JOANNA BAILLIE.
The powerful dramatic writer, the graceful and witty lyrist, and the sweet and gentle woman, who has for so many years, in her quiet retreat at Hampstead, let the world flow past her as if she had nothing to do with it, nor cared to be mentioned by it, was born in one of the most lovely and historical districts of Scotland. She was born in a Scottish manse, in the upper dale of the Clyde, which has, for its mild character and lavish production of fruit, been termed "Fruitland." As you pass along the streets of Scotch towns, you see on fruit-stalls in the summer, piles of plums, pears, and other fruits, labeled "Clydesdale Fruit." One of the finest specimens of the fruit of this luxuriant and genial dale, is Joanna Baillie, a name never pronounced by Scot or Briton of any part of the empire, but with the veneration due to the truest genius, and the affection which is the birthright of the truest specimens of womanhood. The sister of the late amiable and excellent Dr. Baillie, the friend of Walter Scott, the woman whose masculine muse every great poet has for nearly half-a-century delighted to honor, Joanna Baillie, wrote because she could not help pouring out the fullness of her heart and mind, and the natural consequence was fame; otherwise, whoever sees that quiet, amiable, and unassuming lady, easy and cheerful as when she played beneath the fruit-laden boughs of her native garden, sees that, though not scorning the fair reputation of well exercised intellect, she is at home in the bosom of home, and lets no restless desire for mere fame disturb the pure happiness of a serene life, and the honor and love of those nearest and dearest to her. Had the lambent flame of genius not burned in the breast of Joanna Baillie, that of a pure piety and a spirit made to estimate the blessings of life, and to enjoy all the other blessings of peace and social good which it brings, would have still burned brightly in her bosom, and made her just as happy though not as great.
The birthplace of Joanna Baillie is the pretty manse of Bothwell, in the immediate neighborhood of Bothwell brig; and, therefore, as will at once be seen, in the center of ground where stirring deeds have been done, and where the author of Waverley has added the vivid coloring of romance to those deeds. Bothwell manse, from its elevated site, looks directly down upon the scene of the battle at Bothwell brig; upon the park of Hamilton, where the Covenanters were encamped; and upon Bothwellhaugh, the seat of Hamilton, who shot the regent Murray. This is no mean spot in an historical point of view, and it is richly endowed by nature. Near it also, a little farther down the river, stands Bothwell Castle, on Bothwell bank, on which the charm of poetry has been conferred with an almost needless prodigality, for it is so delightful in its own natural beauty.
The country as you proceed to Bothwell from Glasgow, from which it is distant about ten miles, though from the first rich and well cultivated, is not so agreeable, from the quantity of coal that is found along the roads into Glasgow, and which seems to have given a blackness to every thing. As you advance, however, it grows continually more elevated, open, airy, and pleasant. About a mile before you reach Bothwell, the tall, square church steeple of which, seen far before you, serves you for a guide, a pair of lodge gates on your right hand marks the entrance to the grounds of Bothwell Castle. By writing your name and address in a book kept by the gate-keeper, you are admitted, and can then pursue your way alone to the castle, and make your own survey without the nuisance of a guide. The castle lies about half-a-mile from the high-road. You first arrive at very beautifully kept pleasure grounds, in which stands a good modern mansion, the seat of the proprietor, Lord Douglas. Passing through these grounds, and close to the right of the house, you soon behold the ruins of the old castle. It is of a very red sandstone, extensive in its remains, and bearing evidence of having been much more extensive. Its tall red walls stand up amid fine trees and masses of ivy, and seem as if created by Time to beautify the modern scene with which they blend so well. The part remaining consists of a great oblong square, with two lofty and massy towers overlooking the river which lies to your left. There are also remains of an ample chapel. From the openings in the ruins, the river below, and its magnificent valley or glen, burst with startling effect upon you. The bank from the foot of the castle descends with considerable steepness to the river far below, but soft and green as possible; and beyond the dark and hurrying river, rise banks equally high, and as finely wooded and varied. Advancing beyond the castle you come again to the river, which sweeps round the ruins in a fine curve. Here every charm of scenery, the great river in its channel, its lofty and well wooded banks, the picturesque views of Blantyre Priory opposite, the slopes and swells of most luxurious green, and splendid lime-trees hanging their verdurous boughs to the ground, mingle the noble and the beautiful into an enchanting whole. A gravel walk leads you down past the front of the castle, and presents you with a new and still more impressive view of it. Here it stands aloft on the precipice above you, a most stately remnant of the old times; and nature has not stinted her labors in arraying it in tree, bush, and hanging-plant, so as to give it the grace of life in its slow decay, making it in perfect harmony with herself. Few scenes are more fascinating than this. Above you the towers of the castle, which once received as its victorious guest Edward I. of England; which again sheltered the English chiefs fleeing from the disastrous field of Bannockburn; which was the stronghold of Archibald the Grim, and the proud hall of the notorious Earl Bothwell. Below, slopes down in softest beauty the verdant bank, and the stately Clyde, dark and deep, flows on amid woods and rocks worthy of all their fame. The taste of the proprietor has seized on every circumstance to give a finish to a scene so lovely; and it is impossible not to exclaim, in the words of the celebrated old ballad—
"Oh, Bothwell bank, thou bloomest fair."
