Rydal Mount, Thursday Night, Feb. 26.
1829.
You ask for my opinion on the Roman Catholic Question.
I dare scarcely trust my pen to the notice of the question which the Duke of Wellington tells us is about to be settled. One thing no rational person will deny, that the experiment is hazardous. Equally obvious is it that the timidity, supineness, and other unworthy qualities of the government for many years past have produced the danger, the extent of which they now affirm imposes a necessity of granting all that the Romanists demand. Now, it is rather too much that the country should be called upon to take the measure of this danger from the very men who may almost be said to have created it. Danger is a relative thing, and the first requisite for judging of what we have to dread from the physical force of the Roman Catholics is to be in sympathy with the Protestants. Had our Ministers been so, could they have suffered themselves to be bearded by the Catholic Association for so many years?
C——, if I may take leave to say it, loses sight of things in names, when he says that they should not be admitted as Roman Catholics, but simply as British subjects. The question before us is, Can Protestantism and Popery be coordinate powers in the constitution of a free country, and at the same time Christian belief be in that country a vital principle of action?
I fear not. Heaven grant I may be deceived!
W.W.[92]
Rydal Mount, Wednesday.
MY LORD,
There is one point also delicate to touch upon and hazardous to deal with, but of prime importance in this crisis. The question, as under the conduct of the present Ministers, is closely connecting itself with religion. Now after all, if we are to be preserved from utter confusion, it is religion and morals, and conscience, which must do the work. The religious part of the community, especially those attached to the Church of England, must and do feel that neither the Church as an establishment, nor its points of Faith as a church, nor Christianity itself as governed by Scripture, ought to be left long, if it can be prevented, in the hands which manage our affairs.
But I am running into unpardonable length. I took up the pen principally to express a hope that your Lordship may have continued to see the question in the light which affords the only chance of preserving the nation from several generations perhaps of confusion, and crime, and wretchedness.
Excuse the liberty I have taken,
And believe me most faithfully,
Your Lordship's
Much obliged,
W. WORDSWORTH.[93]
Rydal Mount, Dec. 1. 1829.
MY DEAR SIR,
You must not go to Ireland without applying to me, as the guide-books for the most part are sorry things, and mislead by their exaggerations. If I were a younger man, and could prevail upon an able artist to accompany me, there are few things I should like better than giving a month or six weeks to explore the county of Kerry only. A judicious topographical work on that district would be really useful, both for the lovers of Nature and the observers of manners. As to the Giant's Causeway and the coast of Antrim, you cannot go wrong; there the interests obtrude themselves on every one's notice.
The subject of the Poor Laws was never out of my sight whilst I was in Ireland; it seems to me next to impossible to introduce a general system of such laws, principally for two reasons: the vast numbers that would have equal claims for relief, and the non-existence of a class capable of looking with effect to their administration. Much is done at present in many places (Derry, for example) by voluntary contributions; but the narrow-minded escape from the burthen, which falls unreasonably upon the charitable; so that assessments in the best-disposed places are to be wished for, could they be effected without producing a greater evil.
The great difficulty that is complained of in the well-managed places is the floating poor, who cannot be excluded, I am told, by any existing law from quartering themselves where they like. Open begging is not practised in many places, but there is no law by which the poor can be prevented from returning to a place which they may have quitted voluntarily, or from which they have been expelled (as I was told). Were it not for this obstacle compulsory local regulations might, I think, be applied in many districts with good effect.
It would be unfair to myself to quit this momentous subject without adding that I am a zealous friend to the great principle of the Poor Laws, as tending, if judiciously applied, much more to elevate than to depress the character of the labouring classes. I have never seen this truth developed as it ought to be in parliament.
The day I dined with Lord F.L. Gower at his official residence in the Phoenix Park, I met there with an intelligent gentleman, Mr. Page, who was travelling in Ireland expressly to collect information upon this subject, which, no doubt, he means to publish. If you should hear of this pamphlet when it comes out procure it, for I am persuaded it will prove well worth reading. Farewell.
Faithfully yours,
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.[94]
Rydal Mount, Feb. 19. 1819.
