L5 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Cornell University Library PR 5882.L5 The early life of Wordsworth, 1770-1798; 3 1924 013 363 019 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013363019 The Early Life of William Wordsworth All Righti Reserved ■*,;-■;: V^iSJS jli'SV-J'yiS'ji' THE EARLY LIFE OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 1770-1798 A STUDY OF "THE PRELUDE" EMILE LEGOUIS PROPESSEUR A, L'UNIVERSITfi DE LYON TRANSLATED BY J. W. MATTHEWS WITH A PREFATORY NOTE BY LESLIE STEPHEN LONDON J. M. DENT & CO. 67 S. JAMES'S ST. S.W. & ALDINE HOUSE E.G.. 1897 (Brftfefuffg iiebicafeb to Professor Alexandre Beljame University of Paris Table of contents PAGE Prefatory Note ..... xiii Author's Preface . . . . . xv INTRODUCTION I. General characteristics of Wordsworth's poetry . i II. Ori^n and imTpon of The Prelude . . .10 If ooft t CHILDHOOD, rOUTH AND EDUCATION CHAPTER I Cockermouth Wordsworth's family, birthplace, and infancy CHAPTER II Hawkshead I. School recollections of French poets compared with those of English poets II. System of education at Hawkshead. The masters III. The schoolboy's reading IV. Games and Nature V. Birth of his imagination VI. Wordsworth's ideas on education CHAPTER III Cambridge I. Wordsworth becomes an orphan. His precarious situation . . . • .68 II. Cambridge, «Vf /J 1788 . . . .71 28 so 54 viii Contents PACE III. Wordsworth's college life . . . .78 IV. Why he did not work at Cambridge . • °3 V. Helpful influence of the glorious traditions of Cam- bridge ....•• 91 CHAPTER IV College Vacations I. Wordsworth revisits Hawkehead, 1788 . • 95 II. Visit to Penrith, 1789 . . ■ .104 III. Travels in France and Switzerland, 1790 . .106 CHAPTER V Early Poems I. Youthful passion for the ornate in literature . .120 II. Poetic style of the descriptive poets of the i8th century . . . . .127 III. Vocabulary, grammar and rhetoric of Wordsworth's early poems . . . . • '33 IV. The real merit of these poems lies in the sincerity and force of their descriptions . . . 1 47 V. Personal sentiments. He affects a conventional melan- choly . . . . . • '53 it THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. MORAL CRISIS CHAPTER I Residence in London I. Refusal to choose a profession . . .163 II. Hitherto London had only been treated in satirical poetry. Novelty of Wordsworth's attitude . 166 Contents ix III. His descriptions. The theatre. Parliament. Fashion- able preachers . . . . .175 IV. Aspect of the town as a whole. Street scenes . 179 V. Excursion in Wales. Ascent of Snowdon . .188 CHAPTER II Residerice in France I. Wordsworth at Paris, Orleans, and Blois . . 193 II. Connection with Michel Beaupuy. Enthusiasm for the revolution . . . . .201 III. Second residence in Paris . . . .217 CHAPTER III Wordsworth in England. His Republicanism I. English feeling towards France in 1792-3. Growth of hostile feeling . . . .221 II. Wordsworth defends the Revolution in a letter to Watson ..... 228 III. The declaration of war. Wordsworth sides with France. His hatred of Pitt . . .231 IV. His despair in consequence of the declaration of war, and during the Terror . . . .238 V. His hope revives with the death of Robespierre . 245 VI. Early in 1796 he forsakes active politics . . 247 CHAPTER IV Moral Crisis I. At first Wordsworth has hopes of the speedy advent of happiness on earth . . . .253 II. Undeceived, he takes refuge in abstract thought. Becomes a disciple of Godwin. Conception of ideal man as an abstract creation of pure reason to be realised in the future . . . .259 X Contents PAGE III. He discovers that evil is inherent in human nature. Wordsworth as a pessimist . • .267 (jSooft tti THE STJGES OF RECOVERY CHAPTER I Dorothy Wordsworth I. Wordsworth's unsettled and unhappy existence from 1793 to 1795 ..... 281 II. Calvert's legacy. Wordsworth settles at Racedown with his sister ..... 284 III. Their ardent attachment to one another. Character of Dorothy Wordsworth. Her influence over her brother ...... 288 IV. Their life at Racedown. Under the helpful influence of his sister, Wordsworth's passion for Nature revives ..... ^ 297 V. He recovers his sympathy for man as he is. His sympathy with the poor. He becomes alive to the existence and grandeur of human affection . 304 VI. Dangers of the exclusive influence of Dorothy . 315 CHAPTER II Coleridge I. Coleridge before 1 796. His character and youth . 320 11. His mystical tendencies. His early poems . . 324 III. His admiration for Wordsworth after reading Guilt and Sorrow. He detects Wordsworth's imagina- tive power . . . . . ^^3 IV. Encouraged by Coleridge, Wordsworth writes The Ruined Cottage . . . .343 Contents xi CHAPTER III Alfoxden I. Description of Alfoxden. The friends of Coleridge : Charles Lloyd, Charles Lamb, John Thelwall, Thomas Poole . . . . • 358 IL^Happy life of Wordsworth and Coleridge at Alfoxden. They are, however, suspected and watched . 368 III. Invasion of Switzerland by the French. Indignation of Coleridge. His patriotism revives. Words- worth finds consolation in Nature, and is confirmed in his worship of her. He discovers his own power of enjoyment ..... 374 HARMONY RESTORED Optimism I. It is not due to circumstances . . . 