The village of Bothwell is, as I have said, a mile farther on the way toward Hamilton. The church and manse lie to the left hand as you enter it, and the latter is buried, as it were, in a perfect sea of fruit trees. You may pass through the church-yard to it, and then along a footpath between two high hedges, which leads you to the carriage-road from the village to its front. The house in which Miss Baillie was born, and where she lived till her fourth year, seems to stand on a sort of mount, on one side overlooking the valley of the Clyde, and on the other the church-yard and part of the village. The situation is at once airy and secluded. Between the manse and the church-yard lies the garden, full of fruit trees; and other gardens, or rather orchards, between that and the village, add to the mass of foliage, in which it is immersed. Between the church-yard and the manse garden commences a glen, which runs down, widening and deepening as it goes, on the side of the manse most distant from the village, to the great Clyde valley. This gives the house a picturesqueness of situation peculiarly attractive. It has its own little secluded glen, its sloping crofts, finely shaded with trees, and beyond again other masses of trees shrouding cottages and farms.
The church has been rebuilt within these few years, of the same red stone as Bothwell Castle; but the old chancel of the church still remains standing, in a state of ruin. The church-yard is extensive, scattered with old-fashioned tombs, and forming a famous playground for the children of the neighboring village school, who were out leaping in the deep damp soil, and galloping among its rank hemlocks and mallows to their hearts' content. Having, by the courtesy of the minister, Dr. Matthew Gardner, seen the manse, and had a stroll in the garden, I again wandered over the church-yard, watching the boys at their play, and reading the inscriptions on the tombs and headstones; one of which I copied in evidence of the state of parochial education in Scotland, where it has existed as a national institution, I believe ever since the days of Knox:—
"Erected by Margaret Scott, in memory of her husband, Robert Stobo, Late Smith and Farrier o' Gowkthrapple, who died 7th of May 1834, in the 70th year of his age.
What struck me as not less curious was the following handbill, posted on the jamb of the church door:—"Gooseberries for sale, by public roup. The gooseberries in the orchards of Bothwell manse, also at Captain Bogles Laroyet, and in, etc., etc. Sale to begin at Bothwell manse, at five o'clock, P.M. 10th of July." This was, certainly, characteristic of "Fruitland."
Though Miss Baillie only spent the first four years of her life at this sweet and secluded parsonage, it is the place which she has said she likes best to think of, of any in her native country. And this we may well imagine; it is just the place for a child's paradise, embosomed amid blossoming trees, with its garden lying like a little hidden yet sunny fairy land in the midst of them, with its flowers and its humming bees, that old church and half-wild church-yard alongside of it, and its hanging crofts, and little umbrageous valley.
To Bothwell brig you descend the excellent highway toward Hamilton, and coming at it in something less than a mile, are surprised to find what a rich and inviting scene it is. The brig, which you suppose, from being described as a narrow, steep, old-fashioned concern in the days of the Covenanters, to be something gray and quaint, reminding you of Claverhouse and the sturdy Gospelers, is, really, a very respectable, modern-looking affair. The gateway which used to stand in the center of it has been removed, the breadth has been increased, an additional arch or arches have been added at each end, and the whole looks as much like a decent, everyday, well-to-do, and toll-taking bridge as bridge well can do. There is a modern toll-bar at the Bothwell end of it. There is a good house or two, with their gardens descending to the river. The river flows on full and clear, between banks well cultivated and well covered with plantations. Beyond the bridge and river the country again ascends with an easy slope toward Hamilton, with extensive plantations, and park walls belonging to the domain of the Duke of Hamilton. You have scarcely ascended a quarter of a mile, when, on your left hand, a handsome gateway, bearing the ducal escutcheons, and with goodly lodges, opens a new carriage way into the park. Every thing has an air of the present time, of wealth, peace, and intellectual government, that make the days of the battle of Bothwell brig seem like a piece of the romance work of Scott, and not of real history.