DEAR WRANGHAM,
I received your kind letter last night, for which you will accept my thanks. I write upon the spur of that mark of your regard, or my aversion to letter-writing might get the better of me.
I find it difficult to speak publicly of good men while alive, especially if they are persons who have power. The world ascribes the eulogy to interested motives, or to an adulatory spirit, which I detest. But of LORD LONSDALE, I will say to you, that I do not think there exists in England a man of any rank more anxiously desirous to discharge his duty in that state of life to which it has pleased God to call him. His thought and exertions are constantly directed to that object; and the more he is known the more is he beloved, and respected, and admired.
I ought to have thanked you before for your version of VIRGIL'S ECLOGUES, which reached me at last. I have lately compared it line for line with the original, and think it very well done. I was particularly pleased with the skill you have shown in managing the contest between the shepherds in the third Pastoral, where you have included in a succession of couplets the sense of Virgil's paired hexameters. I think I mentioned to you that these poems of Virgil have always delighted me much; there is frequently either an elegance or a happiness which no translation can hope to equal. In point of fidelity your translation is very good indeed.
You astonish me with the account of your books; and I should have been still more astonished if you had told me you had read a third (shall I say a tenth part?) of them. My reading powers were never very good, and now they are much diminished, especially by candle-light; and as to buying books, I can affirm that in new books I have not spent five shillings for the last five years, i.e., in Reviews, Magazines, Pamphlets, &c. &c.; so that there would be an end of Mr. Longman, and Mr. Cadell, &c. &c., if nobody had more power or inclination to buy than myself. And as to old books, my dealings in that way, for want of means, have been very trifling. Nevertheless, small and paltry as my collection is, I have not read a fifth part of it. I should, however, like to see your army.
Not that I accuse you of romancing; I verily believe that you have all the books you speak of. Dear Wrangham, are you and I ever like to meet in this world again? Yours is a corner of the earth; mine is not so. I never heard of anybody going to Bridlington; but all the world comes to the Lakes. Farewell. Excuse this wretched scrawl; it is like all that proceeds from, my miserable pen.
Ever faithfully yours,
WM. WORDSWORTH.
DEAR WRANGHAM,
You are very good in sending one letter after another to inquire after a person so undeserving of attentions of this kind as myself. Dr. Johnson, I think, observes, or rather is made to observe by some of his biographers, that no man delights to give what he is accustomed to sell. 'For example: you, Mr. Thrale, would rather part with anything in this way than your porter.' Now, though I have never been much of a salesman in matters of literature (the whole of my returns—I do not say net profits, but returns—from the writing trade, not amounting to seven score pounds), yet, somehow or other, I manufacture a letter, and part with it as reluctantly as if it were really a thing of price. But, to drop the comparison, I have so much to do with writing, in the way of labour and profession, that it is difficult to me to conceive how anybody can take up a pen but from constraint. My writing-desk is to me a place of punishment; and, as my penmanship sufficiently testifies. I always bend over it with some degree of impatience. All this is said that you may know the real cause of my silence, and not ascribe it in any degree to slight or forgetfulness on my part, or an insensibility to your worth and the value of your friendship.... As to my occupations, they look little at the present age; but I live in hope of leaving something behind me that by some minds will be valued.
I see no new books except by the merest accident. Of course your poem, which I should have been pleased to read, has not found its way to me. You inquire about old books: you might almost as well have asked for my teeth as for any of mine. The only modern books that I read are those of Travels, or such as relate to matters of fact; and the only modern books that I care for; but as to old ones, I am like yourself—scarcely anything comes amiss to me. The little time I have to spare—the very little, I may say—all goes that way. If, however, in the line of your profession you want any bulky old Commentaries on the Scriptures (such as not twelve strong men of these degenerate days will venture—I do not say to read, but to lift), I can, perhaps, as a special favour, accommodate you.
I and mine will be happy to see you and yours here or anywhere; but I am sorry the time you talk of is so distant: a year and a half is a long time looking forward, though looking back ten times as much is as brief as a dream. My writing is wholly illegible—at least I fear so; I had better, therefore, release you.
Believe me, my dear Wrangham,
Your affectionate friend,
W. WORDSWORTH.[95]
(Postmark) Dec. 8. 1826.
