THE PRELUDE 1850 Friend of the wise! and teacher of the good! Into my heart have I received that lay Of the foundations and the building up Revealable; and what within the mind -COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR, 1807, To William Wordsworth, Composed on the night after his recitation of a Poem on the growth of an individual mind. We have finished Wordsworth's "Prelude." It has many lofty passages. It soars and sinks, and is by turns sublime and commonplace. It is Wordsworth as he was at the age of thirty-five or forty.-LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH, 1850, Journal, July 21: Life by S. Longfellow, vol. II, p. 175. I brought home, and read, the "Prelude." It is a poorer "Excursion;" the same sort of faults and beauties; but the faults greater, and the beauties fainter, both in themselves, and because faults are always made more offensive, and beauties less pleasing, by repetition. The story is the old story. There are the old raptures about mountains and cataracts; the old flimsy philosophy about the effect of scenery on the mind; the old crazy mystical metaphysics; the endless wilderness of dull, flat, prosaic twaddle; and here and there fine descriptions and energetic declamations interspersed. The story of the French Revolution, and of its influence on the character of a young enthusiast, is told again at greater length, and with less force and pathos, than in the "Excursion." The poem is to the last degree Jacobinical, indeed Socialist. I understand perfectly why Wordsworth did not choose to publish it in his lifetime.-MACAULAY, THOMAS BABINGTON, 1850, Journal, July 28; Life and Letters, ed. Trevelyan, vol. II, ch. xii. At the time when the "Prelude" was fresh from the press, he [Macaulay] was maintaining against the opinion of a large and mixed society that the poem was unreadable. At last, overborne by the united There were many who knew Wordsworth's poetry well while he was still alive, who felt its power, and the new light which it threw on the material world. But though they half-guessed they did not fully know the secret of it. They got glimpses of part, but could not grasp the whole of the philosophy on which it was based. But when, after his death, “The Prelude" was published, they were let into the secret, they saw the hidden foundations on which it rests, as they had never seen them before. The smaller poems were more beautiful, more delightful, but "The Prelude" revealed the secret of their beauty. It showed that all Wordsworth's impassioned feeling towards Nature was. no mere fantastic dream, but based on sanity, on a most assured and reasonable philosophy. It was as though one who had been long gazing on some building grand and fair, admiring the vast sweep of its walls, and the strength of its battlements, without understanding their principle of coherence, were at length to be admitted inside by the master builder, and given a view of the whole plan from within, the principles of the architecture, and the hidden substructures on which it was built. This is what "The Prelude" does for the rest of Wordsworth's poetry.SHAIRP, JOHN CAMPBELL, 1877, On Poetic Interpretation of Nature, p. 274. In Wordsworth's case, the posthumous decline may have been owing in part to disappointment occasioned by "The Prelude," which was given to the public a few months after the author's death. For myself, I must confess that I was greatly taken back on first reading that work; it disappointed me sadly: but Coleridge's grand poem in its praise had raised very high expectations in me; which were so far from being met, and indeed so badly dashed, that I did not venture upon a second reading for several years. I still remembered Coleridge's poem, still had faith in his judgment, and so But committed the rather unusual folly of suspecting that the fault, after all, might be in myself. So, at length, I gave it a second perusal, and was then even more disappointed than I had been at first, but disappointed just the other way; and so repented my hasty dislike, that I soon after tried it a third time: this led to a fourth trial, and this to a fifth. Thus its interest kept mounting higher and higher on every fresh perusal; and now for some eighteen years I have not been able to let a year pass without reading it at least twice. And it still keeps its hold on me,still keeps pulling me back to it.-HUDSON, HENRY N., 1884, Studies in Wordsworth, p. 96. The "Prelude," in which Wordsworth gives an account of his own spiritual development, is one of the numerous echoes of the "Confessions" of Rousseau; but it is an echo in which the morbid and unhealthy self-analysis of the "Confessions" has all but disappeared, and in which the interest of the reader is claimed on grounds which are all but independent of the mere individual. Wordsworth seeks to exhibit to us, not so much of his own personal career, as the way in which, amid the difficulties of the time, a human soul might find peace and inward freedom. -CAIRD, EDWARD, 1892, Wordsworth, Essays on Literature and Philosophy, vol. I, p. 186. The system of general spiritual education which is both explicitly and implicitly set forth in "The Prelude," makes this great autobiographical poem one of the most valuable productions in English Literature; and teachers capable of bringing its informing spirit home to their students (capable by virtue of their own assimilation of it), might do great things in the way of a spiritual quickening of their students.