Scott himself tells us in his Border Minstrelsy, in his notes to the old Ballad of Bothwell Brig, that "the whole appearance of the ground as given in the picture of the battle at Hamilton Palace, even including a few old houses, is the same as the scene now presents. The removal of the porch or gateway, upon the bridge, is the only perceptible difference." There must have been much change here since Scott visited the spot. The old houses have given way to new houses. The old bridge is metamorphosed into something that might pass for a newish bridge. The banks of the river, and the lands of the park beneath, are so planted and wooded, that the pioneers would have much to do before a battle could be fought. All trace of moorland has vanished, and modern inclosure and cultivation have taken possession of the scene. When we bring back by force of imagination the old view of the place, it is a far different one.
When we picture to ourselves the Duke of Monmouth ordering his brave footguards under command of Lord Livingstone, to force the bridge, which was defended by Hackstone of Rathillet, and Claverhouse sitting on his white horse on the hillside near Bothwell, watching the progress of the fray, and ready to rush down with his cavalry and fall on the infatuated Covenanters who were quarreling among themselves on Hamilton haughs, we see a wild and correspondent landscape, rough as the Cameronian insurgents, and rude as their notions. The Bothwell brig of the present day has all the old aspect modernized out of it. Its smiling fields, and woods that speak of long peaceful times, and snug modern homes—oh! how far off are they from the grand old melancholy tone of the old ballad:—
To the left, looking over the haughs or meadows of Hamilton, from Bothwell brig, you discern the top of the present house of Bothwellhaugh over a mass of wood. Here another strange historical event connects itself with this scene. Here lived that Hamilton who shot in the streets of Linlithgow the Regent Murray, the half-brother of the Queen of Scots. The outrage had been instigated by another, which was calculated especially in an age like that when men took the redress of their wrongs into their own hands without much ceremony, to excite to madness a man of honor and strong feeling. The regent had given to one of his favorites Hamilton's estate of Bothwellhaugh, who proceeded to take possession with such brutality that he turned Hamilton's wife out naked, in a cold night, into the open fields, where before morning she became furiously mad. The spirit of vengeance took deep hold of Hamilton's mind, and was fanned to flame by his indignant kinsmen. He followed the regent from place to place seeking an opportunity to kill him. This at length occurred by his having to pass through Linlithgow on his way from Stirling to Edinburgh. Hamilton placed himself in a wooden gallery, which had a window toward the street, and as the regent slowly, on account of the pressure of the crowd, rode past, he shot him dead.
Add to these scenes and histories that Hamilton Palace, in its beautiful park, lies within a mile of the Bothwell brig, and it must be admitted that no poetess could desire to be born in a more beautiful or classical region. Joanna Baillie's father was at the time of her birth minister of Bothwell. When she was four years old he quitted it, and was removed to different parishes, and finally, only three years before his death, was presented to the chair of divinity at Glasgow. After his death Miss Baillie spent with her family six or more years in the bare muirlands of Kilbride, a scenery not likely to have much attraction for a poetical mind, but made agreeable by the kindness and intelligence of two neighboring families. She never saw Edinburgh till on her way to England when about twenty-two years of age. Before that period she had never been above ten or twelve miles from home, and, with the exception of Bothwell, never formed much attachment to places. Since then she has only seen Scotland as a visitor, and at distant intervals.
For many years Joanna Baillie has been a resident of Hampstead, where she has been visited by nearly all the great writers of the age. Scott, as may be seen in his letters to Joanna Baillie, delighted to make himself her guest, and on her visit to Scotland, in 1806, she spent some weeks in his house at Edinburgh. From this time they were most intimate friends; she was one of the persons to whom his letters were most frequently addressed, and he planted, in testimony of his friendship for her, a bower of pinasters, the seeds of which she had furnished, at Abbotsford, and called it Joanna's bower. In 1810 her drama, The Family Legend, was through his means brought out at Edinburgh. It was the first new play brought out by Mr. Henry Siddons, and was very well received, a fortune which has rarely attended her able tragedies, which are imagined to be more suitable for the closet than the stage. There they will continue to charm, while vigor of conception, a clear and masterly style, and healthy nobility of sentiment, retain their hold on the human mind.
