long prevailed; of which some accounts have been recently published. -Local pique, therefore, must have been at the bottom of Dr. Whittaker's -sneer. At all events, it was ludicrously contrasted with the true state -of the case, as brought out by the meeting between Coleridge and the -Bishop. - -Coleridge was armed, at all points, with the scholastic erudition which -bore upon all questions that could arise in polemic divinity. The -philosophy of ancient Greece, through all its schools, the philosophy -of the schoolmen technically so called, Church history, &c., Coleridge -had within his call. Having been personally acquainted, or connected -as a pupil, with Eichhorn and Michaelis, he knew the whole cycle of -schisms and audacious speculations through which Biblical criticism -or Christian philosophy has revolved in Modern Germany. All this -was ground upon which the Bishop of Llandaff trod with the infirm -footing of a child. He listened to what Coleridge reported with the -same sort of pleasurable surprise, alternating with starts of doubt -or incredulity, as would naturally attend a detailed report from -Laputa--which aërial region of speculation does but too often recur to -a sober-minded person in reading of the endless freaks in philosophy -of Modern Germany, where the sceptre of Mutability, that potentate -celebrated by Spenser, gathers more trophies in a year than elsewhere -in a century; "the anarchy of dreams" presides in her philosophy; and -the restless elements of opinion, throughout every region of debate, -mould themselves eternally, like the billowy sands of the desert -as beheld by Bruce, into towering columns, soar upwards to a giddy -altitude, then stalk about for a minute, all aglow with fiery colour, -and finally unmould and "dislimn," with a collapse as sudden as the -motions of that eddying breeze under which their vapoury architecture -had arisen. Hartley and Locke, both of whom the bishop made into -idols, were discussed; especially the former, against whom Coleridge -alleged some of those arguments which he has used in his "Biographia -Literaria." The bishop made but a feeble defence; and upon some points -none at all. He seemed, I remember, much struck with one remark of -Coleridge's, to this effect:--"That, whereas Hartley fancied that -our very reasoning was an aggregation, collected together under the -law of association, on the contrary, we reason by counteracting that -law: just," said he, "as, in leaping, the law of gravitation concurs -to that act in its latter part; but no leap could take place were it -not by a counteraction of the law." One remark of the bishop's let me -into the secret of his very limited reading. Coleridge had used the -word "apperception," apparently without intention; for, on hearing -some objection to the word, as being "surely not a word that Addison -would have used," he substituted _transcendental consciousness_. Some -months afterwards, going with Charles Lloyd to call at Calgarth, during -the time when "The Friend" was appearing, the bishop again noticed -this obnoxious word, and in the very same terms:--"Now, this word -_apperception_, which Mr. Coleridge uses in the last number of 'The -Friend,' surely, surely it would not have been approved by Addison; no, -Mr. Lloyd, nor by Swift; nor even, I think, by Arbuthnot." Somebody -suggested that the word was a new word of German mintage, and most -probably due to Kant--of whom the bishop seemed never to have heard. -Meantime the fact was, and to me an amusing one, that the word had been -commonly used by Leibnitz, a _classical_ author on such subjects, 120 -years before. - - * * * * * - -In the autumn of 1810, Coleridge left the Lakes; and, so far as I -am aware, for ever. I once, indeed, heard a rumour of his having -passed through with some party of tourists--some reason struck me -at the time for believing it untrue--but, at all events, he never -returned to them as a resident. What might be his reason for this -eternal self-banishment from scenes which he so well understood in all -their shifting forms of beauty, I can only guess. Perhaps it was the -very opposite reason to that which is most obvious: not, possibly, -because he had become indifferent to their attractions, but because -his undecaying sensibility to their commanding power had become -associated with too afflicting remembrances, and flashes of personal -recollections, suddenly restored and illuminated--recollections which -will - - "Sometimes leap - From hiding-places ten years deep," - -and bring into collision the present with some long-forgotten past, in -a form too trying and too painful for endurance. I have a brilliant -Scotch friend, who cannot walk on the seashore--within sight of its -[Greek: anêrithmon gelasma], the multitudinous laughter of its waves, -or within hearing of its resounding uproar, because they bring up, by -links of old association, too insupportably to his mind the agitations -of his glittering, but too fervid youth. There is a feeling--morbid, -it may be, but for which no anodyne is found in all the schools -from Plato to Kant--to which the human mind is liable at times: it -is best described in a little piece by Henry More, the "Platonist." -He there represents himself as a martyr to his own too passionate -sense of beauty, and his consequent too pathetic sense of its decay. -Everywhere--above, below, around him, in the earth, in the clouds, -in the fields, and in their "garniture of flowers"--he beholds a -beauty carried to excess; and this beauty becomes a source of endless -affliction to him, because everywhere he sees it liable to the touch -of decay and mortal change. During one paroxysm of this sad passion, -an angel appears to comfort him; and, by the sudden revelation of her -immortal beauty, does, in fact, suspend his grief. But it is only a -suspension; for the sudden recollection that her privileged condition, -and her exemption from the general fate of beauty, is only by way of -exception to a universal rule, restores his grief: "And thou thyself," -he says to the angel-- - - "And thou thyself, that com'st to comfort me, - Wouldst strong occasion of deep sorrow bring, - If thou wert subject to mortality!" - -Every man who has ever dwelt with passionate love upon the fair face -of some female companion through life must have had the same feeling, -and must often, in the exquisite language of Shakspere's sonnets, have -commanded and adjured all-conquering Time, there, at least, and upon -that one tablet of his adoration, - - "To write no wrinkle with his antique hand." - -Vain prayer! Empty adjuration! Profitless rebellion against the laws -which season all things for the inexorable grave! Yet not the less -we rebel again and again; and, though wisdom counsels resignation, -yet our human passions, still cleaving to their object, force us -into endless rebellion. Feelings the same in kind as these attach -themselves to our mental power, and our vital energies. Phantoms of -lost power, sudden intuitions, and shadowy restorations of forgotten -feelings, sometimes dim and perplexing, sometimes by bright but furtive -glimpses, sometimes by a full and steady revelation, overcharged with -light--throw us back in a moment upon scenes and remembrances that we -have left full thirty years behind us. In solitude, and chiefly in the -solitudes of nature, and, above all, amongst the great and _enduring_ -features of nature, such as mountains, and quiet dells, and the lawny -recesses of forests, and the silent shores of lakes, features with -which (as being themselves less liable to change) our feelings have a -more abiding association--under these circumstances it is that such -evanescent hauntings of our past and forgotten selves are most apt to -startle and to waylay us. These are _positive_ torments from which -the agitated mind shrinks in fear; but there are others _negative_ -in their nature--that is, blank mementoes of powers extinct, and of -faculties burnt out within us. And from both forms of anguish--from -this twofold scourge--poor Coleridge fled, perhaps, in flying from the -beauty of external nature. In alluding to this latter, or negative form -of suffering--that form, I mean, which presents not the too fugitive -glimpses of past power, but its blank annihilation--Coleridge himself -most beautifully insists upon and illustrates the truth that all which -we find in Nature must be created by ourselves; and that alike whether -Nature is so gorgeous in her beauty as to seem apparelled in her -wedding-garment or so powerless and extinct as to seem palled in her -shroud. In either case, - - "O, Lady, we receive but what we give, - And in _our_ life alone does nature _live_; - Ours is her wedding-garment, ours her shroud. - - It were a vain endeavour, - Though I should gaze for ever - On that green light that lingers in the west: - I may not hope from _outward_ forms to win - The passion and the life whose fountains are _within_." - -This was one, and the most common, shape of extinguished power from -which Coleridge fled to the great city. But sometimes the same decay -came back upon his heart in the more poignant shape of intimations -and vanishing glimpses, recovered for one moment from the paradise -of youth, and from fields of joy and power, over which, for him, too -certainly, he felt that the cloud of night was settling for ever. -Both modes of the same torment exiled him from nature; and for the -same reasons he fled from poetry and all commerce with his own soul; -burying himself in the profoundest abstractions from life and human -sensibilities. - - "For not to think of what I needs must feel, - But to be still and patient all I can; - And haply _by abstruse research to steal_, - _From my own nature, all the natural man_; - This was my sole resource, my only plan; - Till _that_, which suits a part, infects the whole, - And now is almost grown the habit of my soul." - -Such were, doubtless, the true and radical causes which, for the final -twenty-four years of Coleridge's life, drew him away from those scenes -of natural beauty in which only, at an earlier stage of life, he found -strength and restoration. These scenes still survived; but their power -was gone, because _that_ had been derived from himself, and his ancient -self had altered. Such were the _causes_; but the immediate _occasion_ -of his departure from the Lakes, in the autumn of 1810, was the -favourable opportunity then presented to him of migrating in a pleasant -way. Mr. Basil Montagu, the Chancery barrister, happened at that time -to be returning to London, with Mrs. Montagu, from a visit to the -Lakes, or to Wordsworth.[81] His travelling carriage was roomy enough -to allow of his offering Coleridge a seat in it; and his admiration of -Coleridge was just then fervent enough to prompt a friendly wish for -that sort of close connexion (viz. by domestication as a guest under -Mr. Basil Montagu's roof) which is the most trying to friendship, -and which in this instance led to a perpetual rupture of it. The -domestic habits of eccentric men of genius, much more those of a man so -irreclaimably irregular as Coleridge, can hardly be supposed to promise -very auspiciously for any connexion so close as this. A very extensive -house and household, together with the unlimited licence of action -which belongs to the _ménage_ of some great Dons amongst the nobility, -could alone have made Coleridge an inmate perfectly desirable. Probably -many little jealousies and offences had been mutually suppressed; but -the particular spark which at length fell amongst the combustible -materials already prepared, and thus produced the final explosion, -took the following shape:--Mr. Montagu had published a book against -the use of wine and intoxicating liquors of every sort.[82] Not out -of parsimony or under any suspicion of inhospitality, but in mere -self-consistency and obedience to his own conscientious scruples, Mr. -Montagu would not countenance the use of wine at his own table. So -far all was right. But doubtless, on such a system, under the known -habits of modern life, it should have been made a rule to ask no man -to dinner: for to force men, without warning, to a _single_ (and, -therefore, thoroughly useless) act of painful abstinence, is what -neither I nor any man can have a right to do. In point of sense, it is, -in fact, precisely the freak of Sir Roger de Coverley, who drenches his -friend the "Spectator" with a hideous decoction: not, as his confiding -visitor had supposed, for some certain and immediate benefit to follow, -but simply as having a _tendency_ (if well supported by many years' -continuance of similar drenches) to abate the remote contingency of the -stone. Hear this, ye Gods of the Future! I am required to perform a -most difficult sacrifice; and forty years hence I _may_, by persisting -so long, have some dim chance of reward. One day's abstinence could -do no good on _any_ scheme: and no man was likely to offer himself -for a second. However, such being the law of the castle, and that law -well known to Coleridge, he nevertheless, thought fit to ask to dinner -Colonel (then Captain) Pasley, of the Engineers, well known in those -days for his book on the "Military Policy of England," and since for -his "System of Professional Instruction." Now, where or in what land -abides that - - "Captain, or Colonel, or Knight-in-arms," - -to whom wine in the analysis of dinner is a neutral or indifferent -element? Wine, therefore, as it was not of a nature to be omitted, -Coleridge took care to furnish at his own private cost. And so far, -again, all was right. But why must Coleridge give his dinner to the -captain in Mr. Montagu's house? There lay the affront; and, doubtless, -it was a very inconsiderate action on the part of Coleridge. I report -the case simply as it was then generally borne upon the breath, not of -scandal, but of jest and merriment. The result, however, was no jest; -for bitter words ensued--words that festered in the remembrance; and a -rupture between the parties followed, which no reconciliation has ever -healed. - - [81] Basil Montagu (1770-1851) and his wife were celebrities in - London society for many years. Among his publications, besides - legal treatises, were an edition of Bacon's Works and a volume of - selections from the older English Prose-writers. - - [82] _Inquiry into the Effects of Fermented Liquors. By a - Waterdrinker._ London. 1814.--M. - -Meantime, on reviewing this story, as generally adopted by the learned -in literary scandal, one demur rises up. Dr. Parr, a lisping Whig -pedant, without personal dignity or conspicuous power of mind, was -a frequent and privileged inmate at Mr. Montagu's. Him now--this -Parr--there was no conceivable motive for enduring; that point is -satisfactorily settled by the pompous inanities of his works. Yet, on -the other hand, his habits were in their own nature far less endurable -than Samuel Taylor Coleridge's; for the monster smoked;--and how? How -did the "Birmingham Doctor"[83] smoke? Not as you, or I, or other -civilized people smoke, with a gentle cigar--but with the very coarsest -tobacco. And those who know how that abomination lodges and nestles in -the draperies of window-curtains will guess the horror and detestation -in which the old Whig's memory is held by all enlightened women. -Surely, in a house where the Doctor had any toleration at all, Samuel -Taylor Coleridge might have enjoyed an unlimited toleration.[84] - - [83] "_Birmingham Doctor_":--This was a _sobriquet_ imposed on Dr. - Parr by "The Pursuits of Literature," that most popular of satires - at the end of the eighteenth and opening of the nineteenth - centuries. The name had a mixed reference to the Doctor's personal - connexion with Warwickshire, but chiefly to the Doctor's spurious - and windy imitation of Dr. Johnson. He was viewed as the - Birmingham (or mock) Dr. Johnson. Why the word _Birmingham_ has - come for the last sixty or seventy years to indicate in every - class of articles the spurious in opposition to the genuine, I - suppose to have arisen from the Birmingham habit of reproducing - all sorts of London or Paris trinkets, _bijouterie_, &c., in - cheaper materials and with inferior workmanship. - - [84] It is at this point that De Quincey's revised reprint in 1854 - of his Recollections of Coleridge stops. What follows is from the - unrevised sequel in _Tait's Magazine_ for January 1835. See note, - _ante_, p. 138.--M. - - * * * * * - -From Mr. Montagu's Coleridge passed, by favour of what introduction -I never heard, into a family as amiable in manners and as benign in -disposition as I remember to have ever met with. On this excellent -family I look back with threefold affection, on account of their -goodness to Coleridge, and because they were then unfortunate, and -because their union has long since been dissolved by death. The family -was composed of three members: of Mr. M----, once a lawyer, who had, -however, ceased to practise; of Mrs. M----, his wife, a blooming -young woman, distinguished for her fine person; and a young lady, her -unmarried sister.[85] Here, for some years, I used to visit Coleridge; -and, doubtless, as far as situation merely, and the most delicate -attentions from the most amiable women, _could_ make a man happy, he -must have been so at this time; for both the ladies treated him as -an elder brother, or as a father. At length, however, the cloud of -misfortune, which had long settled upon the prospects of this excellent -family, thickened; and I found, upon one of my visits to London, that -they had given up their house in Berners Street, and had retired to -a cottage in Wiltshire. Coleridge had accompanied them; and there I -visited them myself, and, as it eventually proved, for the last time. -Some time after this, I heard from Coleridge, with the deepest sorrow, -that poor M---- had been thrown into prison, and had sunk under the -pressure of his misfortunes. The gentle ladies of his family had -retired to remote friends; and I saw them no more, though often vainly -making inquiries about them. - - [85] The Mr. M---- of this sentence was Mr. John Morgan. He had - known Coleridge and Southey in Bristol, and now lived in - London.--M. - -Coleridge, during this part of his London life, I saw -constantly--generally once a day, during my own stay in London; and -sometimes we were jointly engaged to dinner parties. In particular, I -remember one party at which we met Lady Hamilton--Lord Nelson's Lady -Hamilton--the beautiful, the accomplished, the enchantress! Coleridge -admired her, as who would not have done, prodigiously; and she, in -her turn, was fascinated with Coleridge. He was unusually effective -in his display; and she, by way of expressing her acknowledgments -appropriately, performed a scene in Lady Macbeth--how splendidly, I -cannot better express than by saying that all of us who then witnessed -her performance were familiar with Mrs. Siddons's matchless execution -of that scene, and yet, with such a model filling our imaginations, we -could not but acknowledge the possibility of another, and a different -perfection, without a trace of imitation, equally original, and -equally astonishing. The word "magnificent" is, in this day, most -lavishly abused: daily I hear or read in the newspapers of magnificent -objects, as though scattered more thickly than blackberries; but for -my part I have seen few objects really deserving that epithet. Lady -Hamilton was one of them. She had Medea's beauty, and Medea's power of -enchantment. But let not the reader too credulously suppose her the -unprincipled woman she has been described. I know of no sound reason -for supposing the connexion between Lord Nelson and her to have been -other than perfectly virtuous. Her public services, I am sure, were -most eminent--for _that_ we have indisputable authority; and equally -sure I am that they were requited with rank ingratitude. - -After the household of the poor M----s had been dissolved, I know not -whither Coleridge went immediately: for I did not visit London until -some years had elapsed. In 1823-24 I first understood that he had taken -up his residence as a guest with Mr. Gillman, a surgeon, in Highgate. -He had then probably resided for some time at that gentleman's: there -he continued to reside on the same terms, I believe, of affectionate -friendship with the members of Mr. Gillman's family as had made life -endurable to him in the time of the M----s; and there he died in July -of the present year. If, generally speaking, poor Coleridge had but -a small share of earthly prosperity, in one respect at least he was -eminently favoured by Providence: beyond all men who ever perhaps have -lived, he found means to engage a constant succession of most faithful -friends; and he levied the services of sisters, brothers, daughters, -sons, from the hands of strangers--attracted to him by no possible -impulses but those of reverence for his intellect, and love for his -gracious nature. How, says Wordsworth-- - - ----"How can _he_ expect that others should - Sow for him, reap for _him_, and at his call - Love him, who for himself will take no thought at all?" - -How can he, indeed? It is most unreasonable to do so: yet this -expectation, if Coleridge ought not to have entertained, at all events -he realized. Fast as one friend dropped off, another, and another, -succeeded: perpetual relays were laid along his path in life, of -judicious and zealous supporters, who comforted his days, and smoothed -the pillow for his declining age, even when it was beyond all human -power to take away the thorns which stuffed it. - -And what _were_ those thorns?--and whence derived? That is a question -on which I ought to decline speaking, unless I could speak fully. Not, -however, to make any mystery of what requires none, the reader will -understand that _originally_ his sufferings, and the death within -him of all hope--the palsy, as it were, of that which is the life of -life, and the heart within the heart--came from opium. But two things -I must add--one to explain Coleridge's case, and the other to bring -it within the indulgent allowance of equitable judges:--_First_, the -sufferings from morbid derangements, originally produced by opium, had -very possibly lost that simple character, and had themselves re-acted -in producing secondary states of disease and irritation, not any longer -dependent upon the opium, so as to disappear with its disuse: hence, -a more than mortal discouragement to accomplish this disuse, when the -pains of self-sacrifice were balanced by no gleams of restorative -feeling. Yet, _secondly_, Coleridge did make prodigious efforts to -deliver himself from this thraldom; and he went so far at one time in -Bristol, to my knowledge, as to hire a man for the express purpose, -and armed with the power of resolutely interposing between himself and -the door of any druggist's shop. It is true that an authority derived -only from Coleridge's will could not be valid against Coleridge's own -counter-determination: he could resume as easily as he could delegate -the power. But the scheme did not entirely fail; a man shrinks from -exposing to another that infirmity of will which he might else have but -a feeble motive for disguising to himself; and the delegated man, the -external conscience, as it were, of Coleridge, though destined--in the -final resort, if matters came to absolute rupture, and to an obstinate -duel, as it were, between himself and his principal--in that extremity -to give way, yet might have long protracted the struggle before coming -to that sort of _dignus vindice nodus_: and in fact, I know, upon -absolute proof, that, before reaching that crisis, the man showed -fight, and, faithful to his trust, and comprehending the reasons for -it, declared that, if he must yield, he would "know the reason why." - -Opium, therefore, subject to the explanation I have made, was certainly -the original source of Coleridge's morbid feelings, of his debility, -and of his remorse. His pecuniary embarrassments pressed as lightly -as could well be expected upon him. I have mentioned the annuity of -£150 made to him by the two Wedgwoods. One half, I believe, could not -be withdrawn, having been left by a regular testamentary bequest. But -the other moiety, coming from the surviving brother, was withdrawn on -the plea of commercial losses, somewhere, I think, about 1815. That -would have been a heavy blow to Coleridge; and assuredly the generosity -is not very conspicuous of having ever suffered an allowance of that -nature to be left to the mercy of accident. Either it ought not to -have been granted in that shape--viz. as an _annual_ allowance, giving -ground for expecting its periodical recurrence--or it ought not to -have been withdrawn. However, this blow was broken to Coleridge by the -bounty of George IV, who placed Coleridge's name in the list of twelve -to whom he granted an annuity of 100 guineas per annum. This he enjoyed -so long as that Prince reigned. But at length came a heavier blow than -that from Mr. Wedgwood: a new King arose, who knew not Joseph. Yet -surely _he_ was not a King who could so easily resolve to turn adrift -twelve men of letters, many of them most accomplished men, for the sake -of appropriating a sum no larger to himself than 1200 guineas--no less -to some of them than the total freight of their earthly hopes?--No -matter: let the deed have been from whose hand it might, it was -done: [Greek: heirgastai], it was perpetrated, as saith the Medea of -Euripides; and it will be mentioned hereafter, "more than either once -or twice." It fell with weight, and with effect upon the latter days -of Coleridge; it took from him as much heart and hope as at his years, -and with his unworldly prospects, remained for man to blight: and, if -it did not utterly crush him, the reason was--because for himself he -had never needed much, and was now continually drawing near to that -haven in which, for himself, he would need nothing; secondly, because -his children were now independent of his aid; and, finally, because in -this land there are men to be found always of minds large enough to -comprehend the claims of genius, and with hearts, by good luck, more -generous, by infinite degrees, than the hearts of Princes. - -Coleridge, as I now understand, was somewhere about sixty-two years -of age when he died.[86] This, however, I take upon the report of the -public newspapers; for I do not, of my own knowledge, know anything -accurately upon that point. - - [86] Coleridge died at Highgate, 25th July 1834, in the - sixty-second year of his age, and the eighteenth of his residence - with Mr. Gillman.--M. - - * * * * * - -It can hardly be necessary to inform any reader of discernment or -of much practice in composition that the whole of this article -upon Mr. Coleridge, though carried through at intervals, and (as -it has unexpectedly happened) with time sufficient to have made it -a very careful one, has, in fact, been written in a desultory and -unpremeditated style. It was originally undertaken on the sudden -but profound impulse communicated to the writer's feelings by the -unexpected news of this great man's death; partly, therefore, to -relieve, by expressing, his own deep sentiments of reverential -affection to his memory, and partly, in however imperfect a way, to -meet the public feeling of interest or curiosity about a man who had -long taken his place amongst the intellectual _potentates_ of the age. -Both purposes required that it should be written almost _extempore_: -the greater part was really and unaffectedly written in that way, -and under circumstances of such extreme haste as would justify the -writer in pleading the very amplest privilege of licence and indulgent -construction which custom concedes to such cases. Hence it had occurred -to the writer, as a judicious principle, to create a sort of merit out -of his own necessity, and rather to seek after the graces which belong -to the epistolary form, or to other modes of composition professedly -careless, than after those which grow out of preconceived biographies, -which, having originally settled their plan upon a regular foundation, -are able to pursue a course of orderly development, such as _his_ -slight sketch had voluntarily renounced from the beginning. That mode -of composition having been once adopted, it seemed proper to sustain -it, even after delays and interruption had allowed time for throwing -the narrative into a more orderly movement, and modulating it, as -it were, into a key of the usual solemnity. The _qualis ab incepto -processerit_--the _ordo_ prescribed by the first bars of the music -predominated over all other considerations, and to such an extent that -he had purposed to leave the article without any regular termination or -summing up--as, on the one hand, scarcely demanded by the character of -a sketch so rapid and indigested, whilst, on the other, he was sensible -that anything of so much pretension as a formal peroration challenged -a sort of consideration to the paper which it was the author's chief -wish to disclaim. That effect, however, is sufficiently parried by the -implied protest now offered; and, on other reasons, it is certainly -desirable that a general glance, however cursory, should be thrown over -the intellectual claims of Mr. Coleridge by one who knew him so well, -and especially in a case where those very claims constitute the entire -and sole justification of the preceding personal memoir. That which -furnishes the whole moving reason for any separate notice at all, and -forms its whole latent interest, ought not, in mere logic, to be left -without some notice itself, though as rapidly executed as the previous -biographical sketch, and, from the necessity of the subject, by many -times over more imperfect. - -To this task, therefore, the writer now addresses himself; and by -way of gaining greater freedom of movement and of resuming his -conversational tone, he will here again take the liberty of speaking in -the first person. - -If Mr. Coleridge had been merely a scholar--merely a philologist--or -merely a man of science--there would be no reason apparent for -travelling in our survey beyond the field of his intellect, rigorously -and narrowly so called. But, because he was a poet, and because he was -a philosopher in a comprehensive and a most _human_ sense, with whose -functions the moral nature is so largely interwoven, I shall feel -myself entitled to notice the most striking aspects of his _character_ -(using that word in its common limited meaning), of his disposition, -and his manners, as so many reflex indications of his intellectual -constitution. But let it be well understood that I design nothing -elaborate, nothing comprehensive or ambitious: my purpose is merely to -supply a few hints and suggestions drawn from a very hasty retrospect, -by way of adding a few traits to any outline which the reader may have -framed to himself, either from some personal knowledge, or from more -full and lively memorials. - -One character in which Mr. Coleridge most often came before the public -was that of politician. In this age of fervent partisanship, it will, -therefore, naturally occur as a first question to inquire after his -party and political connexions: was he Whig, Tory, or Radical? Or, -under a new classification, were his propensities Conservative or -Reforming? I answer that, in any exclusive or emphatic sense, he -was none of these; because, as a philosopher, he was, according to -circumstances, and according to the object concerned, all of these by -turns. These are distinctions upon which a cloud of delusion rests. -It would not be difficult to show that in the speculations built upon -the distinction of Whig and Tory, even by as philosophic a politician -as Edmund Burke, there is an oversight of the largest practical -importance. But the general and partisan use of these terms superadds -to this [Greek: prôton pseudos] a second which is much more flagrant. -It is this: the terms Whig or Tory, used by partisans, are taken _extra -gradum_, as expressing the ideal or extreme cases of the several -creeds; whereas, in actual life, few such cases are found realized, -by far the major part of those who answer to either one or the other -denomination making only an approximation (differing by infinite -degrees) to the ideal or abstract type. A third error there is, -relating to the actual extent of the several denominations, even after -every allowance made for the faintest approximations. Listen to a Whig, -or to a Tory, and you will suppose that the great bulk of society range -under his banner: all, at least, who have any property at stake. Listen -to a Radical, and you will suppose that all are marshalled in the same -ranks with himself, unless those who have some private interest in -existing abuses, or have aristocratic privileges to defend. Yet, upon -going extensively into society as it is, you find that a vast majority -of good citizens are of no party whatsoever, own no party designation, -care for no party interest, but carry their good wishes by turns to men -of every party, according to the momentary purpose they are pursuing. -As to Whig and Tory, it is pretty clear that only two classes of men, -both of limited extent, acknowledge these as their distinctions: -first, those who make politics in some measure their profession or -trade--whether by standing forward habitually in public meetings as -leaders or as assistants, or by writing books and pamphlets in the same -cause; secondly, those whose rank, or birth, or position in a city, -or a rural district, almost pledges them to a share in the political -struggles of the day, under the penalty of being held _fainéans_, -truants, or even malignant recusants, if they should decline a warfare -which often, perhaps, they do not love in secret. These classes, which, -after all, are not numerous, and not entirely sincere, compose the -whole extent of professing Whigs and Tories who make any approach to -the standards of their two churches; and, generally speaking, these -persons have succeeded to their politics and their party ties, as they -have to their estates, viz. by inheritance. Not their way of thinking -in politics has dictated their party connexions; but these connexions, -traditionally bequeathed from one generation to another, have dictated -their politics. With respect to the Radical or the Reformer, the case -is otherwise; for it is certain that in this, as in every great and -enlightened nation, enjoying an intense and fervid communication of -thought through the press, there is, and must be, a tendency widely -diffused to the principles of sane reform--an anxiety to probe and -examine all the institutions of the land by the increasing lights -of the age--and a salutary determination that no acknowledged abuse -shall be sheltered by prescription, or privileged by its antiquity. In -saying, therefore, that _his_ principles are spread over the length -and breadth of the land, the Reformer says no more than the truth. -_Whig_ and _Tory_, as usually understood, express only two modes of -aristocratic partisanship: and it is strange, indeed, to find people -deluded by the notion that the reforming principle has any more natural -connexion with the first than the last. _Reformer_, on the other hand, -to a certain extent expresses the political creed and aspect of almost -every enlightened citizen: but, then, how? Not, as the _Radical_ would -insinuate, as pledging a man to a specific set of objects, or to any -visible and apparent party, having known leaders and settled modes of -action. British society, in its large majority, may be fairly described -as _Reformers_, in the sense of being favourably disposed to a general -spirit of ventilation and reform carried through all departments of -public business, political or judicial; but it is so far from being, -therefore, true that men in general are favourably disposed to any -known party, in or out of Parliament, united for certain objects and by -certain leaders, that, on the contrary, this reforming party itself has -no fixed unity, and no generally acknowledged heads. It is divided both -as to persons and as to things: the ends to be pursued create as many -schisms as the course of means proper for the pursuit, and the choice -of agents for conducting the public wishes. In fact, it would be even -more difficult to lay down the ideal standard of a Reformer, or his -abstract creed, than of a Tory: and, supposing this done, it would be -found, in practice, that the imperfect approximations to the pure faith -would differ by even broader shades as regarded the reforming creed -than as regarded that of the rigorous or ultra Tory. - -With respect to Mr. Coleridge: he was certainly a friend to all -enlightened reforms; he was a friend, for example, to Reform in -Parliament. Sensible as he was of the prodigious diffusion of knowledge -and good sense amongst the classes immediately below the gentry in -British society, he could not but acknowledge their right to a larger -and a less indirect share of political influence. As to the plan, and -its extent, and its particular provisions,--upon those he hesitated -and wavered; as other friends to the same views have done, and will -continue to do. The only _avowed_ objects of modern Reformers which he -would strenuously have opposed, nay, would have opposed with the zeal -of an ancient martyr, are those which respect the Church of England, -and, therefore, most of those which respect the two Universities of -Oxford and Cambridge. There he would have been found in the first ranks -of the Anti-Reformers. He would also have supported the House of -Peers, as the tried bulwark of our social interests in many a famous -struggle, and sometimes, in the hour of need, the sole barrier against -despotic aggressions on the one hand, and servile submissions on the -other. Moreover, he looked with favour upon many modes of aristocratic -influence as balances to new-made commercial wealth, and to a far -baser tyranny likely to arise from that quarter when unbalanced. But, -allowing for these points of difference, I know of little else stamped -with the general seal of modern reform, and claiming to be a privileged -object for a national effort, which would not have had his countenance. -It is true,--and this I am sensible will be objected,--that his party -connexions were chiefly with the Tories; and it adds a seeming strength -to this objection, that these connexions were not those of accident, -nor those which he inherited, nor those of his youthful choice. They -were sought out by himself, and in his maturer years; or else they were -such as sought _him_ for the sake of his political principles; and -equally, in either case, they argued some affinity in his political -creed. This much cannot be denied. But one consideration will serve -greatly to qualify the inference from these facts. In those years when -Mr. Coleridge became connected with Tories, what was the predominating -and cardinal principle of Toryism, in comparison with which all else -was willingly slighted? Circumstances of position had thrown upon the -Tories the _onus_ of a great national struggle, the greatest which -History anywhere records, and with an enemy the most deadly. The Whigs -were then out of power: they were therefore in opposition; and that -one fact, the simple fact, of holding an anti-ministerial position, -they allowed, by a most fatal blunder, to determine the course of -their foreign politics. Napoleon was to be cherished simply because he -was a thorn in Mr. Pitt's side. So began their foreign policy--and in -that pettiest of personal views. Because they were anti-ministerial, -they allowed themselves passively to become anti-national. To be a -Whig, therefore, in those days, implied little more than a strenuous -opposition to foreign war; to be a Tory pledged a man to little -more than war with Napoleon Bonaparte. And this view of our foreign -relations it was that connected Coleridge with Tories,--a view which -arose upon no motives of selfish interest (as too often has been said -in reproach), but upon the changes wrought in the spirit of the French -Republic, which gradually transmuted its defensive warfare (framed -originally to meet a conspiracy of kings crusading against the new-born -democracy of French institutions, whilst yet in their cradle) into a -warfare of aggression and sanguinary ambition. The military strength -evoked in France by the madness of European kings had taught her the -secret of her own power--a secret too dangerous for a nation of vanity -so infinite, and so feeble in all means of moral self-restraint. -The temptation to foreign conquest was too strong for the national -principles; and, in this way, all that had been grand and pure in the -early pretensions of French Republicanism rapidly melted away before -the common bribes of vulgar ambition. Unoffending states, such as -Switzerland, were the first to be trampled under foot; no voice was -heard any more but the "brazen throat of war"; and, after all that -had been vaunted of a golden age, and a long career opened to the -sceptre of pure political justice, the clouds gathered more gloomily -than ever; and the sword was once more reinstated, as the sole arbiter -of right, with less disguise and less reserve than under the vilest -despotism of kings. The change was in the French Republicans, not in -their foreign admirers; they, in mere consistency, were compelled -into corresponding changes, and into final alienation of sympathy, as -they beheld, one after one, all titles forfeited by which that grand -explosion of pure democracy had originally challenged and sustained -their veneration. The mighty Republic had now begun to revolve through -those fierce transmigrations foreseen by Burke, to every one of which, -by turns, he had denounced an inevitable "purification by fire and -blood": no trace remained of her primitive character: and of that awful -outbreak of popular might which once had made France the land of hope -and promise to the whole human race, and had sounded a knell to every -form of oppression or abuse, no record was to be found, except in the -stupendous power which cemented its martial oligarchy. Of the people, -of the democracy--or that it had ever for an hour been roused from its -slumbers--one sole evidence remained; and that lay in the blank power -of destruction, and its perfect organization, which none but a popular -movement, no power short of that, could have created. The people, -having been unchained, and as if for the single purpose of creating -a vast system of destroying energies, had then immediately recoiled -within their old limits, and themselves become the earliest victim -of their own stratocracy. In this way France had become an object of -jealousy and alarm. It remained to see to what purpose she would apply -her new energies. That was soon settled; her new-born power was wielded -from the first by unprincipled and by ambitious men; and, in 1800, -it fell under the permanent control of an autocrat, whose unity of -purpose, and iron will, left no room for any hope of change. - -Under these circumstances, under these prospects, coupled with this -retrospect, what became the duty of all foreign politicians? of -the English above all, as natural leaders in any hopeful scheme of -resistance? The question can scarcely be put with decency. Time and -season, place or considerations of party, all alike vanished before -an elementary duty to the human race, which much transcended any -duty of exclusive patriotism. Plant it, however, on that narrower -basis, and the answer would have been the same for all centuries, -and for every land under a corresponding state of circumstances. Of -Napoleon's real purposes there cannot _now_ be any reasonable doubt. -His confessions--and, in particular, his indirect revelations at St. -Helena--have long since removed all demurs or scruples of scepticism. -For England, therefore, as in relation to a man bent upon her ruin, -all distinctions of party were annihilated--Whig and Tory were merged -and swallowed up in the transcendent duties of patriots, Englishmen, -lovers of liberty. Tories, _as_ Tories, had here no peculiar or -separate duties--none which belonged to their separate creed in -politics. Their duties were paramount; and their partisanship had -here no application--was perfectly indifferent, and spoke neither -this way nor that. In one respect only they had peculiar duties, and -a peculiar responsibility; peculiar, however, not by any difference -of quality, but in its supreme degree; the same duties which belonged -to all, belonged to them by a heavier responsibility. And how, or -why? Not _as_ Tories had they, or could they have, any functions at -all applying to this occasion; it was as being then the ministerial -party, as the party accidentally in power at the particular crisis: in -_that_ character it was that they had any separate or higher degree -of responsibility; otherwise, and as to the _kind_ of their duty -apart from this degree, the Tories stood in the same circumstances -as men of all other parties. To the Tories, however, as accidentally -in possession of the supreme power, and wielding the national forces -at that time, and directing their application--to them it was that -the honour belonged of making a beginning: on them had devolved -the privilege of opening and authorizing the dread crusade. How -and in what spirit they acquitted themselves of that most enviable -task--enviable for its sanctity, fearful for the difficulty of its -adequate fulfilment--how they persevered, and whether, at any crisis, -the direst and most ominous to the righteous cause, they faltered or -gave sign of retreating--History will tell--History has already told. -To the Whigs belonged the duty of seconding their old antagonists: -and no wise man could have doubted that, in a case of transcendent -patriotism, where none of those principles could possibly apply by -which the two parties were divided and distinguished, the Whigs would -be anxious to show that, for the interests of their common country, -they could cheerfully lay aside all those party distinctions, and -forget those feuds which now had no pertinence or meaning. Simply as -Whigs, had they stood in no other relation, they probably would have -done so. Unfortunately, however, for their own good name and popularity -in after times, they were divided from the other party, not merely as -Whigs opposed to Tories, but also upon another and a more mortifying -distinction, which was not, like the first, a mere inert question of -speculation or theory, but involved a vast practical difference of -honours and emoluments:--they were divided, I say, on another and -more vexatious principle, as the _Outs_ opposed to the _Ins_. Simply -as Whigs, they might have coalesced with the Tories _quoad hoc_, and -merely for this one purpose. But, as men _out_ of power, they could -not coalesce with those who were _in_. They constituted "his Majesty's -Opposition"; and, in a fatal hour, they determined that it was fitting -to carry their general scheme of hostility even into this sacred and -privileged ground. That resolution once taken, they found it necessary -to pursue it with zeal. The case itself was too weighty and too -interesting to allow of any moderate tone for the abetters or opposers. -Passion and personal bitterness soon animated the contest: violent -and rash predictions were hazarded--prophecies of utter ruin and of -captivity for our whole army were solemnly delivered: and it soon -became evident, as indeed mere human infirmity made it beforehand but -too probable, that, where so much personal credit was at stake upon the -side of our own national dishonour, the wishes of the prophet had been -pledged to the same result as the credit of his political sagacity. -Many were the melancholy illustrations of the same general case. Men -were seen fighting against the evidences of some great British victory -with all the bitterness and fierce incredulity which usually meet the -first rumours of some private calamity: that was in effect the aspect -in their eyes of each national triumph in its turn. Their position, -connected with the unfortunate election made by the Whig leaders of -their tone, from the very opening of the contest, gave the character of -a calamity for them and for their party to that which to every other -heart in Britain was the noblest of triumphs in the noblest of causes; -and, as a party, the Whigs mourned for years over those events which -quickened the pulses of pleasure and sacred exultation in every other -heart. God forbid that all Whigs should have felt in this unnatural -way! I speak only of the tone set by the Parliamentary leaders. The -few who were in Parliament, and exposed to daily taunts from the just -exultation of their irritated opponents, had their natural feelings -poisoned and envenomed. The many who were out of Parliament, and not -personally interested in this warfare of the Houses, were left open to -natural influences of patriotic pride, and to the contagion of public -sympathy: and these, though Whigs, felt as became them. - -These are things too unnatural to be easily believed, or, in a land -where the force of partisanship is less, to be easily understood. Being -true, however, they ought not to be forgotten: and at present it is -almost necessary that they should be stated for the justification of -Coleridge. Too much has been written upon this part of his life, and -too many reproaches thrown out upon his levity or his want of principle -in his supposed sacrifice of his early political connexions, to make -it possible for any reverencer of Coleridge's memory to pass over the -case without a full explanation. That explanation is involved in the -strange and scandalous conduct of the Parliamentary Whigs. Coleridge -passed over to the Tories only in that sense in which all patriots did -so at that time, and in relation to our great _foreign_ interest--viz. -by refusing to accompany the Whigs in their almost perfidious demeanour -towards Napoleon Bonaparte. Anti-_ministerial_ they affect to style -their policy, but in the most eminent sense it was anti-_national_. It -was thus far--viz. exclusively, or almost exclusively, in relation to -our great feud with Napoleon--that Coleridge adhered to the Tories. -But, because this feud was so capital and so earth-shaking a quarrel -that it occupied all hearts and all the councils of Christendom, -suffering no other question almost to live in its neighbourhood, hence -it happened that he who acceded to the Tories in this one chapter -of their policy was regarded as an ally in the most general sense. -Domestic politics were then, in fact, forgotten; no question, in any -proper sense a Tory one, ever arose in that era; or, if it had, the -public attention would not have settled upon it, and it would speedily -have been dismissed. - -_Hence_ I deduce as a possibility, and, from my knowledge of Coleridge, -I deduce it as a fact, that his adhesion to the Tories was bounded by -his approbation of their foreign policy; and even of _that_ rarely in -its executive details, rarely even in its military plans (for these he -assailed with more keenness of criticism than to me the case seemed -to justify), but solely in its animating principle, its moving and -sustaining force, viz. the doctrine and entire faith that Napoleon -Bonaparte ought to be resisted, was not a proper object of diplomacy or -negotiation, and could be resisted hopefully and triumphantly. Thus far -he went along with the Tories: in all else he belonged quite as much -to other parties--so far as he belonged to any. And that he did not -follow any bias of private interest in connecting himself with Tories, -or rather in allowing Tories to connect themselves with him, appears -(rather more indeed than it ought to have appeared) on the very surface -of his life. From Tory munificence he drew nothing at all, unless it -should be imputed to his Tory connexions that George IV selected him -for one of his academicians. But this slight mark of royal favour he -owed, I believe, to other considerations; and I have reason to think -that this way of treating political questions, so wide of dogmatism, -and laying open so vast a field to scepticism that might else have -gone unregarded, must have been held as evidence of too latitudinarian -a creed to justify a title to Toryism. And, upon the whole, I am of -opinion that few events of Mr. Coleridge's life were better calculated -to place his disinterested pursuit of truth in a luminous aspect. In -fact, his carelessness of all worldly interests was too notorious to -leave him open to suspicions of that nature: nor was this carelessness -kept within such limits as to be altogether meritorious. There is no -doubt that his indolence concurred, in some degree, to that line of -conduct and to that political reserve which would, at all events, have -been pursued, in a degree beyond what honour the severest, or delicacy -the most nervous, could have enjoined. - -It is a singular anecdote, after all, to report of Coleridge, who -incurred the reproach of having _ratted_ solely by his inability to -follow the friends of his early days into what his heart regarded as a -monstrous and signal breach of patriotism, that in any eminent sense he -was _not_ a patriot. His understanding, in this, as in many instances, -was too active, too restless, for any abiding feelings to lay hold of -him, unless when they coincided with some palpable command of nature. -Parental love, for instance, was too holy a thing to be submitted -for an instant to any scrutiny or any jealousy of his hair-splitting -understanding. But it must be something as sacred and as profound as -that which with Coleridge could long support the endless attrition of -his too active intellect. In this instance, he had the same defect, -derived in part from the same cause, as a contemporary, one of the -idols of the day, more celebrated, and more widely celebrated, than -Coleridge, but far his inferior in power and compass of intellect. -I speak of Goethe: he also was defective, and defective under far -stronger provocations and excitement, in patriotic feeling. He cared -little for Weimar, and less for Germany. And he was, thus far, much -below Coleridge--that the passion which he could not feel Coleridge -yet obliged himself practically to obey in all things which concerned -the world, whereas Goethe disowned this passion equally in his acts, -his words, and his writings. Both are now gone--Goethe and Coleridge; -both are honoured by those who knew them, and by multitudes who did -not. But the honours of Coleridge are perennial, and will annually grow -more verdant; whilst from those of Goethe every generation will see -something fall away, until posterity will wonder at the subverted idol, -whose basis, being hollow and unsound, will leave the worship of their -fathers an enigma to their descendants. - - NOTE REFERRED TO ON PAGE 143 - -I have somewhere seen it remarked with respect to these charges of -plagiarism, that, however incontrovertible, they did not come with any -propriety or grace from myself as the supposed friend of Coleridge, -and as writing my sketch of slight reminiscences on the immediate -suggestion of his death. My answer is this: _I_ certainly was the first -person (first, I believe, by some years) to point out the plagiarisms -of Coleridge, and above all others that circumstantial plagiarism, of -which it is impossible to suppose him unconscious, from Schelling. Many -of his plagiarisms were probably unintentional, and arose from that -confusion between things floating in the memory and things self-derived -which happens at times to most of us that deal much with books on the -one hand, and composition on the other. An author can hardly have -written much and rapidly who does not sometimes detect himself, and -perhaps, therefore, sometimes fail to detect himself, in appropriating -the thoughts, images, or striking expressions of others. It is enough -for his conscientious self-justification, that he is anxiously vigilant -to guard himself from such unacknowledged obligations, and forward to -acknowledge them as soon as ever they are pointed out. But no excess -of candour the most indulgent will allow us to suppose that a most -profound speculation upon the original relations _inter se_ of the -subjective and the objective, literally translated from the German, -and stretching over some pages, could, after any interval of years, -come to be mistaken by the translator for his own. This amounted to -an entire essay. But suppose the compass of the case to lie within -a single word, yet if that word were so remarkable, so provocative -to the curiosity, and promising so much weight of meaning (which -reasonably any great departure from ordinary diction must promise), -as the word _esemplastic_,[87] we should all hold it impossible for -a man to appropriate this word inadvertently. I, therefore, greatly -_understated_ the case against Coleridge, instead of giving to it -an undue emphasis. Secondly, in stating it at all, I did so (as at -the time I explained) in pure kindness. Well I knew that, from the -direction in which English philosophic studies were now travelling, -sooner or later these appropriations of Coleridge must be detected; -and I felt that it would break the force of the discovery, as an -unmitigated sort of police detection, if first of all it had been -announced by one who, in the same breath, was professing an unshaken -faith in Coleridge's philosophic power. It could not be argued that -one of those who most fervently admired Coleridge had professed such -feelings only because he was ignorant of Coleridge's obligations to -others. Here was a man who had actually for himself, unguided and -unwarned, discovered these obligations; and yet, in the very act of -making that discovery, this man clung to his original feelings and -faith. But, thirdly, I must inform the reader that I was not, nor ever -had been, the "friend" of Coleridge in any sense which could have a -right to restrain my frankest opinions upon his merits. I never had -lived in such intercourse with Coleridge as to give me an opportunity -of becoming his friend. To _him_ I owed nothing at all; but to the -public, to the body of his own readers, every writer owes the truth, -and especially on a subject so important as that which was then before -me. - - [87] "_Esemplastic_":--A writer in "Blackwood," who carried a - wrath into the discussion for which I and others found it hard to - account, made it a sort of charge against myself, that I had - overlooked this remarkable case. If I _had_, there would have been - no particular reason for anger or surprise, seeing that the - particular German work in which these plagiarisms were traced had - been lent to me under most rigorous limitations as to the time for - returning it; the owner of the volume was going out of London, and - a very few hours (according to my present remembrance only two) - were all that he could allow me for hunting through the most - impracticable of metaphysical thickets (what Coleridge elsewhere - calls "the holy jungle of metaphysics"). Meantime I had _not_ - overlooked the case of _esemplastic_; I had it in my memory, but - hurry of the press and want of room obliged me to omit a good - deal. Indeed, if such omissions constituted any reproach, then the - critic in "Blackwood" was liable to his own censure. For I - remember to this hour several Latin quotations made by Schelling, - and repeated by Coleridge as his own, which neither I nor my too - rigorous reviewer had drawn out for public exposure. As regarded - myself, it was quite sufficient that I had indicated the grounds, - and opened the paths, on which the game must be sought; that I - left the rest of the chase to others, was no subject for blame, - but part of my purpose; and, under the circumstances, very much a - matter of necessity.--In taking leave of this affair, I ought to - point out a ground of complaint against my reviewer under his - present form of expression, which I am sure could not have been - designed. It happened that I had forgotten the particular title of - Schelling's work; naturally enough, in a situation where no - foreign books could be had, I quoted it under a false one. And - this inevitable error of mine on a matter so entirely irrelevant - is so described that the neutral reader might suppose me to have - committed against Coleridge the crime of Lauder against - Milton--that is, taxing him with plagiarism by referring, not to - real works of Schelling, but to pretended works, of which the very - titles were forgeries of my own. This, I am sure, my unknown - critic never could have meant. The plagiarisms were really there; - more and worse in circumstances than any denounced by myself; and, - of all men, the "Blackwood" critic was the most bound to proclaim - this; or else what became of his own clamorous outcry? Being, - therefore, such as I had represented, of what consequence was the - special title of the German volume to which these plagiarisms were - referred?--[The reference in this footnote, written by De Quincey - in 1854, is to an article on "The Plagiarisms of S. T. Coleridge," - which had appeared in _Blackwood_ for March 1840, the writer of - which had animadverted on De Quincey's previous disclosures on the - subject in his _Tait_ papers of 1834-5.--M.] - -With respect to the comparatively trivial case of Pythagoras, an -author of great distinction in literature and in the Anglican Church -has professed himself unable to understand what room there could be -for plagiarism in a case where the solution ascribed to Coleridge -was amongst the commonplaces of ordinary English academic tuition. -Locally this may have been so; but hardly, I conceive, in so large -an extent as to make that solution _publici juris_. Yet, however -this may be, no help is given to Coleridge; since, according to Mr. -Poole's story, whether the interpretation of the riddle were or were -_not_ generally diffused, Coleridge claimed it for his own.--[In Mrs. -Sandford's _Thomas Poole and his Friends_ (1888), vol. ii. pp. 304-6, -there is printed a letter of Mr. Poole's, dated June 1835, doubting the -accuracy of De Quincey's story of their discourse in 1807, respecting -Coleridge's plagiarisms.--M.] - -Finally--for distance from the press and other inconveniences of -unusual pressure oblige me to wind up suddenly--the whole spirit of my -record at the time (twenty years ago), and in particular the special -allusion to the last Duke of Ancaster's case, as one which ran parallel -to Coleridge's, involving the same propensity to appropriate what -generally were trifles in the midst of enormous and redundant wealth, -survives as an indication of the _animus_ with which I approached this -subject, starting even from the assumption that I was bound to consider -myself under the restraints of friendship--which, for the second time -let me repeat, I was _not_. In reality, the notes contributed to the -Aldine edition of the "Biographia Literaria," by Coleridge's admirable -daughter, have placed this whole subject in a new light; and, in doing -this, have unavoidably reflected some degree of justification upon -myself. Too much so, I understand to be the feeling in some quarters. -This lamented lady is thought to have shown partialities in her -distributions of praise and blame upon this subject. I will not here -enter into that discussion. But, as respects the justification of her -father, I regard her mode of argument as unassailable. Filial piety the -most tender never was so finely reconciled with candour towards the -fiercest of his antagonists. Wherever the plagiarism was undeniable, -she has allowed it; whilst palliating its faultiness by showing the -circumstances under which it arose. But she has also opened a new view -of other circumstances under which an apparent plagiarism arose that -was not real. I myself, for instance, knew cases where Coleridge gave -to young ladies a copy of verses, headed thus--"Lines on----, from the -German of Hölty." Other young ladies made transcripts of these lines; -and, caring nothing for the German authorship, naturally fathered -them upon Coleridge, the translator. These lines were subsequently -circulated as Coleridge's, and as if on Coleridge's own authority. Thus -arose many cases of apparent plagiarism. And, lastly, as his daughter -most truly reports, if he took--he gave. Continually he fancied other -men's thoughts his own; but such were the confusions of his memory that -continually, and with even greater liberality, he ascribed his own -thoughts to others. - - - - - CHAPTER III - - THE LAKE POETS: WILLIAM WORDSWORTH[88] - - [88] Composed of articles in _Tait's Magazine_ for January, - February, and April 1839, as revised and recast by De Quincey, - published, with some additions, for the second volume of the - Collective Edinburgh Edition of his writings in 1854.--M. - - -In 1807 it was, at the beginning of winter, that I first saw William -Wordsworth. I have already mentioned[89] that I had introduced myself -to his notice by letter as early as the spring of 1803. To this hour -it has continued, I believe, a mystery to Wordsworth why it was that -I suffered an interval of four and a half years to slip away before -availing myself of the standing invitation with which I had been -honoured to the poet's house. Very probably he accounted for this -delay by supposing that the new-born liberty of an Oxford life, with -its multiplied enjoyments, acting upon a boy just emancipated from -the restraints of a school, and, in one hour, elevated into what we -Oxonians so proudly and so exclusively denominate "a man,"[90] might -have tempted me into pursuits alien from the pure intellectual passions -which had so powerfully mastered my youthful heart some years before. -Extinguished such a passion could not be; nor could he think so, if -remembering the fervour with which I had expressed it, the sort of -"nympholepsy" which had seized upon me, and which, in some imperfect -way, I had avowed with reference to the very lakes and mountains -amongst which the scenery of this most original poetry had chiefly -grown up and moved. The very names of the ancient hills--Fairfield, -Seat Sandal, Helvellyn, Blencathara, Glaramara; the names of the -sequestered glens--such as Borrowdale, Martindale, Mardale, Wasdale, -and Ennerdale; but, above all, the shy pastoral recesses, not garishly -in the world's eye, like Windermere or Derwentwater, but lurking half -unknown to the traveller of that day--Grasmere, for instance, the -lovely abode of the poet himself, solitary, and yet sowed, as it were, -with a thin diffusion of humble dwellings--here a scattering, and there -a clustering, as in the starry heavens--sufficient to afford, at every -turn and angle, human remembrances and memorials of time-honoured -affections, or of passions (as the "Churchyard amongst the Mountains" -will amply demonstrate) not wanting even in scenic and tragical -interest: these were so many local spells upon me, equally poetic and -elevating with the Miltonic names of Valdarno and Vallombrosa. - - [89] _Ante_, p. 59.--M. - - [90] At the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, where the town - is viewed as a mere ministerial appendage to the numerous - colleges--the civic Oxford, for instance, existing for the sake of - the academic Oxford, and not _vice versâ_--it has naturally - happened that the students honour with the name of "_a man_" him - only who wears a cap and gown. - -Deep are the voices which seem to call, deep is the lesson which would -be taught, even to the most thoughtless of men, - - "Could field, or grove, or any spot of earth, - Show to his eye an image of the pangs - Which it hath witnessed; render back an echo - Of the sad steps by which it hath been trod."[91] - - [91] See the divine passage (in the Sixth Book of "The Excursion") - beginning-- - - "Ah, what a lesson to a thoughtless man," &c. - -Meantime, my delay was due to anything rather than to waning interest. -On the contrary, the real cause of my delay was the too great -profundity, and the increasing profundity, of my interest in this -regeneration of our national poetry, and the increasing awe, in due -proportion to the decaying thoughtlessness of boyhood, which possessed -me for the character of its author. So far from neglecting Wordsworth, -it is a fact that twice I had undertaken a long journey expressly for -the purpose of paying my respects to Wordsworth; twice I came so far -as the little rustic inn (then the sole inn of the neighbourhood) at -Church Coniston; and on neither occasion could I summon confidence -enough to present myself before him. It was not that I had any want -of proper boldness for facing the most numerous company of a mixed or -ordinary character: reserved, indeed, I was, perhaps even shy--from -the character of my mind, so profoundly meditative, and the character -of my life, so profoundly sequestered--but still, from counteracting -causes, I was not deficient in a reasonable self-confidence towards -the world generally. But the very image of Wordsworth, as I prefigured -it to my own planet-struck eye, crushed my faculties as before Elijah -or St. Paul. Twice, as I have said, did I advance as far as the Lake -of Coniston; which is about eight miles from the church of Grasmere, -and once I absolutely went forwards from Coniston to the very gorge -of Hammerscar, from which the whole Vale of Grasmere suddenly breaks -upon the view in a style of almost theatrical surprise, with its lovely -valley stretching before the eye in the distance, the lake lying -immediately below, with its solemn ark-like island of four and a half -acres in size seemingly floating on its surface, and its exquisite -outline on the opposite shore, revealing all its little bays[92] and -wild sylvan margin, feathered to the edge with wild flowers and ferns. -In one quarter, a little wood, stretching for about half a mile towards -the outlet of the lake; more directly in opposition to the spectator, a -few green fields; and beyond them, just two bowshots from the water, a -little white cottage gleaming from the midst of trees, with a vast and -seemingly never-ending series of ascents rising above it to the height -of more than three thousand feet. That little cottage was Wordsworth's -from the time of his marriage, and earlier; in fact, from the beginning -of the century to the year 1808. Afterwards, for many a year, it was -mine. Catching one hasty glimpse of this loveliest of landscapes, -I retreated like a guilty thing, for fear I might be surprised by -Wordsworth, and then returned faintheartedly to Coniston, and so to -Oxford, _re infectâ_. - - [92] All which inimitable graces of nature have, by the hands of - mechanic art, by solid masonry, by whitewashing, &c., been - exterminated, as a growth of weeds and nuisances, for thirty - years.