Chapter 20

"Ah, what a lesson to a thoughtless man," &c.[92]All which inimitable graces of nature have, by the hands of mechanic art, by solid masonry, by whitewashing, &c., been exterminated, as a growth of weeds and nuisances, for thirty years.—August 17, 1853.[93]That most accomplished, and to Coleridge most pious daughter, whose recent death afflicted so very many who knew her only by her writings. She had married her cousin, Mr. Serjeant Coleridge, and in that way retained her illustrious maiden name as a wife. At seventeen, when last I saw her, she was the most perfect of all pensive, nun-like, intellectual beauties that I have seen in real breathing life. The upper parts of her face were verily divine. See, for an artist's opinion, the Life of that admirable man Collins, by his son.[94]Mary Hutchinson, who became Wordsworth's wife in October 1802, had been known to him since 1777, when she was his fellow-pupil in a Dame's school at Penrith.—M.[95]Once for all, I say—on recollecting that Coleridge's verses toSarawere made transferable to any Sara who reigned at the time. At least three Saras appropriated them; all three long since in the grave.[96]Vol. iv. p. 793 (Dec. 1837).—So De Quincey notes; but I may add that the paper inTaitreferred to was a Review of Books of the Season, one of them being "Tilt's Medallion Portraits of Modern English Authors, with Illustrative notices by H. F. Chorley." The reviewer's words were "The finest head, in every way, in the series, is that of Charles Lamb."—M.[97]Lockhart's famous publication of 1819 under the name ofPeter's Letters to his Kinsfolk.—M.[98]Jonathan Richardson (born about 1665, died 1745) published in 1734 a volume of Explanatory Notes and Remarks onParadise Lost, with a Life of Milton, containing particulars which Richardson had collected about Milton personally.—M.[99]It was between 1721 and 1725, when Mrs. Deborah Clarke, Milton's youngest and only surviving daughter, was living in old age and in very humble circumstances in Moorfields, London, that the engraver Vertue and others went to see her for the special purpose of consulting her about portraits of her father. Some that were shown her she rejected at once; but one "crayon drawing" moved her in the manner which De Quincey reports. This is the portrait which came into Richardson's possession; and after Richardson's death in 1745 it was acquired by Jacob Tonson tertius, of the Tonson publishing family. There seems to be little doubt that it was a drawing of Milton from the life by Faithorne about 1670, when Milton'sHistory of Britainappeared with that portrait of him by Faithorne which is the only authentic print of him in later life, and worth all the other current portraits put together. Faithorne seems to have made two drawings, closely resembling each other, of Milton,—that (now lost) from which the engraving was made for theHistory of Britain, and this other "crayon drawing" which Richardson possessed. Richardson's reproduction of it in his book is spoilt by a laureate wreath and other flummery about the head; and the only genuine copy of it known to me is a beautiful one prefixed to Mr. Leigh Sotheby's sumptuous volume entitledRamblings in Elucidation of the Autograph of Milton, published in 1871. The face there is identically the same in essentials as that in the Faithorne engraving of 1670, though somewhat less sad in expression; and the two drawings must have been by the same hand.—M.[100]Into his 81st only.—M.[101]See footnote 99, p.247.—M.[102]Not many months ago, the blind hostility of the Irish newspaper editors in America forged a ludicrous estimate of the Irish numerical preponderance in the United States, from which it was inferred, as at least a possibility, that the Irish Celtic language might come to dispute the pre-eminence with the English. Others anticipated the same destiny for the German. But, in the meantime, the unresting career of the law-courts, of commerce, and of the national senate, that cannot suspend themselves for an hour, reduce the case to this dilemma: If the Irish and the Germans in the United States adapt their general schemes of education to the service of their public ambition, they must begin by training themselves to the use of the language now prevailing on all the available stages of ambition. On the other hand, by refusing to do this, they lose in the very outset every point of advantage. In other words, adopting the English, they renounce the contest—notadopting it, they disqualify themselves for the contest.[103]7th April 1770.—M.[104]"The present":—This was written about 1835, when the present Earl of Lonsdale meant the late Earl.[105]Who must now (1854) be classed as thelateEarl.[106]"Eicon Basilike":—By the way, in the lamented Eliot Warburton's "Prince Rupert," this book, by a very excusable mistake, is always cited as the "Eicon Basilicon": he was thinking of the "Doron Basilicon," written by Charles's father: each of the nounsEiconandDoron, having the same terminal syllable—on—it was most excusable to forget that the first belonged to an imparisyllabic declension, so as to be feminine, the second not so; which made it neuter. With respect to the great standing question as to the authorship of the work, I have myself always held that the natural freedom of judgment in this case has been intercepted by one strong prepossession (entirely false) from the very beginning. The minds of all people have been pre-occupied with the notion that Dr. Gauden, the reputed author, obtained his bishopric confessedly on the credit of that service. Lord Clarendon, it is said, who hated the Doctor, nevertheless gave him a bishopric, on the sole ground of his having written the "Eicon." The inference therefore is that the Prime Minister, who gave so reluctantly, must have given under an irresistible weight of proof that the Doctor really had done the work for which so unwillingly he paid him. Any shade of doubt, such as could have justified Lord Clarendon in suspending this gift, would have been eagerly snatched at. Such a shade, therefore, there was not. Meantime the whole of this reasoning rests upon a false assumption: Dr. Gauden didnotowe his bishopric to a belief (true or false) that he had written the "Eicon." The bishopric was given on another account: consequently it cannot, in any way of using the fact, at all affect the presumptions, small or great, which may exist separately for or against the Doctor's claim on that head.—[So far De Quincey; but let not the reader trust to him too much in this matter. The evidence is overwhelming that Clarendon gave Gauden his bishopric after the Restoration because he believed Gauden to have been the author of theEikon Basilikeand dared not face Gauden's threats of revelations on the subject if promotion were refused him; and the evidence is conclusive, all Dr. Wordsworth's arguments notwithstanding, that Gaudenwasthe real author of the book.—M.][107]The following is the passage to which De Quincey refers, as it now stands in Wordsworth's autobiographical poemThe Prelude; which, though begun in 1799 and completed in 1805, was not published till 1850:—"All shod with steel,We hissed along the polished ice in gamesConfederate, imitative of the chaseAnd woodland pleasures,—the resounding horn,The pack loud chiming, and the hunted hare.So through the darkness and the cold we flew,And not a voice was idle; with the dinSmitten, the precipices rang aloud;The leafless trees and every icy cragTinkled like iron; while far distant hillsInto the tumult sent an alien soundOf melancholy not unnoticed, while the starsEastward were sparkling clear, and in the westThe orange sky of evening died away.Not seldom from the uproar I retiredInto a silent bay, or sportivelyGlanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng,To cut across the reflex of a starThat fled, and, flying still before me, gleamedUpon the glassy plain."M.