Grasmere
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
William Wordsworth was born at Cockermouth on the 7th of April, 1770. He was educated at Hawkeshead school, in High Furness, and at St. John's College, Cambridge. He had several brothers. One was lost at sea, as commemorated in his poems in various places, as in vol. iii. p. 96, in the sixth poem on the naming of places; and in vol. iv. p. 332, in Elegiac Stanzas; and again in the very next poem—To the Daisy. He was, as we learn from a note, commander of the East India Company's vessel, the Earl of Abergavenny. Another brother was the late Master of Trinity College, Cambridge; and a third, a solicitor in Staples inn. On quitting college, he lived some time in the west of England, and then traveled abroad; resided a year and a half in France, at Orleans, Nantes, Paris, etc. He then went into Germany. In these countries he traveled much on foot, and often quite alone; passing through the solitary forests, and penetrating into the most obscure villages. I have heard him relate that coming late, accompanied by his sister and Coleridge, into a desolate German hamlet, in Hesse Cassel,—and wretched places they are often, as every one knows who has had to seek rest or refreshment in them,—they were refused admittance, and thought they must have to pass the night in the open street. Knocking, however, pretty determinedly at the door of the village inn, the landlord, as if provoked by being disturbed, suddenly rushed out upon them, and fell upon them with a huge cudgel, so that they considered themselves in great personal danger, as well they might at that time of day, when the visits of foreigners were not very common; and not only were the common village publicans very boorish, but, if we are to believe the hand-books of the traveling handicrafts, many a foul murder was committed in those obscure places for the stranger's purse and knapsack. Neither Wordsworth nor Coleridge, however, were destined to be extinguished in that manner. They succeeded in defending themselves, in making their way into the house, and by appealing to them as Christian people, whose duty it was to entertain, and not abuse strangers, they secured a night's lodging, such as it was. Coleridge relates the anecdote somewhat differently in his Biographia Literaria. He says, the rudeness of the landlord within, was seconded by a rabble without. That the travelers could get neither supper, coffee, nor beds; and finally, asking for some bundles of straw to sleep upon, these possibly might have been granted, but that he, Coleridge, happened to ask impatiently, if there were no Christians left in Hesse Cassel; which so incensed them, that being reported in the street, the rabble rushed in and expelled them from the house, by hurling the burning brands from the hearth at them; and that they bivouacked where they could; Coleridge passing his night under a furz bush, well punctured by its thorns. You may find many traces of Wordsworth's wanderings thus in his poems, particularly in vol. iii., and also in vol. iv., where he very characteristically narrates the adventures of a fly on a cold winter's day, as it traverses the stove before which he sat warming himself.
Before going abroad he lived some time in Dorsetshire and Somersetshire. It is probable that he made the acquaintance of Coleridge at Cambridge. Coleridge had now become connected with Southey and Lovell, two Bristol men, and was in a great measure located there. The spirit of poetry had revived again after a long period of mere imitation; and by these circumstances three of the chief leaders of literary reform were thus brought together. Southey was a Bristol man, Coleridge was a Devonshire man, Wordsworth a Cumberland man; but here they were drawn together, and Bristol for a time seemed as though it were to have the honor of becoming a sort of western Athens. But Bristol itself had no sympathy with any literary spirit. It is one of those places that have the singular fortune to produce great men, though it never cherishes them. It produced Chatterton, and let him perish; it produced Southey, and let him go away to rear the fabric of his fame where he pleased. The spirit of trade, and that not in its most adventurous or liberal character, was and is the spirit of Bristol. By a wretched and penny-wise policy, even of trade, it has allowed Gloucester, at many miles' distance from the sea, to become a great port at its expense; by the same spirit it has created Liverpool; and whoever now sees its wretched docks coming up into the middle of the town, instead of stretching, business-like and compactly, along the banks of the Avon, its dusty and unwatered streets, and altogether dingy and sluggish appearance, feels at once, that not even the poetry of trade can flourish there. Yet Bristol had the honor thrust upon it, of issuing to the world the first productions of Wordsworth, Southey, and Coleridge. Joseph Cottle, the author of Alfred, an epic poem, whom Byron so mercilessly handled, grafting upon him the name of his brother Amos, for the sake of more ludicrous effect—Joseph Cottle was a bookseller here, and became the patron of those three young, aspiring, but far from wealthy young men.
