Read Ebook: Memoirs of William Wordsworth by Phillips George S George Searle

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The poet thus alludes to the cottages of the "Danes:"--

And, then, as a specimen of the out-door sports, and exercises of his youth, whilst dwelling with his good old dame, he says:

"And in the frosty season, when the sun Was set, and visible for many a mile The cottage windows blazed thro' twilight gloom, I heeded not their summons; happy time It was, indeed, for all of us--for me, It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud, The village clock struck six--I wheeled about, Proud and exulting, like an untired horse, That cares not for his home. All shod with steel We hissed along the polished ice in games Confederate, imitative of the chase, And woodland pleasures--the resounding horn, The pack loud chiming, and the hunted hare. So thro' the darkness and the cold we flew, And not a voice was idle; with the din Smitten, the precipices rang aloud; The leafless trees, and every icy crag, Tinkled like iron; while far distant hills Into the tumult sent an awful sound Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the west The orange sky of evening died away. Not seldom from the uproar I retired Into a silent bay, or sportively Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng To cut across the reflex of a star, That fled, and flying still before me, gleamed Upon the glassy plain; and oftentimes, When we had given our bodies to the wind, And all the shadowy banks on either side Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still The rapid line of motion, then at once Have I, reclining back upon my heels Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs Wheeled by me, even as if the earth had rolled, With visible motion, her diurnal round! Behind me did they stretch in solemn train, Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched, Till all was tranquil as a dreamless sleep."

And with this famous skating passage--the finest realization of the kind in poetry, I will conclude this outline of the poet's school-days and mental history.

CAMBRIDGE.

It was in October, 1787, that Wordsworth was sent to St. John's College, Cambridge, by his uncles, Richard Wordsworth, and Christopher Crackanthorpe, under whose care his three brothers and his sister were placed on the death of their father, in 1795. The orphans were at this time nearly, if not entirely, dependent upon their relatives, in consequence of the stubborn refusal of the wilful, if not mad, Sir James Lowther, to settle the claims of their father upon his estate.

The impressions which Wordsworth received of Cambridge, on his arrival, and during his subsequent residence in that university, are vividly pictured in the "Prelude." The "long-roofed chapel of King's College," lifting its "turrets and pinnacles in answering files," high above the dusky grove of trees which surrounded it, was the first object which met his eye, as he approached the town. Then came the students, "eager of air and exercise," taking their constitution walks; and the old Castle, built in the time of the Conqueror; and finally Magdalene bridge, and the glimpse of the Cam caught in passing over it, and the far-famed and much-loved Hoop Hotel.

"My spirit was up, my thoughts were full of hope; Some friends I had, acquaintances who there Seemed friends, poor simple school-boys, now hung round With honour and importance; in a world Of welcome faces up and down I roved; Questions, directions, warnings, and advice Flowed in upon me from all sides; fresh day Of pride and pleasure, to myself I seemed A man of business and expense, and went From shop to shop about my own affairs, To tutor or to tailor, as befel, From street to street, with loose and careless mind."

The University seemed like a dream to him:

"I was the dreamer, they the dream; I roamed Delighted thro' the motley spectacle; Gowns--grave or gaudy--doctors, students, streets, Courts, cloisters, flocks of churches, gateways, towers; Migration strange for stripling of the hills-- A northern villager."

And then he goes on to describe his personal appearance and habits; how suddenly he was changed amidst these scenes, as if by some fairy's wand; rich in monies, and attired--

"In splendid garb, with hose of silk, and hair Powdered, like rimy trees when frost is keen; My lordly dressing-gown, I pass it by, With other signs of manhood, that supplied The lack of beard.--The weeks went roundly on; With invitations, suppers, wine, and fruit; Smooth housekeeping within--and all without Liberal, and suiting gentlemen's array."