DEAR SIR,
It is some time since I received your little volume, for which I now return you my thanks, and also for the obliging letter that accompanied it.
Your poem I have read with no inconsiderable pleasure; it is full of natural sentiments and pleasing pictures: among the minor pieces, the last pleased me much the best, and especially the latter part of it. This little volume, with what I saw of yourself during a short interview, interest me in your welfare; and the more so, as I always feel some apprehension for the destiny of those who in youth addict themselves to the composition of verse. It is a very seducing employment, and, though begun in disinterested love of the Muses, is too apt to connect itself with self-love, and the disquieting passions which follow in the train of that our natural infirmity. Fix your eye upon acquiring independence by honourable business, and let the Muses come after rather than go before. Such lines as the latter of this couplet,
and many other passages in your poem, give proof of no common-place sensibility. I am therefore the more earnest that you should guard yourself against this temptation.
Excuse this freedom; and believe me, my dear Sir, very faithfully,
Your obliged servant,
WM. WORDSWORTH.[96]
Rydal Mount, near Kendal, Sept. 24. 1827.
MY DEAR SIR,
You will have no pain to suffer from my sincerity. With a safe conscience I can assure you that in my judgment your verses are animated with true poetic spirit, as they are evidently the product of strong feeling. The sixth and seventh stanzas affected me much, even to the dimming of my eye and faltering of my voice while I was reading them aloud. Having said this, I have said enough; now for the per contra.
You will not, I am sure, be hurt, when I tell you that the workmanship (what else could be expected from so young a writer?) is not what it ought to be; even in those two affecting stanzas it is not perfect:
Sympathy might whisper, but a 'touch of sympathy' could not. 'Truth's and Science' ray,' for the ray of truth and science, is not only extremely harsh, but a 'ray shone' is, if not absolutely a pleonasm, a great awkwardness: 'a ray fell' or 'shot' may be said, and a sun or a moon or a candle shone, but not a ray. I much regret that I did not receive these verses while you were here, that I might have given you, vivâ voce, a comment upon them, which would be tedious by letter, and after all very imperfect. If I have the pleasure of seeing you again, I will beg permission to dissect these verses, or any other you may be inclined to show me; but I am certain that without conference with me, or any benefit drawn from my practice in metrical composition, your own high powers of mind will lead you to the main conclusions.
You will be brought to acknowledge that the logical faculty has infinitely more to do with poetry than the young and the inexperienced, whether writer or critic, ever dreams of. Indeed, as the materials upon which that faculty is exorcised in poetry are so subtle, so plastic, so complex, the application of it requires an adroitness which can proceed from nothing but practice, a discernment which emotion is so far from bestowing that at first it is ever in the way of it. Here I must stop: only let me advert to two lines:
These are two of the worst lines in mere expression. 'Blench' is perhaps miswritten for 'blanch;' if not, I don't understand the word. Blench signifies to flinch. If 'blanch' be the word, the next ought to be 'hair.' You cannot here use brow for the hair upon it, because a white brow or forehead is a beautiful characteristic of youth. 'Sickly ardor o'er' was at first reading to me unintelligible. I took 'sickly' to be an adjective joined with 'ardor,' whereas you mean it as a portion of a verb, from Shakspeare, 'Sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.' But the separation of the parts or decomposition of the word, as here done, is not to be endured.
Let me now come to your sister's verses, for which I thank you. They are surprisingly vigorous for a female pen, but occasionally too rugged, and especially for such a subject; they have also the same faults in expression as your own, but not, I think, in quite an equal degree. Much is to be hoped from feelings so strong, and from a mind thus disposed. I should have entered into particulars with these also, had I seen you after they came into my hands. Your sister is, no doubt, aware that in her poem she has trodden the same ground as Gray, in his 'Ode upon a distant Prospect of Eton College.' What he has been contented to treat in the abstract, she has represented in particular, and with admirable spirit. But again, my dear Sir, let me exhort you (and do you exhort your sister) to deal little with modern writers, but fix your attention almost exclusively upon those who have stood the test of time. You have not leisure to allow of your being tempted to turn aside from the right course by deceitful lights. My household desire to be remembered to you in no formal way. Seldom have I parted, never I was going to say, with one whom after so short an acquaintance, I lost sight of with more regret. I trust we shall meet again, if not [sentence cut off with the autograph]. Postscript. Pray do not forget to remember me to Mr. Otway. I was much pleased with him and with your fellow-traveller Mr. Nimmo, as I should have been, no doubt, with the young Irishman, had not our conversation taken so serious a turn. The passage in Tacitus which Milton's line so strongly resembles is not in the 'Agricola,' nor can I find it, but it exists somewhere.