Coleridge had made the acquaintance of a Mr. Thomas Poole, of Nether Stowey, a gentleman of some property, and a magistrate. Mr. Poole was a friend of the two great brother potters, Josiah and Thomas Wedgewood, of Staffordshire; he introduced Coleridge to them, and eventually they settled on him an annuity of £150 a-year. Poole invited Coleridge to come down to Stowey to see him, and after his marriage prevailed on him to go and live in Stowey. The Wedgewoods were accustomed also to visit Mr. Poole; and the same causes drew Wordsworth and Southey occasionally down there. Thus Bristol ceased to be the general rendezvous of this new literary coterie, and the solitudes of Somersetshire received them. People have often wondered what induced this poetical brotherhood to select a scene so far out of the usual haunts of literary men, so inferior to Wordsworth's own neighborhood, as Stowey and its vicinity. These are the circumstances. It was Mr. Poole and cheapness which had a deal to do with it. Poole drew Coleridge, Coleridge and the dreams of Pantisocracy drew most of the others. Wordsworth, I believe, never speculated on the exclusive happiness of following the plough on the banks of the Susquehannah; but the whole of the corps had made the discovery that true poetry was based on nature, and that it was to be found only by looking into their own minds, and into the world of nature around them. They therefore sought, not cities, but solitude, where they could at once read, reflect, and store up that treasury of imagery, full of beauty and truth, which should be reproduced, woven into the living tissue of their own thought and passion, as poetry of a new, startling, and high order. To this life of country seclusion Wordsworth and Southey adhered, from choice, all their after-lives.
Wordsworth first resided at Racedown in Dorsetshire, where Coleridge visited him. When Coleridge went to settle at Stowey, Wordsworth also removed to Allfoxden, about five miles farther down, near the Bristol Channel. Here his secluded habits gave rise to some ludicrous circumstances, annoying enough, however, to drive him out of the neighborhood. He was deep in the composition of poetry. He had a Tragedy on the anvil, a poem called Salisbury Plain, never yet published, and Peter Bell, beside his Lyrical Ballads, which last Cottle brought out while he was here. He sought the deepest solitude, and here, if anywhere, he could find it. Allfoxden house is situated at the very extremity of the Quantock hills, and within about a mile and a quarter of the Bristol Channel. As you advance from Stowey, the Quantock hills run along at some little distance on your left hand. They are of the character of downs, open and moorland on the top, and with great masses of wood here and there on their slopes. The country on your right is level, rich, and well wooded. On arriving near Allfoxden, you turn abruptly to the left, and winding about through a woody lane, and passing through a little hamlet, you begin to feel as if you were going quite out of the world of mankind. You are at the foot of the hills, and a thick wood terminates your way. But through this wood you have to pass to find the house where Wordsworth had hidden himself. Passing into this wood at a gate, you find yourself in a most Druidical gloom. The wood is of well grown, tall, and thickly growing oak; filled still closer with hollies, which were once underwood, but which have shot up, and emulated the very oaks themselves in altitude. They are unquestionably among the loftiest hollies in England. Altogether the mass of wood is dense, the scene is shadowy, the ground is strewn with its brown carpet of fallen leaves. As you advance, on your right hand you catch a sound of water, and pursuing it you find it issues from the bottom of a deep narrow glen or dean, which no doubt gives the name to the place—All fox den, or glen of all the foxes. This glen is a very poetical feature of the place, and especially attractive to a man in Wordsworth's then turn of mind, which led him to the deepest seclusion for the sake of abstraction. Tall trees soar up from its sides, and meet above; some of them have fallen across, dashed down by the wind. Wild plants grow luxuriantly below; woodbines and other creepers climb and cling from bough to bough; and the pure and crystal water hurries along over its gravelly bed, beneath this mass of shade and overhanging banks, with a merry music to the neighboring sea.
Leaving this glen, you hold on through the wood to the left, and soon emerge into a park, inclosed by hills and woods, where a good country-house looks out toward the sea. It is one of the most secluded, and yet pleasantly secluded, houses in England. Around it sweep the hills, scattered with fine timber, beneath which reposes a herd of deer, and before it stretches the sea at a little distance. The house is somewhat raised above the level of the valley, so as to catch the charming view of the lands, woods, and outspread waters below. To the left, near the coast, you catch a view of the walls of St. Audrey, the seat of Sir Peregrine Ackland, pleasingly assuring you that you are not quite cut off from humanity. Below the house lies a sunny flower-garden, and, behind, the ascending lawn is enriched by finely disposed masses of trees; among them some enormous old oaks, and elms of noblest growth. There are two elms, growing close together, of remarkable size and height, beneath which a seat is placed, commanding a view of the park and sea; and just below it a fine, well grown larch, which used to be a very favorite tree of the poet. Under these trees he used to sit, and read and compose; and no man could have coveted a more congenial study. Here originated or took form many of his lyrical ballads.
