Memoirs of William Wordsworth, Poet-laureate, D. C. L.

of the Wye. We crossed the Severn Ferry, and walked ten miles further to Tintern Abbey, a very beautiful ruin on the Wye. The next morning we walked along the river through Monmouth to Goderich Castle, there slept, and returned the next day to Tintern, thence to Chepstow, and from Chepstow back again in a boat to Tintern, where we slept, and thence back in a small vessel to Bristol.

"The Wye is a stately and majestic river from its width and depth, but never slow and sluggish; you can always hear its murmur. It travels through a woody country, now varied with cottages and green meadows, and now with huge and fantastic rocks."

The name of TINTERN will suggest to the reader the lines written by Wordsworth, and inscribed with its

name.

"Five years have passed, five summers, with the length Of five long winters, and again I hear

These waters rolling from their mountain springs,
With a soft inland murmur."1

The "sensations sweet" due to the scenery of the sylvan Wye will not fail to suggest a feeling of gratitude for the tranquillizing and cheering influence of Nature upon the mind; and the sketch which the Poet draws of his earlier days and youthful emotions, the courageous spirit of independence which breathes in that poem, the tender address which he makes to his “dear, dear sister," and the hopes and desires he expresses for her sake, will not fail to be perused with sober pleasure and pathetic interest. And if, as perhaps will be the case, the reflecting reader should be disposed to think that too much reliance is there

1 Vol. ii. p. 150.

expressed on the powers of man's will, leaning on the aid of Nature alone, and independent of those supernatural means which are provided by a gracious providence for the purification of the corruptions, and for a support to the infirmities, of humanity; if he should be persuaded by sound reason, or convinced from personal experience, that the influences of Nature and Nature's works, however effectual and salutary when regarded as creations of divine power, and emanations from the pure source of divine love, are not sufficient to cheer the languid soul in the hours of sickness and of sorrow; if also, as is not improbable, he should be of opinion, that a "worshipper of nature" is in danger of divinizing the creation and of dishonouring the Creator, and that, therefore, some portions of this poem might be perverted to serve the purposes of a popular and pantheistic philosophy, he will remember that the author of the LINES on TINTERN ABBEY, composed also the EVENING VOLUNTARIES, and that he who professes himself an ardent votary of nature, has explained the sense in which he wishes these words to be understood, by saying, that "By grace divine,

Not otherwise, O Nature, we are thine."1

Concerning the production of this poem, the writer himself gave the following information2:

Tintern Abbey, July, 1798. "No poem of mine 1798.—“No was composed under circumstances more pleasant for me to remember than this. I began it upon leaving Tintern, after crossing the Wye, and concluded it just as I was entering Bristol in the evening, after a ramble of four or five days with my sister. Not a

1 Vol. iv. p. 126.

2 MSS. I. F.

line of it was altered, and not any part of it written down till I reached Bristol. It was published almost immediately after in the little volume of which so much has been said in these notes." 1

About the same time a longer poem was written, but not published till many years afterwards. This was Peter Bell. "This tale," says the author2, "was founded upon an anecdote which I read in a newspaper, of an ass being found hanging his head over a canal in a wretched posture. Upon examination a dead body was found in the water, and proved to be the body of its master. In the woods of Alfoxden I used to take great delight in noticing the habits, tricks, and physiognomy of asses; and I have no doubt that I was thus put upon writing the poem of 'Peter Bell,' out of liking for the creature that is so often dreadfully abused. The countenance, gait, and figure of Peter were taken from a wild rover with whom I walked from Builth, on the river Wye, downwards, nearly as far as the town of Hay. He told me strange stories. It has always been a pleasure to me, through life, to catch at every opportunity that has occurred in my rambles of becoming acquainted with this class of people. The number of Peter's wives was taken from the trespasses, in this way, of a lawless creature who lived in the county of Durham, and used to be attended by many women, sometimes not less than half a dozen, as disorderly as himself; and a story went in the country, that he had been heard to say while they were quarrelling, 'Why can't you be quiet, there's none so many of you.' Benoni, or

1 The "Lyrical Ballads," as first published at Bristol by Cottle. 2 MSS. I. F.

the child of sorrow, I knew when I was a school-boy. His mother had been deserted by a gentleman in the neighbourhood, she herself being a gentlewoman by birth. The circumstances of her story were told me by my dear old dame, Ann Tyson, who was her confidante. The lady died broken-hearted. The crescent moon, which makes such a figure in the prologue, assumed this character one evening while I was watching its beauty in front of Alfoxden House. I intended this poem for the volume before spoken of, but it was not published for more than twenty years afterwards. The worship of the Methodists, or Ranters, is often heard during the stillness of the summer evening, in the country, with affecting accompaniments of rural beauty. In both the psalmody and voice of the preacher there is, not unfrequently, much solemnity likely to impress the feelings of the rudest characters under favourable circumstances."

After the Wye tour, Wordsworth and his sister took up their abode at Bristol, in order that he might be nearer the printer. "William's poems," she says, July 18th, 1798, "are now in the press; they will be out in six weeks;" and on September the 13th they are described as "printed, but not published." They are "in one small volume, without the name of the author; their title is 'Lyrical Ballads, with other Poems.' Cottle has given thirty guineas for William's share of the volume;" that is, for the copyright.

On August 27. they had arrived in London, having passed Oxford and Blenheim.

In a few days the "LYRICAL BALLADS " appeared; and on the 16th September, Wordsworth, his sister, and Mr. Coleridge left Yarmouth for Hamburgh.

121

CHAPTER XIII.

THE LYRICAL BALLADS.

THE "LYRICAL BALLADS" were published in the au tumn of 1798, in one small volume of 210 pages, by Mr. Cottle, at Bristol.1 This duodecimo contains

1 Its contents are as follows:

The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere

The Foster Mother's Tale

Lines left upon a Seat in a Yew-tree which stands near

the Lake of Esthwaite

The Nightingale; a conversational Poem