Take all in
kindness
then, as said
With a staid heart but playful head;
And fail not Thou, loved Rock!
With a staid heart but playful head;
And fail not Thou, loved Rock!
William Wordsworth
sails .
.
.
1819.
]
[Variant 50:
1836.
On . . . 1819. ]
[Variant 51:
1836.
He's in the height . . . 1819. ]
[Variant 52:
1836.
He wheel'd--. . . 1819. ]
[Variant 53:
1827.
And, rambling on . . . 1819. ]
[Variant 54:
1819.
Now hidden by the glittering steam: 1836.
The text of 1845 returns to that of 1819. ]
[Variant 55:
1845. The previous eight lines were added in 1836, when they read thus:
Say more: for by that power a vein
Seems opened of brow-saddening pain:
As if their hearts by notes were stung
From out the lowly hedge-rows flung;
As if the warbler lost in light
Reproved their soarings of the night;
In strains of rapture pure and holy
Upbraided their distempered folly. 1836. ]
[Variant 56:
1845.
They are drooping, weak, and dull; 1819.
Drooping are they, and weak and dull;--1836. ]
[Variant 57:
1836.
Knowing that there's cause . . . 1819.
Knowing there is cause . . . 1827. ]
[Variant 58:
1845.
They are labouring to avert
At least a portion of the blame 1819.
They now are labouring to avert
(Kind creatures! ) something of the blame, 1836. ]
[Variant 59:
1836.
Which full surely will alight
Upon his head, whom, in despite
Of all his faults, they love the best; 1819.
Upon _his_ head, . . . 1820. ]
[Variant 60:
1836.
Blends . . . 1819. ]
[Variant 61:
1845.
Never, surely, old Apollo,
He, or other God as old,
Of whom in story we are told,
Who had a favourite to follow
Through a battle or elsewhere,
Round the object of his care,
In a time of peril, threw
Veil of such celestial hue; 1819.
Never Venus or Apollo,
Pleased a favourite chief to follow
Through accidents of peace or war,
In a time of peril threw,
Round the object of his care,
Veil of such celestial hue; 1832.
Never golden-haired Apollo,
Nor blue-eyed Pallas, nor the Idalian Queen,
When each was pleased some favourite chief to follow
Through accidents of peace or war,
In a perilous moment threw
Around the object of celestial care
A veil so rich to mortal view. 1836.
Never Venus or Apollo,
Intent some favourite chief to follow
Through accidents of peace or war,
Round the object of their care
In a perilous moment threw
A veil of such celestial hue. C.
Round each object of their care C. ]
[Variant 62:
1819.
Fails to shield . . . 1836.
The text of 1845 returns to that of 1819. ]
[Variant 63:
1836.
Or . . . 1819. ]
[Variant 64:
1819.
If, as he cannot but forebode, 1836.
The text of 1845 returns to that of 1819. ]
[Variant 65:
1836.
Thou hast loitered . . . 1819. ]
[Variant 66:
1836.
His doubts--his fears . . . 1819. ]
[Variant 67:
1827. (Compressing two lines into one. )
Sometimes, as in the present case,
Will show a more familiar face; 1819.
Or, proud all rivalship to chase,
Will haunt me with familiar face; 1820. ]
[Variant 68:
1819.
Or, with milder grace . . . 1832.
The edition of 1845 reverts to the text of 1819. ]
[Variant 69:
1836.
. . . window . . . 1819. ]
[Variant 70: "Once" 'italicised' in 1820 only. ]
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT
[Footnote A: The title page of the edition of 1819 runs as follows: The
Waggoner, A Poem. To which are added, Sonnets. By William Wordsworth.
"What's in a NAME? "
. . .
"Brutus will start a Spirit as soon as Caesar! "
London, etc. etc. , 1819,--Ed. ]
[Footnote B: See 'The Seasons' (Summer), ll. 977-79. --Ed. ]
[Footnote C: Such is the progress of refinement, this rude piece of
self-taught art has been supplanted by a professional production. --W. W.
1819.
Mr. William Davies writes to me,
"I spent a week there (the Swan Inn) early in the fifties, and well
remember the sign over the door distinguishable from afar: the inn,
little more than a cottage (the only one), with clean well-sanded
floor, and rush-bottomed chairs: the landlady, good old soul, one day
afraid of burdening me with some old coppers, insisted on retaining
them till I should return from an uphill walk, when they were duly
tendered to me. Here I learnt many particulars of Hartley Coleridge,
dead shortly before, who had been a great favourite with the host and
hostess. The grave of Wordsworth was at that time barely grassed
over. "--Ed. ]
[Footnote D: See Wordsworth's note [Note I to this poem, below], p.
109. --Ed. ]
[Footnote E: A mountain of Grasmere, the broken summit of which presents
two figures, full as distinctly shaped as that of the famous cobler,
near Arracher, in Scotland. --W. W. 1819. ]
[Footnote F: A term well known in the North of England, as applied to
rural Festivals, where young persons meet in the evening for the purpose
of dancing. --W. W. 1819. ]
[Footnote G: At the close of each strathspey, or jig, a particular note
from the fiddle summons the Rustic to the agreeable duty of saluting his
Partner. --W. W. 1819. ]
[Footnote H: Compare in 'Tristram Shandy':
"And this, said he, is the town of Namur, and this is the citadel: and
there lay the French, and here lay his honour and myself. "--Ed. ]
[Footnote J: See Wordsworth's note [Note III to this poem, below], p.