If you ascend the park, you find yourself, after a good, stout climb, on the open hills. One summit after another, covered with clumps of Scotch firs, allures you to ascend, till at length you find yourself far from any abode, on the high moorland hills, amid a profound, but a glorious solitude. Fine glens, with glittering streams, and here and there a lonely cottage sending up its quiet smoke, run among these hills, and extensive tracts of woodland offer you all the charms of forest seclusion. The hills which range along behind Stowey cease here, and were the great haunt of Coleridge and Wordsworth. They might, if they pleased, extend their rambles over them, from the abode of the one to that of the other. We find numerous evidences of their haunting of these hills, among their poems. The ballad of The Thorn is said to be derived hence. Coleridge mentions their name occasionally. He has a poem to a brook among the Quantock hills; and the opening of his Fears in Solitude, written in 1798, when he was at Stowey, is most descriptive of their scenery:—
But the views from the Quantock hills are as charming as the hills themselves. From above Allfoxden you look down directly on the Bristol Channel, the little island of Steepholms lying in the liquid foreground, and the Welsh hills stretching along in the back. On your right you see the whole level but rich country stretching away to Bridgewater, and on toward Bristol.
In this pleasant but solitary region we must recollect, however, that the young poets were not left entirely to their solitary rambles and cogitations. Coleridge had his wife and one or two young children with him. Wordsworth had his sister, and great companion in his many wanderings through various parts of the kingdom, Dorothy. Then there was Mr. Poole, their common friend at Stowey; Charles Lloyd, the son of the Quaker banker of Birmingham, a poet, with the usual fate of a poet, sorrow and an early death, was there part of the time, as a great admirer of, and boarder at, Coleridge's. Southey, Cottle, Charles Lamb, and the two Wedgewoods, and others, visited them. We may well believe that this knot of friends, young, full of enthusiasm, of the love of nature, and the dreams of poetry, became a source of the strangest wonder to the simple and very ignorant inhabitants of that part of the country. People, whose children at the present hour, as will be seen by the account of Coleridge, do not know what a poet means, were not very likely to comprehend what could bring such a number of strange young men, all at once, into their neighborhood. What could they be after there? The honest people had no idea of persons frequenting a place but in pursuit of some honest or dishonest calling. They could not see what calling these young gentlemen were following there, and they very naturally set down their business to be of the latter description. They were neither lawyers, doctors, nor parsons. They were neither farmers, merchants, nor, according to their notions, thorough gentlefolks, i.e., people who lived in large houses, kept large numbers of servants, and drove about in fine carriages. On the contrary, they went wandering about among the hills and woods, and by the sea. They were out, it was said, more by night than by day; and I have heard people of rank and education, which ought to have informed them better, assert, and who still do assert, that they led a very dissolute life! The grave and moral Wordsworth, the respectable Wedgewoods, correct Robert Southey, and Coleridge dreaming of glories and intellectualities beyond the moon, were set down for a very disreputable gang! Innocent Mrs. Coleridge, and poor Dolly Wordsworth, were seen strolling about with them, and were pronounced no better than they should be! Such was the character which they unconsciously acquired, that Wordsworth was at length actually driven out of the country.
Coleridge, writing to Cottle, says, "Wordsworth has been caballed against so long and so loudly, that he has found it impossible to prevail on the tenant of the Allfoxden estate to let him the house, after their first agreement is expired, so he must quit it at midsummer. Whether we shall be able to procure him a house and furniture near Stowey, we know not, and yet we must; for the hills, and the woods, and the streams, and the sea, and the shores, would break forth into reproaches against us, if we did not strain every nerve to keep their poet among them. Without joking, and in serious sadness, Poole and I can not endure to think of losing him.
"At all events, come down, Cottle, as soon as you can, but before midsummer; and we will procure a horse, easy as thy own soul, and we will go on a roam to Linton and Limouth, which, if thou comest in May, will be in all their pride of woods and water-falls, not to speak of its august cliffs, and the green ocean, and the vast valley of stones, all which live disdainful of the seasons, or accept new honors only from the winter's snows."
This poetic trip, in company with another strange man, would, of course, be considered by the neighbors to be another smuggling or spy excursion. What else could they be going all that way for, to look at "the green sea," and at great "valleys of stones?" I remember the knowing laughter with which a country innkeeper in Cornwall once broke out, when, on his asking me what was my business in that part of the country, I replied, "to look about me."
"To look about! Oh, yes, the gentleman knows very well! To look about! Yes, indeed, make me believe that people go a great way off, into strange neighborhoods, merely to look about them!" The people of Somersetshire were equally sagacious at finding a mare's nest. Wordsworth, always a solemn-looking mortal, even in his youth, was particularly obnoxious to their suspicions, especially as he lived in that large house, in that very solitary place. Hear Cottle's account of the affair.