--_August 17, 1853._ - -This was in 1806. And thus far, from mere excess of nervous distrust -in my own powers for sustaining a conversation with Wordsworth, I -had for nearly five years shrunk from a meeting for which, beyond -all things under heaven, I longed. In early youth I laboured under a -peculiar embarrassment and penury of words, when I sought to convey my -thoughts adequately upon interesting subjects: neither was it words -only that I wanted; but I could not unravel, I could not even make -perfectly conscious to myself, the subsidiary thoughts into which one -leading thought often radiates; or, at least, I could not do this with -anything like the rapidity requisite for conversation. I laboured -like a sibyl instinct with the burden of prophetic woe, as often as -I found myself dealing with any topic in which the understanding -combined with deep feelings to suggest mixed and tangled thoughts: -and thus partly--partly also from my invincible habit of reverie--at -that era of my life, I had a most distinguished talent "_pour le -silence_." Wordsworth, from something of the same causes, suffered -(by his own report to myself) at the same age from pretty much the -same infirmity. And yet, in more advanced years--probably about -twenty-eight or thirty--both of us acquired a remarkable fluency in the -art of unfolding our thoughts colloquially. However, at that period my -deficiencies were what I have described. And, after all, though I had -no absolute cause for anticipating contempt, I was so far right in my -fears, that since that time I have had occasion to perceive a worldly -tone of sentiment in Wordsworth, not less than in Mrs. Hannah More and -other literary people, by which they were led to set a higher value -upon a limited respect from a person high in the world's esteem than -upon the most lavish spirit of devotion from an obscure quarter. Now, -in that point, _my_ feelings are far otherwise. - -Meantime, the world went on; events kept moving; and, amongst them, -in the course of 1807, occurred the event of Coleridge's return to -England from his official station in the Governor's family at Malta. -At Bridgewater, as I have already recorded, in the summer of 1807, I -was introduced to him. Several weeks after he came with his family to -the Bristol Hot-Wells, at which, by accident, I was then visiting. -On calling upon him, I found that he had been engaged by the Royal -Institution to lecture at their theatre in Albemarle Street during -the coming winter of 1807-8, and, consequently, was embarrassed about -the mode of conveying his family to Keswick. Upon this, I offered my -services to escort them in a post-chaise. This offer was cheerfully -accepted; and at the latter end of October we set forwards--Mrs. -Coleridge, viz., with her two sons--Hartley, aged nine, Derwent, about -seven--her beautiful little daughter,[93] about five, and, finally, -myself. Going by the direct route through Gloucester, Bridgenorth, &c., -on the third day we reached Liverpool, where I took up my quarters at -a hotel, whilst Mrs. Coleridge paid a visit of a few days to a very -interesting family, who had become friends of Southey during his visit -to Portugal. These were the Misses Koster, daughters of an English -gold-merchant of celebrity, who had recently quitted Lisbon on the -approach of the French army under Junot. Mr. Koster did me the honour -to call at my quarters, and invite me to his house; an invitation -which I very readily accepted, and had thus an opportunity of becoming -acquainted with a family the most accomplished I had ever known. At -dinner there appeared only the family party--several daughters, and -one son, a fine young man of twenty, but who was _consciously_ dying -of asthma. Mr. Koster, the head of the family, was distinguished for -his good sense and practical information; but, in Liverpool, even more -so by his eccentric and obstinate denial of certain notorious events; -in particular, some two years later, he denied that any such battle as -Talavera had ever been fought, and had a large wager depending upon the -decision. His house was the resort of distinguished foreigners; and, on -the first evening of my dining there, as well as afterwards, I there -met that marvel of women, Madame Catalani. I had heard her repeatedly; -but never before been near enough to see her smile and converse--even -to be honoured with a smile myself. She and Lady Hamilton were the most -effectively brilliant women I ever saw. However, on this occasion, the -Misses Koster outshone even La Catalani; to her they talked in the most -fluent Italian; to some foreign men, in Portuguese; to one in French; -and to most of the party in English; and each, by turns, seemed to be -their native tongue. Nor did they shrink, even in the presence of the -mighty enchantress, from exhibiting their musical skill. - - [93] That most accomplished, and to Coleridge most pious daughter, - whose recent death afflicted so very many who knew her only by her - writings. She had married her cousin, Mr. Serjeant Coleridge, and - in that way retained her illustrious maiden name as a wife. At - seventeen, when last I saw her, she was the most perfect of all - pensive, nun-like, intellectual beauties that I have seen in real - breathing life. The upper parts of her face were verily divine. - See, for an artist's opinion, the Life of that admirable man - Collins, by his son. - -Leaving Liverpool, after about a week's delay, we pursued our journey -northwards. We had slept on the first day at Lancaster. Consequently, -at the rate of motion which then prevailed throughout England--which, -however, was rarely equalled on that western road, where all things -were in arrear by comparison with the eastern and southern roads of the -kingdom--we found ourselves, about three o'clock in the afternoon, at -Ambleside, fourteen miles to the north-west of Kendal, and thirty-six -from Lancaster. There, for the last time, we stopped to change horses; -and about four o'clock we found ourselves on the summit of the White -Moss, a hill which rises between the second and third milestones on -the stage from Ambleside to Keswick, and which then retarded the -traveller's advance by a full fifteen minutes, but is now evaded by a -lower line of road. In ascending this hill, from weariness of moving -so slowly, I, with the two Coleridges, had alighted; and, as we all -chose to refresh ourselves by running down the hill into Grasmere, -we had left the chaise behind us, and had even lost the sound of the -wheels at times, when all at once we came, at an abrupt turn of the -road, in sight of a white cottage, with two yew-trees breaking the -glare of its white walls. A sudden shock seized me on recognising this -cottage, of which, in the previous year, I had gained a momentary -glimpse from Hammerscar, on the opposite side of the lake. I paused, -and felt my old panic returning upon me; but just then, as if to take -away all doubt upon the subject, I saw Hartley Coleridge, who had -gained upon me considerably, suddenly turn in at a garden gate; this -motion to the right at once confirmed me in my belief that here at -last we had reached our port; that this little cottage was tenanted -by that man whom, of all the men from the beginning of time, I most -fervently desired to see; that in less than a minute I should meet -Wordsworth face to face. Coleridge was of opinion that, if a man were -really and _consciously_ to see an apparition, in such circumstances -death would be the inevitable result; and, if so, the wish which we -hear so commonly expressed for such experience is as thoughtless as -that of Semele in the Grecian Mythology, so natural in a female, that -her lover should visit her _en grand costume_--presumptuous ambition, -that unexpectedly wrought its own ruinous chastisement! Judged by -Coleridge's test, my situation could not have been so terrific as _his_ -who anticipates a ghost; for, certainly, I survived this meeting; but -at that instant it seemed pretty much the same to my own feelings. - -Never before or since can I reproach myself with having trembled at the -approaching presence of any creature that is born of woman, excepting -only, for once or twice in my life, woman herself. Now, however, I -_did_ tremble; and I forgot, what in no other circumstances I could -have forgotten, to stop for the coming up of the chaise, that I might -be ready to hand Mrs. Coleridge out. Had Charlemagne and all his -peerage been behind me, or Cæsar and his equipage, or Death on his -pale horse, I should have forgotten them at that moment of intense -expectation, and of eyes fascinated to what lay before me, or what -might in a moment appear. Through the little gate I pressed forward; -ten steps beyond it lay the principal door of the house. To this, no -longer clearly conscious of my own feelings, I passed on rapidly; I -heard a step, a voice, and, like a flash of lightning, I saw the figure -emerge of a tallish man, who held out his hand, and saluted me with -most cordial expressions of welcome. The chaise, however, drawing up -to the gate at that moment, he (and there needed no Roman nomenclator -to tell me that this _he_ was Wordsworth) felt himself summoned to -advance and receive Mrs. Coleridge. I, therefore, stunned almost -with the actual accomplishment of a catastrophe so long anticipated -and so long postponed, mechanically went forward into the house. A -little semi-vestibule between two doors prefaced the entrance into -what might be considered the principal room of the cottage. It was -an oblong square, not above eight and a half feet high, sixteen feet -long, and twelve broad; very prettily wainscoted from the floor to the -ceiling with dark polished oak, slightly embellished with carving. -One window there was--a perfect and unpretending cottage window, with -little diamond panes, embowered at almost every season of the year with -roses, and in the summer and autumn with a profusion of jasmine and -other fragrant shrubs. From the exuberant luxuriance of the vegetation -around it, and from the dark hue of the wainscoting, this window, -though tolerably large, did not furnish a very powerful light to one -who entered from the open air. However, I saw sufficiently to be aware -of two ladies just entering the room, through a doorway opening upon a -little staircase, The foremost, a tallish young woman, with the most -winning expression of benignity upon her features, advanced to me, -presenting her hand with so frank an air that all embarrassment must -have fled in a moment before the native goodness of her manner. This -was Mrs. Wordsworth, cousin of the poet, and, for the last five years -or more, his wife.[94] She was now mother of two children, a son and -a daughter; and she furnished a remarkable proof how possible it is -for a woman neither handsome nor even comely according to the rigour -of criticism--nay, generally pronounced very plain--to exercise all -the practical fascination of beauty, through the mere compensatory -charms of sweetness all but angelic, of simplicity the most entire, -womanly self-respect and purity of heart speaking through all her -looks, acts, and movements. _Words_, I was going to have added; but her -words were few. In reality, she talked so little that Mr. Slave-Trade -Clarkson used to allege against her that she could only say "_God bless -you!_" Certainly, her intellect was not of an active order; but, in -a quiescent, reposing, meditative way, she appeared always to have a -genial enjoyment from her own thoughts; and it would have been strange, -indeed, if she, who enjoyed such eminent advantages of training, from -the daily society of her husband and his sister, failed to acquire -some power of judging for herself, and putting forth some functions -of activity. But undoubtedly that was not her element: to feel and -to enjoy in a luxurious repose of mind--there was her _forte_ and -her peculiar privilege; and how much better this was adapted to her -husband's taste, how much more adapted to uphold the comfort of his -daily life, than a blue-stocking loquacity, or even a legitimate talent -for discussion, may be inferred from his verses, beginning-- - - "She was a phantom of delight, - When first she gleam'd upon my sight." - -Once for all,[95] these exquisite lines were dedicated to Mrs. -Wordsworth; were understood to describe her--to have been prompted by -the feminine graces of her character; hers they are, and will remain -for ever. To these, therefore, I may refer the reader for an idea of -what was most important in the partner and second self of the poet. -And I will add to this abstract of her _moral_ portrait these few -concluding traits of her appearance in a physical sense. Her figure was -tolerably good. In complexion she was fair, and there was something -peculiarly pleasing even in this accident of the skin, for it was -accompanied by an animated expression of health, a blessing which, in -fact, she possessed uninterruptedly. Her eyes, the reader may already -know, were - - "Like stars of twilight fair; - Like twilight, too, her dark brown hair; - But all things else about her drawn - From May-time and the cheerful dawn." - -Yet strange it is to tell that, in these eyes of vesper gentleness, -there was a considerable obliquity of vision; and much beyond -that slight obliquity which is often supposed to be an attractive -foible in the countenance: this _ought_ to have been displeasing or -repulsive; yet, in fact, it was not. Indeed all faults, had they -been ten times more and greater, would have been neutralized by -that supreme expression of her features to the unity of which every -lineament in the fixed parts, and every undulation in the moving parts, -of her countenance, concurred, viz. a sunny benignity--a radiant -graciousness--such as in this world I never saw surpassed. - - [94] Mary Hutchinson, who became Wordsworth's wife in October - 1802, had been known to him since 1777, when she was his - fellow-pupil in a Dame's school at Penrith.--M. - - [95] _Once for all_, I say--on recollecting that Coleridge's - verses to _Sara_ were made transferable to any Sara who reigned at - the time. At least three Saras appropriated them; all three long - since in the grave. - -Immediately behind her moved a lady, shorter, slighter, and perhaps, in -all other respects, as different from her in personal characteristics -as could have been wished for the most effective contrast. "Her -face was of Egyptian brown"; rarely, in a woman of English birth, -had I seen a more determinate gipsy tan. Her eyes were not soft, -as Mrs. Wordsworth's, nor were they fierce or bold; but they were -wild and startling, and hurried in their motion. Her manner was warm -and even ardent; her sensibility seemed constitutionally deep; and -some subtle fire of impassioned intellect apparently burned within -her, which, being alternately pushed forward into a conspicuous -expression by the irrepressible instincts of her temperament, and -then immediately checked, in obedience to the decorum of her sex and -age, and her maidenly condition, gave to her whole demeanour, and to -her conversation, an air of embarrassment, and even of self-conflict, -that was almost distressing to witness. Even her very utterance and -enunciation often suffered, in point of clearness and steadiness, from -the agitation of her excessive organic sensibility. At times, the -self-counteraction and self-baffling of her feelings caused her even -to stammer, and so determinately to stammer that a stranger who should -have seen her and quitted her in that state of feeling would have -certainly set her down for one plagued with that infirmity of speech -as distressingly as Charles Lamb himself. This was Miss Wordsworth, -the only sister of the poet--his "Dorothy"; who naturally owed so -much to the lifelong intercourse with her great brother in his most -solitary and sequestered years; but, on the other hand, to whom he has -acknowledged obligations of the profoundest nature; and, in particular, -this mighty one, through which we also, the admirers and the -worshippers of this great poet, are become equally her debtors--that, -whereas the intellect of Wordsworth was, by its original tendency, too -stern, too austere, too much enamoured of an ascetic harsh sublimity, -she it was--the lady who paced by his side continually through sylvan -and mountain tracks, in Highland glens, and in the dim recesses of -German charcoal-burners--that first _couched_ his eye to the sense of -beauty, humanized him by the gentler charities, and engrafted, with -her delicate female touch, those graces upon the ruder growths of -his nature which have since clothed the forest of his genius with a -foliage corresponding in loveliness and beauty to the strength of its -boughs and the massiness of its trunks. The greatest deductions from -Miss Wordsworth's attractions, and from the exceeding interest which -surrounded her in right of her character, of her history, and of the -relation which she fulfilled towards her brother, were the glancing -quickness of her motions, and other circumstances in her deportment -(such as her stooping attitude when walking), which gave an ungraceful, -and even an unsexual character to her appearance when out-of-doors. -She did not cultivate the graces which preside over the person and its -carriage. But, on the other hand, she was a person of very remarkable -endowments intellectually; and, in addition to the other great services -which she rendered to her brother, this I may mention, as greater than -all the rest, and it was one which equally operated to the benefit of -every casual companion in a walk--viz. the exceeding sympathy, always -ready and always profound, by which she made all that one could tell -her, all that one could describe, all that one could quote from a -foreign author, reverberate, as it were, _à plusieurs reprises_, to -one's own feelings, by the manifest impression it made upon _hers_. The -pulses of light are not more quick or more inevitable in their flow -and undulation, than were the answering and echoing movements of her -sympathizing attention. Her knowledge of literature was irregular, and -thoroughly unsystematic. She was content to be ignorant of many things; -but what she knew and had really mastered lay where it could not be -disturbed--in the temple of her own most fervid heart. - -Such were the two ladies who, with himself and two children, and -at that time one servant, composed the poet's household. They were -both, I believe, about twenty-eight years old; and, if the reader -inquires about the single point which I have left untouched in their -portraiture--viz. the style of their manners--I may say that it was, in -_some_ points, naturally of a plain household simplicity, but every way -pleasing, unaffected, and (as respects Mrs. Wordsworth) even dignified. -Few persons had seen so little as this lady of the world. She had seen -nothing of high life, for she had seen little of any. Consequently, she -was unacquainted with the conventional modes of behaviour, prescribed -in particular situations by high breeding. But, as these modes are -little more than the product of dispassionate good sense, applied to -the circumstances of the case, it is surprising how few deficiencies -are perceptible, even to the most vigilant eye--or, at least, essential -deficiencies--in the general demeanour of any unaffected young woman, -acting habitually under a sense of sexual dignity and natural courtesy. -Miss Wordsworth had seen more of life, and even of good company; for -she had lived, when quite a girl, under the protection of Dr. Cookson, -a near relative, canon of Windsor, and a personal favourite of the -Royal Family, especially of George III. Consequently, she ought to -have been the more polished of the two; and yet, from greater natural -aptitudes for refinement of manner in her sister-in-law, and partly, -perhaps, from her more quiet and subdued manner, Mrs. Wordsworth would -have been pronounced very much the more lady-like person. - -From the interest which attaches to anybody so nearly connected as -these two ladies with a great poet, I have allowed myself a larger -latitude than else might have been justifiable in describing them. I -now go on with my narrative:-- - -I was ushered up a little flight of stairs, fourteen in all, to a -little drawing-room, or whatever the reader chooses to call it. -Wordsworth himself has described the fireplace of this room as his - - "Half-kitchen and half-parlour fire." - -It was not fully seven feet six inches high, and, in other respects, -pretty nearly of the same dimensions as the rustic hall below. There -was, however, in a small recess, a library of perhaps three hundred -volumes, which seemed to consecrate the room as the poet's study and -composing room; and such occasionally it was. But far oftener he both -studied, as I found, and composed, on the high road. I had not been two -minutes at the fireside, when in came Wordsworth, returning from his -friendly attentions to the travellers below, who, it seemed, had been -over-persuaded by hospitable solicitations to stay for this night in -Grasmere, and to make out the remaining thirteen miles of their road to -Keswick on the following day. Wordsworth entered. And "_what-like_"--to -use a Westmoreland as well as a Scottish expression--"_what-like_" -was Wordsworth? A reviewer in "Tait's Magazine," noticing some recent -collection of literary portraits, gives it as his opinion that Charles -Lamb's head was the finest among them.[96] This remark may have been -justified by the engraved portraits; but, certainly, the critic would -have cancelled it, had he seen the original heads--at least, had he -seen them in youth or in maturity; for Charles Lamb bore age with less -disadvantage to the intellectual expression of his appearance than -Wordsworth, in whom a sanguine complexion had, of late years, usurped -upon the original bronze-tint; and this change of hue, and change in -the quality of skin, had been made fourfold more conspicuous, and more -unfavourable in its general effect, by the harsh contrast of grizzled -hair which had displaced the original brown. No change in personal -appearance ever can have been so unfortunate; for, generally speaking, -whatever other disadvantages old age may bring along with it, one -effect, at least in male subjects, has a compensating tendency--that it -removes any tone of vigour too harsh, and mitigates the expression of -power too unsubdued. But, in Wordsworth, the effect of the change has -been to substitute an air of animal vigour, or, at least, hardiness, -as if derived from constant exposure to the wind and weather, for -the fine sombre complexion which he once wore, resembling that of a -Venetian senator or a Spanish monk. - - [96] Vol. iv. p. 793 (Dec. 1837).--So De Quincey notes; but I may - add that the paper in _Tait_ referred to was a Review of Books of - the Season, one of them being "Tilt's Medallion Portraits of - Modern English Authors, with Illustrative notices by H. F. - Chorley." The reviewer's words were "The finest head, in every - way, in the series, is that of Charles Lamb."--M. - -Here, however, in describing the personal appearance of Wordsworth, -I go back, of course, to the point of time at which I am speaking. -He was, upon the whole, not a well-made man. His legs were pointedly -condemned by all female connoisseurs in legs; not that they were -bad in any way which _would_ force itself upon your notice--there -was no absolute deformity about them; and undoubtedly they had been -serviceable legs beyond the average standard of human requisition; for -I calculate, upon good data, that with these identical legs Wordsworth -must have traversed a distance of 175,000 to 180,000 English miles--a -mode of exertion which, to him, stood in the stead of alcohol and -all other stimulants whatsoever to the animal spirits; to which, -indeed, he was indebted for a life of unclouded happiness, and we -for much of what is most excellent in his writings. But, useful as -they have proved themselves, the Wordsworthian legs were certainly -not ornamental; and it was really a pity, as I agreed with a lady in -thinking, that he had not another pair for evening dress parties--when -no boots lend their friendly aid to mask our imperfections from the -eyes of female rigorists--those _elegantes formarum spectatrices_. A -sculptor would certainly have disapproved of their contour. But the -worst part of Wordsworth's person was the bust; there was a narrowness -and a droop about the shoulders which became striking, and had an -effect of meanness, when brought into close juxtaposition with a -figure of a more statuesque build. Once on a summer evening, walking -in the Vale of Langdale with Wordsworth, his sister, and Mr. J---, a -native Westmoreland clergyman, I remember that Miss Wordsworth was -positively mortified by the peculiar illustration which settled upon -this defective conformation. Mr. J---, a fine towering figure, six feet -high, massy and columnar in his proportions, happened to be walking, a -little in advance, with Wordsworth; Miss Wordsworth and myself being in -the rear; and from the nature of the conversation which then prevailed -in our front rank, something or other about money, devises, buying and -selling, we of the rear-guard thought it requisite to preserve this -arrangement for a space of three miles or more; during which time, at -intervals, Miss Wordsworth would exclaim, in a tone of vexation, "Is it -possible,--can that be William? How very mean he looks!" And she did -not conceal a mortification that seemed really painful, until I, for my -part, could not forbear laughing outright at the serious interest which -she carried into this trifle. She was, however, right, as regarded -the mere visual judgment. Wordsworth's figure, with all its defects, -was brought into powerful relief by one which had been cast in a more -square and massy mould; and in such a case it impressed a spectator -with a sense of absolute meanness, more especially when viewed from -behind and not counteracted by his countenance; and yet Wordsworth -was of a good height (five feet ten), and not a slender man; on the -contrary, by the side of Southey, his limbs looked thick, almost in a -disproportionate degree. But the total effect of Wordsworth's person -was always worst in a state of motion. Meantime, his face--that was one -which would have made amends for greater defects of figure. Many such, -and finer, I have seen amongst the portraits of Titian, and, in a later -period, amongst those of Vandyke, from the great era of Charles I, as -also from the court of Elizabeth and of Charles II, but none which has -more impressed me in my own time. - -Haydon, in his great picture of "Christ's Entry into Jerusalem," has -introduced Wordsworth in the character of a disciple attending his -Divine Master, and Voltaire in the character of a sneering Jewish -elder. This fact is well known; and, as the picture itself is tolerably -well known to the public eye, there are multitudes now living who will -have seen a very impressive likeness of Wordsworth--some consciously, -some not suspecting it. There will, however, always be many who have -_not_ seen any portrait at all of Wordsworth; and therefore I will -describe its general outline and effect. It was a face of the long -order, often falsely classed as oval: but a greater mistake is made by -many people in supposing the long face which prevailed so remarkably in -the Elizabethan and Carolinian periods to have become extinct in our -own. Miss Ferrier, in one of her novels ("Marriage," I think), makes a -Highland girl protest that "no Englishman _with his round face_" shall -ever wean her heart from her own country; but England is not the land -of round faces; and those have observed little, indeed, who think so: -France it is that grows the round face, and in so large a majority of -her provinces that it has become one of the national characteristics. -And the remarkable impression which an Englishman receives from the -eternal recurrence of the orbicular countenance proves of itself, -without any _conscious_ testimony, how the fact stands; in the blind -sense of a monotony, not felt elsewhere, lies involved an argument -that cannot be gainsaid. Besides, even upon an _a priori_ argument, -how is it possible that the long face so prevalent in England, by all -confession, in certain splendid eras of our history, should have had -time, in some five or six generations, to grow extinct? Again, the -character of face varies essentially in different provinces. Wales has -no connexion in this respect with Devonshire, nor Kent with Yorkshire, -nor either with Westmoreland. England, it is true, tends, beyond all -known examples, to a general amalgamation of differences, by means -of its unrivalled freedom of intercourse. Yet, even in England, law -and necessity have opposed as yet such and so many obstacles to the -free diffusion of labour that every generation occupies, by at least -five-sixths of its numbers, the ground of its ancestors. - -The movable part of a population is chiefly the higher part; and it -is the lower classes that, in every nation, compose the _fundus_, in -which lies latent the national face, as well as the national character. -Each exists here in racy purity and integrity, not disturbed in the -one by alien intermarriages, nor in the other by novelties of opinion, -or other casual effects, derived from education and reading. Now, look -into this _fundus_, and you will find, in many districts, no such -prevalence of the round orbicular face as some people erroneously -suppose; and in Westmoreland, especially, the ancient long face of -the Elizabethan period, powerfully resembling in all its lineaments -the ancient Roman face, and often (though not so uniformly) the face -of northern Italy in modern times. The face of Sir Walter Scott, as -Irving, the pulpit orator, once remarked to me, was the indigenous -face of the Border: the mouth, which was bad, and the entire lower -part of the face, are seen repeated in thousands of working-men; -or, as Irving chose to illustrate his position, "in thousands of -Border horse-jockeys." In like manner, Wordsworth's face was, if not -absolutely the indigenous face of the Lake district, at any rate a -variety of that face, a modification of that original type. The head -was well filled out; and there, to begin with, was a great advantage -over the head of Charles Lamb, which was absolutely truncated in -the posterior region--sawn off, as it were, by no timid sawyer. The -forehead was not remarkably lofty--and, by the way, some artists, in -their ardour for realizing their phrenological preconceptions, not -suffering nature to surrender quietly and by slow degrees her real -alphabet of signs and hieroglyphic characters, but forcing her language -prematurely into conformity with their own crude speculations, have -given to Sir Walter Scott a pile of forehead which is unpleasing -and cataphysical, in fact, a caricature of anything that is ever -seen in nature, and would (if real) be esteemed a deformity; in one -instance--that which was introduced in some annual or other--the -forehead makes about two-thirds of the entire face. Wordsworth's -forehead is also liable to caricature misrepresentations in these days -of phrenology: but, whatever it may appear to be in any man's fanciful -portrait, the real living forehead, as I have been in the habit of -seeing it for more than five-and-twenty years, is not remarkable -for its height; but it is, perhaps, remarkable for its breadth and -expansive development. Neither are the eyes of Wordsworth "large," -as is erroneously stated somewhere in "Peter's Letters"[97]; on -the contrary, they are (I think) rather small; but _that_ does not -interfere with their effect, which at times is fine, and suitable to -his intellectual character. At times, I say, for the depth and subtlety -of eyes, even their colouring (as to condensation or dilation), varies -exceedingly with the state of the stomach; and, if young ladies were -aware of the magical transformations which can be wrought in the depth -and sweetness of the eye by a few weeks' walking exercise, I fancy we -should see their habits in this point altered greatly for the better. -I have seen Wordsworth's eyes oftentimes affected powerfully in this -respect; his eyes are not, under any circumstances, bright, lustrous, -or piercing; but, after a long day's toil in walking, I have seen -them assume an appearance the most solemn and spiritual that it is -possible for the human eye to wear. The light which resides in them -is at no time a superficial light; but, under favourable accidents, -it is a light which seems to come from unfathomed depths: in fact, it -is more truly entitled to be held "the light that never was on land -or sea," a light radiating from some far spiritual world, than any -the most idealizing that ever yet a painter's hand created. The nose, -a little arched, is large; which, by the way (according to a natural -phrenology, existing centuries ago amongst some of the lowest amongst -the human species), has always been accounted an unequivocal expression -of animal appetites organically strong. And that expressed the simple -truth: Wordsworth's intellectual passions were fervent and strong: but -they rested upon a basis of preternatural animal sensibility diffused -through _all_ the animal passions (or appetites); and something -of that will be found to hold of all poets who have been great by -original force and power, not (as Virgil) by means of fine management -and exquisite artifice of composition applied to their conceptions. -The mouth, and the whole circumjacencies of the mouth, composed the -strongest feature in Wordsworth's face; there was nothing specially -to be noticed that I know of in the mere outline of the lips; but the -swell and protrusion of the parts above and around the mouth are both -noticeable in themselves, and also because they remind me of a very -interesting fact which I discovered about three years after this my -first visit to Wordsworth. - - [97] Lockhart's famous publication of 1819 under the name of - _Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk_.--M. - -Being a great collector of everything relating to Milton, I had -naturally possessed myself, whilst yet very young, of Richardson the -painter's thick octavo volume of notes on the "Paradise Lost."[98] It -happened, however, that my copy, in consequence of that mania for -portrait collecting which has stripped so many English classics of -their engraved portraits, wanted the portrait of Milton. Subsequently -I ascertained that it ought to have had a very good likeness of the -great poet; and I never rested until I procured a copy of the book -which had not suffered in this respect by the fatal admiration of the -amateur. The particular copy offered to me was one which had been -priced unusually high, on account of the unusually fine specimen which -it contained of the engraved portrait. This, for a particular reason, -I was exceedingly anxious to see; and the reason was--that, according -to an anecdote reported by Richardson himself, this portrait, of all -that were shown to her, was the only one acknowledged by Milton's last -surviving daughter to be a strong likeness of her father. And her -involuntary gestures concurred with her deliberate words:--for, on -seeing all the rest, she was silent and inanimate; but the very instant -she beheld that crayon drawing from which is derived the engraved -head in Richardson's book, she burst out into a rapture of passionate -recognition; exclaiming--"That is my father! that is my dear father!" -Naturally, therefore, after such a testimony, so much stronger than any -other person in the world could offer to the authentic value of this -portrait, I was eager to see it.[99] - - [98] Jonathan Richardson (born about 1665, died 1745) published in - 1734 a volume of Explanatory Notes and Remarks on _Paradise Lost_, - with a Life of Milton, containing particulars which Richardson had - collected about Milton personally.--M. - - [99] It was between 1721 and 1725, when Mrs. Deborah Clarke, - Milton's youngest and only surviving daughter, was living in old - age and in very humble circumstances in Moorfields, London, that - the engraver Vertue and others went to see her for the special - purpose of consulting her about portraits of her father. Some that - were shown her she rejected at once; but one "crayon drawing" - moved her in the manner which De Quincey reports. This is the - portrait which came into Richardson's possession; and after - Richardson's death in 1745 it was acquired by Jacob Tonson - tertius, of the Tonson publishing family. There seems to be little - doubt that it was a drawing of Milton from the life by Faithorne - about 1670, when Milton's _History of Britain_ appeared with that - portrait of him by Faithorne which is the only authentic print of - him in later life, and worth all the other current portraits put - together. Faithorne seems to have made two drawings, closely - resembling each other, of Milton,--that (now lost) from which the - engraving was made for the _History of Britain_, and this other - "crayon drawing" which Richardson possessed. Richardson's - reproduction of it in his book is spoilt by a laureate wreath and - other flummery about the head; and the only genuine copy of it - known to me is a beautiful one prefixed to Mr. Leigh Sotheby's - sumptuous volume entitled _Ramblings in Elucidation of the - Autograph of Milton_, published in 1871. The face there is - identically the same in essentials as that in the Faithorne - engraving of 1670, though somewhat less sad in expression; and the - two drawings must have been by the same hand.--M. - -Judge of my astonishment when, in this portrait of Milton, I saw a -likeness nearly perfect of Wordsworth, better by much than any which I -have since seen of those expressly painted for himself. The likeness -is tolerably preserved in that by Carruthers, in which one of the -little Rydal waterfalls, &c., composes a background; yet this is much -inferior, as a mere portrait of Wordsworth, to the Richardson head of -Milton; and this, I believe, is the last which represents Wordsworth -in the vigour of his power. The rest, which I have not seen, may be -better as works of art (for anything I know to the contrary), but they -must labour under the great disadvantage of presenting the features -when "defeatured," in the degree and the way I have described, by -the peculiar ravages of old age, as it affects this family; for it -is noticed of the Wordsworths, by those who are familiar with their -peculiarities, that in their very blood and constitutional differences -lie hidden causes that are able, in some mysterious way, - - "Those shocks of passion to prepare - That kill the bloom before its time, - And blanch, without the owner's crime, - The most resplendent hair." - -Some people, it is notorious, live faster by much than others, the -oil is burned out sooner in one constitution than another: and the -cause of this may be various; but in the Wordsworths one part of the -cause is, no doubt, the secret fire of a temperament too fervid; the -self-consuming energies of the brain, that gnaw at the heart and -life-strings for ever. In that account which "The Excursion" presents -to us of an imaginary Scotsman who, to still the tumult of his heart, -when visiting the cataracts of a mountainous region, obliges himself -to study the laws of light and colour as they affect the rainbow of -the stormy waters, vainly attempting to mitigate the fever which -consumed him by entangling his mind in profound speculations; raising -a cross-fire of artillery from the subtilizing intellect, under the -vain conceit that in this way he could silence the mighty battery of -his impassioned heart: there we read a picture of Wordsworth and his -own youth. In Miss Wordsworth every thoughtful observer might read the -same self-consuming style of thought. And the effect upon each was so -powerful for the promotion of a premature old age, and of a premature -expression of old age, that strangers invariably supposed them fifteen -to twenty years older than they were. And I remember Wordsworth once -laughingly reporting to me, on returning from a short journey in 1809, -a little personal anecdote, which sufficiently showed what was the -spontaneous impression upon that subject of casual strangers, whose -feelings were not confused by previous knowledge of the truth. He -was travelling by a stage-coach, and seated outside, amongst a good -half-dozen of fellow-passengers. One of these, an elderly man, who -confessed to having passed the grand climacterical year (9 multiplied -into 7) of 63, though he did not say precisely by how many years, said -to Wordsworth, upon some anticipations which they had been mutually -discussing of changes likely to result from enclosures, &c., then going -on or projecting--"Ay, ay, another dozen of years will show us strange -sights; but you and I can hardly expect to see them."--"How so?" said -Wordsworth. "How so, my friend? How old do you take me to be?"--"Oh, I -beg pardon," said the other; "I meant no offence--but what?" looking -at Wordsworth more attentively--"you'll never see threescore, I'm of -opinion"; meaning to say that Wordsworth _had_ seen it already. And, to -show that he was not singular in so thinking, he appealed to all the -other passengers; and the motion passed (_nem. con._) that Wordsworth -was rather over than under sixty. Upon this he told them the literal -truth--that he had not yet accomplished his thirty-ninth year. "God -bless me!" said the climacterical man; "so then, after all, you'll have -a chance to see your childer get up like, and get settled! Only to -think of that!" And so closed the conversation, leaving to Wordsworth -an undeniable record of his own prematurely expressed old age in this -unaffected astonishment, amongst a whole party of plain men, that he -could really belong to a generation of the forward-looking, who live -by hope; and might reasonably expect to see a child of seven years -old matured into a man. And yet, as Wordsworth lived into his 82d -year,[100] it is plain that the premature expression of decay does not -argue any real decay. - - [100] Into his 81st only.--M. - -Returning to the question of portraits, I would observe that this -Richardson engraving of Milton has the advantage of presenting, not -only by far the best likeness of Wordsworth, but of Wordsworth in the -prime of his powers--a point essential in the case of one so liable to -premature decay. It may be supposed that I took an early opportunity -of carrying the book down to Grasmere, and calling for the opinions -of Wordsworth's family upon this most remarkable coincidence. Not one -member of that family but was as much impressed as myself with the -accuracy of the likeness. All the peculiarities even were retained--a -drooping appearance of the eyelids, that remarkable swell which I -have noticed about the mouth, the way in which the hair lay upon the -forehead. In two points only there was a deviation from the rigorous -truth of Wordsworth's features--the face was a little too short and -too broad, and the eyes were too large. There was also a wreath of -laurel about the head, which (as Wordsworth remarked) disturbed the -natural expression of the whole picture[101]; else, and with these few -allowances, he also admitted that the resemblance was, _for that period -of his life_, perfect, or as nearly so as art could accomplish. - - [101] See footnote (99), p. 247.--M. - -I have gone into so large and circumstantial a review of my -recollections on this point as would have been trifling and tedious -in excess, had these recollections related to a less important man; -but I have a certain knowledge that the least of them will possess a -lasting and a growing interest in connexion with William Wordsworth. -How peculiar, how different from the interest which we grant to the -ideas of a great philosopher, a great mathematician, or a great -reformer, is that burning interest which settles on the great poets -who have made themselves necessary to the human heart; who have first -brought into consciousness, and have clothed in words, those grand -catholic feelings that belong to the grand catholic situations of life -through all its stages; who have clothed them in such words that human -wit despairs of bettering them! Mighty were the powers, solemn and -serene is the memory, of Archimedes; and Apollonius shines like "the -starry Galileo" in the firmament of human genius; yet how frosty is -the feeling associated with these names by comparison with that which, -upon every sunny lawn, by the side of every ancient forest, even in the -farthest depths of Canada, many a young innocent girl, perhaps at this -very moment--looking now with fear to the dark recesses of the infinite -forest, and now with love to the pages of the infinite poet, until the -fear is absorbed and forgotten in the love--cherishes in her heart for -the name and person of Shakspere! - -The English language is travelling fast towards the fulfilment of -its destiny. Through the influence of the dreadful Republic[102] -that within the thirty last years has run through all the stages of -infancy into the first stage of maturity, and through the English -colonies--African, Canadian, Indian, Australian--the English language -(and, therefore, the English literature) is running forward towards its -ultimate mission of eating up, like Aaron's rod, all other languages. -Even the German and the Spanish will inevitably sink before it; perhaps -within 100 or 150 years. In the recesses of California, in the vast -solitudes of Australia, _The Churchyard amongst the Mountains_, from -Wordsworth's "Excursion," and many a scene of his shorter poems, will -be read, even as now Shakspere is read amongst the forests of Canada. -All which relates to the writer of these poems will then bear a value -of the same kind as that which attaches to our personal memorials -(unhappily so slender) of Shakspere. - - [102] Not many months ago, the blind hostility of the Irish - newspaper editors in America forged a ludicrous estimate of the - Irish numerical preponderance in the United States, from which it - was inferred, as at least a possibility, that the Irish Celtic - language might come to dispute the pre-eminence with the English. - Others anticipated the same destiny for the German. But, in the - meantime, the unresting career of the law-courts, of commerce, and - of the national senate, that cannot suspend themselves for an - hour, reduce the case to this dilemma: If the Irish and the - Germans in the United States adapt their general schemes of - education to the service of their public ambition, they must - begin by training themselves to the use of the language now - prevailing on all the available stages of ambition. On the other - hand, by refusing to do this, they lose in the very outset every - point of advantage. In other words, adopting the English, they - renounce the contest--_not_ adopting it, they disqualify - themselves for the contest. - -Let me now attempt to trace, in a brief outline, the chief incidents -in the life of William Wordsworth, which are interesting, not only in -virtue of their illustrious subject, but also as exhibiting a most -remarkable (almost a providential) arrangement of circumstances, all -tending to one result--that of insulating from worldly cares, and -carrying onward from childhood to the grave, in a state of serene -happiness, one who was unfitted for daily toil, and, at all events, -who could not, under such demands upon his time and anxieties, have -prosecuted those genial labours in which all mankind have an interest. - - * * * * * - -William Wordsworth was born[103] at Cockermouth, a small town of -Cumberland, lying about a dozen miles to the north-west of Keswick, -on the high road from that town to Whitehaven. His father was a -solicitor, and acted as an agent for that Lord Lonsdale, the immediate -predecessor of the present,[104] who is not unfrequently described by -those who still remember him, as "the bad Lord Lonsdale." In what was -he bad? Chiefly, I believe, in this--that, being a man of great local -power, founded on his rank, on his official station of Lord-Lieutenant -over two counties, and on a very large estate, he used his power at -times in a most oppressive way. I have heard it said that he was mad; -and, at any rate, he was inordinately capricious--capricious even to -eccentricity. But, perhaps, his madness was nothing more than the -intemperance of a haughty and a headstrong will, encouraged by the -consciousness of power, and tempted to abuses of it by the abject -servility which poverty and dependence presented in one direction, -embittering the contrast of that defiance which inevitably faced him in -another, throughout a land of freedom and amongst spirits as haughty -as his own. He was a true feudal chieftain; and, in the very approaches -to his mansion, in the style of his equipage, or whatever else was -likely to meet the public eye, he delighted to express his disdain of -modern refinements, and the haughty carelessness of his magnificence. -The coach in which he used to visit Penrith, the nearest town to his -principal house of Lowther, was old and neglected; his horses fine, but -untrimmed; and such was the impression diffused about him by his gloomy -temper and his habits of oppression, that the streets were silent as -he traversed them, and an awe sat upon many faces (so, at least, I -have heard a Penrith contemporary of the old despot declare), pretty -much like that which may be supposed to attend the entry into a guilty -town of some royal commission for trying state criminals. In his park -you saw some of the most magnificent timber in the kingdom--trees that -were coeval with the feuds of York and Lancaster, yews that possibly -had furnished bows to Coeur de Lion, and oaks that might have built -a navy. All was savage grandeur about these native forests: their -sweeping lawns and glades had been unapproached, for centuries it might -be, by the hand of art; and amongst them roamed--not the timid fallow -deer--but thundering droves of wild horses. - - [103] 7th April 1770.--M. - - [104] "_The present_":--This was written about 1835, when the - present Earl of Lonsdale meant the late Earl. - -Lord Lonsdale went to London less frequently than else he might have -done, because at home he was allowed to forget that in this world -there was any greater man than himself. Even in London, however, his -haughty injustice found occasions for making itself known. On a court -day (I revive an anecdote once familiarly known), St. James's Street -was lined by cavalry, and the orders were peremptory that no carriages -should be allowed to pass, except those which were carrying parties -to court. Whether it were by accident or by way of wilfully provoking -such a collision, Lord Lonsdale's carriage advanced; and the coachman, -in obedience to orders shouted out from the window, was turning down -the forbidden route, when a trooper rode up to the horses' heads, -and stopped them; the thundering menaces of Lord Lonsdale perplexed -the soldier, who did not know but he might be bringing himself into -a scrape by persisting in his opposition; but the officer on duty, -observing the scene, rode up, and, in a determined tone, enforced the -order, causing two of his men to turn the horses' heads round into -Piccadilly. Lord Lonsdale threw his card to the officer, and a duel -followed; in which, however, the outrageous injustice of his lordship -met with a pointed rebuke; for the first person whom he summoned to -his aid, in the quality of second, though a friend, and, I believe, -a relative of his own, declined to sanction by any interference so -scandalous a quarrel with an officer for simply executing an official -duty. In this dilemma (for probably he was aware that few military men -would fail to take the same disapproving view of the affair) he applied -to the present[105] Earl of Lonsdale, then Sir William Lowther. Either -there must have been some needless discourtesy in the officer's mode -of fulfilling his duty, or else Sir William thought the necessity of -the case, however wantonly provoked, a sufficient justification for -a relative giving his assistance, even under circumstances of such -egregious injustice. At any rate, it is due to Sir William, in mere -candour, to suppose that he did nothing in this instance but what his -conscience approved; seeing that in all others his conduct has been -such as to win him the universal respect of the two counties in which -he is best known. He it was that acted as second; and, by a will which -is said to have been dated the same day, he became eventually possessed -of a large property, which did not necessarily accompany the title. - - [105] Who must now (1854) be classed as the _late_ Earl. - -Another anecdote is told of the same Lord Lonsdale which expresses, -in a more eccentric way, and a way that to many people will be -affecting--to some shocking--the moody energy of his passions. -He loved, with passionate fervour, a fine young woman, of humble -parentage, in a Cumberland farmhouse. Her he had persuaded to leave -her father, and put herself under his protection. Whilst yet young and -beautiful, she died: Lord Lonsdale's sorrow was profound; he could not -bear the thought of a final parting from that face which had become so -familiar to his heart: he caused her to be embalmed; a glass was placed -over her features; and at intervals, when his thoughts reverted to her -memory, he found a consolation (or perhaps a luxurious irritation) of -his sorrow in visiting this sad memorial of his former happiness. -This story, which I have often heard repeated by the country-people -of Cumberland, strengthened the general feeling of this eccentric -nobleman's self-willed character, though in this instance complicated -with a trait of character that argued nobler capacities. By what rules -he guided himself in dealing with the various lawyers, agents, or -stewards whom his extensive estates brought into a dependency upon -his justice or his moderation--whether, in fact, he had no rule, but -left all to accident or caprice--I have never learned. Generally, I -have heard it said that in some years of his life he resisted the -payment of all bills indiscriminately which he had any colourable plea -for supposing to contain overcharges; some fared ill, because they -were neighbours, and his lordship could say that "he knew them to be -knaves"; others fared worse, because they were so remote that "how -could his lordship know what they were?" Of this number, and possibly -for this reason left unpaid, was Wordsworth's father. He died whilst -his four sons and one daughter were yet helpless children, leaving -to them respectable fortunes, but which, as yet, were unrealized and -tolerably hypothetic, as they happened to depend upon so shadowy a -basis as the justice of Lord Lonsdale. The executors of the will, -and trustees of the children's interests, in one point acted wisely: -foreseeing the result of a legal contest with so potent a defendant -as this leviathan of two counties, and that, under any nominal award, -the whole estate of the orphans might be swallowed up in the costs -of any suit that should be carried into Chancery, they prudently -withdrew from all active measures of opposition, confiding the event -to Lord Lonsdale's returning sense of justice. Unfortunately for that -nobleman's reputation, and also, as was thought, for the children's -prosperity, before this somewhat rusty quality of justice could have -time to operate, his lordship died. - -However, for once the world was wrong in its malicious anticipations: -the successor to Lord Lonsdale's titles and Cumberland estates was -made aware of the entire case, in all its circumstances; and he very -honourably gave directions for full restitution being made. This -was done; and in one respect the result was more fortunate for the -children than if they had been trained from youth to rely upon their -expectations: for, by the time this repayment was made, three out of -the five children were already settled in life, with the very amplest -prospects opening before them--_so_ ample as to make their private -patrimonial fortunes of inconsiderable importance in their eyes; and -very probably the withholding of their inheritance it was, however -unjust, and however little contemplated as an occasion of any such -effect, that urged these three persons to the exertions requisite -for their present success. Two only of the children remained to whom -the restoration of their patrimony was a matter of grave importance; -but it was precisely those two whom no circumstances could have made -independent of their hereditary means by personal exertions--viz. -William Wordsworth, the poet, and Dorothy, the sole daughter of the -house. The three others were:--Richard, the eldest: he had become a -thriving solicitor, at one of the inns of court in London; and, if -he died only moderately rich, and much below the expectations of his -acquaintance, in the final result of his laborious life, it was because -he was moderate in his desires, and, in his later years, reverting -to the pastoral region of his infancy and boyhood, chose rather to -sit down by a hearth of his own amongst the Cumberland mountains, and -wisely to woo the deities of domestic pleasures and health, than to -follow the chase after wealth in the feverish crowds of the capital. -The third son (I believe) was Christopher (Dr. Wordsworth), who, at an -early age, became a man of importance in the English Church, being made -one of the chaplains and librarians of the Archbishop of Canterbury -(Dr. Manners Sutton, father of the late Speaker, Lord Canterbury). He -has since risen to the important and dignified station--once held by -Barrow, and afterwards by Bentley--of Master of Trinity in Cambridge. -Trinity in Oxford is not a first-rate college; but Trinity, Cambridge, -answers in rank and authority to Christ Church in Oxford; and to be the -head of that college is rightly considered a very splendid distinction. - -Dr. Wordsworth has distinguished himself as an author by a very useful -republication, entitled, "Ecclesiastical Biography," which he has -enriched with valuable notes. And in his own person, besides other -works more professional, he is the author of one very interesting -work of historical research upon the difficult question of "Who wrote -the 'Eicon Basilike'?" a question still unsettled, but much nearer -to a settlement, in consequence of the strong presumptions which Dr. -Wordsworth has adduced on behalf of the King's claim.[106] - - [106] "_Eicon Basilike_":--By the way, in the lamented Eliot - Warburton's "Prince Rupert," this book, by a very excusable - mistake, is always cited as the "Eicon Basili_con_": he was - thinking of the "Doron Basilicon," written by Charles's father: - each of the nouns _Eicon_ and _Doron_, having the same terminal - syllable--_on_--it was most excusable to forget that the first - belonged to an imparisyllabic declension, so as to be feminine, - the second not so; which made it neuter. With respect to the great - standing question as to the authorship of the work, I have myself - always held that the natural freedom of judgment in this case has - been intercepted by one strong prepossession (entirely false) from - the very beginning. The minds of all people have been pre-occupied - with the notion that Dr. Gauden, the reputed author, obtained his - bishopric confessedly on the credit of that service. Lord - Clarendon, it is said, who hated the Doctor, nevertheless gave him - a bishopric, on the sole ground of his having written the "Eicon." - The inference therefore is that the Prime Minister, who gave so - reluctantly, must have given under an irresistible weight of proof - that the Doctor really had done the work for which so unwillingly - he paid him. Any shade of doubt, such as could have justified Lord - Clarendon in suspending this gift, would have been eagerly - snatched at. Such a shade, therefore, there was not. Meantime the - whole of this reasoning rests upon a false assumption: Dr. Gauden - did _not_ owe his bishopric to a belief (true or false) that he - had written the "Eicon." The bishopric was given on another - account: consequently it cannot, in any way of using the fact, at - all affect the presumptions, small or great, which may exist - separately for or against the Doctor's claim on that head.--[So - far De Quincey; but let not the reader trust to him too much in - this matter. The evidence is overwhelming that Clarendon gave - Gauden his bishopric after the Restoration because he believed - Gauden to have been the author of the _Eikon Basilike_ and dared - not face Gauden's threats of revelations on the subject if - promotion were refused him; and the evidence is conclusive, all - Dr. Wordsworth's arguments notwithstanding, that Gauden _was_ the - real author of the book.--M.] - -The fourth and youngest son, John, was in the service of the East India -Company, and perished most unhappily, at the very outset of the voyage -which he had meant to be his last, off the coast of Dorsetshire, in the -Company's ship _Abergavenny_. A calumny was current in some quarters, -that Captain Wordsworth was in a state of intoxication at the time -of the calamity. But the printed report of the affair, revised by -survivors, entirely disproves this calumny; which, besides, was in -itself incredible to all who were acquainted with Captain Wordsworth's -most temperate and even philosophic habits of life. So peculiarly, -indeed, was Captain Wordsworth's temperament, and the whole system of -his life, coloured by a grave and meditative turn of thought, that -amongst his brother officers in the Company's service he bore the -surname of "The Philosopher." And William Wordsworth, the poet, not -only always spoke of him with a sort of respect that argued him to have -been no ordinary man, but he has frequently assured me of one fact -which, as implying some want of sincerity in himself, gave me pain -to hear--viz. that in the fine lines entitled "The Happy Warrior," -reciting the main elements which enter into the composition of a hero, -he had in view chiefly his brother John's character. That was true, I -daresay, but it was inconsistent in some measure with the note attached -to the lines, by which the reader learns that it was out of reverence -for Lord Nelson, as one who transcended the estimate here made, that -the poem had not been openly connected with his name, as the real -suggester of the thoughts. Now, privately, though still professing a -lively admiration for the mighty Admiral, as one of the few men who -carried into his professional labours a real and vivid genius (and thus -far Wordsworth often testified a deep admiration for Lord Nelson), yet, -in reference to these particular lines, he uniformly declared that Lord -Nelson was much below the ideal there contemplated, and that, in fact, -it had been suggested by the recollection of his brother. But, if so, -why should it have been dissembled? And surely, in some of the finest -passages, this cannot be so; for example, when he makes it one trait of -the heaven-born hero that he, if called upon to face some mighty day of -trial-- - - "To which Heaven has joined - Great issues, good or bad, for human kind-- - Is happy as a lover, and attired - With sudden brightness, like a man inspired"-- - -then, at least, he must have had Lord Nelson's idea predominating in -his thoughts; for Captain Wordsworth was scarcely tried in such a -situation. There can be no doubt, however, that he merited the praises -of his brother; and it was indeed an idle tale that he should first of -all deviate from this philosophic temperance upon an occasion where -his utmost energies and the fullest self-possession were all likely -to prove little enough. In reality it was the pilot, the incompetent -pilot, who caused the fatal catastrophe;--"O pilot, you have ruined -me!" were amongst the last words that Captain Wordsworth was heard to -utter--pathetic words, and fit for him, "a meek man and a brave," to -use in addressing a last reproach to one who, not through misfortune -or overruling will of Providence, but through miserable conceit and -unprincipled levity, had brought total ruin upon so many gallant -countrymen. Captain Wordsworth might have saved his own life; but the -perfect loyalty of his nature to the claims upon him, that sublime -fidelity to duty which is so often found amongst men of his profession, -kept him to the last upon the wreck; and, after _that_, it is probable -that the almost total wreck of his own fortunes (which, but for this -overthrow, would have amounted to twenty thousand pounds, upon the -successful termination of this one voyage), but still more the total -ruin of the new and splendid Indiaman confided to his care, had so much -dejected his spirits that he was not in a condition for making such -efforts as, under a more hopeful prospect, he might have been able to -make. Six weeks his body lay unrecovered; at the end of that time, -it was found, and carried to the Isle of Wight, and buried in close -neighbourhood to the quiet fields which he had so recently described -in letters to his sister at Grasmere as a Paradise of English peace, -to which his mind would be likely oftentimes to revert amidst the -agitations of the sea. - -Such were the modes of life pursued by three of the orphan children: -such the termination of life to the youngest. Meantime, the one -daughter of the house was reared liberally, in the family of a relative -at Windsor; and she might have pursued a quiet and decorous career, of -a character, perhaps, somewhat tame, under the same dignified auspices; -but, at an early age, her good angel threw open to her a vista of -nobler prospects, in the opportunity which then arose, and which she -did not hesitate to seize, of becoming the companion, through a life -of delightful wanderings--of what, to her more elevated friends, seemed -little short of vagrancy--the companion and confidential friend, and, -with a view to the enlargement of her own intellect, the pupil, of a -brother, the most original and most meditative man of his own age. - -William had passed his infancy on the very margin of the Lake district, -just six miles, in fact, beyond the rocky screen of Whinlatter, and -within one hour's ride of Bassenthwaite Water. To those who live in the -tame scenery of Cockermouth, the blue mountains in the distance, the -sublime peaks of Borrowdale and of Buttermere, raise aloft a signal, -as it were, of a new country, a country of romance and mystery, to -which the thoughts are habitually turning. Children are fascinated and -haunted with vague temptations, when standing on the frontiers of such -a foreign land; and so was Wordsworth fascinated, so haunted. Fortunate -for Wordsworth that, at an early age, he was transferred to a quiet -nook of this lovely district. At the little town of Hawkshead, seated -on the north-west angle of Esthwaite Water, a grammar-school (which, in -English usage, means a school for classical literature) was founded, in -Queen Elizabeth's reign, by Archbishop Sandys, who belonged to the very -ancient family of that name still seated in the neighbourhood. Hither -were sent all the four brothers; and here it was that Wordsworth passed -his life, from the age of nine until the time arrived for his removal -to college. Taking into consideration the peculiar tastes of the -person, and the peculiar advantages of the place, I conceive that no -pupil of a public school can ever have passed a more luxurious boyhood -than Wordsworth. The school discipline was not by many evidences very -strict; the mode of living out of school very much resembled that of -Eton for Oppidans; less elegant, no doubt, and less costly in its -provisions for accommodation, but not less comfortable, and, in that -part of the arrangements which was chiefly Etonian, even more so; for -in both places the boys, instead of being gathered into one fold, and -at night into one or two huge dormitories, were distributed amongst -motherly old "dames," technically so called at Eton, but not at -Hawkshead. In the latter place, agreeably to the inferior scale of the -whole establishment, the houses were smaller, and more cottage-like, -consequently more like private households: and the old lady of the -_ménage_ was more constantly amongst them, providing, with maternal -tenderness and with a professional pride, for the comfort of her young -flock, and protecting the weak from oppression. The humble cares to -which these poor matrons dedicated themselves may be collected from -several allusions scattered through the poems of Wordsworth; that -entitled "Nutting," for instance, in which his own early Spinosistic -feeling is introduced, of a mysterious presence diffused through the -solitudes of woods, a presence that was disturbed by the intrusion of -careless and noisy outrage, and which is brought into a strong relief -by the previous homely picture of the old housewife equipping her young -charge with beggar's weeds, in order to prepare him for a struggle -with thorns and brambles. Indeed, not only the moderate rank of the -boys, and the peculiar kind of relation assumed by these matrons, -equally suggested this humble class of motherly attentions, but the -whole spirit of the place and neighbourhood was favourable to an old -English homeliness of domestic and personal economy. Hawkshead, most -fortunately for its own manners and the primitive style of its habits -even to this day, stands about six miles out of the fashionable line -for the "Lakers." - -Esthwaite, though a lovely scene in its summer garniture of woods, -has no features of permanent grandeur to rely upon. A wet or gloomy -day, even in summer, reduces it to little more than a wildish pond, -surrounded by miniature hills: and the sole circumstances which restore -the sense of a romantic region and an Alpine character are the towering -groups of Langdale and Grasmere fells, which look over the little -pastoral barriers of Esthwaite, from distances of eight, ten, and -fourteen miles. Esthwaite, therefore, being no object for itself, and -the sublime head of Coniston being accessible by a road which evades -Hawkshead, few tourists ever trouble the repose of this little village -town. And in the days of which I am speaking (1778-1787) tourists were -as yet few and infrequent to _any_ parts of the country. Mrs. Radcliffe -had not begun to cultivate the sense of the picturesque in her popular -romances; guide-books, with the sole exception of "Gray's Posthumous -Letters," had not arisen to direct public attention to this domestic -Calabria; roads were rude, and, in many instances, not wide enough to -admit post-chaises; but, above all, the whole system of travelling -accommodations was barbarous and antediluvian for the requisitions of -the pampered south. As yet the land had rest; the annual fever did -not shake the very hills; and (which was the happiest immunity of -the whole) false taste, the pseudo-romantic rage, had not violated -the most awful solitudes amongst the ancient hills by opera-house -decorations. Wordsworth, therefore, enjoyed this labyrinth of valleys -in a perfection that no one can have experienced since the opening -of the present century. The whole was one paradise of virgin beauty; -the rare works of man, all over the land, were hoar with the grey -tints of an antique picturesque; nothing was new, nothing was raw and -uncicatrized. Hawkshead, in particular, though tamely seated in itself -and its immediate purlieus, has a most fortunate and central locality, -as regards the best (at least the most interesting) scenes for a -pedestrian rambler. The gorgeous scenery of Borrowdale, the austere -sublimities of Wastdalehead, of Langdalehead, or Mardale--these are too -oppressive, in their colossal proportions and their utter solitudes, -for encouraging a perfectly human interest. Now, taking Hawkshead -as a centre, with a radius of about eight miles, one might describe -a little circular tract which embosoms a perfect network of little -valleys--separate wards or cells, as it were, of one larger valley, -walled in by the great leading mountains of the region. Grasmere, -Easedale, Great and Little Langdale, Tilberthwaite, Yewdale, Elter -Water, Loughrigg Tarn, Skelwith, and many other little quiet nooks, lie -within a single division of this labyrinthine district. All these are -within one summer afternoon's ramble. And amongst these, for the years -of his boyhood, lay the daily excursions of Wordsworth. - -I do not conceive that Wordsworth _could_ have been an amiable boy; -he was austere and unsocial, I have reason to think, in his habits; -not generous; and not self-denying. I am pretty certain that no -consideration would ever have induced Wordsworth to burden himself -with a lady's reticule, parasol, shawl, or anything exacting trouble -and attention. Mighty must be the danger which would induce him to -lead her horse by the bridle. Nor would he, without some demur, stop -to offer her his hand over a stile. Freedom--unlimited, careless, -insolent freedom--unoccupied possession of his own arms--absolute -control over his own legs and motions--these have always been so -essential to his comfort, that, in any case where they were likely to -become questionable, he would have declined to make one of the party. -Meantime, we are not to suppose that Wordsworth the boy expressly -sought for solitary scenes of nature amongst woods and mountains with -a direct conscious anticipation of imaginative pleasure, and loving -them with a pure, disinterested love, on their own separate account. -These are feelings beyond boyish nature, or, at all events, beyond -boyish nature trained amidst the selfishness of social intercourse. -Wordsworth, like his companions, haunted the hills and the vales -for the sake of angling, snaring birds, swimming, and sometimes of -hunting, according to the Westmoreland fashion (or the Irish fashion -in Galway), on foot; for riding to the chase is quite impossible, -from the precipitous nature of the ground. It was in the course of -these pursuits, by an indirect effect growing gradually upon him, that -Wordsworth became a passionate lover of nature, at the time when the -growth of his intellectual faculties made it possible that he should -combine those thoughtful passions with the experience of the eye and -the ear. - -One of the most interesting among the winter amusements of the -Hawkshead boys was that of skating on the adjacent lake. Esthwaite -Water is not one of the deep lakes, as its neighbours of Windermere, -Coniston, and Grasmere are; consequently, a very slight duration -of frost is sufficient to freeze it into a bearing strength. In -this respect Wordsworth found the same advantages in his boyhood as -afterwards at the University; for the county of Cambridge is generally -liable to shallow waters; and that University breeds more good skaters -than all the rest of England. About the year 1810, by way of expressing -an interest in "The Friend," which was just at that time appearing in -weekly numbers, Wordsworth allowed Coleridge to print an extract from -the poem on his own life, descriptive of the games celebrated upon -the ice of Esthwaite by all who were able to skate: the mimic chases -of hare and hounds, pursued long after the last orange gleam of light -had died away from the western horizon--oftentimes far into the night; -a circumstance which does not speak much for the discipline of the -schools, or rather, perhaps, _does_ speak much for the advantages of a -situation so pure, and free from the usual perils of a town, as could -allow of a discipline so lax. Wordsworth, in this fine descriptive -passage--which I wish that I had at this moment the means of citing, -in order to amplify my account of his earliest tyrocinium--speaks of -himself as frequently wheeling aside from his joyous companions to -cut across the image of a star; and thus, already in the midst of -sportiveness, and by a movement of sportiveness, half unconsciously to -himself expressing the growing necessity of retirement to his habits -of thought.