The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth — Volume 6 (of 8)

Offerings were made to the infernal deities in the interval between midnight and sunrise. See Virgil's Æneid, vi. 242-258. Sil. Ital., xiii. 405.

It is men's wont to offer to the buried shades the proper expiations of black sheep on the verge of dawn.

Neither face nor hue remained unchanged, nor braided the locks of her hair: but the bosom heaves and the heart swells wild with frenzy, and she is more majestic to behold, and her voice has no mortal sound.

Then he takes the wand: with this he summons pale ghosts from Orcus, others he sends to gloomy Tartarus below: with this he gives and takes away sleep.

Thrice thereon he tried to cast his arms around his neck: thrice was the phantom grasped in vain and escaped the embrace, unsubstantial as the fleeting winds and shadowy like as winged sleep.

'Vicit iter durum pietas,' is realised by these lines. 'Fidelity has prevailed to traverse the awful path.'

An oracle, moreover, destines some one or other for a cruel doom, who first of the Greeks sets foot on Trojan soil.

Unhappy wife who shall be the first to lament a husband slain: God grant you may not choose the forward part: this warning too I give, be last to disembark: 'tis no fatherland to hasten to, no fatherland for you.

When will the time be that you will share the couch, and lovingly at my side recount the glorious deeds of your warfare?

Cf. Euripides, Iphigeneia in Aulide, 547:

And again:

This refers to the struggle between Hercules and Θάνατος.

The story is found in Ovid, Metamorphoses, vii. 159-293.

This is a perfect rendering of the tone of the Sixth Æneid.

The charm of chariot and armour that they had in life, and the same care to pasture their glossy steeds, follow them deep buried under earth.

Here an 'ampler ether' spreads around the plains, and clothes them in purple light, and they recognise a sun of their own, their own constellations.—Æneid vi. 640.

But his wife too had been left at Phylace, her cheeks all marred with grief, and his palace half-finished.

For neither of a surety ought I to cling to life too fondly.—Iphigeneia in Aulide, 1385.

It is from the character of Iphigeneia that Wordsworth derives these traits.

We think of Virgil's tender line in the similar passage about Orpheus and Eurydice. Georg. iv. 488.

Pardonable indeed, were pardon known in the world of death.

Virg. Æn. vi. 445—

Those who died of love dwelt in the 'Lugentes Campi,' in the outer regions of Orcus.

The passage in Pliny is—

Sunt hodie ex adverso Iliensium urbis juxta Hellespontum in Protesilai sepulcro arbores, quae omnibus aevis cum in tantum accrevere ut Ilium aspiciant, inarescunt rursusque adolescunt.—Hist. Nat. 16, 44 (88).

Opposite to Ilium and close to the Hellespont there are to this day trees growing on Protesilaus' tomb, which, in every generation, as soon as they have grown high enough to see Ilium, wither away and again shoot up.

Cf. Anthologia Graeca Pal. vii. 141.

But right opposite hated Ilium the nymphs shroud thy tomb with a roof of elms; trees blighting with a lasting wrath, and if ever they see the walls of Troy, they shed their withering leaves.

And again, vii. 385—

For a legend showing a similar sympathy between nature and man, see Æneid, iii. 22."

As Wordsworth tells us in the Fenwick note to Laodamia, that "it cost him more trouble than almost anything of equal length he had ever written," and as there are many incomplete passages and suppressed readings among his MSS., the two following stanzas—intended at first to follow the second stanza in the poem as it now stands—may be given in a supplementary note.—Ed.

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FOOTNOTES:

MEMORIALS OF A TOUR IN SCOTLAND

1814

On the 18th July 1814, Wordsworth left Rydal, on a second visit to Scotland, accompanied by his wife, and her sister, Sarah Hutchinson.—Ed.

[In this tour, my wife and her sister Sara were my companions. The account of the "Brownie's Cell" and the Brownies was given me by a man we met with on the banks of Loch Lomond, a little above Tarbert, and in front of a huge mass of rock, by the side of which, we were told, preachings were often held in the open air. The place is quite a solitude, and the surrounding scenery very striking. How much is it to be regretted that, instead of writing such Poems as the Holy Fair and others, in which the religious observances of his country are treated with so much levity and too often with indecency, Burns had not employed his genius in describing religion under the serious and affecting aspects it must so frequently take.[F]—I.F.]

The poems of this series were collected under their common title in the edition of 1827.—Ed.