"Mr. Wordsworth had taken the Allfoxden house, near Stowey, for one year, during the minority of the heir; and the reason why he was refused a continuance by the ignorant man who had the letting of it, arose, as Mr. Coleridge informed me, from a whimsical cause, or rather a series of causes. The wiseacres of the village had, it seems, made Mr. Wordsworth the object of their serious conversation. One said, that 'he had seen him wander about by night, and look rather strangely at the moon! And then, he roamed over the hills like a partridge.' Another said, 'he had heard him mutter, as he walked, in some outlandish brogue, that nobody could understand!' Another said, 'It's useless to talk, Thomas, I think he is what people call "a wise man"' (a conjurer!). Another said, 'You are every one of you wrong. I know what he is. We have all met him tramping away toward the sea. Would any man in his senses take all that trouble to look at a parcel of water! I think he carries on a snug business in the smuggling line, and in these journeys, is on the lookout for some wet cargo!' Another very significantly said, 'I know that he has got a private still in his cellar; for I once passed his house at a little better than a hundred yards' distance, and I could smell the spirits as plain as an ashen fagot at Christmas.' Another said, 'However that was, he is surely a desperd French jacobin; for he is so silent and dark that nobody ever heard him say one word about politics.' And thus these ignoramuses drove from their village a greater ornament than will ever again be found among them."
Southey once thought of settling near Neath instead of the Lakes, and had pitched on a house which was to let, but the owner refused to receive him as tenant, because he had heard a rumor of his being a jacobin.
Cottle gives an amusing adventure at Allfoxden, which must not be omitted. "A visit to Mr. Coleridge at Stowey, in the year 1797, had been the means of my introduction to Mr. Wordsworth. Soon after our acquaintance had commenced, Mr. Wordsworth happened to be in Bristol, and asked me to spend a day or two with him at Allfoxden. I consented, and drove him down in a gig. We called for Mr. Coleridge, Miss Wordsworth, and the servant at Stowey; and they walked, while we rode to Mr. Wordsworth's house, distant two or three miles, where we purposed to dine. A London alderman would smile at our bill of fare. It consisted of philosopher's viands; namely, a bottle of brandy, a noble loaf, and a stout piece of cheese; and, as there was plenty of lettuces in the garden, with all these comforts we calculated on doing very well.
"Our fond hopes, however, were somewhat damped, by finding that our stout piece of cheese had vanished! A sturdy rat of a beggar, whom we had relieved on the road, with his olfactories all alive, no doubt, smelled our cheese; and, while we were gazing at the magnificent clouds, contrived to abstract our treasure! Cruel tramp! an ill return for our pence! We both wished that the rind might not choke him. The mournful fact was ascertained a little before we drove into the court-yard of the house. Mr. Coleridge bore the loss with great fortitude, observing that we should never starve with a loaf of bread and a bottle of brandy. He now, with the dexterity of an adept, admired by his friends around, unbuckled the horse, and putting down the shafts with a jerk, as a triumphant conclusion of his work,—lo! the bottle of brandy that had been placed most carefully behind us on the seat, from the inevitable law of gravity, suddenly rolled down, and before we could arrest the spirituous avalanche, pitching right on the stones, was dashed to pieces! We all beheld the spectacle, silent and petrified! We might have collected the broken fragments of the glass; but the brandy, that was gone! clean gone!
"One little untoward thing often follows another, and while the rest stood musing, chained to the place, regaling themselves with the Cognac effluvium, and all miserably chagrined, I led the horse to the stable, where a fresh perplexity arose. I removed the harness without difficulty, but after many strenuous attempts I could not get off the collar. In despair, I called for assistance, when aid soon drew near. Mr. Wordsworth first brought his ingenuity into exercise, but, after several unsuccessful efforts, he relinquished the achievement as altogether impracticable. Mr. Coleridge now tried his hand, but showed no more grooming skill than his predecessors; for after twisting the poor horse's neck, almost to strangulation, and to the great danger of his eyes, he gave up the useless task, pronouncing that the horse's head must have grown—gout or dropsy! since the collar was put on! 'For,' said he, 'it is a downright impossibility for such a huge os frontis to pass through so narrow a collar!' Just at this instant, the servant girl came near, and understanding the cause of our consternation, 'La, master,' said she, 'you do not go about the work in the right way. You should do like this;' when, turning the collar completely upside down, she slipped it off in a moment, to our great humiliation and wonderment; each satisfied, afresh, that there were heights of knowledge in the world, to which he had not attained.