[108]Wordsworth has told the story himself in hisPrelude, thus:—"Among the band of my compeers was oneWhom chance had stationed in the very roomHonoured by Milton's name. O temperate Bard!Be it confest that, for the first time, seatedWithin thy innocent lodge and oratory,One of a festive circle, I poured outLibations, to thy memory drank, till prideAnd gratitude grew dizzy in a brainNever excited by the fumes of wineBefore that hour, or since. Then, forth I ranFrom the assembly; through a length of streetsRan, ostrich-like, to reach our chapel doorIn not a desperate or opprobrious time,Albeit long after the importunate bellHad stopped, with wearisome Cassandra voiceNo longer haunting the dark winter night....Call back, O Friend! a moment to thy mindThe place itself and fashion of the rites.With careless ostentation shouldering upMy surplice, through the inferior throng I cloveOf the plain Burghers, who in audience stoodOn the last skirts of their permitted ground,Under the pealing organ."M.[109]The reference is to the Fifth Book ofThe Prelude.—M.[110]On comparing these quotations with the original passages inThe Prelude, one finds that De Quincey, quoting from memory, is not exact to the text in any of them save the last.—M.[111]Descriptive Sketches during a Pedestrian Tour on the Italian, Swiss, and Savoyard Alps.London, 1793.—M.[112]An Evening Walk: an Epistle in Verse.London, 1793.—M.[113]The reader, who may happen not to have seen Coleridge's "Biographia Literaria," is informed that Coleridge tells a long story about a man who followed and dogged himself and Wordsworth in all their rural excursions, under a commission (originally emanating from Mr. Pitt) for detecting some overt acts of treason, or treasonable correspondence, or, in default of either, some words of treasonable conversation. Unfortunately for his own interests as an active servant, even in a whole month that spy had collected nothing at all as the basis of a report, excepting only something which they (Coleridge and Wordsworth, to wit) were continually saying to each other, now in blame, now in praise, of oneSpy Nosy; and this, praise and blame alike, the honest spy very naturally took to himself, seeing that the world accused him of having anoseof unreasonable dimensions, and his own conscience accused him of being a spy. "Now," says Coleridge, "the very fact was that Wordsworth and I were constantly talking about Spinosa." This story makes a very good Joe Miller; but, for other purposes, is somewhat damaged. However, there is one excellent story in the case. Some country gentleman from the neighbourhood of Nether Stowey, upon a party happening to discuss the probabilities that Wordsworth and Coleridge might be traitors, and in correspondence with the French Directory, answered thus:—"Oh, as to that Coleridge, he's a rattlebrain, that will say more in a week than he will stand to in a twelvemonth. But Wordsworth—that's the traitor: why, bless you, he's so close, that you'll never hear him open his lips on the subject from year's end to year's end!"[114]How little has any adequate power as yet approached this great theme! Not the Grecian stage, not "the dark sorrows of the line of Thebes," in any of its scenes, unfold such tragical grouping of circumstances and situations as may be gathered from the memoirs of the time. The galleries and vast staircases of Versailles, at early dawn, on some of the greatest days—filled with dreadful faces—the figure of the Duke of Orleans obscurely detected amongst them—the growing fury—the growing panic—the blind tumult—and the dimness of the event,—all make up a scene worthy to blend with our images of Babylon or of Nineveh with the enemy in all her gates, Memphis or Jerusalem in their agonies. But, amongst all the exponents of the growing agitation that besieged the public mind, none is so profoundly impressive as the scene (every Sunday renewed) at the Chapel Royal. Even in the most penitential of the litanies, in the presence when most immediately confessed of God himself—when the antiphonies are chanted, one party singing, with fury and gnashing of teeth,Salvum fac Regem, and another, with equal hatred and fervour, answeringEt Reginam(the poor queen at this time engrossing the popular hatred)—the organ roared into thunder—the semi-chorus swelled into shouting—the menaces into defiance—again the crashing semi-choir sang with shouts theirSalvum fac Regem—again the vengeful antiphony hurled back itsEt Reginam—and one person, an eye-witness of these scenes, which mounted in violence on each successive Sunday, declares that oftentimes the semi-choral bodies were at the point of fighting with each other in the presence of the king.[115]That tract of the lake country which stretches southwards from Hawkshead and the lakes of Esthwaite, Windermere, and Coniston, to the little town of Ulverstone (which may be regarded as the metropolis of the little romantic English Calabria called Furness), is divided from the main part of Lancashire by the estuary of Morecamb. The sea retires with the ebb tide to a vast distance, leaving the sands passable through a few hours for horses and carriages. But, partly from the daily variation in these hours, partly from the intricacy of the pathless track which must be pursued, and partly from the galloping pace at which the returning tide comes in, many fatal accidents are continually occurring—sometimes to the too venturous traveller who has slighted the aid of guides—sometimes to the guides themselves, when baffled and perplexed by mists. Gray the poet mentions one of the latter class as having then recently occurred, under affecting circumstances. Local tradition records a long list of such cases.[116]I do not, on consideration, know when they might begin to keep house together: but, by a passage in "The Prelude," they must have made a tour together as early as 1787.[117]In the Memoir of Coleridge prefaced to Messrs. Macmillan's four-volume edition of his poetical works (1880) one reads:—"In the summer of 1797 Coleridge and Wordsworth, if they did not actually meet for the first time, first became familiarly acquainted with each other at Racedown in Dorsetshire. Wordsworth was then in his twenty-eighth and Coleridge in his twenty-fifth year."—M.[118]Now entitledResolution and Independence.—M.[119]I do not mean to insinuate that Wordsworth was at all in the dark about the inaccuracy and want of authentic weight attaching to Plutarch as a historian; but his business with Plutarch was not for purposes of research: he was satisfied with his fine moral effects.[120]"The Ruth of her brother's creation":—So I express it; because so much in the development of the story and situations necessarily belongs to the poet. Else, for the mere outline of the story, it was founded upon fact. Wordsworth himself told me, in general terms, that the case which suggested the poem was that of an American lady, whose husband forsook her at the very place of embarkation from England, under circumstances and under expectations, upon her part, very much the same as those of Ruth. I am afraid, however, that the husband was an attorney; which is intolerable;nisi priuscannot be harmonized with the dream-like fairyland of Georgia.[121]Of course, therefore, it is essentially the same name asTheodora, the same elements being only differently arranged. Yet how opposite is the impression upon the mind! and chiefly, I suppose, from the too prominent emblazonment of this name in the person of Justinian's scandalous wife; though, for my own part, I am far from believing all the infamous stories which we read about her.[122]In the concluding Book of thePrelude.—M.