[107] At another period of the year, when the golden summer -allowed the students a long season of early play before the studies of -the day began, he describes himself as roaming, hand-in-hand, with -one companion, along the banks of Esthwaite Water, chanting, with one -voice, the verses of Goldsmith and of Gray--verses which, at the time -of recording the fact, he had come to look upon as either in parts -false in the principles of their composition, or, at any rate, as far -below the tone of high poetic passion; but which, at that time of life, -when the profounder feelings were as yet only germinating, filled them -with an enthusiasm - - "More bright than madness and the dreams of wine." - -Meanwhile, how prospered the classical studies which formed the main -business of Wordsworth at Hawkshead? Not, in all probability, very -well; for, though Wordsworth finally became a very sufficient master -of the Latin language, and read certain favourite authors, especially -Horace, with a critical nicety, and with a feeling for the felicities -of his composition, I have reason to think that little of this skill -had been obtained at Hawkshead. As to Greek, that is a language which -Wordsworth never had energy enough to cultivate with effect. - - [107] The following is the passage to which De Quincey refers, as - it now stands in Wordsworth's autobiographical poem _The Prelude_; - which, though begun in 1799 and completed in 1805, was not - published till 1850:-- - - "All shod with steel, - We hissed along the polished ice in games - Confederate, imitative of the chase - And woodland pleasures,--the resounding horn, - The pack loud chiming, and the hunted hare. - So through the darkness and the cold we flew, - And not a voice was idle; with the din - Smitten, the precipices rang aloud; - The leafless trees and every icy crag - Tinkled like iron; while far distant hills - Into the tumult sent an alien sound - Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars - Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the west - The orange sky of evening died away. - Not seldom from the uproar I retired - Into a silent bay, or sportively - Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng, - To cut across the reflex of a star - That fled, and, flying still before me, gleamed - Upon the glassy plain." - M. - -From Hawkshead, and, I believe, after he had entered his eighteenth -year (a time which is tolerably early on the English plan), probably -at the latter end of the year 1787, Wordsworth entered at St. -John's College, Cambridge. St. John's ranks as the second college -in Cambridge--the second as to numbers, and influence, and general -consideration; in the estimation of the Johnians as the first, or -at least as co-equal in all things with Trinity; from which, at any -rate, the general reader will collect that no such absolute supremacy -is accorded to any society in Cambridge as in Oxford is accorded -necessarily to Christ Church. The advantages of a large college are -considerable, both to the idle man, who wishes to lurk unnoticed in the -crowd, and to the brilliant man, whose vanity could not be gratified -by pre-eminence amongst a few. Wordsworth, though not idle as regarded -his own pursuits, was so as regarded the pursuits of the place. With -respect to them he felt--to use his own words--that his hour was not -come; and that his doom for the present was a happy obscurity, which -left him, unvexed by the torments of competition, to the genial -enjoyment of life in its most genial hours. - -It will excite some astonishment when I mention that, on coming to -Cambridge, Wordsworth actually assumed the beau, or, in modern slang, -the "dandy." He dressed in silk stockings, had his hair powdered, and -in all things plumed himself on his gentlemanly habits. To those who -remember the slovenly dress of his middle and philosophic life, this -will furnish matter for a smile. - -Stranger still it is to tell that, for the first time in his life, -Wordsworth became inebriated at Cambridge. It is but fair to add that -the first time was also the last time. But perhaps the strangest -part of the story is the occasion of this drunkenness; which was in -celebration of his first visit to the very rooms at Christ College once -occupied by Milton--intoxication by way of homage to the most temperate -of men; and this homage offered by one who has turned out himself to -the full as temperate! Every man, meantime, who is not a churl, must -grant a privilege and charter of large enthusiasm to such an occasion. -And an older man than Wordsworth (at that era not fully nineteen), and -a man even without a poet's blood in his veins, might have leave to -forget his sobriety in such circumstances. Besides which, after all, I -have heard from Wordsworth's own lips that he was not too far gone to -attend chapel decorously during the very acmé of his elevation.[108] - - [108] Wordsworth has told the story himself in his _Prelude_, - thus:-- - - "Among the band of my compeers was one - Whom chance had stationed in the very room - Honoured by Milton's name. O temperate Bard! - Be it confest that, for the first time, seated - Within thy innocent lodge and oratory, - One of a festive circle, I poured out - Libations, to thy memory drank, till pride - And gratitude grew dizzy in a brain - Never excited by the fumes of wine - Before that hour, or since. Then, forth I ran - From the assembly; through a length of streets - Ran, ostrich-like, to reach our chapel door - In not a desperate or opprobrious time, - Albeit long after the importunate bell - Had stopped, with wearisome Cassandra voice - No longer haunting the dark winter night.... - Call back, O Friend! a moment to thy mind - The place itself and fashion of the rites. - With careless ostentation shouldering up - My surplice, through the inferior throng I clove - Of the plain Burghers, who in audience stood - On the last skirts of their permitted ground, - Under the pealing organ." - M. - -The rooms which Wordsworth occupied at St. John's were singularly -circumstanced; mementoes of what is highest and what is lowest in -human things solicited the eye and the ear all day long. If the -occupant approached the outdoors prospect, in one direction, there was -visible, through the great windows in the adjacent chapel of Trinity, -the statue of Newton "with his silent face and prism," memorials of -the abstracting intellect, serene and absolute, emancipated from -fleshly bonds. On the other hand, immediately below, stood the college -kitchen; and, in that region, "from noon to dewy eve," resounded -the shrill voice of scolding from the female ministers of the head -cook, never suffering the mind to forget one of the meanest amongst -human necessities. Wordsworth, however, as one who passed much of his -time in social gaiety, was less in the way of this annoyance than a -profounder student would have been. Probably he studied little beyond -French and Italian during his Cambridge life; not, however, at any -time forgetting (as I had so much reason to complain, when speaking -of my Oxonian contemporaries) the literature of his own country. It -is true that he took the regular degree of A.B., and in the regular -course; but this was won in those days by a mere nominal examination, -unless where the mathematical attainments of the student prompted his -ambition to contest the splendid distinction of Senior Wrangler. This, -in common with all other honours of the University, is won in our days -with far severer effort than in that age of relaxed discipline; but -at no period could it have been won, let the malicious say what they -will, without an amount of mathematical skill very much beyond what has -ever been exacted of its _alumni_ by any other European University. -Wordsworth was a profound admirer of the sublimer mathematics; at least -of the higher geometry. The secret of this admiration for geometry -lay in the antagonism between this world of bodiless abstraction and -the world of passion. And here I may mention appropriately, and I hope -without any breach of confidence, that, in a great philosophic poem of -Wordsworth's, which is still in MS., and will remain in MS. until after -his death, there is, at the opening of one of the books, a dream, which -reaches the very _ne plus ultra_ of sublimity, in my opinion, expressly -framed to illustrate the eternity, and the independence of all social -modes or fashions of existence, conceded to these two hemispheres, as -it were, that compose the total world of human power--mathematics on -the one hand, poetry on the other.[109] - - [109] The reference is to the Fifth Book of _The Prelude_.--M. - -I scarcely know whether I am entitled to quote--as my memory (though -not refreshed by a sight of the poem for more than twenty years) would -well enable me to do--any long extract; but thus much I may allowably -say, as it cannot in any way affect Mr. Wordsworth's interests, that -the form of the dream is as follows; and, by the way, even this form -is not arbitrary; but, with exquisite skill in the art of composition, -is made to arise out of the situation in which the poet had previously -found himself, and is faintly prefigured in the elements of that -situation. He had been reading "Don Quixote" by the sea-side; and, -oppressed by the heat of the sun, he had fallen asleep, whilst gazing -on the barren sands before him. Even in these circumstances of the -case--as, first, the adventurous and half-lunatic knight riding about -the world, on missions of universal philanthropy, and, secondly, the -barren sands of the sea-shore--one may read the germinal principles of -the dream. He dreams that, walking in some sandy wilderness of Africa, -some endless Zahara, he sees at a distance - - "An Arab of the desert, lance in rest, - Mounted upon a dromedary." - -The Arab rides forward to meet him; and the dreamer perceives, in the -countenance of the rider, the agitation of fear, and that he often -looks behind him in a troubled way, whilst in his hand he holds two -books--one of which is "Euclid's Elements"; the other (which is a -book and yet not a book) seeming, in fact, a shell as well as a -book--seeming neither, and yet both at once. The Arab directs him to -apply the shell to his ear; upon which, - - "In an unknown tongue, which yet I understood," - -the dreamer says that he heard - - "A wild prophetic blast of harmony, - An ode, as if in passion utter'd, that foretold - Destruction to the people of this earth - By deluge near at hand." - -The Arab, with grave countenance, assures him that it is even so; that -all was true which had been said; and that he himself was riding upon a -divine mission, having it in charge - - "To bury those two books; - The one that held acquaintance with the stars, - ... undisturb'd by Space or Time; - The other, that was a god, yea, many gods, - Had voices more than all the winds, and was - A joy, a consolation, and a hope!" - -That is, in effect, his mission is to secure the two great interests of -poetry and mathematics from sharing in the watery ruin. As he talks, -suddenly the dreamer perceives that the Arab's "countenance grew -more disturbed," and that his eye was often reverted; upon which the -dreaming poet also looks along the desert in the same direction; and in -the far horizon he descries "a glittering light." What is it? he asks -of the Arab rider. "It is," said the Arab, "the waters of the earth," -that even then were travelling on their awful errand. Upon which, the -poet sees this apostle of the desert riding - - "Hurrying o'er the illimitable waste, - With the fleet waters of a drowning world - In chase of him: whereat I [meaning the poet] waked in terror, - And saw the sea before me, and the book - In which I had been reading at my side."[110] - - [110] On comparing these quotations with the original passages in - _The Prelude_, one finds that De Quincey, quoting from memory, is - not exact to the text in any of them save the last.--M. - -The sketch I have here given of this sublime dream sufficiently -attests the interest which Wordsworth took in the mathematic studies -of the place, and the exalted privilege which he ascribed to them of -co-eternity with "the vision and the faculty divine" of the poet--the -destiny common to both, of an endless triumph over the ruins of -nature and of time. Meantime, he himself travelled no farther in -these studies than through the six elementary books usually selected -from the fifteen of Euclid. Whatever might be the interests of his -speculative understanding, whatever his admiration, practically he -devoted himself to the more agitating interests of man, social and -political, just then commencing that vast career of revolution which -has never since been still or stationary; interests which in his mind -alternated, nevertheless, with another and different interest, in -the grander forms of external nature, as found amongst mountains and -forests. In obedience to this latter passion it was--for a passion it -had become--that during one of his long Cambridge vacations, stretching -from June to November, he went over to Switzerland and Savoy, for -a pedestrian excursion amongst the Alps; taking with him for his -travelling companion a certain Mr. J----, of whom (excepting that he -is once apostrophized in a sonnet, written at Calais in the year 1802) -I never happened to hear him speak: whence I presume to infer that Mr. -J---- owed this flattering distinction, not so much to any intellectual -graces of his society, as, perhaps, to his powers of administering -"punishment" (in the language of the "fancy") to restive and mutinous -landlords; for such were abroad in those days,--people who presented -huge reckonings with one hand, and with the other a huge cudgel, by -way of opening the traveller's eyes to the propriety of settling them -without demur, and without discount. I do not positively know this to -have been the case; but I have heard Wordsworth speak of the ruffian -landlords who played upon his youth in the Grisons; and, however well -qualified to fight his own battles, he might find, amongst such savage -mountaineers, two combatants better than one. - -Wordsworth's route, on this occasion, lay at first through Austrian -Flanders, then (1788, I think) on the fret for an insurrectionary war -against the capricious innovations of the imperial coxcomb, Joseph -II. He passed through the camps then forming, and thence ascended the -Rhine to Switzerland; crossed the Great St. Bernard, visited the Lake -of Como, and other interesting scenes in the north of Italy, where, -by the way, the tourists were benighted in a forest--having, in some -way or other, been misled by the Italian clocks and their peculiar -fashion of striking round to twenty-four o'clock. On his return, -Wordsworth published a quarto pamphlet of verses, describing, with -very considerable effect and brilliancy, the grand scenery amongst -which he had been moving.[111] This poem, as well as another in the -same quarto form, describing the English lake scenery of Westmoreland -and Cumberland, addressed by way of letter "to a young lady" (viz., -Miss Wordsworth),[112] are remarkable, in the first place, as the -earliest effort of Wordsworth in verse, at least as his earliest -publication; but, in the second place, and still more so, from their -style of composition. "Pure description," even where it cannot be said, -sneeringly, "to hold the place of sense," is so little attractive as -the direct exclusive object of a poem, and in reality it exacts so -powerful an effort on the part of the reader to realize visually, -or make into an apprehensible unity, the scattered elements and -circumstances of external landscapes painted only by words, that, -inevitably, and reasonably, it can never hope to be a popular form -of composition; else it is highly probable that these "Descriptive -Sketches" of Wordsworth, though afterwards condemned as vicious in -their principles of composition by his own maturer taste, would really -have gained him a high momentary notoriety with the public, had they -been fairly brought under its notice; whilst, on the other hand, his -revolutionary principles of composition, and his purer taste, ended in -obtaining for him nothing but scorn and ruffian insolence. - - [111] _Descriptive Sketches during a Pedestrian Tour on the - Italian, Swiss, and Savoyard Alps._ London, 1793.--M. - - [112] _An Evening Walk: an Epistle in Verse._ London, 1793.--M. - -This seems marvellous; but, in fact, it is not so: it seems, I mean, -_primâ facie_, marvellous that the inferior models should be fitted -to gain a far higher reputation; but the secret lies here--that these -were in a style of composition which, if sometimes false, had been -long reconciled to the public feelings, and which, besides, have a -specific charm for certain minds, even apart from all fashions of the -day; whereas, his later poems had to struggle against sympathies long -trained in an opposite direction, to which the recovery of a healthier -tone (even where nature had made it possible) presupposed a difficult -process of weaning, and an effort of discipline for re-organizing the -whole internal economy of the sensibilities that is both painful and -mortifying: for--and that is worthy of deep attention--the misgivings -of any vicious or unhealthy state, the impulses and suspicious -gleams of the truth struggling with cherished error, the instincts -of light conflicting with darkness--these are the real causes of -that hatred and intolerant scorn which is ever awakened by the first -dawnings of new and important systems of truth. Therefore it is, that -Christianity was so much more hated than any mere variety of error. -Therefore are the first feeble struggles of nature towards a sounder -state of health always harsh and painful; for the false system which -this change for the better disturbs had, at least, this soothing -advantage--that it was self-consistent. Therefore, also, was the -Wordsworthian restoration of elementary power, and of a higher or -transcendent truth of nature (or, as some people vaguely expressed -the case, of _simplicity_), received at first with such malignant -disgust. For there was a galvanic awakening in the shock of power, as -it jarred against the ancient system of prejudices, which inevitably -revealed so much of truth as made the mind jealous; enlightened it -enough to descry its own wanderings, but not enough to recover the -right road. The more energetic, the more spasmodically potent, are -the throes of nature towards her own re-establishment in the cases of -suspended animation--by drowning, strangling, &c.--the more keen is the -anguish of revival. And, universally, a transition state is a state -of suffering and disquiet. Meantime, the early poems of Wordsworth, -that _might_ have suited the public taste so much better than his more -serious efforts, if the fashion of the hour, or the sanction of a -leading review, or the _prestige_ of a name, had happened to bring them -under the public eye, did, in fact, drop unnoticed into the market. -Nowhere have I seen them quoted--no, not even since the author's -victorious establishment in the public admiration. The reason may be, -however, that not many copies were printed at first; no subsequent -edition was ever called for; and yet, from growing interest in the -author, every copy of the small impression had been studiously bought -up. Indeed, I myself went to the publisher's (Johnson's) as early as -1805 or 1806, and bought up all the remaining copies (which were but -six or seven of the Foreign Sketches, and two or three of the English), -as presents, and as _future_ curiosities in literature to literary -friends whose interest in Wordsworth might assure one of a due value -being put upon the poems. Were it not for this extreme scarcity, -I am disposed to think that many lines or passages would long ere -this have been made familiar to the public ear. Some are delicately, -some forcibly picturesque; and the selection of circumstances is -occasionally very original and felicitous. In particular, I remember -this one, which presents an accident in rural life that must by -thousands of repetitions have become intimately known to every dweller -in the country, and yet had never before been consciously taken up for -a poet's use. After having described the domestic cock as "sweetly -ferocious"--a prettiness of phraseology which he borrows from an -Italian author--he notices those competitions or defiances which are -so often carried on interchangeably between barn-door cocks from great -distances:-- - - "Echoed by faintly answering farms remote." - -This is the beautiful line in which he has caught and preserved so -ordinary an occurrence--one, in fact, of the commonplaces which lend -animation and a moral interest to rural life. - -After his return from this Swiss excursion, Wordsworth took up his -parting residence at Cambridge, and prepared for a final adieu to -academic pursuits and academic society. - -It was about this period that the French Revolution broke out; and the -reader who would understand its appalling effects--its convulsing, -revolutionary effects upon Wordsworth's heart and soul--should consult -the history of the Solitary, as given by himself in "The Excursion"; -for that picture is undoubtedly a leaf from the personal experience of -Wordsworth:-- - - "From that dejection I was roused--but how?" - -Mighty was the transformation which it wrought in the whole economy of -his thoughts; miraculous almost was the expansion which it gave to his -human sympathies; chiefly in this it showed its effects--in throwing -the thoughts inwards into grand meditations upon man, his final -destiny, his ultimate capacities of elevation; and, secondly, in giving -to the whole system of the thoughts and feelings a firmer tone, and a -sense of the awful _realities_ which surround the mind; by comparison -with which the previous literary tastes seemed (even where they were -fine and elegant, as in Collins or Gray, unless where they had the -self-sufficing reality of religion, as in Cowper) fanciful and trivial. -In all lands this result was accomplished, and at the same time: -Germany, above all, found her new literature the mere creation and -rebound of this great moral tempest; and, in Germany or England alike, -the poetry was so entirely regenerated, thrown into moulds of thought -and of feeling so new, that the poets everywhere felt themselves to be -putting away childish things, and now first, among those of their own -century, entering upon the dignity and the sincere thinking of mature -manhood. - -Wordsworth, it is well known to all who know anything of his history, -felt himself so fascinated by the gorgeous festival era of the -Revolution--that era when the sleeping snakes which afterwards stung -the national felicity were yet covered with flowers--that he went over -to Paris, and spent about one entire year between that city, Orleans, -and Blois. There, in fact, he continued to reside almost too long. He -had been sufficiently connected with public men to have drawn upon -himself some notice from those who afterwards composed the Committee -of Public Safety. And, as an Englishman, when that partiality began -to droop which at an earlier period had protected the English name, -he became an object of gloomy suspicion with those even who would -have grieved that he should fall a victim to undistinguishing popular -violence. Already _for_ England, and in her behalf, he was thought -to be that spy which (as Coleridge tells us in his "Biographia -Literaria") afterwards he was accounted by Mr. Pitt's emissaries, in -the worst of services _against_ her. I doubt, however (let me say it -without impeachment of Coleridge's veracity--for he was easily duped), -this whole story about Mr. Pitt's Somersetshire spies; and it has often -struck me with astonishment that Coleridge should have suffered his -personal pride to take so false a direction as to court the humble -distinction of having been suspected as a conspirator, in those very -years when poor empty tympanies of men, such as Thelwall, Holcroft, -&c., were actually recognised as enemies of the state, and worthy of -a state surveillance, by ministers so blind and grossly misinformed -as, on this point, were Pitt and Dundas. Had I been Coleridge, instead -of saving Mr. Pitt's reputation with posterity, by ascribing to him a -jealousy which he or his agents had not the discernment to cherish, I -would have boldly planted myself upon the fact, the killing fact, that -he had utterly ignored both myself (Coleridge, to wit) and Wordsworth. -Even with Dogberry, _I_ would have insisted upon that--"Set down, also, -that I am an ass!" Clamorous should have been my exultation in this -fact.[113] - - [113] The reader, who may happen not to have seen Coleridge's - "Biographia Literaria," is informed that Coleridge tells a long - story about a man who followed and dogged himself and Wordsworth - in all their rural excursions, under a commission (originally - emanating from Mr. Pitt) for detecting some overt acts of treason, - or treasonable correspondence, or, in default of either, some - words of treasonable conversation. Unfortunately for his own - interests as an active servant, even in a whole month that spy had - collected nothing at all as the basis of a report, excepting only - something which they (Coleridge and Wordsworth, to wit) were - continually saying to each other, now in blame, now in praise, of - one _Spy Nosy_; and this, praise and blame alike, the honest spy - very naturally took to himself, seeing that the world accused him - of having a _nose_ of unreasonable dimensions, and his own - conscience accused him of being a spy. "Now," says Coleridge, "the - very fact was that Wordsworth and I were constantly talking about - Spinosa." This story makes a very good Joe Miller; but, for other - purposes, is somewhat damaged. However, there is one excellent - story in the case. Some country gentleman from the neighbourhood - of Nether Stowey, upon a party happening to discuss the - probabilities that Wordsworth and Coleridge might be traitors, and - in correspondence with the French Directory, answered thus:--"Oh, - as to that Coleridge, he's a rattlebrain, that will say more in a - week than he will stand to in a twelvemonth. But - Wordsworth--that's the traitor: why, bless you, he's so close, - that you'll never hear him open his lips on the subject from - year's end to year's end!" - -In France, however, Wordsworth had a chance, in good earnest, of -passing for the traitor that, in England, no rational person ever -thought him. He had chosen his friends carelessly; nor could any -man, the most sagacious, have chosen them safely, in a time when the -internal schisms of the very same general party brought with them -worse hostilities and more personal perils than even, upon the broader -divisions of party, could have attended the most _ultra_ professions of -anti-national politics, and when the rapid changes of position shifted -the peril from month to month. One individual is especially recorded -by Wordsworth, in the poem on his own life, as a man of the highest -merit, and personal qualities the most brilliant, who ranked first -upon the list of Wordsworth's friends; and this man was so far a safe -friend, at one moment, as he was a republican general--finally, indeed, -a commander-in-chief. This was Beaupuis; and the description of his -character and position is singularly interesting. There is, in fact, a -special value and a use about the case; it opens one's eyes feelingly -to the fact that, even in this thoughtless people, so full of vanity -and levity, nevertheless, the awful temper of the times, and the dread -burden of human interests with which it was charged, had called to a -consciousness of new duties, had summoned to an audit, as if at some -great final tribunal, even the gay, radiant creatures that, under less -solemn auspices, under the reign of a Francis I. or a Louis XIV, would -have been the merest painted butterflies of the court sunshine. This -Beaupuis was a man of superb person--beautiful in a degree which made -him a painter's model, both as to face and figure; and, accordingly, in -a land where conquests of that nature were so easy, and the subjects of -so trifling an effort, he had been distinguished, to his own as well -as the public eyes, by a rapid succession of _bonnes fortunes_ amongst -women. Such, and so glorified by triumphs the most unquestionable and -flattering, had the earthquake of the Revolution found him. From that -moment he had no leisure, not a thought, to bestow upon his former -selfish and frivolous pursuits. He was hurried, as one inspired by some -high apostolic passion, into the service of the unhappy and desolate -serfs amongst his own countrymen--such as are described, at an earlier -date, by Madame de Sevigné, as the victims of feudal institutions; -and one day, as he was walking with Wordsworth in the neighbourhood -of Orleans, and they had turned into a little quiet lane, leading off -from a heath, suddenly they came upon the following spectacle:--A girl, -seventeen or eighteen years old, hunger-bitten, and wasted to a meagre -shadow, was knitting, in a dejected, drooping way; whilst to her arm -was attached, by a rope, the horse, equally famished, that earned the -miserable support of her family. Beaupuis comprehended the scene in a -moment; and, seizing Wordsworth by the arm, he said,--"Dear English -friend!--brother from a nation of freemen!--_that_ it is which is the -curse of our people, in their widest section; and to cure this it is, -as well as to maintain our work against the kings of the earth, that -blood must be shed and tears must flow for many years to come!" At -that time the Revolution had not fulfilled its tendencies; as yet, -the king was on the throne; the fatal 10th of August 1792 had not -dawned; and thus far there was safety for a subject of kings.[114] The -irresistible stream was hurrying forwards. The king fell; and (to pause -for a moment) how divinely is the fact recorded by Wordsworth, in the -MS. poem on his own life, placing the awful scenes past and passing -in Paris under a pathetic relief from the description of the golden, -autumnal day, sleeping in sunshine-- - - "When I - Towards the fierce metropolis bent my steps, - The homeward road to England. From his throne - The king had fallen," &c. - -What a picture does he give of the fury which there possessed the -public mind; of the frenzy which shone in every eye, and through -every gesture; of the stormy groups assembled at the Palais Royal, or -the Tuileries, with "hissing factionists" for ever in their centre, -"hissing" from the self-baffling of their own madness, and incapable -from wrath of speaking clearly; of fear already creeping over the -manners of multitudes; of stealthy movements through back streets; -plotting and counter-plotting in every family; feuds to extermination, -dividing children of the same house for ever; scenes such as those -of the Chapel Royal (now silenced on that _public_ stage), repeating -themselves daily amongst private friends; and, to show the universality -of this maniacal possession--that it was no narrow storm discharging -its fury by local concentration upon a single city, but that it -overspread the whole realm of France--a picture is given, wearing the -same features, of what passed daily at Orleans, Blois, and other towns. -The citizens are described in the attitudes they assumed at the daily -coming in of the post from Paris; the fierce sympathy is portrayed -with which they echoed back the feelings of their compatriots in the -capital: men of all parties had been there up to this time--aristocrats -as well as democrats; and one, in particular, of the former class is -put forward as a representative of his class. This man, duly as the -hour arrived which brought the Parisian newspapers, read restlessly -of the tumults and insults amongst which the Royal Family now passed -their days; of the decrees by which his own order were threatened or -assailed; of the self-expatriation, now continually swelling in amount, -as a measure of despair on the part of myriads, as well priests as -gentry--all this and worse he read in public; and still, as he read, - - "His hand - Haunted his sword, like an uneasy spot - In his own body." - -In short, as there never has been so strong a national convulsion -diffused so widely, with equal truth it may be asserted, that no -describer, so powerful, or idealizing so magnificently what he deals -with, has ever been a real living spectator of parallel scenes. The -French, indeed, it may be said, are far enough from being a people -profound in feeling. True; but, of all people, they most exhibit their -feeling on the surface; are the most _demonstrative_ (to use a modern -term), and most of all (except Italians) mark their feelings by outward -expression of gesticulation: not to insist upon the obvious truth--that -even a people of shallow feeling may be deeply moved by tempests which -uproot the forest of a thousand years' growth; by changes in the very -organization of society, such as throw all things, for a time, into one -vast anarchy; and by murderous passions, alternately the effect and -the cause of that same chaotic anarchy. Now, it was in this autumn of -1792, as I have already said, that Wordsworth parted finally from his -illustrious friend--for, all things considered, he may be justly so -entitled--the gallant Beaupuis. This great season of public trial had -searched men's natures; revealed their real hearts; brought into light -and action qualities oftentimes not suspected by their possessors; -and had thrown men, as in elementary states of society, each upon his -own native resources, unaided by the old conventional forces of rank -and birth. Beaupuis had shone to unusual advantage under this general -trial; he had discovered, even to the philosophic eye of Wordsworth, -a depth of benignity very unusual in a Frenchman; and not of local, -contracted benignity, but of large, illimitable, apostolic devotion to -the service of the poor and the oppressed--a fact the more remarkable -as he had all the pretensions in his own person of high birth and -high rank, and, so far as he had any personal interest embarked in -the struggle, should have allied himself with the aristocracy. But of -selfishness in any shape he had no vestiges; or, if he had, it showed -itself in a slight tinge of vanity; yet, no--it was not vanity, but a -radiant quickness of sympathy with the eye which expressed admiring -love--sole relic of the chivalrous devotion once dedicated to the -service of ladies. Now, again, he put on the garb of chivalry; it -was a chivalry the noblest in the world, which opened his ear to the -Pariah and the oppressed all over his misorganized country. A more -apostolic fervour of holy zealotry in this great cause had not been -seen since the days of Bartholomew las Casas, who showed the same -excess of feeling in another direction. This sublime dedication of his -being to a cause which, in his conception of it, extinguished all petty -considerations for himself, and made him thenceforwards a creature of -the national will--"a son of France," in a more eminent and loftier -sense than according to the heraldry of Europe--had extinguished even -his sensibility to the voice of worldly honour. "Injuries," says -Wordsworth-- - - "Injuries - Made him more gracious." - -And so utterly had he submitted his own will or separate interests -to the transcendent voice of his country, which, in the main, he -believed to be now speaking authentically for the first time since the -foundations of Christendom, that, even against the motions of his own -heart, he adopted the hatreds of the young republic, growing cruel in -his purposes towards the ancient oppressor, out of very excess of love -for the oppressed; and, against the voice of his own order, as well as -in stern oblivion of many early friendships, he became the champion -of democracy in the struggle everywhere commencing with prejudice -or feudal privilege. Nay, he went so far upon the line of this new -crusade against the evils of the world that he even accepted, with a -conscientious defiance of his own quiet homage to the erring spirit of -loyalty embarked upon that cause, a commission in the Republican armies -preparing to move against La Vendée; and, finally, in that cause, -as commander-in-chief, he laid down his life. "He perished," says -Wordsworth-- - - "He perished fighting, in supreme command, - Upon the banks of the unhappy Loire." - -Homewards fled all the English from a land which now was fast making -ready the shambles for its noblest citizens. Thither also came -Wordsworth; and there he spent his time for a year and more chiefly -in London, overwhelmed with shame and despondency for the disgrace -and scandal brought upon Liberty by the atrocities committed in that -holy name. Upon this subject he dwells with deep emotion in the poem -on his own life; and he records the awful triumph for retribution -accomplished which possessed him when crossing the sands of the great -Bay of Morecamb from Lancaster to Ulverstone, and hearing from a -horseman who passed him, in reply to the question--_Was there any -news?_--"Yes, that Robespierre had perished." Immediately a passion -seized him, a transport of almost epileptic fervour, prompting him, as -he stood alone upon this perilous[115] waste of sands, to shout aloud -anthems of thanksgiving for this great vindication of eternal justice. -Still, though justice was done upon one great traitor to the cause, -the cause itself was overcast with clouds too heavily to find support -and employment for the hopes of a poet who had believed in a golden -era ready to open upon the prospects of human nature. It gratified and -solaced his heart that the indignation of mankind should have wreaked -itself upon the chief monsters that had outraged their nature and -their hopes; but for the present he found it necessary to comfort his -disappointment by turning away from politics to studies less capable of -deceiving his expectations. - - [114] How little has any adequate power as yet approached this - great theme! Not the Grecian stage, not "the dark sorrows of the - line of Thebes," in any of its scenes, unfold such tragical - grouping of circumstances and situations as may be gathered from - the memoirs of the time. The galleries and vast staircases of - Versailles, at early dawn, on some of the greatest days--filled - with dreadful faces--the figure of the Duke of Orleans obscurely - detected amongst them--the growing fury--the growing panic--the - blind tumult--and the dimness of the event,--all make up a scene - worthy to blend with our images of Babylon or of Nineveh with the - enemy in all her gates, Memphis or Jerusalem in their agonies. - But, amongst all the exponents of the growing agitation that - besieged the public mind, none is so profoundly impressive as the - scene (every Sunday renewed) at the Chapel Royal. Even in the most - penitential of the litanies, in the presence when most immediately - confessed of God himself--when the antiphonies are chanted, one - party singing, with fury and gnashing of teeth, _Salvum fac - Regem_, and another, with equal hatred and fervour, answering _Et - Reginam_ (the poor queen at this time engrossing the popular - hatred)--the organ roared into thunder--the semi-chorus swelled - into shouting--the menaces into defiance--again the crashing - semi-choir sang with shouts their _Salvum fac Regem_--again the - vengeful antiphony hurled back its _Et Reginam_--and one person, - an eye-witness of these scenes, which mounted in violence on each - successive Sunday, declares that oftentimes the semi-choral bodies - were at the point of fighting with each other in the presence of - the king. - - [115] That tract of the lake country which stretches southwards - from Hawkshead and the lakes of Esthwaite, Windermere, and - Coniston, to the little town of Ulverstone (which may be regarded - as the metropolis of the little romantic English Calabria called - Furness), is divided from the main part of Lancashire by the - estuary of Morecamb. The sea retires with the ebb tide to a vast - distance, leaving the sands passable through a few hours for - horses and carriages. But, partly from the daily variation in - these hours, partly from the intricacy of the pathless track which - must be pursued, and partly from the galloping pace at which the - returning tide comes in, many fatal accidents are continually - occurring--sometimes to the too venturous traveller who has - slighted the aid of guides--sometimes to the guides themselves, - when baffled and perplexed by mists. Gray the poet mentions one of - the latter class as having then recently occurred, under affecting - circumstances. Local tradition records a long list of such cases. - -From this period, therefore--that is, from the year 1794-95--we may -date the commencement of Wordsworth's entire self-dedication to poetry -as the study and main business of his life. Somewhere about this period -also (though, according to my remembrance of what Miss Wordsworth once -told me, I think one year or so later) his sister joined him; and they -began[116] to keep house together: once at Race Down, in Dorsetshire; -once at Clevedon, on the coast of Somersetshire; then amongst the -Quantock Hills, in the same county, or in that neighbourhood; -particularly at Alfoxton, a beautiful country-house, with a grove and -shrubbery attached, belonging to Mr. St. Aubyn, a minor, and let (I -believe) on the terms of keeping the house in repair. Whilst resident -at this last place it was, as I have generally understood, and in -the year 1797 or 1798, that Wordsworth first became acquainted with -Coleridge; though possibly in the year I am wrong; for it occurs to me -that, in a poem of Coleridge's dated in 1796, there is an allusion to a -young writer of the name of Wordsworth as one who had something austere -in his style, but otherwise was more original than any other poet of -the age; and it is probable that this knowledge of the poetry would -be subsequent to a personal knowledge of the author, considering the -little circulation which any poetry of a Wordsworthian stamp would be -likely to attain at that time.[117] - - [116] I do not, on consideration, know when they might begin to - keep house together: but, by a passage in "The Prelude," they must - have made a tour together as early as 1787. - - [117] In the Memoir of Coleridge prefaced to Messrs. Macmillan's - four-volume edition of his poetical works (1880) one reads:--"In - the summer of 1797 Coleridge and Wordsworth, if they did not - actually meet for the first time, first became familiarly - acquainted with each other at Racedown in Dorsetshire. Wordsworth - was then in his twenty-eighth and Coleridge in his twenty-fifth - year."--M. - -It was at Alfoxton that Miss Mary Hutchinson visited her cousins the -Wordsworths, and there, or previously in the north of England, at -Stockton-upon-Tees and Darlington, that the attachment began between -Miss Mary Hutchinson and Wordsworth which terminated in their marriage -about the beginning of the present century. The marriage took place -in the north; somewhere, I believe, in Yorkshire; and, immediately -after the ceremony, Wordsworth brought his bride to Grasmere; in which -most lovely of English valleys he had previously obtained, upon a -lease of seven or eight years, the cottage in which I found him living -at my first visit to him in November 1807. I have heard that there -was a paragraph inserted on this occasion in the "Morning Post" or -"Courier"--and I have an indistinct remembrance of having once seen it -myself--which described this event of the poet's marriage in the most -ludicrous terms of silly pastoral sentimentality; the cottage being -described as "the abode of content and all the virtues," the vale -itself in the same puerile slang, and the whole event in the style of -allegorical trifling about the Muses, &c. The masculine and severe -taste of Wordsworth made him peculiarly open to annoyance from such -absurd trifling; and, unless his sense of the ludicrous overpowered -his graver feelings, he must have been much displeased with the -paragraph. But, after all, I have understood that the whole affair was -an unseasonable jest of Coleridge's or Lamb's. - -To us who, in after years, were Wordsworth's friends, or, at least, -intimate acquaintances--viz., to Professor Wilson and myself--the most -interesting circumstance in this marriage, the one which perplexed us -exceedingly, was the very possibility that it should ever have been -brought to bear. For we could not conceive of Wordsworth as submitting -his faculties to the humilities and devotion of courtship. That -self-surrender--that prostration of mind by which a man is too happy -and proud to express the profundity of his service to the woman of his -heart--it seemed a mere impossibility that ever Wordsworth should be -brought to feel for a single instant; and what he did not sincerely -feel, assuredly he was not the person to profess. Wordsworth, I take -it upon myself to say, had not the feelings within him which make this -total devotion to a woman possible. There never lived a woman whom he -would not have lectured and admonished under circumstances that should -have seemed to require it; nor would he have conversed with her in -any mood whatever without wearing an air of mild condescension to her -understanding. To lie at her feet, to make her his idol, to worship her -very caprices, and to adore the most unreasonable of her frowns--these -things were impossible to Wordsworth; and, being so, never could he, in -any emphatic sense, have been a lover. - -A lover, I repeat, in any passionate sense of the word, Wordsworth -could not have been. And, moreover, it is remarkable that a woman who -could dispense with that sort of homage in her suitor is not of a -nature to inspire such a passion. That same meekness which reconciles -her to the tone of superiority and freedom in the manner of her suitor, -and which may afterwards in a wife become a sweet domestic grace, -strips her of that too charming irritation, captivating at once and -tormenting, which lurks in feminine pride. If there be an enchantress's -spell yet surviving in this age of ours, it is the haughty grace -of maidenly pride--the womanly sense of dignity, even when most in -excess, and expressed in the language of scorn--which tortures a man -and lacerates his heart, at the same time that it pierces him with -admiration:-- - - "Oh, what a world of scorn looks beautiful - In the contempt and anger of her lip!" - -And she who spares a man the agitations of this thraldom robs him no -less of its divinest transports. Wordsworth, however, who never could -have laid aside his own nature sufficiently to have played _his_ part -in such an impassioned courtship, by suiting himself to this high -sexual pride with the humility of a lover, quite as little could have -enjoyed the spectacle of such a pride, or have viewed it in any degree -as an attraction: it would to him have been a pure vexation. Looking -down even upon the lady of his heart, as upon the rest of the world, -from the eminence of his own intellectual superiority--viewing her, in -fact, as a child--he would be much more disposed to regard any airs of -feminine disdain she might assume as the impertinence of girlish levity -than as the caprice of womanly pride; and much I fear that, in any case -of dispute, he would have called even his mistress, "Child! child!" and -perhaps even (but this I do not say with the same certainty) might have -bid her hold her tongue. - -If, however, no lover, in a proper sense,--though, from many exquisite -passages, one might conceive that at some time of his life he was, as -especially from the inimitable stanzas beginning-- - - "When she I loved was strong and gay, - And like a rose in June," - -or perhaps (but less powerfully so, because here the passion, though -profound, is less the _peculiar_ passion of love) from the impassioned -lamentation for "the pretty Barbara," beginning-- - - "'Tis said that some have died for love: - And here and there, amidst unhallow'd ground - In the cold north," &c.,-- - -yet, if no lover, or (which some of us have sometimes thought) a lover -disappointed at some earlier period, by the death of her he loved, or -by some other fatal event (for he always preserved a mysterious silence -on the subject of that "Lucy," repeatedly alluded to or apostrophized -in his poems); at all events he made what for him turned out a happy -marriage. Few people have lived on such terms of entire harmony and -affection as he lived with the woman of his final choice. Indeed, the -sweetness, almost unexampled, of temper, which shed so sunny a radiance -over Mrs. Wordsworth's manners, sustained by the happy life she led, -the purity of her conscience, and the uniformity of her good health, -made it impossible for anybody to have quarrelled with _her_; and -whatever fits of ill-temper Wordsworth might have--for, with all his -philosophy, he had such fits--met with no fuel to support them, except -in the more irritable temperament of his sister. She was all fire, and -an ardour which, like that of the first Lord Shaftesbury, - - "O'er-informed its tenement of clay"; - -and, as this ardour looked out in every gleam of her wild eyes (those -"wild eyes" so finely noticed in the "Tintern Abbey"), as it spoke -in every word of her self-baffled utterance, as it gave a trembling -movement to her very person and demeanour--easily enough it might -happen that any apprehension of an unkind word should with her kindle -a dispute. It might have happened; and yet, to the great honour of -both, having such impassioned temperaments, rarely it did happen; and -this was the more remarkable, as I have been assured that both were, -in childhood, irritable or even ill-tempered, and they were constantly -together; for Miss Wordsworth was always ready to walk out--wet or dry, -storm or sunshine, night or day; whilst Mrs. Wordsworth was completely -dedicated to her maternal duties, and rarely left the house, unless -when the weather was tolerable, or, at least, only for short rambles. I -should not have noticed this trait in Wordsworth's occasional manners, -had it been gathered from domestic or confidential opportunities. -But, on the contrary, the first two occasions on which, after months' -domestic intercourse with Wordsworth, I became aware of his possible -ill-humour and peevishness, were so public, that others, and those -strangers, must have been equally made parties to the scene. This scene -occurred in Kendal. - - * * * * * - -Having brought down the history of Wordsworth to the time of his -marriage, I am reminded by that event to mention the singular good -fortune, in all points of worldly prosperity, which has accompanied him -through life. His marriage--the capital event of life--was fortunate, -and inaugurated a long succession of other prosperities. He has himself -described, in his "Leech-Gatherer,"[118] the fears that at one time, or -at least in some occasional moments of his life, haunted him, lest at -some period or other he might be reserved for poverty. "Cold, pain, and -hunger, and all fleshly ills," occurred to his boding apprehension, and -"mighty poets in their misery dead." - - [118] Now entitled _Resolution and Independence_.--M. - - "He thought of Chatterton, the marvellous boy, - The sleepless soul that perished in its pride; - Of him who walked in glory and in joy - Following his plough along the mountain-side." - -And, at starting on his career of life, certainly no man had plainer -reasons for anticipating the worst evils that have ever persecuted -poets, excepting only two reasons which might warrant him in hoping -better; and these two were--his great prudence, and the temperance of -his daily life. He could not be betrayed into foolish engagements; he -could not be betrayed into expensive habits. Profusion and extravagance -had no hold over him, by any one passion or taste. He was not luxurious -in anything; was not vain or even careful of external appearances -(not, at least, since he had left Cambridge, and visited a mighty -nation in civil convulsions); was not even in the article of books -expensive. Very few books sufficed him; he was careless habitually of -all the current literature, or indeed of any literature that could not -be considered as enshrining the very ideal, capital, and elementary -grandeur of the human intellect. In this extreme limitation of his -literary sensibilities he was as much assisted by that accident of -his own intellectual condition--viz. extreme, intense, unparalleled -_onesidedness_ (_einseitigkeit_)--as by any peculiar sanity of feeling. -Thousands of books that have given rapturous delight to millions of -ingenuous minds for Wordsworth were absolutely a dead letter--closed -and sealed up from his sensibilities and his powers of appreciation, -not less than colours from a blind man's eye. Even the few books which -his peculiar mind had made indispensable to him were not in such a -sense indispensable as they would have been to a man of more sedentary -habits. He lived in the open air, and the enormity of pleasure which -both he and his sister drew from the common appearances of nature and -their everlasting variety--variety so infinite that, if no one leaf of -a tree or shrub ever exactly resembled another in all its filaments and -their arrangement, still less did any one day ever repeat another in -all its pleasurable elements. This pleasure was to him in the stead of -many libraries:-- - - "One impulse, from a vernal wood, - Could teach him more of Man, - Of moral evil and of good, - Than all the sages can." - -And he, we may be sure, who could draw, - - "Even from the meanest flower that blows, - Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears,"-- - -to whom the mere daisy, the pansy, the primrose, could furnish -pleasures--not the puerile ones which his most puerile and worldly -insulters imagined, but pleasures drawn from depths of reverie and -meditative tenderness far beyond all power of _their_ hearts to -conceive: that man would hardly need any large variety of books. In -fact, there were only two provinces of literature in which Wordsworth -could be looked upon as decently well read--Poetry and Ancient History. -Nor do I believe that he would much have lamented, on his own account, -if all books had perished, excepting the entire body of English Poetry, -and, perhaps, "Plutarch's Lives."[119] - - [119] I do not mean to insinuate that Wordsworth was at all in the - dark about the inaccuracy and want of authentic weight attaching - to Plutarch as a historian; but his business with Plutarch was not - for purposes of research: he was satisfied with his fine moral - effects. - -With these simple or rather austere tastes, Wordsworth (it might seem) -had little reason to fear poverty, supposing him in possession of any -moderate income; but meantime he had none. About the time when he left -college, I have good grounds for believing that his whole regular -income was precisely = 0. Some fragments must have survived from the -funds devoted to his education; and with these, no doubt, he supported -the expenses of his Continental tours, and his year's residence in -France. But, at length, "cold, pain, and hunger, and all fleshly ills," -must have stared him in the face pretty earnestly. And hope of longer -evading an unpleasant destiny of daily toil, in some form or other, -there seemed absolutely none. "For," as he himself expostulates with -himself-- - - "For how can _he_ expect that others should - Sow for him, build for _him_, and, at his call, - Love him, who for himself will take no thought at all?" - -In this dilemma, he had all but resolved, as Miss Wordsworth once told -me, to take pupils; and perhaps _that_, though odious enough, was the -sole resource he had; for Wordsworth never acquired any popular talent -of writing for the current press; and, at that period of his life, he -was gloomily unfitted for bending to such a yoke. In this crisis of -his fate it was that Wordsworth, for once, and once only, became a -martyr to some nervous affection. _That_ raised pity; but I could not -forbear smiling at the remedy, or palliation, which his few friends -adopted. Every night they played at cards with him, as the best mode -of beguiling his sense of distress, whatever that might be: _cards_, -which, in any part of the thirty-and-one years since I have known -Wordsworth, could have had as little power to interest him, or to -cheat him of sorrow, as marbles or a top. However, so it was; for my -information could not be questioned: it came from Miss Wordsworth. - -The crisis, as I have said, had arrived for determining the future -colour of his life. Memorable it is, that exactly in those critical -moments when some decisive step had first become necessary, there -happened the first instance of Wordsworth's good luck; and equally -memorable that, at measured intervals throughout the long sequel of his -life since then, a regular succession of similar but superior windfalls -have fallen in, to sustain his expenditure, in exact concurrence with -the growing claims upon his purse. A more fortunate man, I believe, -does not exist than Wordsworth. The aid which now dropped from heaven, -as it were, to enable him to range at will in paths of his own -choosing, and - - "Finally array - His temples with the Muses diadem," - -came in the shape of a bequest from Raisley Calvert, a young man of -good family in Cumberland, who died about this time of pulmonary -consumption. A very remarkable young man he must have been, this -Raisley Calvert, to have discerned, at this early period, that future -superiority in Wordsworth which so few people suspected. He was the -brother of a Cumberland gentleman, whom slightly I know; a generous -man, doubtless; for he made no sort of objections (though legally, I -have heard, he might) to his brother's farewell memorial of regard; -a good man to all his dependants, as I have generally understood, in -the neighbourhood of Windy Brow, his mansion, near Keswick; and, as -Southey always said (who must know better than I could do), a man of -strong natural endowments; else, as his talk was of oxen, I might have -made the mistake of supposing him to be, in heart and soul, what he -was in profession--a mere farming country gentleman, whose ambition -was chiefly directed to the turning up of mighty turnips. The sum -left by Raisley Calvert was £900; and it was laid out in an annuity. -This was the basis of Wordsworth's prosperity in life; and upon this -he has built up, by a series of accessions, in which each step, taken -separately for itself, seems perfectly natural, whilst the total result -has undoubtedly something wonderful about it, the present goodly -edifice of his fortunes. Next in the series came the present Lord -Lonsdale's repayment of his predecessor's debt. Upon that, probably, it -was that Wordsworth felt himself entitled to marry. Then, I believe, -came some fortune with Miss Hutchinson; then--that is, fourthly--some -worthy uncle of the same lady was pleased to betake himself to a better -world, leaving to various nieces, and especially to Mrs. Wordsworth, -something or other--I forget what, but it was expressed by thousands -of pounds. At this moment, Wordsworth's family had begun to increase; -and the worthy old uncle, like everybody else in Wordsworth's case, -finding his property very clearly "wanted," and, as people would tell -him, "bespoke," felt how very indelicate it would look for him to -stay any longer in this world; and so off he moved. But Wordsworth's -family, and the wants of that family, still continued to increase; -and the next person--viz., the fifth--who stood in the way, and must, -therefore, have considered himself rapidly growing into a nuisance, -was the stamp-distributor for the county of Westmoreland. About March -1814, I think it was, that his very comfortable situation was wanted. -Probably it took a month for the news to reach him; because in April, -and not before, feeling that he had received a proper notice to quit, -he, good man (this stamp-distributor), like all the rest, distributed -himself and his office into two different places--the latter falling, -of course, into the hands of Wordsworth. - -This office, which it was Wordsworth's pleasure to speak of as -"a little one," yielded, I believe, somewhere about £500 a year. -Gradually, even _that_, with all former sources of income, became -insufficient; which ought not to surprise anybody; for a son at Oxford, -as a gentleman commoner, would spend, at the least, £300 per annum; and -there were other children. Still, it is wrong to say that it _had_ -become insufficient; as usual, it had not come to that; but, on the -first symptoms arising that it soon _would_ come to that, somebody, of -course, had notice to consider himself a sort of nuisance-elect;--in -this case, it was the distributor of stamps for the county of -Cumberland. His district was absurdly large; and what so reasonable as -that he should submit to a Polish partition of his profits--no, not -Polish; for, on reflection, such a partition neither was nor could be -attempted with regard to an actual incumbent. But then, since people -had such consideration for him as not to remodel the office so long -as he lived, on the other hand, the least he could do for "people" -in return--so as to show his sense of this consideration--was not -to trespass on so much goodness longer than necessary. Accordingly, -here, as in all cases before, the _Deus ex machinâ_ who invariably -interfered when any _nodus_ arose in Wordsworth's affairs, such as -could be considered _vindice dignus_, caused the distributor to -begone into a region where no stamps are wanted, about the very -month, or so, when an additional £400 per annum became desirable. -This, or perhaps more, was understood to have been added, by the new -arrangement, to the Westmoreland distributorship; the small towns of -Keswick and Cockermouth, together with the important one of Whitehaven, -being severed, under this remodelling, from their old dependency on -Cumberland (to which geographically they belonged), and transferred -to the small territory of rocky Westmoreland, the sum total of whose -inhabitants was at that time not much above 50,000; of which number, -one-third, or nearly so, was collected into the only important town -of Kendal; but, of the other two-thirds, a larger proportion was a -simple agricultural or pastoral population than anywhere else in -England. In Westmoreland, therefore, it may be supposed that the stamp -demand could not have been so great, not perhaps by three-quarters, -as in Cumberland; which, besides having a population at least three -times as large, had more and larger towns. The result of this new -distribution was something that approached to an equalization of the -districts--giving to each, as was said, in round terms, a thousand a -year. - -Thus I have traced Wordsworth's ascent through its several steps and -stages, to what, for his moderate desires and habits so philosophic, -may be fairly considered opulence. And it must rejoice every man who -joins in the public homage _now_ rendered to his powers (and what man -is to be found that, more or less, does not?) to hear, with respect -to one so lavishly endowed by nature, that he has not been neglected -by fortune; that he has never had the finer edge of his sensibilities -dulled by the sad anxieties, the degrading fears, the miserable -dependencies of debt; that he has been blessed with competency even -when poorest; has had hope and cheerful prospects in reversion through -every stage of his life; that at all times he has been liberated from -_reasonable_ anxieties about the final interests of his children; -that at all times he has been blessed with leisure, the very amplest -that ever man enjoyed, for intellectual pursuits the most delightful; -yes, that, even as regards those delicate and coy pursuits, he has -possessed, in combination, all the conditions for their most perfect -culture--the leisure, the ease, the solitude, the society, the -domestic peace, the local scenery--Paradise for his eye, in Miltonic -beauty, lying outside his windows, Paradise for his heart, in the -perpetual happiness of his own fireside; and, finally, when increasing -years might be supposed to demand something more of modern luxuries, -and expanding intercourse with society something more of refined -elegancies, that his means, still keeping pace in almost arithmetical -ratio with his wants, had shed the graces of art upon the failing -powers of nature, had stripped infirmity of discomfort, and (so far as -the necessities of things will allow) had placed the final stages of -life, by means of many compensations, by universal praise, by plaudits -reverberated from senates, benedictions wherever his poems have -penetrated, honour, troops of friends--in short, by all that miraculous -prosperity can do to evade the primal decrees of nature, had placed the -final stages upon a level with the first. - -But now, reverting to the subject of Wordsworth's prosperity, I -have numbered up six separate stages of good luck--six instances of -pecuniary showers emptying themselves into his very bosom, at the very -moments when they _began_ to be needed, on the first symptoms that -they might be wanted--accesses of fortune stationed upon his road like -repeating frigates, connecting, to all appearance, some preconcerted -line of operations, and, amidst the tumults of chance, wearing as much -the air of purpose and design as if they supported a human plan. I -have come down to the sixth case. Whether there were any seventh, I -do not know: but confident I feel that, had a seventh been required -by circumstances, a seventh would have happened. So true it is that -still, as Wordsworth needed a place or a fortune, the holder of that -place or fortune was immediately served with a summons to surrender it: -so certainly was this impressed upon my belief, as one of the blind -necessities making up the prosperity and fixed destiny of Wordsworth, -that, for myself, had I happened to know of any peculiar adaptation -in an estate or office of mine to an existing need of Wordsworth's, -forthwith, and with the speed of a man running for his life, I would -have laid it down at his feet. "Take it," I should have said; "take it, -or in three weeks I shall be a dead man." - -Well, let me pause: I think the reader is likely by this time to have -a slight notion of _my_ notion of Wordsworth's inevitable prosperity, -and the sort of _lien_ that he had upon the incomes of other men who -happened to stand in his way. The same prosperity attended the other -branches of the family, with the single exception of John, the brother -who perished in the _Abergavenny_: and even he was prosperous up to -the moment of his fatal accident. As to Miss Wordsworth, who will, by -some people, be classed amongst the non-prosperous, I rank her amongst -the most fortunate of women; or, at least, if regard be had to that -period of life which is most capable of happiness. Her fortune, after -its repayment by Lord Lonsdale, was, much of it, confided, with a -sisterly affection, to the use of her brother John; and part of it, -I have heard, perished in his ship. How much, I never felt myself -entitled to ask; but certainly a part was on that occasion understood -to have been lost irretrievably. Either it was that only a partial -insurance had been effected; or else the nature of the accident, being -in home waters (off the coast of Dorsetshire), might, by the nature of -the contract, have taken the case out of the benefit of the policy. -This loss, however, had it even been total, for a single sister -amongst a family of flourishing brothers, could not be of any lasting -importance. A much larger number of voices would proclaim her to have -been unfortunate in life because she made no marriage connexion; and -certainly, the insipid as well as unfeeling ridicule which descends so -plentifully upon those women who, perhaps from strength of character, -have refused to make such a connexion where it promised little of -elevated happiness, _does_ make the state of singleness somewhat of a -trial to the patience of many; and to many the vexation of this trial -has proved a snare for beguiling them of their honourable resolutions. -Meantime, as the opportunities are rare in which all the conditions -concur for happy marriage connexions, how important it is that the -dignity of high-minded women should be upheld by society in the -honourable election they make of a self-dependent virgin seclusion, -by preference to a heartless marriage! Such women, as Mrs. Trollope -justly remarks, fill a place in society which in their default would -_not_ be filled, and are available for duties requiring a tenderness -and a punctuality that could not be looked for from women preoccupied -with household or maternal claims. If there were no regular fund (so to -speak) of women free from conjugal and maternal duties, upon what body -could we draw for our "sisters of mercy," &c.? In another point Mrs. -Trollope is probably right: few women live unmarried from necessity. -Miss Wordsworth had several offers; amongst them, to my knowledge, one -from Hazlitt; all of them she rejected decisively. And she did right. A -happier life, by far, was hers in youth, coming as near as difference -of scenery and difference of relations would permit to that which was -promised to Ruth--the Ruth of her brother's creation[120]--by the -youth who came from Georgia's shore; for, though not upon American -savannah, or Canadian lakes, - - "With all their fairy crowds - Of islands, that together lie - As quietly as spots of sky - Amongst the evening clouds," - -yet, amongst the loveliest scenes of sylvan England, and (at intervals) -of sylvan Germany--amongst lakes, too, far better fitted to give the -_sense_ of their own character than the vast inland _seas_ of America, -and amongst mountains more romantic than many of the chief ranges in -that country--her time fleeted away like some golden age, or like the -life of primeval man; and she, like Ruth, was for years allowed - - "To run, though _not_ a bride, - A sylvan huntress, by the side" - -of him to whom she, like Ruth, had dedicated her days, and to whose -children, afterwards, she dedicated a love like that of mothers. Dear -Miss Wordsworth! How noble a creature did she seem when I first knew -her!