THE EXCURSION
Something must now be said of this poem, but chiefly, as has
been done through the whole of these notes, with reference to my
personal friends, and especially to her who has perseveringly
taken them down from my dictation. Towards the close of the first
book stand the lines that were first written, beginning, "Nine
tedious years," and ending, "Last human tenant of these ruined
walls." These were composed in '95 at Racedown; and for several
passages describing the employment and demeanour of Margaret
during her affliction, I was indebted to observations made in
Dorsetshire, and afterwards at Alfoxden in Somersetshire, where I
resided in '97 and '98. The lines towards the conclusion of the
fourth book--beginning, "For, the man, who, in this spirit," to
the words "intellectual soul"--were in order of time composed the
next, either at Racedown or Alfoxden, I do not remember which. The
rest of the poem was written in the vale of Grasmere, chiefly
during our residence at Allan Bank. The long poem on my own
education was, together with many minor poems, composed while we
lived at the cottage at Town-end. Perhaps my purpose of giving an
additional interest to these my poems in the eyes of my nearest
and dearest friends may be promoted by saying a few words upon the
character of the Wanderer, the Solitary, and the Pastor, and some
other of the persons introduced. And first, of the principal one,
the Wanderer. My lamented friend Southey (for this is written a
month after his decease) used to say that had he been born a
papist, the course of life which would in all probability have
been his was the one for which he was most fitted and most to his
mind,--that of a Benedictine monk in a convent, furnished, as many
once were and some still are, with an inexhaustible library.
'Books', as appears from many passages in his writings, and as was
evident to those who had opportunities of observing his daily
life, were in fact 'his passion'; and 'wandering', I can with
truth affirm, was 'mine'; but this propensity in me was happily
counteracted by inability from want of fortune to fulfil my
wishes. But, had I been born in a class which would have deprived
me of what is called a liberal education, it is not unlikely that,
being strong in body, I should have taken to a way of life such as
that in which my Pedlar passed the greater part of his days. At
all events, I am here called upon freely to acknowledge that the
character I have represented in his person is chiefly an idea of
what I fancied my own character might have become in his
circumstances. Nevertheless, much of what he says and does had an
external existence that fell under my own youthful and subsequent
observation. An individual named Patrick, by birth and education a
Scotchman, followed this humble occupation for many years, and
afterwards settled in the town of Kendal. He married a kinswoman
of my wife's, and her sister Sarah was brought up from her ninth
year under this good man's roof. My own imaginations I was happy
to find clothed in reality, and fresh ones suggested, by what she
reported of this man's tenderness of heart, his strong and pure
imagination, and his solid attainments in literature, chiefly
religious whether in prose or verse. At Hawkshead also, while I
was a schoolboy, there occasionally resided a Packman (the name
then generally given to persons of this calling) with whom I had
frequent conversations upon what had befallen him, and what he had
observed, during his wandering life; and, as was natural, we took
much to each other: and, upon the subject of "Pedlarism" in
general, as 'then' followed, and its favourableness to an intimate
knowledge of human concerns, not merely among the humbler classes
of society, I need say nothing here in addition to what is to be
found in the "Excursion," and a note attached to it. Now for the
Solitary. Of him I have much less to say. Not long after we took
up our abode at Grasmere, came to reside there, from what motive I
either never knew or have forgotten, a Scotchman a little past the
middle of life, who had for many years been chaplain to a Highland
regiment. He was in no respect as far as I know, an interesting
character, though in his appearance there was a good deal that
attracted attention, as if he had been shattered in fortune and
not happy in mind. Of his quondam position I availed myself, to
connect with the Wanderer, also a Scotchman, a character suitable
to my purpose, the elements of which I drew from several persons
with whom I had been connected, and who fell under my observation
during frequent residences in London at the beginning of the
French Revolution. The chief of these was, one may 'now' say, a
Mr. Fawcett, a preacher at a dissenting meeting-house at the Old
Jewry. It happened to me several times to be one of his
congregation through my connection with Mr. Nicholson of Cateaton
Street, who at that time, when I had not many acquaintances in
London, used often to invite me to dine with him on Sundays; and I
took that opportunity (Mr. N. being a dissenter) of going to hear
Fawcett, who was an able and eloquent man. He published a poem on
war, which had a good deal of merit, and made me think more about
him than I should otherwise have done. But his Christianity was
probably never very deeply rooted; and, like many others in those
times of like showy talents, he had not strength of character to
withstand the effects of the French Revolution, and of the wild
and lax opinions which had done so much towards producing it, and
far more in carrying it forward in its extremes. Poor Fawcett, I
have been told, became pretty much such a person as I have
described; and early disappeared from the stage, having fallen
into habits of intemperance, which I have heard (though I will not
answer for the fact) hastened his death. Of him I need say no
more: there were many like him at that time, which the world will
never be without, but which were more numerous then for reasons
too obvious to be dwelt upon.
