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From The Fortnightly Review.

THE PROSE WORKS OF WORDSWORTH.* THE prose works of Wordsworth, now for the first time collected, and some of which are now first published, form a gift for which all who have ever truly listened to Wordsworth, and learned from him, will be grateful with no common gratitude. To some men now in middle life, the poetry of Wordsworth in its influence upon their early years has been somewhat like a lofty mountain,

though to us, who have ranged, it cannot continue quite the same, but seems now a little more abrupt and rigid in its outlines, and, it may be, seems a narrow tract of elevation in contrast with the broad bosom of common earth, the world of pasture-land and city and sea which we have traversed, and which we shall not henceforth forsake.

That three substantial volumes could be collected of Wordsworth's prose writings will be to some readers a surprise. The contents of the volumes are miscellaneous, An eminence, of these our hills but upon almost every page we find imThe last that parleys with the setting sun, pressed the unity of a common origin; which rose as chief presence and power all that is here, or nearly all, essentially near the home of their boyhood, which belongs to Wordsworth's mind. Now, a was the resort of their solitary walks, quarter of a century after the writer's which kindled their most ardent thoughts, death, these pieces have been brought towhich consecrated their highest resolves, gether, under the authority of the Wordswhich created moods of limitless aspira- worth family, by the indefatigable zeal tion, which strengthened and subdued, and care of Mr. Grosart. Students of from which came forth clear yet mysteri- our older English poetry owe a large debt ous echoes, against whose front the glories to the erudite enthusiasm of the editor of dawns that were sacred had been man- of the Fuller Worthies' Library. This ifested, and on whose edges stars, like service now rendered to a great poet of our kindling watchfires, had paused at night own century deserves a word of carnest for a moment in their course. Not less gratitude. The editor has done his work than this Wordsworth's poetry was to accurately, judiciously, and without obthem, as they can remember now. But truding himself between the reader and for such men the Wanderjahre, the years the author. Some of these intended of travel, needful and inevitable, came; "alms for oblivion," which he has recovthey went hither and thither; they took ered from the wallet on Time's back. make gifts from this one and from that; they richer in spiritual possessions the life of saw strange ways and strange faces of each of us, and of our century. men; they parted, it may be, too cheaply with old things that had been dear; they looked, or seemed to look, at truth askance and strangely. And now, if they are drawn back once more into the haunts of early years, they return not without dread and foreboding and tender remorse; to pass the barriers and re-enter the solitude seems as though it needed preparatory discipline and penance and absolution; having entered it, however, the consciousness of one's own personality and its altering states ceases; the fact which fills the mind is the permanence of that lofty, untroubled presence. "There it is," we say, "the same as ever," the same,

"The Prose Works of William Wordsworth." Edited with Preface, etc., by the Rev. A. B. Grosart. 3 vols. London: Edward Moxon, Son, & Co., 1875.

The contents, miscellaneous as they are, fall into certain principal groups: first, the political writings, which represent three periods in the growth of Wordsworth's mind, that of his ardent, youthful republicanism (represented by the "Apology for the French Revolution "), that of the patriotic enthusiasm of his manhood (represented by his pamphlet on the Convention of Cintra), and lastly, that of his uncourageous elder years.* Certain essays and letters upon education, together with a deep-thoughted letter of "Advice to the Young," reprinted from "The Friend," lie nearest to the political writings, having

"Years have deprived me of courage, in the sense the word bears when applied by Chaucer to the animation of birds in spring-time.". -"Prose Works," vol. iii. p. 317.

indirect bearings upon politics, but being | faculties takes place under new condiimmediately, and in the first instance, tions. The imagination, used as an inethical. The group entitled by the editor strument for the discovery of truth, will "Esthetical and Literary" comprises the pierce through the accidental circum"Letter to a Friend of Robert Burns," not- stances of the hour and the place in its able for its fine charity, and at the same effort to deliver from the incidents of time time strength of moral judgment, the "Es- the divine reality which they conceal; ocsays upon Epitaphs," admirable pieces of casional and local events will be looked on philosophical criticism (printed in part as of chief significance in reference to from hitherto unpublished manuscripts), what is abiding and universal; and the and the several essays and prefaces which poet's loyalty to certain ideals will probaccompanied the editions of Wordsworth's ably take the form of a strenuous confipoems. Hard by these is rightly placed dence in the future of nations or of manWordsworth's "Guide through the Dis- kind. Thus, if he essays to write a polittricts of the Lakes;" this, beside being a ical pamphlet, it is probable that the singularly perfect piece of topographical pamphlet will come forth a prophecy. No description, is of unique interest as ex- prose writer knows better than the poet hibiting Wordsworth's mind, in reference (writing, in Milton's expressive words, to external nature, at work not in the "with his left hand ") the limits to which imaginative, but in the analytic manner. he has subjected himself; yet he cannot The "Letters on the Kendal and Winder- quite subdue the desire to push back the mere Railway" belong to the same group limits, and assert the full privileges of his of writings. In the third volume the ed-nature. No poet, indeed, as far as I am itor has placed the notes to the poems, aware, has written in that hybrid species, collected from many editions, and the which is the form of ostentation dear to whole of the precious and delightful mem- the vulgarly ambitious, unimaginative oranda, having reference chiefly to the mind, and which calls itself prose-poetry. occasions on which Wordsworth's poems The poet who writes in prose has made a were conceived or written, dictated by the surrender, and is conscious of self-denial poet to Miss Fenwick, and known to and a loss of power; but, to compensate Wordsworth students as the I. F. MSS. this, some of the force and intensity which Letters and extracts of letters follow, comes through sacrifice for a sufficient and the volume closes with various cause may add itself to his mood and to personal reminiscences of Wordsworth, its outcome. There will be in such writamong which must be distinguished for ing a quiver as of wings that have often its deep sympathy with the character and winnowed the air; and mastering this, genius of the poet, and the interest of its there will be a poise, a steadfast advance, details, the notice contributed by a living and in the high places of contemplation or poet, kindred in spirit to Wordsworth, of joy a strong yet tranquil flight, a conMr. Aubrey de Vere. In the present ar- tinued equilibration of passion and of ticle it will be possible only to gather up thought. the suggestions which arise from one division of these various writings, the political division.