--and when, on the very first night which I passed in her brother's -company, he read to me, in illustration of something he was saying, a -passage from Fairfax's "Tasso," ending pretty nearly with these words, - - "Amidst the broad fields and the endless wood, - The lofty lady kept her maidenhood," - -I thought that, possibly, he had his sister in his thoughts. Yet -"lofty" was hardly the right word. Miss Wordsworth was too ardent -and fiery a creature to maintain the reserve essential to dignity; -and dignity was the last thing one thought of in the presence of one -so natural, so fervent in her feelings, and so embarrassed in their -utterance--sometimes, also, in the attempt to check them. It must -not, however, be supposed that there was any silliness or weakness of -enthusiasm about her. She was under the continual restraint of severe -good sense, though liberated from that false shame which, in so many -persons, accompanies all expressions of natural emotion; and she had -too long enjoyed the ennobling conversation of her brother, and his -admirable comments on the poets, which they read in common, to fail -in any essential point of logic or propriety of thought. Accordingly, -her letters, though the most careless and un-elaborate--nay, the -most hurried that can be imagined--are models of good sense and just -feeling. In short, beyond any person I have known in this world, Miss -Wordsworth was the creature of impulse; but, as a woman most thoroughly -virtuous and well-principled, as one who could not fail to be kept -right by her own excellent heart, and as an intellectual creature from -her cradle, with much of her illustrious brother's peculiarity of -mind--finally, as one who had been, in effect, educated and trained -by that very brother--she won the sympathy and the respectful regard -of every man worthy to approach her. Properly, and in a spirit of -prophecy, was she named _Dorothy_; in its Greek meaning,[121] _gift of -God_, well did this name prefigure the relation in which she stood to -Wordsworth, the mission with which she was charged--to wait upon him as -the tenderest and most faithful of domestics; to love him as a sister; -to sympathize with him as a confidante; to counsel him; to cheer him -and sustain him by the natural expression of her feelings--so quick, so -ardent, so unaffected--upon the probable effect of whatever thoughts or -images he might conceive; finally, and above all other ministrations, -to ingraft, by her sexual sense of beauty, upon his masculine austerity -that delicacy and those graces which else (according to the grateful -acknowledgments of his own maturest retrospect) it never could have -had:-- - - "The blessing of my later years - with me when I was a boy: - She gave me hopes, she gave me fears, - A heart the fountain of sweet tears, - . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . - And love, and thought, and joy." - -And elsewhere he describes her, in a philosophic poem, still in -MS.,[122] as one who planted flowers and blossoms with her feminine -hand upon what might else have been an arid rock--massy, indeed, and -grand, but repulsive from the severity of its features. I may sum up -in one brief abstract the amount of Miss Wordsworth's character, as -a companion, by saying, that she was the very wildest (in the sense -of the most natural) person I have ever known; and also the truest, -most inevitable, and at the same time the quickest and readiest in her -sympathy with either joy or sorrow, with laughter or with tears, with -the realities of life or the larger realities of the poets! - - [120] "_The Ruth of her brother's creation_":--So I express it; - because so much in the development of the story and situations - necessarily belongs to the poet. Else, for the mere outline of the - story, it was founded upon fact. Wordsworth himself told me, in - general terms, that the case which suggested the poem was that of - an American lady, whose husband forsook her at the very place of - embarkation from England, under circumstances and under - expectations, upon her part, very much the same as those of Ruth. - I am afraid, however, that the husband was an attorney; which is - intolerable; _nisi prius_ cannot be harmonized with the dream-like - fairyland of Georgia. - - [121] Of course, therefore, it is essentially the same name as - _Theodora_, the same elements being only differently arranged. Yet - how opposite is the impression upon the mind! and chiefly, I - suppose, from the too prominent emblazonment of this name in the - person of Justinian's scandalous wife; though, for my own part, I - am far from believing all the infamous stories which we read about - her. - - [122] In the concluding Book of the _Prelude_.--M. - -Meantime, amidst all this fascinating furniture of her mind, won from -nature, from solitude, from enlightened companionship, Miss Wordsworth -was as thoroughly deficient (some would say painfully deficient--I say -charmingly deficient) in ordinary female accomplishments as "Cousin -Mary" in dear Miss Mitford's delightful sketch. Of French, she might -have barely enough to read a plain modern page of narrative; Italian, -I question whether any; German, just enough to insult the German -literati, by showing how little she had found them or their writings -necessary to her heart. The "Luise" of Voss, the "Hermann und Dorothea" -of Goethe she had begun to translate, as young ladies do "Télémaque"; -but, like them, had chiefly cultivated the first two pages[123]; with -the third she had a slender acquaintance, and with the fourth she -meditated an intimacy at some future day. Music, in her solitary and -out-of-doors life, she could have little reason for cultivating; nor -is it possible that any woman can draw the enormous energy requisite -for this attainment, upon a _modern_ scale of perfection, out of -any other principle than that of vanity (at least of great value for -social applause) or else of deep musical sensibility; neither of which -belonged to Miss Wordsworth's constitution of mind. But, as everybody -agrees in our days to think this accomplishment of no value whatever, -and, in fact, _unproduceable_, unless existing in an exquisite state -of culture, no complaint could be made on that score, nor any surprise -felt. But the case in which the irregularity of Miss Wordsworth's -education _did_ astonish one was in that part which respected her -literary knowledge. In whatever she read, or neglected to read, she had -obeyed the single impulse of her own heart; where that led her, _there_ -she followed: where that was mute or indifferent, not a thought had -she to bestow upon a writer's high reputation, or the call for some -acquaintance with his works to meet the demands of society. And thus -the strange anomaly arose, of a woman deeply acquainted with some great -authors, whose works lie pretty much out of the fashionable beat; able, -moreover, in her own person, to produce brilliant effects; able on some -subjects to write delightfully, and with the impress of originality -upon all she uttered; and yet ignorant of great classical works in her -own mother tongue, and careless of literary history in a degree which -at once exiled her from the rank and privileges of _bluestockingism_. - - [123] Viz., "Calypso ne savoit se consoler du départ," &c. For how - long a period (viz., nearly two centuries) has Calypso been - inconsolable in the morning studies of young ladies! As Fénélon's - most dreary romance always opened at one or other of these three - earliest and dreary pages, naturally to my sympathetic fancy the - poor unhappy goddess seemed to be eternally aground on this - Goodwin Sand of inconsolability. It is amongst the standing - hypocrisies of the world, that most people affect a reverence for - this book, which nobody reads. - -The reader may, perhaps, have objected silently to the illustration -drawn from Miss Mitford, that "Cousin Mary" does not effect her -fascinations out of pure negations. Such negations, from the mere -startling effect of their oddity in this present age, might fall -in with the general current of her attractions; but Cousin Mary's -undoubtedly lay in the _positive_ witcheries of a manner and a -character transcending, by force of irresistible nature (as in a -similar case recorded by Wordsworth in "The Excursion") all the pomp -of nature and art united as seen in ordinary creatures. Now, in -Miss Wordsworth, there were certainly no "Cousin Mary" fascinations -of manner and deportment, that snatch a grace beyond the reach -of art: _there_ she was, indeed, painfully deficient; for hurry -mars and defeats even the most ordinary expression of the feminine -character--viz. its gentleness: abruptness and trepidation leave often -a joint impression of what seems for an instant both rudeness and -ungracefulness: and the least painful impression was that of unsexual -awkwardness. But the point in which Miss Wordsworth made the most ample -amends for all that she wanted of more customary accomplishments, was -this very originality and native freshness of intellect, which settled -with so bewitching an effect upon some of her writings, and upon -many a sudden remark or ejaculation, extorted by something or other -that struck her eye, in the clouds, or in colouring, or in accidents -of light and shade, of form or combination of form. To talk of her -"writings" is too pompous an expression, or at least far beyond any -pretensions that she ever made for herself. Of poetry she has written -little indeed; and that little not, in my opinion, of much merit. -The verses published by her brother, and beginning, "Which way does -the wind come?", meant only as nursery lines, are certainly wild and -pretty; but the other specimen is likely to strike most readers as -feeble and trivial in the sentiment. Meantime, the book which is in -very deed a monument to her power of catching and expressing all the -hidden beauties of natural scenery, with a felicity of diction, a -truth and strength, that far transcend Gilpin, or professional writers -on those subjects, is her record of a _first_ tour in Scotland, made -about the year 1802. This MS. book (unless my recollection of it, -from a period now gone by for thirty years, has deceived me greatly) -is absolutely unique in its class; and, though it never could be very -popular, from the minuteness of its details, intelligible only to the -eye, and the luxuriation of its descriptions, yet I believe no person -has ever been favoured with a sight of it that has not yearned for -its publication. Its own extraordinary merit, apart from the interest -which _now_ invests the name of Wordsworth, could not fail to procure -purchasers for one edition on its first appearance.[124] - - [124] It was published in full in 1874, with the title - _Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland, A.D. 1803, by Dorothy - Wordsworth_. _Edited by J. C. Shairp, LL.D._--M. - -Coleridge was of the party at first; but afterwards, under some -attack of rheumatism, found or thought it necessary to leave them. -Melancholy it would be at this time, thirty-six years and more from -the era of that tour, to read it under the afflicting remembrances -of all which has been suffered in the interval by two at least out -of the three who composed the travelling party; for I fear that Miss -Wordsworth has suffered not much less than Coleridge, and, in any -general expression of it, from the same cause, viz. an excess of -pleasurable excitement and luxurious sensibility, sustained in youth -by a constitutional glow from animal causes, but drooping as soon as -that was withdrawn. It is painful to point a moral from any story -connected with those whom one loves or has loved; painful to look for -one moment towards any "improvement" of such a case, especially where -there is no reason to tax the parties with any criminal contribution -to their own sufferings, except through that relaxation of the will -and its potential energies through which most of us, at some time or -other--I myself too deeply and sorrowfully--stand accountable to our -own consciences. Not, therefore, with any intention of speaking in a -monitorial or censorial character, do I here notice a defect in Miss -Wordsworth's self-education of something that might have mitigated the -sort of suffering which, more or less, ever since the period of her -too genial, too radiant youth, I suppose her to have struggled with. -I have mentioned the narrow basis on which her literary interests had -been made to rest--the exclusive character of her reading, and the -utter want of pretension, and of all that looks like _bluestockingism_, -in the style of her habitual conversation and mode of dealing with -literature. Now, to me it appears, upon reflection, that it would -have been far better had Miss Wordsworth condescended a little to the -ordinary mode of pursuing literature; better for her own happiness -if she _had_ been a bluestocking; or, at least, if she had been, in -good earnest, a writer for the press, with the pleasant cares and -solicitudes of one who has some little ventures, as it were, on that -vast ocean. - -We all know with how womanly and serene a temper literature has -been pursued by Joanna Baillie, by Miss Mitford, and other women -of admirable genius--with how absolutely no sacrifice or loss of -feminine dignity they have cultivated the profession of authorship; -and, if we could hear their report, I have no doubt that the little -cares of correcting proofs, and the forward-looking solicitudes -connected with the mere business arrangements of new publications, -would be numbered amongst the minor pleasures of life; whilst the -more elevated cares connected with the intellectual business of such -projects must inevitably have done much to solace the troubles which, -as human beings, they cannot but have experienced, and even to scatter -flowers upon their path. Mrs. Johnstone of Edinburgh has pursued the -profession of literature--the noblest of professions, and the only -one open to both sexes alike--with even more assiduity, and as a -_daily_ occupation; and, I have every reason to believe, with as much -benefit to her own happiness as to the instruction and amusement of -her readers; for the petty cares of authorship are agreeable, and its -serious cares are ennobling.[125] More especially is such an occupation -useful to a woman without children, and without any _prospective_ -resources--resources in objects that involve hopes growing and -unfulfilled. It is too much to expect of any woman (or man either) that -her mind should support itself in a pleasurable activity, under the -drooping energies of life, by resting on the past or on the present; -some interest in reversion, some subject of hope from day to day, must -be called in to reinforce the animal fountains of good spirits. Had -that been opened for Miss Wordsworth, I am satisfied that she would -have passed a more cheerful middle-age, and would not, at any period, -have yielded to that nervous depression (or is it, perhaps, nervous -irritation?) which, I grieve to hear, has clouded her latter days. -Nephews and nieces, whilst young and innocent, are as good almost as -sons and daughters to a fervid and loving heart that has carried them -in her arms from the hour they were born. But, after a nephew has grown -into a huge hulk of a man, six feet high, and as stout as a bullock; -after he has come to have children of his own, lives at a distance, -and finds occasion to talk much of oxen and turnips--no offence to -him!--he ceases to be an object of any very profound sentiment. -There is nothing in such a subject to rouse the flagging pulses of -the heart, and to sustain a fervid spirit, to whom, at the very best, -human life offers little of an adequate or sufficing interest, unless -when idealized by the magic of the mighty poets. Farewell, Miss -Wordsworth! farewell, impassioned Dorothy! I have not seen you for many -a day--shall, too probably, never see you again; but shall attend your -steps with tender interest so long as I hear of you living: so will -Professor Wilson; and, from two hearts at least, that knew and admired -you in your fervid prime, it may sometimes cheer the gloom of your -depression to be assured of never-failing remembrance, full of love and -respectful pity.[126] - - [125] Mrs. Johnstone (1781-1857) was the authoress of several - novels, a contributor to various periodicals, and editor of - _Tait's Magazine_ through a portion at least of De Quincey's - connexion with it.--M. - - [126] In the recast by De Quincey, for the collective edition of - his writings in 1853, of his _Tait_ articles on Wordsworth in - 1839, there were some omissions of matter that had appeared in the - magazine. One was this concluding paragraph in the article for - April 1839:--"I have traced the history of each [_i.e._ of William - and Dorothy Wordsworth] until the time when I became personally - acquainted with them; and, henceforwards, anything which it may be - interesting to know with respect to either will naturally come - forward, not in a separate narrative, but in connexion with my own - life; for in the following year I became myself the tenant of that - pretty cottage in which I found them; and from that time, for many - years, my life flowed on in daily union with theirs."--M. - - - - - CHAPTER IV - - THE LAKE POETS: WILLIAM WORDSWORTH AND ROBERT SOUTHEY[127] - - [127] From _Tait's Magazine_ for July 1839. See explanation in - Editor's Preface to this volume.--M. - - -That night--the first of my personal intercourse with -Wordsworth--the first in which I saw him face to face--was -(it is little, indeed, to say) memorable: it was marked by a -change even in the physical condition of my nervous system. -Long disappointment--hope for ever baffled (and why should -it be less painful because _self_-baffled?)--vexation and -self-blame, almost self-contempt, at my own want of courage -to face the man whom of all since the Flood I most yearned to -behold:--these feelings had impressed upon my nervous sensibilities -a character of irritation--agitation--restlessness--eternal -self-dissatisfaction--which were gradually gathering into a distinct, -well-defined type, that would, but for youth--almighty youth, and -the spirit of youth--have shaped itself into some nervous complaint, -wearing symptoms _sui generis_ (for most nervous complaints, in minds -that are at all eccentric, will be _sui generis_); and, perhaps, -finally, have been immortalized in some medical journal as the -anomalous malady of an interesting young gentleman, aged twenty-two, -who was supposed to have studied too severely, and to have perplexed -his brain with German metaphysics. To this result things tended; -but, in one hour, all passed away. It was gone, never to return. The -spiritual being whom I had anticipated--for, like Eloisa, - - "My fancy framed him of the angelic kind, - Some emanation of the all-beauteous mind"-- - -this ideal creature had at length been seen--seen "in the flesh"--seen -with fleshly eyes; and now, though he did not cease for years to wear -something of the glory and the _aureola_ which, in Popish legends, -invests the head of superhuman beings, yet it was no longer as a being -to be feared: it was as Raphael, the "affable" angel, who conversed on -the terms of man with man, that I now regarded him. - -It was four o'clock, perhaps, when we arrived. At that hour in November -the daylight soon declined; and, in an hour and a half, we were all -collected about the tea-table. This, with the Wordsworths, under the -simple rustic system of habits which they cherished then, and for -twenty years after, was the most delightful meal in the day; just as -dinner is in great cities, and for the same reason--because it was -prolonged into a meal of leisure and conversation. And the reason why -any meal favours and encourages conversation is pretty much the same -as that which accounts for the breaking down of so many lawyers, and -generally their ill-success in the House of Commons. In the courts -of law, when a man is haranguing upon general and abstract topics, -if at any moment he feels getting beyond his depth, if he finds his -anchor driving, he can always bring up, and drop his anchor anew upon -the _terra firma_ of his case: the facts of this, as furnished by his -brief, always assure him of a retreat as soon as he finds his more -general thoughts failing him; and the consciousness of this retreat, by -inspiring confidence, makes it much less probable that they _should_ -fail. But, in Parliament, where the advantage of a case with given -facts and circumstances, or the details of a statistical report, does -not offer itself once in a dozen times that a member has occasion to -speak--where he has to seek unpremeditated arguments and reasonings of -a general nature, from the impossibility of wholly evading the previous -speeches that may have made an impression upon the House;--this -necessity, at any rate a trying one to most people, is doubly so to -one who has always walked in the leading-strings of a _case_--always -swum with the help of bladders, in the conscious resource of his -_facts_. The reason, therefore, why a lawyer succeeds ill as a senator -is to be found in the sudden removal of an artificial aid. Now, just -such an artificial aid is furnished to timid or to unready men by -a dinner-table, and the miscellaneous attentions, courtesies, or -occupations which it enjoins or permits, as by the fixed memoranda -of a brief. If a man finds the ground slipping from beneath him in a -discussion--if, in a tide of illustration, he suddenly comes to a pause -for want of matter--he can make a graceful close, a self-interruption, -that shall wear the interpretation of forbearance, or even win the -rhetorical credit of an _aposiopesis_ (according to circumstances), by -stopping to perform a duty of the occasion: pressed into a dilemma by -some political partisan, one may evade it by pressing him to take a -little of the dish before one; or, plagued for a reason which is not -forthcoming, one may deprecate this logical rigour by inviting one's -tormentor to wine. In short, what I mean to say is, that a dinner -party, or any meal which is made the meal for intellectual relaxation, -must for ever offer the advantages of a _palæstra_ in which the weapons -are foils and the wounds not mortal: in which, whilst the interest is -that of a real, the danger is that of a sham fight: in which whilst -there is always an opportunity for swimming into deep waters, there is -always a retreat into shallow ones. And it may be laid down as a maxim, -that no nation is civilized to the height of its capacity until it -_has_ one such meal. With our ancestors of sixty years back, this meal -was supper: with the Athenians and Greeks it was dinner[128] (coena -and [Greek: deipnon]), as with ourselves; only that the hour was a -very early one, in consequence, partly, of the early bedtime of these -nations (which again was occasioned by the dearness of candle-light -to the mass of those who had political rights, on whose account the -forensic meetings, the visits of clients to their patrons, &c., opened -the political day by four hours earlier than with us), and partly in -consequence of the uncommercial habits of the ancients--commerce having -at no time created an aristocracy of its own, and, therefore, having at -no time and in no city (no, not Alexandria nor Carthage) dictated the -household and social arrangements, or the distribution of its hours. - - [128] A curious dissertation might be written on this subject. - Meantime, it is remarkable that almost all modern nations have - committed the blunder of supposing the Latin word for supper to be - _coena_, and of dinner _prandium_. Now, the essential definition - of dinner is, that which is the main meal--(what the French call - the he great meal). By that or any test (for example, the _time_, - three P.M.) the Roman coena was dinner. Even Louis XII, whose - death is partly ascribed to his having altered his dinner hour - from nine to eleven A.M. in compliment to his young English bride, - did not _sup_ at three P.M. - -I have been led insensibly into this digression. I now resume the -thread of my narrative. That night, after hearing conversation superior -by much, in its tone and subject, to any which I had ever heard -before--one exception only being made in favour of Coleridge, whose -style differed from Wordsworth's in this, that, being far more agile -and more comprehensive, consequently more showy and surprising, it was -less impressive and weighty; for Wordsworth's was slow in its movement, -solemn, majestic. After a luxury so rare as this, I found myself, about -eleven at night, in a pretty bedroom, about fourteen feet by twelve. -Much I feared that this might turn out the best room in the house; and -it illustrates the hospitality of my new friends to mention that it -was. Early in the morning, I was awoke by a little voice, issuing from -a little cottage bed in an opposite corner, soliloquizing in a low -tone. I soon recognized the words--"Suffered under Pontius Pilate; was -crucified, dead, and buried"; and the voice I easily conjectured to be -that of the eldest amongst Wordsworth's children, a son, and at that -time about three years old. He was a remarkably fine boy in strength -and size, promising (which has in fact been realized) a much more -powerful person, physically, than that of his father. Miss Wordsworth -I found making breakfast in the little sitting-room. No urn was there; -no glittering breakfast service; a kettle boiled upon the fire, and -everything was in harmony with these unpretending arrangements. I, the -son of a merchant, and naturally, therefore, in the midst of luxurious -(though not ostentatious) display from my childhood, had never seen so -humble a _ménage_: and, contrasting the dignity of the man with this -honourable poverty, and this courageous avowal of it, his utter absence -of all effort to disguise the simple truth of the case, I felt my -admiration increase to the uttermost by all I saw. This, thought I to -myself, is, indeed, in his own words-- - - "Plain living, and high thinking." - -This is indeed to reserve the humility and the parsimonies of life -for its bodily enjoyments, and to apply its lavishness and its luxury -to its enjoyments of the intellect. So might Milton have lived; so -Marvell. Throughout the day--which was rainy--the same style of modest -hospitality prevailed. Wordsworth and his sister--myself being of the -party--walked out in spite of the rain, and made the circuit of the two -lakes, Grasmere and its dependency Rydal--a walk of about six miles. On -the third day, Mrs. Coleridge having now pursued her journey northward -to Keswick, and having, at her departure, invited me, in her own name -as well as Southey's, to come and see them, Wordsworth proposed that we -should go thither in company, but not by the direct route--a distance -of only thirteen miles: this we were to take in our road homeward; our -outward-bound journey was to be by way of Ulleswater--a circuit of -forty-three miles. - -On the third morning after my arrival in Grasmere, I found the whole -family, except the two children, prepared for the expedition across the -mountains. I had heard of no horses, and took it for granted that we -were to walk; however, at the moment of starting, a cart--the common -farmers' cart of the country--made its appearance; and the driver -was a bonny young woman of the vale. Such a vehicle I had never in -my life seen used for such a purpose; but what was good enough for -the Wordsworths was good enough for me; and, accordingly, we were all -carted along to the little town, or large village, of Ambleside--three -and a half miles distant. Our style of travelling occasioned no -astonishment; on the contrary, we met a smiling salutation wherever -we appeared--Miss Wordsworth being, as I observed, the person most -familiarly known of our party, and the one who took upon herself the -whole expenses of the flying colloquies exchanged with stragglers on -the road. What struck me with most astonishment, however, was the -liberal manner of our fair driver, who made no scruple of taking a -leap, with the reins in her hand, and seating herself dexterously upon -the shafts (or, in Westmoreland phrase, the _trams_) of the cart. From -Ambleside--and without one foot of intervening flat ground--begins -to rise the famous ascent of Kirkstone; after which, for three long -miles, all riding in a cart drawn by one horse becomes impossible. The -ascent is computed at three miles, but is, probably, a little more. -In some parts it is almost frightfully steep; for the road, being -only the original mountain track of shepherds, gradually widened and -improved from age to age (especially since the era of tourists began), -is carried over ground which no engineer, even in alpine countries, -would have viewed as practicable. In ascending, this is felt chiefly -as an obstruction and not as a peril, unless where there is a risk of -the horses backing; but in the reverse order, some of these precipitous -descents are terrific: and yet once, in utter darkness, after midnight, -and the darkness irradiated only by continual streams of lightning, -I was driven down this whole descent, at a full gallop, by a young -woman--the carriage being a light one, the horses frightened, and -the descents, at some critical parts of the road, so literally like -the sides of a house, that it was difficult to keep the fore wheels -from pressing upon the hind legs of the horses. Indeed, this is only -according to the custom of the country, as I have before mentioned. -The innkeeper of Ambleside, or Lowwood, will not mount this formidable -hill without four horses. The leaders you are not required to take -beyond the first three miles; but, of course, they are glad if you will -take them on the whole stage of nine miles, to Patterdale; and, in -that case, there is a real luxury at hand for those who enjoy velocity -of motion. The descent into Patterdale is much above two miles; but -such is the propensity for flying down hills in Westmoreland that I -have found the descent accomplished in about six minutes, which is at -the rate of eighteen miles an hour; the various turnings of the road -making the speed much more sensible to the traveller. The pass, at the -summit of this ascent, is nothing to be compared in sublimity with -the pass under Great Gavil from Wastdalehead; but it is solemn, and -profoundly impressive. At a height so awful as this, it may be easily -supposed that all human dwellings have been long left behind: no sound -of human life, no bells of churches or chapels ever ascend so far. -And, as is noticed in Wordsworth's fine stanzas upon this memorable -pass, the only sound that, even in noonday, disturbs the sleep of the -weary pedestrian, is that of the bee murmuring amongst the mountain -flowers--a sound as ancient - - "As man's imperial front, and woman's roseate bloom." - -This way, and (which, to the sentiment of the case, is an important -point) this way of _necessity_ and _inevitably_, passed the Roman -legions; for it is a mathematic impossibility that any other route -could be found for an army nearer to the eastward of this pass than -by way of Kendal and Shap; nearer to the westward, than by way of -Legbesthwaite and St. John's Vale (and so by Threlkeld to Penrith). -Now, these two roads are exactly twenty-five miles apart; and, since -a Roman cohort was stationed at Ambleside (_Amboglane_), it is pretty -evident that this cohort would not correspond with the more northerly -stations by either of these remote routes--having immediately before -it this direct though difficult pass to Kirkstone. On the solitary -area of tableland which you find at the summit--though, Heaven knows, -you might almost cover it with a drawing-room carpet, so suddenly -does the mountain take to its old trick of precipitous descent, on -both sides alike--there are only two objects to remind you of man -and his workmanship. One is a guide-post--always a picturesque and -interesting object, because it expresses a wild country and a labyrinth -of roads, and often made much more interesting (as in this case) by -the lichens which cover it, and which record the generations of men -to whom it has done its office; as also by the crucifix form, which -inevitably recalls, in all mountainous regions, the crosses of Catholic -lands, raised to the memory of wayfaring men who have perished by -the hand of the assassin. The other memorial of man is even more -interesting:--Amongst the fragments of rock which lie in the confusion -of a ruin on each side of the road, one there is which exceeds the -rest in height, and which, in shape, presents a very close resemblance -to a church. This lies to the left of the road as you are going from -Ambleside; and from its name, Churchstone (Kirkstone), is derived -the name of the pass, and from the pass the name of the mountain. -The guide-post--which was really the work of man--tells those going -southwards (for to those who go northwards it is useless, since, in -that direction, there is no choice of roads) that the left hand track -conducts you to Troutbeck, and Bowness, and Kendal, the right hand to -Ambleside, and Hawkshead, and Ulverstone. The church--which is but a -phantom of man's handiwork--might, however, really be mistaken for -such, were it not that the rude and almost inaccessible state of the -adjacent ground proclaims the truth. As to size, _that_ is remarkably -difficult to estimate upon wild heaths or mountain solitudes, where -there are no leadings through gradations of distance, nor any -artificial standards, from which height or breadth can be properly -deduced. This mimic church, however, has a peculiarly fine effect in -this wild situation, which leaves so far below the tumults of this -world: the phantom church, by suggesting the phantom and evanescent -image of a congregation, where never congregation met; of the pealing -organ, where never sound was heard except of wild natural notes, or -else of the wind rushing through these mighty gates of everlasting -rock--in this way, the fanciful image that accompanies the traveller on -his road, for half a mile or more, serves to bring out the antagonist -feeling of intense and awful solitude, which is the natural and -presiding sentiment--the _religio loci_--that broods for ever over the -romantic pass. - -Having walked up Kirkstone, we ascended our cart again; then rapidly -descended to Brothers' Water--a lake which lies immediately below; -and, about three miles further, through endless woods and under the -shade of mighty fells, immediate dependencies and processes of the -still more mighty Helvellyn, we approached the vale of Patterdale, -when, by moonlight, we reached the inn. Here we found horses--by whom -furnished I never asked nor heard; perhaps I owe somebody for a horse -to this day. All I remember is--that through those most romantic woods -and rocks of Stybarren--through those silent glens of Glencoin and -Glenridding--through that most romantic of parks then belonging to -the Duke of Norfolk, viz. Gobarrow Park--we saw alternately, for four -miles, the most grotesque and the most awful spectacles-- - - "Abbey windows - And Moorish temples of the Hindoos," - -all fantastic, all as unreal and shadowy as the moonlight which created -them; whilst, at every angle of the road, broad gleams came upwards of -Ulleswater, stretching for nine miles northward, but, fortunately for -its effect, broken into three watery chambers of almost equal length, -and rarely visible at once. At the foot of the lake, in a house called -Ewsmere, we passed the night, having accomplished about twenty-two -miles only in our day's walking and riding. - -The next day Wordsworth and I, leaving at Ewsmere the rest of our -party, spent the morning in roaming through the woods of Lowther, and, -towards evening, we dined together at Emont Bridge, one mile short of -Penrith. Afterwards, we walked into Penrith. There Wordsworth left me -in excellent quarters--the house of Captain Wordsworth, from which the -family happened to be absent. Whither he himself adjourned, I know -not, nor on what business; however, it occupied him throughout the -next day; and, therefore, I employed myself in sauntering along the -road, about seventeen miles, to Keswick. There I had been directed to -ask for Greta Hall, which, with some little difficulty, I found; for -it stands out of the town a few hundred yards, upon a little eminence -overhanging the river Greta. It was about seven o'clock when I reached -Southey's door; for I had stopped to dine at a little public house in -Threlkeld, and had walked slowly for the last two hours in the dark. -The arrival of a stranger occasioned a little sensation in the house; -and, by the time the front door could be opened, I saw Mrs. Coleridge, -and a gentleman whom I could not doubt to be Southey, standing, very -hospitably, to greet my entrance. Southey was, in person, somewhat -taller than Wordsworth, being about five feet eleven in height, or a -trifle more, whilst Wordsworth was about five feet ten; and, partly -from having slender limbs, partly from being more symmetrically formed -about the shoulders than Wordsworth, he struck one as a better and -lighter figure, to the effect of which his dress contributed; for he -wore pretty constantly a short jacket and pantaloons, and had much the -air of a Tyrolese mountaineer. - -On the next day arrived Wordsworth. I could read at once, in the manner -of the two authors, that they were not on particularly friendly, -or rather, I should say, confidential terms. It seemed to me as if -both had silently said--"We are too much men of sense to quarrel -because we do not happen particularly to like each other's writings: -we are neighbours, or what passes for such in the country. Let us -show each other the courtesies which are becoming to men of letters; -and, for any closer connexion, our distance of thirteen miles may -be always sufficient to keep us from _that_." In after life, it is -true--fifteen years, perhaps, from this time--many circumstances -combined to bring Southey and Wordsworth into more intimate terms -of friendship: agreement in politics, sorrows which had happened to -both alike in their domestic relations, and the sort of tolerance for -different opinions in literature, or, indeed, in anything else, which -advancing years and experience are sure to bring with them. But at -this period, Southey and Wordsworth entertained a mutual esteem, but -did not cordially like each other. Indeed, it would have been odd if -they had. Wordsworth lived in the open air: Southey in his library, -which Coleridge used to call his wife. Southey had particularly -elegant habits (Wordsworth called them finical) in the use of books. -Wordsworth, on the other hand, was so negligent, and so self-indulgent -in the same case, that, as Southey, laughing, expressed it to me some -years afterwards, when I was staying at Greta Hall on a visit--"To -introduce Wordsworth into one's library is like letting a bear into -a tulip garden." What I mean by self-indulgent is this: generally it -happens that new books baffle and mock one's curiosity by their uncut -leaves; and the trial is pretty much the same as when, in some town -where you are utterly unknown, you meet the postman at a distance from -your inn, with some letter for yourself from a dear, dear friend in -foreign regions, without money to pay the postage. How is it with you, -dear reader, in such a case? Are you not tempted (_I am_ grievously) to -snatch the letter from his tantalizing hand, spite of the roar which -you anticipate of "Stop thief!" and make off as fast as you can for -some solitary street in the suburbs, where you may instantly effect an -entrance upon your new estate before the purchase money is paid down? -Such were Wordsworth's feelings in regard to new books; of which the -first exemplification I had was early in my acquaintance with him, and -on occasion of a book which (if any could) justified the too summary -style of his advances in rifling its charms. On a level with the eye, -when sitting at the tea-table in my little cottage at Grasmere, stood -the collective works of Edmund Burke. The book was to me an eye-sore -and an ear-sore for many a year, in consequence of the cacophonous -title lettered by the bookseller upon the back--"Burke's Works." I have -heard it said, by the way, that Donne's intolerable defect of ear grew -out of his own baptismal name, when harnessed to his own surname--_John -Donne_. No man, it was said, who had listened to this hideous jingle -from childish years, could fail to have his genius for discord, and the -abominable in sound, improved to the utmost. Not less dreadful than -_John Donne_ was "Burke's Works"; which, however, on the old principle, -that every day's work is no day's work, continued to annoy me for -twenty-one years. Wordsworth took down the volume; unfortunately it was -uncut; fortunately, and by a special Providence as to him, it seemed, -tea was proceeding at the time. Dry toast required butter; butter -required knives; and knives then lay on the table; but sad it was for -the virgin purity of Mr. Burke's as yet unsunned pages, that every -knife bore upon its blade testimonies of the service it had rendered. -Did _that_ stop Wordsworth? Did that cause him to call for another -knife? Not at all; he - - "Look'd at the knife that caus'd his pain: - And look'd and sigh'd, and look'd and sigh'd again"; - -and then, after this momentary tribute to regret, he tore his way into -the heart of the volume with this knife, that left its greasy honours -behind it upon every page: and are they not there to this day? This -personal experience first brought me acquainted with Wordsworth's -habits in that particular especially, with his intense impatience for -one minute's delay which would have brought a remedy; and yet the -reader may believe that it is no affectation in me to say that fifty -such cases could have given me but little pain, when I explain that -whatever could be made good by money, at that time, I did not regard. -Had the book been an old black-letter book, having a value from its -rarity, I should have been disturbed in an indescribable degree; but -simply with reference to the utter impossibility of reproducing that -mode of value. As to the Burke, it was a common book; I had bought the -book, with many others, at the sale of Sir Cecil Wray's library, for -about two-thirds of the selling price: I could easily replace it; and I -mention the case at all, only to illustrate the excess of Wordsworth's -outrages on books, which made him, in Southey's eyes, a mere monster; -for Southey's beautiful library was his estate; and this difference of -habits would alone have sufficed to alienate him from Wordsworth. And -so I argued in other cases of the same nature. Meantime, had Wordsworth -done as Coleridge did, how cheerfully should I have acquiesced in his -destruction (such as it was, in a pecuniary sense) of books, as the -very highest obligation he could confer. Coleridge often spoiled a -book; but, in the course of doing this, he enriched that book with -so many and so valuable notes, tossing about him, with such lavish -profusion, from such a cornucopia of discursive reading, and such a -fusing intellect, commentaries so many-angled and so many-coloured -that I have envied many a man whose luck has placed him in the way of -such injuries; and that man must have been a churl (though, God knows! -too often this churl _has_ existed) who could have found in his heart -to complain. But Wordsworth rarely, indeed, wrote on the margin of -books; and, when he did, nothing could less illustrate his intellectual -superiority. The comments were such as might have been made by anybody. -Once, I remember, before I had ever seen Wordsworth--probably a year -before--I met a person who had once enjoyed the signal honour of -travelling with him to London. It was in a stage-coach. But the person -in question well knew _who_ it was that had been his _compagnon de -voyage_. Immediately he was glorified in my eyes. "And," said I, to -this glorified gentleman (who, _par parenthése_, was also a donkey), -"Now, as you travelled nearly three hundred miles in the company of -Mr. Wordsworth, consequently (for this was in 1805) during two nights -and two days, doubtless you must have heard many profound remarks that -would inevitably fall from his lips." Nay, Coleridge had also been of -the party; and, if Wordsworth _solus_ could have been dull, was it -within human possibilities that these _gemini_ should have been so? -"Was it possible?" I said; and perhaps my donkey, who looked like one -that had been immoderately threatened, at last took courage; his eye -brightened; and he intimated that he _did_ remember something that -Wordsworth had said--an "observe," as the Scotch call it. - -"Ay, indeed; and what was it now? What did the great man say?" - -"Why, sir, in fact, and to make a long story short, on coming near -to London, we breakfasted at Baldock--you know Baldock? It's in -Hertfordshire. Well, now, sir, would you believe it, though we were -quite in regular time, the breakfast was precisely good for nothing?" - -"And Wordsworth?" - -"He observed----" - -"What did he observe?" - -"That the buttered toast looked, for all the world, as if it had been -soaked in hot water." - -Ye heavens! "_buttered toast!_" And was it _this_ I waited for? Now, -thought I, had Henry Mackenzie been breakfasting with Wordsworth at -Baldock (and, strange enough! in years to come I _did_ breakfast -with Henry Mackenzie, for the solitary time I ever met him, and at -Wordsworth's house in Rydal), he would have carried off one sole -reminiscence from the meeting--namely, a confirmation of his creed, -that we English are all dedicated, from our very cradle, to the -luxuries of the palate, and peculiarly to this.[129] _Proh pudor!_ -Yet, in sad sincerity, Wordsworth's pencil-notices in books were quite -as disappointing. In "Roderick Random," for example, I found a note -upon a certain luscious description, to the effect that "such things -should be left to the imagination of the reader--not expressed." In -another place, that it was "improper"; and, in a third, that "the -principle laid down was doubtful," or, as Sir Roger de Coverley -observes, "that much might be said on both sides." All this, however, -indicates nothing more than that different men require to be roused -by different stimulants. Wordsworth, in his marginal notes, thought -of nothing but delivering himself of a strong feeling, with which -he wished to challenge the reader's sympathy. Coleridge imagined an -audience before him; and, however doubtful that consummation might -seem, I am satisfied that he never wrote a line for which he did -not feel the momentary inspiration of sympathy and applause, under -the confidence, that, sooner or later, all which he had committed -to the chance margins of books would converge and assemble in some -common reservoir of reception. Bread scattered upon the water will -be gathered after many days. This, perhaps, was the consolation that -supported him; and the prospect that, for a time, his Arethusa of -truth would flow underground, did not, perhaps, disturb, but rather -cheered and elevated, the sublime old somnambulist.[130] Meantime, -Wordsworth's habits of using books--which, I am satisfied, would, in -those days, alone have kept him at a distance from most men with fine -libraries--were not vulgar; not the habits of those who turn over the -page by means of a wet finger (though even this abomination I have -seen perpetrated by a Cambridge tutor and fellow of a college; but -then he had been bred up as a ploughman, and the son of a ploughman): -no; but his habits were more properly barbarous and licentious, and in -the spirit of audacity belonging _de jure_ to no man but him who could -plead an income of four or five hundred thousand per annum, and to whom -the Bodleian or the Vatican would be a three years' purchase. Gross, -meantime, was his delusion upon this subject. Himself he regarded as -the golden mean between the too little and the too much of care for -books; and, as it happened that every one of his friends far exceeded -him in this point, curiously felicitous was the explanation which he -gave of this superfluous care, so as to bring it within the natural -operation of some known fact in the man's peculiar situation. Southey -(he was by nature something of an old bachelor) had his house filled -with pretty articles--_bijouterie_, and so forth; and, naturally, -he wished his books to be kept up to the same level--burnished -and bright for show. Sir George Beaumont--this peculiarly elegant -and accomplished man--was an old and most affectionate friend of -Wordsworth's. Sir George Beaumont never had any children; if he had -been so blessed, they, by familiarizing him with the spectacle of -books ill used--stained, torn, mutilated, &c.--would have lowered the -standard of his requisitions. The short solution of the whole case -was--and it illustrated the nature of his education--he had never lived -in a regular family at a time when habits are moulded. From boyhood to -manhood he had been _sui juris_. - - [129] It is not known to the English, but it is a fact which I can - vouch for, from my six or seven years' residence in Scotland - [written in 1839], that the Scotch, one and all, believe it to be - an inalienable characteristic of an Englishman to be fond of good - eating. What indignation have I, and how many a time, had occasion - to feel and utter on this subject? But of this at some other time. - Meantime, the Man of Feeling had this creed in excess; and, in - some paper (of _The Mirror_ or _The Lounger_), he describes an - English tourist in Scotland by saying--"I would not wish to be - thought national; yet, in mere reverence for truth, I am bound to - say, and to declare to all the world (let who will be offended), - that the first innkeeper in Scotland under whose roof we met with - genuine buttered toast was an Englishman." - - [130] Meantime, if it did not disturb _him_, it ought to disturb - _us_, his immediate successors, who are at once the most likely to - retrieve these _losses_ by direct efforts, and the least likely to - benefit by any casual or indirect retrievals, such as will be - produced by time. Surely a subscription should be set on foot to - recover all books enriched by his marginal notes. I would - subscribe; and I know others who would largely. - - * * * * * - -Returning to Southey and Greta Hall, both the house and the master -may deserve a few words more of description. For the master, I have -already sketched his person; and his face I profess myself unable to -describe accurately. His hair was black, and yet his complexion was -fair; his eyes I believe to be hazel and large; but I will not vouch -for that fact: his nose aquiline; and he has a remarkable habit of -looking up into the air, as if looking at abstractions. The expression -of his face was that of a very acute and aspiring man. So far, it was -even noble, as it conveyed a feeling of a serene and gentle pride, -habitually familiar with elevating subjects of contemplation. And yet -it was impossible that this pride could have been offensive to anybody, -chastened as it was by the most unaffected modesty; and this modesty -made evident and prominent by the constant expression of reverence for -the great men of the age (when he happened to esteem them such), and -for all the great patriarchs of our literature. The point in which -Southey's manner failed the most in conciliating regard was in all -which related to the external expressions of friendliness. No man could -be more sincerely hospitable--no man more essentially disposed to give -up even his time (the possession which he most valued) to the service -of his friends. But there was an air of reserve and distance about -him--the reserve of a lofty, self-respecting mind, but, perhaps, a -little too freezing--in his treatment of all persons who were not among -the _corps_ of his ancient fireside friends. Still, even towards the -veriest strangers, it is but justice to notice his extreme courtesy in -sacrificing his literary employments for the day, whatever they might -be, to the duty (for such he made it) of doing the honours of the lake -and the adjacent mountains. - -Southey was at that time (1807), and has continued ever since, the most -industrious of all literary men on record. A certain task he prescribed -to himself every morning before breakfast. This could not be a very -long one, for he breakfasted at nine, or soon after, and _never_ rose -before eight, though he went to bed duly at half-past ten; but, as I -have many times heard him say, less than nine hours' sleep he found -insufficient. From breakfast to a latish dinner (about half after five -or six) was his main period of literary toil. After dinner, according -to the accident of having or not having visitors in the house, he sat -over his wine, or he retired to his library again, from which, about -eight, he was summoned to tea. But, generally speaking, he closed his -_literary_ toils at dinner; the whole of the hours after that meal -being dedicated to his correspondence. This, it may be supposed, was -unusually large, to occupy so much of his time, for his letters rarely -extended to any length. At that period, the post, by way of Penrith, -reached Keswick about six or seven in the evening. And so pointedly -regular was Southey in all his habits that, short as the time was, -all letters were answered on the same evening which brought them. At -tea, he read the London papers. It was perfectly astonishing to men of -less methodical habits to find how much he got through of elaborate -business by his unvarying system of arrangement in the distribution -of his time. We often hear it said, in accounts of pattern ladies and -gentlemen (what Coleridge used contemptuously to style _goody_ people), -that they found time for everything; that business never interrupted -pleasure; that labours of love and charity never stood in the way -of courtesy and personal enjoyment. This is easy to say--easy to put -down as one feature of an imaginary portrait: but I must say that in -actual life I have seen few such cases. Southey, however, _did_ find -time for everything. It moved the sneers of some people, that even his -poetry was composed according to a predetermined rule; that so many -lines should be produced, by contract, as it were, before breakfast; -so many at such another definite interval. And I acknowledge that so -far I went along with the sneerers as to marvel exceedingly how that -_could_ be possible. But, if _a priori_ one laughed and expected to -see verses corresponding to this mechanic rule of construction, _a -posteriori_ one was bound to judge of the verses as one found them. -Supposing them good, they were entitled to honour, no matter for the -previous reasons which made it possible that they would _not_ be good. -And generally, however undoubtedly they _ought_ to have been bad, the -world has pronounced them good. In fact, they _are_ good; and the sole -objection to them is, that they are too intensely _objective_--too much -reflect the mind, as spreading itself out upon external things--too -little exhibit the mind as introverting itself upon its own thoughts -and feelings. This, however, is an objection which only seems to limit -the range of the poetry--and all poetry _is_ limited in its range: none -comprehends more than a section of the human power. - -Meantime, the prose of Southey was that by which he lived. The -_Quarterly Review_ it was by which, as he expressed it to myself in -1810, he "_made the pot boil_."[131] About the same time, possibly -as early as 1808 (for I think that I remember in that Journal an -account of the Battle of Vimiera), Southey was engaged by an Edinburgh -publisher (Constable, was it not?) to write the entire historical part -of the _Edinburgh Annual Register_, at a salary of £400 per annum. -Afterwards, the publisher, who was intensely national, and, doubtless, -never from the first cordially relished the notion of importing -English aid into a city teeming with briefless barristers and variety -of talent, threw out a hint that perhaps he might reduce the salary -to £300. Just about this time I happened to see Southey, who said -laughingly--"If the man of Edinburgh does this, I shall _strike_ for an -advance of wages." I presume that he _did_ strike, and, like many other -"operatives," without effect. Those who work for lower wages during a -strike are called _snobs_,[132] the men who stand out being _nobs_. -Southey became a resolute nob; but some snob was found in Edinburgh, -some youthful advocate, who accepted £300 per annum, and thenceforward -Southey lost this part of his income. I once possessed the whole work: -and in one part, viz. the _Domestic Chronicle_, I know that it is -executed with a most culpable carelessness--the beginnings of cases -being given without the ends, the ends without the beginnings--a defect -but too common in public journals. The credit of the work, however, -was staked upon its treatment of the current public history of Europe, -and the tone of its politics in times so full of agitation, and -teeming with new births in every year, some fated to prove abortive, -but others bearing golden promises for the human race. Now, whatever -might be the talent with which Southey's successor performed his duty, -there was a loss in one point for which no talent of mere execution -could make amends. The very prejudices of Southey tended to unity of -feeling: they were in harmony with each other, and grew out of a strong -moral feeling, which is the one sole secret for giving interest to an -historical narration, fusing the incoherent details into one body, and -carrying the reader fluently along the else monotonous recurrences and -unmeaning details of military movements. - - [131] In De Quincey's imperfect reproduction of this paper in his - collective edition, he adds here:--"One single paper, for - instance--viz. a review of Nelson's life, which subsequently was - expanded into his very popular little book on that - subject--brought him the splendid honorarium of £150."--M. - - [132] See the Evidence before the House of Commons' Committee. [De - Quincey does not give the date, nor the occasion.--M.] - -Well or ill directed, a strong moral feeling, and a profound sympathy -with elementary justice, is that which creates a soul under what -else may well be denominated, Miltonically, "the ribs of death." Now -this, and a mind already made up even to obstinacy upon all public -questions, were the peculiar qualifications which Southey brought to -the task--qualifications not to be bought in any market, not to be -compensated by any amount of mere intellectual talent, and almost -impossible as the qualifications of a much younger man.[133] - - [133] See note, _Southey and the Edinburgh Annual Register_, - appended to this chapter.--M. - -As a pecuniary loss, though considerable, Southey was not unable to -support it; for he had a pension from Government before this time, and -under the following circumstances:--Charles Wynne, the brother of Sir -Watkin, the great autocrat of North Wales--that C. W. who is almost -equally well known for his knowledge of Parliamentary usage, which -pointed him out to the notice of the House as an eligible person to -fill the office of Speaker, and for his unfortunately shrill voice, -which chiefly it was that defeated his claim[134]--(in fact, as is -universally known, his brother and he, for different defects of -voice and utterance, are called _Bubble and Squeak_)--this C. W. had -believed himself to have been deeply indebted to Southey's high-toned -moral example, and to his wise counsels, during the time when both -were students at Oxford, for the fortunate direction given to his own -wavering impulses. This sense of obligation he endeavoured to express -by settling a pension upon Southey from his own funds. At length, upon -the death of Mr. Pitt, early in 1806, an opening was made for the Fox -and Grenville parties to come into office. Charles Wynne, as a person -connected by marriage with the house of Grenville, and united with them -in political opinions, shared in the golden shower; he also received a -place; and, upon the strength of his improving prospects, he married: -upon which it occurred to Southey, that it was no longer right to tax -the funds of one who was now called upon to support an establishment -becoming his rank. Under that impression he threw up his pension; and -upon _their_ part, to express their sense of what they considered a -delicate and honourable sacrifice, the Grenvilles placed Southey upon -the national pension list. - - [134] Sir Watkin, the elder brother, had a tongue too large for - his mouth; Mr. C. Wynne, the younger, had a shrill voice, which at - times rose into a scream. It became, therefore, a natural and - current jest, to call the two brothers by the name of a well-known - dish, viz. _bubble and squeak_. - -What might be the exact colour of Southey's political creed in this -year, 1807, it is difficult to say. The great revolution, in his way of -thinking upon such subjects, with which he has been so often upbraided -as something equal in delinquency to a deliberate tergiversation or -moral apostasy, could not have then taken place; and of this I am sure, -from the following little anecdote connected with this visit:--On the -day after my own arrival at Greta Hall, came Wordsworth following -upon my steps from Penrith. We dined and passed that evening with Mr. -Southey. The next morning, after breakfast, previously to leaving -Keswick, we were sitting in Southey's library; and he was discussing -with Wordsworth the aspect of public affairs: for my part, I was far -too diffident to take any part in such a conversation, for I had no -opinions at all upon politics, nor any interest in public affairs, -further than that I had a keen sympathy with the national honour, -gloried in the name of Englishman, and had been bred up in a frenzied -horror of jacobinism. Not having been old enough, at the first outbreak -of the French Revolution, to participate (as else, undoubtedly, I -should have done) in the golden hopes of its early dawn, my first -youthful introduction to foreign politics had been in seasons and -circumstances that taught me to approve of all I heard in abhorrence of -French excesses, and to worship the name of Pitt; otherwise my whole -heart had been so steadily fixed on a different world from the world of -our daily experience, that, for some years, I had never looked into a -newspaper; nor, if I cared something for the movement made by nations -from year to year, did I care one iota for their movement from week -to week. Still, careless as I was on these subjects, it sounded as a -novelty to me, and one which I had not dreamed of as a possibility, -to hear men of education and liberal pursuits--men, besides, whom I -regarded as so elevated in mind, and one of them as a person charmed -and consecrated from error--giving utterance to sentiments which seemed -absolutely disloyal. Yet now did I hear--and I heard with an emotion of -sorrow, but a sorrow that instantly gave way to a conviction that it -was myself who lay under a delusion, and simply because - - ----"from Abelard it came"-- - -opinions avowed most hostile to the reigning family; not personally -to them, but generally to a monarchical form of government. And that -I could not be mistaken in my impression, that my memory cannot have -played me false, is evident, from one relic of the conversation which -rested upon my ear, and has survived to this day [1839]--thirty and -two years from the time. It had been agreed, that no good was to be -hoped for, as respected England, until the royal family should be -expatriated; and Southey, jestingly considering to what country they -could be exiled, with mutual benefit for that country and themselves, -had supposed the case--that, with a large allowance of money, such as -might stimulate beneficially the industry of a rising colony, they -should be transported to New South Wales; which project, amusing his -fancy, he had, with the readiness and facility that characterizes his -mind, thrown _extempore_ into verse; speaking off, as an improvisatore, -about eight or ten lines, of which the three last I perfectly remember, -and they were these (by the way I should have mentioned that they took -the form of a petition addressed to the King):-- - - "Therefore, old George, by George we pray - Of thee forthwith to extend thy sway - Over the great Botanic Bay." - -The sole doubt I have about the exact words regards the second line, -which might have been (according to a various reading which equally -clings to my ear)-- - - "That thou would'st please to extend thy sway." - -But about the last I cannot be wrong; for I remember laughing with a -sense of something peculiarly droll in the substitution of the stilted -phrase--"_the great Botanic Bay_," for our ordinary week-day name -_Botany Bay_, so redolent of thieves and pickpockets. - -Southey walked with us that morning for about five miles on our road -towards Grasmere, which brought us to the southern side of Shoulthwaite -Moss, and into the sweet solitary little vale of Legbesthwaite. And, -by the way, he took leave of us at the gate of a house, one amongst -the very few (five or six in all) just serving to redeem that valley -from absolute solitude, which some years afterwards became, in a -slight degree, remarkable to me from two little incidents by which -it connected itself with my personal experiences. One was, perhaps, -scarcely worth recording. It was simply this--that Wordsworth and -myself having, through a long day's rambling, alternately walked and -rode with a friend of his who happened to have a travelling carriage -with him, and who was on his way to Keswick, agreed to wait hereabouts -until Wordsworth's friend, in his abundant kindness, should send back -his carriage to take us, on our return to Grasmere, distant about -eight miles. It was a lovely summer evening; but, as it happened that -we ate our breakfast early, and had eaten nothing at all throughout a -long summer's day, we agreed to "sorn" upon the goodman of the house, -whoever he might happen to be, Catholic or Protestant, Jew, Gentile, -or Mahometan, and to take any bone that he would be pleased to toss to -such hungry dogs as ourselves. Accordingly we repaired to his gate; -we knocked, and, forthwith it was opened to us by a man-mountain, -who listened benignantly to our humble request, and ushered us into -a comfortable parlour. All sorts of refreshments he continued to -shower upon us for a space of two hours: it became evident that our -introducer was the master of the house: we adored him in our thoughts -as an earthly providence to hungry wayfarers; and we longed to make his -acquaintance. But, for some inexplicable reason, that must continue -to puzzle all future commentators on Wordsworth and his history, he -never made his appearance. Could it be, we thought, that, without the -formality of a sign, he, in so solitary a region, more than twentyfive -miles distant from Kendal (the only town worthy of the name throughout -the adjacent country), exercised the functions of a landlord, and that -we ought to pay him for his most liberal hospitality? Never was such -a dilemma from the foundation of Legbesthwaite. To err, in either -direction, was damnable: to go off without paying, if he _were_ an -innkeeper, made us swindlers; to offer payment if he were not, and -supposing that he had been inundating us with his hospitable bounties -simply in the character of a natural-born gentleman, made us the most -unfeeling of mercenary ruffians. In the latter case we might expect a -duel; in the former, of course, the treadmill. We were deliberating -on this sad alternative, and I, for my part was voting in favour of -the treadmill, when the sound of wheels was heard, and, in one minute, -the carriage of his friend drew up to the farmer's gate; the crisis -had now arrived, and we perspired considerably; when in came the frank -Cumberland lass who had been our attendant. To her we propounded our -difficulty--and lucky it was we did so, for she assured us that her -master was an awful man, and would have "brained" us both if we had -insulted him with the offer of money. She, however, honoured us by -accepting the price of some female ornament. - -I made a memorandum at the time, to ascertain the peculiar taste of -this worthy Cumberland farmer, in order that I might, at some future -opportunity, express my thanks to him for his courtesy; but, alas! for -human resolutions, I have not done so to this moment; and is it likely -that he, perhaps sixty years old at that time (1813), is alive at -present, twenty-five years removed? Well, he _may_ be; though I think -_that_ exceedingly doubtful, considering the next anecdote relating to -the same house:--Two, or, it may be, three years after this time, I -was walking to Keswick, from my own cottage in Grasmere. The distance -was thirteen miles; the time just nine o'clock; the night a cloudy -moonlight, and intensely cold. I took the very greatest delight in -these nocturnal walks through the silent valleys of Cumberland and -Westmoreland; and often at hours far later than the present. What I -liked in this solitary rambling was, to trace the course of the evening -through its household hieroglyphics from the windows which I passed or -saw: to see the blazing fires shining through the windows of houses, -lurking in nooks far apart from neighbours; sometimes, in solitudes -that seemed abandoned to the owl, to catch the sounds of household -mirth; then, some miles further, to perceive the time of going to bed; -then the gradual sinking to silence of the house; then the drowsy -reign of the cricket; at intervals, to hear church-clocks or a little -solitary chapel-bell, under the brows of mighty hills, proclaiming -the hours of the night, and flinging out their sullen knells over -the graves where "the rude forefathers of the hamlet slept"--where -the strength and the loveliness of Elizabeth's time, or Cromwell's, -and through so many fleeting generations that have succeeded, had -long ago sunk to rest. Such was the sort of pleasure which I reaped -in my nightly walks--of which, however, considering the suspicions -of lunacy which it has sometimes awoke, the less I say, perhaps, the -better. Nine o'clock it was--and deadly cold as ever March night was -made by the keenest of black frosts, and by the bitterest of north -winds--when I drew towards the gate of our huge and hospitable friend. -A little garden there was before the house; and in the centre of this -garden was placed an arm-chair, upon which arm-chair was sitting -composedly--but I rubbed my eyes, doubting the very evidence of my own -eyesight--_a_ or _the_ huge man in his shirt-sleeves; yes, positively -not sunning but _mooning_ himself--apricating himself in the occasional -moonbeams; and, as if simple star-gazing from a sedentary station were -not sufficient on such a night, absolutely pursuing his astrological -studies, I repeat, in his shirt-sleeves! Could this be our hospitable -friend, the man-mountain? Secondly, was it any man at all? Might it -not be a scarecrow dressed up to frighten the birds? But from what--to -frighten them from what at that season of the year? Yet, again, it -might be an ancient scarecrow--a superannuated scarecrow, far advanced -in years. But, still, why should a scarecrow, young or old, sit in an -arm-chair? Suppose I were to ask. Yet, where was the use of asking a -scarecrow? And, if not a scarecrow, where was the safety of speaking -too inquisitively, on his own premises, to a man-mountain? The old -dilemma of the duel or the treadmill, if I should intrude upon his -grounds at night, occurred to me; and I watched the anomalous object -in silence for some minutes. At length the monster (for such at any -rate it was, scarecrow or not scarecrow) solemnly raised his hand to -his face, perhaps