To what is said of the Pastor in the poem I have little to add,
but what may be deemed superfluous. It has ever appeared to me
highly favourable to the beneficial influence of the Church of
England upon all gradations and classes of society, that the
patronage of its benefices is in numerous instances attached to
the estates of noble families of ancient gentry; and accordingly I
am gratified by the opportunity afforded me in the "Excursion," to
pourtray the character of a country clergyman of more than
ordinary talents, born and bred in the upper ranks of society so
as to partake of their refinements, and at the same time brought
by his pastoral office and his love of rural life into intimate
connection with the peasantry of his native district. To
illustrate the relation which in my mind this Pastor bore to the
Wanderer, and the resemblance between them, or rather the points
of community in their nature, I likened one to an oak and the
other to a sycamore; and, having here referred to this comparison,
I need only add, I had no one individual in my mind, wishing
rather to embody this idea than to break in upon the simplicity of
it, by traits of individual character or of any peculiarity of
opinion.
And now for a few words upon the scene where these interviews
and conversations are supposed to occur. The scene of the first
book of the poem is, I must own, laid in a tract of country not
sufficiently near to that which soon comes into view in the second
book, to agree with the fact. All that relates to Margaret and the
ruined cottage, etc., was taken from observations made in the
south-west of England, and certainly it would require more than
seven-league boots to stretch in one morning from a common in
Somersetshire or Dorsetshire to the heights of Furness Fells and
the deep valleys they embosom. For thus dealing with space I need
make, I trust, no apology, but my friends may be amused by the
truth. In the poem, I suppose that the Pedlar and I ascended from
a plain country up the vale of Langdale, and struck off a good way
above the chapel to the western side of the vale. We ascended the
hill and thence looked down upon the circular recess in which lies
Blea-Tarn, chosen by the Solitary for his retreat. After we quit
his cottage, passing over a low ridge we descend into another
vale, that of Little Langdale, towards the head of which stands,
embowered or partly shaded by yews and other trees, something
between a cottage and a mansion or gentleman's house such as they
once were in this country. This I convert into the Parsonage, and
at the same time, and as by the waving of a magic wand, I turn the
comparatively confined vale of Langdale, its Tarn, and the rude
chapel which once adorned the valley, into the stately and
comparatively spacious vale of Grasmere, its Lake, and its ancient
Parish Church; and upon the side of Loughrigg Fell, at the foot of
the Lake, and looking down upon it and the whole vale and its
encompassing mountains, the Pastor is supposed by me to stand,
when at sunset he addresses his companions in words which I hope
my readers will remember, or I should not have taken the trouble
of giving so much in detail the materials on which my mind
actually worked. Now for a few particulars of 'fact' respecting
the persons whose stories are told or characters are described by
the different speakers. To Margaret I have already alluded. I will
add here, that the lines beginning, "She was a woman of a steady
mind," faithfully delineate, as far as they go, the character
possessed in common by many women whom it has been my happiness to
know in humble life; and that several of the most touching things
which she is represented as saying and doing are taken from actual
observation of the distresses and trials under which different
persons were suffering, some of them strangers to me, and others
daily under my notice. I was born too late to have a distinct
remembrance of the origin of the American war, but the state in
which I represent Robert's mind to be I had frequent opportunities
of observing at the commencement of our rupture with France in
'93, opportunities of which I availed myself in the story of the
Female Vagrant as told in the poem on "Guilt and Sorrow." The
account given by the Solitary towards the close of the second
book, in all that belongs to the character of the Old Man, was
taken from a Grasmere pauper, who was boarded in the last house
quitting the vale on the road to Ambleside: the character of his
hostess, and all that befell the poor man upon the mountain,
belong to Paterdale: the woman I knew well; her name was ------ J-
---, and she was exactly such a person as I describe. The ruins of
the old chapel, among which the man was found lying, may yet be
traced, and stood upon the ridge that divides Paterdale from
Boardale and Martindale, having been placed there for the
convenience of both districts. The glorious appearance disclosed
above and among the mountains was described partly from what my
friend Mr. Luff, who then lived in Paterdale, witnessed upon that
melancholy occasion, and partly from what Mrs. Wordsworth and I
had seen in company with Sir George and Lady Beaumont above
Hartshope Hall on our way from Paterdale to Ambleside.