I

SUGGESTED BY A BEAUTIFUL RUIN UPON ONE OF THE ISLANDS OF LOCH LOMOND, A PLACE CHOSEN FOR THE RETREAT OF A SOLITARY INDIVIDUAL,[13] FROM WHOM THIS HABITATION ACQUIRED THE NAME OF

THE BROWNIE'S CELL

Composed 1814.—Published 1820

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II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

The text of this poem was unaltered in the successive editions with a single exception, occurring in the first line. It was suggested by, and was a reminiscence of the tour in Scotland of 1814; but in 1803 Wordsworth visited the same spot alluded to in the Fenwick note, accompanied by his sister, who thus describes it: "The most remarkable object we saw was a huge single stone, I believe three or four times the size of Bowder Stone. The top of it, which on one side was sloping like the roof of a house, was covered with heather.... The ferryman told us that a preaching was held there once in three months by a certain minister—I think of Arrochar—who engages, as a part of his office, to perform the service. The interesting feelings we had connected with the Highland Sabbath and Highland worship returned here with double force. The rock, though on one side a high perpendicular wall, in no place overhung so as to form a shelter, in no place could it be more than a screen from the elements. Why then had it been selected for such a purpose? Was it merely from being a central situation and a conspicuous object? Or did there belong to it some inheritance of superstition from old times? It is impossible to look at the stone without asking, How came it hither? Had then that obscurity and unaccountableness, that mystery of power which is about it, any influence over the first persons who resorted hither for worship? Or have they now on those who continue to frequent it? The lake is in front of the perpendicular wall, and behind, at some distance, and totally detached from it, is the continuation of the ridge of mountain which forms the Vale of Loch Lomond—a magnificent temple, of which this spot is a noble Sanctum Sanctorum." (Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland, A.D. 1803, pp. 225-6.) The late Rev. William Macintosh of Buchanan supplied me with the following information in reference to the Brownie's Cell and the Pulpit Rock:—"I have little doubt that the Brownie's Cell is the name given by Wordsworth to a small vault, itself a ruin among the ruins of an old stronghold of the Macfarlanes in Eilan Vhow, an islet about three miles from the head of the Loch. The name of the islet is spelt in different ways; sometimes as I have given it, sometimes Eilan Vow, or Eilan-a Vhu; no one whom I consulted could tell me the right spelling. In the early part of this century, the vault was the headquarters of a pedlar of the name of Macfarlane. He may have been the Hermit; and there is a story of his having been frightened by the sudden apparition of a negro, (probably the first he had ever seen), who had been ordered by his master—an English officer—to swim across for that purpose: and it is said that he never again visited the cell.

The Pulpit Rock, also called by a Gaelic name meaning the Bull Stone, is a very large boulder, or detached rock, which is likely to 'stand' as long as Ben Lomond. In the face of it, there is an artificial doorway and recess, which at one time the Parish Minister used to occupy as a Pulpit for occasional services. The audience sat on turf seats ranged round the foot of the Rock. The pulpit was reached by a few steps cut out, I suppose, in the Rock: but it has never been used for the last twenty years. The 'occasional' services are now held in a neighbouring schoolroom."

Mr. Malcolm M'Farlane, a very intelligent sheep farmer in Buchanan parish, supplies the following additional information about the Cell and the Rock:—"The 'Pulpit Rock' is a cell in the face of a large stone, blasted out with gunpowder. The proper appellation is, in Gaelic, 'Clach-nan-Tairbh,' literally translated the 'Stone of the Bulls.' It was formed about 50 or 60 years ago, the then minister of Arrochar, Mr. Proudfoot, had promised to preach in that part of his parish, on several occasions during the year, provided they would get up a place for his reception.... It was capable of containing three or four persons inside, was done up with wood work, an outer and inner door, with stone steps leading to the recess. They were not formed out of the rock, but other stones got up for the purpose, and turf seats laid out for the hearers, who were all exposed to the weather, except so far as they might be sheltered by the rock. The service has been discontinued at the rock for about twenty-five years, and is now held at a schoolhouse. The doors are gone, and no portion of the wood work remains. The cell is now used only as a nightly retreat for mendicants, tinkers," etc. Wordsworth's reference, in the Fenwick note, to Burns's Holy Fair induces me to quote what follows in Mr. M'Farlane's letter:—"Open air preaching was then very general in the Highlands: the people came long distances, travelled over hills, even in inclement weather, to attend them. An individual who kept a small inn, on the loch side opposite Inversnaid, used regularly to attend the meetings with a supply of whisky; but he remained behind the 'rock' till the services were over, when the people partook of his refreshments. Also, on the north side of Loch Katrine, the minister of Callander used to conduct services in the open air, on several occasions during the year, in that distant part of his parish. An old man, who lived near the Trossachs, whom I remember very well, regularly attended with a supply of whisky. Dr. Robertson, who was then minister, after concluding the sermon, had gone to an adjoining farm house. The people had indulged too freely, so that a fight commenced (the same thing had happened on several occasions before). The Doctor had to leave his dinner in order to get them separated, and to put an end to the battle, but he never allowed any more whisky to be brought to the place afterwards.... These may be irrelevant matters, but they might illustrate a chapter in Lecky's History of Morals, as there is more decorum now observed. Since writing the above, I have thought that if the pulpit-rock is mentioned in Miss Wordsworth's Tour, Mr. M'Nicol, my informant, must have made a mistake in stating the time it was made, as about 50 or 60 years ago; but it cannot have been much more than 80 years, as it is not very long since some of the people who were engaged in the operation died.