taking a pinch of snuff, and thereby settled one -question. But that settled only irritated my curiosity the more upon -a second: what hallucination of the brain was it that could induce a -living man to adopt so very absurd a line of conduct? Once I thought of -addressing him thus:--Might I presume so far upon your known courtesy -to wayfaring strangers as to ask--Is it the Devil who prompts you to -sit in your shirt-sleeves, as if meditating a _camisade_, or to woo -_al fresco_ pleasures on such a night as this? But, as Dr. Y., on -complaining that, whenever he looked out of the window, he was sure to -see Mr. X. lounging about the quadrangle, was effectually parried by -Mr. X. retorting that, whenever he lounged in the quadrangle, he was -sure to see the Doctor looking out of the window, so did I anticipate -a puzzling rejoinder from the former, with regard to my own motives -for haunting the roads as a nocturnal tramper, without a rational -object that I could make intelligible. I thought, also, of the fate -which attended the Calendars, and so many other notorious characters -in the "Arabian Nights," for unseasonable questions, or curiosity too -vivacious. And, upon the whole, I judged it advisable to pursue my -journey in silence, considering the time of night, the solitary place, -and the fancy of our enormous friend for "braining" those whom he -regarded as ugly customers. And thus it came about that this one house -has been loaded in my memory with a double mystery, that too probably -never _can_ be explained: and another torment had been prepared for the -curious of future ages. - -Of Southey, meantime, I had learned, upon this brief and hurried -visit, so much in confirmation or in extension of my tolerably just -preconceptions with regard to his character and manners, as left me not -a very great deal to add, and nothing at all to alter, through the many -years which followed of occasional intercourse with his family, and -domestic knowledge of his habits. A man of more serene and even temper -could not be imagined; nor more uniformly cheerful in his tone of -spirits; nor more unaffectedly polite and courteous in his demeanour to -strangers; nor more hospitable in his own wrong--I mean by the painful -sacrifices which hospitality entailed upon him of time so exceedingly -precious that, during his winter and spring months of solitude, or -whenever he was left absolute master of its distribution, every half -hour in the day had its peculiar duty. In the still "weightier matters -of the law," in cases that involved appeals to conscience and high -moral principle, I believe Southey to be as exemplary a man as can ever -have lived. Were it to his own instant ruin, I am satisfied that he -would do justice and fulfil his duty under any possible difficulties, -and through the very strongest temptations to do otherwise. For honour -the most delicate, for integrity the firmest, and for generosity within -the limits of prudence, Southey cannot well have a superior; and, -in the lesser moralities--those which govern the daily habits, and -transpire through the manners--he is certainly a better man--that is -(with reference to the minor principle concerned), a more _amiable_ -man--than Wordsworth. He is less capable, for instance, of usurping an -undue share of the conversation; he is more uniformly disposed to be -charitable in his transient colloquial judgments upon doubtful actions -of his neighbours; more gentle and winning in his condescensions to -inferior knowledge or powers of mind; more willing to suppose it -possible that he himself may have fallen into an error; more tolerant -of avowed indifference towards his own writings (though, by the way, I -shall have something to offer in justification of Wordsworth, upon this -charge); and, finally, if the reader will pardon a violent instance of -anti-climax, much more ready to volunteer his assistance in carrying a -lady's reticule or parasol. - -As a more _amiable_ man (taking that word partly in the French sense, -partly also in the loftier English sense), it might be imagined -that Southey would be a more eligible companion than Wordsworth. -But this is not so; and chiefly for three reasons which more than -counterbalance Southey's greater amiability: _first_, because the -natural reserve of Southey, which I have mentioned before, makes it -peculiarly difficult to place yourself on terms of intimacy with him; -_secondly_, because the range of his conversation is more limited -than that of Wordsworth--dealing less with life and the interests of -life--more exclusively with books; _thirdly_, because the style of his -conversation is less flowing and diffusive--less expansive--more apt to -clothe itself in a keen, sparkling, aphoristic form--consequently much -sooner and more frequently coming to an abrupt close. A sententious, -epigrammatic form of delivering opinions has a certain effect of -_clenching_ a subject, which makes it difficult to pursue it without -a corresponding smartness of expression, and something of the same -antithetic point and equilibration of clauses. Not that the reader -is to suppose in Southey a showy master of rhetoric and colloquial -sword-play, seeking to strike and to dazzle by his brilliant hits or -adroit evasions. The very opposite is the truth. He seeks, indeed, to -be effective, not for the sake of display, but as the readiest means -of retreating from display, and the necessity for display: feeling -that his station in literature and his laurelled honours make him a -mark for the curiosity and interest of the company--that a standing -appeal is constantly turning to him for his opinion--a latent call -always going on for his voice on the question of the moment--he is -anxious to comply with this requisition at as slight a cost as may be -of thought and time. His heart is continually reverting to his wife, -viz. his library; and, that he may waste as little effort as possible -upon his conversational exercises--that the little he wishes to say -may appear pregnant with much meaning--he finds it advantageous, and, -moreover, the style of his mind naturally prompts him, to adopt a -trenchant, pungent, aculeated form of terse, glittering, stenographic -sentences--sayings which have the air of laying down the law without -any _locus penitentiæ_ or privilege of appeal, but are not meant to do -so; in short, aiming at brevity for the company as well as for himself, -by cutting off all opening for discussion and desultory talk through -the sudden winding up that belongs to a sententious aphorism. The -hearer feels that "the record is closed"; and he has a sense of this -result as having been accomplished by something like an oracular laying -down of the law _ex cathedra_: but this is an indirect collateral -impression from Southey's manner, and far from the one he meditates or -wishes. An oracular manner he does certainly affect in certain dilemmas -of a languishing or loitering conversation; not the peremptoriness, -meantime, not the imperiousness of the oracle is what he seeks for, but -its brevity, its dispatch, its conclusiveness. - -Finally, as a fourth reason why Southey is less fitted for a genial -companion than Wordsworth, his spirits have been, of late years, in -a lower key than those of the latter. The tone of Southey's animal -spirits was never at any time raised beyond the standard of an ordinary -sympathy; there was in him no tumult, no agitation of passion; -his organic and constitutional sensibilities were healthy, sound, -perhaps strong--but not profound, not excessive. Cheerful he was, and -animated at all times; but he levied no tributes on the spirits or the -feelings beyond what all people could furnish. One reason why his -bodily temperament never, like that of Wordsworth, threw him into a -state of tumultuous excitement which required intense and elaborate -conversation to work off the excessive fervour, was, that, over and -above his far less fervid constitution of mind and body, Southey -rarely took any exercise; he led a life as sedentary, except for the -occasional excursions in summer (extorted from his sense of kindness -and hospitality), as that of a city tailor. And it was surprising to -many people, who did not know by experience the prodigious effect upon -the mere bodily health of regular and congenial mental labour, that -Southey should be able to maintain health so regular, and cheerfulness -so uniformly serene. Cheerful, however, he was, in those early years of -my acquaintance with him; but it was manifest to a thoughtful observer -that his golden equanimity was bound up in a threefold chain,--in a -conscience clear of all offence, in the recurring enjoyments from -his honourable industry, and in the gratification of his parental -affections. If any one cord should give way, there (it seemed) would -be an end to Southey's tranquillity. He had a son at that time, -Herbert[135] Southey, a child in petticoats when I first knew him, very -interesting even then, but annually putting forth fresh blossoms of -unusual promise, that made even indifferent people fear for the safety -of one so finely organized, so delicate in his sensibilities, and so -prematurely accomplished. As to his father, it became evident that -he lived almost in the light of young Herbert's smiles, and that the -very pulses of his heart played in unison to the sound of his son's -laughter. There was in his manner towards this child, and towards this -only, something that marked an excess of delirious doating, perfectly -unlike the ordinary chastened movements of Southey's affections; and -something also which indicated a vague fear about him; a premature -unhappiness, as if already the inaudible tread of calamity could be -perceived, as if already he had lost him; which, for the latter years -of the boy's life, seemed to poison the blessing of his presence. - - [135] Why he was called Herbert, if my young readers inquire, I - must reply, that I do not precisely know; because I know of - reasons too many by half why he might have been so called. Derwent - Coleridge, the second son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and first - cousin of Herbert Southey, was so called from the Lake of Keswick, - commonly styled Derwent Water, which gave the title of Earl to the - noble, and the noble-minded, though erring, family of the - Radcliffes, who gave up, like heroes and martyrs, their lives and - the finest estates in England for one who was incapable of - appreciating the service. One of the islands on this lake is - dedicated to St. Herbert, and this _might_ have given a name to - Southey's first-born child. But it is more probable that he - derived this name from Dr. Herbert, uncle to the laureate. - -A stronger evidence I cannot give of Southey's trembling -apprehensiveness about this child than that the only rude thing I ever -knew him to do, the only discourteous thing, was done on his account. -A party of us, chiefly composed of Southey's family and his visitors, -were in a sailboat upon the lake. Herbert was one of this party; and at -that time not above five or six years old. In landing upon one of the -islands, most of the gentlemen were occupied in assisting the ladies -over the thwarts of the boat; and one gentleman, merely a stranger, -observing this, good-naturedly took up Herbert in his arms, and was -stepping with him most carefully from thwart to thwart, when Southey, -in a perfect frenzy of anxiety for his boy, his "moon" as he used to -call him (I suppose from some pun of his own, or some mistake of the -child's upon the equivocal word _sun_), rushed forward, and tore him -out of the arms of the stranger without one word of apology; nor, -in fact, under the engrossing panic of the moment, lest an unsteady -movement along with the rocking and undulating of the boat should throw -his little boy overboard into the somewhat stormy waters of the lake, -did Southey become aware of his own exceedingly discourteous action: -fear for his boy quelled his very power of perception. _That_ the -stranger, on reflection, understood; a race of emotions travelled over -his countenance. I saw the whole, a silent observer from the shore. -First a hasty blush of resentment mingled with astonishment: then a -good-natured smile of indulgence to the _naïveté_ of the paternal -feeling as displaying itself in the act, and the accompanying gestures -of frenzied impatience; finally, a considerate, grave expression of -acquiescence in the whole act; but with a pitying look towards father -and son, as too probably destined under such agony of affection to -trials perhaps insupportable. If I interpreted aright the stranger's -feelings, he did not read their destinies amiss. Herbert became, with -his growing years, a child of more and more hope; but, therefore, the -object of more and more fearful solicitude. He read, and read; and he -became at last - - "A very learned youth"-- - -to borrow a line from his uncle's beautiful poem on the wild boy who -fell into a heresy whilst living under the patronage of a Spanish -grandee, and finally escaped from a probable martyrdom by sailing up a -great American river, wide as any sea, after which he was never heard -of again. The learned youth of the river Greta had an earlier and -more sorrowful close to his career. Possibly from want of exercise, -combined with inordinate exercise of the cerebral organs, a disease -gradually developed itself in the heart. It was not a mere disorder -in the functions, it was a disease in the structure of the organ, and -admitted of no permanent relief, consequently of no final hope. He -died[136]; and with him died for ever the golden hopes, the radiant -felicity, and the internal serenity, of the unhappy father. It was from -Southey himself, speaking without external signs of agitation, calmly, -dispassionately, almost coldly, but with the coldness of a settled -despondency, that I heard, whilst accompanying him through Grasmere -on his road homewards to Keswick from some visit he had been paying -to Wordsworth at Rydal Mount, his settled feelings and convictions as -connected with that loss. For _him_, in this world, he said, happiness -there could be none; for his tenderest affections, the very deepest by -many degrees which he had ever known, were now buried in the grave with -his youthful and too brilliant Herbert! - - [136] On the 17th of April 1816, aged ten years.--M. - - - SOUTHEY AND THE _EDINBURGH ANNUAL REGISTER_ - -De Quincey's recollection of the _Edinburgh Annual Register_ in -connexion with Southey is altogether erroneous. Though there had been -a project of some periodical of the kind by the Constable publishing -house as early as 1807, the enterprise was not started till 1809, -and then not by Constable at all, but actually in opposition to -Constable by the new Edinburgh publishing house of John Ballantyne,--or -rather, one might say, of Scott and Ballantyne, for Scott (secretly -Ballantyne's partner already for a long while in his printing business) -was Ballantyne's real backer and principal in the whole of this new -concern. In a letter of Scott's to his friend Merritt, of date 14th -January 1809, after announcing the great fact that a _Quarterly Review_ -was forthcoming to counteract the _Edinburgh_, he adds:--"Then, sir, -to turn the flank of Messrs. Constable and Co., and to avenge myself -of certain impertinences which, in the vehemence of their Whiggery, -they have dared to indulge in towards me, I have prepared to start -against them at Whitsunday first the celebrated printer Ballantyne, -with a long purse ['the purse was, alas! Scott's own,' Lockhart notes -at this point] and a sound political creed, not to mention an alliance -offensive and defensive with young John Murray of Fleet Street, the -most enlightened and active of the London trade. By this means I hope -to counterbalance the predominating influence of Constable and Co., -who at present have it in their power and inclination to forward or -suppress any book as they approve or dislike its political tendency. -Lastly, I have caused the said Ballantyne to venture upon an _Edinburgh -Annual Register_, of which I send you a prospectus. I intend to help -him myself as far as time will admit, and hope to procure him many -respectable coadjutors." In another letter, written just a fortnight -previously, Scott had broached the subject of the new _Annual Register_ -to his friend Kirkpatrick Sharpe, intimating that, though Ballantyne -would be the managing editor, with himself for the real editor in -the background, all the more important contributions would be from -selected hands, and that, as the historical department was the most -important,--a luminous picture of the current events of the world from -year to year being "a task for a man of genius,"--they proposed to -give their "historian" £300 a year,--"no deaf nuts," adds Scott, in -comment on the sum. A certain eminent person had already been offered -the post, Scott proceeds; but, should "the great man" decline, would -Kirkpatrick Sharpe himself accept it? The "great man" was Southey; he -did accept; and for some years he had the accredited charge of the -historical department of the _Register_. From the first, however, the -venture did not pay; and, the loss upon it having gone on for some -time at the rate of £1000 a year, Scott,--who had been tending to a -reconciliation with Constable on other grounds,--was glad when, in -1813, Constable took a portion of the burden of the concern off his -hands. It is possible that this accession of Constable to a share in -the management, and some consequent retrenchment of expenses, may have -had something to do with Southey's resignation of his connexion with -the _Register_. Not, however, till 1815, if we may trust Lockhart's -dating, did that resignation take place,--for, in Lockhart's narrative -for the following year, 1816, where he notes that Scott had stepped -in for the rescue of the _Register_ by himself undertaking to do its -arrears in the historical department, he gives the reasons thus:--"Mr. -Southey had, for reasons on which I do not enter, discontinued his -services to that work; and it was now doubly necessary, after trying -for one year a less eminent hand, that, if the work were not to be -dropped altogether, some strenuous exertion should be made to sustain -its character."--From all this it will be seen that De Quincey is wrong -in his fancy that the proposal to reduce Southey's salary (from £400 to -£300, he says, but was it not £300 from the first?) was a mere device -for getting rid of him because he was an Englishman, and because a -Scottish "snob" of the Parliament House could be got to do the work -at a cheaper rate; or, at all events, that he is wrong in attributing -the shabbiness to Constable and the Whigs in Edinburgh. Southey's own -fellow-Tory Scott was still supreme in the conduct of the _Register_, -though he might take Constable's advice in all matters of its financial -administration; and, if Constable advised, among other things, a -reduction of Southey's salary in the historical department, that was -but natural in the circumstances, and Scott probably acquiesced.--In -fact, by this time the contributorship to the _Edinburgh Annual -Register_, always a drudgery, must have been of less consequence to -Southey than it had been. In November 1813 he had been appointed to the -office of Poet-Laureate, then vacant by the death of Henry James Pye; -and the salary attached to that sinecure, though small, was something. -On the 13th of that month Scott, who had declined the office for -himself and had strongly recommended Southey, and who was then still -virtually Southey's paymaster for his services in the _Edinburgh Annual -Register_, had written his congratulations to Southey, with his regrets -that the Laureateship was not better worth his while.--D. M. - - - - - CHAPTER V - - THE LAKE POETS: SOUTHEY, WORDSWORTH, AND COLERIDGE[137] - - [137] From _Tait's Magazine_ for August 1839. See explanation in - Preface to this volume.--M. - - -A circumstance which, as much as anything, expounded to every eye the -characteristic distinctions between Wordsworth and Southey, and would -not suffer a stranger to forget it for a moment, was the insignificant -place and consideration allowed to the small book-collection of the -former, contrasted with the splendid library of the latter. The two -or three hundred volumes of Wordsworth occupied a little, homely, -painted book-case, fixed into one of two shallow recesses, formed on -each side of the fireplace by the projection of the chimney in the -little sitting-room up stairs which he had already described as his -half kitchen and half parlour. They were ill bound, or not bound at -all--in boards, sometimes in tatters; many were imperfect as to the -number of volumes, mutilated as to the number of pages; sometimes, -where it seemed worth while, the defects being supplied by manuscript; -sometimes not: in short, everything showed that the books were for use, -and not for show; and their limited amount showed that their possessor -must have independent sources of enjoyment to fill up the major part -of his time. In reality, when the weather was tolerable, I believe -that Wordsworth rarely resorted to his books (unless, perhaps, to some -little pocket edition of a poet which accompanied him in his rambles) -except in the evenings, or after he had tired himself by walking. On -the other hand, Southey's collection occupied a separate room, the -largest, and every way the most agreeable in the house; and this room -was styled, and not ostentatiously (for it really merited that name), -the Library. The house itself, Greta Hall, stood upon a little eminence -(as I have before mentioned), overhanging the river Greta. There was -nothing remarkable in its internal arrangements. In all respects it -was a very plain, unadorned family dwelling: large enough, by a little -contrivance, to accommodate two, or, in some sense, three families, -viz. Mr. Southey and _his_ family, Mr. Coleridge and _his_, together -with Mrs. Lovell, who, when her son was with her, might be said to -compose a third. Mrs. Coleridge, Mrs. Southey, and Mrs. Lovell were -sisters; all having come originally from Bristol; and, as the different -sets of children in this one house had each three several aunts, all -the ladies, by turns, assuming that relation twice over, it was one -of Southey's many amusing jests, to call the hill on which Greta Hall -was placed the _ant-hill_. Mrs. Lovell was the widow of Mr. Robert -Lovell, who had published a volume of poems, in conjunction with -Southey, somewhere about the year 1797, under the signatures of Bion -and Moschus. This lady, having only one son, did not require any large -suite of rooms; and the less so, as her son quitted her at an early -age, to pursue a professional education. The house had, therefore, been -divided (not by absolute partition into two distinct[138] apartments, -but by an amicable distribution of rooms) between the two families of -Mr. Coleridge and Mr. Southey; Mr. Coleridge had a separate study, -which was distinguished by nothing except by an organ amongst its -furniture, and by a magnificent view from its window (or windows), -if that could be considered a distinction in a situation whose local -necessities presented you with magnificent objects in whatever -direction you might happen to turn your eyes. - - [138] "_Into two distinct apartments_":--The word apartment, - meaning, in effect, a compartment of a house, already includes, in - its proper sense, a suite of rooms; and it is a mere vulgar error, - arising out of the ambitious usage of lodging-house keepers, to - talk of one family or an establishment occupying apartments in the - plural. The Queen's apartment at St. James's or at Versailles--not - the Queen's apartments--is the correct expression. - -In the morning, the two families might live apart; but they met -at dinner, and in a common drawing-room; and Southey's library, in -both senses of the word, was placed at the service of all the ladies -alike. However, they did not intrude upon him, except in cases where -they wished for a larger reception room, or a more interesting place -for suggesting the topics of conversation. Interesting this room -was, indeed, and in a degree not often rivalled. The library--the -collection of books, I mean, which formed the most conspicuous part -of its furniture within--was in all senses a good one. The books were -chiefly English, Spanish, and Portuguese; well selected, being the -great cardinal classics of the three literatures; fine copies, and -decorated externally with a reasonable elegance, so as to make them -in harmony with the other embellishments of the room. This effect -was aided by the horizontal arrangement upon brackets of many rare -manuscripts--Spanish or Portuguese. Made thus gay within, this room -stood in little need of attractions from without. Yet, even upon the -gloomiest day of winter, the landscape from the different windows was -too permanently commanding in its grandeur, too essentially independent -of the seasons or the pomp of woods, to fail in fascinating the gaze of -the coldest and dullest of spectators. The lake of Derwent Water in one -direction, with its lovely islands--a lake about ten miles in circuit, -and shaped pretty much like a boy's kite; the lake of Bassinthwaite -in another; the mountains of Newlands, arranging themselves like -pavilions; the gorgeous confusion of Borrowdale just revealing its -sublime chaos through the narrow vista of its gorge: all these objects -lay in different angles to the front; whilst the sullen rear, not -fully visible on this side of the house, was closed for many a league -by the vast and towering masses of Skiddaw and Blencathara--mountains -which are rather to be considered as frontier barriers, and chains of -hilly ground, cutting the county of Cumberland into great chambers and -different climates, than as insulated eminences, so vast is the area -which they occupy; though there _are_ also such separate and insulated -heights, and nearly amongst the highest in the country. Southey's lot -had therefore fallen, locally considered, into a goodly heritage. -This grand panorama of mountain scenery, so varied, so expansive, -and yet having the delightful feeling about it of a deep seclusion -and dell-like sequestration from the world--a feeling which, in the -midst of so expansive an area spread out below his windows, could not -have been sustained by any barriers less elevated than Glaramara, -Skiddaw, or (which could be also descried) "the mighty Helvellyn and -Catchedicam,"--this congregation of hill and lake, so wide, and yet so -prison-like in its separation from all beyond it, lay for ever under -the eyes of Southey. His position locally, and, in some respects, -intellectually, reminded one of Gibbon: but with great advantage in -the comparison to Southey. The little town of Keswick and its adjacent -lake bore something of the same relation to mighty London that Geneva -and its lake may be thought to bear towards brilliant Paris. Southey, -like Gibbon, was a miscellaneous scholar; he, like Gibbon, of vast -historical research; he, like Gibbon, signally industrious, and -patient, and elaborate in collecting the materials for his historical -works. Like Gibbon, he had dedicated a life of competent ease, in a -pecuniary sense, to literature; like Gibbon, he had gathered to the -shores of a beautiful lake, remote from great capitals, a large, or, at -least, sufficient library (in each case, I believe, the library ranged, -as to numerical amount, between seven and ten thousand); and, like -Gibbon, he was the most accomplished _littérateur_ amongst the erudite -scholars of his time, and the most of an erudite scholar amongst the -accomplished _littérateurs_. After all these points of agreement -known, it remains as a pure advantage on the side of Southey--a mere -_lucro ponatur_--that he was a poet; and, by all men's confession, a -respectable poet, brilliant in his descriptive powers, and fascinating -in his narration, however much he might want of - - "The vision and the faculty divine." - -It is remarkable amongst the series of parallelisms that have been -or might be pursued between two men, that both had the honour of -retreating from a parliamentary life[139]; Gibbon, after some silent -and inert experience of that warfare; Southey, with a prudent foresight -of the ruin to his health and literary usefulness, won from the -experience of his nearest friends. - - [139] It illustrated the national sense of Southey's comprehensive - talents, and of his political integrity, that Lord Radnor (the - same who, under the courtesy title of Lord Folkestone, had - distinguished himself for very democratic politics in the House of - Commons, and had even courted the technical designation of - _radical_) was the man who offered to bring in Southey for a - borough dependent on _his_ influence. Sir Robert Peel, under the - same sense of Southey's merits, had offered him a baronetcy. Both - honours were declined, on the same prudential considerations, and - with the same perfect disregard of all temptations from personal - vanity. - - * * * * * - -I took leave of Southey in 1807, at the descent into the vale of -Legbesthwaite, as I have already noticed. One year afterwards, I -became a permanent resident in his neighbourhood; and, although, on -various accounts, my intercourse with him was at no time very strict, -partly from the very uncongenial constitution of my own mind, and the -different direction of my studies, partly from my reluctance to levy -any tax on time so precious and so fully employed, I was yet on such -terms for the next ten or eleven years that I might, in a qualified -sense, call myself his friend. - -Yes! there were long years through which Southey might respect me, -I _him_. But the years came--for I have lived too long, reader, in -relation to many things! and the report of me would have been better, -or more uniform at least, had I died some twenty years ago--the years -came in which circumstances made me an Opium Eater; years through -which a shadow as of sad eclipse sate and rested upon my faculties; -years through which I was careless of all but those who lived within -_my_ inner circle, within "my hearts of hearts"; years--ah! heavenly -years!--through which I lived, beloved, _with_ thee, _to_ thee, _for_ -thee, _by_ thee! Ah! happy, happy years! in which I was a mere football -of reproach, but in which every wind and sounding hurricane of wrath -or contempt flew by like chasing enemies past some defying gates of -adamant, and left me too blessed in thy smiles--angel of life!--to -heed the curses or the mocking which sometimes I heard raving outside -of our impregnable Eden. What any man said of me in those days, what -he thought, did I ask? did I care? Then it was, or nearly then, that -I ceased to see, ceased to hear of Southey; as much abstracted from -all which concerned the world outside, and from the Southeys, or even -the Coleridges, in its van, as though I had lived with the darlings of -my heart in the centre of Canadian forests, and all men else in the -centre of Hindostan. - - * * * * * - -But, before I part from Greta Hall and its distinguished master, one -word let me say, to protect myself from the imputation of sharing -in some peculiar opinions of Southey, with respect to political -economy, which have been but too familiar to the world, and some -opinions of the world, hardly less familiar, with respect to Southey -himself and his accomplishments. Probably, with respect to the first, -before this paper will be made public, I shall have sufficiently -vindicated my own opinions in these matters by a distinct treatment -of some great questions which lie at the base of all sound political -economy; above all, the radical question of value, upon which no man -has ever seen the full truth except Mr. Ricardo; and, unfortunately, -he had but little of the _polemic_[140] skill which is required to -meet the errors of his opponents. For it is noticeable that the most -conspicuous of those opponents, viz. Mr. Malthus, though too much, I -fear, actuated by a spirit of jealousy, and therefore likely enough -to have scattered sophistry and disingenuous quibbling over the -subject, had no need whatever of any further confusion for darkening -and perplexing his themes than what inevitably belonged to his own -most chaotic understanding. He and Say, the Frenchman, were both -plagued by understandings of the same quality--having a clear vision -in shallow waters, and this misleading them into the belief that they -saw with equal clearness through the remote and the obscure; whereas, -universally, their acuteness is like that of Hobbes--the gift of -shallowness, and the result of _not_ being subtle or profound enough to -apprehend the true _locus_ of the difficulty; and the barriers, which -to them limit the view, and give to it, together with the contraction, -all the distinctness and definite outline of limitation, are, in nine -cases out of ten, the product of their own defective and aberrating -vision, and not real barriers at all. - - [140] "_Polemic_ skill":--The word polemic is falsely interpreted - by the majority of mere English readers. Having seldom seen it - used except in a case of theological controversy, they fancy that - it has some original and etymological appropriation to such a use; - whereas it expresses, with regard to _all_ subjects, without - restriction, the functions of the debater as opposed to those of - the original orator; the functions of him who meets error and - unravels confusion or misrepresentation, opposed to those of him - who lays down the abstract truth: truth absolute and without - relation to the modes of viewing it. As well might the word - _Radical_ be limited to a political use as _Polemic_ to - controversial divinity. - -Meantime, until I write fully and deliberately upon this subject, I -shall observe, simply, that all "the Lake Poets," as they are called, -were not only in error, but most presumptuously in error, upon these -subjects. They were ignorant of every principle belonging to every -question alike in political economy, and they were obstinately bent -upon learning nothing; they were all alike too proud to acknowledge -that any man knew better than they, unless it were upon some purely -professional subject, or some art remote from all intellectual -bearings, such as conferred no honour in its possession. Wordsworth was -the least tainted with error upon political economy; and that because -he rarely applied his thoughts to any question of that nature, and, in -fact, despised every study of a moral or political aspect, unless it -drew its materials from such revelations of truth as could be won from -the _prima philosophia_ of human nature approached with the poet's eye. -Coleridge was the one whom Nature and his own multifarious studies had -the best qualified for thinking justly on a theme such as this; but he -also was shut out from the possibility of knowledge by presumption, and -the habit of despising all the analytic studies of his own day--a habit -for which he certainly had some warrant in the peculiar feebleness -of all that has offered itself for _philosophy_ in modern England. -In particular, the religious discussions of the age, which touch -inevitably at every point upon the profounder philosophy of man and his -constitution, had laid bare the weakness of his own age to Coleridge's -eye; and, because all was hollow and trivial in this direction, he -chose to think that it was so in every other. And hence he has laid -himself open to the just scoffs of persons far inferior to himself. -In a foot-note in some late number of the _Westminster Review_, it -is most truly asserted (not in these words, but to this effect) that -Coleridge's "Table Talk" exhibits a superannuation of error fit only -for two centuries before. And what gave peculiar point to this display -of ignorance was, that Coleridge did not, like Wordsworth, dismiss -political economy from his notice disdainfully, as a puerile tissue -of truisms, or of falsehoods not less obvious, but actually addressed -himself to the subject; fancied he had made discoveries in the science; -and even promised us a systematic work on its whole compass. - -To give a sample of this new and reformed political economy, it cannot -well be necessary to trouble the reader with more than one chimera -culled from those which Mr. Coleridge first brought forward in his -early model of "The Friend." He there propounds, as an original -hypothesis of his own, that taxation never burthens a people, or, as -a mere possibility, _can_ burthen a people simply by its amount. And -why? Surely it draws from the purse of him who pays the quota a sum -which it may be very difficult or even ruinous for him to pay, were it -no more important in a public point of view than as so much deducted -from his own unproductive expenditure, and which may happen to have -even a national importance if it should chance to be deducted from -the funds destined to productive industry. What is Mr. Coleridge's -answer to these little objections? Why, thus: the latter case he -evades entirely, apparently not adverting to it as a case in any -respect distinguished from the other; and this other--how is _that_ -answered? Doubtless, says Mr. Coleridge, it may be inconvenient to -John or Samuel that a sum of money, otherwise disposable for their own -separate uses, should be abstracted for the purchase of bayonets, or -grape-shot; but with this the public, the commonwealth, have nothing -to do, any more than with the losses at a gaming-table, where A's loss -is B's gain--the total funds of the nation remaining exactly the same. -It is, in fact, nothing but the accidental distribution of the funds -which is affected--possibly for the worse (no other "worse," however, -is contemplated than shifting it into hands less deserving), but, -also, by possibility, for the better; and the better and the worse -may be well supposed, in the long run, to balance each other. And -that this is Mr. Coleridge's meaning cannot be doubted, upon looking -into his illustrative image in support of it: he says that money -raised by Government in the shape of taxes is like moisture exhaled -from the earth--doubtless, for the moment injurious to the crops, but -reacting abundantly for their final benefit when returning in the -shape of showers. So natural, so obvious, so inevitable, by the way, -is this conceit (or, to speak less harshly, this hypothesis), and so -equally natural, obvious, and inevitable is the illustration from the -abstraction and restoration of moisture, the exhalations and rains -which affect this earth of ours, like the systole and the diastole of -the heart, the flux and reflux of the ocean, that precisely the same -doctrine, and precisely the same exemplification of the doctrine, -is to be found in a Parliamentary speech[141] of some orator in the -famous Long Parliament about the year 1642. And to my mind it was a -bitter humiliation to find, about 150 years afterwards, in a shallow -French work, the famous "_Compte Rendu_" of the French Chancellor of -the Exchequer (Comptroller of the Finances) Neckar--in that work, most -humiliating it was to me, on a certain day, that I found this idle -Coleridgian fantasy, not merely repeated, as it had been by scores--not -merely anticipated by full twenty and two years, so that these French -people had been beforehand with him, and had made Coleridge, to all -appearance, their plagiarist, but also (hear it, ye gods!) answered, -satisfactorily refuted, by this very feeble old sentimentalist, Neckar. -Yes; positively Neckar, the slipshod old system-fancier and political -driveller, had been so much above falling into the shallow snare, that -he had, on sound principles, exposed its specious delusions. Coleridge, -the subtlest of men in his proper walk, had brought forward, as a -novel hypothesis of his own, in 1810, what Neckar, the rickety old -charlatan, had scarcely condescended, in a hurried foot-note, to expose -as a vulgar error and the shallowest of sophisms in 1787-88. There was -another enormous blunder which Coleridge was constantly authorizing, -both in his writings and his conversation. Quoting a passage from Sir -James Stuart, in which he speaks of a vine-dresser as adding nothing to -the public wealth, unless his labour did something more than replace -his own consumption--that is, unless it reproduced it together with a -profit; he asks contemptuously, whether the happiness and moral dignity -that may have been exhibited in the vine-dresser's family are to pass -for nothing? And then he proceeds to abuse the economists, because -they take no account of such important considerations. Doubtless these -are invaluable elements of social grandeur, in a _total_ estimate -of those elements. But what has political economy to do with them, -a science openly professing to insulate, and to treat apart from -all other constituents of national well-being, those which concern -the production and circulation of wealth?[142] So far from gaining -anything by enlarging its field in the way demanded by Coleridge's -critic, political economy would be as idly travelling out of the limits -indicated and held forth in its very name, as if logic were to teach -ethics, or ethics to teach diplomacy. With respect to the Malthusian -doctrine of population, it is difficult to know who was the true -proprietor of the arguments urged against it sometimes by Southey, -sometimes by Coleridge. Those used by Southey are chiefly to be found -up and down the _Quarterly Review_. But a more elaborate attack was -published by Hazlitt; and this must be supposed to speak the peculiar -objections of Coleridge, for he was in the habit of charging Hazlitt -with having pillaged his conversation, and occasionally garbled it -throughout the whole of this book. One single argument there was, -undoubtedly just, and it was one which others stumbled upon no less -than Coleridge, exposing the fallacy of the supposed different laws -of increase for vegetable and animal life. But, though this frail -prop withdrawn took away from Mr. Malthus's theory all its scientific -rigour, the main _practical_ conclusions were still valid as respected -any argument from the Lakers; for the strongest of these arguments that -ever came to my knowledge was a mere appeal--not _ad verecundiam_, in -the ordinary sense of the phrase, but _ad honestatem_, as if it were -shocking to the _honestum_ of Roman ethics (the _honnêteté_ of French -minor ethics) that the check derived from self-restraint should not be -supposed amply competent to redress all the dangers from a redundant -population under any certain knowledge generally diffused that such -dangers existed. But these are topics which it is sufficient in this -place to have noticed _currente calamo_. I was anxious, however, to -protest against the probable imputation that I, because generally so -intense an admirer of these men, adopted their blind and hasty reveries -in political economy. - - [141] Reported at length in a small quarto volume, of the well - known quarto size so much in use for Tracts, Pamphlets, &c., - throughout the life of Milton--1608-74. - - [142] In fact, the exposure is as perfect in the case of an - individual as in that of a nation, and more easily apprehended. - Levy from an individual clothier £1000 in taxes, and afterwards - return to him the whole of this sum in payment for the clothing of - a regiment. Then, supposing profits to be at the rate of 15 per - cent, he will have replaced £150 of his previous loss; even his - gains will simply reinstate him in something that he had lost, and - the remaining £850 will continue to be a dead loss; since the £850 - restored to him exactly replaces, by the terms of this case, his - disbursements in wages and materials; if it did more, profits - would not be at 15 per cent, according to the supposition. But - Government may spend _more_ than the £1000 with this clothier; - they may spend £10,000. Doubtless, and in that case, on the same - supposition as to profits, he will receive £1500 as a nominal - gain; and £500 will be a real gain, marked with the positive sign - (+). But such a case would only prove that nine other taxpayers, - to an equal amount, had been left without any reimbursement at - all. Strange that so clear a case for an individual should become - obscure when it regards a nation. - -There were (and perhaps more justly I might say there are) two other -notions currently received about Southey, one of which is altogether -erroneous, and the other true only in a limited sense. The first is -the belief that he belonged to what is known as the Lake school in -poetry; with respect to which all that I need say in this place is -involved in his own declaration frankly made to myself in Easedale, -during the summer of 1812: that he considered Wordsworth's theory of -poetic diction, and still more his principles as to the selection of -subjects, and as to what constituted a poetic treatment, as founded on -error. There is certainly some community of phraseology between Southey -and the other Lakers, naturally arising out of their joint reverence -for Scriptural language: this was a field in which they met in common: -else it shows but little discernment and power of valuing the essences -of things, to have classed Southey in the same school with Wordsworth -and Coleridge. The other popular notion about Southey which I conceive -to be expressed with much too little limitation regards his style. -He has been praised, and justly, for his plain, manly, unaffected -English, until the parrot echoers of other men's judgments, who adopt -all they relish with undistinguishing blindness, have begun to hold -him up as a great master of his own language, and a classical model -of fine composition. Now, if the error were only in the degree, it -would not be worth while to notice it; but the truth is, that Southey's -defects in this particular power are as striking as his characteristic -graces. Let a subject arise--and almost in any path there is a ready -possibility that it should--in which a higher tone is required, of -splendid declamation, or of impassionate fervour, and Southey's -style will immediately betray its want of the loftier qualities as -flagrantly as it now asserts its powers in that unpretending form -which is best suited to his level character of writing and his humbler -choice of themes. It is to mistake the character of Southey's mind, -which is elevated but not sustained by the higher modes of enthusiasm, -to think otherwise. Were a magnificent dedication required, moving -with a stately and measured solemnity, and putting forward some -majestic pretensions, arising out of a long and laborious life; were -a pleading required against some capital abuse of the earth--war, -slavery, oppression in its thousand forms; were a _Defensio pro Populo -Anglicano_ required; Southey's is not the mind, and, by a necessary -consequence, Southey's is not the style, for carrying such purposes -into full and memorable effect. His style is _therefore_ good, because -it has been suited to his themes; and those themes have hitherto been -either narrative, which usually imposes a modest diction, and a modest -structure of sentences, or argumentative in that class which is too -overburthened with details, with replies, with interruption, and every -mode of discontinuity, to allow a thought of eloquence, or of the -periodic style which a perfect eloquence instinctively seeks. - - * * * * * - -I here close my separate notice of the Lake Poets--meaning those -three who were originally so denominated--three men upon whom -posterity, in every age, will look back with interest as profound as, -perhaps, belongs to any other names of our era; for it happens, not -unfrequently, that the _personal_ interest in the author is not in the -direct ratio of that which belongs to his works: and the character -of an author better qualified to command a vast popularity for the -creations of his pen is oftentimes more of a universal character, -less peculiar, less fitted to stimulate the curiosity, or to sustain -the sympathy of the intellectual, than the profounder and more -ascetic solemnity of a Wordsworth, or the prodigal and magnificent -eccentricities of a Coleridge. With respect to both of these gifted -men, some interesting notices still remain in arrear; but these will -more properly come forward in their natural places, as they happen to -arise in after years in connexion with my own memoirs. - - - - - CHAPTER VI - - THE SARACEN'S HEAD[143] - - [143] From _Tait's Magazine_ for December 1839.--M. - - -My first visit to the Wordsworths had been made in November, 1807; -but, on that occasion, from the necessity of saving the Michaelmas -Term at Oxford, for which I had barely left myself time, I stayed only -one week. On the last day, I witnessed a scene, the first and the last -of its kind that ever I _did_ witness, almost too trivial to mention, -except for the sake of showing what things occur in the realities of -experience which a novelist could not venture to imagine. Wordsworth -and his sister were under an engagement of some standing to dine on -that day with a literary lady about four miles distant; and, as the -southern mail, which I was to catch at a distance of eighteen miles, -would not pass that point until long after midnight, Miss Wordsworth -proposed that, rather than pass my time at an inn, I should join the -dinner party; a proposal rather more suitable to her own fervent and -hospitable temper than to the habits of our hostess, who must (from -what I came to know of her in after years) have looked upon me as an -intruder. Something _had_ reached Miss Wordsworth of her penurious -_ménage_, but nothing that approached the truth. I was presented to the -lady, whom we found a perfect _bas bleu_ of a very commonplace order, -but having some other accomplishments beyond her slender acquaintance -with literature. Our party consisted of six--our hostess, who might -be about fifty years of age; a pretty timid young woman, who was -there in the character of a humble friend; some stranger or other; -the Wordsworths, and myself. The dinner was the very humblest and -simplest I had ever seen--in that there was nothing to offend--I did -not then know that the lady was very rich--but also it was flagrantly -insufficient in quantity. Dinner, however, proceeded; when, without any -removals, in came a kind of second course, in the shape of a solitary -pheasant. This, in a cold manner, she asked me to try; but we, in our -humility, declined for the present; and also in mere good-nature, not -wishing to expose too palpably the insufficiency of her dinner. May I -die the death of a traitor, if she did not proceed, without further -question to any one of us (and, as to the poor young companion, no -form of even invitation was conceded to her), and, in the eyes of -us all, eat up the whole bird, from alpha to omega. Upon my honour, -I thought to myself, this is a scene I would not have missed. It is -well to know the possibilities of human nature. Could she have a bet -depending on the issue, and would she explain all to us as soon as she -had won her wager? Alas! no explanation ever came, except, indeed, that -afterwards her character, put _en evidence_ upon a score of occasions, -too satisfactorily explained everything. No; it was, as Mr. Coleridge -expresses it, a psychological curiosity--a hollow thing--and only once -matched in all the course of my reading, in or out of romances; but -that once, I grieve to say it, was by a king, and a sort of hero. - -The Duchess of Marlborough it is who reports the shocking anecdote -of William III, that actually Princess Anne, his future wife, durst -not take any of the green peas brought to the dinner table, when that -vegetable happened to be as yet scarce and premature. _There_ was a -gentleman! And such a lady had we for our hostess. However, we all -observed a suitable gravity; but afterwards, when we left the house, -the remembrance affected us differently. Miss Wordsworth laughed with -undissembled glee; but Wordsworth thought it too grave a matter for -laughing--he was thoroughly disgusted, and said repeatedly, "A person -cannot be honest, positively not honest, who is capable of such an -act." The lady is dead, and I shall not mention her name: she lived -only to gratify her selfish propensities; and two little anecdotes -may show the outrageous character of her meanness. I was now on the -debtor side of her dinner account, and, therefore, in a future year she -readily accepted an invitation to come and dine with me at my cottage. -But, on a subsequent occasion, when I was to have a few literary people -at dinner, whom I knew that she greatly wished to meet, she positively -replied thus:--"No; I have already come with my young lady to dine -with you; that puts me on the wrong side by one; now, if I were to -come again, as I cannot leave Miss ---- behind, I shall then be on the -wrong side by three; and that is more than I could find opportunities -to repay before I go up to London for the winter." "Very well," I said; -"give me 3s. and _that_ will settle the account." She laughed, but -positively persisted in not coming until after dinner, notwithstanding -she had to drive a distance of ten miles. - -The other anecdote is worse. She was exceedingly careful of her health; -and not thinking it healthy to drive about in a close carriage,--which, -besides, could not have suited the narrow mountain tracks, to which -her sketching habits attracted her,--she shut up her town carriage for -the summer, and jobbed some little open car. Being a very large woman, -and, moreover, a masculine woman, with a bronzed complexion, and always -choosing to wear, at night, a turban, round hair that was as black -as that of the "Moors of Malabar," she presented an exact likeness -of a Saracen's Head, as painted over inn-doors; whilst the timid and -delicate young lady by her side looked like "dejected Pity" at the side -of "Revenge" when assuming the war-denouncing trumpet. Some Oxonians -and Cantabs, who, at different times, were in the habit of meeting this -oddly assorted party in all nooks of the country, used to move the -question, whether the poor horse or the young lady had the worst of it? -At length the matter was decided: the horse was fast going off this -sublunary stage; and the Saracen's Head was told as much, and with this -little addition,--that his death was owing _inter alia_ to starvation. -Her answer was remarkable:--"But, my dear madam, that is his master's -fault; I pay so much a-day--he is to keep the horse." That might be, -but still the horse was dying, and dying in the way stated. The -Saracen's Head persisted in using him under those circumstances--such -was her "bond"--and in a short time the horse actually died. Yes, the -horse died--and died of starvation--or at least of an illness caused -originally by starvation: for so said, not merely the whole population -of the little neighbouring town, but also the surgeon. Not long after, -however, the lady, the Saracen's Head, died herself; but I fear _not_ -of starvation; for, though something like it did prevail at her table, -she prudently reserved it all for her guests; in fact, I never heard -of such vigilant care, and so much laudable exertion, applied to the -promotion of health: yet all failed, and, in a degree which confounded -people's speculations upon the subject--for she did not live much -beyond sixty; whereas everybody supposed that the management of her -physical system entitled her to outwear a century. Perhaps the prayers -of horses might avail to order it otherwise. - -But the singular thing about this lady's mixed and contradictory -character was, that in London and Bath, where her peculiar habits -of life were naturally less accurately known, she maintained the -reputation of one who united the accomplishments of literature and art -with a remarkable depth of sensibility, and a most amiable readiness -to enter into the distresses of her friends by sympathy the most -cordial and consolation the most delicate. More than once I have -seen her name recorded in printed books, and attended with praises -that tended to this effect. I have seen letters also from a lady in -deep affliction which spoke of the Saracen's Head as having paid her -the first visit from which she drew any effectual consolation. Such -are the erroneous impressions conveyed by biographical memoirs; or, -which is a more charitable construction of the case, such are the -inconsistencies of the human heart! And certainly there was one fact, -even in her Westmoreland life, that _did_ lend some countenance to the -southern picture of her amiableness: and this lay in the cheerfulness -with which she gave up her time (_time_, but not much of her redundant -money) to the promotion of the charitable schemes set on foot by the -neighbouring ladies; sometimes for the education of poor children, -sometimes for the visiting of the sick, &c., &c. I have heard several -of those ladies express their gratitude for her exertions, and -declare that she was about their best member. But their horror was -undisguised when the weekly committee came, by rotation, to hold its -sittings at her little villa; for, as the business occupied them -frequently from eleven o'clock in the forenoon to a late dinner hour, -and as many of them had a fifteen or twenty miles' drive, they needed -some refreshments: but these were, of course, a "great idea" at the -Saracen's Head; since, according to the epigram which illustrates the -maxim of Tacitus that _omne ignotum pro magnifico_, and, applying it -to the case of a miser's horse, terminates by saying, "What vast ideas -must he have of oats!"--upon the same principle these poor ladies, -on those fatal committee days, never failed to form most exaggerated -ideas of bread, butter, and wine. And at length some, more intrepid -than the rest, began to carry biscuits in their muffs, and, with the -conscious tremors of school girls (profiting by the absence of the -mistress but momentarily expecting detection), they employed some -casual absence of their unhostly hostess in distributing and eating -their hidden "viaticum." However, it must be acknowledged, that time -and exertion, and the sacrifice of more selfish pleasure during the -penance at the school, were, after all, real indications of kindness -to her fellow-creatures; and, as I wish to part in peace even with -the Saracen's Head, I have reserved this anecdote to the last: for -it is painful to have lived on terms of good nature, and exchanging -civilities, with any human being of whom one can report absolutely _no_ -good thing; and I sympathize heartily with that indulgent person of -whom it is somewhere recorded that, upon an occasion when the death of -a man happened to be mentioned who was unanimously pronounced a wretch -without one good quality, "_monstrum nullâ virtute redemptum_," he -ventured, however, at last, in a deprecatory tone to say--"Well, he did -_whistle_ beautifully, at any rate." - -Talking of "whistling" reminds me to return from my digression; for on -that night, the 12th of November, 1807, and the last of my visits to -the Wordsworths, I took leave of them in the inn at Ambleside about -ten at night; and the post-chaise in which I crossed the country to -catch the mail was driven by a postilion who whistled so delightfully -that, for the first time in my life, I became aware of the prodigious -powers which are lodged potentially in so despised a function of the -vocal organs. For the whole of the long ascent up Orrest Head, which -obliged him to walk his horses for a full half-mile, he made the woods -of Windermere ring with the canorous sweetness of his half flute, -half clarionet music; but, in fact, the subtle melody of the effect -placed it in power far beyond either flute or clarionet. A year or two -afterwards, I heard a fellow-servant of this same postilion's, a black, -play with equal superiority of effect upon the jew's harp; making that, -which in most hands is a mere monotonous jarring, a dull reverberating -vibration, into a delightful lyre of no inconsiderable compass. We -have since heard of, some of us have heard, the chinchopper. Within -the last hundred years, we have had the Æolian harp (first mentioned -and described in the "Castle of Indolence," which I think was first -published entire about 1738[144]); then the musical glasses; then the -_celestina_, to represent the music of the spheres, introduced by Mr. -Walker, or some other lecturing astronomer; and many another fine -effect obtained from trivial means. But, at this moment, I recollect a -performance perhaps more astonishing than any of them. A Mr. Worgman, -who had very good introductions, and very general ones (for he was -to be met within a few months in every part of the island), used to -accompany himself on the piano, weaving _extempore_ long tissues of -impassioned music, that were called his own, but which, in fact, -were all the better for not being such, or at least for continually -embodying passages from Handel and Pergolesi. To this substratum of -the instrumental music he contrived to adapt some unaccountable and -indescribable choral accompaniment, a pomp of sound, a tempestuous -blare of harmony ascending in clouds not from any one, but apparently -from a band of Mr. Worgman's; for sometimes it was a trumpet, sometimes -a kettle-drum, sometimes a cymbal, sometimes a bassoon, and sometimes -it was all of these at once. - - "And now 'twas like all instruments; - And now it was a flute; - And now it was an angel's voice, - That maketh the heavens be mute." - -In this case I presume that ventriloquism must have had something to -do with the effect; but, whatever it were, the power varied greatly -with the state of his spirits, or with some other fluctuating causes in -the animal economy. However, the result of all these experiences is, -that I shall never more be surprised at any musical effects, the very -greatest, drawn from whatever inconsiderable or apparently inadequate -means; not even if the butcher's instrument, the marrow-bones and -cleaver, or any of those culinary instruments so pleasantly treated by -Addison in the "Spectator," such as the kitchen dresser and thumb, the -tongs and shovel, the pepper and salt-box, should be exalted, by some -immortal butcher or inspired scullion, into a sublime harp, dulcimer, -or lute, capable of wooing St. Cecilia to listen, able even - - "To raise a mortal to the skies, - Or draw an angel down." - -That night, as I was passing under the grounds of Elleray, then -belonging to a Westmoreland "statesman," a thought struck me, that I -was now traversing a road with which, as yet, I was scarcely at all -acquainted, but which, in years to come, might perhaps be as familiar -to my eye as the rooms of my own house; and possibly that I might -traverse them in company with faces as yet not even seen by me, but -in those future years dearer than any which I had yet known. In this -prophetic glimpse there was nothing very marvellous; for what could be -more natural than that I should come to reside in the neighbourhood of -the Wordsworths, and that this might lead to my forming connexions in -a country which I should consequently come to know so well? I did not, -however, anticipate so definitely and circumstantially as all this; -but generally I had a dim presentiment that here, on this very road, -I should often pass, and in company that, now not even conjecturally -delineated or drawn out of the utter darkness in which they were as -yet reposing, would hereafter plant memories in my heart, the last -that will fade from it in the hour of death. Here, afterwards, at this -very spot, or a little above it, but on this very estate, which from -local peculiarities of ground, and of sudden angles, was peculiarly -_kenspeck_, _i.e._ easy of recognition,[145] and could have been -challenged and identified at any distance of years; here afterwards -lived Professor Wilson, the only very intimate male friend I have -had; here, too, it was, my M.,[146] that, in long years afterwards, -through many a score of nights--nights often dark as Erebus, and amidst -thunders and lightnings the most sublime--we descended at twelve, one, -and two o'clock at night, speeding from Kendal to our distant home, -twenty miles away. Thou wert at present a child not nine years old, nor -had I seen thy face, nor heard thy name. But within nine years from -that same night thou wert seated by my side;--and, thenceforwards, -through a period of fourteen years, how often did we two descend, -hand locked in hand, and thinking of things to come, at a pace of -hurricane; whilst all the sleeping woods about us re-echoed the uproar -of trampling hoofs and groaning wheels. Duly as we mounted the crest of -Orrest Head, mechanically and of themselves almost, and spontaneously, -without need of voice or spur, according to Westmoreland usage, the -horses flew off into a gallop, like the pace of a swallow.[147] It -was a railroad pace that we ever maintained; objects were descried -far ahead in one moment, and in the next were crowding into the rear. -Three miles and a half did this storm-flight continue, for so long the -descent lasted. Then, for many a mile, over undulating ground, did we -alternately creep and fly, until again a long precipitous movement, -again a storm-gallop, that hardly suffered the feet to touch the -ground, gave warning that we drew near to that beloved cottage; warning -to us--warning to them:-- - - "The silence that is here - Is of the grave, and of austere - But happy feelings of the dead." - -Sometimes the nights were bright with cloudless moonlight, and of -that awful breathless quiet which often broods over vales that are -peculiarly landlocked, and which is, or seems to be, so much more -expressive of a solemn hush and a Sabbath-like rest from the labours of -nature than I remember to have experienced in flat countries:-- - - "It is not quiet--is not peace-- - But something deeper far than these." - -And on such nights it was no sentimental refinement, but a sincere -and hearty feeling, that, in wheeling past the village churchyard of -Stavely, something like an outrage seemed offered to the sanctity of -its graves by the uproar of our career. Sometimes the nights were of -that pitchy darkness which is more palpable and unfathomable wherever -hills intercept the gleaming of light which otherwise is usually seen -to linger about the horizon in the northern quarter; and then arose in -perfection that striking effect when the glare of lamps searches for -one moment every dark recess of the thickets, forces them into sudden, -almost daylight, revelation, only to leave them within the twinkling of -the eye in darkness more profound; making them, like the snow-flakes -falling upon a cataract, "one moment bright, then gone for ever." But, -dark or moonlight alike, in every instance throughout so long a course -of years, the road was entirely our own for the whole twenty miles. -After nine o'clock not many people are abroad, after ten absolutely -none, upon the roads of Westmoreland; a circumstance which gives a -peculiar solemnity to a traveller's route amongst these quiet valleys -upon a summer evening of latter May, of June, or early July; since, in -a latitude so much higher than that of London, broad daylight prevails -to an hour long after nine. Nowhere is the holiness of vesper hours -more deeply felt. - - [144] The _Castle of Indolence_ was first published in 1748, the - year of the poet's death. The following is the stanza of the poem - referred to by De Quincey:-- - - "A certain music, never known before, - Here lull'd the pensive, melancholy mind; - Full easily obtained. Behoves no more - But sidelong to the gently-waving wind - To lay the well-tuned instrument reclined, - From which, with airy flying fingers light, - Beyond each mortal touch the most refined; - The god of winds drew sounds of deep delight; - Whence, with just cause, the Harp of Æolus it hight."--M. - - [145] The usual Scottish word is _kenspeckle_.--M. - - [146] His future wife, Margaret Simpson.--M. - - [147] It may be supposed, not literally, for the swallow (or at - least that species called the swift) has been known to fly at the - rate of 300 miles an hour. Very probably, however, this pace was - not deduced from an entire hour's performance, but estimated by - proportion from a flight of one or two minutes. An interesting - anecdote is told by the gentleman (I believe the Rev. E. Stanley) - who described in _Blackwood's_ _Magazine_ the opening of the - earliest English railway, viz. that a bird (snipe was it, or - field-fare, or plover?) ran, or rather flew, a race with the - engine for three or four miles, until, finding itself likely to be - beaten, it then suddenly wheeled away into the moors. And now, in - 1839, from all these flying journeys and their stinging - remembrances, hardly a wreck survives of what composed their - living equipage: the men who chiefly drove in those days (for I - have ascertained it) are gone; the horses are gone; darkness rests - upon all, except myself. I, woe is me! am the solitary survivor - from scenes that now seem to me as fugitive as the flying lights - from our lamps as they shot into the forest recesses. God forbid - that on such a theme I should seem to affect sentimentalism! It is - from overmastering recollections that I look back on those distant - days; and chiefly I have suffered myself to give way before the - impulse that haunts me of reverting to those bitter, bitter - thoughts, in order to notice one singular waywardness or caprice - (as it might seem) incident to the situation, which, I doubt not, - besieges many more people than myself: it is, that I find a more - poignant suffering, a pang more searching, in going back, not to - those enjoyments themselves, and the days when they were within my - power, but to times anterior, when as yet they did not exist; nay, - when some who were chiefly concerned in them as parties had not - even been born. No night, I might almost say, of my whole life, - remains so profoundly, painfully, and pathetically imprinted on my - remembrance as this very one, on which I tried prelusively, as it - were, that same road in solitude, and lulled by the sweet - carollings of the postilion, which, _after_ an interval of ten - years, and _through_ a period of more than equal duration, it was - destined that I should so often traverse in circumstances of - happiness too radiant, that for me are burned out for ever. - Coleridge told me of a similar case that had fallen within his - knowledge, and the impassioned expression which the feelings - belonging to it drew from a servant woman at Keswick:--She had - nursed some boy, either of his or of Mr. Southey's; the boy had - lived apart from the rest of the family, secluded with his nurse - in her cottage; she was dotingly fond of him; lived, in short, - _by_ him, as well as for him; and nearly ten years of her life had - been exalted into one golden dream by his companionship. At length - came the day which severed the connexion; and she, in the anguish - of the separation, bewailing her future loneliness, and knowing - too well that education and the world, if it left him some kind - remembrances of her, never could restore him to her arms the same - fond loving boy that felt no shame in surrendering his whole heart - to caressing and being caressed, did not revert to any day or - season of her ten years' happiness, but went back to the very day - of his arrival, a particular Thursday, and to an hour when, as - yet, she had not seen him, exclaiming--"O that Thursday! O that it - could come back! that Thursday when the chaise-wheels were ringing - in the streets of Keswick; when yet I had not seen his bonny face; - but when _he_ was coming!" - -Ay, reader, all this may sound foolishness to you, that perhaps never -had a heartache, or that may have all your blessings to come. But now -let me return to my narrative. After about twelve months' interval, and -therefore again in November, but November of the year 1808, I repeated -my visit to Wordsworth, and upon a longer scale. I found him removed -from his cottage to a house of considerable size, about three-quarters -of a mile distant, called Allan Bank. This house had been very recently -erected, at an expense of about £1500, by a gentleman from Liverpool, -a merchant, and also a lawyer in some department or other. It was -not yet completely finished; and an odd accident was reported to -me as having befallen it in its earliest stage. The walls had been -finished, and this event was to be celebrated at the village inn -with an _ovation_, previously to the _triumph_ that would follow on -the roof-raising. The workmen had all housed themselves at the _Red -Lion_, and were beginning their carouse, when up rode a traveller, -who brought them the unseasonable news, that, whilst riding along the -vale, he had beheld the downfall of the whole building. Out the men -rushed, hoping that this might be a hoax; but too surely they found his -report true, and their own festival premature. A little malice mingled -unavoidably with the laughter of the Dalesmen; for it happened that -the Liverpool gentleman had offered a sort of insult to the native -artists, by bringing down both masons and carpenters from his own -town; an unwise plan, for they were necessarily unacquainted with many -points of local skill; and it was to some ignorance in their mode of -laying the stones that the accident was due. The house had one or two -capital defects--it was cold, damp, and, to all appearance, incurably -smoky. Upon this latter defect, by the way, Wordsworth founded a claim, -not for diminution of rent, but absolutely for entire immunity from -any rent at all. It was truly comical to hear him argue the point -with the Liverpool proprietor, Mr. C. He went on dilating on the -hardship of living in such a house; of the injury, or suffering, at -least, sustained by the eyes; until, at last, he had drawn a picture -of himself as a very ill-used man; and I seriously expected to hear -him sum up by demanding a round sum for damages. Mr. C. was a very -good-natured man, calm, and gentlemanlike in his manners. He had also a -considerable respect for Wordsworth, derived, it may be supposed, not -from his writings, but from the authority (which many more besides him -could not resist) of his conversation. However, he looked grave and -perplexed. Nor do I know how the matter ended; but I mention it as an -illustration of Wordsworth's keen spirit of business. Whilst foolish -people supposed him a mere honeyed sentimentalist, speaking only in -zephyrs and bucolics, he was in fact a somewhat hard pursuer of what he -thought fair advantages. - -In the February which followed, I left Allan Bank; but, upon Miss -Wordsworth's happening to volunteer the task of furnishing for my use -the cottage so recently occupied by her brother's family, I took it -upon a seven years' lease. And thus it happened--this I mean was the -mode of it (for, at any rate, I should have settled somewhere in the -country)--that I became a resident in Grasmere. - - - - - CHAPTER VII - - WESTMORELAND AND THE DALESMEN: SOCIETY OF THE LAKES[148] - - [148] From _Tait's Magazine_ for January 1840.