[123]Viz., "Calypso ne savoit se consoler du départ," &c. For how long a period (viz., nearly two centuries) has Calypso been inconsolable in the morning studies of young ladies! As Fénélon's most dreary romance always opened at one or other of these three earliest and dreary pages, naturally to my sympathetic fancy the poor unhappy goddess seemed to be eternally aground on this Goodwin Sand of inconsolability. It is amongst the standing hypocrisies of the world, that most people affect a reverence for this book, which nobody reads.[124]It was published in full in 1874, with the titleRecollections of a Tour made in Scotland,A.D.1803, by Dorothy Wordsworth.Edited by J. C. Shairp, LL.D.—M.[125]Mrs. Johnstone (1781-1857) was the authoress of several novels, a contributor to various periodicals, and editor ofTait's Magazinethrough a portion at least of De Quincey's connexion with it.—M.[126]In the recast by De Quincey, for the collective edition of his writings in 1853, of hisTaitarticles on Wordsworth in 1839, there were some omissions of matter that had appeared in the magazine. One was this concluding paragraph in the article for April 1839:—"I have traced the history of each [i.e.of William and Dorothy Wordsworth] until the time when I became personally acquainted with them; and, henceforwards, anything which it may be interesting to know with respect to either will naturally come forward, not in a separate narrative, but in connexion with my own life; for in the following year I became myself the tenant of that pretty cottage in which I found them; and from that time, for many years, my life flowed on in daily union with theirs."—M.[127]FromTait's Magazinefor July 1839. See explanation in Editor's Preface to this volume.—M.[128]A curious dissertation might be written on this subject. Meantime, it is remarkable that almost all modern nations have committed the blunder of supposing the Latin word for supper to becœna, and of dinnerprandium. Now, the essential definition of dinner is, that which is the main meal—(what the French call the great meal). By that or any test (for example, thetime, threeP.M.) the Roman cœna was dinner. Even Louis XII, whose death is partly ascribed to his having altered his dinner hour from nine to elevenA.M.in compliment to his young English bride, did notsupat threeP.M.[129]It is not known to the English, but it is a fact which I can vouch for, from my six or seven years' residence in Scotland [written in 1839], that the Scotch, one and all, believe it to be an inalienable characteristic of an Englishman to be fond of good eating. What indignation have I, and how many a time, had occasion to feel and utter on this subject? But of this at some other time. Meantime, the Man of Feeling had this creed in excess; and, in some paper (ofThe MirrororThe Lounger), he describes an English tourist in Scotland by saying—"I would not wish to be thought national; yet, in mere reverence for truth, I am bound to say, and to declare to all the world (let who will be offended), that the first innkeeper in Scotland under whose roof we met with genuine buttered toast was an Englishman."[130]Meantime, if it did not disturbhim, it ought to disturbus, his immediate successors, who are at once the most likely to retrieve theselossesby direct efforts, and the least likely to benefit by any casual or indirect retrievals, such as will be produced by time. Surely a subscription should be set on foot to recover all books enriched by his marginal notes. I would subscribe; and I know others who would largely.[131]In De Quincey's imperfect reproduction of this paper in his collective edition, he adds here:—"One single paper, for instance—viz. a review of Nelson's life, which subsequently was expanded into his very popular little book on that subject—brought him the splendid honorarium of £150."—M.[132]See the Evidence before the House of Commons' Committee. [De Quincey does not give the date, nor the occasion.—M.][133]See note,Southey and the Edinburgh Annual Register, appended to this chapter.—M.[134]Sir Watkin, the elder brother, had a tongue too large for his mouth; Mr. C. Wynne, the younger, had a shrill voice, which at times rose into a scream. It became, therefore, a natural and current jest, to call the two brothers by the name of a well-known dish, viz.bubble and squeak.[135]Why he was called Herbert, if my young readers inquire, I must reply, that I do not precisely know; because I know of reasons too many by half why he might have been so called. Derwent Coleridge, the second son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and first cousin of Herbert Southey, was so called from the Lake of Keswick, commonly styled Derwent Water, which gave the title of Earl to the noble, and the noble-minded, though erring, family of the Radcliffes, who gave up, like heroes and martyrs, their lives and the finest estates in England for one who was incapable of appreciating the service. One of the islands on this lake is dedicated to St. Herbert, and thismighthave given a name to Southey's first-born child. But it is more probable that he derived this name from Dr. Herbert, uncle to the laureate.[136]On the 17th of April 1816, aged ten years.—M.[137]FromTait's Magazinefor August 1839. See explanation in Preface to this volume.—M.[138]"Into two distinct apartments":—The word apartment, meaning, in effect, a compartment of a house, already includes, in its proper sense, a suite of rooms; and it is a mere vulgar error, arising out of the ambitious usage of lodging-house keepers, to talk of one family or an establishment occupying apartments in the plural. The Queen's apartment at St. James's or at Versailles—not the Queen's apartments—is the correct expression.[139]It illustrated the national sense of Southey's comprehensive talents, and of his political integrity, that Lord Radnor (the same who, under the courtesy title of Lord Folkestone, had distinguished himself for very democratic politics in the House of Commons, and had even courted the technical designation ofradical) was the man who offered to bring in Southey for a borough dependent onhisinfluence. Sir Robert Peel, under the same sense of Southey's merits, had offered him a baronetcy. Both honours were declined, on the same prudential considerations, and with the same perfect disregard of all temptations from personal vanity.[140]"Polemicskill":—The word polemic is falsely interpreted by the majority of mere English readers. Having seldom seen it used except in a case of theological controversy, they fancy that it has some original and etymological appropriation to such a use; whereas it expresses, with regard toallsubjects, without restriction, the functions of the debater as opposed to those of the original orator; the functions of him who meets error and unravels confusion or misrepresentation, opposed to those of him who lays down the abstract truth: truth absolute and without relation to the modes of viewing it. As well might the wordRadicalbe limited to a political use asPolemicto controversial divinity.[141]Reported at length in a small quarto volume, of the well known quarto size so much in use for Tracts, Pamphlets, &c., throughout the life of Milton—1608-74.[142]In fact, the exposure is as perfect in the case of an individual as in that of a nation, and more easily apprehended. Levy from an individual clothier £1000 in taxes, and afterwards return to him the whole of this sum in payment for the clothing of a regiment. Then, supposing profits to be at the rate of 15 per cent, he will have replaced £150 of his previous loss; even his gains will simply reinstate him in something that he had lost, and the remaining £850 will continue to be a dead loss; since the £850 restored to him exactly replaces, by the terms of this case, his disbursements in wages and materials; if it did more, profits would not be at 15 per cent, according to the supposition. But Government may spendmorethan the £1000 with this clothier; they may spend £10,000. Doubtless, and in that case, on the same supposition as to profits, he will receive £1500 as a nominal gain; and £500 will be a real gain, marked with the positive sign (+). But such a case would only prove that nine other taxpayers, to an equal amount, had been left without any reimbursement at all. Strange that so clear a case for an individual should become obscure when it regards a nation.