385 II. It is not due to temperament alone . . . 388 III. It springs principally from the will, and from faith in the identity of truth and happiness . .391 CHAPTER II Wordsworth's Relation to Science I. He condemns science as it is, as responsible for pessimism. His comparative contempt for reason- ing, and search for other means of investigating reality ...... 397 II. The science of the future. The manner in which Wordsworth proposes to fiirther it. Wordsworth as a psychologist. The true sphere of the poet lies in the relation between Nature and the human mind . 403 III. Analysis of Peter Bell .... 408 xii Contents CHAPTER III Wordsworth'' s Realism I. Attempts of Wordsworth and Coleridge at collabora- tion — The Wanderings of Cain, The Ancient Mariner, The Three Graves. Tendency of Coleridge towards the fantastic ; of Wordsworth towards realism. Goody Blake and Harry Gill. The Prologue to Peter Bell . . .419 II. Imagination and Fancy. Wordsworth's contempt for the story of his poems. His condemnation of the poetic style . . . . '433 CHAPTER IV The Imagination and the Senses I. Power of the imagination, which alone can penetrate reality ...... 448 II. The senses, which are its organs, are divine. The poet sees God. Ecstasy. Origin of the sublime. Ethics of the senses . . . .450 III. The senses of Wordsworth. Sight and hearing. Feebleness of the other senses. Nature moral and merciful .... Conch usion 459 I. Wordsworth in 1798 .... 468 II. His poetic mission . . . . 47 1 Appendix 475 Prefatory Note £eing an Extract from an Article by Mr Leslie Stephen in the " National Reviem," reprinted by kind permission of the Editor. M. Emile Legouis has written a singularly interesting study of Wordsworth's youth. Of M. Legouis' general qualifications, it need only be said that he has a thorough knowledge of English literature, and a minute acquaint- ance with all the special literature bearing upon Words- worth's early career. He fully appreciates the qualities which, though they have endeared Wordsworth's poetry to his own countrymen, have hardly made him one of the -cosmopolitan poets. M. Legouis' study is concerned with one stage in Wordsworth's development. Wordsworth was in France at the crisis of the revolution, and there, as we know from The Prelude, became the enthusiastic admirer of Michel Beaupuy, afterwards a general and an incarna- tion of republican virtue. Wordsworth compares him to Dion as the philosophic assailant of a tyrant.^ M. Legouis has already given an account of Beaupuy,^ and has now pointed out the nature of his influence upon his young English disciple. Browning's Lost Leader represented a view of Words- worth which seemed strange to most readers. The name of Wordsworth had come to suggest belief in the thirty- nine articles, capital punishment, and rotten boroughs. ^ See Wordsworth's poem upon " Dion," written 1816. 2 Le G^n^ral Michel Beaupuy, par G. Bussiere et fimile Legouis. Paris, xiv Prefatory Note Some of us can still remember the venerable grey head bowed in the little church at Grasmere, and typifying complete acquiescence in orthodox tradition. This " lost leader," however, had once defended the principles of Paine's Rights of Man, had condemned the crusade against the revolution as a great national crime, and so far from being orthodox, had been described by his intimate friend, Coleridge, as a " semi-atheist." How was this brand snatched from the burning, or what, as others will say, led to this lamentable apostasy \ There is, of course, no question of moral blame. As Browning observes, the real "Wordsworth was certainly not seduced by a " bit of ribbon." He only suggested the general theme of the poem. But a fair account of the way in which his change actually came about is interesting, both as explaining some of his literary tendencies and as illustrating a similar change in many of his contemporaries. Such an account may naturally be sought in Wordsworth's autobiographical poem. The Prelude, and there, indeed, it is implicitly given. Yet its significance is brought out by M. Legouis' careful study of the poem in connection with other documents and some of the earlier writings. M. Legouis has, I think, thrown new light upon the whole process. Author s Preface When I was applied to for the right of translating this critical biography into English, I felt greatly honoured and not a little perplexed. My work had been written chiefly with an eye to the requirements of French readers, to very few of whom Wordsworth is more than a name : hence it contains an abundance of quotations from the poet, and also some statements and observations which may appear trite to such of his countrymen as are familiar with his writings and those of his critics. On the other hand I felt that the study was here and there wanting in those finer touches which could not well have been presented to readers unacquainted with the English language and poetry. Such apprehensions would have induced me to recast the work throughout, had not some eminent English critics expressed the opinion that, besides any novelty that the general plan and certain especial parts of the book might