-CORSON, HIRAM, 1896, The Voice and Spiritual Education, p. 145. No autobiography, however, is so free from the taint of vanity as "The Prelude." There are no theatrical attitudes, no arrangements of drapery for the sake of effect. The poet takes no pains to give statuesque beauty to his gestures, or dramatic sequence to his actions. Wordsworth had too much pride-if the word may be used to denote justifiable self-confidence to be vain. He felt, he knew, that he was a great poet, and did not disguise the fact. He was unconscious of any obligation to wrap himself in the detestable cloak of false modesty.-LEGOUIS, ÉMILE, 1896, The Early Life of William Wordsworth, 1770-1798, A Study of "The Prelude," tr. Matthews, p. 13. "The Prelude," though long and occasionally prosaic, is an invaluable record. The poet has there disclosed himself more perfectly than Dante or Milton ever did. -STRONG, AUGUSTUS HOPKINS, 1897, The Great Poets and Their Theology, p. 339. SONNETS The difficulty of the sonnet metre in didactic thoughts which naturally incline English is a good excuse for the dull towards it: fellows know there is no danger of decanting their muddy stuff ever so slowly they are neither prose nor poetry. I have rather a wish to tie old Wordsworth's volume about his neck and pitch him into one of the deepest holes of his dear Duddon. -FITZGERALD, EDWARD, 1841, To F. Tennyson, July 26; Letters, vol. 1, p. 73. Wordsworth, in sonnet, is a classick too, And on that grass-plot sits at Milton's side. -LANDOR, WALTER SAVAGE, 1853, To the Author of "Festus", The Last Fruit off an old Tree. To Wordsworth has been vouchsafed the last grace of the self-denying artist: you think neither of him nor his style, but you cannot help thinking of-you must recall -the exact phrase, the very sentiment he wished. Milton's purity is more eager. In the most exciting parts of Wordsworth -and these sonnets are not very exciting -you always feel, you never forget, that what you have before you is the excitement of a recluse. There is nothing of the stir of life; nothing of the brawl of the world.-BAGEHOT, WALTER, 1864, Wordsworth, Tennyson and Browning; Works, ed. Morgan, vol. 1, p. 218. Wordsworth, the greatest of modern poets, is perhaps the greatest of English sonnet writers. Not only has he composed a larger number of sonnets than any other of our poets; he has also written more that are of first-rate excellence. There is no intensity of passion in Wordsworth's sonnets; and herein he differs from Shakespeare, and from Mrs. Browning, for whose sonnets the reader may feel an enthusiastic admiration that Wordsworth's thoughtful and calm verse rarely excites; neither has he attained the "dignified simplicity" which marks the sonnets of Milton; but for purity of language, for variety and strength of thought, for the curiosa felicitas of poetical diction, for the exquisite skill with which he associates the emotions of the mind and the aspects of nature, we know of no sonnet writer who can take precedence of Wordsworth. In his larger poems his language is sometimes. slovenly, and occasionally, as Sir Walter Scott said, he chooses to crawl on allfours; but this is rarely the case in the sonnets, and though he wrote upwards of four hundred, there are few, save those on the "Punishment of Death" and some of those called Ecclesiastical (for neither argument nor dogma find a fitting place in verse) that we could willingly part with. Wordsworth's belief that the language of the common people may be used as the language of poetry was totally inoperative when he composed a sonnet. He wrote at such times in the best diction he could command, and the language like the thought is that of a great master.-DENNIS, JOHN, 1873-80, English Sonnets: A Selection, note. Wordsworth's predilection for the sonnet, and the success wherewith he has cultivated a kind which might seem somewhat artificial for a poet of nature and of the fields, are things to be observed, and important to take account of in the final estimate. He has really excelled in it, and many of his sonnets approach perfection. Although English literature is singularly rich in poetical jewels of this kind, Wordsworth, to my taste, has in this respect rivals, but no superiors. The piece on the sonnet itself, that composed on Westminster Bridge, that addressed to Milton, and half a hundred others (he wrote four hundred), show that combination of ingenious turn and victorious final touch which is the triumph of the kind.