Leaving this subject of his attainments, however, and returning to his college life, it may farther be stated, as a proof of Wordsworth's love of good fellowship at this time, that during a visit to a friend who occupied the rooms which John Milton, the blind old Homer of the Commonwealth occupied, during his residence in Cambridge, he drank so copiously in his enthusiasm and reverence for the place, and its grand and golden memories, that he was fairly carried away on the other side of the rational barriers, and in short got gloriously drunk; not so drunk, however, that he could not attend the chapel service, and behave there with due decorum. Speaking of the great men who had trod the streets of Cambridge and worn an university gown before him, and of his great reverence for them, he has occasion to introduce Milton, and alludes to this excess at the close of the passage. I will quote it entire.

"Beside the pleasant mill of Trumpington, I laughed with Chaucer in the hawthorn shade; Heard him, while birds were warbling, tell his tales Of amorous passion. And that gentle bard, Chosen by the muses for their page of state!-- Sweet Spenser, moving through his clouded heaven With the moon's beauty, and the moon's soft pace, I called him brother, Englishman, and friend. Yea our blind poet, who in his later day, Stood almost single, uttering odious truth-- Darkness before, and danger's voice behind. Soul awful,--if the earth has ever lodged An awful soul--I seem'd to see him here Familiarly, and in his scholar's dress, Bounding before me, yet a stripling youth-- A boy, no better, with his rosy cheek Angelical, keen eye, courageous look, And conscious step of purity and pride. Among the band of my compeers was one Whom chance had stationed in the very room Honoured by Milton's name. O temperate bard! Be it confest, that for the first time, seated Within thy innocent lodge and oratory, One of a festive circle, I poured out Libations to thy memory, drank, till pride And gratitude grew dizzy in a brain Never excited by the fumes of wine Before that hour, or since. Then forth I ran From the assembly; through a length of streets Ran, ostrich like, to reach our chapel door In not a desperate or opprobrious time, Albeit long after the importunate bell Had stopped, with wearisome Cassandra voice No longer haunting the dark winter night. Call back, O friend! a moment to thy mind, The place itself, and fashion of the rites. With careless ostentation shouldering up My surplice, through the inferior throng I clove Of the plain Burghers, who, in audience stood On the last skirts of their permitted ground, Under the pealing organ. Empty thoughts! I am asham'd of them; and that great bard And thou, my friend! who in thy ample mind Hast placed me high above my best deserts, Ye will forgive the weakness of that hour, In some of its unworthy vanities, Brother to many more."

It is interesting to know all this--to be assured that although Wordsworth was in after life as temperate as Milton--drinking nothing but water, and requiring, indeed, no stimulants but that which healthy and robust exercise afforded--I say it is pleasant to be assured that once in his life our poet did really link himself with the imperfections of man, and by an excess of sympathy got drunk--or as De Quincy calls it, "boozy,"--to the honour and glory of Milton. It is a thing to be pardoned, and is almost the only anecdote of Wordsworth which possesses a really human interest.

The rooms which Wordsworth occupied at St. John's were so situated, that had he been a hard student instead of a gay gownsman, the circumstances which environed them might very materially have affected his studies; for immediately below him ran the great college kitchen, which was continually in an uproar of dissonance with the voices of cooks, and their preparations for the eating necessities of the college members. To atone, however, for this animal riot, the poet could look forth from his pillow by the light

"Of moon or favouring stars,"

and there behold through the majestic windows of Trinity Chapel, the pale statue

"Of Newton with his prism and silent face, The marble index of a mind for ever Voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone."

Wordsworth felt this, at the time, very keenly, and saw what a grist it afforded for the grinding ridicule of the scoffer and the atheist. Turning from these melancholy reflections, to the dear old times, when men of learning were really pious, and devoted to their scholarly functions, when

he conjures up a vision of scholastic life--a vision of the future--which however, he says, "fell to ruin round him," and was all in vain.

Notwithstanding the confusion of his outer circumstances, and the general aimless tenor of his life, Wordsworth did not entirely neglect his own culture--and in the silence of the academic groves, by the sweetly remembered Cam, or in his own rooms in the Gothic court of St. John's, he brooded over the problems of life, death, and immortality. The ghosts of the mighty dead haunted him likewise, as he walked through the familiar places, where they were wont to walk whilst dwelling in their earthly tenements, and roused him, at times, to commence anew the race of learning and distinction.