[143]FromTait's Magazinefor December 1839.—M.[144]TheCastle of Indolencewas first published in 1748, the year of the poet's death. The following is the stanza of the poem referred to by De Quincey:—"A certain music, never known before,Here lull'd the pensive, melancholy mind;Full easily obtained. Behoves no moreBut sidelong to the gently-waving windTo lay the well-tuned instrument reclined,From which, with airy flying fingers light,Beyond each mortal touch the most refined;The god of winds drew sounds of deep delight;Whence, with just cause, the Harp of Æolus it hight."—M.[145]The usual Scottish word iskenspeckle.—M.[146]His future wife, Margaret Simpson.—M.[147]It may be supposed, not literally, for the swallow (or at least that species called the swift) has been known to fly at the rate of 300 miles an hour. Very probably, however, this pace was not deduced from an entire hour's performance, but estimated by proportion from a flight of one or two minutes. An interesting anecdote is told by the gentleman (I believe the Rev. E. Stanley) who described inBlackwood'sMagazinethe opening of the earliest English railway, viz. that a bird (snipe was it, or field-fare, or plover?) ran, or rather flew, a race with the engine for three or four miles, until, finding itself likely to be beaten, it then suddenly wheeled away into the moors.[148]FromTait's Magazinefor January 1840.—M.[149]The idea of the picturesque is one which did not exist at all until the post-Christian ages; neither amongst the Grecians nor amongst the Romans; andtherefore, as respects one reason, it was, that the art of landscape painting did not exist (except in a Chinese infancy, and as a mere trick of inventive ingenuity) amongst the finest artists of Greece. Whatispicturesque, as placed in relation to the beautiful and the sublime? It is (to define it by the very shortest form of words) the characteristic pushed into a sensible excess. The prevailing character of any natural object, no matter how little attractive it may be for beauty, is always interesting for itself, as the character and hieroglyphic symbol of the purposes pursued by Nature in the determination of its form, style of motion, texture of superficies, relation of parts, &c. Thus, for example, an expression of dulness and somnolent torpor does not ally itself with grace or elegance; but, in combination with strength and other qualities, it may compose a character of serviceable and patient endurance, as in the cart-horse, having unity in itself, and tending to one class of uses sufficient to mark it out by circumscription for a distinct and separate contemplation. Now, in combination with certain counteracting circumstances, as with the momentary energy of some great effort, much of this peculiar character might be lost, or defeated, or dissipated. On that account, the skilful observer will seek out circumstances that are in harmony with the principal tendencies and assist them; such, suppose, as a state of lazy relaxation from labour, and the fall of heavy drenching rain causing the head to droop, and the shaggy mane, together with the fetlocks, to weep. These, and other circumstances of attitude, &c., bring out the character of prevailing tendency of the animal in some excess; and, in such a case, we call the resulting effect to the eye—picturesque: or in fact,characteresque. In extending this speculation to objects of art and human purposes, there is something more required of subtle investigation. Meantime, it is evident that neither the sublime nor the beautiful depends upon anysecondaryinterest of a purpose or of a character expressing that purpose. They (confining the case to visual objects) court theprimaryinterest involved in that (form, colour, texture, attitude, motion) which forces admiration, which fascinates the eye, for itself, and without a question of any distinct purpose: and, instead of character—that is, discriminating and separating expression, tending to the special and the individual—they both agree in pursuing the Catholic, the Normal, the Ideal.[150]"Travels in Italy, Greece, and the Ionian Islands," vol. i. pp. 74, 75.[151]Wraieis the old Danish or Icelandic word forangle. Hence the many "wrays" in the Lake district.[152]William Cullen (1712-1790), Professor of the Institutes of Medicine and the Practice of Physic in the University of Edinburgh from 1766 to 1790.—M.[153]John Millar (1735-1801), author ofThe Origin Of the Distinction of Ranks in Society and Historical View of the English Government.—M.[154]Robert Cullen was a Scottish judge, with the courtesy title of Lord Cullen, from 1796 to 1810.—M.[155]Seeante, p.193, footnote 76.—M.[156]Seeante. p.190, footnote 75.—M.[157]She was Jeffrey's second wife, married to him in 1813.—M.[158]The pathetic story told in De Quincey's paper entitledEarly Memorials of Grasmere.—M.[159]FromTait's Magazinefor March 1840.—M.[160]The name was Charles Lloyd, and we shall fill up De Quincey's blanks in the sequel.—M.[161]Blank Verse by C. L. and Charles Lamb, 1798. Poetical Essays on Pope, and Desultory Thoughts on London, &c., 1821.—M.[162]In using the termQuakers, I hoped it would have been understood, even without any explanation from myself, that I did not mean to use it scornfully or insultingly to that respectable body. But it was the great oversight of their founders not to have saved them from a nickname by assuming some formal designation expressive of some capital characteristic. At present one is in this dilemma: either one must use a tedious periphrasis (e.g.the young women of the Society of Friends), or the ambiguous one ofyoung female Friends.[163]This break of asterisks occurs in the original magazine article.—M.[164]Miss Jane Penny.—M.[165]FromTait's Magazinefor June 1840.[166]The approach from Ambleside or Hawkshead, though fine, is far less so than from Grasmere, through the vale of Tilberthwaite, to which, for acoup de théâtre, I recollect nothing equal. Taking the left-hand road, so as to make for Monk Coniston, and not for Church Coniston, you ascend a pretty steep hill, from which, at a certain point of the little gorge orhawse(i.e.hals, neck or throat, viz. the dip in any hill through which the road is led), the whole lake of six miles in length, and the beautiful foregrounds, all rush upon the eye with the effect of a pantomimic surprise—not by a graduated revelation, but by an instantaneous flash.[167]Miss Elizabeth Smith (1776-1806), authoress of a translation of a Life of Klopstock from the German, and also of a translation of the Book of Job from the Hebrew, and a Hebrew, Arabic, and Persic vocabulary, all published after her death. Two volumes of herFragments in Prose and Versewere published at Bath in 1809, with a memoir of her by H. M. Bowdler.—M.[168]See previous footnote 167, p.404.—M.[169]The Rev. T. Randolph, D.D., editor of Miss Smith's Translation of Job, 1810.—M.[170]The "mighty iron man" of that romance.—M.[171]It is entitled "To the Spade of a Friend: composed while we were labouring together in his pleasure ground"; and it begins—"Spade! with which Wilkinson hath tilled his lands."It was written in 1804.—M.[172]Elizabeth Hamilton (1758-1816), though now remembered chiefly by her Scottish story,The Cottagers of Glenburnie, which appeared in 1808, was the author of many other writings.—M.[173]And, in allusion to this circumstance, the house afterwards raised on a neighbouring spot, at this time suggested by Miss Smith, received the name of Tent Lodge.[174]Addressing Wilkinson's spade in the poem mentioned at p. 413ante, Wordsworth says—

