The Prose Works of William Wordsworth. William Wordsworth
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As a piece of vigorous, masculine, and o'times eloquent English, this letter may take its place—not an inch lower—beside a 'View of the State of Ireland,' and the 'Discoverie of the True Cavses why Ireland was never entirely subdued, nor brought under obedience of the Crowne of England, untill the beginning of his Maiestie's happie raigne;' while the conflict with Ultramontanism in Germany and elsewhere and Mr. Gladstone's tractate give new significance to its forecastings and portents.
The manuscript, unlike most of his, is largely in WORDSWORTH'S own handwriting—the earlier portion in (it is believed) partly Miss WORDSWORTH'S and partly Mrs. WORDSWORTH'S. In the 'Memoirs' this letter is quoted largely (vol. ii. pp. 136–140). It is now given completely from the manuscript itself, not without significant advantage. It does not appear whether this letter were actually sent to the Bishop of London. There is no mention of it in Bishop Blomfield's 'Life;' and hence probably it never was sent to him. In his letters there are many references to the present topics (cf. vol. iii. pp. 258–9, 263–4, &c.).
II. ETHICAL.
I. Of Legislation for the Poor, the Working Classes, and the Clergy: Appendix to Poems, 1835.
This formed one of WORDSWORTH'S most deliberate and powerful Appendices to his Poems (1835), and has ever since been regarded as of enduring worth. It has all the Author's characteristics of deep thinking, imaginative illustration, intense conviction and realness. Again, accept or dissent, this State Paper (so to say) is specially Wordsworthian.
It seems only due to WORDSWORTH to bear in recollection that, herein and elsewhere, he led the way in indicating CO-OPERATION as the remedy for the defects and conflicts in the relations between our capitalists and their operatives, or capital and labour (see the second section of the Postscript, and remember its date—1835).
II. Advice to the Young.
(a) Letter to the Editor of 'The Friend,' signed Mathetes. (b) Answer to the Letter of Mathetes, 1809.
'Mathetes' proved to be Professor JOHN WILSON, 'eminent in the various departments of poetry, philosophy, and criticism' ('Memoirs,' i. 423), and here probably was the commencement of the long friendship between him and WORDSWORTH. As a student of WILSON'S, the Editor remembers vividly how the 'old man eloquent' used to kindle into enthusiasm the entire class as he worked into his extraordinary lectures quotations from the 'Excursion' and 'Sonnets' and 'Poems of the Imagination.' Among the letters (vol. iii. p. 263) is an interesting one refering to 'Advice to the Young;' and another to Professor WILSON ( vol. ii. pp. 208–14).
III. OF EDUCATION.
(a) On the Education of the Young: Letter to a Friend, 1806. (b) Of the People, their Ways and Needs: Letter to Archdeacon Wrangham, 1808. (c) Education: Two Letters to the Rev. H.J. Rose, 1828. (d) Education of Duty: Letter to Rev. Dr. Wordsworth, 1830. (e) Speech on laying the Foundation-stone of the New School in the Village of Bowness, Windermere, 1836.
In these Letters and the Speech are contained WORDSWORTH'S earliest and latest and most ultimate opinions and sentiments on education. Agree or differ, the student of WORDSWORTH has in these discussions—for in part they have the elaborateness and thoroughness of such—what were of the substance of his beliefs. Their biographic importance—intellectually and spiritually—can scarcely be exaggerated, (a), (b), (c), (d) are from the 'Memoirs;' (e) is from the local newspaper (Kendal), being for the first time fully reprinted.
VOL. II.
AESTHETICAL AND LITERARY.
I. Of Literary Biography and Monuments.
(a) A Letter to a Friend of Robert Burns, 1816. (b) Letter to a Friend on Monuments to Literary Men, 1819. (c) Letter to John Peace, Esq., of Bristol, 1844.
These naturally group themselves together. Of the first (a), perhaps it is hardly worth while, and perhaps it is worth while, recalling that WILLIAM HAZLITT, in his Lectures upon the English Poets, attacked WORDSWORTH on this Letter with characteristic insolence and uncritical shallowness and haste. Under date Feb. 24th, 1818, Mr. H. CRABB ROBINSON thus refers to the thing: 'Heard part of a lecture by HAZLITT at the Surrey Institution. He was so contemptuous towards WORDSWORTH, speaking of his Letter about Burns, that I lost my temper. He imputed to WORDSWORTH the desire of representing himself as a superior man' (vol. i. p. 311, 3d ed.). The lecture is included in HAZLITT'S published Lectures in all its ignorance and wrong-headedness; but it were a pity to lose one's temper over such trash. His eyes were spectacles, not 'seeing eyes,' and jaundice-yellow, (b) and (c) are sequels to (a), and as such accompany it.
II. UPON EPITAPHS.
(a) From 'The Friend.' (b and c) From the Author's MSS., for the first time.
Of (a) CHARLES LAMB wrote: 'Your Essay on Epitaphs is the only sensible thing which has been written on that subject, and it goes to the bottom' (Talfourd's 'Final Memorials,' vol. i. p. 180). The two additional Papers—only briefly quoted from in the 'Memoirs' (c. xxx. vol. i.)—were also intended for 'The Friend,' had COLERIDGE succeeded in his announced arrangement of principles. These additional papers are in every respect equal to the first, with Wordsworthian touches and turns in his cunningest faculty. They are faithfully given from the MSS.
(a) Of the Principles of Poetry and the 'Lyrical Ballads' (1798–1802.) (b) Of Poetic Diction. (c) Poetry as a Study (1815). (d) Of Poetry as Observation and Description, and Dedication of 1815. (e) Of 'The Excursion:' Preface. (f) Letters to Sir George and Lady Beaumont and others on the Poems and related Subjects. (g) Letter to Charles Fox with the 'Lyrical Ballads,' and his Answer, &c. (h) Letter on the Principles of Poetry and his own Poems to (afterwards) Professor John Wilson.
(a) to (e) form appendices to the early and later editions of the Poems, and created an epoch in literary criticism. COLERIDGE put forth his utmost strength on a critical examination of them, oblivious that he had himself impelled, not to say compelled, his friend to write these Prefaces, as WORDSWORTH signifies. It is not meant by this that COLERIDGE was thereby shut out from criticising the definitions and statements to which he objected.
IV. DESCRIPTIVE.
(a) A Guide through the District of the Lakes, 1835. (b) Kendal and Windermere Railway: two Letters, &c.
These very much explain themselves; but of the former it may be of bibliographical interest to state that it formed originally the letterpress and Introduction to 'Select Views in Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Lancashire,' by the Rev. JOSEPH WILKINSON, Rector of East Wrotham, Norfolk, 1810 (folio). It was reprinted in the volume of Sonnets on the River Duddon. The fifth edition (1835) has been selected as the Author's own final text. In Notes and Illustrations in the place, a strangely overlooked early account of the Lake District is pointed out and quoted from. The 'Two Letters' need no vindication at this late day. Ruskin is reiterating their arguments and sentiment eloquently as these pages pass through the press. Apart from deeper reasons, let the fault-finder realise to himself the differentia of general approval of railways, and a railway forced through the 'old churchyard' that holds his mother's grave or the garden of his young prime. It was a merely sordid matter on the part of the promoters. Their professions of care for the poor and interest in the humbler classes getting to the Lakes had a Judas element in them, nothing higher or purer.