W. WORDSWORTH.[97]
Rydal Mount, Kendal, Jan. 12. 1829.
DEAR SIR,
I regret to hear of the indisposition from which you have been suffering.
That you are convinced[98] gives me great pleasure, as I hope that every other editor of Collins will follow your example. You are at perfect liberty to declare that you have rejected Bell's copy in consequence of my opinion of it; and I feel much satisfaction in being the instrument of rescuing the memory of Collins from this disgrace. I have always felt some concern that Mr. Home, who lived several years after Bell's publication, did not testify more regard for his deceased friend's memory by protesting against this imposition. Mr. Mackenzie is still living; and I shall shortly have his opinion upon the question; and if it be at all interesting, I shall take the liberty of sending it to you.
Dyer is another of our minor poets—minor as to quantity—of whom one would wish to know more. Particulars about him might still be collected, I should think, in South Wales, his native country, and where in early life he practised as a painter. I have often heard Sir George Beaumont express a curiosity about his pictures, and a wish to see any specimen of his pencil that might survive. If you are a rambler, perhaps you may, at some time or other, be led into Carmarthenshire, and might bear in mind what I have just said of this excellent author.
I had once a hope to have learned some unknown particulars of Thomson, about Jedburgh, but I was disappointed. Had I succeeded, I meant to publish a short life of him, prefixed to a volume containing 'The Seasons,' 'The Castle of Indolence,' his minor pieces in rhyme, and a few extracts from his plays, and his 'Liberty;' and I feel still inclined to do something of the kind. These three writers, Thomson, Collins, and Dyer, had more poetic imagination than any of their contemporaries, unless we reckon Chatterton as of that age. I do not name Pope, for he stands alone, as a man most highly gifted; but unluckily he took the plain when the heights were within his reach.
Excuse this long letter, and believe me,
Sincerely yours,
WM. WORDSWORTH.[99]
Rydal Mount, July 24. 1820.
MY DEAR SIR,
I have been very long in your debt. An inflammation in my eyes cut me off from writing and reading, so that I deem it still prudent to employ an Amanuensis; but I had a more decisive reason for putting off payment, nothing less than the hope that I might discharge my debt in person: it seems better, however, to consult you beforehand. I wish to make a Tour in Ireland, and perhaps along with my daughter, but I am ignorant of so many points, as where to begin, whether it be safe at this rioting period, what is best worth seeing, what mode of travelling will furnish the greatest advantages at the least expense. Dublin of course—the Wicklow mountains—Killarney Lakes—and I think the ruins not far from Limerick would be among my objects, and return by the North; but I can form no conjecture as to the time requisite for this, and whether it would be best to take the steamboat from Liverpool to Cork, beginning there, or to go from Whitehaven to Dublin. To start from Whitehaven by steam to Dublin would suit me as being nearer this place and a shorter voyage; besides my son is settled near Whitehaven, and I could conveniently embark from his abode.
I have read with great pleasure the 'Sketches in Ireland' which Mr. Otway was kind enough to present to me; but many interesting things he speaks of in the West will be quite out of my reach. In short I am as unprepared with Tourists' information as any man can be, and sensible as I am of the very great value of your time, I cannot refrain from begging you to take pity upon my ignorance and to give me some information, keeping in mind the possibility of my having a female companion.
It is time to thank you for the verses you so obligingly sent me.