When a poet on great occasions, and with a powerful motive, expresses himself in prose, it may be anticipated that his work will possess certain precious and peculiar qualities. While working in this foreign material, he does not divest himself of his fineness of nerve, of his emotional ardour and susceptibility, nor can he disregard the sustenance through beauty of his imagination; but the play of his

Mr. Mill in a celebrated essay, with the object of illustrating by typical examples the true nature of poetry, contrasted the poetry of Wordsworth with that of Shelley. The latter was described as the offspring of a nature essentially poetical, vivid emotion uttering itself directly in song, while the former, Wordsworth's poetry, was set down as the resultant of culture, and of a deliberate effort of the will, its primary factor being a thought, around which, at the command of the writer, or according to a habit which he had acquired, were

In such access of mind, in such high hour
Of visitation from the living God
Thought was not, in enjoyment it expired.

grouped appropriate feelings and images. | of the man to be transformed and transAny one who has been deeply penetrated fused into silent rapture: by Wordsworth's poetry must perceive, in a way which leaves no room for vague statement, that while Mr. Mill received its influences up to a certain point, he yet remained outside the sphere of Words- And yet in such an hour thought rather worth's essential power; and perhaps no lay hidden in "the light of thought" than piece of criticism, seeming to outsiders to had ceased to be. The forces of Wordspossess so considerable a portion of truth, worth's nature, like the forces of the physcould be more entirely alien to the con- ical universe, were correlated by a marvelsciousness of those who have adequately lous law, according to which one could felt the power of Wordsworth's poetry pass and be transformed into another, than that of Mr. Mill. Each writer of what was at this moment a sensuous affechigh and peculiar genius, whose genius tion becoming forthwith a spiritual presnotwithstanding fails to be world-wide, or ence, what was now contemplation appearuniversal as the sun, may be said to exer- ing presently as passion, or what was now cise over his readers an election of grace a state of passive, brooding receptivity one is taken and another left; and transforming itself into the rapturous adthat a person who has been thus elected vance and controlling mastery of the imshould speak with decision about the mis-agination. "The excellence of writing, ter, implies no arrogance. As a man as- whether in prose or verse," Wordsworth serts confidently what has been clearly has said, "consists in the conjunction of shown by the report of the senses, so one reason and passion." And as this may be who has been admitted to the presence of noted as the excellence of Wordsworth's a writer of such high and peculiar genius own poetry, the conjunction being no reas Wordsworth, knows and declares that sult of an act of the will, or of mere habit, the fact is so, and not otherwise. There but vital, primitive, immediate, and neceswill be no dissent among those who have sary, so it must be set down as the first approached nearest to Wordsworth, when distinguishing quality of whatever is highit is said that a most essential character-est and noblest in these his writings in istic of Wordsworth's writing, when he wrote in his most characteristic manner, is The earliest in date of the more imporprecisely the reverse of what Mr. Mill tant pieces in the present collection is "An has stated it to be. In the poems of Apology for the French Revolution." It Wordsworth, which are the most distinctly is now printed for the first time, having Wordsworthian, there is an entire consen- been preserved in manuscript by the writer taneity of thought and feeling; no critical during nearly half a century. Bishop analysis can separate or distinguish the Watson, who had been a conspicuous Entwo, nor can we say with accuracy that glish sympathizer with the great moveeither has preceded and initiated the movement in France during its earlier stages, ment of the other; thought lives in feeling, deserted of a sudden the cause which to feeling lives in thought; in their dual Wordsworth at that time appeared the unity neither "is afore or after other," neither "is greater or less than another." If ever, indeed, there appears a tendency to severance of these two elements of Wordsworth's poetry (it being assumed that Wordsworth is writing at his best), this occurs in those occasional trances of thought and mountings of the mind, when all intellection and all operancy of will seem to be suspended, and the whole being

prose.

cause of freedom and of the human race. An appendix to a sermon of the bishop a sermon that bore an odious title -had signalized his change of faith by an attack upon the principles and the conduct of the Revolution. Wordsworth's pamphlet is a reply to this appendix. In dexterous use of his weapons the bishop is the more practised combatant; Wordsworth's style suffers in some degree from a sense of the