"Ah, what a lesson to a thoughtless man," &c.

[92]All which inimitable graces of nature have, by the hands of mechanic art, by solid masonry, by whitewashing, &c., been exterminated, as a growth of weeds and nuisances, for thirty years.—August 17, 1853.

[93]That most accomplished, and to Coleridge most pious daughter, whose recent death afflicted so very many who knew her only by her writings. She had married her cousin, Mr. Serjeant Coleridge, and in that way retained her illustrious maiden name as a wife. At seventeen, when last I saw her, she was the most perfect of all pensive, nun-like, intellectual beauties that I have seen in real breathing life. The upper parts of her face were verily divine. See, for an artist's opinion, the Life of that admirable man Collins, by his son.

[94]Mary Hutchinson, who became Wordsworth's wife in October 1802, had been known to him since 1777, when she was his fellow-pupil in a Dame's school at Penrith.—M.

[95]Once for all, I say—on recollecting that Coleridge's verses toSarawere made transferable to any Sara who reigned at the time. At least three Saras appropriated them; all three long since in the grave.

[96]Vol. iv. p. 793 (Dec. 1837).—So De Quincey notes; but I may add that the paper inTaitreferred to was a Review of Books of the Season, one of them being "Tilt's Medallion Portraits of Modern English Authors, with Illustrative notices by H. F. Chorley." The reviewer's words were "The finest head, in every way, in the series, is that of Charles Lamb."—M.

[97]Lockhart's famous publication of 1819 under the name ofPeter's Letters to his Kinsfolk.—M.

[98]Jonathan Richardson (born about 1665, died 1745) published in 1734 a volume of Explanatory Notes and Remarks onParadise Lost, with a Life of Milton, containing particulars which Richardson had collected about Milton personally.—M.

[99]It was between 1721 and 1725, when Mrs. Deborah Clarke, Milton's youngest and only surviving daughter, was living in old age and in very humble circumstances in Moorfields, London, that the engraver Vertue and others went to see her for the special purpose of consulting her about portraits of her father. Some that were shown her she rejected at once; but one "crayon drawing" moved her in the manner which De Quincey reports. This is the portrait which came into Richardson's possession; and after Richardson's death in 1745 it was acquired by Jacob Tonson tertius, of the Tonson publishing family. There seems to be little doubt that it was a drawing of Milton from the life by Faithorne about 1670, when Milton'sHistory of Britainappeared with that portrait of him by Faithorne which is the only authentic print of him in later life, and worth all the other current portraits put together. Faithorne seems to have made two drawings, closely resembling each other, of Milton,—that (now lost) from which the engraving was made for theHistory of Britain, and this other "crayon drawing" which Richardson possessed. Richardson's reproduction of it in his book is spoilt by a laureate wreath and other flummery about the head; and the only genuine copy of it known to me is a beautiful one prefixed to Mr. Leigh Sotheby's sumptuous volume entitledRamblings in Elucidation of the Autograph of Milton, published in 1871. The face there is identically the same in essentials as that in the Faithorne engraving of 1670, though somewhat less sad in expression; and the two drawings must have been by the same hand.—M.

[100]Into his 81st only.—M.

[101]See footnote 99, p.247.—M.

[102]Not many months ago, the blind hostility of the Irish newspaper editors in America forged a ludicrous estimate of the Irish numerical preponderance in the United States, from which it was inferred, as at least a possibility, that the Irish Celtic language might come to dispute the pre-eminence with the English. Others anticipated the same destiny for the German. But, in the meantime, the unresting career of the law-courts, of commerce, and of the national senate, that cannot suspend themselves for an hour, reduce the case to this dilemma: If the Irish and the Germans in the United States adapt their general schemes of education to the service of their public ambition, they must begin by training themselves to the use of the language now prevailing on all the available stages of ambition. On the other hand, by refusing to do this, they lose in the very outset every point of advantage. In other words, adopting the English, they renounce the contest—notadopting it, they disqualify themselves for the contest.

[103]7th April 1770.—M.

[104]"The present":—This was written about 1835, when the present Earl of Lonsdale meant the late Earl.

[105]Who must now (1854) be classed as thelateEarl.

[106]"Eicon Basilike":—By the way, in the lamented Eliot Warburton's "Prince Rupert," this book, by a very excusable mistake, is always cited as the "Eicon Basilicon": he was thinking of the "Doron Basilicon," written by Charles's father: each of the nounsEiconandDoron, having the same terminal syllable—on—it was most excusable to forget that the first belonged to an imparisyllabic declension, so as to be feminine, the second not so; which made it neuter. With respect to the great standing question as to the authorship of the work, I have myself always held that the natural freedom of judgment in this case has been intercepted by one strong prepossession (entirely false) from the very beginning. The minds of all people have been pre-occupied with the notion that Dr. Gauden, the reputed author, obtained his bishopric confessedly on the credit of that service. Lord Clarendon, it is said, who hated the Doctor, nevertheless gave him a bishopric, on the sole ground of his having written the "Eicon." The inference therefore is that the Prime Minister, who gave so reluctantly, must have given under an irresistible weight of proof that the Doctor really had done the work for which so unwillingly he paid him. Any shade of doubt, such as could have justified Lord Clarendon in suspending this gift, would have been eagerly snatched at. Such a shade, therefore, there was not. Meantime the whole of this reasoning rests upon a false assumption: Dr. Gauden didnotowe his bishopric to a belief (true or false) that he had written the "Eicon." The bishopric was given on another account: consequently it cannot, in any way of using the fact, at all affect the presumptions, small or great, which may exist separately for or against the Doctor's claim on that head.—[So far De Quincey; but let not the reader trust to him too much in this matter. The evidence is overwhelming that Clarendon gave Gauden his bishopric after the Restoration because he believed Gauden to have been the author of theEikon Basilikeand dared not face Gauden's threats of revelations on the subject if promotion were refused him; and the evidence is conclusive, all Dr. Wordsworth's arguments notwithstanding, that Gaudenwasthe real author of the book.—M.]

[107]The following is the passage to which De Quincey refers, as it now stands in Wordsworth's autobiographical poemThe Prelude; which, though begun in 1799 and completed in 1805, was not published till 1850:—

"All shod with steel,We hissed along the polished ice in gamesConfederate, imitative of the chaseAnd woodland pleasures,—the resounding horn,The pack loud chiming, and the hunted hare.So through the darkness and the cold we flew,And not a voice was idle; with the dinSmitten, the precipices rang aloud;The leafless trees and every icy cragTinkled like iron; while far distant hillsInto the tumult sent an alien soundOf melancholy not unnoticed, while the starsEastward were sparkling clear, and in the westThe orange sky of evening died away.Not seldom from the uproar I retiredInto a silent bay, or sportivelyGlanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng,To cut across the reflex of a starThat fled, and, flying still before me, gleamedUpon the glassy plain."M.

