"This fair bride In the devotedness of youthful love, Had from its mother caught the trick of grief, 15 On Devon's leafy shores;-a shelter'd hold, And sigh'd among its playthings!''2 Her Returning seasons only deepened this "Meantime her house by frost, and thaw, Was sapp'd; and while she slept, the nightly Did chill her breast; and in the stormy day here, my friend, * and 25 In a soft clime, encouraging the soil Whence, unmolested wanderers, we beheld His brightness, o'er a tract of sea and land In sickness she remain'd; and here she died! 30 We dropp'd at pleasure into sylvan combs; Last human tenant of these ruin 'd walls. ''3 The story of the old Chaplain, though a little less lowly, is of the same mournful cast, and almost equally destitute of incidents,- for Mr. Wordsworth delineates only feelings-and all his adventures are 35 of the heart. The narrative which is given by the sufferer himself is, in our opinion, the most spirited and interesting part of Where arbors of impenetrable shade, "That all the grove and all the day was ours. There, seven years of unmolested happiness were blessed with two lovely children. Our solitude. ''3 the poem. He begins thus, and addressing 40 "And on these pillars rested, as on air, himself, after a long pause, to his ancient countryman and friend, the Pedlar"You never saw, your eyes did never look On the bright form of her whom once I Her silver voice was heard upon the earth, Suddenly a contagious malady swept off both the infants. 45 Calm as a frozen lake when ruthless winds 50 And, so consum'd, she melted from my arms! And left me, on this earth, disconsolate."'1 The agony of mind into which the survivor was thrown is described with a powerful eloquence, as well as the doubts and distracting fears which the skeptical speculations of his careless days had raised in his spirit. There is something peculiarly grand and terrible to our feelings in the imagery of these three lines "By pain of heart, now check'd, and now impell'd, The intellectual power, through words and things, Went sounding on, a dim and perilous 15 way!"2 In sober conclave met, to weave a web 25 The vengeful Furies.1 Beautiful regards His disappointment, and ultimate seclusion in England, have been already sufficiently detailed. Besides those more extended passages of interest or beauty, which we have quoted, and omitted to quote, there are scattered up and down the book, and in the midst of its most repulsive portions, a very great number of single lines and images, that sparkle like gems in the desert, and startle us by an intimation of the great poetic powers that lie buried in the rubbish that has been heaped around them. It is difficult to pick up these, after we have once passed them by; but we shall endeavor to light upon one or two. The beneficial effect of intervals of relaxation and pastime on youthful minds is finely expressed, we think, in a single line, when it is said to be Like vernal ground to Sabbath sunshine left.s The following image of the bursting forth of a mountain spring seems to us also to be conceived with great elegance and beauty. Of amity, whose living threads should stretch 30 And a few steps may bring us to the spot, Beyond the seas, and to the farthest pole, Express'd the tumult of their minds, my voice song I left not uninvok 'd; and, in still groves, 85 Where haply crown'd with flow 'rets and green herbs, The mountain Infant to the Sun comes forth, The ameliorating effects of song and music -And when the stream Which overflow'd the soul was pass'd away, 40 A consciousness remained that it had left, Deposited upon the silent shore 45 On the disappearance of that bright vision, he was inclined to take part with the desperate party who still aimed at establishing universal regeneration, though by more questionable instruments than they had originally assumed. But the military despotism which ensued soon closed the scene against all such exertions; and, disgusted with men and Europe, he sought for 50 shelter in the wilds of America. In the calm of the voyage, Memory and Conscience awoke him to a sense of his misery. Feebly must they have felt Who, in old time, attir'd with snakes and 55 whips 1 Book 3, 669-79. Book 3, 699-701. Book 3, 734-58. Of memory, images and precious thoughts, That shall not die, and cannot be destroy 'd.5 Nor is anything more elegant than the representation of the graceful tranquillity occasionally put on by one of the author's favorites, who, though gay and airy, in general Was graceful, when it pleased him, smooth and still As the mute swan that floats adown the stream, Or on the waters of th' unruffled lake Anchors her placid beauty. Not a leaf 1 Eschylus and Euripides were the first poets to attire the Furies with snakes. See Eschylus's Choëphori, 1048-50; Euripides's Iphigenia in Taurica, 285-87, and Orestes, 256. 2 Book 3, 850-55. 3 Book 7, 781. Book 3, 32-35. Book 7, 25-30. 