And now for a few words upon the Church, its Monuments, and the
Deceased who are spoken of as lying in the surrounding churchyard.
But first for the one picture, given by the Pastor and the
Wanderer, of the Living. In this nothing is introduced but what
was taken from nature and real life. The cottage is called Hacket,
and stands as described on the southern extremity of the ridge
which separates the two Langdales: the pair who inhabited it were
called Jonathan and Betty Yewdale. Once when our children were
ill, of whooping-cough I think, we took them for change of air to
this cottage, and were in the habit of going there to drink tea
upon fine summer afternoons, so that we became intimately
acquainted with the characters, habits, and lives of these good,
and, let me say, in the main, wise people. The matron had, in her
early youth, been a servant in a house at Hawkshead, where several
boys boarded, while I was a schoolboy there. I did not remember
her as having served in that capacity; but we had many little
anecdotes to tell to each other of remarkable boys, incidents and
adventures which had made a noise in their day in that small town.
These two persons afterwards settled at Rydal, where they both
died.
The church, as already noticed, is that of Grasmere. The
interior of it has been improved lately--made warmer by under-
drawing the roof and raising the floor--but the rude and antique
majesty of its former appearance has been impaired by painting the
rafters; and the oak benches, with a simple rail at the back
dividing them from each other, have given way to seats that have
more the appearance of pews. It is remarkable that, excepting only
the pew belonging to Rydal Hall, that to Rydal Mount, the one to
the Parsonage, and I believe another, the men and women still
continue, as used to be the custom in Wales, to sit separate from
each other. Is this practice as old as the Reformation? and when
and how did it originate? In the Jewish synagogues and in Lady
Huntingdon's chapels the sexes are divided in the same way. In the
adjoining churchyard greater changes have taken place. It is now
not a little crowded with tombstones; and near the school-house
which stands in the churchyard is an ugly structure, built to
receive the hearse, which is recently come into use. It would not
be worth while to allude to this building or the hearse-vehicle it
contains, but that the latter has been the means of introducing a
change much to be lamented in the mode of conducting funerals
among the mountains. Now, the coffin is lodged in the hearse at
the door of the house of the deceased, and the corpse is so
conveyed to the churchyard gate: all the solemnity which formerly
attended its progress, as described in the poem, is put an end to.
