[603] This "elfin pool," to which the gold and silver fishes were removed, still exists beneath the pollard oak tree in "Dora's Field," at Rydal Mount. The field is now the property of Mr. Gordon Wordsworth.—Ed.
[604] 1845.
[605] 1845.
[606] 1845.
[607] See the reference to the Eagle in The Power of Sound (p. 212), and in the "Poems composed or suggested during a Tour in the Summer of 1833," The Dunolly Eagle.—Ed.
[608] See, in "The Canterbury Tales," The Squire's Tale, ll. 598-611.—Ed.
[609] 1837.
[610] These last five lines are amongst the best instances of Wordsworth's appreciation of one of his great predecessors. Compare the second of the two poems September 1819.—Ed.
[611] "The Sabine farm was situated in the valley of Ustica, thirty miles from Rome and twelve miles from Tivoli. It possessed the attraction, no small one to Horace, of being very secluded: yet, at the same time, within an easy distance of Rome. When his spirits wanted the stimulus of society or the bustle of the capital, which they often did, his ambling mule would speedily convey him thither; and when jaded, on the other hand, by the noise and racket and dissipations of Rome, he could, in the same homely way, bury himself in a few hours among the hills, and there, under the shadow of his favourite Lucretilis, or by the banks of the clear-flowing and ice-cold Digentia, either stretch himself to dream upon the grass, lulled by the murmurs of the stream, or do a little farming in the way of clearing his fields of stones, or turning over a furrow here and there with the hoe." (See Sir Theodore Martin's Horace, p. 68.)—Ed.
[612] See Horace, Odes, II. 18—
[613] See Odes, III. 13.—Ed.
[614] Abraham Cowley (born 1618), educated at Westminster and Trinity College, Cambridge, a Royalist, and therefore expelled from Cambridge, settled in St. John's College, Oxford, crossed over with the Queen Mother to France for twelve years, returned at the Restoration, but was neglected at Court, and retired to a farm at Chertsey, on the Thames, where he lived for some years, "the melancholy Cowley."—Ed.
[615] 1837.
[616] There is now, alas! no possibility of the anticipation, with which the above Epistle concludes, being realised: nor were the verses ever seen by the Individual for whom they were intended. She accompanied her husband, the Rev. Wm. Fletcher, to India, and died of cholera, at the age of thirty-two or thirty-three years, on her way from Shalapore to Bombay, deeply lamented by all who knew her.
Her enthusiasm was ardent, her piety steadfast; and her great talents would have enabled her to be eminently useful in the difficult path of life to which she had been called. The opinion she entertained of her own performances, given to the world under her maiden name, Jewsbury, was modest and humble, and, indeed, far below their merits; as is often the case with those who are making trial of their powers, with a hope to discover what they are best fitted for. In one quality, viz., quickness in the motions of her mind, she had,[617] within the range of the Author's acquaintance, no equal.—W. W. 1835.
[617] 1837.
Composed 1829.—Published 1835
The Rocking-stones, alluded to in the beginning of the following verses, are supposed to have been used, by our British ancestors, both for judicial and religious purposes. Such stones are not uncommonly found, at this day, both in Great Britain and in Ireland.—W. W. 1835.
[These verses and those entitled "Liberty" were composed as one piece, which Mrs. Wordsworth complained of as unwieldy and ill-proportioned; and accordingly it was divided into two, on her judicious recommendation.—I. F.]
One of the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection."—Ed.
[618] 1837.
[619] There are several, so-called, "rocking-stones" in Yorkshire and Lancashire, in Derbyshire, in Cornwall, and in Wales. There are one or two in Scotland, and there used to be several in the Lake District. Some are natural; others artificial.—Ed.
[620] 1837.
[621] The author is indebted, here, to a passage in one of Mr. Digby's valuable works.—W. W. 1835.
See his Of Bodies, and of man's Soul.—Ed.
[622] Genesis xxviii. 12.—Ed.
[623] 1845.
[624] 1837.
[625] 1840.
[626] 1837.
[627] 1840.
[628] 1837.
[629] Compare Richard Lovelace, To Althea, from Prison—
[630] 1837.
[631] Compare Cowper's Task, book ii. l. 40.—Ed.
[632] 1837.
[634] Compare The Prelude, book xiii. ll. 77, 78—
[636] 1837.