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 These examples, we perceive, are not very well chosen-but we have not leisure to improve the selection; and, such as they are, they may serve to give the reader a notion of the sort of merit which we meant to illustrate by their citation. When we look back to them, indeed, and to the other passages which we have now extracted, we feel half inclined to rescind the severe sentence which we passed on the work at the beginning; but when we look into the work itself, we perceive that it cannot be rescinded. Nobody can be more disposed to do justice to the great powers of Mr. Wordsworth than we are; and, from the first time that he came before us, down to the present moment, we have uniformly testified in their favor, and assigned indeed our high sense of their value as the chief ground of the bitterness with which we resented their perversion. That perversion, however, is now far more visible than their original dignity; and while we collect the fragments, it is impossible not to mourn over the ruins from which we are condemned to pick them. If any one should doubt of the existence of such a perversion, or be disposed to dispute about the instances we have hastily brought forward, we would just beg leave to refer him to the general plan and character of the poem now before us. Why should Mr. Wordsworth have made his hero a superannuated pedlar? What but the most wretched affectation, or provoking perversity of taste, could induce any one to place his chosen advocate of wisdom and virtue in so absurd and fantastic a condition? Did Mr. Wordsworth really imagine that his favorite doctrines were likely to gain anything in point of effect or authority by being put into the mouth of a person accustomed to higgle about tape or 55 brass sleeve-buttons? Or is it not plain that, independent of the ridicule and disgust which such a personification must ex2 Book 5, 378-81. 1 Book 6, 292-98. 40 45 50 cite in many of his readers, its adoption exposes his work throughout to the charge of revolting incongruity and utter disregard thus wilfully debased his moral teacher by of probability or nature? For, after he has a low occupation, is there one word that he puts into his mouth, or one sentiment of which he makes him the organ, that has the most remote reference to that occupation? Is there anything in his learned, abstract and logical harangues that savors of the calling that is ascribed to him? Are any of their materials such as a pedlar could possibly have dealt in? Are the manners, the diction, the sentiments in any, the smallest degree, accommodated to a person very in that condition? or are they not eminently and conspicuously such as could not by about selling flannel and pocket-handkerpossibility belong to it? A man who went chiefs in this lofty diction would soon frighten away all his customers; and would infallibly pass either for a madman or for in a frolic, had taken up a character which some learned and affected gentleman, who, he was peculiarly ill qualified for supporting. The absurdity in this case, we think, is palpable and glaring; but it is exactly of the same nature with that which infects the whole substance of the work, a puerile ambition of singularity engrafted on an unlucky predilection for truisms, and an affected passion for simplicity and humble life, most awkwardly combined with a taste for mystical refinements, and all the gorgeousness of obscure phraseology. His taste for simplicity is evinced by sprinkling up and down his interminable declamations a few descriptions of baby-houses, and of old hats with wet brims; and his amiable partiality for humble life, by assuring us that a wordy rhetorician, who talks about Thebes, and allegorizes all the heathen mythology, was once a pedlar-and making him break in upon his magnificent orations with two or three awkward notices of something that he had seen when selling winter raiment about the country-or of the changes in the state of society, which had almost annihilated his former calling. From WORDSWORTH'S THE WHITE DOE 1815 This, we think, has the merit of being the very worst poem we ever saw imprinted in a quarto volume; and though it was scarcely to be expected, we confess that Mr. Words 10 20 25 worth, with all his ambition, should so soon 1 delirium 35 40 50 misbecome Master Silence himself, in the close of a social day. Whether this unhappy result is to be ascribed to any adulteration of his Castalian cups, or to the unlucky choice of his company over them, we cannot presume to say. It may be that he has dashed his Hippocrene with too large an infusion of lake water, or assisted its operation too exclusively by the study of the ancient historical ballads of "the north countrie.'' That there are palpable imitations of the style and manner of those venerable compositions in the work before us is indeed undeniable; but it unfortunately happens that while the hobbling versification, the mean diction, and flat stupidity of these models are very exactly copied, and even improved upon, in this imitation, their rude energy, manly simplicity, and occasional felicity of expression have totally disappeared; and, instead of them, a large allowance of the author's own metaphysical