So much do I regret this, that I beg to be excused for giving
utterance here to a wish that, should it befall me to die at Rydal
Mount, my own body may be carried to Grasmere church after the
manner in which, till lately, that of every one was borne to that
place of sepulture, namely, on the shoulders of neighbours, no
house being passed without some words of a funeral psalm being
sung at the time by the attendants. When I put into the mouth of
the Wanderer, "Many precious rites and customs of our rural
ancestry are gone or stealing from us; this I hope will last for
ever," and what follows, little did I foresee that the observance
and mode of proceeding, which had often affected me so much, would
so soon be superseded. Having said much of the injury done to this
churchyard, let me add that one is at liberty to look forward to a
time when, by the growth of the yew-trees, thriving there, a
solemnity will be spread over the place that will in some degree
make amends for the old simple character which has already been so
much encroached upon, and will be still more every year. I will
here set down, more at length, what has been mentioned in a
previous note, that my friend Sir George Beaumont, having long ago
purchased the beautiful piece of water called Loughrigg Tarn, on
the Banks of which he intended to build, I told him that a person
in Kendal who was attached to the place wished to purchase it. Sir
George, finding the possession of no use to him, consented to part
with it, and placed the purchase-money--twenty pounds--at my
disposal for any local use which I thought proper. Accordingly I
resolved to plant yew-trees in the churchyard, and had four pretty
strong large oak enclosures made, in each of which was planted,
under my own eye, and principally if not entirely by my own hand,
two young trees, with the intention of leaving the one that throve
best to stand. Many years after, Mr. Barber, who will long be
remembered in Grasmere; Mr. Greenwood, the chief landed
proprietor; and myself, had four other enclosures made in the
churchyard at our own expense, in each of which was planted a tree
taken from its neighbour, and they all stand thriving admirably,
the fences having been removed as no longer necessary. May the
trees be taken care of hereafter when we are all gone, and some of
them will perhaps at some far distant time rival in majesty the
yew of Lorton and those which I have described as growing in
Borrowdale, where they are still to be seen in grand assemblage.
And now for the persons that are selected as lying in the
churchyard. But first for the individual whose grave is prepared
to receive him. His story is here truly related: he was a school-
fellow of mine for some years. He came to us when he was at least
seventeen years of age, very tall, robust, and full-grown. This
prevented him from falling into the amusements and games of the
school: consequently he gave more time to books. He was not
remarkably bright or quick, but by industry he made a progress
more than respectable. His parents not being wealthy enough to
send him to college, when he left Hawkshead he became a
schoolmaster, with a view to prepare himself for holy orders.
About this time he fell in love as related in the poem, and
everything followed as there described, except that I do not know
when and where he died. The number of youths that came to
Hawkshead school, from the families of the humble yeomanry, to be
educated to a certain degree of scholarship as a preparation for
the church, was considerable, and the fortunes of these persons in
after life various of course, and of some not a little remarkable.
I have now one of this class in my eye who became an usher in a
preparatory school and ended in making a large fortune. His
manners when he came to Hawkshead were as uncouth as well could
be; but he had good abilities, with skill to turn them to account;
and when the master of the school, to which he was usher, died, he
stept into his place and became proprietor of the establishment.
He contrived to manage it with such address, and so much to the
taste of what is called high society and the fashionable world,
that no school of the kind, even till he retired, was in such high
request. Ministers of state, the wealthiest gentry, and nobility
of the first rank, vied with each other in bespeaking a place for
their sons in the seminary of this fortunate teacher. In the
solitude of Grasmere, while living as a married man in a cottage
of eight pounds per annum rent, I often used to smile at the tales
which reached me of his brilliant career. Not two hundred yards
from the cottage in Grasmere, just mentioned, to which I retired,
this gentleman, who many years afterwards purchased a small estate
in the neighbourhood, is now erecting a boat-house, with an upper
story, to be resorted to as an entertaining-room when he and his
associates may feel inclined to take their pastime on the lake.
Every passenger will be disgusted with the sight of this edifice,
not merely as a tasteless thing in itself, but as utterly out of
place, and peculiarly fitted, as far as it is observed (and it
obtrudes itself on notice at every point of view), to mar the
beauty and destroy the pastoral simplicity of the vale. For my own
part and that of my household it is our utter detestation,
standing by a shore to which, before the highroad was made to pass
that way, we used daily and hourly to repair for seclusion and for
the shelter of a grove under which I composed many of my poems,
the "Brothers" especially, and for this reason we gave the grove
that name.
"That which each man loved
And prized in his peculiar nook of earth
Dies with him, or is changed."
So much for my old school-fellow and his exploits. I will only
add that the foundation has twice failed, from the lake no doubt
being intolerant of the intrusion.