possess, the very fact of its being distinctly French in its aim would not render it the less acceptable to English admirers of Wordsworth. The contemplated reconstruc- tion has therefore been limited to thorough revision, and a few changes, chiefly additions, made by myself. Such other fears as I might entertain have been much lessened by the care of the translator, more favoured than myself in that he has been able to retain the original words of the quotations. xvi Author s Preface It is my very pleasant duty to express my thanks to Mr Ernest Hartley Coleridge for his kindness in impart- ing to me some valuable information before its appear- ance in his recently-issued collection of the letters of Coleridge ; and to Mr Thomas Hutchinson of Dublin, ■who, no less untiring than obliging, has allowed me to draw upon the stores of his perhaps unrivalled knowledge ■of all matters relating to Wordsworth's life and poetry. EMILE LEGOUIS. Lyon, Zfth December 1896. Introduction Seldom had general uneasiness and moral disorder been so justifiable in England, rarely had the signs of their existence been so unequivocal, as during the winter of 1 797- 1 798. By the peace of Campo-Formio, England was left in solitary opposition to the revolutionary government of France, which had compelled all its other enemies one by one to lay down their arms. Still in possession of her supremacy at sea, she had, nevertheless, as yet won no naval victory which so enhanced her prestige as to console her pride for defeats upon the Continent, none sufficiently decisive to convince her that she had an impregnable rampart in the waters which girdled her shores. So formidable had been the recent outbreaks of disaffection in her fleets, that scarcely even could she place reliance upon them. Ireland, shaking off her bondage, was mean- while summoning the foreigner, and a scheme of invasion appeared to be ripening in France. There was not a point on the coasts of Britain but felt itself threatened. Worse still, those Englishmen, by far the more numerous party, who had at heart not only the success of their country's arms, but also the preservation of her time-honoured institutions, were asking one another with painful anxiety whether an invader, who landed on that British soil which had been so long ffee from desecration, would not find a thousand English hands outstretched in welcome, acclama- tion, and support. "Well aware that the fascinations of revolution were strong enough to have destroyed the patriotism of an unknown number of their fellow-country- men, they detected spies and traitors wherever they turned their restless glance. But a few months had elapsed since the death of Burke, and already they recognised the truth of those prophecies which, until his last hour, he had not 2 JViUiam Wordsworth ceased to repeat ; already they perceived that he at any rate had accurately gauged the mighty strength of the subver- sive spirit against which his eloquent voice had strenuously urged a new crusade. No longer was it a question of crushing that spirit abroad ; fortunate indeed would they be, if they could prevent its spread and victory at home. Still more painful, at the same period, were the reflections of those Englishmen who were well disposed towards France. With unshaken fortitude they had supported the new Republic in the face of insult and suspicion, of enmity from their friends and persecution from their rulers. They had forgiven it the bloodiest days of the Terror, and the lingering fury of that hurricane after which the most indulgent survey could reveal nothing but wreckage without a single token of solid reconstruction. Only yesterday they would have desired its triumph over England, and some were prematurely enthusiastic at the thought of an invasion which, in their opinion, was amply warranted by the attitude of their country. France made no movement but in self-defence ; in protecting herself she protected the cause of human progress ; she took up arms in defence of future peace. She made war to put an end for ever to all wars of ambition and self-interest. But now overwhelming intelligence reached them: the armies of the Directory, during a time of European peace, had invaded Switzerland, — that country which, of all the nations of Europe, should have been most sacred, on account of its weakness, and from the fact that for centuries it had been throughout the world the first refuge of liberty. The young Republic showed itself no less the ruthless aggressor than the monarchs who had formed a league for the spoliation of Poland. Nowhere rtn Europe was there a corner left in which it was possible jto prolong that dream of regeneration and of happiness /on earth, which for eight years had been so fearlessly ^- pursued in face of the most cruel disillusion. Those gloomy objections to their theories which had already presented themselves again and again to the minds of the most eager reformers, only to be immediately thrust out of sight, now arose once more, victorious and irresistible. Man, Introduction 3 they concluded, is after all not good by nature. It is not in his power to submit himself to the guidance of reason. There is