The Prose Works of William Wordsworth Part 119

Ever affectionately yours, Wm. Wordsworth.

We hope your lameness will soon leave you, that you may ramble about as usual.[173]

115. _Ecclesiastical Duties and Revenues Act, &c._

LETTER TO THE REV. T. BOYLES MURRAY.

Rydal Mount, Ambleside, Sept. 24. 1840.

DEAR SIR,

Upon returning home after an absence of ten days, I have the pleasure of finding your obliging letter, and the number of the _Ecclesiastical Gazette_ containing the 'Ecclesiastical Duties and Revenues Act:' for both marks of attention I beg you to accept my sincere thanks. As soon as I can find leisure, I will carefully peruse the Act; at present I can only say that I look upon changes so extensive and searching with a degree of alarm proportionate to my love and affection for the Establishment with which they are connected.

As you have put me in possession of the _Gazette_, I can scarcely feel justified in looking to the fulfilment of your promise to send me the Act, separately printed. Indeed, I feel that it would be giving yourself more trouble than there is occasion for.

[173] _Memoirs_, ii. 367-9.

It pleases me much to learn that Mrs. Murray and you enjoyed your ramble among the lakes.

Believe me to be, dear Sir, faithfully, Your obliged servant, Wm. Wordsworth.[174]

116. _Samuel Rogers and Wordsworth together_.

LETTER TO LADY FREDERICK BENTINCK.

Rydal Mount, Sept. 26. 1840.

DEAR LADY FREDERICK,

Mr. Rogers and I had a pleasant journey to Rydal the day we left all our kind friends at Lowther. We alighted at Lyulph's Tower, and saw the waterfall in great power after the night's rain, the sun s.h.i.+ning full into the chasm, and making a splendid rainbow of the spray. Afterwards, walking through Mr. Askew's grounds, we saw the lake to the greatest possible advantage. Mr. R. left on Thursday, the morning most beautiful, though it rained afterwards. I know not how he could tear himself away from this lovely country at this charming season. I say charming, notwithstanding this is a dull day; but yesterday was most glorious. I hope our excellent friend does not mean to remain in London.

We have had no visits from strangers since my return, so that the press of the season seems to be over. The leaves are not changed here so much as at Lowther, and of course not yet so beautiful, nor are they ever quite so as with you, your trees being so much finer, and your woods so very much more extensive. We have a great deal of coppice, which makes but a poor show in autumn compared with timber trees.

Your son George knows what he has to expect in the few sheets which I enclose for him.

With many thanks for the endless kind attentions which I received from you, and others under your father's hospitable roof, and with my grateful respects to him, and a thousand good wishes for all, I remain, my wife and daughter joining in these feelings, My dear Lady Frederick, affectionately yours,

Wm. Wordsworth.[175]

[174] _Memoirs_, ii. 369-70.

[175] _Ibid._ ii. 370-1.

117. _An alarming Accident, Nov_. 11, 1840.

LETTER TO LADY FREDERICK BENTINCK.

Rydal Mount, Monday Evening.

The accident after which you inquire, dear Lady Frederick, with so much feeling, might have been fatal, but through G.o.d's mercy we escaped without bodily injury, as far as I know, worth naming. These were the particulars: About three miles beyond Keswick, on the Ambleside road, is a small bridge, from the top of which we got sight of the mail coach coming towards us, at about forty yards' distance, just before the road begins to descend a narrow, steep, and winding slope. Nothing was left for J----, who drove the gig in which we were, but to cross the bridge, and, as the road narrowed up the slope that was in our front, to draw up as close to the wall on our left (our side of the road) as possible.

This he did, both of us hoping that the coachman would slacken his pace down the hill, and pa.s.s us as far from our wheel as the road would allow. But he did neither. On the contrary, he drove furiously down the hill; and though, as we afterwards ascertained, by the track of his wheels, he had a yard width of road to spare, he made no use of it. In consequence of this recklessness and his want of skill, the wheel of his coach struck our wheel most violently, drove back our horse and gig some yards, and then sent us all together through a small gap in the wall, with the stones of the wall tumbling about us, into a plantation that lay a yard perpendicular below the level of the road from which the horse and gig, with us in it, had been driven. The shafts were broken off close to the carriage, and we were partly thrown and partly leaped out. After breaking the traces, the horse leaped back into the road and galloped off, the shafts and traces sticking to him; nor did the poor creature stop till he reached the turnpike at Grasmere, seven miles from the spot where the mischief was done. We sent by the coach for a chaise to take us to Rydal, and hired a cart to take the broken gig to be mended at Keswick.

