The Prose Works of William Wordsworth Part 125

LETTER TO PROFESSOR REED.

Brinsop Court, Sept. 27 [1845].

MY DEAR MR. REED,

The sight of your letter was very welcome, and its contents proved most agreeable. It was well that you did not forward my little poem to the party, he entertaining the opinions he holds, and being of the character you describe. I shall therefore be gratified if you, as you propose, write him a note, expressing that I have nothing among my MSS. that would suit his purpose. The verses are already printed in the new edition of my poems (double column), which is going through the press.

It will contain about 300 verses not found in the previous edition. I do not remember whether I have mentioned to you that, following your example, I have greatly extended the cla.s.s ent.i.tled 'Poems of the Imagination,' thinking, as you must have done, that if imagination were predominant in the cla.s.s, it was not indispensable that it should pervade every poem which it contained. Limiting the cla.s.s as I had done before seemed to imply, and to the uncandid or un.o.bserving it did so, that the faculty, which is the _primum mobile_ in poetry, had little to do, in the estimation of the author, with the pieces not arranged under that head. I, therefore, feel much obliged to you for suggesting by your practice the plan which I have adopted. In respect to the Prefaces, my own wish would be that now the Poems should be left to speak for themselves without them; but I know that this would not answer for the purposes of sale. They will, therefore, be printed at the end of the volume; and to this I am in some degree reconciled by the matter they contain relating to poetry in general, and the principles they inculcate. I hope that, upon the whole, the edition will please you. In a very few instances I have altered the expression for the worse, on account of the same feeling or word occurring rather too near the pa.s.sage. For example, the Sonnet on Baptism begins '_Blest_ be the Church.' But unfortunately the word occurs some three or four lines just before or after; I have, therefore, though reluctantly, subst.i.tuted the less impressive word, '_Dear_ be the Church.' I mention this solely to prevent blame on your part in this and a few similar cases where an injurious change has been made. The book will be off my hands I hope in about two weeks.

Mrs. Wordsworth and I left home four days ago, and do not intend to return, if all goes well, in less than five or six weeks from this time.

We purpose in our way home to visit York, the cathedral of which city has been restored; and then we shall go to Leeds, on a visit to our friend Mr. James Marshall, in full expectation that we shall be highly delighted by the humane and judicious manner in which his manufactory is managed, and by inspecting the schools which he and his brother have established and superintended. We also promise ourselves much pleasure from the sight of the magnificent church, which, upon the foundation of the old parish church of that town, has been built through the exertions and by the munificence of the present inc.u.mbent, that excellent and able man Dr. Hook, whom I have the honour of reckoning among my friends.

This letter is written by the side of my brother-in-law, who, eight years ago, became a cripple, confined to his chair, by the accident of his horse falling with him in the high road, where he lay without power to move either hand or leg, but left in perfect possession of his faculties. His bodily sufferings are by this time somewhat abated, but they still continue severe. His patience and cheerfulness are so admirable that I could not forbear mentioning him to you. He is an example to us all; and most undeserving should we be if we did not profit by it. His family have lately succeeded in persuading him to have his portrait taken as he sits in his arm-chair. It is an excellent likeness, one of the best I ever saw, and will be invaluable to his family. This reminds me of Mr. Inman and a promise which he made that he would send us a copy of your portrait of myself. I say a promise, though it scarcely amounted to that absolutely, but it was little short of it.

Do you think he could find time to act upon his own wish in this matter?

in which I feel interested on Mrs. Wordsworth's account, who reckons that portrait much the best both as to likeness and execution of all that have been made of me, and she is an excellent judge. In adverting to this subject, I of course presume that you would have no objection to the picture being copied if the artist were inclined to do it.

My paper admonishes me that I must conclude. Pray let me know in your next how Mrs. Reed and your family are in health, and present my good wishes to her.

Ever your faithful and much obliged friend, WM. WORDSWORTH.[211]

143. _Of the College of Maynooth, &c._

LETTER TO A NEPHEW.

Rydal Mount, June 30. 1845.

MY DEAR C----,

I ought to have acknowledged my debt to you long ago, but the inflammation in one of my eyes which seized me on my first arrival in London kept its ground for a long time. I had your two first pamphlets read to me, and immediately put them into circulation among my friends in this neighbourhood; but wis.h.i.+ng to read them myself I did not like to write to you till I had done so, as there were one or two pa.s.sages on which I wished to make a remark.

[211] _Memoirs_, ii. 418-21.

As to your arguments, they are unanswerable, and the three tracts do you the greatest possible credit; but the torrent cannot be stemmed, unless we can construct a body, I will not call it a party, upon a new and true principle of action, as you have set forth. Certain questions are forced by the present conduct of government upon the mind of every observing and thinking person. First and foremost, are we to have a _national_ English Church, or is the Church of England to be regarded merely as a sect? and is the _right to the Throne to be put on a new foundation_? Is the present ministry prepared for this, and all that must precede and follow it? Is Ireland an integral and inseparable portion of the Empire or not? If it be, I cannot listen to the argument in favour of endowing Romanism upon the ground of superiority of _numbers_. The Romanists are not a majority in England and Ireland, taken, as they ought to be, together. As to Scotland, it has its separate kirk by especial covenant.