nothing in common between man as he is and that being free alike from prejudice and from error, ready to be enlightened by the invincible logic of justice, whose glowing image philosophers have drawn with such delight. And reason, which has been so grossly deceived in its estimate of its own power, and has so completely misconceived the nature of the evil reality which it aspired to transform, is now seen to be con- demned by the very experiment which it has been per- mitted to make. Thus, between the two parties : — the Conservatives on the one hand, whose opinion from the outset has been that an imperfect state of society, woven out of good and evil, is all that man in his imperfection deserves ; who have greeted with a smile of sarcastic incredulity the promise of another golden age and the regeneration of mankind ; who, as the sky grows darker, and the hour of destruction seems near at hand, become more and more rooted in their distrust ; — and, on the other hand, the reformers or revolu- tionists who persist in believing society as it is to be no longer tolerable, but who are losing hope of establishing in its place a better order of things — between these two parties we find a mutual and silent acquiescence in pessim- ism. Man is by nature perverse and unreasonable ; life at best a poor possession ; evil rooted in the very depths of human nature, and ineradicable save with that existence of which it forms a vital part ; progress impossible, or so slow and inconsiderable that the contemplation of it brings no delight. The millennium of our dreams is the idlest of fancies. Minds imbued with religion, or those who are driven by such reflections to seek its consolation, can at least transfer to another life the glorious hopes of which the earthly realization has been foretold. For the re- mainder there is no refuge but in scepticism. The less scrupulous, in order to secure for themselves the better portion of the spoils of a foolish and miserable race, will, for the future, only think of using for their own ends the melancholy wisdom they have so dearly purchased. The 4 William Wordsworth more honest will take refuge in selfishness, and, while they may perhajjs extend that principle so far as to include love towards their family or their country, they will refuse henceforth to bestow their faith and affection on a wider circle, and will expend nothing but sarcasm on the simple- minded "visionaries" who still can talk of infinite and universal perfectibility.^ In the very heart of this crisis, on the llth March 1798, a young Englishman, but a short time earlier one of the most fervent reformers, now living poor and unknown in a lonely nook in Somerset, was writing to a friend : ^ " I have been tolerably industrious within the last few weeks. I have written 706 lines of a poem which I hope to make of considerable utility. Its title will be, The Recluse, or Views of Nature, Man, and Society." The utility alluded to consists in restoring gladness to the heart of man. The poet's object is precisely that which every one seems ready to abandon as an idle dream : it is the recovery of happiness. He designs to increase the joys of life, and, though not denying the existence of its sorrows, to transform them into peace. He preaches no political or social reform. Whether the existing forms of society endure, or are destroyed, is for him at this time a matter of secondary importance. Nor does he speak in the name of any religion. He does not, as Chateaubriand already dreams of doing, offer to souls in search of pious emotion the solemn dogmas and the touching ceremonial of Christianity. He concerns himself with earthly happiness 1 Prelude, ii. 43Z-441. These verses are almost a literal transcription of the following passage of a letter from Coleridge to Wordsworth in the summer of 1799: " My dear friend, I do entreat you go on with The Recluie, and I wish you would write a poem, in blank verse, addressed to those who, in consequence of the complete failure of the French Revolution, have thrown up all hopes of the amelioration of mankind, and are sinking into an almost epicurean selfishness, disguising the same under the soft titles of domestic attachment and contempt for visionary fhiUsophes. It would do great good, and might form a part of The Recluie. . . ." (Memoirs of W. W. by C. Wordsworth, Vol. T. p. 139), ' Letter to James Losh, The Life of W. Wordi-worth, by W. Knight, Vol. I. p. 148 (3 vols., Edinburgh, 1889). Introduction 5 alone. From creeds and forms of worship, from national constitutions and legal codes, it may, according to circum- stances, derive faint assistance, or meet with feeble opposi- tion. But its deepest source is elsewhere ; in the very centre of man's nature, in his senses and his heart. The ( one thing of true importance is the cultivation of the feelings, which, in the individual, may be, and ought to be, developed so as to be capable of the greatest possible ''. amount of enjoyment. Already, in this world of pain, there are privileged beings whose eyes behold with quiet ; rapture the splendours of nature, whose ears detect her harmonies, whose hearts are thrilled spontaneously and ; with delight by all tender and lofty emotion. Why is this glorious creature to be found One only in ten thousand ? What one is, Why may not millions be ? What bars are thrown By Nature in the way of such a hope ? Our animal appetites and daily wants, Are these obstructions insurmountable ? If not, then others vanish into air.