CHAPTER IV. 'What shall I do to be for ever known, -Cowley. The 'Lyrical Ballads' (1798)-Wordsworth, accompanied by his sister and Coleridge, sets out for Germany (September, 1798)-Coleridge parts from them at HamburgThey winter at Goslar, where he produces some charming poems-Commences The Prelude' on leaving Goslar (February, 1799)-Returns to England-Resides no more at Alfoxden-Makes a tour into Cumberland and Westmoreland-Visits Grasmere with Coleridge-Settles there with his sister (December, 1799). THE Lyrical Ballads,' with a few other poems, was published anonymously in the autumn of 1798, by Joseph Cottle, of Bristol, in a small 12mo. volume, containing 210 pages. As this work has now become a rara avis, and as many readers of Wordsworth are unacquainted with its contents, a list of the poems comprised therein is subjoined. They are as under: 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. The Female Vagrant. Goody Blake and Harry Gill. Lines written at a small Distance from my House, and sent by my little Boy to the Person to whom they are addressed. Simon Lee, the old Huntsman. We are Seven. Lines written in early Spring. The Thorn. The Last of the Flock. The Dungeon. The Mad Mother. The Idiot Boy. Lines written near Richmond upon the Thames, at Evening. Expostulation and Reply. The Tables Turned; an Evening Scene on the same Subject. Old Man Travelling. The Complaint of a Forsaken Indian Woman. Lines written a few Miles above Tintern Abbey. The edition, which consisted only of 500 copies, proved much too large, and the publisher states: 'The sale was so slow, and the severity of most of the reviews so great, that its progress to oblivion seemed to be certain. I parted with the largest proportion of the 500, at a loss, to Mr. Arch, a London bookseller.' How true is it that, as quaint old Thomas Fuller observes, 'Learning hath gained most by those books by which the printers have lost!' The volume was published 'as an experiment,' and as a protest against the artificial style and diction of the poetry of the period; and its publication was not a moment too soon. That it was received on all sides with howls of ridicule and derision was but natural, as will readily be seen upon reflection. Wordsworth, as we have learned, was a reformer. He had commenced active life as a republican; had become deeply interested in the revolutionary movement in France; and now he proposed a complete revolution in English literature. And he met the fate of reformers in general. But the odium and censure heaped upon the work had no effect whatever upon him; he knew that a reform in poetry, as in politics, was inevitable, and must come sooner or later; and he had not hesitated to sound a timely alarm. It was not to be expected that the public taste, which had long been treated to the smoothest of smooth compositions, decked with all the graces—if such they can be called—of gaudy, meretricious, and artificial diction and polish, in which there was little of the spirit of poetry, though the many knew it not, would receive and be satisfied with the homely but wholesome fare placed before it in this little but highly important volume. It was regarded as an outrage against common-sense, and an insult to the judgment and understanding of its readers. Instead of having their taste gratified with poetry written in the hitherto refined and sentimental, namby-pamby style, treating of the lords and ladies, fops and fripperies of the period, they were treated, for the most part, to a selection of verses which had for their subjects characters drawn from humble life, such as female vagrants, old huntsmen, mad mothers, and idiot boys. Everybody's hand was raised against the book, but it did not for all that glide down the stream of oblivion. It was reserved for a better fate than that. It had been written with a noble object in view, and it was, notwithstanding its reception, to act as a lever that would ere long move the whole world of poetry. It aimed at being natural, as opposed to the artificial. The authors had endeavoured to fit 'to metrical arrangement a selection of the real language of men in a state of vivid sensation.' One by one, admirers were found, and a new public was created; and henceforth the growth of the Wordsworthian theory was slow but sure. Amongst the literary organs that referred to the volume were the Critical Review and the Monthly Review, the latter of which stated: 'So much genius and originality are discovered in this publication, that we wish to see another from the same hand, written on more elevated subjects and in a more cheerful disposition.' With regard to the charge of simplicity and puerility so repeatedly preferred against some of the Lyrical Ballads,' a few remarks are perhaps necessary. It has been well said, that there is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous; and there is such a thing as sublime simplicity, between which and silliness the distance is painfully slight. Little wonder, therefore, that Wordsworth, in his efforts to be natural, occasionally degenerated into excessive tameness, and even simpleness itself. It is no use blinking the truth. The fact is incontrovertible. Extremes are proverbially dangerous; and Wordsworth, it must be admitted, in some few of the ballads, such as 'The Idiot Boy,' and 'Goody Blake and Harry Gill,' carried his early poetical theory too far. There is a simplicity which is not poetry, and into this he fell more often than his better judgment should have allowed him. That such was the case in his own opinion, is abundantly proved by the alteration and sometimes removal of certain of the more notable and exceptionable passages which occurred in the original ballads. Amongst these may be mentioned the following: 'A little child, dear brother Jem, That lightly draws its breath, |