-SCHERER, EDMOND, 1880-91, Wordsworth and Modern Poetry in England, Essays on English Literature, tr. Saintsbury, p. 196. He had a right to think highly of his sonnets; for when they are good they surpass those of his contemporaries; but, unfortunately, the number of his good sonnets is small. He has written hundreds (say five hundred in round figures), of which it would be difficult to name twenty that substantiate his poetic greatness. He wrote upon all occasions, and many of his occasions, it must be confessed, are of the slightest. To stub his toe was to set his poetic feet in motion, and to evolve a train of philosophical musings upon toes in particular and things in general. His prime defect (me judice) is his stupendous egotism, which dwarfed that of Milton, great as it was, and which led him to worship himself, morning, noon, and night. Sacred in his own eye, he could not be otherwise in the eyes of others. That he was, or could be tedious, never entered into his calculation. I honor his memory this side of idolatry, as Ben Jonson wrote of Shakspere, but when I read his sonnets I am constrained to say, with the wicked Jeffrey, "This will never do."-STODDARD, RICHARD HENRY, 1881, The Sonnet in English Poetry, Scribner's Monthly, vol. 22, p. 918. Wordsworth's sonnets are among his most perfect productions, from the artistic point of view. He brought the sonnet into fashion after it had been neglected since Milton's death. He had the feeling for rhetorical expression as well as the rhyming power requisite to bring this form to its finish and perfection. Many of his sonnets, like the one beginning, "The world is too much with us," and, "Scorn not the sonnet, critic," have a permanent lodgment in the general memory.-JOHNSON, CHARLES F., 1885, Three Americans and Three Englishmen, p. 37. Every good sonnet of Wordsworth's is like a mirror wherein we see his poetic nature reflected; and is there another man who would so well stand the test of such a multitude of mirrors? His fatal habit of rhyming upon everything resulted, in his sonnet work, in the many more or less indifferent productions to be found in the "Duddon," and more especially in the Ecclesiastical Series: but speaking generally, his sonnets are freer from his besetting sins than one would naturally expect. He is, and must always be, considered one of the greatest of English sonneteers. At his very best he is the greatest. His sonnets are mostly as beautiful and limpid as an amber tinted stream, and the thoughts which are their motives as clear as the large pebbly stones in the shallows thereof. In a word, he, at his best, knew what he wanted to say, and could say it in his own manner supremely well.-SHARP, WILLIAM, 1886, Sonnets of this Century, p. 325, note. Nowhere, except in a very few of Milton's, in a very few of Shakespeare's, does that crystallization of thought, the sonnet, carry such largeness and illumination as in Wordsworth's sonnets. SPOFFORD, HARRIET PRESCOTT, 1890, A Selection of Wordsworth's Sonnets, The Book Buyer, vol. 7, p. 497. The greatest of English Sonneteers.CORSON, HIRAM, 1892, A Primer of English Verse, p. 143. On the response of the common conscience of men Wordsworth's sonnets may rely for their perpetual justification. QUILLER-COUCH, A. T., 1897, English Sonnets, Introduction, p. xix. In the sonnets, on the other hand, we find much of Wordsworth's finest work, alike in substance and in form. "The sonnet's scanty plot of ground" suited him so well because it forced him to be at once concise and dignified, and yet allowed him to say straight out the particular message or emotion which was possessing him. . . . Taking them at their best you will find that nowhere in his work has he put so much of his finest self into so narrow a compass. Nowhere are there so many splendid single lines, lines of such weight, such imaginative ardour. And these lines have nothing to lose by their context, as almost all the fine lines which we find in the blank verse poems have to lose.-SYMONS, ARTHUR, 1902, Wordsworth, Fortnightly Review, vol. 77, p. 42. leave behind He will him a name unique in his way. rank among the very first poets, and probably possesses a mass of merits superior to all, except only Shakspeare. This is doing much, yet would he be a happier man if he did more.-SOUTHEY, ROBERT, 1804, To John Rickman, Life and Correspondence, ed. C. C. Southey, ch. x. Southey's "Madoc" is in the press, I understand, and will make its appearance the beginning of winter. Wordsworth's Poems, for he has two great ones, that is, long ones, will not be published so soon. One of these is to be called the "Recluse," and the other is to be a history of himself and his thoughts; this philosophy of egotism and shadowy refinements really spoils a great genius for poetry. We shall have a few exquisite gleams of natural feeling, sunk in a dull ugly ground of trash and affectation. I cannot forgive your expression, "Wordsworth & Co. ;" he merits criticism, but surely not contempt; to class him with his imitators is the greatest of all contempt. I thought our perusal of the "Lyrical Ballads" in the Temple would have prevented this; we found much to admire, but you will not admire. Sharp, however, is in the other extreme, I admit; but I insist it is the better of the two: he has been living at the Lakes, with these crazed poets; Wordsworth read him some thousand lines, and he repeated to me a few of these one day, which I could not worship as he wished me.-HORNER, FRANCIS, 1804, Letter to Francis Jeffrey, Aug. 13; Memoirs and Correspondence, vol. I, p. 272. Trouble not yourself about their present reception; of what moment is that compared with what I trust is their destiny? To console the afflicted; to add sunshine to daylight, by making the happy happier; to teach the young, and the gracious of every age, to see, to think, and feel, and therefore to become more actively and securely virtuous-this is their office, which I trust they will faithfully perform, long after we (that is, all that is mortal of us) are mouldered in our graves.-WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM, 1807, Letter to Lady Beaumont, May 21; Knight's Life of Wordsworth, vol. II, p. 88. I have just got, by a most lucky chance, Wordsworth's new Poems. I owe them some most delightful hours of abstraction from the petty vexations of the little world where I live, and the horrible dangers of the great world, to which my feelings are attached. I applied to him his own verses: Blessings be with them, and eternal praise, Who gave us nobler loves and nobler caresthe Poets. The Sonnets on Switzerland and on Milton are sublime. Some of the others are in a style of severe simplicity, sometimes bordering on the hardness and dryness of some of Milton's Sonnets. Perhaps it might please him to know, that his poetry has given these feelings to one at so vast a distance it is not worth adding, to one who formerly had foolish prejudices against him.-MACKINTOSH, SIR JAMES, 1808, Journal, July 6; Memoirs of Mackintosh, ed. his Son, vol. I, p. 409. Next comes the dull disciple of thy school, And quit his books, for fear of growing double;" Who, both by precept and example, shows Wordsworth, whose porcelain was taken for delf. -HUNT, LEIGH, 1811, The Feast of the Poets. We do not want Mr. Wordsworth to write like Pope or Prior, nor to dedicate his muse to subjects which he does not himself think interesting. We are prepared, on the contrary, to listen with a far deeper delight to the songs of his mountain solitude, and to gaze on his mellow pictures of simple happiness and affection, and his lofty sketches of human worth and energy; and we only beg, that we may have these noble elements of his poetry, without the debasement of childish language, mean incidents, and incongruous images. -JEFFREY, FRANCIS LORD, 1812, Wilson's Poems, Edinburgh Review, vol. 19, p. 375. My Dear Jeffrey,-I am much obliged to you for the Review, and shall exercise the privilege of an old friend in making some observations upon it. I have not read the review of Wordsworth, because the subject is to me so very uninteresting; but, may I ask, do not such repeated attacks upon a man wear in some little degree the shape of persecution?-SMITH, SYDNEY, 1814, To Jeffrey, A Selection from the Letters of the Rev. Sydney Smith, ed. Mrs. Austin. Great being, who will hereafter be ranked as one who had a portion of the spirit of the mighty ones, especially Milton; but who did not possess the power of using that spirit otherwise than with reference to himself, and so as to excite a reflex action only. -HAYDON, BENJAMIN ROBERT, 1815, Journal. He of the cloud, the cataract, the lake, Who on Helvellyn's summit, wide awake, Catches his freshness from Archangel's wing. -KEATS, JOHN, 1817, Sonnet, addressed to Haydon. First; an austere purity of language, both grammatically and logically; in short, a perfect appropriateness of the words to the meaning. . . . The second characteristic excellence of Mr. Wordsworth's work is: a correspondent weight and sanity of the Thoughts and Sentiments, won, not from books; but-from the poet's own meditative observation. They are fresh and have the dew upon them. . . . Even throughout his smaller poems there is scarcely one, which is not rendered valuable by some just and original reflection.. Third; the sinewy strength and originality of single lines and paragraphs; the frequent curiosa felicitas of his diction. Fourth; the perfect truth of nature in his images and descriptions, as taken immediately from nature, and proving a long and genial intimacy with the very spirit which gives the physiognomic expression to all the works of nature. Fifth; a meditative pathos, a union of deep and subtle thought with sensibility; a sympathy with man as man, the sympathy of a contemplator, rather than a fellow-sufferer or co-mate (spectator, haud particeps), but of a contemplator, from whose views no difference of rank conceals the sameness of nature; no injuries of wind or weather, or toil, or even of ignorance, wholly disguise the human face divine. Here the man and Poet find themselves in each other Last, and pre-eminently, ination in the highest and strictest sense I challenge for this poet the gift of Imagof the word. In the play of fancy, Wordsworth, to my feelings, is not always graceful, and sometimes recondite. The likeness is occasionally too strange, or demands too peculiar a point of view, or is such as appears the creature of predetermined research, rather than spontaneous presentation. Indeed, his fancy seldom displays. itself, as mere and unmodified fancy. in imaginative power he stands nearest of all modern writers to Shakspeare and Milton; and yet in a kind perfectly unborrowed and his own. To employ his own words, which are at once an instance and an illustration, he does indeed to all thoughts and to all objects Add the gleam, But The light that never was, on sea or land, The consecration, and the poet's dream. -COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR, 1817, Biographia Literaria, ch. xxii. |