The Miner, next described as having found his treasure after
twice ten years of labour, lived in Paterdale, and the story is
true to the letter. It seems to me, however, rather remarkable
that the strength of mind which had supported him through this
long unrewarded labour did not enable him to bear its successful
issue. Several times in the course of my life I have heard of
sudden influxes of great wealth being followed by derangement, and
in one instance the shock of good fortune was so great as to
produce absolute idiocy: but these all happened where there had
been little or no previous effort to acquire the riches, and
therefore such a consequence might the more naturally be expected
than in the case of the solitary Miner. In reviewing his story,
one cannot but regret that such perseverance was not sustained by
a worthier object. Archimedes leapt out of his bath and ran about
the streets proclaiming his discovery in a transport of joy, but
we are not told that he lost either his life or his senses in
consequence. The next character, to whom the Priest is led by
contrast with the resoluteness displayed by the foregoing, is
taken from a person born and bred in Grasmere, by name Dawson; and
whose talents, disposition, and way of life were such as are here
delineated. I did not know him, but all was fresh in memory when
we settled at Grasmere in the beginning of the century. From this
point, the conversation leads to the mention of two individuals
who, by their several fortunes, were, at different times, driven
to take refuge at the small and obscure town of Hawkshead on the
skirt of these mountains. Their stories I had from the dear old
dame with whom, as a schoolboy and afterwards, I lodged for nearly
the space of ten years. The elder, the Jacobite, was named
Drummond, and was of a high family in Scotland: the Hanoverian
Whig bore the name of Vandeput, and might perhaps be a descendant
of some Dutchman who had come over in the train of King William.
At all events his zeal was such that he ruined himself by a
contest for the representation of London or Westminster,
undertaken to support his party; and retired to this corner of the
world, selected, as it had been by Drummond, for that obscurity
which, since visiting the Lakes became fashionable, it has no
longer retained. So much was this region considered out of the way
till a late period, that persons who had fled from justice used
often to resort hither for concealment; and some were so bold as
to, not unfrequently, make excursions from the place of their
retreat, for the purpose of committing fresh offences. Such was
particularly the case with two brothers of the name of Weston who
took up their abode at Old Brathay, I think about seventy years
ago. They were highwaymen, and lived there some time without being
discovered, though it was known that they often disappeared in a
way and upon errands which could not be accounted for. Their
horses were noticed as being of a choice breed, and I have heard
from the Relph family, one of whom was a saddler in the town of
Kendal, that they were curious in their saddles and housings and
accoutrements of their horses. They, as I have heard, and as was
universally believed, were in the end both taken and hanged.
"Tall was her stature; her complexion dark
And saturnine."
This person lived at Town-end, and was almost our next neighbour.
I have little to notice concerning her beyond what is said in the
poem. She was a most striking instance how far a woman may surpass
in talent, in knowledge, and culture of mind, those with and among
whom she lives, and yet fall below them in Christian virtues of
the heart and spirit. It seemed almost, and I say it with grief,
that in proportion as she excelled in the one, she failed in the
other. How frequently has one to observe in both sexes the same
thing, and how mortifying is the reflection!
"As, on a sunny bank, a tender lamb
Lurks in safe shelter from the winds of March."
The story that follows was told to Mrs. Wordsworth and my sister
by the sister of this unhappy young woman; and every particular
was exactly as I have related. The party was not known to me,
though she lived at Hawkshead, but it was after I left school. The
clergyman, who administered comfort to her in her distress, I knew
well. Her sister who told the story was the wife of a leading
yeoman in the vale of Grasmere, and they were an affectionate pair
and greatly respected by every one who knew them. Neither lived to
be old; and their estate--which was perhaps the most considerable
then in the vale, and was endeared to them by many remembrances of
a salutary character not easily understood, or sympathised with,
by those who are born to great affluence--passed to their eldest
son, according to the practice of these vales, who died soon after
he came into possession. He was an amiable and promising youth,
but was succeeded by an only brother, a good-natured man, who fell
into habits of drinking, by which he gradually reduced his
property; and the other day the last acre of it was sold, and his
wife and children and he himself, still surviving, have very
little left to live upon, which it would not perhaps have been
worth while to record here but that, through all trials, this
woman has proved a model of patience, meekness, affectionate
forbearance, and forgiveness. Their eldest son, who, through the
vices of his father, has thus been robbed of an ancient family
inheritance, was never heard to murmur or complain against the
cause of their distress, and is now (1843) deservedly the chief
prop of his mother's hopes.