--M. - - -In February, as I have said, of 1809, I quitted Allan Bank; and, from -that time until the depth of summer, Miss Wordsworth was employed in -the task she had volunteered, of renewing and furnishing the little -cottage in which I was to succeed the illustrious tenant who had, in my -mind, hallowed the rooms by a seven years' occupation, during, perhaps, -the happiest period of his life--the early years of his marriage, and -of his first acquaintance with parental affections. Cottage, immortal -in my remembrance! as well it might be; for this cottage I retained -through just seven-and-twenty years: this was the scene of struggle -the most tempestuous and bitter within my own mind: this the scene -of my despondency and unhappiness: this the scene of my happiness--a -happiness which justified the faith of man's _earthly_ lot, as, upon -the whole, a dowry from heaven. It was, in its exterior, not so much -a picturesque cottage--for its outline and proportions, its windows -and its chimneys, were not sufficiently marked and effective for the -picturesque[149]--as it was lovely: one gable end was, indeed, most -gorgeously apparelled in ivy, and so far picturesque; but the principal -side, or what might be called front, as it presented itself to the -road, and was most illuminated by windows, was embossed--nay, it might -be said, smothered--in roses of different species, amongst which the -moss and the damask prevailed. These, together with as much jessamine -and honeysuckle as could find room to flourish, were not only in -themselves a most interesting garniture for a humble cottage wall, but -they also performed the acceptable service of breaking the unpleasant -glare that would else have wounded the eye from the whitewash; a glare -which, having been renewed amongst the general preparations against -my coming to inhabit the house, could not be sufficiently subdued -in tone for the artist's eye until the storm of several winters had -weather-stained and tamed down its brilliancy. The Westmoreland -cottages, as a class, have long been celebrated for their picturesque -forms, and very justly so: in no part of the world are cottages to be -found more strikingly interesting to the eye by their general outlines, -by the sheltered porches of their entrances, by their exquisite -chimneys, by their rustic windows, and by the distribution of the -parts. These parts are on a larger scale, both as to number and size, -than a stranger would expect to find as dependencies and out-houses -attached to dwelling-houses so modest; chiefly from the necessity of -making provision both in fuel for themselves, and in hay, straw, and -brackens for the cattle against the long winter. But, in praising the -Westmoreland dwellings, it must be understood that only those of the -native Dalesmen are contemplated; for, as to those raised by the alien -intruders--"the lakers," or "foreigners" as they are sometimes called -by the old indigenous possessors of the soil--these, being designed -to exhibit "a taste" and an eye for the picturesque, are pretty often -mere models of deformity, as vulgar and as silly as it is well possible -for any object to be in a case where, after all, the workman, and -obedience to custom, and the necessities of the ground, &c., will often -step in to compel the architects into common sense and propriety. The -main defect in Scottish scenery, the eyesore that disfigures so many -charming combinations of landscape, is the offensive style of the rural -architecture; but still, even where it is worst, the _mode_ of its -offence is not by affectation and conceit, and preposterous attempts at -realizing sublime, Gothic, or castellated effects in little gingerbread -ornaments, and "tobacco pipes," and make-believe parapets, and towers -like kitchen or hothouse flues; but in the hard undisguised pursuit of -mere coarse uses and needs of life. - - [149] The idea of the picturesque is one which did not exist at - all until the post-Christian ages; neither amongst the Grecians - nor amongst the Romans; and _therefore_, as respects one reason, - it was, that the art of landscape painting did not exist (except - in a Chinese infancy, and as a mere trick of inventive ingenuity) - amongst the finest artists of Greece. What _is_ picturesque, as - placed in relation to the beautiful and the sublime? It is (to - define it by the very shortest form of words) the characteristic - pushed into a sensible excess. The prevailing character of any - natural object, no matter how little attractive it may be for - beauty, is always interesting for itself, as the character and - hieroglyphic symbol of the purposes pursued by Nature in the - determination of its form, style of motion, texture of - superficies, relation of parts, &c. Thus, for example, an - expression of dulness and somnolent torpor does not ally itself - with grace or elegance; but, in combination with strength and - other qualities, it may compose a character of serviceable and - patient endurance, as in the cart-horse, having unity in itself, - and tending to one class of uses sufficient to mark it out by - circumscription for a distinct and separate contemplation. Now, - in combination with certain counteracting circumstances, as with - the momentary energy of some great effort, much of this peculiar - character might be lost, or defeated, or dissipated. On that - account, the skilful observer will seek out circumstances that are - in harmony with the principal tendencies and assist them; such, - suppose, as a state of lazy relaxation from labour, and the fall - of heavy drenching rain causing the head to droop, and the shaggy - mane, together with the fetlocks, to weep. These, and other - circumstances of attitude, &c., bring out the character of - prevailing tendency of the animal in some excess; and, in such a - case, we call the resulting effect to the eye--picturesque: or in - fact, _characteresque_. In extending this speculation to objects - of art and human purposes, there is something more required of - subtle investigation. Meantime, it is evident that neither the - sublime nor the beautiful depends upon any _secondary_ interest of - a purpose or of a character expressing that purpose. They - (confining the case to visual objects) court the _primary_ - interest involved in that (form, colour, texture, attitude, - motion) which forces admiration, which fascinates the eye, for - itself, and without a question of any distinct purpose: and, - instead of character--that is, discriminating and separating - expression, tending to the special and the individual--they both - agree in pursuing the Catholic, the Normal, the Ideal. - -Too often, the rustic mansion, that should speak of decent poverty -and seclusion, peaceful and comfortable, wears the most repulsive -air of town confinement and squalid indigence; the house being built -of substantial stone, three storeys high, or even four, the roof of -massy slate; and everything strong which respects the future outlay -of the proprietor--everything frail which respects the comfort of the -inhabitants: windows broken and stuffed up with rags or old hats; -steps and door encrusted with dirt; and the whole tarnished with -smoke. Poverty--how different the face it wears looking with meagre -staring eyes from such a city dwelling as this, and when it peeps -out, with rosy cheeks, from amongst clustering roses and woodbines, -at a little lattice, from a little one-storey cottage! Are, then, the -main characteristics of the Westmoreland dwelling-houses imputable -to superior taste? By no means. Spite of all that I have heard Mr. -Wordsworth and others say in maintaining that opinion, I, for my -part, do and must hold, that the Dalesmen produce none of the happy -effects which frequently arise in their domestic architecture under -any search after beautiful forms, a search which they despise with a -sort of Vandal dignity; no, nor with any sense or consciousness of -their success. How then? Is it accident--mere casual good luck--that -has brought forth, for instance, so many exquisite forms of chimneys? -Not so; but it is this: it is good sense, on the one hand, bending and -conforming to the dictates or even the suggestions of the climate, -and the local circumstances of rocks, water, currents of air, &c.; -and, on the other hand, wealth sufficient to arm the builder with -all suitable means for giving effect to his purpose, and to evade -the necessity of make-shifts. But the radical ground of the interest -attached to Westmoreland cottage architecture lies in its submission -to the determining agencies of the surrounding circumstances; such -of them, I mean, as are permanent, and have been gathered from long -experience. The porch, for instance, which does so much to take away -from a house the character of a rude box, pierced with holes for air, -light, and ingress, has evidently been dictated by the sudden rushes of -wind through the mountain "ghylls," which make some kind of protection -necessary to the ordinary door; and this reason has been strengthened, -in cases of houses near to a road, by the hospitable wish to provide a -sheltered seat for the wayfarer; most of these porches being furnished -with one in each of the two recesses, to the right and to the left. - -The long winter, again, as I have already said, and the artificial -prolongation of the winter by the necessity of keeping the sheep -long upon the low grounds, creates a call for large out-houses; and -these, for the sake of warmth, are usually placed at right angles to -the house; which has the effect of making a much larger system of -parts than would else arise. But perhaps the main feature which gives -character to the pile of building, is the roof, and, above all, the -chimneys. It is the remark of an accomplished Edinburgh artist, H. -W. Williams, in the course of his strictures[150] upon the domestic -architecture of the Italians, and especially of the Florentines, -that the character of buildings, in certain circumstances, "depends -wholly or chiefly on the form of the roof and the chimney. This," he -goes on, "is particularly the case in Italy, where more variety and -taste is displayed in the chimneys than in the buildings to which -they belong. These chimneys are as peculiar and characteristic as -palm trees in a tropical climate." Again, in speaking of Calabria -and the Ionian Islands, he says--"We were forcibly struck with the -consequence which the beauty of the chimneys imparted to the character -of the whole building." Now, in Great Britain, he complains, with -reason, of the very opposite result: not the plain building ennobled -by the chimney, but the chimney degrading the noble building, and in -Edinburgh especially, where the homely and inelegant appearance of the -chimneys contrasts most disadvantageously and offensively with the -beauty of the buildings which they surmount. Even here, however, he -makes an exception for some of the _old_ buildings, whose chimneys, -he admits, "are very tastefully decorated, and contribute essentially -to the beauty of the general effect." It is probable, therefore, and -many houses of the Elizabethan era confirm it, that a better taste -prevailed, in this point, amongst our ancestors, both Scottish and -English; that this elder fashion travelled, together with many other -usages, from the richer parts of Scotland to the Borders, and thence -to the vales of Westmoreland; where they have continued to prevail, -from their affectionate adhesion to all patriarchal customs. Some, -undoubtedly, of these Westmoreland forms have been dictated by the -necessities of the weather, and the systematic energies of human -skill, from age to age, applied to the very difficult task of training -smoke into obedience, under the peculiar difficulties presented by the -sites of Westmoreland houses. These are chosen, generally speaking, -with the same good sense and regard to domestic comfort, as the primary -consideration (without, however, disdainfully slighting the sentiment, -whatever it were, of peace, of seclusion, of gaiety, of solemnity, the -special "religio loci"), which seems to have guided the choice of those -who founded religious houses. - - [150] "Travels in Italy, Greece, and the Ionian Islands," vol. i. - pp. 74, 75. - -And here, again, by the way, appears a marked difference between the -Dalesmen and the intrusive gentry--not creditable to the latter. The -native Dalesman, well aware of the fury with which the wind often -gathers and eddies about any eminence, however trifling its elevation, -never thinks of planting his house _there_: whereas the stranger, -singly solicitous about the prospect or the range of lake which his -gilt saloons are to command, chooses his site too often upon points -better fitted for a temple of Eolus than a human dwelling-place; and -he belts his house with balconies and verandas that a mountain gale -often tears away in mockery. The Dalesman, wherever his choice is not -circumscribed, selects a sheltered spot (a _wray_,[151] for instance), -which protects him from the wind altogether, upon one or two quarters, -and on all quarters from its tornado violence: he takes good care, at -the same time, to be within a few feet of a mountain beck: a caution -so little heeded by some of the villa founders that absolutely, in a -country surcharged with water, they have sometimes found themselves -driven, by sheer necessity, to the after-thought of sinking a well. The -very best situation, however, in other respects, may be bad in one, -and sometimes find its very advantages, and the beetling crags which -protect its rear, obstructions the most permanent to the ascent of -smoke; and it is in the contest with these natural baffling repellents -of the smoke, and in the variety of artifices for modifying its -vertical, or for accomplishing its lateral escape, that have arisen -the large and graceful variety of chimney models. My cottage, wanting -this primary feature of elegance in the constituents of Westmoreland -cottage architecture, and wanting also another very interesting feature -of the elder architecture, annually becoming more and more rare,--viz. -the outside gallery (which is sometimes merely of wood, but is much -more striking when provided for in the original construction of the -house, and completely _enfoncé_ in the masonry),--could not rank high -amongst the picturesque houses of the country; those, at least, which -are such by virtue of their architectural form. It was, however, -very irregular in its outline to the rear, by the aid of one little -projecting room, and also of a stable and little barn, in immediate -contact with the dwelling-house. It had, besides, the great advantage -of a varying height: two sides being about fifteen or sixteen feet high -from the exposure of both storeys; whereas the other two, being swathed -about by a little orchard that rose rapidly and unequally towards the -vast mountain range in the rear, exposed only the upper storey; and, -consequently, on those sides the elevation rarely rose beyond seven or -eight feet. All these accidents of irregular form and outline gave to -the house some little pretensions to a picturesque character; whilst -its "separable accidents" (as the logicians say), its bowery roses and -jessamine, clothed it in loveliness--its associations with Wordsworth -crowned it, to my mind, with historical dignity,--and, finally, my own -twenty-seven years' off-and-on connexion with it have, by ties personal -and indestructible, endeared it to my heart so unspeakably beyond all -other houses, that even now I rarely dream through four nights running -that I do not find myself (and others besides) in some one of those -rooms, and, most probably, the last cloudy delirium of approaching -death will re-install me in some chamber of that same humble cottage. -"What a tale," says Foster, the eloquent essayist--"what a tale could -be told by many a room, were the walls endowed with memory and speech!" -or, in the more impassioned expressions of Wordsworth-- - - "Ah! what a lesson to a thoughtless man - -------------- if any gladsome field of earth - Could render back the sighs to which it hath responded, - Or echo the sad steps by which it hath been trod!" - -And equally affecting it would be, if such a field or such a house -could render up the echoes of joy, of festal music, of jubilant -laughter--the innocent mirth of infants, or the gaiety, not less -innocent, of youthful mothers--equally affecting would be such a -reverberation of forgotten household happiness with the re-echoing -records of sighs and groans. And few indeed are the houses that, within -a period no longer than from the beginning of the century to 1835 -(so long was it either mine or Wordsworth's) have crowded such ample -materials for those echoes, whether sorrowful or joyous. - - [151] _Wraie_ is the old Danish or Icelandic word for _angle_. - Hence the many "wrays" in the Lake district. - - -SOCIETY OF THE LAKES - -My cottage was ready in the summer; but I was playing truant amongst -the valleys of Somersetshire; and, meantime, different families, -throughout the summer, borrowed the cottage of the Wordsworths as my -friends. They consisted chiefly of ladies; and some, by the delicacy -of their attentions to the flowers, &c., gave me reason to consider -their visit during my absence as a real honour; others--such is the -difference of people in this world--left the rudest memorials of -their careless habits impressed upon house, furniture, garden, &c. -In November, at last, I, the long-expected, made my appearance. Some -little sensation did really and naturally attend my coming, for most -of the draperies belonging to beds, curtains, &c., had been sewed by -the young women of that or the adjoining vales. This had caused me -to be talked of. Many had seen me on my visit to the Wordsworths. -Miss Wordsworth had introduced the curious to a knowledge of my age, -name, prospects, and all the rest of what can be interesting to -know. Even the old people of the vale were a little excited by the -accounts (somewhat exaggerated, perhaps) of the never ending books -that continued to arrive in packing-cases for several months in -succession. Nothing in these vales so much fixes the attention and -respect of the people as the reputation of being a "far learn'd" man. -So far, therefore, I had already bespoke the favourable opinion of -the Dalesmen. And a separate kind of interest arose amongst mothers -and daughters, in the knowledge that I should necessarily want -what--in a sense somewhat different from the general one--is called a -"housekeeper"; that is, not an upper servant to superintend others, -but one who could undertake, in her own person, all the duties of the -house. It is not discreditable to these worthy people that several -of the richest and most respectable families were anxious to secure -the place for a daughter. Had I been a dissipated young man, I have -good reason to know that there would have been no canvassing at all -for the situation. But partly my books spoke for the character of my -pursuits with these simple-minded people--partly the introduction of -the Wordsworths guaranteed the safety of such a service. Even then, -had I persisted in my original intention of bringing a man-servant, no -respectable young woman would have accepted the place. As it was, and -it being understood that I had renounced this intention, many, in a -gentle, diffident way, applied for the place, or their parents on their -behalf. And I mention the fact, because it illustrates one feature in -the manners of this primitive and peculiar people, the Dalesmen of -Westmoreland. However wealthy, they do not think it degrading to permit -even the eldest daughter to go out a few years to service. The object -is not to gain a sum of money in wages, but that sort of household -experience which is supposed to be unattainable upon a suitable scale -out of a gentleman's family. So far was this carried, that, amongst -the offers made to myself, was one from a young woman whose family was -amongst the very oldest in the country, and who was at that time under -an engagement of marriage to the very richest young man in the vale. -She and her future husband had a reasonable prospect of possessing -ten thousand pounds in land; and yet neither her own family nor her -husband's objected to her seeking such a place as I could offer. Her -character and manners, I ought to add, were so truly excellent, and -won respect so inevitably from everybody, that nobody could wonder at -the honourable confidence reposed in her by her manly and spirited -young lover. The issue of the matter, as respected my service, was, -why I do not know, that Miss Wordsworth did not accept of her: and she -fulfilled her purpose in another family, a very grave and respectable -one, in Kendal. She stayed about a couple of years, returned, and -married the young man to whom she had engaged herself, and is now the -prosperous mother of a fine handsome family; and she together with her -mother-in-law are the two leading matrons of the vale. - -It was on a November night, about ten o'clock, that I first found -myself installed in a house of my own--this cottage, so memorable from -its past tenant to all men, so memorable to myself from all which -has since passed in connexion with it. A writer in _The Quarterly -Review_, in noticing the autobiography of Dr. Watson, the Bishop of -Llandaff, has thought fit to say that the Lakes, of course, afforded -no society capable of appreciating this commonplace, coarse-minded man -of talents. The person who said this I understand to have been Dr. -Whitaker, the respectable antiquary. Now, that the reader may judge of -the propriety with which this was asserted, I shall slightly rehearse -the muster-roll of our Lake society, as it existed at the time when I -seated myself in my Grasmere cottage. I will undertake to say that the -meanest person in the whole scattered community was more extensively -accomplished than the good bishop, was more conscientiously true to -his duties, and had more varied powers of conversation. Wordsworth and -Coleridge, then living at Allan Bank, in Grasmere, I will not notice -in such a question. Southey, living thirteen miles off, at Keswick, -I have already noticed; and he needs no _proneur_. I will begin with -Windermere. - -At Clappersgate, a little hamlet of perhaps six houses, on its -north-west angle, and about five miles from my cottage, resided two -Scottish ladies, daughters of Dr. Cullen, the famous physician and -nosologist.[152] They were universally beloved for their truly kind -dispositions and the firm independence of their conduct They had been -reduced from great affluence to a condition of rigorous poverty. Their -father had made what should have been a fortune by his practice. -The good doctor, however, was careless of his money in proportion -to the facility with which he made it. All was put into a box, open -to the whole family. Breach of confidence, in the most thoughtless -use of this money, there could be none; because no restraint in that -point, beyond what honour and good sense imposed, was laid upon any -of the elder children. Under such regulations, it may be imagined -that Dr. Cullen would not accumulate any very large capital; and, -at his death, the family, for the first time, found themselves in -embarrassed circumstances. Of the two daughters who belonged to our -Lake population, one had married a Mr. Millar, son to the celebrated -Professor Millar of Glasgow.[153] This gentleman had died in America; -and Mrs. Millar was now a childless widow. The other still remained -unmarried. Both were equally independent; and independent even with -regard to their nearest relatives; for, even from their brother--who -had risen to rank and affluence as a Scottish judge, under the title -of Lord Cullen[154]--they declined to receive assistance; and except -for some small addition made to their income by a novel called "Home" -(in as many as seven volumes, I really believe) by Miss Cullen, -their expenditure was rigorously shaped to meet that very slender -income which they drew from _their_ shares of the patrimonial wrecks. -More honourable and modest independence, or poverty more gracefully -supported, I have rarely known. - - [152] William Cullen (1712-1790), Professor of the Institutes of - Medicine and the Practice of Physic in the University of Edinburgh - from 1766 to 1790.--M. - - [153] John Millar (1735-1801), author of _The Origin Of the - Distinction of Ranks in Society and Historical View of the English - Government_.--M. - - [154] Robert Cullen was a Scottish judge, with the courtesy title - of Lord Cullen, from 1796 to 1810.--M. - -Meantime, these ladies, though literary and very agreeable in -conversation, could not be classed with what now began to be known -as the _lake_ community of literati; for they took no interest in -any one of the lake poets; did not affect to take any; and I am sure -they were not aware of so much value in any one thing these poets had -written as could make it worth while even to look into their books; -and accordingly, as well-bred women, they took the same course as was -pursued for several years by Mrs. Hannah More, viz. cautiously to avoid -mentioning their names in my presence. This was natural enough in -women who had probably built their early admiration upon French models -(for Mrs. Millar used to tell me that she regarded the "Mahomet" of -Voltaire as the most perfect of human compositions), and still more so -at a period when almost all the world had surrendered their opinions -and their literary consciences (so to speak) into the keeping of _The -Edinburgh Review_; in whose favour, besides, those ladies had the -pardonable prepossessions of national pride, as a collateral guarantee -of that implicit faith which, in those days, stronger-minded people -than they took a pride in professing. Still, in defiance of prejudices -mustering so strongly to support their blindness, and the still -stronger support which this blindness drew from their total ignorance -of everything either done or attempted by the lake poets, these amiable -women persisted in one uniform tone of courteous forbearance, as often -as any question arose to implicate the names either of Wordsworth or -Coleridge,--any question about them, their books, their families, or -anything that was theirs. They thought it strange, indeed (for so -much I heard by a circuitous course), that promising and intellectual -young men--men educated at great Universities, such as Mr. Wilson of -Elleray, or myself, or a few others who had paid us visits,--should -possess so deep a veneration for these writers; but evidently this was -an infatuation--a craze, originating, perhaps, in personal connexions, -and, as the craze of valued friends, to be treated with tenderness. For -us therefore--for our sakes--they took a religious care to suppress -all allusion to these disreputable names; and it is pretty plain -how sincere their indifference must have been with regard to these -neighbouring authors, from the evidence of one fact, viz. that when, in -1810, Mr. Coleridge began to issue, in weekly numbers, his _Friend_, -which, by the prospectus, held forth a promise of meeting all possible -tastes--literary, philosophic, political--even this comprehensive -field of interest, combined with the adventitious attraction (so very -unusual, and so little to have been looked for in that thinly-peopled -region) of a local origin, from the bosom of those very hills at the -foot of which (though on a different side) they were themselves living, -failed altogether to stimulate their torpid curiosity; so perfect was -their persuasion beforehand that no good thing could by possibility -come out of a community that had fallen under the ban of the Edinburgh -critics. - -At the same time, it is melancholy to confess that, partly from the -dejection of Coleridge, his constant immersion in opium at that -period, his hatred of the duties he had assumed, or at least of their -too frequent and periodical recurrence, and partly also from the bad -selection of topics for a miscellaneous audience, from the heaviness -and obscurity with which they were treated, and from the total want -of variety, in consequence of defective arrangements on his part -for ensuring the co-operation of his friends, no conceivable act -of authorship that Coleridge _could_ have perpetrated, no possible -overt act of dulness and somnolent darkness that he _could_ have -authorized, was so well fitted to sustain the impression, with -regard to him and his friends, that had pre-occupied these ladies' -minds. _Habes confitentem reum!_ I am sure they would exclaim; not -perhaps confessing to that form of delinquency which they had been -taught to expect--trivial or extravagant sentimentalism, _Germanity_ -alternating with tumid inanity; not this, but something quite as -bad or worse, viz. palpable dulness--dulness that could be felt and -handled--rayless obscurity as to the thoughts--and communicated in -language that, according to the Bishop of Llandaff's complaint, was not -always English. For, though the particular words cited for blame were -certainly known to the vocabulary of metaphysics, and had even been -employed by a writer of Queen Anne's reign (Leibnitz), who, if any, -had the gift of translating dark thoughts into plain ones--still it -was intolerable, in point of good sense, that one who had to win his -way into the public ear should begin by bringing before a popular and -miscellaneous audience themes that could require such startling and -revolting words. _The Delphic Oracle_ was the kindest of the nicknames -which the literary taste of Windermere conferred upon the new journal. -This was the laughing suggestion of a clever young lady, a daughter of -the Bishop of Llandaff, who stood in a neutral position with regard to -Coleridge. But others there were amongst his supposed friends who felt -even more keenly than this young lady the shocking want of adaptation -to his audience in the choice of matter, and, even to an audience -better qualified to meet such matter, the want of adaptation in the -mode of publication,--viz. periodically, and by weekly recurrence; -a mode of soliciting the public attention which even authorizes the -expectation of current topics--topics arising each with its own week or -day. One in particular I remember of these disapproving friends: a Mr. -Blair, an accomplished scholar, and a frequent visitor at Elleray,[155] -who started the playful scheme of a satirical rejoinder to Coleridge's -_Friend_, under the name of _The Enemy_, which was to follow always in -the wake of its leader, and to stimulate Coleridge (at the same time -that it amused the public) by attic banter, or by downright opposition -and showing fight in good earnest. It was a plan that might have done -good service to the world, and chiefly through a seasonable irritation -(never so much wanted as then) applied to Coleridge's too lethargic -state: in fact, throughout life, it is most deeply to be regretted -that Coleridge's powers and peculiar learning were never forced out -into a large display by intense and almost persecuting opposition. -However, this scheme, like thousands of other day-dreams and bubbles -that rose upon the breath of morning spirits and buoyant youth, fell -to the ground; and, in the meantime, no enemy to _The Friend_ appeared -that was capable of matching _The Friend_ when left to itself and -its own careless or vagrant guidance. _The Friend_ ploughed heavily -along for nine-and-twenty numbers[156]; and our fair recusants and -non-conformists in all that regarded the lake poetry or authorship, -the two Scottish ladies of Clappersgate, found no reasons for changing -their opinions; but continued, for the rest of my acquaintance with -them, to practise the same courteous and indulgent silence, whenever -the names of Coleridge or Wordsworth happened to be mentioned. - - [155] See _ante_, p. 193, footnote (76).--M. - - [156] See _ante_. p. 190, footnote (75).--M. - -In taking leave of these Scottish ladies, it may be interesting to -mention that, previously to their final farewell to our Lake society, -upon taking up their permanent residence in York (which step they -adopted partly, I believe, to enjoy the more diversified society which -that great city yields, and, at any rate, the more _accessible_ -society than amongst mountain districts--partly with a view to the -cheapness of that rich district in comparison with our sterile soil, -poor towns, and poor agriculture) somewhere about the May or June of -1810, I think--they were able, by a long preparatory course of economy, -to invite to the English lakes a family of foreigners--what shall I -call them?--a family of Anglo-Gallo-Americans, from the Carolinas. The -invitation had been of old standing, and offered, as an expression -of gratitude, from these ladies, for many hospitalities and friendly -services rendered by the two heads of that family to Mrs. Millar, -in former years, and under circumstances of peculiar trial. Mrs. -Millar had been hastily summoned from Scotland to attend her husband -at Charleston; him, on her arrival, she found dying; and, whilst -overwhelmed by this sudden blow, it may be imagined that the young -widow would find trials enough for her fortitude, without needing any -addition to the load from friendlessness amongst a nation of strangers -and from total solitude. These evils were spared to Mrs. Millar, -through the kind offices and disinterested exertions of an American -gentleman (French by birth, but American by adoption), M. Simond, who -took upon himself the cares of superintending Mr. Millar's funeral -through all its details, and, by this most seasonable service, secured -to the heart-stricken widow that most welcome of privileges in all -situations, the privilege of unmolested privacy; for assuredly the -heaviest aggravation of such bereavements lies in the necessity,--too -often imposed by circumstances upon him or upon her who may happen -to be the sole responsible representative, and, at the same time, -the dearest friend of the deceased,--of superintending the funeral -arrangements. In the very agonies of a new-born grief, whilst the -heart is yet raw and bleeding, the mind not yet able to comprehend its -loss, the very light of day hateful to the eyes, the necessity even at -such a moment arises, and without a day's delay, of facing strangers, -talking with strangers, discussing the most empty details with a view -to the most sordid of considerations--cheapness, convenience, custom, -and local prejudice--and, finally, talking about whom? why, the very -child, husband, wife, who has just been torn away; and this, too, -under a consciousness that the being so hallowed is, as to these -strangers, an object equally indifferent with any one person whatsoever -that died a thousand years ago. Fortunate, indeed, is that person who -has a natural friend, or, in default of such a friend, who finds a -volunteer stepping forward to relieve him from a conflict of feeling -so peculiarly unseasonable. Mrs. Millar never forgot the service which -had been rendered to her; and she was happy when M. Simond, who had -become a wealthy citizen of America, at length held out the prospect of -coming to profit by her hospitable attentions amongst that circle of -friends with whom she and her sister had surrounded themselves in so -interesting a part of England. - -M. Simond had been a French emigrant; not, I believe, so far connected -with the privileged orders of his country, or with any political party, -as to be absolutely forced out of France by danger or by panic; but he -had shared in the feelings of those who were. Revolutionary France, -in the anarchy of the transition state, and still heaving to and fro -with the subsiding shocks of the great earthquake, did not suit him: -there was neither the polish which he sought in its manners, nor the -security which he sought in its institutions. England he did not love; -but yet, if not England, some country which had grown up from English -foundations was the country for him; and, as he augured no rest for -France through some generations to come, but an endless succession of -revolution to revolution, anarchy to anarchy, he judged it best that, -having expatriated himself and lost one country, he should solemnly -adopt another. Accordingly he became an American citizen. English he -already spoke with propriety and fluency. And, finally, he cemented -his English connexions by marrying an English lady, the niece of John -Wilkes. "What John Wilkes?" asked a lady, one of a dinner-party at -Calgarth (the house of Dr. Watson, the celebrated Bishop of Llandaff, -upon the banks of Windermere).--"_What_ John Wilkes?" re-echoed the -Bishop, with a vehement intonation of scorn; "_What_ John Wilkes, -indeed! as if there was ever more than one John Wilkes--_fama super -æthera notus_!"--"O, my Lord, I beg your pardon," said an old lady, -nearly connected with the Bishop, "there were two; I knew one of -them: he was a little, ill-looking man, and he kept the Blue Boar -at----."--"At Flamborough Head!" roared the Bishop, with a savage -expression of disgust. The old lady, suspecting that some screw was -loose in the matter, thought it prudent to drop the contest; but she -murmured, _sotto voce_, "No, not at Flamborough Head, but at Market -Drayton." Madame Simond, then, was the niece, not of the ill-looking -host of the Blue Boar, but of _the_ Wilkes so memorably connected with -the _parvanimities_ of the English government at one period; with the -casuistry of our English constitution, by the questions raised in his -person as to the effects of expulsion from the House of Commons, &c. -&c.; and, finally, with the history of English jurisprudence, by his -intrepidity on the matter of general warrants. M. Simond's party, when -at length it arrived, consisted of two persons besides himself, viz. -his wife, the niece of Wilkes, and a young lady of eighteen, standing -in the relation of grand-niece to the same memorable person. This young -lady, highly pleasing in her person, on quitting the lake district, -went northwards with her party, to Edinburgh, and there became -acquainted with Mr. Francis Jeffrey, the present Lord Jeffrey [1840], -who naturally enough fell in love with her, followed her across the -Atlantic, and in Charleston, I believe, received the honour of her hand -in marriage.[157] - - [157] She was Jeffrey's second wife, married to him in 1813.--M. - -I, as one of Mrs. Millar's friends, put in my claim to entertain her -American party in my turn. One long summer's day, they all came over -to my cottage in Grasmere; and, as it became my duty to do the honours -of our vale to the strangers, I thought that I could not discharge the -duty in a way more likely to interest them all than by conducting them -through Grasmere into the little inner chamber of Easedale, and there, -within sight of the solitary cottage, Blentarn Ghyll, telling them the -story of the Greens[158]; because, in this way, I had an opportunity, -at the same time, of showing the scenery from some of the best points, -and of opening to them a few glimpses of the character and customs -which distinguish this section of the English yeomanry from others. -The story did certainly interest them all; and thus far I succeeded -in my duties as Cicerone and Amphytrion of the day. But, throughout -the rest of our long morning's ramble, I remember that accident, or, -possibly the politeness of M. Simond, and his French sympathy with a -young man's natural desire to stand well in the eyes of a handsome -young woman, so ordered it that I had constantly the honour of being -Miss Wilkes's immediate companion, as the narrowness of the path pretty -generally threw us into ranks of two and two. Having, therefore, -through so many hours, the opportunity of an exclusive conversation -with this young lady, it would have been my own fault had I failed to -carry off an impression of her great good sense, as well as her amiable -and spirited character. Certainly I did _mon possible_ to entertain -her, both on her own account and as the visitor of my Scottish friends. -But, in the midst of all my efforts, I had the mortification to feel -that I was rowing against the stream; that there was a silent body -of prepossession against the whole camp of the lakers, which nothing -could unsettle. Miss Wilkes naturally looked up, with some feelings of -respect, to M. Simond, who, by his marriage with her aunt, had become -her own guardian and protector. Now, M. Simond, of all the men in the -world, was the last who could have appreciated an English poet. He -had, to begin with, a French inaptitude for apprehending poetry at -all: any poetry, that is, which transcends manners and the interests -of social life. Then, unfortunately, not merely through what he had -not, but equally through what he had, this cleverish Frenchman was, by -whole diameters of the earth, remote from the station at which he could -comprehend Wordsworth. He was a thorough, knowing man of the world, -keen, sharp as a razor, and valuing nothing but the tangible and the -ponderable. He had a smattering of mechanics, of physiology, geology, -mineralogy, and all other _ologies_ whatsoever; he had, besides, at his -fingers' ends, a huge body of statistical facts--how many people did -live, could live, ought to live, in each particular district of each -manufacturing county; how many old women of eighty-three there ought -to be to so many little children of one; how many murders ought to be -committed in a month by each town of five thousand souls; and so on -_ad infinitum_. And to such a thin shred had his old French politeness -been worn down by American attrition, that his thin lips could with -much ado contrive to disguise his contempt for those who failed to -meet him exactly upon his own field, with exactly his own quality of -knowledge. Yet, after all, it was but a little _case_ of knowledge, -that he had packed up neatly for a make-shift; just what corresponds -to the little assortment of razors, tooth-brushes, nail-brushes, -hair-brushes, cork-screw, gimlet, &c. &c., which one carries in one's -trunk, in a red Morocco case, to meet the casualties of a journey. The -more one was indignant at being the object of such a man's contempt, -the more heartily did one disdain his disdain, and recalcitrate his -kicks. - - [158] The pathetic story told in De Quincey's paper entitled - _Early Memorials of Grasmere_.--M. - -On the single day which Mrs. Millar could spare for Grasmere, I had -taken care to ask Wordsworth amongst those who were to meet the party. -Wordsworth came; but, by instinct, he and Monsieur Simond knew and -recoiled from each other. They met, they saw, they _inter-despised_. -Wordsworth, on his side, seemed so heartily to despise M. Simond -that he did not stir or make an effort to right himself under any -misapprehension of the Frenchman, but coolly acquiesced in any and -every inference which he might be pleased to draw; whilst M. Simond, -double-charged with contempt from _The Edinburgh Review_, and from the -report (I cannot doubt) of his present hostess, manifestly thought -Wordsworth too abject almost for the trouble of too openly disdaining -him. More than one of us could have done justice on this malefactor -by meeting M. Simond on his own ground, and taking the conceit out of -him most thoroughly. I was one of those; for I had the very knowledge, -or some of it, that he most paraded. But one of us was lazy; another -thought it not _tanti_; and I, for my part, in my own house, could not -move upon such a service. And in those days, moreover, when as yet I -loved Wordsworth not less than I venerated him, a success that would -have made him suffer in any man's opinion by comparison with myself -would have been painful to my feelings. Never did party meet more -exquisitely ill-assorted; never did party separate with more exquisite -and cordial disgust in its principal members towards each other. I -mention the case at all, in order to illustrate the abject condition of -worldly opinion in which Wordsworth then lived. Perhaps his ill fame -was just then in its meridian; for M. Simond, soon after, published -his English Tour in two octavo volumes; and, of course, he goes over -his residence at the Lakes; yet it is a strong fact that, according -to my remembrance, he does not vouchsafe to mention such a person as -Wordsworth. - -One anecdote, before parting with these ladies, I will mention, as -received from Miss Cullen on her personal knowledge of the fact. There -are stories current which resemble this, but wanting that immediate -guarantee for their accuracy which, in this case, I at least was -obliged to admit, in the attestation of so perfectly veracious a -reporter as this excellent lady. A female friend of her own, a person -of family and consideration, being on the eve of undertaking a visit -to a remote part of the kingdom, dreamed that, on reaching the end of -her journey, and drawing up to the steps of the door, a footman, with -a very marked and forbidding expression of countenance, his complexion -pale and bloodless, and his manners sullen, presented himself to let -down the steps of her carriage. This same man, at a subsequent point -of her dream, appeared to be stealing up a private staircase, with -some murderous instruments in his hands, towards a bed-room door. -This dream was repeated, I think, twice. Some time after, the lady, -accompanied by a grown-up daughter, accomplished her journey. Great was -the shock which awaited her on reaching her friend's house: a servant -corresponding in all points to the shadowy outline of her dream, -equally bloodless in complexion, and equally gloomy in manner, appeared -at her carriage door. The issue of the story was that upon a particular -night, after a stay of some length, the lady grew unaccountably -nervous; resisted her feelings for some time; but at length, at the -entreaty of her daughter, who slept in the same room, suffered some -communication of the case to be made to a gentleman resident in -the house, who had not yet retired to rest. This gentleman, struck -by the dream, and still more on recalling to mind some suspicious -preparations, as if for a hasty departure, in which he had detected the -servant, waited in concealment until three o'clock in the morning--at -which time, hearing a stealthy step moving up the staircase, he issued -with firearms, and met the man at the lady's door, so equipped as to -leave no doubt of his intentions; which possibly contemplated only -robbing of the lady's jewels, but possibly also murder in a case of -extremity. There are other stories with some of the same circumstances; -and, in particular, I remember one very like it in Dr. Abercrombie's -"Inquiries Concerning the Intellectual Powers" [1830], p. 283. But in -this version of Dr. Abercrombie's (supposing it another version of the -same story) the striking circumstance of anticipating the servant's -features is omitted; and in no version, except this of Miss Cullen's, -have I heard the names mentioned both of the parties to the affair, and -also of the place at which it occurred. - - - - - CHAPTER VIII - - SOCIETY OF THE LAKES: CHARLES LLOYD[159] - - [159] From _Tait's Magazine_ for March 1840.--M. - - -Immediately below the little village of Clappersgate, in which the -Scottish ladies resided--Mrs. Millar and Mrs. Cullen--runs the wild -mountain river called the _Brathay_, which, descending from Langdale -Head, and soon after becoming confluent with the Rothay (a brook-like -stream that comes originally from Easedale, and takes its course -through the two lakes of Grasmere and Rydal), finally composes -a considerable body of water, that flows along, deep, calm, and -steady--no longer brawling, bubbling, tumultuous--into the splendid -lake of Windermere, the largest of our English waters, or, if not, at -least the longest, and of the most extensive circuit. Close to this -little river, Brathay, on the farther side as regards Clappersgate -(and what, though actually part and parcel of a district that is -severed by the sea, or by Westmoreland, from Lancashire proper, is -yet, from some old legal usage, denominated the Lancashire side of the -Brathay), stands a modest family mansion, called Low Brathay, by way -of distinction from another and a larger mansion, about a quarter of a -mile beyond it, which, standing upon a little eminence, is called High -Brathay. - -In this house of Low Brathay lived, and continued to live, for -many years (in fact, until misery, in its sharpest form, drove him -from his hearth and his household happiness), Charles L---- the -younger[160];--on his own account, and for his personal qualities, -worthy of a separate notice in any biography, howsoever sparing in its -digressions; but, viewed in reference to his fortunes, amongst the most -interesting men I have known. Never do I reflect upon his hard fate, -and the bitter though mysterious persecution of body which pursued -him, dogged him, and thickened as life advanced, but I feel gratitude -to Heaven for my own exemption from suffering in that particular -form; and, in the midst of afflictions, of which two or three have -been most hard to bear,--because not unmingled with pangs of remorse -for the share which I myself may have had in causing them,--still, by -comparison with the lot of Charles Lloyd, I acknowledge my own to have -been happy and serene. Already, on my first hasty visit to Grasmere in -1807, I found Charles Lloyd settled with his family at Brathay, and a -resident there, I believe, of some standing. It was on a wet gloomy -evening; and Miss Wordsworth and I were returning from an excursion to -Esthwaite Water, when, suddenly, in the midst of blinding rain, without -previous notice, she said--Pray, let us call for a few minutes at this -house. A garden gate led us into a little shrubbery, chiefly composed -of lawns, beautifully kept, through which ran a gravel road, just wide -enough to admit a single carriage. A minute or so saw us housed in a -small comfortable drawing-room, but with no signs of living creatures -near it; and, from the accident of double doors, all covered with -baize, being scattered about the house, the whole mansion seemed the -palace of silence, though populous, I understood, with children. In no -long time appeared Mr. Lloyd, soon followed by his youthful wife, both -radiant with kindness; and it may be supposed that we were not suffered -to depart for some hours. I call Mrs. Lloyd youthful; and so I might -call her husband; for both were youthful, considered as the parents of -a numerous family, six or seven children then living--Charles Lloyd -himself not being certainly more than twenty-seven, and his "Sophia" -perhaps not twenty-five. - - [160] The name was Charles Lloyd, and we shall fill up De - Quincey's blanks in the sequel.--M. - -On that short visit I saw enough to interest me in both; and, two -years after, when I became myself a permanent resident in Grasmere, -the connexion between us became close and intimate. My cottage stood -just five miles from Brathay; and there were two mountain roads which -shortened the space between us, though not the time nor the toil. -But, notwithstanding this distance, often and often, upon the darkest -nights, for many years, I used to go over about nine o'clock, or an -hour later, and sit with him till one. Mrs. Lloyd was simply an amiable -young woman, of pleasing person, perfectly well principled, and, as a -wife and mother, not surpassed by anybody I have known in either of -those characters. In figure she somewhat resembled the ever memorable -and most excellent Mrs. Jordan; she was exactly of the middle height -and having that slight degree of _embonpoint_, even in youth, which -never through life diminishes or increases. Her complexion may be -imagined from the circumstance of her hair being tinged with a slight -and not unpleasing shade of red. Finally, in manners she was remarkably -self-possessed, free from all awkward embarrassment, and (to an extent -which some people would wonder at in one who had been brought up, I -believe, wholly in a great commercial town) perfectly lady-like. So -much description is due to one who, though no authoress, and never -making the slightest pretension to talents, was too much connected -subsequently with the lakers to be passed over in a review of their -community. Ah! gentle lady! your head, after struggling through many -a year with strange calamities, has found rest at length; but not in -English ground, or amongst the mountains which you loved: at Versailles -it is, and perhaps within a stone's throw of that Mrs. Jordan whom -in so many things you resembled, and most of all in the misery which -settled upon your latter years. There you lie, and for ever, whose -blooming matronly figure rises up to me at this moment from a depth of -thirty years! and your children scattered into all lands! - -But for Charles Lloyd: he, by his literary works, is so far known -to the public, that, on his own account, he merits some separate -notice.[161] His poems do not place him in the class of powerful poets; -they are loosely conceived--faultily even at times--and not finished -in the execution. But they have a real and a mournful merit under -one aspect, which might be so presented to the general reader as to -win a peculiar interest for many of them, and for some a permanent -place in any judicious _thesaurus_--such as we may some day hope to -see drawn off, and carefully filtered, from the enormous mass of -poetry produced since the awakening era of the French Revolution. -This aspect is founded on the relation which they bear to the real -events and the unexaggerated afflictions of his own life. The feelings -which he attempts to express were not assumed for effect, nor drawn -by suggestion from others, and then transplanted into some ideal -experience of his own. They do not belong to the mimetic poetry so -extensively cultivated; but they were true solitary sighs, wrung from -his own meditative heart by excess of suffering, and by the yearning -after old scenes and household faces of an impassioned memory, brooding -over vanished happiness, and cleaving to those early times when life -wore even for _his_ eyes the golden light of Paradise. But he had other -and higher accomplishments of intellect than he showed in his verses, -as I shall presently explain; and of a nature which make it difficult -to bring them adequately within the reader's apprehension. - - [161] _Blank Verse by C. L. and Charles Lamb, 1798. Poetical - Essays on Pope, and Desultory Thoughts on London, &c., 1821._--M. - -Meantime, I will sketch an outline of poor Lloyd's history, so far as -I can pretend to know it. He was the son, and probably his calamitous -life originally dated from his being the son, of Quaker parents. It was -said, indeed, by himself as well as others, that the mysterious malady -which haunted him had been derived from an ancestress in the maternal -line; and this may have been true; and, for all that, it may also be -true that Quaker habits were originally answerable for this legacy of -woe. It is sufficiently well known that, in the training of their young -people, the Society of Friends make it a point of conscience to apply -severe checks to all open manifestations of natural feeling, or of -exuberant spirits. Not the passions--they are beyond their control--but -the expression of those passions by any natural language; this they -lay under the heaviest restraint; and, in many cases, it is possible -that such a system of thwarting nature may do no great mischief; just -as we see the American Indians, in moulding the plastic skulls of -their infants into capricious shapes, do not, after all, much disturb -the ordinary course of nature, nor produce the idiots we might have -expected. But, then, the reason why such tampering may often terminate -in slight results is, because often there is not much to tamper with; -the machinery is so slight, and the total range within which it plays -is perhaps so narrow, that the difference between its normal action and -its widest deviation may, after all, be practically unimportant. For -there are many men and women of whom I have already said, borrowing the -model of the word from Hartley, that they have not so much passions -as _passiuncles_. These, however, are in _one_ extreme; and others -there are and will be, in every class, and under every disadvantage, -who are destined to illustrate the very opposite extreme. Great -passions--passions pointing to the paths of love, of ambition, of -glory, martial or literary--these in men--and in women, again, these, -either in some direct shape, or taking the form of intense sympathy -with the same passions as moving amongst contemporary men--_will_ gleam -out fitfully amongst the placid children of Fox and Penn, not less than -amongst us who profess no war with the nobler impulses of our nature. -And, perhaps, according to the Grecian doctrine of _antiperistasis_, -strong untameable passions are more likely to arise even in consequence -of the counteraction. Deep passions undoubtedly lie in the blood and -constitution of Englishmen; and Quakers,[162] after all, do not, by -being such, cease, therefore, to be Englishmen. - - [162] In using the term _Quakers_, I hoped it would have been - understood, even without any explanation from myself, that I did - not mean to use it scornfully or insultingly to that respectable - body. But it was the great oversight of their founders not to have - saved them from a nickname by assuming some formal designation - expressive of some capital characteristic. At present one is in - this dilemma: either one must use a tedious periphrasis (_e.g._ - _the young women of the Society of Friends_), or the ambiguous one - of _young female Friends_. - of _young female Friends_. - -It is, I have said, sufficiently well known that the Quakers make it a -point of their moral economy to lay the severest restraints upon all -ebullitions of feeling. Whatever may be the nature of the feeling, -whatever its strength, utter itself by word or by gesture it must not; -smoulder it may, but it must not break into a flame. This is known; but -it is not equally known that this unnatural restraint, falling into -collision with two forces at once, the force of passion and of youth, -not uncommonly records its own injurious tendencies, and publishes the -rebellious movements of nature, by distinct and anomalous diseases. -And further, I have been assured, upon most excellent authority, -that these diseases, strange and elaborate affections of the nervous -system, are found _exclusively_ amongst the young men and women of the -Quaker society; that they are known and understood exclusively amongst -physicians who have practised in great towns having a large Quaker -population, such as Birmingham; that they assume a new type, and a more -inveterate character, in the second or third generation, to whom this -fatal inheritance is often transmitted; and finally, that, if this -class of nervous derangements does not increase so much as to attract -public attention, it is simply because the community itself--the Quaker -body--does not increase, but, on the contrary, is rather on the wane. - -From a progenitrix, then, no matter in what generation, C. Lloyd -inherited that awful malady which withered his own happiness, root -and branch, gathering strength from year to year. His father was a -banker, and, I presume, wealthy, from the ample allowance which he -always made to his son Charles. Charles, it is true, had the rights -of primogeniture--which, however, in a commercial family, are not -considerable--but, at the same time, though eldest, he was eldest of -seventeen or eighteen brothers and sisters, and of these I believe -that some round dozen or so were living at the time when I first came -to know him. He had been educated in the bosom of Quaker society; his -own parents, with most of their friends, were Quakers; and, even of -his own generation, all the young women continued Quakers. Naturally, -therefore, as a boy, he also was obliged to conform to the Quaker -ritual. But this ritual presses with great inequality upon the two -sexes; in so far, at least, as regards dress. The distinctions of -dress which announce the female Quaker are all in her favour. In a -nation eminent for personal purity, and where it should seem beforehand -impossible for any woman to create a pre-eminence for herself in that -respect, so it is, however, that the female Quaker, by her dress, -seems even purer than other women, and consecrated to a service of -purity; earthly soil or taint, even the sullying breath of mortality, -seems as if kept aloof from her person--forcibly held in repulsion by -some protecting sanctity. This transcendent purity, and a nun-like -gentleness, self-respect, and sequestration from the world--these are -all that _her_ peculiarity of dress expresses; and surely this "all" is -quite enough to win every man's favourable feelings towards her, and -something even like homage. But, with the male Quaker, how different -is the case! _His_ dress--originally not remarkable by its shape, but -solely by its colour and want of ornament, so peculiar has it become -in a lapse of nearly two centuries--seems expressly devised to point -him out to ridicule. In some towns, it is true, such as Birmingham and -Kendal, the public eye is so familiar with this costume, that in _them_ -it excites no feeling whatever more than the professional costume of -butchers, bakers, grooms, &c. But in towns not commercial--towns of -luxury and parade--a Quaker is exposed to most mortifying trials of his -self-esteem. It has happened that I have followed a young man of this -order for a quarter of a mile, in Bath, or in one of the fashionable -streets of London, on a summer evening, when numerous servants were -lounging on the steps of the front door, or at the area gates; and I -have seen him run the gauntlet of grim smiles from the men, and _heard_ -him run the gauntlet of that sound--the worst which heaven has in its -artillery of scorn against the peace of poor man--the half-suppressed -titter of the women. Laughing outright is bad, but still _that_ may be -construed into a determinate insult that studiously avows more contempt -than is really felt; but tittering is hell itself; for it seems mere -nature, and absolute truth, that extort this expression of contempt in -spite of every effort to suppress it. - -Some such expression it was that drove Charles Lloyd into an early -apostasy from his sect: early it must have been, for he went at the -usual age of eighteen to Cambridge, and there, as a Quaker, he could -not have been received. He, indeed, of all men, was the least fitted -to contend with the world's scorn, for he had no great fortitude of -mind; his vocation was not to martyrdom, and he was cursed with the -most exquisite sensibility. This sensibility, indeed, it was, and not -so properly any determinate passion, which had been the scourge of his -ancestors. There was something that appeared effeminate about it; and -which, accordingly, used to provoke the ridicule of Wordsworth, whose -character, in all its features, wore a masculine and Roman harshness. -But, in fact, when you came to know Charles Lloyd, there was, even -in this slight tinge of effeminacy, something which conciliated your -pity by the feeling that it impressed you with, of being part of his -disease. His sensibility was eminently _Rousseauish_--that is, it was -physico-moral; now pointing to appetites that would have mastered him -had he been less intellectual and governed by a less exalted standard -of moral perceptions; now pointing to fine aerial speculations, -subtle as a gossamer, and apparently calculated to lead him off into -abstractions even too remote from flesh and blood. - -During the Cambridge vacation, or, it might be, even before he went -to Cambridge--and my reason for thinking so is because both, I -believe, belonged to the same town, if it could not be said of them -as of Pyramus and Thisbe, that "_contiguas habuere domos_"--he fell -desperately in love with Miss Sophia P----n. Who she was I never -heard--that is, what were her connexions; but I presume that she must -have been of an opulent family, because Mrs. P----n, the mother of -Mrs. Lloyd, occasionally paid a visit to her daughter at the lakes, -and then she brought with her a handsomely-appointed equipage, as to -horses and servants. This I have reason to remember from the fact of -herself and her daughter frequently coming over on summer evenings -to drink tea with me, and the affront (as I then thought it) which -Wordsworth fastened upon me in connexion with one of those visits. One -evening,[163] * * * * * A pang of wrath gathered at my heart. Yet why? -One moment, I felt, indeed, that it was not gentlemanly to interfere -with the privileges of any man standing in the situation which I then -occupied, of host; but still I should not have regarded it, except from -its connexion with a case I recollected in a previous year. One fine -summer day, we were walking together--Wordsworth, myself, and Southey. -Southey had been making earnest inquiries about poor Lloyd, just then -in the crisis of some severe illness, and Wordsworth's answer had been -partly lost to me. I put a question upon it, when, to my surprise (my -wrath internally, but also to my special amusement), he replied that, -in fact, what he had said was a matter of some delicacy, and not quite -proper to be communicated except to _near friends of the family_. This -to me!--O ye gods!--to me, who knew by many a hundred conversations -how disagreeable Wordsworth was both to Charles Lloyd and to his -wife; whilst, on the other hand--not by words only, but by deeds, and -by the most delicate acts of confidential favour--I knew that Mr. -Wilson (Professor Wilson) and myself had been selected as friends in -cases which were not so much as named to Wordsworth. The arrogance of -Wordsworth was well illustrated in this case of the Lloyds. - - [163] This break of asterisks occurs in the original magazine - article.