"Regarding the island near the head of Loch Lomond which is termed 'Eilan (Island) Vow' in Black's Guide, and somewhat differently spelt in others, in the original Gaelic it is 'Eilan a Bhūth.' Būth is a Gaelic name for a shop, so that it is 'the island of the shop.' The English Vow has no connection whatever with the Gaelic, and is perfectly unintelligible. It is part of undoubted traditional history that the chiefs of the Clan M'Farlane, who owned a considerable portion of the adjoining lands, had their residence here. In these turbulent times islands were considered more secure, as surrounded with water. They kept a 'shop' in the island, from which they supplied the little wants of the surrounding population, so that it is perfectly clear how the Island derived its name. A good portion of the stronghold is still in good preservation. A part of the wall is about thirty feet high. It is a very old building. Mr. M'Nicol states that he had learned from his grandfather, by the tradition in the family, that it was erected between the eleventh and the twelfth century. The late Sir James Colquhoun, about twelve years ago, laid out some money for keeping the walls in preservation. At the bottom of the Fort, and below the level of the floor, is the 'Brownie's Cell,' several steps leading down to it, and it is partly underground. It is about twelve feet wide, and sixteen feet long, with an arched roof, the mason work being still in good repair. There is some glimmering light emitted by two small apertures formed in the walls at each end. I have been unable to obtain any specific information what purpose it served in connection with the other building. Some said that it must have been a prison, and others a store for the shop. It might have been a prison at first, and afterwards, in more pacific times, used as a store.

"About the beginning of this century, the Island was occupied by a very eccentric individual, who led the life of a hermit, and took up his abode in this recess. He made frequent excursions out of it, but always returned to his Island-home before the end of the week. It was not then planted with wood, so that he cultivated a part of the ground, raised some crops, kept some poultry. He trained the poultry to fly on the approach of any stranger, so that they could not be got hold of, or taken away in his absence from the Island. He also kept a curious diary, in which local events, his own doings and opinions, were recorded in great detail, expressed in very quaint language. It was by the age of the moon, and not by the days of the month, that events were entered in the diary. He also cultivated astrology, and believed in the evil influence of some of the stars. He had a firm belief in ghosts; but he never was so frightened as when the Black Man (that is the negro), who he thought belonged to the invisible world, swam to the island. Of that adventure I have not been able to obtain a more detailed account, but his landing there very nearly put him out of his wits. The grandfather of the present Duke of Montrose had, on one occasion, visited the Island; and, when landing, the Hermit addressed him, 'James Graham, the Duke of Montrose, you are welcome to come and see my Island.'..."

There is no evidence that the ruin was once "a consecrated Pile," as stated in the poem. Wordsworth had evidently heard of the Hermit's writings, as mentioned by Mr. M'Farlane. See stanza vi., "guiding a pen unwearied."

In the Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson, there is an entry, dated January 2, 1820:—"Went to Lamb's, where I found Mr. and Mrs. Wordsworth.... Not much was said about his (W.'s) new volume of Poems. He himself spoke of The Brownie's Cell as his favourite" (vol. ii. p. 162). In the following year Mr. Crabb Robinson himself visited Scotland, and wrote thus on the 16th September:—"Being on the western side of Loch Lomond, opposite the Mill at Inversnaid, some women kindled a fire, the smoke of which was to be a signal for a ferryboat. No ferryman came; and a feeble old man offering himself as a boatman, I intrusted myself to him. I asked the women who he was. They said, 'That's old Andrew.' According to their account he lived a hermit's life in a lone island on the lake; the poor peasantry giving him meal, and what he wanted, and he picking up pence. On my asking him whether he would take me across the lake, he said, 'I wull, if you'll gi'e me saxpence.' So I consented. But before I was half over I repented of my rashness, for I feared the oars would fall out of his hands. A breath of wind would have rendered half the voyage too much for him. There was some cunning mixed up with the fellow's seeming imbecility, for when his strength was failing he rested, and entered into talk, manifestly to amuse me. He said he could see things before they happened. He saw the Radicals before they came, etc. He had picked up a few words of Spanish and German, which he uttered ridiculously, and laughed. But when I put troublesome questions he affected not to understand me; and was quite astonished, as well as delighted, when I gave him two sixpences instead of the one he had bargained for. The simple-minded women, who affected to look down on him, seemed, however, to stand in awe of him, and no wonder. On my telling Wordsworth this history, he exclaimed, 'That's my "Brownie!"' His Brownie's Cell is by no means one of my favourite poems. My sight of old Andrew showed me the stuff out of which a poetical mind can weave such a web" (vol. ii. pp. 212, 213).

Compare the sequel to this poem, The Brownie, in the "Yarrow Revisited and other Poems," of the Tour made in Scotland in the autumn of 1831.—Ed.

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