The clergyman and his family described at the beginning of the
seventh book were, during many years, our principal associates in
the vale of Grasmere, unless I were to except our very nearest
neighbours. I have entered so particularly into the main points of
their history, that I will barely testify in prose that--with the
single exception of the particulars of their journey to Grasmere,
which, however, was exactly copied from in another instance--the
whole that I have said of them is as faithful to the truth as
words can make it. There was much talent in the family: the eldest
son was distinguished for poetical talent, of which a specimen is
given in my notes to the sonnets to the Duddon. Once, when in our
cottage at Town-end I was talking with him about poetry, in the
course of conversation I presumed to find fault with the
versification of Pope, of whom he was an enthusiastic admirer: he
defended him with a warmth that indicated much irritation:
nevertheless I would not abandon my point, and said, "In compass
and variety of sound your own versification surpasses his." Never
shall I forget the change in his countenance and tone of voice:
the storm was laid in a moment; he no longer disputed my judgment,
and I passed immediately in his mind, no doubt, for as great a
critic as ever lived. I ought to add, he was a clergyman and a
well-educated man, and his verbal memory was the most remarkable
of any individual I have known, except a Mr. Archer, an Irishman,
who lived several years in this neighbourhood, and who, in this
faculty, was a prodigy; he afterwards became deranged, and I fear
continues so, if alive. Then follows the character of Robert
Walker, for which see notes to the Duddon. Then that of the deaf
man, whose epitaph may be seen in the churchyard at the head of
Haweswater, and whose qualities of mind and heart, and their
benign influence in conjunction with his privation, I had from his
relatives on the spot. The blind man, next commemorated, was John
Gough, of Kendal, a man known, far beyond his neighbourhood, for
his talents and attainments in natural history and science. Of the
Infant's grave, next noticed, I will only say, it is an exact
picture of what fell under my own observation; and all persons who
are intimately acquainted with cottage life must often have
observed like instances of the working of the domestic affections.
"A volley thrice repeated o'er the corse
Let down into the hollow of that grave."
This young volunteer bore the name of Dawson, and was younger
brother, if I am not mistaken, to the prodigal of whose character
and fortunes an account is given towards the beginning of the
preceding book. The father of the family I knew well; he was a man
of literary education and of experience in society much beyond
what was common among the inhabitants of the vale. He had lived a
good while in the Highlands of Scotland, as a manager of iron-
works at Bunaw, and had acted as clerk to one of my predecessors
in the office of Distributor of Stamps, when he used to travel
round the country collecting and bringing home the money due to
Government, in gold, which, it may be worth while to mention for
the sake of my friends, was deposited in the cell or iron closet
under the west window of the long room at Rydal Mount, which still
exists with the iron doors that guarded the property. This of
course was before the time of Bills and Notes. The two sons of
this person had no doubt been led by the knowledge of their father
to take more delight in scholarship, and had been accustomed in
their own minds to take a wider view of social interests than was
usual among their associates. The premature death of this gallant
young man was much lamented, and, as an attendant at the funeral,
I myself witnessed the ceremony and the effect of it as described
in the poem.
"Tradition tells
That, in Eliza's golden days, a Knight
Came on a war-horse."
"The house is gone."