--M. - -But to resume Lloyd's history. Being so desperately in love with Miss -P----n, and his parents being rich, why should he not have married -her? _Why_, I know not. But some great obstacles arose; and, I presume, -on the side of Miss P----n's friends; for, actually, it became -necessary to steal her away; and the person in whom Lloyd confided -for this delicate service was no other than Southey. A better choice -he could not have made. Had the lady been Helen of Greece, Southey -would not have had a thought but for the honour and interests of his -confiding friend. - -Having thus, by proxy, run away with his young wife, and married her, -Lloyd brought her to Cambridge. It is a novel thing in Cambridge, -though not altogether unprecedented, for a student to live there with -a wife. This novelty Lloyd exhibited to the University for some time; -but then, finding the situation not perfectly agreeable to the delicate -sensibilities of his young wife, Lloyd removed, first, I think, to -Penrith; and, after some changes, he settled down at Brathay, from -which, so long as he stayed on English ground--that is, for about -fifteen or sixteen years--he never moved. When I first crossed his -path at the Lakes, he was in the zenith of the brief happiness that -was granted to him on earth. He stood in the very centre of earthly -pleasures; and, that his advantages may be easily estimated, I will -describe both himself and his situation. - -First, then, as to his person: he was tall and somewhat clumsy--not -intellectual so much as benign and conciliatory in his expression -of face. His features were not striking, but they expressed great -goodness of heart; and latterly wore a deprecatory expression that -was peculiarly touching to those who knew its cause. His manners were -free from all modes of vulgarity; and where he acquired his knowledge -I know not (for I never heard him claim any connexion with people of -rank), but a knowledge he certainly had of all the conventional usages -amongst the higher circles, and of those purely arbitrary customs -which mere good sense and native elegance of manner are not, of -themselves, sufficient to teach. Some of these he might have learned -from the family of the Bishop of Llandaff; for with the ladies of that -family he was intimate, especially with the eldest daughter, who was -an accomplished student in that very department of literature which -Lloyd himself most cultivated, viz. all that class of works which -deal in the analysis of human passions, or attempt to exhibit the -development of human character, in relation to sexual attachments, -when placed in trying circumstances. Lloyd corresponded with Miss -Watson in French; the letters, on both sides, being full of spirit and -originality; the subjects generally drawn from Rousseau's "Heloise" -or his "Confessions," from "Corinne," from "Delphine," or some other -work of Madame de Stael. For such disquisitions Lloyd had a real and a -powerful genius. It was really a delightful luxury to hear him giving -free scope to his powers for investigating subtle combinations of -character; for distinguishing all the shades and affinities of some -presiding qualities, disentangling their intricacies, and balancing, -antithetically, one combination of qualities against another. Take, for -instance, any well-known character from the drama, and pique Lloyd's -delicate perception of differences by affecting to think it identical -with some other character of the same class--instantly, in his anxiety -to mark out the features of dissimilitude, he would hurry into an -impromptu analysis of each character separately, with an eloquence, -with a keenness of distinction, and a felicity of phrase, which -were perfectly admirable. This display of familiarity with life and -human nature, in all its masqueradings, was sometimes truly splendid. -But two things were remarkable in these displays. One was, that the -splendour was quite hidden from himself, and unperceived amidst the -effort of mind, and oftentimes severe struggles, in attempting to do -himself justice, both as respected the thoughts and the difficult -task of clothing them in adequate words; he was as free from vanity, -or even from complacency in reviewing what he had effected, as it is -possible for a human creature to be. He thought, indeed, slightly of -his own power; and, which was even a stronger barrier against vanity, -his displays of this kind were always effective in proportion to his -unhappiness; for unhappiness it was, and the restlessness of internal -irritation, that chiefly drove him to exertions of his intellect; -else, and when free from this sort of excitement, he tended to the -quiescent state of a listener; for he thought everybody better than -himself. The other point remarkable in these displays was (and most -unfavourable, of course, it proved to his obtaining the reputation -they merited), that he could succeed in them only before confidential -friends, those on whom he could rely for harbouring no shade of -ridicule towards himself or his theme. Let but one person enter the -room of whose sympathy he did not feel secure, and his powers forsook -him as suddenly as the buoyancy of a bird that has received a mortal -shot in its wing. Accordingly, it is a fact that neither Wordsworth -nor Coleridge ever suspected the amount of power which was latent in -Lloyd; for he firmly believed that both of them despised him. Mrs. -Lloyd thought the same thing. Often and often she has said to me, -smiling in a mournful way--"I know too well that both Wordsworth and -Coleridge entertain a profound contempt for my poor Charles." And, -when I combated this notion, declaring that, although they might (and -probably did) hold very cheap such writers as Rousseau and Madame de -Stael, and, consequently, could not approve of studies directed so -exclusively to their works, or to works of the same class, still that -was not sufficient to warrant them in undervaluing the powers which -Mr. Lloyd applied to such studies. To this, or similar arguments, she -would reply by simply shaking her head, and then sink into silence. - -But the time was fast approaching when all pains of this kind, from -supercilious or well-founded disparagement, were to be swallowed up -in more awful considerations and fears. The transition was not a -long one from the state of prosperity in which I found Lloyd about -1807-10 to the utter overthrow of his happiness, and, for his friends, -the overthrow of all hopes on his behalf. In the three years I have -assigned, his situation seemed luxuriously happy, as regarded the -external elements of happiness. He had, without effort of his own, an -income, most punctually remitted from his father, of from £1500 to -£1800 per annum. This income was entirely resigned to the management -of his prudent and excellent wife; and, as his own personal expenses, -separate from those of his family, were absolutely none at all, except -for books, she applied the whole either to the education of her -children, or to the accumulation of all such elegances of life about -their easy unpretending mansion as might soothe her husband's nervous -irritations, or might cheer his drooping spirits with as much variety -of pleasure as a mountainous seclusion allowed. The establishment of -servants was usually limited to six--one only being a man-servant--but -these were well chosen: and one or two were confidential servants, -tried by long experience. Rents are always low in the country for -unfurnished houses; and, even for the country, Low Brathay was a -cheap house; but it contained everything for comfort, nothing at all -for splendour. Consequently, a very large part of their income was -disposable for purposes of hospitality; and, when I first knew them, -Low Brathay was distinguished above every other house at the head of -Windermere, or within ten miles of that neighbourhood, by the judicious -assortment of its dinner parties, and the gaiety of its _soirées -dansantes_. These parties were never crowded; poor Lloyd rarely danced -himself; but it gladdened his benevolent heart to see the young and -blooming floating through the mazes of the dances then fashionable, -whilst he sat by, looking on, at times, with pleasure from his sympathy -with the pleasure of others; at times pursuing some animated discussion -with a literary friend; at times lapsing into profound reverie. -At some of these dances it was that I first saw Wilson of Elleray -(Professor Wilson), in circumstances of animation, and buoyant with -youthful spirits, under the excitement of lights, wine, and, above -all, of female company. He, by the way, was the best male dancer (not -professional) I have ever seen; and this advantage he owed entirely -to the extraordinary strength of his foot in all its parts, to its -peculiarly happy conformation, and to the accuracy of his ear; for, as -to instruction, I have often understood from his family that he never -had any. Here also danced the future wife of Professor Wilson, Miss -Jane P----,[164] at that time the leading belle of the Lake country. -But, perhaps, the most interesting person in those parties, from the -peculiarity of her situation, was Mrs. Lloyd herself, still young, -and, indeed, not apparently exceeding in years most of her unmarried -visitors; still dancing and moving through cotillons, or country -dances, as elegantly and as lightly as the youngest of the company; -still framing her countenance to that expression of cheerfulness which -hospitality required; but stealing for ever troubled glances to the -sofa, or the recess, where her husband had reclined himself, dark -foreboding looks, that saw but too truly the coming darkness which was -soon to swallow up every vestige of this festal pleasure. She looked -upon herself and her children too clearly as a doomed household; and -such, in some sense, they were. And, doubtless, to poor Lloyd himself, -it must a thousandfold have aggravated his sufferings--that he could -trace, with a steady eye, the continual growth of that hideous malady -which was stealing over the else untroubled azure of his life, and with -inaudible foot was hastening onwards for ever to that night in which no -man can work, and in which no man can hope. - - [164] Miss Jane Penny.--M. - -It was so painful to Charles Lloyd, naturally, to talk much about -his bodily sufferings, and it would evidently have been so unfeeling -in one who had no medical counsels to offer, if, for the mere -gratification of his curiosity, he had asked for any circumstantial -account of its nature or symptoms, that I am at this moment almost -as much at a loss to understand what was the mode of suffering which -it produced, how it operated, and through what organs, as any of my -readers can be. All that I know is this:--For several years--six or -seven, suppose--the disease expressed itself by intense anguish of -irritation; not an irritation that gnawed at any one local spot, but -diffused itself; sometimes causing a determination of blood to the -head, then shaping itself in a general sense of plethoric congestion -in the blood-vessels, then again remoulding itself into a restlessness -that became insupportable; preying upon the spirits and the fortitude, -and finding no permanent relief or periodic interval of rest, night or -day. Sometimes Lloyd used robust exercise, riding on horseback as fast -as he could urge the horse forward; sometimes, for many weeks together, -he walked for twenty miles, or even more, at a time; sometimes (this -was in the earlier stages of the case) he took large doses of ether; -sometimes he used opium, and, I believe, in very large quantities; -and I understood him to say that, for a time, it subdued the excess -of irritability, and the agonizing accumulation of spasmodic strength -which he felt for ever growing upon him, and, as it were, upon the -very surface of his whole body. But all remedies availed him nothing; -and once he said to me, when we were out upon the hills--"Ay, that -landscape below, with its quiet cottage, looks lovely, I dare say, to -you: as for me, I see it, but I feel it not at all; for, if I begin -to think of the happiness, and its various modes which, no doubt, -belong to the various occupants, according to their ages and hopes, -then I _could_ begin to feel it; but it would be a painful effort -to me; and the worst of all would be when I _had_ felt it; for that -would so sharpen the prospect before me, that just such happiness, -which naturally ought to be mine, is soon on the point of slipping -away from me for ever." Afterwards he told me that his situation -internally was always this: it seemed to him as if on some distant road -he heard a dull trampling sound, and that he knew it, by a misgiving, -to be the sound of some man, or party of men, continually advancing -slowly, continually threatening, or continually accusing him; that all -the various artifices which he practised for cheating himself into -comfort, or beguiling his sad forebodings, were, in fact, but like so -many furious attempts, by drum and trumpets, or even by artillery, -to drown the distant noise of his enemies; that, every now and then, -mere curiosity, or rather breathless anxiety, caused him to hush the -artificial din, and to put himself into the attitude of listening -again; when, again and again, and so he was sure it would still be, he -caught the sullen and accursed sound, trampling and voices of men, or -whatever it were, still steadily advancing, though still perhaps at a -great distance. It was too evident that derangement of the intellect, -in some shape, was coming on; because slight and transient fits of -aberration from his perfect mind had already, at intervals, overtaken -him; flying showers, from the skirts of the clouds, that precede and -announce the main storm. This was the anguish of his situation, that, -for years, he saw before him what was on the road to overwhelm his -faculties and his happiness. Still his fortitude did not wholly forsake -him, and, in fact, proved to be far greater than I or others had given -him credit for possessing. Once only he burst suddenly into tears, on -hearing the innocent voices of his own children laughing, and of one -especially who was a favourite; and he told me that sometimes, when -this little child took his hand and led him passively about the garden, -he had a feeling that prompted him (however weak and foolish it seemed) -to call upon this child for protection; and that it seemed to him as -if he might still escape, could he but surround himself only with -children. No doubt this feeling arose out of his sense that a confusion -was stealing over his thoughts, and that men would soon find this out -to be madness, and would deal with him accordingly; whereas children, -as long as he did them no harm, would see no reason for shutting him up -from his own fireside, and from the human face divine. - -It would be too painful to pursue the unhappy case through all its -stages. For a long time, the derangement of poor Lloyd's mind was -but partial and fluctuating; and it was the opinion of Professor -Wilson, from what he had observed, that it was possible to recall -him to himself by firmly opposing his delusions. He certainly, on -his own part, did whatever he could to wean his thoughts from gloomy -contemplation, by pre-occupying them with cheerful studies, and such -as might call out his faculties. He translated the whole of Alfieri's -dramas, and published his translation. He wrote and printed (but did -not publish) a novel in two volumes; my copy of which he soon after -begged back again so beseechingly that I yielded; and so, I believe, -did all his other friends: in which case no copy may now exist. All, -however, availed him not; the crisis so long dreaded arrived. He was -taken away to a lunatic asylum; and, for some long time, he was lost -to me as to the rest of the world. The first memorial I had of him was -a gentleman, with his hair in disorder, rushing into my cottage at -Grasmere, throwing his arms about my neck, and bursting into stormy -weeping--it was poor Lloyd! - -Yes, it was indeed poor Lloyd, a fugitive from a madhouse, and throwing -himself for security upon the honour and affection of one whom, with -good reason, he supposed confidentially attached to him. Could there be -a situation so full of interest or perplexity? Should any ill happen -to himself, or to another, through his present enlargement--should he -take any fit of vindictive malice against any person whom he might -view as an accomplice in the plans against his own freedom--and -probably many persons in the neighbourhood, medical and non-medical, -stood liable to such a suspicion--upon me, I felt, as the abettor of -his evasion, would all the blame settle. And unfortunately we had, in -the recent records of this very vale, a most awful lesson, and still -fresh in everybody's remembrance, of the danger connected with this -sort of criminal connivance, or passive participation in the purposes -of maniacal malignity. A man, named Watson, had often and for years -threatened to kill his aged and inoffensive mother. His threats, partly -from their own monstrosity, and from the habit of hearing him for years -repeating them without any serious attempt to give them effect--partly -also from an unwillingness to aggravate the suffering of the poor -lunatic, by translating him out of a mountaineer's liberty into the -gloomy confinement of an hospital--were treated with neglect; and at -length, after years of disregarded menace, and direct forewarning -to the parish authorities, he took an opportunity (which indeed was -rarely wanting to him) of killing the poor gray-headed woman by her own -fireside. This case I had before my mind; and it was the more entitled -to have weight with me when connected with the altered temper of Lloyd, -who now, for the first time in his life, had dropped his gentle and -remarkably quiet demeanour, for a tone, savage and ferocious, towards -more than one individual. This tone, however, lurked under a mask, -and did not come forward, except by fits and starts, for the present. -Indeed his whole manner wore the appearance of studied dissimulation, -from the moment when he perceived that I was not alone. In the interval -of years since I had last seen him (which might have been in 1816) my -own marriage had taken place; accordingly, on turning round and seeing -a young woman seated at the tea-table, where heretofore he had been so -sure of finding me alone, he seemed shocked at the depth of emotion -which he had betrayed before a stranger, and anxious to reinstate -himself in his own self-respect, by assuming a tone of carelessness -and indifference. No person in the world could feel more profoundly on -his account than the young stranger before him, who in fact was not a -stranger to his situation and the excess of his misery. But this he -could not know; and it was not, therefore, until we found ourselves -alone, that he could be prevailed upon to speak of himself, or of the -awful circumstances surrounding him, unless in terms of most unsuitable -levity. - -One thing I resolved, at any rate, to make the rule of my conduct -towards this unhappy friend, viz. to deal frankly with him, and in no -case to make myself a party to any plot upon his personal freedom. -Retaken I knew he would be, but not through me; even a murderer in such -a case (_i.e._ the case of having thrown himself upon my good faith) I -would not betray. I drew from him an account of the immediate facts in -his late escape, and his own acknowledgment that even now the pursuit -must be close at hand; probably, that his recaptors were within a few -hours' distance of Grasmere; that he would be easily traced. That my -cottage furnished no means of concealment, he knew too well; still in -these respects he was not worse off in Grasmere than elsewhere; and, at -any rate, it might save him from immediate renewal of his agitation, -and might procure for him one night of luxurious rest and relaxation, -by means of conversation with a friend, if he would make up his mind -to stay with us until his pursuers should appear; and them I could -easily contrive to delay, for at least one day and night, by throwing -false information in their way, such as would send them on to Keswick -at least, if not to Whitehaven, through the collusion of the very few -persons who could have seen him enter my door. My plan was simple and -feasible: but, somehow or other, and, I believe, chiefly because he did -not find me alone, nothing I could say had any weight with him; nor -would he be persuaded to stay longer than for a little tea. Staying so -short a time, he found it difficult to account for having ever come. -But it was too evidently useless to argue the point with him; for he -was altered, and had become obstinate and intractable. I prepared, -therefore, to gratify him according to his own plan, by bearing him -company on the road to Ambleside, and (as he said) to Brathay. We set -off on foot: the distance to Ambleside is about three and a half miles; -and one-third of this distance brought us to an open plain on the -margin of Rydalmere, where the road lies entirely open to the water. -This lake is unusually shallow, by comparison with all its neighbours; -but, at the point I speak of, it takes (especially when seen under any -mode of imperfect light) the appearance of being gloomily deep: two -islands of exquisite beauty, but strongly discriminated in character, -and a sort of recess or bay in the opposite shore, across which the -shadows of the hilly margin stretch with great breadth and solemnity -of effect to the very centre of the lake,--together with the very -solitary character of the entire valley, on which (excluding the little -hamlet in its very gorge or entrance) there is not more than one -single house,--combine to make the scene as impressive by night as any -in the Lake country. At this point it was that my poor friend paused -to converse, and, as it seemed, to take his leave, with an air of -peculiar sadness, as if he had foreseen (what in fact proved to be the -truth) that we now saw each other for the final time. The spot seemed -favourable to confidential talk; and here, therefore, he proceeded -to make his heart-rending communication: here he told me rapidly the -tale of his sufferings, and, what oppressed his mind far more than -those at this present moment, of the cruel indignities to which he -had been under the necessity of submitting. In particular, he said, -that a man of great muscular power had instructions to knock him down -whenever he made any allusion to certain speculative subjects which -the presiding authorities of the asylum chose to think connected with -his unhappy disease. Many other brutalities, damnable and dishonouring -to human nature, were practised in this asylum, not always by abuse of -the powers lodged in the servants, but by direct authority from the -governors; and yet it had been selected as the one most favourable to -a liberal treatment of the patients; and, in reality, it continued to -hold a very high reputation. - -Great and monstrous are the abuses which have been detected in such -institutions, and exposed by parliamentary interference, as well as by -the energy of individual philanthropists; but it occurs to one most -forcibly, that, after all, the light of this parliamentary torch must -have been but feeble and partial, when it was possible for cases such -as these to escape all general notice, and for the establishment which -fostered them to retain a character as high as any in the land for -enlightened humanity. Perhaps the paramount care in the treatment of -lunatics should be directed towards those appliances, and that mode -of discipline, which is best fitted for restoring the patient finally -to a sane condition; but the _second_ place in the machinery of his -proper management should be reserved for that system of attentions, -medical or non-medical, which has the best chance of making him happy -for the present; and especially because his present happiness must -always be one of the directest avenues to his restoration. In the -present case, could it be imagined that the shame, agitation, and -fury, which convulsed poor Lloyd, as he went over the circumstances -of his degradation, were calculated for any other than the worst -effects upon the state and prospects of his malady? By sustaining the -tumult of his brain, they must, almost of themselves, have precluded -his restoration. At the side of that quiet lake he stood for nearly -an hour repeating his wrongs, his eyes glaring continually, as the -light thrown off from those parts of the lake which reflected bright -tracts of sky amongst the clouds fitfully illuminated them, and again -and again threatening, with gestures the wildest, vengeance the most -savage upon those vile keepers who had so abused any just purposes of -authority. He would talk of little else; apparently he could not. A -hollow effort he would make now and then, when his story had apparently -reached its close, to sustain the topics of ordinary conversation; but -in a minute he had relapsed into the one subject which possessed him. -In vain I pressed him to return with me to Grasmere. He was now, for a -few hours to come, to be befriended by the darkness; and he resolved -to improve the opportunity for some purpose of his own, which, as he -showed no disposition to communicate any part of his future plans, I -did not directly inquire into. In fact, part of his purpose in stopping -where he did had been to let me know that he did not wish for company -any further. We parted; and I saw him no more. He was soon recaptured; -then transferred to some more eligible asylum; then liberated from all -restraint; after which, with his family, he went to France; where again -it became necessary to deprive him of liberty. And, finally, in France -it was that his feverish existence found at length a natural rest and -an everlasting liberty; for there it was, in a _maison de santé_, at -or near Versailles, that he died (and I believe tranquilly), a few -years after he had left England. Death was indeed to him, in the words -of that fine mystic, Blake the artist, a "golden gate"--the gate of -liberation from the captivity of half a life; or, as I once found the -case beautifully expressed in a volume of poems a century old, and -otherwise poor enough, for they offered nothing worth recollecting -beyond this single line, in speaking of the particular morning in which -some young man had died-- - - "That morning brought him peace and liberty." - -Charles Lloyd never returned to Brathay after he had once been removed -from it; and the removal of his family soon followed. Mrs. Lloyd, -indeed, returned at intervals from France to England, upon business -connected with the interests of her family; and, during one of those -fugitive visits, she came to the Lakes, where she selected Grasmere -for her residence, so that I had opportunities of seeing her every -day, for a space of several weeks. Otherwise, I never again saw any of -the family, except one son, an interesting young man, who sought most -meritoriously, by bursting asunder the heavy yoke of constitutional -inactivity, to extract a balm for his own besetting melancholy from a -constant series of exertions in which he had forced himself to engage -for promoting education or religious knowledge amongst his poorer -neighbours. But often and often, in years after all was gone, I have -passed old Brathay, or have gone over purposely after dark, about the -time when, for many a year, I used to go over to spend the evening; -and, seating myself on a stone, by the side of the mountain river -Brathay, have staid for hours listening to the same sound to which -so often Charles Lloyd and I used to hearken together with profound -emotion and awe--the sound of pealing anthems, as if streaming from -the open portals of some illimitable cathedral; for such a sound does -actually arise, in many states of the weather, from the peculiar action -of the river Brathay upon its rocky bed; and many times I have heard -it, of a quiet night, when no stranger could have been persuaded to -believe it other than the sound of choral chanting--distant, solemn, -saintly. Its meaning and expression were, in those earlier years, -uncertain and general; not more pointed or determined in the direction -which it impressed upon one's feelings than the light of setting suns: -and sweeping, in fact, the whole harp of pensive sensibilities, rather -than striking the chord of any one specific sentiment. But since the -ruin or dispersion of that household, after the smoke had ceased to -ascend from their hearth, or the garden walks to re-echo their voices, -oftentimes, when lying by the river side, I have listened to the same -aerial saintly sound, whilst looking back to that night, long hidden in -the frost of receding years, when Charles and Sophia Lloyd, now lying -in foreign graves, first dawned upon me, coming suddenly out of rain -and darkness; then--young, rich, happy, full of hope, belted with young -children (of whom also most are long dead), and standing apparently -on the verge of a labyrinth of golden hours. Musing on that night in -November, 1807, and then upon the wreck that had been wrought by a -space of fifteen years, I would say to myself sometimes, and seem to -hear it in the songs of this watery cathedral--Put not your trust in -any fabric of happiness that has its root in man or the children of -men. Sometimes even I was tempted to discover in the same music a sound -such as this--Love nothing, love nobody, for thereby comes a killing -curse in the rear. But sometimes also, very early on a summer morning, -when the dawn was barely beginning to break, all things locked in -sleep, and only some uneasy murmur or cock-crow, at a faint distance, -giving a hint of resurrection for earth and her generations, I have -heard in that same chanting of the little mountain river a more solemn -if a less agitated admonition--a requiem over departed happiness, and -a protestation against the thought that so many excellent creatures, -but a little lower than the angels, whom I have seen only to love in -this life--so many of the good, the brave, the beautiful, the wise--can -have appeared for no higher purpose or prospect than simply to point -a moral, to cause a little joy and many tears, a few perishing moons -of happiness and years of vain regret! No! that the destiny of man is -more in correspondence with the grandeur of his endowments, and that -our own mysterious tendencies are written hieroglyphically in the -vicissitudes of day and night, of winter and summer, and throughout the -great alphabet of Nature! But on that theme--beware, reader! Listen to -no _intellectual_ argument. One argument there is, one only there is, -of philosophic value: an argument drawn from the _moral_ nature of man: -an argument of Immanuel Kant's. The rest are dust and ashes. - - - - - CHAPTER IX - - SOCIETY OF THE LAKES: MISS ELIZABETH SMITH, THE SYMPSONS, AND THE - K---- FAMILY[165] - - [165] From _Tait's Magazine_ for June 1840. - - -Passing onwards from Brathay, a ride of about forty minutes carries you -to the summit of a wild heathy tract, along which, even at noonday, -few sounds are heard that indicate the presence of man, except now -and then a woodman's axe in some of the many coppice-woods scattered -about that neighbourhood. In Northern England there are no sheep-bells; -which is an unfortunate defect, as regards the full impression of wild -solitudes, whether amongst undulating heaths or towering rocks: at -any rate, it is so felt by those who, like myself, have been trained -to its soothing effects upon the hills of Somersetshire--the Cheddar, -the Mendip, or the Quantock--or any other of those breezy downs which -once constituted such delightful local distinctions for four or five -counties in that south-west angle of England. At all hours of day -or night, this silvery tinkle was delightful; but, after sunset, -in the solemn hour of gathering twilight, heard (as it always was) -intermittingly, and at great varieties of distance, it formed the most -impressive incident for the ear, and the most in harmony with the other -circumstances of the scenery, that, perhaps, anywhere exists--not -excepting even the natural sounds, the swelling and dying intonations -of insects wheeling in their vesper flights. Silence and desolation are -never felt so profoundly as when they are interrupted by solemn sounds, -recurring by uncertain intervals, and from distant places. But in -these Westmoreland heaths, and uninhabited ranges of hilly ground, too -often nothing is heard except occasionally the wild cry of a bird--the -plover, the snipe, or perhaps the raven's croak. The general impression -is, therefore, cheerless; and the more are you rejoiced when, looking -down from some one of the eminences which you have been gradually -ascending, you descry, at a great depth below,[166] the lovely lake -of Coniston. The head of this lake is the part chiefly interesting, -both from the sublime character of the mountain barriers, and from the -intricacy of the little valleys at their base. - - [166] The approach from Ambleside or Hawkshead, though fine, is - far less so than from Grasmere, through the vale of Tilberthwaite, - to which, for a _coup de théâtre_, I recollect nothing equal. - Taking the left-hand road, so as to make for Monk Coniston, and - not for Church Coniston, you ascend a pretty steep hill, from - which, at a certain point of the little gorge or _hawse_ (_i.e._ - _hals_, neck or throat, viz. the dip in any hill through which the - road is led), the whole lake of six miles in length, and the - beautiful foregrounds, all rush upon the eye with the effect of a - pantomimic surprise--not by a graduated revelation, but by an - instantaneous flash. - -On a little verdant knoll, near the north-eastern margin of the lake, -stands a small villa, called Tent Lodge, built by Colonel Smith, -and for many years occupied by his family. That daughter of Colonel -Smith who drew the public attention so powerfully upon herself by -the splendour of her attainments had died some months before I came -into the country.[167] But yet, as I was subsequently acquainted with -her family through the Lloyds (who were within an easy drive of Tent -Lodge), and as, moreover, with regard to Miss Elizabeth Smith herself, -I came to know more than the world knew--drawing my knowledge from many -of her friends, but especially from Mrs. Hannah More, who had been -intimately connected with her: for these reasons, I shall rehearse the -leading points of her story; and the rather because her family, who -were equally interested in that story, long continued to form part of -the Lake society. - - [167] Miss Elizabeth Smith (1776-1806), authoress of a translation - of a Life of Klopstock from the German, and also of a translation - of the Book of Job from the Hebrew, and a Hebrew, Arabic, and - Persic vocabulary, all published after her death. Two volumes of - her _Fragments in Prose and Verse_ were published at Bath in 1809, - with a memoir of her by H. M. Bowdler.--M. - -On my first becoming acquainted with Miss Smith's pretensions, it is -very true that I regarded them with but little concern; for nothing -ever interests me less than great philological attainments, or at -least that mode of philological learning which consists in mastery -over languages. But one reason for this indifference is, that the -apparent splendour is too often a false one. They who know a vast -number of languages rarely know any one with accuracy; and, the more -they gain in one way, the more they lose in another. With Miss Smith, -however, I gradually came to know that this was not the case; or, -at any rate, but partially the case; for, of some languages which -she possessed, and those the least accessible, it appeared, finally, -that she had even a critical knowledge. It created also a secondary -interest in these difficult accomplishments of hers, to find that -they were so very extensive. Secondly, That they were pretty nearly -all of self-acquisition. Thirdly, That they were borne so meekly, and -with unaffected absence of all ostentation. As to the first point, -it appears (from Mrs. H. Bowdler's Letter to Dr. Mummsen, the friend -of Klopstock)[168] that she made herself mistress of the French, the -Italian, the Spanish, the Latin, the German, the Greek, and the Hebrew -languages. She had no inconsiderable knowledge of the Syriac, the -Arabic, and the Persic. She was a good geometrician and algebraist. She -was a very expert musician. She drew from nature, and had an accurate -knowledge of perspective. Finally, she manifested an early talent for -poetry; but, from pure modesty, destroyed most of what she had written, -as soon as her acquaintance with the Hebrew models had elevated the -standard of true poetry in her mind, so as to disgust her with what she -now viewed as the tameness and inefficiency of her own performances. -As to the second point--that for these attainments she was indebted, -almost exclusively, to her own energy,--this is placed beyond all doubt -by the fact that the only governess she ever had (a young lady not -much beyond her own age) did not herself possess, and therefore could -not have communicated, any knowledge of languages, beyond a little -French and Italian. Finally, as to the modesty with which she wore her -distinctions, _that_ is sufficiently established by every page of -her printed works, and her letters. Greater diffidence, as respected -herself, or less willingness to obtrude her knowledge upon strangers, -or even upon those correspondents who would have wished her to make -a little more display, cannot be imagined. And yet I repeat that her -knowledge was as sound and as profound as it was extensive. For, taking -only one instance of this, her Translation of Job has been pronounced, -by Biblical critics of the first rank, a work of real and intrinsic -value, without any reference to the disadvantages of the translator, -or without needing any allowances whatever. In particular, Dr. Magee, -the celebrated writer on the Atonement, and subsequently a dignitary of -the Irish Church--certainly one of the best qualified judges at that -time--describes it as "conveying more of the character and meaning -of the Hebrew, with fewer departures from the idiom of the English, -than any other translation whatever that we possess." So much for the -scholarship; whilst he rightly notices, in proof of the translator's -taste and discretion, that "from the received version she very seldom -unnecessarily deviates": thus refusing to disturb what was, generally -speaking, so excellent and time-hallowed for any dazzling effects -of novelty; and practising this forbearance as much as possible, -notwithstanding novelty was, after all, the main attraction upon which -the new translation must rest. - - [168] See previous footnote (166), p. 404.--M. - -The example of her modesty, however, is not more instructive than that -of her continued struggle with difficulties in pursuing knowledge, -and with misfortunes in supporting a Christian fortitude. I shall -briefly sketch her story:--She was born at Burnhall, in the county of -Durham, at the latter end of the year 1776. Early in 1782, when she -had just entered her sixth year, her parents removed into Suffolk, -in order to be near a blind relation, who looked with anxiety to the -conscientious attentions of Mrs. Smith in superintending his comforts -and interests. This occupation absorbed so much of her time that she -found it necessary to obtain the aid of a stranger in directing the -studies of her daughter. An opportunity just then offered of attaining -this object, concurrently with another not less interesting to herself, -viz. that of offering an asylum to a young lady who had recently been -thrown adrift upon the world by the misfortunes of her parents. They -had very suddenly fallen from a station of distinguished prosperity; -and the young lady herself, then barely sixteen, was treading that -path of severe adversity upon which, by a most singular parallelism -of ill fortune, her young pupil was destined to follow her steps at -exactly the same age. Being so prematurely called to the office of -governess, this young lady was expected rather to act as an elder -companion, and as a lightener of the fatigues attached to their common -studies, than exactly as their directress. And, at all events, from -her, who was the only even nominal governess that Miss Smith ever had, -it is certain that she could have learned little or nothing. This -arrangement subsisted between two and three years, when the death of -their blind kinsman allowed Mr. Smith's family to leave Suffolk, and -resume their old domicile of Burnhall. But from this, by a sudden gleam -of treacherous prosperity, they were summoned, in the following year -(June, 1785) to the splendid inheritance of Piercefield--a show-place -upon the river Wye, and, next after Tintern Abbey and the river itself, -an object of attraction to all who then visited the Wye. - -A residence on the Wye, besides its own natural attraction, has this -collateral advantage, that it brings Bath (not to mention Clifton and -the Hot Wells) within a visiting distance for people who happen to -have carriages; and Bath, it is hardly necessary to say, besides its -stationary body of polished and intellectual residents, has also a -floating casual population of eminent or interesting persons, gathered -into this focus from every quarter of the empire. Amongst the literary -connexions which the Piercefield family had formed in Bath was one with -Mrs. Bowdler and her daughter--two ladies not distinguished by any very -powerful talents, but sufficiently tinctured with literature and the -love of literature to be liberal in their opinions. And, fortunately -(as it turned out for Miss Smith), they were eminently religious: but -not in a bigoted way; for they were conciliating and winning in the -outward expression of their religious character; capable of explaining -their own creed with intelligent consistency; and, finally, were the -women to recommend any creed by the sanctity and the benignity of -their own lives. This strong religious bias of the two Bath ladies -operated in Miss Smith's favour by a triple service. First of all, it -was this depth of religious feeling, and, consequently, of interest in -the Scriptures, which had originally moved the elder Mrs. Bowdler to -study the Hebrew and the Greek, as the two languages in which they had -been originally delivered. And this example it was of _female_ triumph -over their difficulties, together with the proof thus given that such -attainments were entirely reconcilable with feminine gentleness, -which first suggested to Miss Smith the project of her philological -studies; and, doubtless, these studies, by the constant and agreeable -occupation which they afforded, overspread the whole field of her life -with pleasurable activity. "From the above-mentioned visit," says her -mother, writing to Dr. Randolph,[169] and referring to the visit which -these Bath ladies had made to Piercefield--"from the above-mentioned -visit I date the turn of study which Elizabeth ever after pursued, and -which I firmly believe the amiable conduct of our guests first led her -to delight in." Secondly, to the religious sympathies which connected -these two ladies with Miss Smith was owing the fervour of that -friendship which afterwards, in their adversity, the Piercefield family -found more strenuously exerted in their behalf by the Bowdlers than -by all the rest of their connexions. And, finally, it was this piety -and religious resignation, with which she had been herself inoculated -by her Bath friends, that, throughout the calamitous era of her life, -enabled Miss Elizabeth Smith to maintain her own cheerfulness unbroken, -and greatly to support the failing fortitude of her mother. - - [169] The Rev. T. Randolph, D.D., editor of Miss Smith's - Translation of Job, 1810.--M. - -This visit of her Bath friends to Piercefield--so memorable an event -for the whole subsequent life of Miss Smith--occurred in the summer of -1789; consequently, when she was just twelve and a half years old. And -the impressions then made upon her childish, but unusually thoughtful, -mind, were kept up by continual communications, personal or written, -through the years immediately succeeding. Just two and a half years -after, in the very month when Miss Smith accomplished her fifteenth -year, upon occasion of going through the rite of Confirmation, -according to the discipline of the English Church, she received a -letter of religious counsel--grave, affectionate, but yet humble--from -the elder Mrs. Bowdler, which might almost have been thought to have -proceeded from a writer who had looked behind the curtain of fate, and -had seen the forge at whose fires the shafts of Heaven were even now -being forged. - -Just twelve months from the date of this letter, in the very month when -Miss Elizabeth Smith completed her sixteenth year, the storm descended -upon the house of Piercefield. The whole estate, a splendid one, was -swept away by the failure (as I have heard) of one banking-house; nor -were there recovered, until some years after, any slender fragments of -that estate. Piercefield was, of course, sold; but that was not the -heaviest of her grievances to Miss Smith. She was now far advanced -upon her studious career; for it should be mentioned, as a lesson to -other young ladies of what may be accomplished by unassisted labour, -that, between the ages of thirteen and twenty-one, all her principal -acquisitions were made. No treasure, therefore, could, in her eyes, -be of such priceless value as the Piercefield library; but this also -followed the general wreck: not a volume, not a pamphlet, was reserved; -for the family were proud in their integrity, and would receive no -favours from the creditors. Under this scorching test, applied to the -fidelity of friends, many, whom Mrs. Smith mentions in one of her -letters under the name of "summer friends," fled from them by crowds: -dinners, balls, soirées--credit, influence, support--these things were -no longer to be had from Piercefield. But more annoying even than -the fickle levity of such open deserters, was the timid and doubtful -countenance, as I have heard Mrs. Smith say, which was still offered to -them by some who did not relish, _for their own sakes_, being classed -with those who had paid their homage only to the fine house and fine -equipages of Piercefield. These persons continued, therefore, to send -invitations to the family; but so frigidly that every expression -manifested but too forcibly how disagreeable was the duty with which -they were complying, and how much more they submitted to it for their -own reputation's sake than for any kindness they felt to their old -friends. Mrs. Smith was herself a very haughty woman, and it maddened -her to be the object of condescensions so insolent and so reluctant. - -Meantime, her daughter, young as she was, became the moral support of -her whole family, and the fountain from which they all drew consolation -and fortitude. She was confirmed in her religious tendencies by two -circumstances of her recent experience: one was that she, the sole -person of her family who courted religious consolations, was also the -sole person who had been able to maintain cheerfulness and uniform -spirits: the other was that, although it could not be truly said of -_all_ their worldly friends that they had forsaken them, yet of their -religious friends it could be said that not one had done so; and at -last, when for some time they had been so far reduced as not to have a -roof over their heads, by one of these religious friends it was that -they were furnished with every luxury as well as comfort of life, -and in a spirit of such sisterly kindness as made the obligation not -painful to the proudest amongst them. - -It was in 1792 that the Piercefield family had been ruined; and in -1794, out of the wrecks which had been gathered together, Mr. Smith -(the father of the family) bought a commission in the army. For some -time the family continued to live in London, Bath, and other parts of -England; but, at length, Mr. Smith's regiment was ordered to the west -of Ireland; and the ladies of his family resolved to accompany him -to head-quarters. In passing through Wales (May, 1796) they paid a -visit to those sentimental anchorites of the last generation whom so -many of us must still remember--Miss Ponsonby and Lady Eleanor Butler -(a sister of Lord Ormond), whose hermitage stood near to Llangollen, -and, therefore, close to the usual Irish route, by way of Holyhead. -On landing in Ireland, they proceeded to a seat of Lord Kingston--a -kind-hearted, hospitable Irishman, who was on the old Piercefield list -of friends, and had never wavered in his attachment. Here they stayed -three weeks. Miss Smith renewed, on this occasion, her friendship -with Lady Isabella King, the daughter of Lord Kingston; and a little -incident connected with this visit gave her an opportunity afterwards -of showing her delicate sense of the sacred character which attaches -to gifts of friendship, and showing it by an ingenious device that -may be worth the notice of other young ladies in the same case. Lady -Isabella had given to Miss Smith a beautiful horse, called Brunette. -In process of time, when they had ceased to be in the neighbourhood of -any regimental stables, it became matter of necessity that Brunette -should be parted with. To have given the animal away, had that been -otherwise possible, might only have been delaying the sale for a short -time. After some demur, therefore, Miss Smith adopted this plan: she -sold Brunette, but applied the whole of the price, 120 guineas, to the -purchase of a splendid harp. The harp was christened Brunette, and was -religiously preserved to the end of her life. Now, Brunette, after all, -must have died in a few years; but, by translating her friend's gift -into another form, she not only connected the image of her distant -friend, and her sense of that friend's kindness, with a pleasure and a -useful purpose of her own, but she conferred on that gift a perpetuity -of existence. - -At length came the day when the Smiths were to quit Kingston Lodge for -the quarters of the regiment. And now came the first rude trial of Mrs. -Smith's fortitude, as connected with points of mere decent comfort. -Hitherto, floating amongst the luxurious habitations of opulent -friends, she might have felt many privations as regarded splendour -and direct personal power, but never as regarded the primary elements -of comfort, warmth, cleanliness, convenient arrangements. But on this -journey, which was performed by all the party on horseback, it rained -incessantly. They reached their quarters drenched with wet, weary, -hungry, forlorn. The quartermaster had neglected to give any directions -for their suitable accommodation--no preparations whatever had been -made for receiving them; and, from the luxuries of Lord Kingston's -mansion, which habit had made so familiar to them all, the ladies found -themselves suddenly transferred to a miserable Irish cabin--dirty, -narrow, nearly quite unfurnished, and thoroughly disconsolate. Mrs. -Smith's proud spirit fairly gave way, and she burst out into a fit of -weeping. Upon this, her daughter Elizabeth (and Mrs. Smith herself it -was that told the anecdote, and often she told it, or told others of -the same character, at Lloyd's), in a gentle, soothing tone, began to -suggest the many blessings which lay before them in life, and some even -for this evening. - -"Blessings, child!"--her mother impatiently interrupted her. "What -sort of blessings? Irish blessings!--county of Sligo blessings, I -fancy. Or, perhaps, you call this a blessing?" holding up a miserable -fragment of an iron rod, which had been left by way of poker, or rather -as a substitute for the whole assortment of fire-irons. The daughter -laughed; but she changed her wet dress expeditiously, assumed an apron; -and so various were her accomplishments that, in no long time, she -had gathered together a very comfortable dinner for her parents, and, -amongst other things, a currant tart, which she had herself made, in a -tenement absolutely unfurnished of every kitchen utensil. - -In the autumn of this year (1796), they returned to England; and, after -various migrations through the next four years, amongst which was -another and longer visit to Ireland in 1800, they took up their abode -in the sequestered vale of Patterdale. Here they had a cottage upon -the banks of Ulleswater; the most gorgeous of the English lakes, from -the rich and ancient woods which possess a great part of its western -side; the sublimest, as respects its mountain accompaniments, except -only, perhaps, Wastdale; and, I believe, the largest; for, though only -nine miles in length, and, therefore, shorter by about two miles than -Windermere, it averages a greater breadth. Here, at this time, was -living Mr. Clarkson--that son of thunder, that Titan, who was in fact -the one great Atlas that bore up the Slave-Trade Abolition cause--now -resting from his mighty labours and nerve-shattering perils. So much -had _his_ nerves been shattered by all that he had gone through in -toil, in suffering, and in anxiety, that, for many years, I have heard -it said, he found himself unable to walk up stairs without tremulous -motions of his limbs. He was, perhaps, too iron a man, too much like -the _Talus_ of Spenser's "Faerie Queene,"[170] to appreciate so gentle -a creature as Miss Elizabeth Smith. A more suitable friend, and one -who thoroughly comprehended her, and expressed his admiration for her -in verse, was Thomas Wilkinson of Yanwath, a Quaker, a man of taste, -and of delicate sensibility. He wrote verses occasionally; and, though -feebly enough as respected poetic power, there were often such delicate -touches of feeling, such gleams of real tenderness, in some redeeming -part of each poem, that even Wordsworth admired and read them aloud -with pleasure. Indeed Wordsworth has addressed to him one copy of -verses, or rather to his spade, which was printed in the collection of -1807, and which Lord Jeffrey, after quoting one line, dismissed as too -dull for repetition.[171] - - [170] The "mighty iron man" of that romance.--M. - - [171] It is entitled "To the Spade of a Friend: composed while we - were labouring together in his pleasure ground"; and it begins-- - - "Spade! with which Wilkinson hath tilled his lands." - - It was written in 1804.--M. - -During this residence upon Ulleswater (winter of 1800) it was that -a very remarkable incident befell Miss Smith. I have heard it often -mentioned, and sometimes with a slight variety of circumstances; but I -here repeat it from an account drawn up by Miss Smith herself, who was -most literally exact and faithful to the truth in all reports of her -own personal experience. There is, on the western side of Ulleswater, -a fine cataract (or, in the language of the country, a _force_), known -by the name of Airey Force; and it is of importance enough, especially -in rainy seasons, to attract numerous visitors from among "the Lakers." -Thither, with some purpose of sketching, not the whole scene, but some -picturesque features of it, Miss Smith had gone, quite unaccompanied. -The road to it lies through Gobarrow Park; and it was usual, at that -time, to take a guide from the family of the Duke of Norfolk's keeper, -who lived in Lyulph's Tower--a solitary hunting lodge, built by his -Grace for the purposes of an annual visit which he used to pay to -his estates in that part of England. She, however, thinking herself -sufficiently familiar with the localities, had declined to encumber -her motions with such an attendant; consequently she was alone. For -half an hour or more, she continued to ascend: and, being a good -"cragswoman," from the experience she had won in Wales as well as in -northern England, she had reached an altitude much beyond what would -generally be thought corresponding to the time. The path had vanished -altogether; but she continued to pick out one for herself amongst the -stones, sometimes receding from the _force_, sometimes approaching it, -according to the openings allowed by the scattered masses of rock. -Pressing forward in this hurried way, and never looking back, all at -once she found herself in a little stony chamber, from which there -was no egress possible in advance. She stopped and looked up. There -was a frightful silence in the air. She felt a sudden palpitation -at her heart, and a panic from she knew not what. Turning, however, -hastily, she soon wound herself out of this aerial dungeon; but by -steps so rapid and agitated, that, at length, on looking round, she -found herself standing at the brink of a chasm, frightful to look -down. That way, it was clear enough, all retreat was impossible; but, -on turning round, retreat seemed in every direction alike even more -impossible. Down the chasm, at least, she might have leaped, though -with little or no chance of escaping with life; but on all other -quarters it seemed to her eye that at no price could she effect an -exit, since the rocks stood round her in a semi-circus, all lofty, all -perpendicular, all glazed with trickling water, or smooth as polished -porphyry. Yet how, then, had she reached the point? The same track, -if she could hit that track, would surely secure her escape. Round -and round she walked; gazed with almost despairing eyes; her breath -became thicker and thicker; for path she could not trace by which it -was possible for her to have entered. Finding herself grow more and -more confused, and every instant nearer to sinking into some fainting -fit or convulsion, she resolved to sit down and turn her thoughts -quietly into some less exciting channel. This she did; gradually -recovered some self-possession; and then suddenly a thought rose up to -her, that she was in the hands of God, and that He would not forsake -her. But immediately came a second and reproving thought--that this -confidence in God's protection might have been justified had she been -ascending the rocks upon any mission of duty; but what right could -_she_ have to any providential deliverance, who had been led thither -in a spirit of levity and carelessness? I am here giving _her_ view of -the case; for, as to myself, I fear greatly that, if _her_ steps were -erring ones, it is but seldom indeed that _nous autres_ can pretend -to be treading upon right paths. Once again she rose; and, supporting -herself upon a little sketching-stool that folded up into a stick, she -looked upwards, in the hope that some shepherd might, by chance, be -wandering in those aerial regions; but nothing could she see except -the tall birches growing at the brink of the highest summits, and the -clouds slowly sailing overhead. Suddenly, however, as she swept the -whole circuit of her station with her alarmed eye, she saw clearly, -about two hundred yards beyond her own position, a lady, in a white -muslin morning robe, such as were then universally worn by young ladies -until dinner-time. The lady beckoned with a gesture and in a manner -that, in a moment, gave her confidence to advance--_how_ she could -not guess; but, in some way that baffled all power to retrace it, she -found instantaneously the outlet which previously had escaped her. She -continued to advance towards the lady, whom now, in the same moment, -she found to be standing upon the other side of the _force_, and also -to be her own sister. How or why that young lady, whom she had left at -home earnestly occupied with her own studies, should have followed and -overtaken her filled her with perplexity. But this was no situation for -putting questions; for the guiding sister began to descend, and, by a -few simple gestures, just serving to indicate when Miss Elizabeth was -to approach and when to leave the brink of the torrent, she gradually -led her down to a platform of rock, from which the further descent was -safe and conspicuous. There Miss Smith paused, in order to take breath -from her panic, as well as to exchange greetings and questions with her -sister. But sister there was none. All trace of her had vanished; and, -when, in two hours after, she reached her home, Miss Smith found her -sister in the same situation and employment in which she had left her; -and the whole family assured her that she had never stirred from the -house. - -In 1801, I believe it was that the family removed from Patterdale to -Coniston. Certainly they were settled there in the spring of 1802; for, -in the May of that spring, Miss Elizabeth Hamilton--a writer now very -much forgotten, or remembered only by her "Cottagers of Glenburnie," -but then a person of mark and authority in the literary circles of -Edinburgh[172]--paid a visit to the Lakes, and stayed there for many -months, together with her married sister, Mrs. Blake; and both ladies -cultivated the friendship of the Smiths. Miss Hamilton was captivated -with the family; and, of the sisters in particular, she speaks as of -persons that, "in the days of paganism would have been worshipped as -beings of a superior order, so elegantly graceful do they appear, when, -with easy motion, they guide their light boat over the waves." And of -Miss Elizabeth, separately, she says, on another occasion,--"I never -before saw so much of Miss Smith; and, in the three days she spent -with us, the admiration which I had always felt for her extraordinary -talents, and as extraordinary virtues, was hourly augmented. She is, -indeed, a most charming creature; and, if one could inoculate her with -a little of the Scotch frankness, I think she would be one of the most -perfect of human beings." - - [172] Elizabeth Hamilton (1758-1816), though now remembered - chiefly by her Scottish story, _The Cottagers of Glenburnie_, - which appeared in 1808, was the author of many other writings.--M. - -About four years had been delightfully passed in Coniston. In the -summer of 1805 Miss Smith laid the foundation of her fatal illness in -the following way, according to her own account of the case to an old -servant, a very short time before she died:--"One very hot evening, -in July, I took a book, and walked about two miles from home, when I -seated myself on a stone beside the lake. Being much engaged by a poem -I was reading, I did not perceive that the sun was gone down, and was -succeeded by a very heavy dew, till, in a moment, I felt struck on -the chest as if with a sharp knife. I returned home, but said nothing -of the pain. The next day being also very hot, and every one busy in -the hay-field, I thought I would take a rake, and work very hard to -produce perspiration, in the hope that it might remove the pain; but -it did not." From that time, a bad cough, with occasional loss of -voice, gave reason to suspect some organic injury of the lungs. Late -in the autumn of this year (1805) Miss Smith accompanied her mother -and her two younger sisters to Bristol, Bath, and other places in the -south, on visits to various friends. Her health went through various -fluctuations until May of the following year, when she was advised to -try Matlock. Here, after spending three weeks, she grew worse; and, -as there was no place which she liked so well as the Lakes, it was -resolved to turn homewards. About the beginning of June, she and her -mother returned alone to Coniston: one of her sisters was now married; -her three brothers were in the army or navy; and her father almost -constantly with his regiment. Through the next two months she faded -quietly away, sitting always in a tent,[173] that had been pitched upon -the lawn, and which remained open continually to receive the fanning -of the intermitting airs upon the lake, as well as to admit the bold -mountain scenery to the north. She lived nearly through the first week -of August, dying on the morning of August 7; and the circumstances of -her last night are thus recorded by her mother:--"At nine she went -to bed. I resolved to quit her no more, and went to prepare for the -night. Turpin [Miss Smith's maid] came to say that Elizabeth entreated -I would not stay in her room. I replied--'On that one subject I am -resolved; no power on earth shall keep me from her; so, go to bed -yourself.' Accordingly, I returned to her room; and, at ten, gave her -the usual dose of laudanum. After a little time, she fell into a doze, -and, I thought, slept till one. She was uneasy and restless, but never -complained; and, on my wiping the cold sweat off her face, and bathing -it with camphorated vinegar, which I did very often in the course of -the night, she thanked me, smiled, and said--'That is the greatest -comfort I have.' She slept again for a short time; and, at half past -four, asked for some chicken broth, which she took perfectly well. -On being told the hour, she said, '_How long this night is!_' She -continued very uneasy; and, in half an hour after, on my inquiring if -I could move the pillow, or do anything to relieve her, she replied, -'There is nothing for it but quiet.' At six, she said, 'I must get up -and have some mint tea.' I then called for Turpin, and felt my angel's -pulse: it was fluttering; and by that I knew I should soon lose her. -She took the tea well. Turpin began to put on her clothes, and was -proceeding to dress her, when she laid her head upon the faithful -creature's shoulder, became convulsed in the face, spoke not, looked -not, and in ten minutes expired." - - [173] And, in allusion to this circumstance, the house afterwards - raised on a neighbouring spot, at this time suggested by Miss - Smith, received the name of Tent Lodge. - -She was buried in Hawkshead churchyard, where a small tablet of white -marble is raised to her memory, on which there is the scantiest record -that, for a person so eminently accomplished, I have ever met with. -After mentioning her birth and age (twenty-nine), it closes thus:--"She -possessed great talents, exalted virtues, and humble piety." Anything -so unsatisfactory or so commonplace I have rarely known. As much, or -more, is often said of the most insipid people; whereas Miss Smith -was really a most extraordinary person. I have conversed with Mrs. -Hannah More often about her; and I never failed to draw forth some -fresh anecdote illustrating the vast extent of her knowledge, the -simplicity of her character, the gentleness of her manners, and her -unaffected humility. She passed, it is true, almost inaudibly through -life; and the stir which was made after her death soon subsided. But -the reason was that she wrote but little! Had it been possible for the -world to measure her by her powers, rather than her performances, she -would have been placed, perhaps, in the estimate of posterity, at the -head of learned women; whilst her sweet and feminine character would -have rescued her from all shadow and suspicion of that reproach which -too often settles upon the learned character when supported by female -aspirants. - - * * * * * - -The family of Tent Lodge continued to reside at Coniston for many -years; and they were connected with the Lake literary clan chiefly -through the Lloyds and those who visited the Lloyds; for it is another -and striking proof of the slight hold which Wordsworth, &c., had upon -the public esteem in those days, that even Miss Smith, with all her -excessive diffidence in judging of books and authors, never seems, -by any one of her letters, to have felt the least interest about -Wordsworth or Coleridge; nor did Miss Hamilton, with all her _esprit -de corps_ and acquired interest in everything at all bearing upon -literature, ever mention them in those of her letters which belong to -the period of her Lake visit in 1802; nor, for the six or seven months -which she passed in that country, and within a short morning ride of -Grasmere, did she ever think it worth her while to seek an introduction -to any one of the resident authors. - -Yet this could not be altogether from ignorance that such people -existed; for Thomas Wilkinson, the intimate and admiring friend of Miss -Smith, was also the friend of Wordsworth; and, for some reason that I -never could fathom, he was a sort of pet with Wordsworth. Professor -Wilson and myself were never honoured with one line, one allusion from -his pen; but many a person of particular feebleness has received that -honour. Amongst these I may rank Thomas Wilkinson. Not that I wish -to speak contemptuously of him; he was a Quaker, of elegant habits, -rustic simplicity, and with tastes, as Wordsworth affirms, "too pure -to be refined."[174] His cottage was seated not far from the great -castle of the Lowthers; and, either from mere whim--as sometimes such -whims do possess great ladies--whims, I mean, for drawing about them -odd-looking, old-world people, as _piquant_ contrasts to the fine -gentlemen of their own society--or because they did really feel a -homely dignity in the plain-speaking "Friend," and liked, for a frolic, -to be _thou'd_ and _thee'd_--on some motive or other, at any rate, they -introduced themselves to Mr. Wilkinson's cottage; and I believe that -the connexion was afterwards improved by the use they found for his -services in forming walks through the woods of Lowther, and leading -them in such a circuit as to take advantage of all the most picturesque -stations. As a poet, I presume that Mr. Wilkinson could hardly have -recommended himself to the notice of ladies who would naturally have -modelled their tastes upon the favourites of the age. A poet, however, -in a gentle, unassuming way, he was; and he, therefore, is to be added -to the _corps litteraire_ of the Lakes, and Yanwath to be put down as -the advanced post of that _corps_ to the north. - - [174] Addressing Wilkinson's spade in the poem mentioned at p. 413 - _ante_, Wordsworth says-- - - "Rare master has it been thy lot to know; - Long hast thou served a man to reason true; - Whose life combines the best of high and low, - The labouring many and the resting few."--M. - - * * * * * - -Two families there still remain which I am tempted to gather into my -group of Lake society--notwithstanding it is true that the two most -interesting members of the first had died a little before the period at -which my sketch commences; and the second, though highly intellectual -in the person of that particular member whom I have chiefly to -commemorate, was not, properly speaking, literary, and, moreover, -belongs to a later period of my own Westmoreland experience--being, at -the time of my settlement in Grasmere, a girl at a boarding-school. The -first was the family of the Sympsons, whom Mr. Wordsworth has spoken -of, with deep interest, more than once. The eldest son, a clergyman, -and, like Wordsworth, an _alumnus_ of Hawkshead school, wrote, amongst -other poems, "The Vision of Alfred." Of these poems Wordsworth says -that they "are little known; but they contain passages of splendid -description; and the versification of his '_Vision_' is harmonious -and animated." This is much for Wordsworth to say; and he does him -even the honour of quoting the following illustrative simile from -his description of the sylphs in motion (which sylphs constitute the -machinery of his poem); and, probably, the reader will be of opinion -that this passage justifies the praise of Wordsworth. It is founded, as -he will see, on the splendid scenery of the heavens in Polar latitudes, -as seen by reflection in polished ice at midnight. - - "Less varying hues beneath the Pole adorn - The streamy glories of the Boreal morn, - That, waving to and fro, their radiance shed - On Bothnia's gulf, with glassy ice o'erspread; - Where the lone native, as he homeward glides - On polished sandals o'er the imprisoned tides, - Sees, at a glance, above him and below, - Two rival heavens with equal splendour glow: - Stars, moons, and meteors ray oppose to ray; - And solemn midnight pours the blaze of day." - -"He was a man," says Wordsworth, in conclusion, "of ardent feeling; and -his facilities of mind, particularly his memory, were extraordinary." -Brief notices of his life ought to find a place in the history of -Westmoreland. - -But it was the father of this Joseph Sympson who gave its chief -interest to the family. Him Wordsworth has described, at the same time -sketching his history, with a fulness and a circumstantiality beyond -what he has conceded to any other of the real personages in "The -Excursion." "A priest he was by function"; but a priest of that class -which is now annually growing nearer to extinction among us, not being -supported by any sympathies in this age. - - "His course, - From his youth up, and high as manhood's noon, - Had been irregular--I might say wild; - By books unsteadied, by his pastoral care - Too little checked. An active, ardent mind; - A fancy pregnant with resource and scheme - To cheat the sadness of a rainy day; - Hands apt for all ingenious arts and games; - A generous spirit, and a body strong - To cope with stoutest champions of the bowl; - Had earned for him sure welcome, and the rights - Of a priz'd visitant, in the jolly hall - Of country squire; or at the statelier board - Of duke or earl, from scenes of courtly pomp - Withdrawn, to while away the summer hours - In condescension amongst rural guests. - With these high comrades he had revelled long, - By hopes of coming patronage beguiled, - Till the heart sickened." - -Slowly, however, and indignantly his eyes opened fully to the windy -treachery of all the promises held out to him; and, at length, for mere -bread, he accepted, from an "unthought-of patron," a most "secluded -chapelry" in Cumberland. This was "the little, lowly house of prayer" -of Wythburn, elsewhere celebrated by Wordsworth; and, for its own -sake, interesting to all travellers, both for its deep privacy, and -for the excessive humility of its external pretensions, whether as to -size or ornament. Were it not for its twin sister at Buttermere, it -would be the very smallest place of worship in all England; and it -looks even smaller than it is, from its position; for it stands at the -base of the mighty Helvellyn, close to the high-road between Ambleside -and Keswick, and within speaking distance of the upper lake--(for -Wythburn Water, though usually passed by the traveller under the -impression of absolute unity in its waters, owing to the interposition -of a rocky screen, is, in fact, composed of two separate lakes). To -this miniature and most secluded congregation of shepherds did the -once dazzling parson officiate as pastor; and it seems to amplify the -impression already given of his versatility, that he became a diligent -and most fatherly, though not peculiarly devout, teacher and friend. -The temper, however, of the northern Dalesmen, is not constitutionally -turned to religion; consequently that part of his defects did him -no special injury, when compensated (as, in the judgment of these -Dalesmen, it _was_ compensated) by ready and active kindness, charity -the most diffusive, and patriarchal hospitality. The living, as I have -said, was in Wythburn; but there was no parsonage, and no house in -this poor dale which was disposable for that purpose. So Mr. Sympson -crossed the marches of the sister counties, which to him were about -equidistant from his chapel and his house, into Grasmere, on the -Westmoreland side. There he occupied a cottage by the roadside,--a -situation which, doubtless, gratified at once his social and his -hospitable propensities,--and, at length, from age, as well as from -paternal character and station, came to be regarded as the patriarch of -the vale. Before I mention the afflictions which fell upon his latter -end, and by way of picturesque contrast to his closing scene, let me -have permission to cite Wordsworth's sketch (taken from his own boyish -remembrance of the case) describing the first gipsy-like entrance of -the brilliant parson and his household into Grasmere--so equally out of -harmony with the decorums of his sacred character and the splendours of -his past life:-- - - "Rough and forbidding were the choicest roads - By which our northern wilds could then be crossed; - And into most of these secluded vales - Was no access for wain, heavy or light. - So at his dwelling-place the priest arrived - With store of household goods, in panniers slung - On sturdy horses graced with jingling bells, - And on the back of more ignoble beast, - That, with like burthen of effects most prized - Or easiest carried, closed the motley train. - Young was I then, a schoolboy of eight years: - But still methinks I see them as they passed - In order, drawing toward their wished-for home. - Rocked by the motion of a trusty ass - Two ruddy children hung, a well-poised freight, - Each in his basket nodding drowsily, - Their bonnets, I remember, wreathed with flowers, - Which told it was the pleasant month of June; - And close behind the comely matron rode, - A woman of soft speech and gracious smile, - And with a lady's mien.