"I could not always pass Thro' the same gateways, sleep where they had slept, Wake where they waked, range that enclosure old, That garden of great intellects, undisturbed."

And yet, with the exception of "Lines written whilst sailing up the Cam," Wordsworth does not seem to have composed a line at Cambridge. He was learning, however, the first lessons of worldly wisdom all this time; was initiated into the ways of life, and the characters of men; and such discipline could not have been spared the poet, without loss to him. He does not regret, he says, any experience in his college life, and thinks the gowned youth who only misses what he missed, and fell no lower than he fell, is not a very hopeless character.

SUMMER HOLIDAYS.

At length the long vacation, which the good Alma Mater allows for the refreshment of the minds and bodies of her dear children, came to set Wordsworth at liberty; and, in the summer of 1788, he revisited his native scenes at Esthwaite. The old cramp of University life, with its dissipations, and frivolous pleasures, fell from him like an evil enchantment, the first moment when he beheld the bed of Windermere,

"Like a vast river stretching in the sun. With exultation at my feet I saw Lake, islands, promontories, gleaming bays, A universe of Nature's finest forms, Proudly revealed with instantaneous burst, Magnificent, and beautiful, and gay. I bounded down the hill, shouting amain For the old ferryman; to the shout the rocks Replied; and when the Charon of the flood Had stay'd his oars, and touched the jutting pier, I did not step into the well-known boat Without a cordial greeting."

There is something very delightful and refreshing in this burst of enthusiasm, and it shews clearly enough, which was the University Wordsworth loved best. At Cambridge he was a prisoner, with his dark heart yearning for the sunshine of his native hills; but here he was free, his heart no longer dark nor sad, but flooding with light and joy, and exulting in the delicious beauty of Nature.

And what strikes me as very touching and beautiful in the poet's relation of this visit to his birthplace, is the fact that he did not forget his old dame,--although certain critics have of late declared that he had no heart,--but that on the contrary he went straight to her cottage, and so closed his journey from Cambridge. Hear how he speaks of her and her reception of him:

"Glad welcome had I, with some tears, perhaps, From my old dame, so kind and motherly, While she perused me with a parent's pride. The thoughts of gratitude shall fall like dew Upon thy grave, good creature! While my heart Can beat, never will I forget thy name. Heaven's blessings be upon thee where thou liest After thy innocent and busy stir In narrow cares, thy little daily growth Of calm enjoyment, after eighty years, And more than eighty of untroubled life, Childless; yet, by the strangers to thy blood Honoured with little less than filial love."

Such is the affectionate tribute which Wordsworth pays to her memory. And if the reader be anxious to know all the small and large delights which the poet felt in renewing his acquaintance with the scenes of his childhood, I must refer him to the "Prelude." He will there read how the old dame led him--he "willing, nay, wishing to be led," through the village and its neighbourhood. How each face of the ancient neighbours was like a volume to him; how he hailed the labourers at their work "with half the length of a long field between," how he shook hands with his quondam schoolfellows; proud and yet ashamed of his fine Cambridge clothes, doing everything in the way of recognition, in short, which a kind generous, and loving heart could dictate. The brook in the garden, which had been imprisoned there until it had lost its voice--he hailed also, with the delight of many remembrances, and much present pleasure. And then how his heart overflows at the sight of his favourite dog--the rough terrier of the hills--an inmate of the dame's cottage by ancient right!--a brave fellow, that could hunt the badger, or unearth the fox--making no bones about either business. The poet slept, too, during this visit, in his old sleeping room;

"That lowly bed, where I had heard the wind Roar, and the rain beat hard, where I so oft Had lain awake on summer nights to watch The moon in splendour couched among the leaves Of a tall ash that near our cottage stood; Had watch'd her with fixed eyes, while to and fro In the dark summit of the waving tree She rock'd with every impulse of the breeze."