sensibility and mystical wordiness is forced into an unnatural combination with the borrowed beauties which have just been mentioned. The story of the poem, though not capable of furnishing out matter for a quarto volume, might yet have made an interesting ballad, and, in the hands of Mr. Scott or Lord Byron, would probably have supplied many images to be loved, and descriptions to be remembered. The incidents arise out of the short-lived Catholic insurrection of the Northern counties, in the reign of Elizabeth, which was supposed to be connected with the project of marrying the Queen of the Scots to the Duke of Norfolk; and terminated in the ruin of the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, by whom it was chiefly abetted. Among the victims of this rash enterprise was Richard Norton of Rylstone, who comes to the array with a splendid banner, at the head of eight tall sons, but against the will and advice of a ninth, who, though he refused to join the host, yet follows unarmed in its rear, out of anxiety for the fate of his family; and, when the father and his gallant progeny are made prisoners, and led to execution at York, recovers the fatal banner, and is slain by a party of the Queen's horse hear Bolton Priory, in 1 That is, source of poetic inspiration. Castalla was a fountain on Mount Parnassus, sacred to Apollo and the Muses. Hippocrene was a similar fountain on Mount Helicon. 2 The scene of many of the old ballads of Eng land and Scotland is in "the north countric,' the traditional dwelling place of fairies, demons, giants, etc. which place he had been ordered to deposit it by the dying voice of his father. The stately halls and pleasant bowers of Rylstone are then wasted, and fall into desolation; while the heroic daughter, and only survivor of the house, is sheltered among its faithful retainers, and wanders about for many years in its neighborhood, accompanied by a beautiful white doe, which had formerly been a pet in the family; and 10 continues, long after the death of this sad survivor, to repair every Sunday to the churchyard of Bolton Priory, and there to feed and wander among the graves, to the wonder and delight of the rustic con- 15 gregation that came there to worship. This, we think, is a pretty subject for a ballad; and, in the author's better day, might have made a lyrical one of considerable interest. Let us see, however, how he 20 deals with it, since he has bethought him of publishing in quarto. The First Canto merely contains the description of the doe coming into the churchyard on Sunday, and of the congre- 25 gation wondering at her. She is described. as being as white as a lily-or the moonor a ship in the sunshine; and this is the style in which Mr. Wordsworth marvels and moralizes about her through ten quarto pages. 30 The Seventh and last Canto contains the history of the desolated Emily1 and her faithful doe; but so discreetly and cau- 35 tiously written, that we will engage that the most tender-hearted reader shall peruse it without the least risk of excessive emotion. The poor lady runs about indeed for some years in a very disconsolate way, in 40 a worsted gown and flannel nightcap; but at last the old white doe finds her out, and takes again to following her-whereupon Mr. Wordsworth breaks out into this fine and natural rapture: Oh, moment ever blest! O pair! What follows is not quite so intelligible. When Emily by morning light Went forth, the doe was there in sight. She shrunk:-with one frail shock of pain, Received and followed by a prayer, Did she behold-saw once again; Shun will she not, she feels, will bear;- It certainly is not easy to guess what was in the mind of the author when he penned these four last inconceivable lines; but we are willing to infer that the lady's loneliness was cheered by this mute associate; and that the doe, in return, found a certain comfort in the lady's companyCommunication, like the ray Of a new morning, to the nature In due time the poor lady dies, and is laid beside her mother; and the doe continues to haunt the places which they had frequented together, and especially to come and pasture every Sunday upon the fine grass in Bolton churchyard, the gate of which is never opened but on occasion of the weekly service.-In consequence of all which, we are assured by Mr. Wordsworth, that she is approved by earth and sky, in their benignity; '' and moreover, that the old Priory itself takes her for a daughter of the Eternal Prime-which we have no doubt is a very great compliment, though we have not the good luck to know what it means. And aye, methinks, this hoary pile, 45 From CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE, CANTO THE THIRD5 1816 1816 If the finest poetry be that which leaves the deepest impression on the minds of its readers-and this is not the worst test of its excellence-Lord Byron, we think, must 50 be allowed to take precedence of all his distinguished contemporaries. He has not the variety of Scott, nor the delicacy of Campbell, nor the absolute truth of Crabbe, nor the polished sparkling of Moore; but |