"We were now summoned to dinner; and a dinner it was, such as every blind and starving man in the three kingdoms would have rejoiced to behold. At the top of the table stood a superb brown loaf. The center dish presented a pile of the true cos lettuces, and at the bottom appeared an empty plate, where the stout piece of cheese ought to have stood!—cruel mendicant! and though the brandy was clean gone, yet its place was well, if not better supplied by a superabundance of fine sparkling Castalian champagne! A happy thought at this time started into one of our minds, that some sauce would render the lettuces a little more acceptable, when an individual in the company recollected a question once propounded by the most patient of men—'How can that which is unsavory be eaten without salt?' and asked for a little of that valuable culinary article. 'Indeed, sir,' said Betty, 'I quite forgot to buy salt.' A general laugh followed the announcement, in which our host heartily joined. This was nothing. We had plenty of other good things, and while crunching our succulents, and munching our crusts, we pitied the far worse condition of those, perchance as hungry as ourselves, who were forced to dine alone, off ether. For our next meal, the mile-off village furnished all that could be desired, and these trifling incidents present the sum and the result of half the little passing disasters of life."
The Lyrical Ballads having been brought out about midsummer, 1798; in September of that year Wordsworth and Coleridge set out for Germany. On his return to England he settled at Grasmere, about the beginning of this century. At Grasmere, he resided in two or three different houses; one was Town-end, where his friends, the Cooksons, now reside; another at Allen-bank, at a white house on the hillside, conspicuous in our vignette. He continued to live at Grasmere fifteen years, and has since resided at his present abode, Rydal Mount, about thirty years.
Mr. Wordsworth, after finishing his education, seems to have made choice of no profession but that of poetry. His patrimony could not have been large, as I have heard Mrs. Wordsworth say, that, at the time of their marriage, they had in joint income about £100 a-year. This, however, would go a good way with a young couple, of simple habits, in a place like Grasmere at that time of day. Mrs. Wordsworth was a Miss Hutchinson of Cockermouth. Poetry was Wordsworth's real business from the first, as it has been the great and continued business of his life. His sister Dorothy, also gifted with considerable poetic power, as may be seen in the Address to a Child during a boisterous winter evening, and The Mother's Return, at pp. 9 and 12 of the first volume of his poems, as well as in the Journal of their Wanderings together, was his great and congenial companion. She had a passion for nature, not less ardent than his own; and went on at his side, fearless of rain, or cold, or tempest, nor shrinking from heat. She was ready to climb the mountain, to cross the torrent, or slide down the slippery steep with equal boldness and skill, derived from long practice. With him she traversed a great part of Scotland, Wales, and parts of England. He describes their thus setting out from Grasmere:—
To this ramble, chiefly on foot, we are indebted for some of the most vigorous and characteristic lyrics that Wordsworth ever wrote. He was young, ardent, and overflowing with enthusiasm; and the soil of Scotland, on which so many deeds of martial fame had been done, or where Ossian had sung in the misty years of far-off times, or other bards whose names had for centuries been embalmed in the strains which the spirit of the people had perpetuated, kindled in him a fervent sympathy. We can imagine the delighted brother and sister marching on, over the beautiful hills, the dark heaths, and down the enchanting vales of the Highlands, conversing eagerly of the scenes they had seen, and the incidents they had heard, till the glowing thoughts had formed themselves, in the poet's mind, into almost instant song. These poems have all the character of having been cast, hot from the furnace of inspiration, into their present mold. There is a life, an original freshness, and a native music about them. Such are Ellen Irvine, or the Braes of Kirtle; To a Highland Girl; Glen Almain, or the Solitary Glen; Stepping Westwood; The Solitary Reaper; Rob Roy's Grave; Yarrow Revisited; In the Pass of Killicranky; The Jolly Matron of Jedburgh and her Husband; The Blind Highland Boy; The Brownie's Cell; Cora Linn, etc.
It was to this beloved companion of his wanderings that he, the year afterward, addressed these beautiful verses, on revisiting Tintern.—Vol. ii. p. 179.
Was there something in "the shooting gleams of those wild eyes," which foretold that, like the lights of a fitful sky, they should flash and quickly disappear? The mind of that beloved sister has for many years gone, as it were, before her, and she lives on in a second infancy, carefully cherished in the poet's home.
Wordsworth, as I have observed, devoted himself to no profession but that of poetry. He followed the stream of life as it led him down the retired vale of poetic meditation, but not without, at times, being visited by fears of what the end might be. Of this he gives a graphic description in his poem of Resolution and Independence, the hero of which is the old leech gatherer.