The pillars of the gateway in front of the mansion remained when
we first took up our abode at Grasmere. Two or three cottages
still remain, which are called Knott-houses from the name of the
gentleman (I have called him a knight) concerning whom these
traditions survive. He was the ancestor of tho Knott family,
formerly considerable proprietors in the district. What follows in
the discourse of the Wanderer upon the changes he had witnessed in
rural life, by the introduction of machinery, is truly described
from what I myself saw during my boyhood and early youth, and from
what was often told me by persons of this humble calling. Happily,
most happily, for these mountains, the mischief was diverted from
the banks of their beautiful streams, and transferred to open and
flat countries abounding in coal, where the agency of steam was
found much more effectual for carrying on those demoralising
works. Had it not been for this invention, long before the present
time every torrent and river in this district would have had its
factory, large and populous in proportion to the power of the
water that could there have been commanded. Parliament has
interfered to prevent the night-work which was once carried on in
these mills as actively as during the daytime, and by necessity
still more perniciously--a sad disgrace to the proprietors, and to
the nation which could so long tolerate such unnatural
proceedings. Reviewing at this late period, 1843, what I put into
the mouths of my interlocutors a few years after the commencement
of the century, I grieve that so little progress has been made in
diminishing the evils deplored, or promoting the benefits of
education which the Wanderer anticipates. The results of Lord
Ashley's labours to defer the time when children might legally be
allowed to work in factories, and his endeavours to limit still
farther the hours of permitted labour, have fallen far short of
his own humane wishes, and those of every benevolent and right-
minded man who has carefully attended to this subject: and in the
present session of Parliament (1843) Sir James Graham's attempt to
establish a course of religious education among the children
employed in factories has been abandoned, in consequence of what
might easily have been foreseen, the vehement and turbulent
opposition of the Dissenters: so that, for many years to come, it
may be thought expedient to leave the religious instruction of
children entirely in the hands of the several denominations of
Christians in the island, each body to work according to its own
means and in its own way. Such is my own confidence, a confidence
I share with many others of my most valued friends, in the
superior advantages, both religious and social, which attend a
course of instruction presided over and guided by the clergy of
the Church of England, that I have no doubt that, if but once its
members, lay and clerical, were duly sensible of those benefits,
their church would daily gain ground, and rapidly, upon every
shape and fashion of Dissent: and in that case, a great majority
in Parliament being sensible of these benefits, the Ministers of
the country might be emboldened, were it necessary, to apply funds
of the State to the support of education on Church principles.
Before I conclude, I cannot forbear noticing the strenuous efforts
made at this time in Parliament, by so many persons, to extend
manufacturing and commercial industry at the expense of
agricultural, though we have recently had abundant proofs that the
apprehensions expressed by the Wanderer were not groundless.
"I spake of mischief by the wise diffused
With gladness, thinking that the more it spreads
The healthier, the securer, we become--
Delusion which a moment may destroy!"
The Chartists are well aware of this possibility, and cling to it
with an ardour and perseverance which nothing but wiser and more
brotherly dealing towards the many, on the part of the wealthy
few, can moderate or remove.
"While, from the grassy mountain's open side,
We gazed, in silence hushed."
The point here fixed upon in my imagination is half-way up the
northern side of Loughrigg Fell, from which the Pastor and his
companions were supposed to look upwards to the sky and mountain-
tops, and round the vale, with the lake lying immediately beneath
them.
"But turned not without welcome promise made,
That he would share the pleasures and pursuits
Of yet another summer's day, consumed
In wandering with us."
When I reported this promise of the Solitary, and long after, it
was my wish, and I might say intention, that we should resume our
wanderings, and pass the Borders into his native country, where,
as I hoped, he might witness, in the society of the Wanderer, some
religious ceremony--a sacrament, say, in the open fields, or a
preaching among the mountains--which, by recalling to his mind the
days of his early childhood, when he had been present on such
occasions in company with his parents and nearest kindred, might
have dissolved his heart into tenderness, and so have done more
towards restoring the Christian faith in which he had been
educated, and, with that, contentedness and even cheerfulness of
mind, than all that the Wanderer and Pastor, by their several
effusions and addresses, had been able to effect. An issue like
this was in my intentions. But, alas!
"'Mid the wreck of IS and WAS,
Things incomplete and purposes betrayed
Make sadder transits o'er thought's optic glass
Than noblest objects utterly decayed!"
_____________
TO THE RIGHT HON.
WILLIAM, EARL OF LONSDALE, K.G.