The mercy was, that the violent shock from the coach did not tear off our wheel; for if this had been done, J----, and probably I also, must have fallen under the hind wheels of the coach, and in all likelihood been killed. We have since learned that the coachman had only just come upon the road, which is in a great many places very dangerous, and that he was wholly unpractised in driving four-in-hand. Pray excuse this long and minute account. I should have written to you next day, but I waited, hoping to be able to add that my indisposition was gone, as I now trust it is.

With respectful remembrances to Lord Lonsdale, and kindest regards to yourself and Miss Thompson, I remain,

Dear Lady Frederick, Affectionately yours, Wm. Wordsworth.[176]

[176] _Memoirs_, ii. 371-3.

118. _Of Alston and Haydon, &c._

LETTER TO HENRY REED, ESQ., PHILADELPHIA.

Rydal Mount, Jan. 13. 1841.

MY DEAR MR. REED,

It is gratifying to learn that through your means Mr. Alston has been reminded of me. We became acquainted many years ago through our common friend Mr. Coleridge, who had seen much of Mr. Alston when they were both living at Rome.

You mention the Sonnet I wrote upon Haydon's picture of the Duke of Wellington. I have known Haydon, and Wilkie also, from their contemporaneous introduction to the world as artists; their powers were perceived and acknowledged by my lamented friend Sir George Beaumont, and patronised by him accordingly; and it was at his house where I first became acquainted with them both. Haydon is bent upon coming to Rydal next summer, with a view to paint a likeness of me, not as a mere matter-of-fact portrait, but one of a poetical character, in which he will endeavour to place his friend in some favourite scene of these mountains. I am rather afraid, I own, of any attempt of this kind, notwithstanding my high opinion of his ability; but if he keeps in his present mind, which I doubt, it will be in vain to oppose his inclination. He is a great enthusiast, possessed also of a most active intellect, but he wants that submissive and steady good sense which is absolutely necessary for the adequate development of power in that art to which he is attached.

As I am on the subject of painting, it may be worth while to add, that Pickersgill came down last summer to paint a portrait of me for Sir Robert Peel's gallery at Drayton Manor. It was generally thought here that this work was more successful than the one he painted some years ago for St. John's College, at the request of the Master and Fellows.[177]

[177] _Memoirs_, ii. 373-4.

119. _Of Peace's 'Apology for Cathedrals.'_

I have no especial reason for writing at this moment of time, but I have long wished to thank you for the 'Apology for Cathedrals,' which I have learned is from your pen. The little work does you great credit; it is full of that wisdom which the heart and imagination alone could adequately supply for such a subject; and is, moreover, very pleasingly diversified by styles of treatment all good in their kind. I need add no more than that I entirely concur in the views you take: but what avails it? the mischief is done, and they who have been most prominent in setting it on foot will have to repent of their narrow comprehension; which, however, is no satisfaction to us, who from the first foresaw the evil tendency of the measure.[178]

[178] Extract of letter to John Peace, Esq., Jan. 19, 1841: _Memoirs_, ii. 376.

120. _Of 'The Task' of Cowper and Shenstone_.

Though I can make but little use of my eyes in writing or reading, I have lately been reading Cowper's 'Task' aloud; and in so doing was tempted to look over the parallelisms, for which Mr. Southey was in his edition indebted to you. Knowing how comprehensive your acquaintance with poetry is, I was rather surprised that you did not notice the ident.i.ty of the thought, and accompanying ill.u.s.trations of it, in a pa.s.sage of Shenstone's Ode upon Rural Elegance, compared with one in 'The Task,' where Cowper speaks of the inextinguishable love of the country as manifested by the inhabitants of cities in their culture of plants and flowers, where the want of air, cleanliness, and light, is so unfavourable to their growth and beauty. The germ of the main thought is to be found in Horace,

'Nempe inter varias nutritur sylva columnas, Laudaturque domus longos quae prospicit agros; Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret.'

Lib. i. Epist. x. v. 22.

Pray write to me soon. Ever, my dear friend,

Faithfully your obliged, WM. WORDSWORTH.[179]