"Let it be remembered that the advice requested does not relate to the government of the more dangerous passions, or the fundamental principles of right and wrong as acknowledged by the universal conscience of mankind. I may, therefore, assure my youthful correspondent, if he will endeavour to look into himself in the manner which I have exhorted him to do, that in him the wish will be realised, to him in due time the prayer granted, which was uttered by that living teacher of whom he speaks with gratitude as of a benefactor, when, in his character of philosophical Poet, having thought of morality as implying in its essence voluntary obedience, and producing the effect of order, he transfers in the transport of imagination, the law of moral to physical natures, and, having contemplated, through the medium of that order, all modes of existence as subservient to one spirit, concludes his address to the power of Duty in the following words: 1 To humbler functions, awful Power! The confidence of Reason give ; And in the light of truth thy bondman let me live!' M. M."2 Twenty years after this Essay was written, Mr. Wordsworth thus briefly adverted to the subject in a letter to Sir Wm. Hamilton of Dublin. 1 Ode to Duty, vol. iv. p. 210. 2 Such was the signature in the first edition of "The Friend,” p. 317. "A word on the serious part of your letter. Your views of action and contemplation are, I think, good. If you can lay your hands upon Mr. Coleridge's 'Friend' you will find some remarks of mine upon a letter signed, if I recollect right, 'Mathetes,' which was written by Professor Wilson, in which, if I am not mistaken, sentiments like yours are expressed. At all events, I am sure that I have long retained those opinions, and have frequently expressed them either by letter or otherwise. One thing, however, is not to be forgotten concerning active life-that a personal independence must be provided for; and in some cases more is required ability to assist our friends, relations, and natural dependents. The party are at breakfast, and I must close. "Ever faithfully yours, "WILLIAM WORDSWORTH." CHAPTER XXX. ESSAY ON EPITAPHS. In the twenty-fifth number of "The Friend," published Thursday, Feb. 22. 1810, appear two Epitaphs translated from Chiabrera, without the name of the translator. These are followed by a dissertation on sepulchral inscriptions, which was afterwards acknowledged by Mr. Wordsworth, as composed by himself, and republished by him as an Essay on Epitaphs" among the notes to "The Excursion ;"1 and the translations are incorporated in his works.2 66 This Essay appears to have been occasioned by a perusal of the epitaphs of Chiabrera, which gave so much pleasure that it led him to examine that species of composition more closely, and to investigate the principles on which excellence in it is founded. He was further induced to engage in this inquiry by a study of Dr. Johnson's observations on the epitaphs 3 of Pope, and by a persuasion that the practice of the poet and the teaching of the critic, had a tendency to mislead the public in this matter. 1 The Essay has also been reprinted as a preface to an original collection of Epitaphs replete with solemn sweetness and Christian comfort: Lyra Memorialis, by Joseph Snow. Lond. 1847. 2" Perhaps some needful service of the state," &c., vol. v. p.114.; and "O thou who movest onward with a mind," vol. v. p. 115. See also ibid. 116–120. 3 There is an "Essay on Epitaphs" by Dr. Johnson, in one of the early numbers of the Gentleman's Magazine; Mr. Wordsworth was not acquainted with this Essay when he wrote his own. He afterwards spoke of it with much commendation. The invention of epitaphs may be ascribed, says Mr. Wordsworth, to a consciousness of a principle of immortality in the human soul. This is antecedent to the social affections, and gives strength to them. The contemplative soul, "travelling in the direction of man's mortality," and contemplating that, "advances to the region of everlasting life." And the author of this species of composition, epitaphs, stands at a middle point, between mortality and immortality. He looks back on the one, and forward to the other. Looking back with love on the mortal body, he guards the remains of the deceased, and erects a tomb; looking forward with hope to his immortal existence both in body and soul, he preserves his memory, and writes an epitaph. The author next adverts to the situations of places of interment. He displays the advantages derived from the association of burial-grounds with living objects of natural beauty,-rivers, trees, flowers, mountains, waterfalls, and fresh breezes; and also with way-sides, as in ancient times among the Greeks and Romans. These are in some degree compensated in large towns by the custom of depositing the dead in the neighbourhood of places of worship, which suggests many natural and solemn admonitions; and a village Churchyard combines many of the best tendencies of the ancient practice with those peculiar to a place of Christian worship. "The sensations of pious cheerfulness which attend the celebration of the sabbath-day in rural places are profitably chastised by the sight of the graves of kindred and friends gathered together in that general home, towards which the thoughtful but happy spectators themselves are journeying. Hence, a parish-church, in the stillness of the country, is a visible centre of a community of the living and the dead, a point to which are habitually referred the nearest concerns of both. 1 "Amid the quiet of a churchyard thus decorated as it seemed by the hand of memory, and shining, if I may so say, in the light of love, I have been affected by sensations akin to those which have arisen in my mind, while I have been standing by the side of a smooth sea on a summer's day. It is such a happiness to have, in an unkind world, one enclosure where the voice of detraction is not heard; where the traces of evil inclination are unknown; where contentment prevails, and there is no jarring tone in the peaceful concert of amity and gratitude. I have been roused from this reverie by a consciousness, suddenly flashing upon me, of the anxieties, the perturbations, and, in many instances, the vices and rancorous dispositions, by which the hearts of those who lie under so smooth a surface and so fair an outside must have been agitated. The image of an unruffled sea has still remained; but my fancy has penetrated into the depths of that sea, with accom. panying thoughts of shipwreck, of the destruction of the mariner's hopes, the bones of drowned men heaped together, monsters of the deep, and all the hideous and confused sights which Clarence saw in his dream. "Nevertheless, I have been able to return (and who may not?) to a steady contemplation of the benign influence of such a favourable register lying open to the eyes of all. Without being so far lulled as to The reader will here recollect the picture drawn by the hand of the Poet in "The Excursion," book vi., "The Churchyard among the Mountains." |