109. --Ed. ]
[Footnote K: The crag of the ewe lamb. --W. W. 1820. ]
[Footnote L: Compare Tennyson's "Farewell, we lose ourselves in
light. "--Ed. ]
[Footnote M: Compare Wordsworth's lines, beginning, "She was a Phantom
of delight," p. i, and Hamlet, act II. sc. ii. l. 124. --Ed. ]
* * * * *
SUB-FOOTNOTE ON THE TEXT
[Sub-Footnote a: See Wordsworth's note [Note II to the poem, below], p.
109. --Ed. ]
* * * * *
NOTES ON THE TEXT
(Added in the edition of 1836)
I
Several years after the event that forms the subject of the foregoing
poem, in company with my friend, the late Mr. Coleridge, I happened to
fall in with the person to whom the name of Benjamin is given. Upon our
expressing regret that we had not, for a long time, seen upon the road
either him or his waggon, he said:--"They could not do without me; and
as to the man who was put in my place, no good could come out of him; he
was a man of no _ideas_. "
The fact of my discarded hero's getting the horses out of a great
difficulty with a word, as related in the poem, was told me by an
eye-witness.
II
'The Dor-hawk, solitary bird. '
When the Poem was first written the note of the bird was thus described:
'The Night-hawk is singing his frog-like tune,
Twirling his watchman's rattle about--'
but from unwillingness to startle the reader at the outset by so bold a
mode of expression, the passage was altered as it now stands.
III
After the line, 'Can any mortal clog come to her', followed in the MS.
an incident which has been kept back. Part of the suppressed verses
shall here be given as a gratification of private feeling, which the
well-disposed reader will find no difficulty in excusing. They are now
printed for the first time.
Can any mortal clog come to her?
It can: . . .
. . .
But Benjamin, in his vexation,
Possesses inward consolation;
He knows his ground, and hopes to find
A spot with all things to his mind,
An upright mural block of stone,
Moist with pure water trickling down.
A slender spring; but kind to man
It is, a true Samaritan;
Close to the highway, pouring out
Its offering from a chink or spout;
Whence all, howe'er athirst, or drooping
With toil, may drink, and without stooping.
Cries Benjamin, "Where is it, where?
Voice it hath none, but must be near. "
--A star, declining towards the west,
Upon the watery surface threw
Its image tremulously imprest,
That just marked out the object and withdrew:
Right welcome service! . . .
. . .
ROCK OF NAMES!
Light is the strain, but not unjust
To Thee and thy memorial-trust,
That once seemed only to express
Love that was love in idleness;
Tokens, as year hath followed year,
How changed, alas, in character!
For they were graven on thy smooth breast
By hands of those my soul loved best;
Meek women, men as true and brave
As ever went to a hopeful grave:
Their hands and mine, when side by side
With kindred zeal and mutual pride,
We worked until the Initials took
Shapes that defied a scornful look. --
Long as for us a genial feeling
Survives, or one in need of healing,
The power, dear Rock, around thee cast,
Thy monumental power, shall last
For me and mine! O thought of pain,
That would impair it or profane!
Take all in kindness then, as said
With a staid heart but playful head;
And fail not Thou, loved Rock! to keep
Thy charge when we are laid asleep.
W. W.
There is no poem more closely identified with the Grasmere district of
the English Lakes--and with the road from Grasmere to Keswick--than 'The
Waggoner' is, and in none are the topographical allusions more minute
and faithful.
Wordsworth seemed at a loss to know in what "class" of his poems to
place 'The Waggoner;' and his frequent changes--removing it from one
group to another--shew the artificial character of these classes. Thus,
in the edition of 1820, it stood first among the "Poems of the Fancy. "
In 1827 it was the last of the "Poems founded on the Affections. " In
1832 it was reinstated among the "Poems of the Fancy. " In 1836 it had a
place of its own, and was inserted between the "Poems of the Fancy" and
those "Founded on the Affections;" while in 1845 it was sent back to its
original place among the "Poems of the Fancy;" although in the table of
contents it was printed as an independent poem, closing the series.
The original text of 'The Waggoner' underwent little change, till the
year 1836, when it was carefully revised, and altered throughout. The
final edition of 1845, however, reverted, in many instances--especially
in the first canto--to the original text of 1819.
As this poem was dedicated to Charles Lamb, it may be of interest to
note that, some six months afterwards, Lamb presented Wordsworth with a
copy of the first edition of 'Paradise Regained' (the edition of 1671),
writing on it the following sentence,
"Charles Lamb, to the best knower of Milton, and therefore the
worthiest occupant of this pleasant edition. --Jan. 2nd, 1820. "
The opening stanzas are unrivalled in their description of a sultry June
evening, with a thunder-storm imminent.