Your sister's have abundance of spirit and feeling; all that they want is what appears in itself of little moment, and yet is of incalculably great,—that is, workmanship,—the art by which the thoughts are made to melt into each other, and to fall into light and shadow, regulated by distinct preconception of the best general effect they are capable of producing. This may seem very vague to you, but by conversation I think I could make it appear otherwise. It is enough for the present to say that I was much gratified, and beg you would thank your sister for favouring me with the sight of compositions so distinctly marked with that quality which is the subject of them ['Genius']. Your own verses are to me very interesting, and affect me much as evidences of high and pure-mindedness, from which humble-mindedness is inseparable. I like to see and think of you among the stars, and between death and immortality, where three of these poems place you. The 'Dream of Chivalry' is also interesting in another way; but it would be insincere not to say that something of a style more terse, and a harmony more accurately balanced, must be acquired before the bodily form of your verses will be quite worthy of their living soul. You are probably aware of this, tho' perhaps not in an equal degree with myself; nor is it desirable you should, for it might tempt you to labour, which would divert you from subjects of infinitely greater importance.
Many thanks for your interesting account of Mr. Edgeworth. I heartily concur with you in the wish that neither Plato nor any other profane author may lead him from the truths of the Gospel, without which our existence is an insupportable mystery to the thinking mind.
Looking for a reply at your early convenience,
I remain, my dear Sir, faithfully, your
obliged
WM. WORDSWORTH.[100]
MY DEAR SIR,
I hope you have enjoyed yourself in the country, as we have been doing among our shady woods, and green hills, and invigorated streams. The summer is passing on, and I have not left home, and perhaps shall not; for it is far more from duty than inclination that I quit my dear and beautiful home; and duty pulls two ways. On the one side my mind stands in need of being fed by new objects for meditation and reflection, the more so because diseased eyes have cut me off so much from reading; and, on the other hand, I am obliged to look at the expense of distant travelling, as I am not able to take so much out of my body by walking as heretofore.
I have not got my MS. back from the ——,[101] whose managers have, between them, used me shamefully; but my complaint is principally of the editor, for with the proprietor I have had little direct connection. If you think it worth while, you shall, at some future day, see such parts of the correspondence as I have preserved. Mr. Southey is pretty much in the same predicament with them, though he has kept silence for the present.... I am properly served for having had any connection with such things. My only excuse is, that they offered me a very liberal sum, and that I have laboured hard through a long life, without more pecuniary emolument than a lawyer gets for two special retainers, or a public performer sometimes for two or three songs. Farewell; pray let me hear from 3-011 at your early convenience,
And believe me faithfully your
Much obliged
WM. WORDSWORTH.[102]
Rydal Mount, Kendal, Oct. 16. 1829.
MY DEAR SIR,
On my return from Ireland, where I have been travelling a few weeks, I found your present of George Peele's works, and the obliging letter accompanying it; for both of which I offer my cordial thanks.
English literature is greatly indebted to your labours; and I have much pleasure in this occasion of testifying my respect for the sound judgment and conscientious diligence with which you discharge your duty as an editor. Peele's works were well deserving of the care you have bestowed upon them; and, as I did not previously possess a copy of any part of them, the beautiful book which you have sent me was very acceptable.
By accident, I learned lately that you had made a Book of Extracts, which I had long wished for opportunity and industry to execute myself. I am happy it has fallen into so much better hands. I allude to your Selections from the Poetry of English Ladies. I had only a glance at your work; but I will take this opportunity of saying, that should a second edition be called for, I should be pleased with the honour of being consulted by you about it. There is one poetess to whose writings I am especially partial, the Countess of Winchelsea. I have perused her poems frequently, and should be happy to name such passages as I think most characteristic of her genius, and most fit to be selected.
I know not what to say about my intended edition of a portion of Thomson. There appears to be some indelicacy in one poet treating another in that way. The example is not good, though I think there are few to whom the process might be more advantageously applied than to Thomson. Yet, so sensible am I of the objection, that I should not have entertained the thought, but for the expectation held out to me by an acquaintance, that valuable materials for a new Life of Thomson might be procured. In this I was disappointed.
With much respect, I remain, dear Sir,
Sincerely yours,
WM. WORDSWORTH.[103]
Rydal Mount, Kendal, May 10. 1830.
MY DEAR SIR,
My last was, for want of room, concluded so abruptly, that I avail myself of an opportunity of sending you a few additional words free of postage, upon the same subject.
