The Prose Works of William Wordsworth Part 72

IX. MEMORIALS OF A SECOND TOUR IN SCOTLAND, 1814.

253. *_Suggested by a beautiful Ruin upon one of the islands of Loch Lomond: a place chosen for the retreat of a solitary individual, from whom this Habitation acquired the name of the Brownie's Cell_,[I.]

In this tour my wife and her sister Sara were my companions. The account of the Brownie's Cell, and the Brownies, was given me by a man we met with on the banks of Loch Lomond, a little above Tarbert, and in front of a huge ma.s.s of rock by the side of which, we were told, preachings were often held in the open air. The place is quite a solitude, and the surrounding scenery very striking. How much is it to be regretted that, instead of writing such poems as the 'Holy Fair,' and others in which the religious observances of his country are treated with so much levity, and too often with indecency, Burns had not employed his genius in describing religion under the serious and affecting aspects it must so frequently take.

254. *_Composed at Corra Linn, in sight of Wallace Tower_.[II.]

I had seen this celebrated waterfall twice before. But the feelings to which it had given birth were not expressed till they recurred in presence of the object on this occasion.

255. *_Effusion in the Pleasure-ground on the Banks of the Braw, near Dunkeld_.[III.]

I am not aware that this condemnatory effusion was ever seen by the owner of the place. He might be disposed to pay little attention to it; but, were it to prove otherwise, I should be glad, for the whole exhibition is distressingly puerile.

256. *_Yarrow Visited_.[IV.]

As mentioned in my verses on the death of the Ettrick Shepherd, my first visit to Yarrow was in his company. We had lodged the night before at Traquhair, where Hogg had joined us, and also Dr. Anderson, the editor of the British Poets, who was on a visit at the Manse. Dr. A. walked with us till we came in view of the vale of Yarrow, and being advanced in life he then turned back. The old man was pa.s.sionately fond of poetry, though with not much of a discriminating judgment, as the volumes he edited sufficiently shew. But I was much pleased to meet with him and to acknowledge my obligation to his Collection, which had been my brother John's companion in more than one voyage to India, and which he gave me before his departure from Grasmere never to return. Through these volumes I became first familiar with Chaucer; and so little money had I then to spare for books, that, in all probability, but for this same work, I should have known little of Drayton, Daniel, and other distinguished poets of the Elizabethan age and their immediate successors, till a much later period of my life. I am glad to record this, not for any importance of its own, but as a tribute of grat.i.tude to this simple-hearted old man, whom I never again had the pleasure of meeting. I seldom read or think of this poem without regretting that my dear sister was not of the party, as she would have had so much delight in recalling the time when, travelling together in Scotland, we declined going in search of this celebrated stream, not altogether, I will frankly confess, for the reasons a.s.signed in the poem on the occasion.

X. POEMS DEDICATED TO NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE AND LIBERTY.

[HEADED IN I.F. NOTES 'SONNETS DEDICATED TO LIBERTY.']

257. _Robert Jones_.

'Jones! as from Calais,' &c. [Sonnet III.]

(See No. 9, Dedication to Descriptive Sketches.)

This excellent Person, one of my earliest and dearest friends, died in the year 1835. We were under-graduates together of the same year, at the same college, and companions in many a delightful ramble through his own romantic country of North Wales. Much of the latter part of his life he pa.s.sed in comparative solitude; which I know was often cheered by remembrance of our youthful adventures, and of the beautiful regions which, at home and abroad, we had visited together. Our long friends.h.i.+p was never subject to a moment's interruption,--and, while revising these volumes for the last time, I have been so often reminded of my loss, with a not unpleasing sadness, that I trust the Reader will excuse this pa.s.sing mention of a Man who well deserves from me something more than so brief a notice. Let me only add, that during the middle part of his life he resided many years (as Inc.u.mbent of the Living) at a Parsonage in Oxfords.h.i.+re, which is the subject of the seventh of the 'Miscellaneous Sonnets,' Part III.

258. _I grieved for Buonaparte. [Sonnet_ IV.]

[Note No. 183 is repeated here.]

259. _The King of Sweden and Toussaint L'Ouverture_.

[Sonnets VII. and VIII.]

In this and a succeeding Sonnet on the same subject, let me be understood as a Poet availing himself of the situation which the King of Sweden occupied, and of the principles AVOWED IN HIS MANIFESTOS; as laying hold of these advantages for the purpose of embodying moral truths. This remark might, perhaps, as well have been suppressed; for to those who may be in sympathy with the course of these Poems, it will be superfluous; and will, I fear, be thrown away upon that other cla.s.s, whose besotted admiration of the intoxicated despot hereafter placed in contrast with him is the most melancholy evidence of degradation in British feeling and intellect which the times have furnished.

260. _September_ 1, 1802. [Sonnet IX.]

Among the capricious acts of tyranny that disgraced these times was the chasing of all negroes from France by decree of the Government; we had a fellow-pa.s.senger who was one of the expelled.

261. *'_Two Voices are there,' &c._ [Sonnet XII.]

This was composed while pacing to and fro between the Hall of Coleorton, then rebuilding, and the princ.i.p.al Farm-house of the Estate, in which we lived for nine or ten months. I will here mention that the Song on the Restoration of Lord Clifford, as well as that on the Feast of Brougham Castle as mentioned [in the place], were produced on the same ground.

262. *'_O Friend! I know not which Way_.' [Sonnet XIII.]

This was written immediately after my return from France to London, when I could not but be struck, as here described, with the vanity and parade of our own country, especially in great towns and cities, as contrasted with the quiet, and I may say the desolation, that the Revolution had produced in France. This must be borne in mind, or else the reader may think that in this and succeeding sonnets I have exaggerated the mischief engendered and fostered among us by undisturbed wealth.

[In pencil--Query: Sonnets relating to the expected Invasion, &c., p.

189, vol. iii. (1837) to p. 200; Ode, p. 201 to 203; Sonnets, part second, p. 204 to 215]. [After three blank pages.]

263. *_War in Spain_.

It would not be easy to conceive with what a depth of feeling I entered into the struggle carried on by the Spaniards for their deliverance from the usurped power of the French. Many times have I gone from Allan Bank, in Grasmere Vale, where we were then residing, to the top of the Raise-Gap, as it is called, so late as two o'clock in the morning, to meet the carrier bringing the newspaper from Keswick. Imperfect traces of the state of mind in which I then was may be found in my tract on the Convention of Cintra, as well as in these Sonnets.

264. *_Zaragossa_. [Sonnet XVI.]

In this sonnet I am under some obligations to one of an Italian author, to which I cannot refer.

265. *_Lines on the expected Invasion_, 1803. [Sonnet XXVI.]

To take their place among the political pieces.

266. _Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke_. [Sonnet XXVII.]

'Danger which they fear, and honour which they understand not.'

Words in Lord Brooke's Life of Sir Philip Sidney.

So in the 'Thanksgiving Ode' (vi. 10) on 'And discipline was pa.s.sion's dire excess' is quoted, 'Discipline the rule whereof is pa.s.sion.'

267. _The Oak of Guernica_. [Part II. Sonnet XXVI.]

The ancient oak of Guernica, says Laborde, in his account of Biscay, is a most venerable natural monument. Ferdinand and Isabella, in the year 1476, after hearing ma.s.s in the church of Santa Maria de la Antigua, repaired to this tree, under which they swore to the Biscayans to maintain their _fueros_ (privileges). What other interest belongs to it in the minds of the people will appear from the following 'Supposed Address to the Same.'