[637] Compare the closing lines of the Ode, Intimations of Immortality—
Composed 1829.—Published 1835
[This Lawn is the sloping one approaching the kitchen-garden, and was made out of it. Hundreds of times have I watched the dancing of shadows amid a press of sunshine, and other beautiful appearances of light and shade, flowers and shrubs. What a contrast between this and the cabbages and onions and carrots that used to grow there on a piece of ugly-shaped unsightly ground! No reflection, however, either upon cabbages or onions; the latter we know were worshipped by the Egyptians, and he must have a poor eye for beauty who has not observed how much of it there is in the form and colour which cabbages and plants of that genus exhibit through the various stages of their growth and decay. A richer display of colour in vegetable nature can scarcely be conceived than Coleridge, my sister, and I saw in a bed of potato-plants in blossom near a hut upon the moor between Inversneyd and Loch Katrine.[638] These blossoms were of such extraordinary beauty and richness that no one could have passed them without notice. But the sense must be cultivated through the mind before we can perceive these inexhaustible treasures of Nature, for such they really are, without the least necessary reference to the utility of her productions, or even to the laws whereupon, as we learn by research, they are dependent. Some are of opinion that the habit of analysing, decomposing, and anatomising, is inevitably unfavourable to the perception of beauty. People are led into this mistake by overlooking the fact that such processes being to a certain extent within the reach of a limited intellect, we are apt to ascribe to them that insensibility of which they are in truth the effect and not the cause. Admiration and love, to which all knowledge truly vital must tend, are felt by men of real genius in proportion as their discoveries in natural Philosophy are enlarged; and the beauty in form of a plant or an animal is not made less but more apparent as a whole by more accurate insight into its constituent properties and powers. A Savant who is not also a poet in soul and a religionist in heart is a feeble and unhappy creature.—I. F.]
One of the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection."—Ed.
[638] In 1803, Miss Wordsworth thus records it:—"We passed by one patch of potatoes that a florist might have been proud of; no carnation-bed ever looked more gay than this square plot of ground on the waste common. The flowers were in very large bunches, and of an extraordinary size, and of every conceivable shade of colouring from snow-white to deep purple. It was pleasing in that place, where perhaps was never yet a flower cultivated by man for his own pleasure, to see these blossoms grow more gladly than elsewhere, making a summer garden near the mountain dwellings." (Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland in 1803, p. 85).—Ed.
[639] Compare The Prelude, book iv. l. 378.—Ed.
Composed 1829.—Published 1835
[Written at Rydal Mount.—I. F.]
One of the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection."—Ed.
Composed 1829.—Published 1829[643]
[This pleasing tradition was told me by the coachman at whose side I sate while he drove down the dale, he pointing to the trees on the hill as he related the story.—I.F.]
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
[642] 1837.
A Tradition of Darley Dale, Derbyshire. 1832.
[643] In The Keepsake.—Ed.
[644] Mr. T. W. Shore (Southampton), writes to me: "The two trees referred to by the poet are still on the hill, and called the Shore Trees. The family of Shore is an ancient one in Derbyshire, extending back to the reign of Richard II. In the time of Charles I, several members of the family impoverished themselves in support of the Royalist cause.... The trees on Oker Hill are supposed to have been planted by those who remembered the family misfortunes, or who succeeded the family which took part in the 17th century struggle."—Ed.
(ON THE WAYSIDE BETWEEN PRESTON AND LIVERPOOL)
Composed 1829 (probably).—Published 1832
[This was also communicated to me by a coachman in the same way.[645] In the course of my many coach rambles and journeys, which, during the day-time always, and often in the night, were taken on the outside of the coach, I had good and frequent opportunities of learning the characteristics of this class of men. One remark I made that is worth recording; that whenever I had occasion especially to notice their well-ordered, respectful and kind behaviour to women, of whatever age, I found them, I may say almost always, to be married men.—I.F.]
This happened near Ormskirk. Thomas Scarisbrick was killed by a flash of lightning, whilst building a turf-stack in 1799. His son James completed the work, and kept it intact during his life-time. James was buried April 21st, 1824. Wordsworth was therefore wrong as to the "fifty winters."—Ed.
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
[646] 1837.
The Poems written in 1830 include, The Armenian Lady's Love, The Russian Fugitive, The Egyptian Maid, the Elegiac Stanzas on Sir George Beaumont, and several minor pieces.—Ed.
Composed 1830.—Published 1835
The subject of the following poem is from the Orlandus of the author's friend, Kenelm Henry Digby: and the liberty is taken of inscribing it to him as an acknowledgment, however unworthy, of pleasure and instruction derived from his numerous and valuable writings, illustrative of the piety and chivalry of the olden time.—W. W.
[Written at Rydal Mount.—I. F.]
One of the "Poems founded on the Affections."—Ed.
I