[108]Wordsworth has told the story himself in hisPrelude, thus:—

"Among the band of my compeers was oneWhom chance had stationed in the very roomHonoured by Milton's name. O temperate Bard!Be it confest that, for the first time, seatedWithin thy innocent lodge and oratory,One of a festive circle, I poured outLibations, to thy memory drank, till prideAnd gratitude grew dizzy in a brainNever excited by the fumes of wineBefore that hour, or since. Then, forth I ranFrom the assembly; through a length of streetsRan, ostrich-like, to reach our chapel doorIn not a desperate or opprobrious time,Albeit long after the importunate bellHad stopped, with wearisome Cassandra voiceNo longer haunting the dark winter night....Call back, O Friend! a moment to thy mindThe place itself and fashion of the rites.With careless ostentation shouldering upMy surplice, through the inferior throng I cloveOf the plain Burghers, who in audience stoodOn the last skirts of their permitted ground,Under the pealing organ."M.

[109]The reference is to the Fifth Book ofThe Prelude.—M.

[110]On comparing these quotations with the original passages inThe Prelude, one finds that De Quincey, quoting from memory, is not exact to the text in any of them save the last.—M.

[111]Descriptive Sketches during a Pedestrian Tour on the Italian, Swiss, and Savoyard Alps.London, 1793.—M.

[112]An Evening Walk: an Epistle in Verse.London, 1793.—M.

[113]The reader, who may happen not to have seen Coleridge's "Biographia Literaria," is informed that Coleridge tells a long story about a man who followed and dogged himself and Wordsworth in all their rural excursions, under a commission (originally emanating from Mr. Pitt) for detecting some overt acts of treason, or treasonable correspondence, or, in default of either, some words of treasonable conversation. Unfortunately for his own interests as an active servant, even in a whole month that spy had collected nothing at all as the basis of a report, excepting only something which they (Coleridge and Wordsworth, to wit) were continually saying to each other, now in blame, now in praise, of oneSpy Nosy; and this, praise and blame alike, the honest spy very naturally took to himself, seeing that the world accused him of having anoseof unreasonable dimensions, and his own conscience accused him of being a spy. "Now," says Coleridge, "the very fact was that Wordsworth and I were constantly talking about Spinosa." This story makes a very good Joe Miller; but, for other purposes, is somewhat damaged. However, there is one excellent story in the case. Some country gentleman from the neighbourhood of Nether Stowey, upon a party happening to discuss the probabilities that Wordsworth and Coleridge might be traitors, and in correspondence with the French Directory, answered thus:—"Oh, as to that Coleridge, he's a rattlebrain, that will say more in a week than he will stand to in a twelvemonth. But Wordsworth—that's the traitor: why, bless you, he's so close, that you'll never hear him open his lips on the subject from year's end to year's end!"

[114]How little has any adequate power as yet approached this great theme! Not the Grecian stage, not "the dark sorrows of the line of Thebes," in any of its scenes, unfold such tragical grouping of circumstances and situations as may be gathered from the memoirs of the time. The galleries and vast staircases of Versailles, at early dawn, on some of the greatest days—filled with dreadful faces—the figure of the Duke of Orleans obscurely detected amongst them—the growing fury—the growing panic—the blind tumult—and the dimness of the event,—all make up a scene worthy to blend with our images of Babylon or of Nineveh with the enemy in all her gates, Memphis or Jerusalem in their agonies. But, amongst all the exponents of the growing agitation that besieged the public mind, none is so profoundly impressive as the scene (every Sunday renewed) at the Chapel Royal. Even in the most penitential of the litanies, in the presence when most immediately confessed of God himself—when the antiphonies are chanted, one party singing, with fury and gnashing of teeth,Salvum fac Regem, and another, with equal hatred and fervour, answeringEt Reginam(the poor queen at this time engrossing the popular hatred)—the organ roared into thunder—the semi-chorus swelled into shouting—the menaces into defiance—again the crashing semi-choir sang with shouts theirSalvum fac Regem—again the vengeful antiphony hurled back itsEt Reginam—and one person, an eye-witness of these scenes, which mounted in violence on each successive Sunday, declares that oftentimes the semi-choral bodies were at the point of fighting with each other in the presence of the king.

[115]That tract of the lake country which stretches southwards from Hawkshead and the lakes of Esthwaite, Windermere, and Coniston, to the little town of Ulverstone (which may be regarded as the metropolis of the little romantic English Calabria called Furness), is divided from the main part of Lancashire by the estuary of Morecamb. The sea retires with the ebb tide to a vast distance, leaving the sands passable through a few hours for horses and carriages. But, partly from the daily variation in these hours, partly from the intricacy of the pathless track which must be pursued, and partly from the galloping pace at which the returning tide comes in, many fatal accidents are continually occurring—sometimes to the too venturous traveller who has slighted the aid of guides—sometimes to the guides themselves, when baffled and perplexed by mists. Gray the poet mentions one of the latter class as having then recently occurred, under affecting circumstances. Local tradition records a long list of such cases.

[116]I do not, on consideration, know when they might begin to keep house together: but, by a passage in "The Prelude," they must have made a tour together as early as 1787.

[117]In the Memoir of Coleridge prefaced to Messrs. Macmillan's four-volume edition of his poetical works (1880) one reads:—"In the summer of 1797 Coleridge and Wordsworth, if they did not actually meet for the first time, first became familiarly acquainted with each other at Racedown in Dorsetshire. Wordsworth was then in his twenty-eighth and Coleridge in his twenty-fifth year."—M.

[118]Now entitledResolution and Independence.—M.

[119]I do not mean to insinuate that Wordsworth was at all in the dark about the inaccuracy and want of authentic weight attaching to Plutarch as a historian; but his business with Plutarch was not for purposes of research: he was satisfied with his fine moral effects.

[120]"The Ruth of her brother's creation":—So I express it; because so much in the development of the story and situations necessarily belongs to the poet. Else, for the mere outline of the story, it was founded upon fact. Wordsworth himself told me, in general terms, that the case which suggested the poem was that of an American lady, whose husband forsook her at the very place of embarkation from England, under circumstances and under expectations, upon her part, very much the same as those of Ruth. I am afraid, however, that the husband was an attorney; which is intolerable;nisi priuscannot be harmonized with the dream-like fairyland of Georgia.

[121]Of course, therefore, it is essentially the same name asTheodora, the same elements being only differently arranged. Yet how opposite is the impression upon the mind! and chiefly, I suppose, from the too prominent emblazonment of this name in the person of Justinian's scandalous wife; though, for my own part, I am far from believing all the infamous stories which we read about her.

[122]In the concluding Book of thePrelude.—M.

[123]Viz., "Calypso ne savoit se consoler du départ," &c. For how long a period (viz., nearly two centuries) has Calypso been inconsolable in the morning studies of young ladies! As Fénélon's most dreary romance always opened at one or other of these three earliest and dreary pages, naturally to my sympathetic fancy the poor unhappy goddess seemed to be eternally aground on this Goodwin Sand of inconsolability. It is amongst the standing hypocrisies of the world, that most people affect a reverence for this book, which nobody reads.