--From far they came, - Even from Northumbrian hills: yet theirs had been - A merry journey, rich in pastime, cheered - By music, pranks, and laughter-stirring jest; - And freak put on, and arch word dropped--to swell - That cloud of fancy and uncouth surmise - Which gathered round the slowly moving train. - 'Whence do they come? and with what errand charged? - Belong they to the fortune-telling tribe - Who pitch their tents under the greenwood tree? - Or Strollers are they, furnished to enact - Fair Rosamond and the Children of the Wood? - When the next village hears the show announced - By blast of trumpet?' Plenteous was the growth - Of such conjectures--overheard, or seen - On many a staring countenance portrayed - Of boor or burgher, as they marched along. - And more than once their steadiness of face - Was put to proof, and exercise supplied - To their inventive humour, by stern looks, - And questions in authoritative tone, - By some staid guardian of the public peace, - Checking the sober horse on which he rode, - In his suspicious wisdom; oftener still - By notice indirect or blunt demand - From traveller halting in his own despite, - A simple curiosity to ease: - Of which adventures, that beguiled and cheered - Their grave migration, the good pair would tell - With undiminished glee in hoary age." - -Meantime the lady of the house embellished it with feminine skill; and -the homely pastor--for such he had now become--not having any great -weight of spiritual duties, busied himself in rural labours and rural -sports. But was his mind, though bending submissively to his lot, -changed in conformity to his task? No: - - "For he still - Retained a flashing eye, a burning palm, - A stirring foot, a head which beat at nights - Upon its pillow with a thousand schemes. - Few likings had he dropped, few pleasures lost; - Generous and charitable, prompt to serve; - And still his harsher passions kept their hold-- - Anger and indignation. Still he loved - The sound of titled names, and talked in glee - Of long past banquetings with high-born friends: - Then, from those lulling fits of vain delight - Uproused by recollected injury, railed - At their false ways disdainfully,--and oft - In bitterness, and with a threatening eye - Of fire, incensed beneath its hoary brow. - Those transports, with staid looks of pure good-will, - And with soft smile his consort would reprove. - She, far behind him in the race of years, - Yet keeping her first mildness, was advanced - Far nearer, in the habit of her soul, - To that still region whither all are bound." - -Such was the tenor of their lives; such the separate character of -their manners and dispositions; and, with unusual quietness of course, -both were sailing placidly to their final haven. Death had not visited -their happy mansion through a space of forty years--"sparing both old -and young in that abode." But calms so deep are ominous--immunities -so profound are terrific. Suddenly the signal was given, and all lay -desolate. - - "Not twice had fallen - On those high peaks the first autumnal snow, - Before the greedy visiting was closed, - And the long-privileged house left empty; swept - As by a plague. Yet no rapacious plague - Had been among them; all was gentle death, - One after one with intervals of peace." - -The aged pastor's wife, his son, one of his daughters, and "a little -smiling grandson," all had gone within a brief series of days. These -composed the entire household in Grasmere (the others having dispersed -or married away); and all were gone but himself, by very many years the -oldest of the whole: he still survived. And the whole valley, nay, all -the valleys round about, speculated with a tender interest upon what -course the desolate old man would take for his support. - - "All gone, all vanished! he, deprived and bare, - How will he face the remnant of his life? - What will become of him? we said, and mused - In sad conjectures.--Shall we meet him now, - Haunting with rod and line the craggy brooks? - Or shall we overhear him, as we pass, - Striving to entertain the lonely hours - With music? (for he had not ceased to touch - The harp or viol, which himself had framed - For their sweet purposes, with perfect skill). - What titles will he keep? Will he remain - Musician, gardener, builder, mechanist, - A planter, and a rearer from the seed?" - -Yes; he persevered in all his pursuits; intermitted none of them; -weathered a winter in solitude; once more beheld the glories of a -spring, and the resurrection of the flowers upon the graves of his -beloved; held out even through the depths of summer into the cheerful -season of haymaking (a season much later in Westmoreland than in the -south); took his rank, as heretofore, amongst the haymakers; sat -down at noon for a little rest to his aged limbs, and found even a -deeper rest than he was expecting; for, in a moment of time, without a -warning, without a struggle, and without a groan, he did indeed rest -from his labours for ever. He, - - "With his cheerful throng - Of open projects, and his inward hoard - Of unsunned griefs, too many and too keen, - Was overcome by unexpected sleep - In one blest moment. Like a shadow thrown, - Softly and lightly, from a passing cloud, - Death fell upon him, while reclined he lay - For noontide solace on the summer grass-- - The warm lap of his mother earth; and so, - Their lenient term of separation passed, - That family, - By yet a higher privilege, once more - Were gathered to each other." - -Two surviving members of the family, a son and a daughter, I knew -intimately. Both have been long dead; but the children of the -daughter--grandsons, therefore, to the patriarch here recorded--are -living prosperously, and do honour to the interesting family they -represent. - -The other family were, if less _generally_ interesting by their -characters or accomplishments, much more so by the circumstances -of their position; and that member of the family with whom accident -and neighbourhood had brought me especially connected was, in her -intellectual capacity, probably superior to most of those whom I have -had occasion to record. Had no misfortunes settled upon her life -prematurely, and with the benefit of a little judicious guidance to her -studies, I am of opinion that she would have been a most distinguished -person. Her situation, when I came to know her, was one of touching -interest. I will state the circumstances:--She was the sole and -illegitimate daughter of a country gentleman, and was a favourite with -her father, as she well deserved to be, in a degree so excessive--so -nearly idolatrous--that I never heard illustrations of it mentioned -but that secretly I trembled for the endurance of so perilous a love -under the common accidents of life, and still more under the unusual -difficulties and snares of her peculiar situation. Her father was, -by birth, breeding, and property, a Leicestershire farmer; not, -perhaps, what you would strictly call a gentleman, for he affected no -refinements of manner, but rather courted the exterior of a bluff, -careless yeoman. Still he was of that class whom all people, even -then, on his letters, addressed as _esquire_: he had an ample income, -and was surrounded with all the luxuries of modern life. In early -life--and that was the sole palliation of his guilt--(and yet, again, -in another view, aggravated it)--he had allowed himself to violate his -own conscience in a way which, from the hour of his error, never ceased -to pursue him with remorse, and which was, in fact, its own avenger. -Mr. K---- was a favourite specimen of English yeomanly beauty: a fine -athletic figure; and with features handsome, well moulded, frank and -generous in their expression, and in a striking degree manly. In fact, -he might have sat for Robin Hood. It happened that a young lady of his -own neighbourhood, somewhere near Mount Soril I think, fell desperately -in love with him. Oh! blindness of the human heart! how deeply did -she come to rue the day when she first turned her thoughts to him! At -first, however, her case seemed a hopeless one; for she herself was -remarkably plain, and Mr. K---- was profoundly in love with the very -handsome daughter of a neighbouring farmer. One advantage, however, -there was on the side of this plain girl: she was rich; and part of -her wealth, or of her expectations, lay in landed property that would -effect a very tempting _arrondissement_ of an estate belonging to Mr. -K----. Through what course the affair travelled, I never heard more -particularly than that Mr. K---- was besieged and worried out of his -steady mind by the solicitations of aunts and other relations, who -had all adopted the cause of the heiress. But what finally availed -to extort a reluctant consent from him was the representation made -by the young lady's family, and backed by medical men, that she was -seriously in danger of dying unless Mr. K---- would make her his wife. -He was no coxcomb; but, when he heard all his own female relations -calling him a murderer, and taxing him with having, at times, given -some encouragement to the unhappy lovesick girl, in an evil hour he -agreed to give up his own sweetheart and marry her. He did so. But -no sooner was this fatal step taken than it was repented. His love -returned in bitter excess for the girl whom he had forsaken, and -with frantic remorse. This girl, at length, by the mere force of his -grief, he actually persuaded to live with him as his wife; and when, -in spite of all concealments, the fact began to transpire, and the -angry wife, in order to break off the connexion, obtained his consent -to their quitting Leicestershire altogether and transferring their -whole establishment to the Lakes, Mr. K---- evaded the whole object of -this manoeuvre by secretly contriving to bring her rival also into -Westmoreland. Her, however, he placed in another vale; and, for some -years, it is pretty certain that Mrs. K---- never suspected the fact. -Some said that it was her pride which would not allow her to seem -conscious of so great an affront to herself; others, better skilled in -deciphering the meaning of manners, steadfastly affirmed that she was -in happy ignorance of an arrangement known to all the country beside. - -Years passed on; and the situation of the poor wife became more and -more gloomy. During those years, she brought her husband no children; -on the other hand, her hated rival _had_: Mr. K---- saw growing up -about his table two children, a son, and then a daughter, who, in -their childhood, must have been beautiful creatures; for the son, when -I knew him in after life, though bloated and disfigured a good deal -by intemperance, was still a very fine young man; more athletic even -than his father; and presenting his father's handsome English yeoman's -face, exalted by a Roman dignity in some of the features. The daughter -was of the same cast of person; tall, and Roman also in the style of -her face. In fact, the brother and the sister would have offered a -fine impersonation of Coriolanus and Valeria. This Roman bias of the -features a little affected the feminine loveliness of the daughter's -appearance. But still, as the impression was not very decided, she -would have been pronounced anywhere a very captivating young woman. -These were the two crowns of Mr. K----'s felicity, that for seventeen -or eighteen years made the very glory of his life. But Nemesis was on -his steps; and one of these very children she framed the scourge which -made the day of his death a happy deliverance, for which he had long -hungered and thirsted. But I anticipate. - -About the time when I came to reside in Grasmere, some little affair of -local business one night drew Wordsworth up to Mr. K----'s house. It -was called, and with great propriety, from the multitude of holly trees -that still survived from ancient days, _The Hollens_; which pretty -local name Mrs. K----, in her general spirit of vulgar sentimentality, -had changed to _Holly Grove_. The place, spite of its slipshod novelish -name, which might have led one to expect a corresponding style of -tinsel finery, and a display of childish purposes, about its furniture -or its arrangements, was really simple and unpretending; whilst its -situation was, in itself, a sufficient ground of interest; for it stood -on a little terrace running like an artificial gallery or corridor -along the final, and all but perpendicular, descent of the mighty -Fairfield.[175] It seemed as if it must require iron bolts to pin -it to the rock which rose so high, and, apparently, so close behind. -Not until you reached the little esplanade upon which the modest -mansion stood, were you aware of a little area interposed between -the rear of the house and the rock, just sufficient for ordinary -domestic offices. The house was otherwise interesting to myself, from -recalling one in which I had passed part of my infancy. As in that, you -entered by a rustic hall, fitted up so as to make a beautiful little -breakfasting-room: the distribution of the passages was pretty nearly -the same; and there were other resemblances. - - [175] "_Mighty Fairfield_": - - "And Mighty Fairfield, with her chime - Of echoes, still was keeping time."--WORDSWORTH'S "WAGGONER." - - I have retained the English name of Fairfield; but, when I was studying - Danish, I stumbled upon the true meaning of the name, unlocked by that - language, and reciprocally (as one amongst other instances which I met - at the very threshold of my studies) unlocking the fact that Danish - (or Icelandic rather) is the master-key to the local names and dialect - of Westmoreland. _Faar_ is a sheep: _fald_ a hill. But are not all the - hills sheep hills? No; Fairfield only, amongst all its neighbours, has - large, smooth, pastoral savannas, to which the sheep resort when all - the rocky or barren neighbours are left desolate. - -Mr. K---- received us with civility and hospitality--checked, however, -and embarrassed, by a very evident reserve. The reason of this was, -partly, that he distrusted the feelings towards himself of two -scholars; but more, perhaps, that he had something beyond this general -jealousy for distrusting Wordsworth. He had been a very extensive -planter of larches, which were then recently introduced into the Lake -country, and were, in every direction, displacing the native forest -scenery, and dismally disfiguring this most lovely region; and this -effect was necessarily in its worst excess during the infancy of the -larch plantations; both because they took the formal arrangement of -nursery grounds, until extensive thinnings, as well as storms, had -begun to break this hideous stiffness in the lines and angles, and -also because the larch is a mean tree, both in form and colouring -(having a bright gosling glare in spring, a wet blanket hue in -autumn) as long as it continues a young tree. Not until it has seen -forty or fifty winters does it begin to toss its boughs about with -a wild Alpine grace. Wordsworth, for many years, had systematically -abused the larches and the larch planters; and there went about -the country a pleasant anecdote, in connexion with this well-known -habit of his, which I have often heard repeated by the woodmen--viz. -that, one day, when he believed himself to be quite alone--but was, -in fact, surveyed coolly, during the whole process of his passions, -by a reposing band of labourers in the shade, and at their noontide -meal--Wordsworth, on finding a whole cluster of birch-trees grubbed -up, and preparations making for the installation of larches in their -place, was seen advancing to the spot with gathering wrath in his eyes; -next he was heard pouring out an interrupted litany of comminations and -maledictions; and, finally, as his eye rested upon the four or five -larches which were already beginning to "dress the line" of the new -battalion, he seized his own hat in a transport of fury, and launched -it against the odious intruders. Mr. K---- had, doubtless, heard of -Wordsworth's frankness upon this theme, and knew himself to be, as -respected Grasmere, the sole offender. In another way, also, he had -earned a few random shots from Wordsworth's wrath--viz. as the erector -of a huge unsightly barn, built solely for convenience, and so far -violating all the modesty of rustic proportions that it was really an -eyesore in the valley. These considerations, and others besides, made -him reserved; but he felt the silent appeal to his _lares_ from the -strangers' presence, and was even kind in his courtesies. Suddenly, -Mrs. K---- entered the room: instantly his smile died away: he did not -even mention her name. Wordsworth, however, she knew slightly; and to -me she introduced herself. Mr. K---- seemed almost impatient when I -rose and presented her with my chair. Anything that detained her in the -room for a needless moment seemed to him a nuisance. She, on the other -hand--what was _her_ behaviour? I had been told that she worshipped -the very ground on which he trod; and so, indeed, it appeared. This -adoring love might, under other circumstances, have been beautiful to -contemplate; but here it impressed unmixed disgust. Imagine a woman of -very homely features, and farther disfigured by a scorbutic eruption, -fixing a tender gaze upon a burly man of forty, who showed, by every -word, look, gesture, movement, that he disdained her. In fact, nothing -could be more injudicious than her deportment towards him. Everybody -must feel that a man who hates any person hates that person the more -for troubling him with expressions of love; or, at least, it adds to -hatred the sting of disgust. That was the fixed language of Mr. K----'s -manner, in relation to his wife. He was not a man to be pleased with -foolish fondling endearments from any woman before strangers; but from -her! Faugh! he said internally, at every instant. His very eyes he -averted from her: not once did he look at her, though forced into the -odious necessity of speaking to her several times; and, at length, -when she seemed disposed to construe our presence as a sort of brief -privilege to her own, he adopted that same artifice for ridding himself -of her detested company which has sometimes done seasonable service to -a fine gentleman when called upon by ladies for the explanation of a -Greek word. He hinted to her, pretty broadly, that the subject of our -conversation was not altogether proper for female ears,--very much to -the astonishment of Wordsworth and myself. - - - - - CHAPTER X - - SOCIETY OF THE LAKES: PROFESSOR WILSON: DEATH OF LITTLE KATE - WORDSWORTH[176] - - [176] From _Tait's Magazine_ for August 1840.--M. - - -It was at Mr. Wordsworth's house that I first became acquainted with -Professor (then Mr.) Wilson, of Elleray. I have elsewhere described -the impression which he made upon me at my first acquaintance; and -it is sufficiently known, from other accounts of Mr. Wilson (as, for -example, that written by Mr. Lockhart in "Peter's Letters"), that -he divided his time and the utmost sincerity of his love between -literature and the stormiest pleasures of real life. Cock-fighting, -wrestling, pugilistic contests, boat-racing, horse-racing, all enjoyed -Mr. Wilson's patronage; all were occasionally honoured by his personal -participation. I mention this in no unfriendly spirit toward Professor -Wilson; on the contrary, these propensities grew out of his ardent -temperament and his constitutional endowments--his strength, speed, -and agility: and, being confined to the period of youth--for I am -speaking of a period removed by five-and-twenty years--can do him no -dishonour amongst the candid and the judicious. "_Non lusisse pudet, -sed non incidere ludum._" The truth was that Professor Wilson had in -him, at that period of life, something of the old English chivalric -feeling which our old ballad poetry agrees in ascribing to Robin Hood. -Several men of genius have expressed to me, at different times, the -delight they had in the traditional character of Robin Hood. He has no -resemblance to the old heroes of Continental romance in one important -feature: they are uniformly victorious: and this gives even a tone of -monotony to the Continental poems: for, let them involve their hero in -what dangers they may, the reader still feels them to be as illusory -as those which menace an enchanter--an Astolpho, for instance, who, -by one blast of his horn, can dissipate an army of opponents. But -Robin is frequently beaten: he never declines a challenge; sometimes -he courts one; and occasionally he learns a lesson from some proud -tinker or masterful beggar, the moral of which teaches him that there -are better men in the world than himself. What follows? Is the brave -man angry with his stout-hearted antagonist because he is no less -brave and a little stronger than himself? Not at all; he insists on -making him a present, on giving him a _dejeuner à la fourchette_, and -(in case he is disposed to take service in the forest) finally adopts -him into his band of archers. Much the same spirit governed, in his -earlier years, Professor Wilson. And, though a man of prudence cannot -altogether approve of his throwing himself into the convivial society -of gipsies, tinkers, potters,[177] strolling players, &c., nevertheless -it tells altogether in favour of Professor Wilson's generosity of -mind, that he was ever ready to forgo his advantages of station and -birth, and to throw himself fearlessly upon his own native powers, as -man opposed to man. Even at Oxford he fought an aspiring shoemaker -repeatedly--which is creditable to both sides; for the very _prestige_ -of the gown is already overpowering to the artisan from the beginning, -and he is half beaten by terror at his own presumption. Elsewhere he -sought out, or, at least, did not avoid the most dreaded of the local -heroes; and fought his way through his "most verdant years," taking or -giving defiances to the right and the left in perfect carelessness, as -chance or occasion offered. No man could well show more generosity in -these struggles, nor more magnanimity in reporting their issue, which -naturally went many times against him. But Mr. Wilson neither sought to -disguise the issue nor showed himself at all displeased with it: even -brutal ill-usage did not seem to have left any vindictive remembrance -of itself. These features of his character, however, and these -propensities, which naturally belonged merely to the transitional state -from boyhood to manhood, would have drawn little attention on their own -account, had they not been relieved and emphatically contrasted by his -passion for literature, and the fluent command which he soon showed -over a rich and voluptuous poetic diction. In everything Mr. Wilson -showed himself an Athenian. Athenians were all lovers of the cockpit; -and, howsoever shocking to the sensibilities of modern refinement, we -have no doubt that Plato was a frequent better at cock-fights; and -Socrates is known to have bred cocks himself. If he were any Athenian, -however, in particular, it was Alcibiades; for he had his marvellous -versatility; and to the Windermere neighbourhood, in which he had -settled, this versatility came recommended by something of the very -same position in society--the same wealth, the same social temper, -the same jovial hospitality. No person was better fitted to win or to -maintain a high place in social esteem; for he could adapt himself -to all companies; and the wish to conciliate and to win his way by -flattering the self-love of others was so predominant over all personal -self-love and vanity - - "That _he_ did in the general bosom reign - Of young and old." - -Mr. Wilson and most of his family I had already known for six years. -We had projected journeys together through Spain and Greece, all of -which had been nipped in the bud by Napoleon's furious and barbarous -mode of making war. It was no joke, as it had been in past times, -for an Englishman to be found wandering in continental regions; -the pretence that he was, or might be, a spy--a charge so easy to -make, so impossible to throw off--at once sufficed for the hanging -of the unhappy traveller. In one of his Spanish bulletins, Napoleon -even boasted[178] of having hanged sixteen Englishmen, "merchants -or others of that nation," whom he taxed with no suspicion even of -being suspected, beyond the simple fact of being detected in the -act of breathing Spanish air. These atrocities had interrupted our -continental schemes; and we were thus led the more to roam amongst -home scenes. How it happened I know not--for we had wandered together -often in England--but, by some accident, it was not until 1814 that we -visited Edinburgh together. Then it was that I first saw Scotland. - - [177] _Potter_ is the local term in northern England for a hawker - of earthen ware; many of which class lead a vagrant life, and - encamp during the summer months like gipsies. - - [178] This brutal boast might, after all, be a falsehood, and, - with respect to mere numbers, probably was so. - -I remember a singular incident which befell us on the road. -Breakfasting together, before starting, at Mr. Wilson's place of -Elleray, we had roamed, through a long and delightful day, by way -of Ulleswater, &c. Reaching Penrith at night, we slept there; and -in the morning, as we were sunning ourselves in the street, we saw, -seated in an arm-chair, and dedicating himself to the self-same task -of _apricating_ his jolly personage, a rosy, jovial, portly man, -having something of the air of a Quaker. Good nature was clearly his -predominating quality; and, as that happened to be our foible also, -we soon fell into talk; and from that into reciprocations of good -will; and from those into a direct proposal, on our new friend's part, -that we should set out upon our travels together. How--whither--to -what end or object--seemed as little to enter into his speculations -as the cost of realizing them. Rare it is, in this business world -of ours, to find any man in so absolute a state of indifference and -neutrality that for him all quarters of the globe, and all points of -the compass, are self-balanced by philosophic equilibrium of choice. -There seemed to us something amusing and yet monstrous in such a -man; and, perhaps, had we been in the same condition of exquisite -indetermination, to this hour we might all have been staying together -at Penrith. We, however, were previously bound to Edinburgh; and, as -soon as this was explained to him, that way he proposed to accompany -us. We took a chaise, therefore, jointly, to Carlisle; and, during -the whole eighteen miles, he astonished us by the wildest and most -frantic displays of erudition, much of it levelled at Sir Isaac Newton. -Much philosophical learning also he exhibited; but the grotesque -accompaniment of the whole was that, after every bravura, he fell back -into his corner in fits of laughter at himself. We began to find out -the unhappy solution of his indifference and purposeless condition; -he was a lunatic; and, afterwards, we had reason to suppose that he -was now a fugitive from his keepers. At Carlisle he became restless -and suspicious; and, finally, upon some real or imaginary business, he -turned aside to Whitehaven. We were not the objects of his jealousy; -for he parted with us reluctantly and anxiously. On our part, we felt -our pleasure overcast by sadness; for we had been much amused by his -conversation, and could not but respect the philological learning -which he had displayed. But one thing was whimsical enough:--Wilson -purposely said some startling things--startling in point of decorum, -or gay pleasantries _contra bonos mores_; at every sally of which he -looked as awfully shocked as though he himself had not been holding -the most licentious talk in another key, licentious as respected all -truth of history or of science. Another illustration, in fact, he -furnished of what I have so often heard Coleridge say--that lunatics, -in general, so far from being the brilliant persons they are thought, -and having a preternatural brightness of fancy, usually are the very -dullest and most uninspired of mortals. The sequel of our poor friend's -history--for the apparent goodness of his nature had interested us -both in his fortunes, and caused us to inquire after him through all -probable channels--was, that he was last seen by a Cambridge man of our -acquaintance, but under circumstances which confirmed our worst fears. -It was in a stage-coach; and, at first, the Cantab suspected nothing -amiss; but, some accident of conversation having started the topic of -La Place's _Mechanique Celeste_, off flew our jolly Penrith friend in -a tirade against Sir Isaac Newton; so that at once we recognised him, -as the Vicar of Wakefield his "cosmogony friend" in prison; but--and -that was melancholy to hear--this tirade was suddenly checked, in -the rudest manner, by a brutal fellow in one corner of the carriage, -who, as it now appeared, was attending him as a regular keeper, and, -according to the custom of such people, always laid an interdict upon -every ebullition of fancy or animated thought. He was a man whose mind -had got some wheel entangled, or some spring overloaded, but else was -a learned and able person; and he was to be silent at the bidding of a -low, brutal fellow, incapable of distinguishing between the gaieties of -fancy and the wandering of the intellect. Sad fate! and sad inversion -of the natural relations between the accomplished scholar and the rude -illiterate boor! - -Of Edinburgh I thought to have spoken at length. But I pause, and -retreat from the subject, when I remember that so many of those whom -I loved and honoured at that time--some, too, among the gayest of the -gay--are now lying in their graves. Of Professor Wilson's sisters, -the youngest, at that time a child almost, and standing at the very -vestibule of womanhood, is alone living; she has had a romantic life; -has twice traversed, with no attendance but her servants, the gloomy -regions of the Caucasus, and once with a young child by her side. Her -husband, Mr. M'Neill, is now the English Envoy at the court of Teheran. -On the rest, one of whom I honoured and loved as a sister, the curtain -has fallen; and here, in the present mood of my spirits, I also feel -disposed to drop a curtain over my subsequent memoirs. Farewell, -hallowed recollections! - - * * * * * - -Thus, I have sketched the condition of the Lake District, as to society -of an intellectual order, at the time (viz. the winter of 1808-9) -when I became a personal resident in that district; and, indeed, from -this era, through a period of about twenty years in succession, I -may describe my domicile as being amongst the lakes and mountains of -Westmoreland. It is true, I often made excursions to London, Bath, -and its neighbourhood, or northwards to Edinburgh, and, perhaps, on -an average, passed one-fourth part of each year at a distance from -this district; but here only it was that henceforwards I had a house -and small establishment. The house, for a very long course of years, -was that same cottage in Grasmere, embowered in roses and jessamine, -which I have already described as a spot hallowed to the admirers -of Mr. Wordsworth by his seven years' occupation of its pretty -chambers and its rocky orchard: a little domain, which he has himself -apostrophized as the "lowest stair in that magnificent temple" forming -the north-eastern boundary of Grasmere. The little orchard is rightly -called "the lowest stair"; for within itself all is ascending ground; -hardly enough of flat area on which to pitch a pavilion, and even that -scanty surface an inclined plane; whilst the rest of the valley, into -which you step immediately from the garden gate, is (according to the -characteristic beauty of the northern English valleys, as first noticed -by Mr. Wordsworth himself) "flat as the floor of a temple." - -In sketching the state of the literary society gathered or gathering -about the English lakes, at the time of my settling amongst them, I -have of course authorized the reader to suppose that I personally -mixed freely amongst the whole; else I should have had neither the -means for describing that society with truth, nor any motive for -attempting it. Meantime the direct object of my own residence at the -lakes was the society of Mr. Wordsworth. And it will be a natural -inference that, if I mingled on familiar or friendly terms with this -society, _a fortiori_ would Mr. Wordsworth do so, as belonging to -the lake district by birth, and as having been, in some instances, my -own introducer to members of this community. But it was not so; and -never was a grosser blunder committed than by Lord Byron when, in a -letter to Mr. Hogg (from which an extract is given in some volume of -Mr. Lockhart's "Life of Sir Walter Scott"), he speaks of Wordsworth, -Southey, &c., in connexion with Sir Walter, as all alike injured by -mixing only with little adoring coteries, which each severally was -supposed to have gathered about himself as a centre.[179] Now, had this -really been the case, I know not how the objects of such a partial -or exclusive admiration could have been injured by it in any sense -with which the public were concerned. A writer may--and of that there -are many instances--write the worse for meeting nobody of sympathy -with himself; no admiration sufficient to convince him that he has -written powerfully: that misfortune, when it occurs, may injure a -writer, or may cause him to cease cultivating his genius. But no man -was ever injured by the strong reflection of his own power in love and -admiration; not as a writer, I mean: though it is very true, from the -great variety of modes in which praise, or the indirect flattery of -silent homage, acts upon different minds, that some men may be injured -as social companions: vanity, and, still more, egotism--the habit -of making self the central point of reference in every treatment of -every subject--may certainly be cherished by the idolatry of a private -circle, continually ascending; but arrogance and gloomy anti-social -pride are qualities much more likely to be favoured by sympathy -withheld, and the unjust denial of a man's pretensions. This, however, -need not be discussed with any reference to Mr. Wordsworth; for he had -no such admiring circle: no applauding coterie ever gathered about -him.[180] Wordsworth was not a man to be openly flattered; his pride -repelled that kind of homage, or any homage that offered itself with -the air of conferring honour; and repelled it in a tone of loftiness -or arrogance that never failed to kindle the pride of the baffled -flatterer. Nothing in the way of applause could give Wordsworth any -pleasure, unless it were the spontaneous and half-unconscious utterance -of delight in some passage--the implicit applause of love, half -afraid to express itself; or else the deliberate praise of rational -examination, study, and comparison, applied to his writings: these -were the only modes of admiration which could recommend themselves -to Wordsworth. But, had it been otherwise, there was another mistake -in what Lord Byron said:--The neighbouring people, in every degree, -"gentle and simple," literary or half-educated, who had heard of -Wordsworth, agreed in despising him. Never had poet or prophet less -honour in his own country. Of the gentry, very few knew anything about -Wordsworth. Grasmere was a vale little visited at that time, except for -an hour's admiration. The case is now [1840] altered; and partly by a -new road, which, having pierced the valley by a line carried along -the water's edge, at a most preposterous cost, and with a large arrear -of debt for the next generation, saves the labour of surmounting a -laborious hill. The case is now altered no less for the intellect of -the age; and Rydal Mount is now one of the most honoured abodes in -the island. But, at that time, Grasmere did not differ more from the -Grasmere of to-day than Wordsworth from the Wordsworth of 1809-20. I -repeat that he was little known, even as a resident in the country; -and, as a poet, strange it would have been had the little town of -Ambleside undertaken to judge for itself, and against a tribunal which -had for a time subdued the very temper of the age. Lord Byron might -have been sure that nowhere would the contempt for Mr. Wordsworth be -rifer than exactly amongst those who had a local reason for curiosity -about the man, and who, of course, adopting the tone of the presiding -journals, adopted them with a personality of feeling unknown elsewhere. - - [179] Byron's letter was not to Hogg, but to Moore, concerning a - letter received from Hogg; and the extract from it in _Lockhart_ - to which De Quincey refers was as follows:--"Oh! I have had the - most amusing letter from Hogg, the Ettrick Minstrel and Shepherd. - I think very highly of him as a poet; but he and half of those - Scotch and Lake troubadours are spoilt by living in little circles - and petty coteries. London and the world is the only place to take - the conceit out of a man." The letter is dated 3d August 1814.--M. - - [180] Scott, at all events, who had been personally acquainted - with Wordsworth since 1803,--when Wordsworth and his sister - Dorothy in the course of their Scottish tour visited Scott and his - wife at Lasswade,--had always been an admirer of Wordsworth, even - while dissenting from his poetical views. Scott and his wife had - paid a return visit to Wordsworth at Grasmere in 1805; and the two - poets had corresponded occasionally since then,--Scott decidedly - more deferential to Wordsworth than Wordsworth was to Scott.--M. - -Except, therefore, with the Lloyds, or occasionally with Thomas -Wilkinson the Quaker, or very rarely with Southey, Wordsworth had no -intercourse at all beyond the limits of Grasmere: and in that valley I -was myself, for some years, his sole visiting friend; as, on the other -hand, my sole visitors as regarded that vale, were himself and his -family. - -Among that family, and standing fourth in the series of his children, -was a little girl, whose life, short as it was, and whose death, -obscure and little heard of as it was amongst all the rest of the -world, connected themselves with the records of my own life by ties of -passion so profound, by a grief so frantic, and so memorable through -the injurious effects which it produced of a physical kind, that, -had I left untouched every other chapter of my own experience, I -should certainly have left behind some memorandum of this, as having -a permanent interest in the psychological history of human nature. -Luckily the facts are not without a parallel, and in well authenticated -medical books; else I should have scrupled (as what man does _not_ -scruple who values, above all things, the reputation for veracity?) to -throw the whole stress of credibility on my own unattached narration. -But all experienced physicians know well that cases similar to mine, -though not common, occur at intervals in every large community. - -When I first settled in Grasmere, Catherine Wordsworth was in her -infancy, but, even at that age, noticed me more than any other person, -excepting, of course, her mother. She had for an attendant a young -girl, perhaps thirteen years old--Sarah, one of the orphan children -left by the unfortunate couple, George and Sarah Green, whose tragical -end in a snow-storm I have already narrated.[181] This Sarah Green was -as far removed in character as could be imagined from that elder sister -who had won so much admiration in her childish days, by her premature -display of energy and household virtues. She was lazy, luxurious, -and sensual: one, in fact, of those nurses who, in their anxiety to -gossip about young men, leave their infant or youthful charges to -the protection of chance. It was, however, not in her out-of-door -ramblings, but at home, that the accident occurred which determined -the fortunes of little Catherine. Mr. Coleridge was at that time a -visitor to the Wordsworths at Allan Bank, that house in Grasmere to -which Wordsworth had removed upon quitting his cottage. One day about -noon, when, perhaps, he was coming down to breakfast, Mr. Coleridge -passed Sarah Green, playing after her indolent fashion with the child; -and between them lay a number of carrots. He warned the girl that raw -carrots were an indigestible substance for the stomach of an infant. -This warning was neglected: little Catherine ate--it was never known -how many; and, in a short time, was seized with strong convulsions. -I saw her in this state about two P.M. No medical aid was to be had -nearer than Ambleside; about six miles distant. However, all proper -measures were taken; and, by sunset, she had so far recovered as to -be pronounced out of danger. Her left side, however, left arm, and -left leg, from that time forward, were in a disabled state: not what -could be called paralyzed, but suffering a sort of atony or imperfect -distribution of vital power. - - [181] The story will appear in a future volume.--M. - -Catherine was not above three years old when she died; so that there -could not have been much room for the expansion of her understanding, -or the unfolding of her real character. But there was room enough in -her short life, and too much, for love the most frantic to settle -upon her. The whole vale of Grasmere is not large enough to allow of -any great distances between house and house; and, as it happened that -little Kate Wordsworth returned my love, she in a manner lived with -me at my solitary cottage; as often as I could entice her from home, -walked with me, slept with me, and was my sole companion. That I was -not singular in ascribing some witchery to the nature and manners of -this innocent child, you may gather from the following most beautiful -lines extracted from a sketch[182] towards her portraiture, drawn by -her father (with whom, however, she was noways a favourite):-- - - "And, as a faggot sparkles on the hearth, - Not less if unattended and alone - Than when both young and old sit gathered round - And take delight in its activity; - Even so this happy creature of herself - Was all sufficient: solitude to her - Was blithe society, who filled the air - With gladness and involuntary songs. - Light were her sallies as the tripping fawn's, - Forth-startled from the form where she lay couch'd; - Unthought of, unexpected, as the stir - Of the soft breeze ruffling the meadow-flowers, - Or from before it chasing wantonly - The many-coloured images impressed - Upon the bosom of a placid lake." - -It was this radiant spirit of joyousness, making solitude for her -blithe society, and filling from morning to night the air "with -gladness and involuntary songs," this it was which so fascinated my -heart that I became blindly, doatingly, in a servile degree, devoted -to this one affection. In the spring of 1812, I went up to London; and, -early in June, by a letter from Miss Wordsworth, her aunt, I learned -the terrific news (for such to me it was) that she had died suddenly. -She had gone to bed in good health about sunset on June 4th; was found -speechless a little before midnight; and died in the early dawn, just -as the first gleams of morning began to appear above Seat Sandel and -Fairfield, the mightiest of the Grasmere barriers, about an hour, -perhaps, before sunrise. - - [182] It is entitled "Characteristics of a Child Three Years Old"; - and is dated at the foot 1811, which must be an oversight, for she - was not so old until the following year. I may as well add the - first six lines, though I had a reason for beginning the extract - where it does, in order to fix the attention upon the special - circumstance which had so much fascinated myself, of her - all-sufficiency to herself, and the way in which she "filled the - air with gladness and involuntary songs." The other lines are - these: - - "Loving she is and tractable, though wild; - And Innocence hath privilege in her - To dignify arch looks and laughing eyes; - And feats of cunning; and the pretty round - Of trespasses, affected to provoke - Mock-chastisement and partnership in play." - -Never, perhaps, from the foundations of those mighty hills, was there -so fierce a convulsion of grief as mastered my faculties on receiving -that heart-shattering news. Over and above my excess of love for her, -I had always viewed her as an impersonation of the dawn and the spirit -of infancy; and this abstraction seated in her person, together with -the visionary sort of connexion which, even in her parting hours, she -assumed with the summer sun, by timing her immersion into the cloud -of death with the rising and setting of that fountain of life,--these -combined impressions recoiled so violently into a contrast or polar -antithesis to the image of death that each exalted and brightened the -other. I returned hastily to Grasmere; stretched myself every night, -for more than two months running, upon her grave; in fact, often -passed the night upon her grave; not (as may readily be supposed) in -any parade of grief; on the contrary, in that quiet valley of simple -shepherds, I was secure enough from observation until morning light -began to return; but in mere intensity of sick, frantic yearning after -neighbourhood to the darling of my heart. Many readers will have seen -in Sir Walter Scott's "Demonology," and in Dr. Abercrombie's "Inquiries -concerning the Intellectual Powers," some remarkable illustrations of -the creative faculties awakened in the eye or other organs by peculiar -states of passion; and it is worthy of a place amongst cases of that -nature that, in many solitary fields, at a considerable elevation -above the level of the valleys,--fields which, in the local dialect, -are called "intacks,"--my eye was haunted at times, in broad noonday -(oftener, however, in the afternoon), with a facility, but at times -also with a necessity, for weaving, out of a few simple elements, a -perfect picture of little Kate in the attitude and onward motion of -walking. I resorted constantly to these "intacks," as places where I -was little liable to disturbance; and usually I saw her at the opposite -side of the field, which might sometimes be at a distance of a quarter -of a mile, generally not so much. Always almost she carried a basket -on her head; and usually the first hint upon which the figure arose -commenced in wild plants, such as tall ferns, or the purple flowers -of the foxglove; but, whatever might be the colours or the forms, -uniformly the same little full-formed figure arose, uniformly dressed -in the little blue bed-gown and black skirt of Westmoreland, and -uniformly with the air of advancing motion. Through part of June, July, -and part of August, in fact throughout the summer, this frenzy of grief -continued. It was reasonably to be expected that nature would avenge -such senseless self-surrender to passion; for, in fact, so far from -making an effort to resist it, I clung to it as a luxury (which, in -the midst of suffering, it really was in part). All at once, on a day -at the latter end of August, in one instant of time, I was seized with -some nervous sensation that, for a moment, caused sickness. A glass -of brandy removed the sickness; but I felt, to my horror, a sting as -it were, of some stationary torment left behind--a torment absolutely -indescribable, but under which I felt assured that life could not be -borne. It is useless and impossible to describe what followed: with -no apparent illness discoverable to any medical eye--looking, indeed, -better than usual for three months and upwards, I was under the -possession of some internal nervous malady, that made each respiration -which I drew an act of separate anguish. I travelled southwards -immediately to Liverpool, to Birmingham, to Bristol, to Bath, for -medical advice; and finally rested--in a gloomy state of despair, -rather because I saw no use in further change than that I looked for -any change in this place more than others--at Clifton, near Bristol. -Here it was, at length, in the course of November, that, in one hour, -my malady began to leave me: it was not quite so abrupt, however, in -its departure, as in its first development: a peculiar sensation arose -from the knee downwards, about midnight: it went forwards through a -space of about five hours, and then stopped, leaving me perfectly free -from every trace of the awful malady which had possessed me, but so -much debilitated as with difficulty to stand or walk. Going down soon -after this, to Ilfracombe, in Devonshire, where there were hot sea -baths, I found it easy enough to restore my shattered strength. But the -remarkable fact in this catastrophe of my illness is that all grief -for little Kate Wordsworth, nay, all remembrance of her, had, with my -malady, vanished from my mind. The traces of her innocent features -were utterly washed away from my heart: she might have been dead for a -thousand years, so entirely abolished was the last lingering image of -her face or figure. The little memorials of her which her mother had -given to me, as, in particular, a pair of her red morocco shoes, won -not a sigh from me as I looked at them: even her little grassy grave, -white with snow, when I returned to Grasmere in January, 1813, was -looked at almost with indifference; except, indeed, as now become a -memorial to me of that dire internal physical convulsion thence arising -by which I had been shaken and wrenched; and, in short, a case more -entirely realizing the old Pagan superstition of a nympholepsy in the -first place, and, secondly, of a Lethe or river of oblivion, and the -possibility, by one draught from this potent stream, of applying an -everlasting ablution to all the soils and stains of human anguish, I do -not suppose the psychological history of man affords.[183] - - [183] The paper in _Tait's Magazine_ for August 1840 does not end - here, but includes all the matter of the next short chapter. As - that matter changes the scene from the Lakes, however, better to - put it in a chapter by itself.--M. - - - - - CHAPTER XI - - RAMBLES FROM THE LAKES: MRS. SIDDONS AND HANNAH MORE[184] - - [184] From _Tait's Magazine_ for August 1840.--M. - - -From the Lakes, as I have mentioned before, I went annually -southwards--chiefly to Somersetshire or to London, and more rarely -to Edinburgh. In my Somersetshire visits, I never failed to see Mrs. -Hannah More. My own relative's house, in fact, standing within one -mile of Barley Wood,[185] I seldom suffered a week to pass without -calling to pay my respects. There was a stronger motive to this than -simply what arose from Mrs. H. More's company, or even from that of -her sisters (one or two of whom were more entertaining, because more -filled with animal spirits and less thoughtful, than Mrs. Hannah); -for it rarely happened that one called within the privileged calling -hours,--which, with these rural ladies, ranged between twelve and -four o'clock,--but one met some person interesting by rank, station, -political or literary eminence. - - [185] Hannah More's residence.--M. - -Here, accordingly, it was that, during one of my last visits to -Somersetshire, either in 1813 or 1814, I met Mrs. Siddons, whom I had -often seen upon the stage, but never before in private society.[186] -She had come into this part of the country chiefly, I should imagine, -with a view to the medical advice at the Bristol Hot Wells and Clifton; -for it happened that one of her daughters--a fine interesting young -woman--was suffering under pulmonary consumption--that scourge of the -British youth; of which malady, I believe, she ultimately died. From -the Hot Wells, Mrs. Siddons had been persuaded to honour with her -company a certain Dr. Wh----, whose splendid villa of Mendip Lodge -stood about two miles from Barley Wood. - - [186] At the time mentioned Hannah More was verging on her - seventieth year and Mrs. Siddons on her sixtieth.--M. - -This villa, by the way, was a show place, in which a vast deal of money -had been sunk upon two follies equally unproductive of pleasure to the -beholder and of anything approaching a pecuniary compensation to the -owner. The villa, with its embellishments, was supposed to have cost -at least sixty thousand pounds; of which one-half had been absorbed, -partly by a contest with the natural obstacles of the situation, and -partly by the frailest of all ornaments--vast china jars, vases, and -other "knicknackery" baubles, which held their very existence by so -frail a tenure as the carefulness of a housemaid, and which, at all -events, if they should survive the accidents of life, never are known -to reproduce to the possessor one-tenth part of what they have cost. -Out of doors there were terraces of a mile long, one rising above -another, and carried, by mere artifice of mechanic skill, along the -perpendicular face of a lofty rock. Had they, when finished, any -particular beauty? Not at all. Considered as a pleasure ground, they -formed a far less delightful landscape, and a far less alluring haunt -to rambling steps, than most of the uncostly shrubberies which were -seen below, in unpretending situations, and upon the ordinary level -of the vale. What a record of human imbecility! For all his pains -and his expense in forming this costly "folly," his reward was daily -anxiety, and one solitary _bon mot_ which he used to record of some -man who, on being asked by the Rev. Doctor what he thought of his -place, replied that "he thought the Devil had tempted him up to an -exceedingly high place." No part of the grounds, nor the house itself, -was at all the better because originally it had been, beyond measure, -difficult to form it: so difficult that, according to Dr. Johnson's -witty remark on another occasion, there was good reason for wishing -that it had been impossible. The owner, whom I knew, most certainly -never enjoyed a happy day in this costly creation; which, after all, -displayed but little taste, though a gorgeous array of finery. The -show part of the house was itself a monument to the barrenness of -invention in him who planned it; consisting, as it did, of one long -suite of rooms in a straight line, without variety, without obvious -parts, and therefore without symmetry or proportions. This long vista -was so managed that, by means of folding-doors, the whole could be seen -at a glance, whilst its extent was magnified by a vast mirror at the -further end. The Doctor was a querulous old man, enormously tall and -enormously bilious; so that he had a spectral appearance when pacing -through the false gaieties of his glittering villa. He was a man of -letters, and had known Dr. Johnson, whom he admired prodigiously; and -had himself been, in earlier days, the author of a poem now forgotten. -He belonged, at one period, to the coterie of Miss Seward, Dr. Darwin, -Day, Mr. Edgeworth, &c.; consequently he might have been an agreeable -companion, having so much anecdote at his command: but his extreme -biliousness made him irritable in a painful degree and impatient of -contradiction--impatient even of dissent in the most moderate shape. -The latter stage of his life is worth recording, as a melancholy -comment upon the blindness of human foresight, and in some degree also -as a lesson on the disappointments which follow any departure from high -principle, and the deception which seldom fails to lie in ambush for -the deceiver. I had one day taken the liberty to ask him why, and with -what ultimate purpose, he, who did not like trouble and anxiety, had -embarrassed himself with the planning and construction of a villa that -manifestly embittered his days? "That is, my young friend," replied the -doctor, "speaking plainly, you mean to express your wonder that I, so -old a man (for he was then not far from seventy), should spend my time -in creating a show-box. Well now, I will tell you: precisely because -I _am_ old. I am naturally of a gloomy turn; and it has always struck -me that we English, who are constitutionally haunted by melancholy, -are too apt to encourage it by the gloomy air of the mansions we -inhabit. Your fortunate age, my friend, can dispense with such aids: -ours requires continual influxes of pleasure through the senses, in -order to cheat the stealthy advances of old age, and to beguile us -of our sadness. Gaiety, the _riant_ style in everything, that is what -we old men need. And I, who do not love the pains of creating, love -the creation; and, in fact, require it as part of my artillery against -time." Such was the amount of his explanation: and now, in a few words, -for his subsequent history. - -Finding himself involved in difficulties by the expenses of this villa, -going on concurrently with a large London establishment, he looked -out for a good marriage (being a widower) as the sole means within -his reach for clearing off his embarrassments without proportionable -curtailment of his expenses. It happened, unhappily for both parties, -that he fell in with a widow lady, who was cruising about the world -with precisely the same views, and in precisely the same difficulties. -Each (or the friends of each) held out a false flag, magnifying -their incomes respectively, and sinking the embarrassments. Mutually -deceived, they married: and one change immediately introduced at the -splendid villa was the occupation of an entire wing by a lunatic -brother of the lady's; the care of whom, with a large allowance, had -been committed to her by the Court of Chancery. This, of itself, -shed a gloom over the place which defeated the primary purpose of -the doctor (as explained by himself) in erecting it. Windows barred, -maniacal howls, gloomy attendants from a lunatic hospital ranging -about: these were sad disturbances to the doctor's rose-leaf system of -life. This, however, if it were a nuisance, brought along with it some -_solatium_, as the lawyers express it, in the shape of the Chancery -allowance. But next came the load of debts for which there was no -_solatium_, and which turned out to be the only sort of possession -with which the lady was well endowed. The disconsolate doctor--an old -man, and a clergyman of the Establishment--could not resort to such -redress as a layman might have adopted: he was obliged to give up all -his establishments; his gay villa was offered to Queen Caroline, who -would, perhaps, have bought it, but that _her_ final troubles in this -world were also besetting her about that very time. For the present, -therefore, the villa was shut up, and "left alone with its glory." -The reverend and aged proprietor, now ten times more bilious and more -querulous than ever, shipped himself off for France; and there, in one -of the southern provinces--so far, therefore, as climate was concerned, -realizing his vision of gaiety, but for all else the most melancholy -of exiles--sick of the world and of himself, hating to live, yet more -intensely hating to die, in a short time the unhappy old man breathed -his last, in a common lodging house, gloomy and vulgar, and in all -things the very antithesis to that splendid abode which he had planned -for the consolation of his melancholy, and for the gay beguilement of -old age. - -At this gentleman's villa Mrs. Siddons had been paying a visit; for -the doctor was a worshipper, in a servile degree, of all things which -flourished in the sunshine of the world's applause. To have been the -idolized favourite of nations, to have been an honoured and even a -privileged[187] guest at Windsor, that was enough for him; and he did -his utmost to do the honours of his neighbourhood, not less to glorify -himself in the eye of the country, who was fortunate enough to have -such a guest, than to show his respect for the distinguished visitor. -Mrs. Siddons felt herself flattered by the worthy doctor's splendid -hospitalities; for that they were really splendid may be judged by -this fact, communicated to me by Hannah More, viz. that the Bishop of -London (Porteus), when on a visit to Barley Wood, being much pressed by -the doctor to visit him, had at length accepted a dinner invitation. -Mrs. Hannah More was, of course, included in the invitation, but had -found it impossible to attend, from ill health; and the next morning, -at breakfast, the bishop had assured her that, in all his London -experience, in that city of magnificent dinners beyond all other -cities of the earth, and amongst the princes of the land, he had never -witnessed an entertainment so perfect in its appointments. - - [187] A _privileged_ guest at Windsor. Mrs. Siddons used to - mention that, when she was invited to Windsor Castle for the - purpose of reading before the Queen and her royal daughters, on - her first visit she was ready to sink from weariness under the - effort of standing for so long a time; but on some subsequent - visit I have understood that she was allowed to sit, probably on - the suggestion of one of the younger ladies. - -Gratified as she was, however, by her host's homage, as expressed in -his splendid style of entertaining, Mrs. Siddons was evidently more -happy in her residence at Barley Wood. The style of conversation -pleased her. It was religious: but Mrs. Siddons was herself religious; -and at that moment, when waiting with anxiety upon a daughter whose -languor seemed but too ominous in her maternal eyes, she was more than -usually open to religious impressions, and predisposed to religious -topics. Certain I am, however, from what I then observed, that Mrs. -Siddons, in common with many women of rank who were on the list of -the Barley Wood visitors, did not apprehend, in their full sense and -severity, the peculiar principles of Hannah More. This lady, excellent -as she was, and incapable of practising any studied deceit, had, -however, an instinct of worldly wisdom, which taught her to refrain -from shocking ears polite with too harsh or too broad an exposure -of all which she believed. This, at least, if it were any duty of -hers, she considered, perhaps, as already fulfilled by her writings; -and, moreover, the very tone of good breeding which she had derived -from the good company she had kept made her feel the impropriety of -lecturing her visitors even when she must have thought them in error. -Mrs. Siddons obviously thought Hannah More a person who differed from -the world chiefly by applying a greater energy, and sincerity, and -zeal, to a system of religious truth equally known to all. Repentance, -for instance--all people hold that to be a duty; and Mrs. Hannah More -differed from them only by holding it to be a duty of all hours, a -duty for youth not less than for age. But how much would she have been -shocked to hear that Mrs. Hannah More held all repentance, however -indispensable, yet in itself, and though followed by the sincerest -efforts at reformation of life, to be utterly unavailing as any -operative part of the means by which man gains acceptance with God. To -rely upon repentance, or upon anything that man can do for himself, -that Mrs. Hannah More considered as the mortal taint, as the [Greek: -prôton pseudos], in the worldly theories of the Christian scheme; and I -have heard the two ladies--Mrs. More and Mrs. Siddons, I mean--talking -by the hour together, as completely at cross purposes as it is possible -to imagine. Everything in fact of what was special in the creed -adopted by Mrs. Hannah More, by Wilberforce, and many others known as -Evangelical Christians, is always capable, in lax conversation, of -being translated into a vague general sense, which completely obscures -the true limitations of the meaning. - -Mrs. Hannah More, however, was too polished a woman to allow of -any sectarian movement being impressed upon the conversation; -consequently, she soon directed it to literature, upon which Mrs. -Siddons was very amusing, from her recollections of Dr. Johnson, whose -fine-turned compliment to herself (so much in the spirit of those -unique compliments addressed to eminent people by Louis XIV) had for -ever planted the Doctor's memory in her heart.[188] She spoke also of -Garrick and of Mrs. Garrick; but not, I think, with so much respect and -affection as Mrs. Hannah More, who had, in her youthful days, received -the most friendly attentions from both, though coming forward at that -time in no higher character than as the author of _Percy_, the most -insipid of tragedies.[189] - - [188] It was in 1783, the last year but one of Dr. Johnson's life, - that Mrs. Siddons, then twenty-eight years of age, and already the - most famous actress of her day, visited Johnson in his rooms in - Bolt Court, Fleet Street. "When Mrs. Siddons came into the room, - there happened to be no chair ready for her, which he observing, - said with a smile, 'Madam, you who so often occasion a want of - seats to other people will the more easily excuse the want of one - yourself.'" So Boswell reports.--M. - - [189] Published in 1777.--M. - -Mrs. Siddons was prevailed on to read passages from both Shakspere -and Milton. The dramatic readings were delightful; in fact, they were -almost stage rehearsals, accompanied with appropriate gesticulation. -One was the great somnambulist scene in _Macbeth_, which was the _ne -plus ultra_ in the whole range of Mrs. Siddons's scenical exhibitions, -and can never be forgotten by any man who once had the happiness to -witness that immortal performance of the divine artist. Another, -given at the request of a Dutch lady residing in the neighbourhood of -Barley Wood, was the scene from _King John_ of the Lady Constance, -beginning--"Gone to be married! gone to swear a peace!" &c. The last, -and truly superb for the musical intonation of the cadences, was that -inimitable apology or pleading of Christian charity for Cardinal -Wolsey, addressed to his bitterest enemy, Queen Catherine. All these, -in different degrees and different ways, were exquisite. But the -readings from Milton were not to my taste. And, some weeks after, when, -at Mrs. Hannah More's request, I had read to her some of Lord Byron's -most popular works, I got her to acknowledge, in then speaking upon the -subject of reading, that perhaps the style of Mrs. Siddons's reading -had been too much determined to the dramatic cast of emphasis, and the -pointed expression of character and situation which must always belong -to a speaker bearing a part in a dialogue, to admit of her assuming the -tone of a rapt poetic inspiration. - -Meantime, whatever she did--whether it were in display of her own -matchless talents, but always at the earnest request of the company -or of her hostess, or whether it were in gentle acquiescent attention -to the display made by others, or whether it were as one member of a -general party taking her part occasionally for the amusement of the -rest and contributing to the general fund of social pleasure--nothing -could exceed the amiable, kind, and unassuming deportment of Mrs. -Siddons. She had retired from the stage,[190] and no longer regarded -herself as a public character.[191] But so much the stronger did she -seem to think the claims of her friends upon anything she could do for -their amusement. - - [190] I saw her, however, myself upon the stage twice after this - meeting at Barley Wood. It was at Edinburgh; and the parts were - those of Lady Macbeth and Lady Randolph. But she then performed - only as an expression of kindness to her grandchildren. Professor - Wilson and myself saw her on the occasion from the stage-box, with - a delight embittered by the certainty that we saw her for the last - time. - - [191] Her farewell to the stage had been on the 29th of June 1812 - in the character of Lady Macbeth.--M. - -Meantime, amongst the many pleasurable impressions which Mrs. Siddons's -presence never failed to make, there was one which was positively -painful and humiliating: it was the degradation which it inflicted -upon other women. One day there was a large dinner party at Barley -Wood: Mrs. Siddons was present; and I remarked to a gentleman who sat -next to me--a remark which he heartily confirmed--that, upon rising -to let the ladies leave us, Mrs. Siddons, by the mere necessity of -her regal deportment, dwarfed the whole party, and made them look -ridiculous; though Mrs. H. More, and others of the ladies present, -were otherwise really women of very pleasing appearance. One final -remark is forced upon me by my recollections of Mrs. Jordan, and of -her most unhappy end: it is this; and strange enough it seems:--that -the child of laughter and comic mirth, whose laugh itself thrilled -the heart with pleasure, and who created gaiety of the noblest order -for one entire generation of her countrymen, died prematurely, and in -exile, and in affliction which really killed her by its own stings. -If ever woman died of a broken heart, of tenderness bereaved, and of -hope deferred, that woman was Mrs. Jordan.[192] On the other hand, this -sad votary of Melpomene, the queen of the tragic stage, died full of -years and honours, in the bosom of her admiring country, in the centre -of idolizing friends, and happy in all things except this, that some -of those whom she most loved on earth had gone before her. Strange -contrariety of lots for the two transcendent daughters of the comic and -tragic muses. For my own part, I shall always regard my recollections -of Mrs. Siddons as those in which chiefly I have an advantage over -the coming generation; nay, perhaps over all generations; for many -centuries may revolve without producing such another transcendent -creature. - - [192] Mrs. Jordan died in 1816, at the age of 54; Mrs. Siddons in - 1831, at the age of 76. Hannah More outlived both, dying in 1833, - at the age of 88.--M. - - END OF VOL. II - - - - - _In Four Volumes, large crown 8vo, Art Canvas binding, price 6s. each._ - - THE INGENIOUS GENTLEMAN - DON QUIXOTE - OF LA MANCHA - - BY - MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA - - DONE INTO ENGLISH BY - HENRY EDWARD WATTS - - _A NEW EDITION_ - - _With Notes Original and Selected._ - - - _In One Volume, uniform with the above Edition of DON QUIXOTE, - price 7s. 6d._ - - A NEW AND GREATLY ENLARGED - LIFE OF CERVANTES - - BY - - HENRY EDWARD WATTS - -The above Life has been wholly recast and almost entirely rewritten, -and contains an autogravure frontispiece of an interesting and original -portrait, reproduced from an exact copy of the bust of the figure -believed to represent Cervantes in Pacheco's picture at Seville. - -LONDON: A. & C. BLACK, SOHO SQUARE. - - -Standard Edition of the Waverley Novels - -[Illustration: Per 2/6 Volume] - -Complete in 25 Volumes, Crown 8vo, bound in Art Canvas, Gilt top, -containing Photogravure Frontispieces printed on Japanese Paper. - -_Also to be had in full limp leather, gilt edges, price 3s. 6d. per -volume._ - -Sets, cloth ... Price £3:2:6. - -_Sets can also be had in various leather bindings. Prices upon -application._ - - =1. Waverley; or, "'Tis Sixty Years Since."= - =2. Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer.= - =3. The Antiquary.= - =4. Rob Roy.= - =5. A Legend of Montrose, and The Black Dwarf.= - =6. Old Mortality.= - =7. The Heart of Mid-Lothian.= - =8. The Bride of Lammermoor.= - =9. Ivanhoe: A Romance.= - =10. The Monastery.= - =11. The Abbot: A Sequel.= - =12. Kenilworth.= - =13. The Pirate.= - =14. The Fortunes of Nigel.= - =15. Peveril of the Peak.= - =16. Quentin Durward.= - =17. St. Ronan's Well.= - =18. Redgauntlet.= - =19. The Betrothed, and The Highland Widow.= - =20. 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