I observed that Lady Winchelsea was unfortunate in her models—Pindarics and Fables; nor does it appear from her Aristomenes that she would have been more successful than her contemporaries, if she had cultivated tragedy. She had sensibility sufficient for the tender parts of dramatic writing, but in the stormy and tumultuous she would probably have failed altogether. She seems to have made it a moral and religious duty to control her feelings lest they should mislead her. Of love, as a passion, she is afraid, no doubt from a conscious inability to soften it down into friendship. I have often applied two lines of her drama (p. 318) to her affections:
By the by, in the next page are two impassioned lines spoken to a person fainting:
From the style and versification of this, so much her longest work, I conjecture that Lady Winchelsea had but a slender acquaintance with the drama of the earlier part of the preceding century. Yet her style in rhyme is often admirable, chaste, tender, and vigorous, and entirely free from sparkle, antithesis, and that overculture, which reminds one, by its broad glare, its stiffness, and heaviness, of the double daisies of the garden, compared with their modest and sensitive kindred of the fields. Perhaps I am mistaken, but I think there is a good deal of resemblance in her style and versification to that of Tickell, to whom Dr. Johnson justly assigns a high place among the minor poets, and of whom Goldsmith rightly observes, that there is a strain of ballad-thinking through all his poetry, and it is very attractive. Pope, in that production of his boyhood, the 'Ode to Solitude,' and in his 'Essay on Criticism,' has furnished proofs that at one period of his life he felt the charm of a sober and subdued style, which he afterwards abandoned for one that is, to my taste at least, too pointed and ambitious, and for a versification too timidly balanced.
If a second edition of your 'Specimens' should be called for, you might add from Helen Maria Williams the 'Sonnet to the Moon,' and that to 'Twilight;' and a few more from Charlotte Smith, particularly,
At the close of a sonnet of Miss Seward are two fine verses:
You have well characterised the poetic powers of this lady; but, after all, her verses please me, with all their faults, better than those of Mrs. Barbauld, who, with much higher powers of mind, was spoiled as a poetess by being a dissenter, and concerned with a dissenting academy. One of the most pleasing passages in her poetry is the close of the lines upon 'Life,' written, I believe, when she was not less than eighty years of age:
You have given a specimen of that ever-to-be-pitied victim of Swift, 'Vanessa.' I have somewhere a short piece of hers upon her passion for Swift, which well deserves to be added. But I am becoming tedious, which you will ascribe to a well-meant endeavour to make you some return for your obliging attentions.
I remain, dear Sir, faithfully yours,
WM. WORDSWORTH.[105]
Where there is so much sincerity of feeling in a matter so dignified as the renunciation of poetry for science, one feels that an apology is necessary for verbal criticism. I will therefore content myself with observing that 'joying' for joy or joyance is not to my taste. Indeed I object to such liberties upon principle. We should soon have no language at all if the unscrupulous coinage of the present day were allowed to pass, and become a precedent for the future. One of the first duties of a Writer is to ask himself whether his thought, feeling, or image cannot be expressed by existing words or phrases, before he goes about creating new terms, even when they are justified by the analogies of the language. 'The cataract's steep flow' is both harsh and inaccurate: 'thou hast seen me bend over the cataract' would express one idea in simplicity and all that was required. Had it been necessary to be more particular, 'steep flow' are not the words that ought to have been used. I remember Campbell says in a composition that is overrun with faulty language, 'And dark as winter was the flow of Iser rolling rapidly;' that is, 'flowing rapidly.' The expression ought to have been 'stream' or 'current...' These may appear to you frigid criticisms, but depend upon it no writings will live in which these rules are disregarded....
Female authorship is to be shunned as bringing in its train more and heavier evils than have presented themselves to your sister's ingenuous mind. No true friend I am sure will endeavour to shake her resolution to remain in her own quiet and healthful obscurity. This is not said with a view to discourage her from writing, nor have the remarks made above any aim of the kind; they are rather intended to assist her in writing with more permanent satisfaction to herself. She will probably write less in proportion as she subjects her feelings to logical forms, but the range of her sensibilities so far from being narrowed will extend as she improves in the habit of looking at things thro' a steady light of words; and, to speak a little metaphysically, words are not a mere vehicle, but they are powers either to kill or animate.[106]