The poet then describes the refreshing influence which Nature spread, like a new element of life, over his spirit, and quotes even the time and place--viz., one evening at sunset, when taking his first walk, these long months, round the lake of Esthwaite, when his soul

"Put off her veil, and self-transmuted, stood Naked in the presence of her God;"

whilst a comfort seemed to "touch a heart that had not been disconsolate;" and "strength came where weakness was not known to be--at least not felt." Then he took the balance, and weighed himself:

"Conversed with promises, had glimmering views How life pervades the undecaying mind; How the immortal soul, with godlike power Informs, creates, and thaws the deepest sleep That time can lay upon her; how on earth Man, if he do but live within the light Of high endeavours, daily spreads abroad, His being armed with strength that cannot fail."

Here was evidence that the soul of the poet was settling down, if we may say so, to something like repose, preparatory to the grand aim and purpose of his life. He begins to see that idleness and pleasure will not last--will not serve any end in the world; and that man must be a worker, with high endeavours, if he is indeed to be or do anything worthy of a man.--And this light breaking in upon him, through the twilight of Nature and his own soul, is soothing, consolatory, and hopeful to him. He begins, likewise, to take a fresh interest in the daily occupations of the people around him; read the opinions and thoughts of these plain living people, "now observed with clearer knowledge;" and saw "with another eye" "the quiet woodman in the woods," and the shepherd roaming over the hills. His love for the grey-headed old dame returns to him again and again in these latter pages of the "Prelude," and he pictures her as a dear object in the landscape, as she goes to church,

And then her

It would be impossible to follow the poet in all those minute relations of incident and feeling which run throughout the "Prelude," during this first vacation amongst the hills.--One anecdote, however, must be told, for it is an inlet into the poet's nature, and shewed that he had a heart, and deep sympathies also for suffering and poverty, let the critics say what they will.

During the autumn, while Wordsworth was wandering amidst the hills round Windermere,--with no living thing in sight, and breathless silence over all,--he was suddenly startled by the appearance of an uncouth shape, in a turning of the road. At first he was a little timid, and perhaps alarmed, for it was close to him, and he knew not what to make of it. The dusky light of the evening increased the mystery, and Wordsworth retreated noiselessly under the shadow of a thick hawthorn, that he might watch it unobserved. It turned out to be a poor wanderer, of tall stature,

"A span above man's common measure, tall, Stiff, lank, and upright; a more meagre man Was never seen before, by day or night. Long were his arms, pallid his hands; his mouth Looked ghastly in the moonlight; from behind A mile-stone propped him up."

He wore a faded military garb, and was quite alone--

"Companionless, No dog attending, by no staff sustained, He stood, and in his very dress appeared A desolation, a simplicity, To which the trappings of a gaudy world Make a strange back-ground."

Presently, he began to mutter sounds as of pain, or birth-pangs of uneasy thought,--

"Yet still his form Kept the same awful steadiness; at his feet His shadow lay, and moved not."

Wordsworth now came from his hiding place, and hailed the poor, lone, desolate, old man, who rose, slowly, from his resting place,

"and with a lean and wasted arm, Returned the salutation; then resumed His station, as before."

The poet entered into conversation with him, and asked him to relate his history. It was the old tale--told with a quiet uncomplaining voice, a stately air of mild indifference. He had served in the Tropic islands, and on landing, three weeks ago, he had been dismissed the service. He was now journeying homeward, to lay his weary bones in the churchyard of his native village. Wordsworth was touched at the uncomplaining misery of the poor old man, and invited him to go with him. The veteran picked up his staff from the shadowy ground, and walked by the poet's side down into the valley, where a hospitable cottage was soon found, and the soldier bestowed for the night. On leaving him, Wordsworth

"entreated that, henceforth, He would not linger in the public ways, But ask for timely furtherance and help, Such as his state required."

And now, mark the touching reply of the friendless old man:

"With the same ghastly mildness in his look He said, "My trust is in the God of heaven, And in the eye of him who passes me."

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