The Prose Works of William Wordsworth. William Wordsworth

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      (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.

III. ESSAYS, LETTERS, AND NOTES ELUCIDATORY AND CONFIRMATORY OF THE POEMS, 1798–1835.

      (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.

VOL. III.

       Table of Contents

      CRITICAL AND ETHICAL.

      I. Notes and Illustrations of the Poems, incorporating:

      (a) The Notes originally added to the first and successive editions. (b) The whole of the I.F. MSS.

      This division of the Prose has cost the Editor more labour and thought than any other, from the scattered and hitherto unclassified semi-publication of these Notes. Those called 'original' are from the first and successive editions of the Poems, being found in some and absent in other collections. An endeavour has been made to include everything, even the briefest; for judging by himself, the Editor believes that to the reverent and thoughtful student of WORDSWORTH the slightest thing is of interest; e.g. one turns to the most commonplace book of topography or contemporary verse in any way noticed by him, just because it is WORDSWORTH who has noticed it, while an old ballad, a legend, a bit of rural usage, takes a light of glory from the page in which it is found. Hence as so much diamond-dust or filings of gold the published Notes are here brought together. Added, and far exceeding in quantity and quality alike, it is the privilege of the Editor to print completely and in integrity the I.F. MSS., as written down to the dictation of WORDSWORTH by Miss FENWICK. These have been hitherto given with tantalising and almost provoking fragmentariness in the 'Memoirs' and in the centenary edition of the Poems—again withdrawn in the recent Rossetti edition. In these Notes—many of which in both senses are elaborate and full—are some of the deepest and daintiest-worded things from WORDSWORTH. The I.F. MSS. are delightfully chatty and informal, and ages hence will be treasured and studied in relation to the Poems by the (then) myriad millions of the English-speaking races.

      Miss FENWICK, to whom the world is indebted for these MSS., is immortalised in two Sonnets by WORDSWORTH, which surely long ere this ought to have been included in the Poetical Works; and they may fitly reappear here (from the 'Memoirs'):

      'On a Portrait of I.F., painted by Margaret Gillies.

      We gaze—nor grieve to think that we must die,

       But that the precious love this friend hath sown

       Within our hearts, the love whose flower hath blown

       Bright as if heaven were ever in its eye,

       Will pass so soon from human memory;

       And not by strangers to our blood alone,

       But by our best descendants be unknown,

       Unthought of—this may surely claim a sigh.

       Yet, blessed Art, we yield not to dejection;

       Thou against Time so feelingly dost strive:

       Where'er, preserved in this most true reflection,

       An image of her soul is kept alive,

       Some lingering fragrance of the pure affection,

       Whose flower with us will vanish, must survive.

      WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

      Rydal Mount, New Year's Day, 1840.'

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