[124]It was published in full in 1874, with the titleRecollections of a Tour made in Scotland,A.D.1803, by Dorothy Wordsworth.Edited by J. C. Shairp, LL.D.—M.

[125]Mrs. Johnstone (1781-1857) was the authoress of several novels, a contributor to various periodicals, and editor ofTait's Magazinethrough a portion at least of De Quincey's connexion with it.—M.

[126]In the recast by De Quincey, for the collective edition of his writings in 1853, of hisTaitarticles on Wordsworth in 1839, there were some omissions of matter that had appeared in the magazine. One was this concluding paragraph in the article for April 1839:—"I have traced the history of each [i.e.of William and Dorothy Wordsworth] until the time when I became personally acquainted with them; and, henceforwards, anything which it may be interesting to know with respect to either will naturally come forward, not in a separate narrative, but in connexion with my own life; for in the following year I became myself the tenant of that pretty cottage in which I found them; and from that time, for many years, my life flowed on in daily union with theirs."—M.

[127]FromTait's Magazinefor July 1839. See explanation in Editor's Preface to this volume.—M.

[128]A curious dissertation might be written on this subject. Meantime, it is remarkable that almost all modern nations have committed the blunder of supposing the Latin word for supper to becœna, and of dinnerprandium. Now, the essential definition of dinner is, that which is the main meal—(what the French call the great meal). By that or any test (for example, thetime, threeP.M.) the Roman cœna was dinner. Even Louis XII, whose death is partly ascribed to his having altered his dinner hour from nine to elevenA.M.in compliment to his young English bride, did notsupat threeP.M.

[129]It is not known to the English, but it is a fact which I can vouch for, from my six or seven years' residence in Scotland [written in 1839], that the Scotch, one and all, believe it to be an inalienable characteristic of an Englishman to be fond of good eating. What indignation have I, and how many a time, had occasion to feel and utter on this subject? But of this at some other time. Meantime, the Man of Feeling had this creed in excess; and, in some paper (ofThe MirrororThe Lounger), he describes an English tourist in Scotland by saying—"I would not wish to be thought national; yet, in mere reverence for truth, I am bound to say, and to declare to all the world (let who will be offended), that the first innkeeper in Scotland under whose roof we met with genuine buttered toast was an Englishman."

[130]Meantime, if it did not disturbhim, it ought to disturbus, his immediate successors, who are at once the most likely to retrieve theselossesby direct efforts, and the least likely to benefit by any casual or indirect retrievals, such as will be produced by time. Surely a subscription should be set on foot to recover all books enriched by his marginal notes. I would subscribe; and I know others who would largely.

[131]In De Quincey's imperfect reproduction of this paper in his collective edition, he adds here:—"One single paper, for instance—viz. a review of Nelson's life, which subsequently was expanded into his very popular little book on that subject—brought him the splendid honorarium of £150."—M.

[132]See the Evidence before the House of Commons' Committee. [De Quincey does not give the date, nor the occasion.—M.]

[133]See note,Southey and the Edinburgh Annual Register, appended to this chapter.—M.

[134]Sir Watkin, the elder brother, had a tongue too large for his mouth; Mr. C. Wynne, the younger, had a shrill voice, which at times rose into a scream. It became, therefore, a natural and current jest, to call the two brothers by the name of a well-known dish, viz.bubble and squeak.

[135]Why he was called Herbert, if my young readers inquire, I must reply, that I do not precisely know; because I know of reasons too many by half why he might have been so called. Derwent Coleridge, the second son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and first cousin of Herbert Southey, was so called from the Lake of Keswick, commonly styled Derwent Water, which gave the title of Earl to the noble, and the noble-minded, though erring, family of the Radcliffes, who gave up, like heroes and martyrs, their lives and the finest estates in England for one who was incapable of appreciating the service. One of the islands on this lake is dedicated to St. Herbert, and thismighthave given a name to Southey's first-born child. But it is more probable that he derived this name from Dr. Herbert, uncle to the laureate.

[136]On the 17th of April 1816, aged ten years.—M.

[137]FromTait's Magazinefor August 1839. See explanation in Preface to this volume.—M.

[138]"Into two distinct apartments":—The word apartment, meaning, in effect, a compartment of a house, already includes, in its proper sense, a suite of rooms; and it is a mere vulgar error, arising out of the ambitious usage of lodging-house keepers, to talk of one family or an establishment occupying apartments in the plural. The Queen's apartment at St. James's or at Versailles—not the Queen's apartments—is the correct expression.

[139]It illustrated the national sense of Southey's comprehensive talents, and of his political integrity, that Lord Radnor (the same who, under the courtesy title of Lord Folkestone, had distinguished himself for very democratic politics in the House of Commons, and had even courted the technical designation ofradical) was the man who offered to bring in Southey for a borough dependent onhisinfluence. Sir Robert Peel, under the same sense of Southey's merits, had offered him a baronetcy. Both honours were declined, on the same prudential considerations, and with the same perfect disregard of all temptations from personal vanity.

[140]"Polemicskill":—The word polemic is falsely interpreted by the majority of mere English readers. Having seldom seen it used except in a case of theological controversy, they fancy that it has some original and etymological appropriation to such a use; whereas it expresses, with regard toallsubjects, without restriction, the functions of the debater as opposed to those of the original orator; the functions of him who meets error and unravels confusion or misrepresentation, opposed to those of him who lays down the abstract truth: truth absolute and without relation to the modes of viewing it. As well might the wordRadicalbe limited to a political use asPolemicto controversial divinity.

[141]Reported at length in a small quarto volume, of the well known quarto size so much in use for Tracts, Pamphlets, &c., throughout the life of Milton—1608-74.

[142]In fact, the exposure is as perfect in the case of an individual as in that of a nation, and more easily apprehended. Levy from an individual clothier £1000 in taxes, and afterwards return to him the whole of this sum in payment for the clothing of a regiment. Then, supposing profits to be at the rate of 15 per cent, he will have replaced £150 of his previous loss; even his gains will simply reinstate him in something that he had lost, and the remaining £850 will continue to be a dead loss; since the £850 restored to him exactly replaces, by the terms of this case, his disbursements in wages and materials; if it did more, profits would not be at 15 per cent, according to the supposition. But Government may spendmorethan the £1000 with this clothier; they may spend £10,000. Doubtless, and in that case, on the same supposition as to profits, he will receive £1500 as a nominal gain; and £500 will be a real gain, marked with the positive sign (+). But such a case would only prove that nine other taxpayers, to an equal amount, had been left without any reimbursement at all. Strange that so clear a case for an individual should become obscure when it regards a nation.

[143]FromTait's Magazinefor December 1839.—M.