ETC. ETC.
OFT, through thy fair domains, illustrious Peer!
In youth I roamed, on youthful pleasures bent:
And mused in rocky cell or sylvan tent,
Beside swift-flowing Lowther's current clear.
--Now, by thy care befriended, I appear
Before thee, LONSDALE, and this Work present,
A token (may it prove a monument!)
Of high respect and gratitude sincere.
Gladly would I have waited till my task
Had reached its close; but Life is insecure,
And Hope full oft fallacious as a dream:
Therefore, for what is here produced, I ask
Thy favour; trusting that thou wilt not deem
The offering, though imperfect, premature.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
RYDAL MOUNT, WESTMORELAND,
July 29, 1814.
PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1814
THE Title-page announces that this is only a portion of a poem;
and the Reader must be here apprised that it belongs to the second
part of a long and laborious Work, which is to consist of three
parts.--The Author will candidly acknowledge that, if the first of
these had been completed, and in such a manner as to satisfy his
own mind, he should have preferred the natural order of
publication, and have given that to the world first; but, as the
second division of the Work was designed to refer more to passing
events, and to an existing state of things, than the others were
meant to do, more continuous exertion was naturally bestowed upon
it, and greater progress made here than in the rest of the poem;
and as this part does not depend upon the preceding to a degree
which will materially injure its own peculiar interest, the
Author, complying with the earnest entreaties of some valued
Friends, presents the following pages to the Public.
It may be proper to state whence the poem, of which "The
Excursion" is a part, derives its Title of THE RECLUSE.--Several
years ago, when the Author retired to his native mountains, with
the hope of being enabled to construct a literary Work that might
live, it was a reasonable thing that he should take a review of
his own mind, and examine how far Nature and Education had
qualified him for such employment. As subsidiary to this
preparation, he undertook to record, in verse, the origin and
progress of his own powers, as far as he was acquainted with them.
That Work [The Prelude], addressed to a dear Friend, most
distinguished for his knowledge and genius, and to whom the
Author's Intellect is deeply indebted, has been long finished; and
the result of the investigation which gave rise to it was a
determination to compose a philosophical poem, containing views of
Man, Nature, and Society; and to be entitled, "The Recluse"; as
having for its principal subject the sensations and opinions of a
poet living in retirement.--The preparatory poem 1 is
biographical, and conducts the history of the Author's mind to the
point when he was emboldened to hope that his faculties were
sufficiently matured for entering upon the arduous labour which he
had proposed to himself; and the two Works have the same kind of
relation to each other, if he may so express himself, as the ante-
chapel has to the body of a Gothic church. Continuing this
allusion, he may be permitted to add, that his minor Pieces, which
have been long before the Public, when they shall be properly
arranged, will be found by the attentive Reader to have such
connection with the main Work as may give them claim to be likened
to the little cells, oratories, and sepulchral recesses,
ordinarily included in those edifices.
The Author would not have deemed himself justified in saying,
upon this occasion, so much of performances either unfinished or
unpublished, if he had not thought that the labour bestowed by him
upon what he has heretofore and now laid before the Public
entitled him to candid attention for such a statement as he thinks
necessary to throw light upon his endeavours to please and, he
would hope, to benefit his countrymen.--Nothing further need be
added, than that the first and third parts of "The Recluse" will
consist chiefly of meditations in the Author's own person; and
that in the intermediate part ("The Excursion") the intervention
of characters speaking is employed, and something of a dramatic
form adopted.
It is not the Author's intention formally to announce a system;
it was more animating to him to proceed in a different course; and
if he shall succeed in conveying to the mind clear thoughts,
lively images, and strong feelings, the Reader will have no
difficulty in extracting the system for himself. And in the
meantime the following passage, taken from the conclusion of the
first book of "The Recluse," may be acceptable as a kind of
"Prospectus" of the design and scope of the whole Poem.
[The passage referred to begins with the line, "On Man, on
Nature, and on Human Life," see page 343 of the present edition,
and ends with, "Guide, and support, and cheer me to the end!" page
345.]
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