^ Whence very m an shall possess the poet's eye, the poet's ear^jji_pQet^s' heart,., that* millenniuin," so ~fo looked fc(£_jn other paths of progress, will have been reacl^gd indeed. A distant end, no' doubt,' bufone towards which every step is a delight, and for which men can strive, both individually and in unison, free from rivalry or wrath. In those very feelings which proud reason but lately despised and resolved to crush, lies the true worth of man ; in those senses which that same reason regarded with suspicion or disgust, refusing to see in them anything beyond the evidence of his animal nature, lies man's true . glory. The object of every sensation is nature, and sensation, as it becomes purer and more susceptible, will wonder the more at " the immenseness of the good and > fair " 2 displayed before it. The poet himself, conscious, from his own experience, 1 The Prelude, xiii. 87-93. 2 Coleridge, Ode to Dejection, last stanza. Coleridge applies the words to Wordsworth. 6 William Wordsworth of the wreck of all the lofty dreams of his generation, and having succeeded, by aid of his sentient nature, in recovering peace and joy of soul, resolves to impart to mankind the lessons he has learnt. The strong pleasures aroused within him by passing glimpses of nature's beauties or wonders shall be gathered like the flowers of a gar- land, and distributed among men as varied specimens of the delights this world can afford, the most sublime of which nevertheless defy alike description and com- munication. Every gathered flower shall have not only its peculiar charm, but also an added value by which that charm shall be surpassed. It shall stand at once for the token of infinite beauty, and for a testimony in behalf of the human being capable of perceiving that beauty. Above all, he recalls men's attention to the true and lasting worth of the possessions they have cast aside in their vain pursuit of a paradise attainable only in dreams. He brings to their remembrance the genuine titles to nobility which the race possesses, that substantial in- heritance of silent effort and modest virtue which they so imprudently rejected when their gaze became fascinated by the vision of ideal man, that figment of reason living without stain in a world where adversity is unknown, ffive they not acted as did those adventurers of old, who sold the land they had inherited, in order to sail towards the fabulous mines of Cipango .' The fortunate island has not been discovered, but the old world endures yet, and is worth no less than before the hour of fever. Its value will be greater still, if man, delivered from his vain illusions, returns to it with more of understanding and of love. Contempt for man as he is, contempt for the world of reality, such at bottom is the twofold source of the disease from which men are suffering. This contempt, born of pride and impotence, is the height of impiety, and those who indulge in it may be said to be justly punished by the despair in which it results. Nothing that this world contains is worthy of contempt ; none who inhabits it has the right to despise. Introduction 7 . . . He who feels contempt For any living thing, hath faculties Which he has never used ; . . . thought with him Is in its infancy.! Contempt means ignorance. 'Tis Nature's law That none, the meanest of created things. Of forms created the most vile and brute, The dullest or most noxious, should exist Divorced from good — a spirit and pulse of good, A life and soul, to every mode of being Inseparably linked.^ If this is true of every created being, how much more of every human creature. Those lowly ones for whom hitherto the wise man has felt no sentiment but pity, of whom he has never thought without a sense of indignation at their degraded condition, to whom he has never spoken but to make them conscious by his very compassion of their insignificance and unworthiness — in order that such as these may be restored to their rights, it is useless to await the uncertain hour of the equal division of this world's false goods : wealth, shallow pleasures, adornments of the person, and intellectual gifts. We must recognise here and now their full value as they are. We must raise them in their own eyes and make them conscious of their usefulness, of the beauty and even of the brightness which may crown their simple life. Wretched and degraded as they are, they must be brought to feel that it is within their own power to shed a lustre round them in the cottage or the hovel in which they dwell. And the proof that there is no occasion to despair of man's future will be all the more overwhelming, if we can determine the presence of the fundamental virtues and the moral perceptions in that class of men which is at once the most neglected and the most numerous. The proof ^ Lines left uptn a seat in a yeiv^tree^ S^'SS' * 77;