[144]TheCastle of Indolencewas first published in 1748, the year of the poet's death. The following is the stanza of the poem referred to by De Quincey:—

"A certain music, never known before,Here lull'd the pensive, melancholy mind;Full easily obtained. Behoves no moreBut sidelong to the gently-waving windTo lay the well-tuned instrument reclined,From which, with airy flying fingers light,Beyond each mortal touch the most refined;The god of winds drew sounds of deep delight;Whence, with just cause, the Harp of Æolus it hight."—M.

[145]The usual Scottish word iskenspeckle.—M.

[146]His future wife, Margaret Simpson.—M.

[147]It may be supposed, not literally, for the swallow (or at least that species called the swift) has been known to fly at the rate of 300 miles an hour. Very probably, however, this pace was not deduced from an entire hour's performance, but estimated by proportion from a flight of one or two minutes. An interesting anecdote is told by the gentleman (I believe the Rev. E. Stanley) who described inBlackwood'sMagazinethe opening of the earliest English railway, viz. that a bird (snipe was it, or field-fare, or plover?) ran, or rather flew, a race with the engine for three or four miles, until, finding itself likely to be beaten, it then suddenly wheeled away into the moors.

[148]FromTait's Magazinefor January 1840.—M.

[149]The idea of the picturesque is one which did not exist at all until the post-Christian ages; neither amongst the Grecians nor amongst the Romans; andtherefore, as respects one reason, it was, that the art of landscape painting did not exist (except in a Chinese infancy, and as a mere trick of inventive ingenuity) amongst the finest artists of Greece. Whatispicturesque, as placed in relation to the beautiful and the sublime? It is (to define it by the very shortest form of words) the characteristic pushed into a sensible excess. The prevailing character of any natural object, no matter how little attractive it may be for beauty, is always interesting for itself, as the character and hieroglyphic symbol of the purposes pursued by Nature in the determination of its form, style of motion, texture of superficies, relation of parts, &c. Thus, for example, an expression of dulness and somnolent torpor does not ally itself with grace or elegance; but, in combination with strength and other qualities, it may compose a character of serviceable and patient endurance, as in the cart-horse, having unity in itself, and tending to one class of uses sufficient to mark it out by circumscription for a distinct and separate contemplation. Now, in combination with certain counteracting circumstances, as with the momentary energy of some great effort, much of this peculiar character might be lost, or defeated, or dissipated. On that account, the skilful observer will seek out circumstances that are in harmony with the principal tendencies and assist them; such, suppose, as a state of lazy relaxation from labour, and the fall of heavy drenching rain causing the head to droop, and the shaggy mane, together with the fetlocks, to weep. These, and other circumstances of attitude, &c., bring out the character of prevailing tendency of the animal in some excess; and, in such a case, we call the resulting effect to the eye—picturesque: or in fact,characteresque. In extending this speculation to objects of art and human purposes, there is something more required of subtle investigation. Meantime, it is evident that neither the sublime nor the beautiful depends upon anysecondaryinterest of a purpose or of a character expressing that purpose. They (confining the case to visual objects) court theprimaryinterest involved in that (form, colour, texture, attitude, motion) which forces admiration, which fascinates the eye, for itself, and without a question of any distinct purpose: and, instead of character—that is, discriminating and separating expression, tending to the special and the individual—they both agree in pursuing the Catholic, the Normal, the Ideal.

[150]"Travels in Italy, Greece, and the Ionian Islands," vol. i. pp. 74, 75.

[151]Wraieis the old Danish or Icelandic word forangle. Hence the many "wrays" in the Lake district.

[152]William Cullen (1712-1790), Professor of the Institutes of Medicine and the Practice of Physic in the University of Edinburgh from 1766 to 1790.—M.

[153]John Millar (1735-1801), author ofThe Origin Of the Distinction of Ranks in Society and Historical View of the English Government.—M.

[154]Robert Cullen was a Scottish judge, with the courtesy title of Lord Cullen, from 1796 to 1810.—M.

[155]Seeante, p.193, footnote 76.—M.

[156]Seeante. p.190, footnote 75.—M.

[157]She was Jeffrey's second wife, married to him in 1813.—M.

[158]The pathetic story told in De Quincey's paper entitledEarly Memorials of Grasmere.—M.

[159]FromTait's Magazinefor March 1840.—M.

[160]The name was Charles Lloyd, and we shall fill up De Quincey's blanks in the sequel.—M.

[161]Blank Verse by C. L. and Charles Lamb, 1798. Poetical Essays on Pope, and Desultory Thoughts on London, &c., 1821.—M.

[162]In using the termQuakers, I hoped it would have been understood, even without any explanation from myself, that I did not mean to use it scornfully or insultingly to that respectable body. But it was the great oversight of their founders not to have saved them from a nickname by assuming some formal designation expressive of some capital characteristic. At present one is in this dilemma: either one must use a tedious periphrasis (e.g.the young women of the Society of Friends), or the ambiguous one ofyoung female Friends.

[163]This break of asterisks occurs in the original magazine article.—M.

[164]Miss Jane Penny.—M.

[165]FromTait's Magazinefor June 1840.

[166]The approach from Ambleside or Hawkshead, though fine, is far less so than from Grasmere, through the vale of Tilberthwaite, to which, for acoup de théâtre, I recollect nothing equal. Taking the left-hand road, so as to make for Monk Coniston, and not for Church Coniston, you ascend a pretty steep hill, from which, at a certain point of the little gorge orhawse(i.e.hals, neck or throat, viz. the dip in any hill through which the road is led), the whole lake of six miles in length, and the beautiful foregrounds, all rush upon the eye with the effect of a pantomimic surprise—not by a graduated revelation, but by an instantaneous flash.

[167]Miss Elizabeth Smith (1776-1806), authoress of a translation of a Life of Klopstock from the German, and also of a translation of the Book of Job from the Hebrew, and a Hebrew, Arabic, and Persic vocabulary, all published after her death. Two volumes of herFragments in Prose and Versewere published at Bath in 1809, with a memoir of her by H. M. Bowdler.—M.

[168]See previous footnote 167, p.404.—M.

[169]The Rev. T. Randolph, D.D., editor of Miss Smith's Translation of Job, 1810.—M.

[170]The "mighty iron man" of that romance.—M.

[171]It is entitled "To the Spade of a Friend: composed while we were labouring together in his pleasure ground"; and it begins—

"Spade! with which Wilkinson hath tilled his lands."

It was written in 1804.—M.

[172]Elizabeth Hamilton (1758-1816), though now remembered chiefly by her Scottish story,The Cottagers of Glenburnie, which appeared in 1808, was the author of many other writings.—M.

[173]And, in allusion to this circumstance, the house afterwards raised on a neighbouring spot, at this time suggested by Miss Smith, received the name of Tent Lodge.

[174]Addressing Wilkinson's spade in the poem mentioned at p. 413ante, Wordsworth says—

Back to Index Next