Are the ministers prepared to alter fundamentally the basis of the Union between England and Ireland, and to construct a new one? If they be, let them tell us so at once. In short, they are involving themselves and the Nation in difficulties from which there is no escape--for them at least none. What I have seen of your letter to Lord John M---- I like as well as your two former tracts, and I shall read it carefully at my first leisure moment.[212]

[212] _Memoirs_, ii. 151-2.

144. _Of the 'Heresiarch of the Church of Rome.'_

LETTER TO JOSEPH COTTLE, ESQ.

Rydal Mount, Dec. 6. 1845.

MY DEAR OLD FRIEND,

Now for your little tract, 'Heresiarch Church of Rome.' I have perused it carefully, and go the whole length with you in condemnation of Romanism, and probably _much further_, by reason of my having pa.s.sed at least three years of life in countries where Romanism was the prevailing or exclusive religion; and if we are to trust the declaration 'By their fruits ye shall know them,' I have stronger reasons, in the privilege I have named, for pa.s.sing a severe condemnation upon leading parts of their faith, and courses of their practice, than others who have never been eye-witnesses of the evils to which I allude. Your little publication is well timed, and will I trust have such an effect as you aimed at upon the minds of its readers.

And now let me bid you affectionately good bye, with a.s.surance that I do and shall retain to the last a remembrance of your kindness, and of the many pleasant and happy hours which, at one of the most interesting periods of my life, I pa.s.sed in your neighbourhood, and in your company.

Ever most faithfully yours, WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.[213]

[213] _Memoirs_, ii. 152-3.

145. _Family Trials_.

LETTER TO PROFESSOR REED.

Rydal Mount, Jan. 23. 1846.

MY DEAR MR. REED,

I hope to be able to send you an impression of an engraving, from a picture of Mr. Haydon, representing me in the act of climbing Helvellyn.

There is great merit in this work, and the sight of it will show my meaning on the subject of _expression_. This, I think, is attained; but, then, I am stooping, and the inclination of the head necessarily causes a foreshortening of the features below the nose, which takes from the likeness accordingly; so that, upon the whole, yours has the advantage, especially under the circ.u.mstance of your never having seen the original. Mrs. Wordsworth has been looking over your letters in vain to find the address of the person in London, through whose hands any parcel for you might be sent. Pray take the trouble of repeating the address in your next letter, and your request shall be attended to of sending you my two letters upon the offensive subject of a Railway to and through our beautiful neighbourhood.

You will be sorry to hear that Mrs. Wordsworth and I have been, and still are, under great trouble and anxiety. Our daughter-in-law fell into bad health between three and four years ago. She went with her husband to Madeira, where they remained nearly a year; she was then advised to go to Italy. After a prolonged residence there, her six children, whom her husband returned to England for, went, at her earnest request, to that country, under their father's guidance: there he was obliged, on account of his duty as a clergyman, to leave them. Four of the number resided with their mother at Rome, three of whom took a fever there, of which the youngest, as n.o.ble a boy, of nearly five years, as ever was seen, died, being seized with convulsions when the fever was somewhat subdued. The father, in a distracted state of mind, is just gone back to Italy; and we are most anxious to hear the result. My only surviving brother, also, the late Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and an inestimable person, is in an alarming state of health; and the only child of my eldest brother, long since deceased, is now languis.h.i.+ng under mortal illness at Ambleside. He was educated to the medical profession, and caught his illness while on duty in the Mediterranean.

He is a truly amiable and excellent young man, and will be universally regretted. These sad occurrences, with others of like kind, have thrown my mind into a state of feeling, which the other day vented itself in the two sonnets which Mrs. Wordsworth will transcribe as the best acknowledgment she can make for Mrs. Reed's and your kindness.

Ever faithfully and affectionately yours, WM. WORDSWORTH.[214]

[214] _Memoirs_, ii. 422-3.

146. _Bishop White: Mormonites, &c._

LETTER TO PROFESSOR REED.

February 3. 1846.

MY DEAR MR. REED,

I was much shocked to find that my last had been despatched without acknowledgment for your kindness in sending me the admirable engraving of Bishop White, which I was delighted, on many accounts, to receive.

This omission was owing to the distressed state of mind in which I wrote, and which I throw myself on your goodness to excuse. I ought to have written again by next post, but we really have been, and still are, in such trouble from various causes, that I could not take up the pen, and now must beg you to accept this statement as the only excuse which I can offer. We have had such accounts from my daughter-in-law at Rome, that her mother and brother are just gone thither to support her, her mother being seventy years of age.

Do you know anything of a wretched set of religionists in your country, _Superst.i.tionists_ I ought to say, called Mormonites, or latter-day saints? Would you believe it? a niece of Mrs. Wordsworth's has just embarked, we believe at Liverpool, with a set of the deluded followers of that wretch, in an attempt to join their society. Her name is ----, a young woman of good abilities and well educated, but early in life she took from her mother and her connections a methodistical turn, and has gone on in a course of what she supposes to be piety till she has come to this miserable close. If you should by chance hear anything about her, pray let us know.

The report of my brother's decease, which we look for every day, has not yet reached us. My nephew is still lingering on from day to day.

Ever faithfully and affectionately yours, WM. WORDSWORTH.

The print of Bishop White is n.o.ble, everything, indeed, that could be wished.[215]