' 'Tis spent--this burning day of June!
Soft darkness o'er its latest gleams is stealing;
The buzzing dor-hawk, round and round, is wheeling,--
That solitary bird
Is all that can be heard
In silence deeper far than that of deepest noon!
. . .
. . .
The mountains against heaven's grave weight
Rise up, and grow to wondrous height.
The air, as in a lion's den,
Is close and hot;--and now and then
Comes a tired and sultry breeze
With a haunting and a panting,
Like the stifling of disease;
But the dews allay the heat,
And the silence makes it sweet. '
The Waggoner takes what is now the middle road, of the three leading
from Rydal to Grasmere (see the note to 'The Primrose of the Rock'). The
"craggy hill" referred to in the lines
'Now he leaves the lower ground,
And up the craggy hill ascending
. . .
Steep the way and wearisome,'
is the road from Rydal Quarry up to White Moss Common, with the Glowworm
rock on the right, and the "two heath-clad rocks," referred to in the
last of the "Poems on the Naming of Places," on the left. He next passes
"The Wishing Gate" on the left, John's Grove on the right, and descends
by Dove Cottage--where Wordsworth lived--to Grasmere.
'. . . at the bottom of the brow,
Where once the DOVE and OLIVE-BOUGH
Offered a greeting of good ale
To all who entered Grasmere Vale;
And called on him who must depart
To leave it with a jovial heart;
There, where the DOVE and OLIVE-BOUGH
Once hung, a Poet harbours now,
A simple water-drinking Bard. '
He goes through Grasmere, passes the Swan Inn,
'He knows it to his cost, good Man!
Who does not know the famous SWAN?
Object uncouth! and yet our boast,
For it was painted by the Host;
His own conceit the figure planned,
'Twas coloured all by his own hand. '
As early as 1819, when the poem was first published, "this rude piece of
self-taught art had been supplanted" by a more pretentious figure. The
Waggoner passes the Swan,
'And now the conqueror essays
The long ascent of Dunmail-raise. '
As he proceeds, the storm gathers, and "struggles to get free. " Road,
hill, and sky are dark; and he barely sees the well-known rocks at the
summit of Helm-crag, where two figures seem to sit, like those on the
Cobbler, near Arrochar, in Argyle.
'Black is the sky--and every hill,
Up to the sky, is blacker still--
Sky, hill, and dale, one dismal room,
Hung round and overhung with gloom;
Save that above a single height
Is to be seen a lurid light,
Above Helm-crag--a streak half dead,
A burning of portentous red;
And near that lurid light, full well
The ASTROLOGER, sage Sidrophel,
Where at his desk and book he sits,
Puzzling aloft his curious wits;
He whose domain is held in common
With no one but the ANCIENT WOMAN,
Cowering beside her rifted cell,
As if intent on magic spell;--
Dread pair, that, spite of wind and weather,
Still sit upon Helm-crag together! '
At the top of the "raise"--the water-shed between the vales of Grasmere
and Wytheburn--he reaches the familiar pile of stones, at the boundary
between the shires of Westmoreland and Cumberland.
'. . . that pile of stones,
Heaped over brave King Dunmail's bones;
. . .
Green is the grass for beast to graze,
Around the stones of Dunmail-raise! '
The allusion to Seat-Sandal laid bare by the flash of lightning, and the
description, in the last canto, of the ascent of the Raise by the
Waggoner on a summer morning, are as true to the spirit of the place as
anything that Wordsworth has written. He tells his friend Lamb, fourteen
years after he wrote the poem of 'The Waggoner,'
'Yes, I, and all about me here,
Through all the changes of the year,
Had seen him through the mountains go,
In pomp of mist or pomp of snow,
Majestically huge and slow:
Or, with a milder grace adorning
The landscape of a summer's morning;
While Grasmere smoothed her liquid plain
The moving image to detain;
And mighty Fairfield, with a chime
Of echoes, to his march kept time;
When little other business stirred,
And little other sound was heard;
In that delicious hour of balm,
Stillness, solitude, and calm,
While yet the valley is arrayed,
On this side with a sober shade;
On that is prodigally bright--
Crag, lawn, and wood--with rosy light. '
From Dunmail-raise the Waggoner descends to Wytheburn. Externally,
'. . . Wytheburn's modest House of prayer,
As lowly as the lowliest dwelling,'
remains very much as it was in 1805; but the primitive simplicity and
"lowliness" of the chapel was changed by the addition a few years ago of
an apse, by the removal of some of the old rafters, and by the reseating
of the pews.
The Cherry Tree Tavern, where "the village Merry-night" was being
celebrated, still stands on the eastern or Helvellyn side of the road.
It is now a farm-house; but it will be regarded with interest from the
description of the rustic dance, which recalls ('longo intervallo') 'The
Jolly Beggars' of Burns. After two hours' delay at the Cherry Tree, the
Waggoner and Sailor "coast the silent lake" of Thirlmere, and pass the
Rock of Names.
This rock was, until lately, one of the most interesting memorials of
Wordsworth and his friends that survived in the Lake District; but the
vale of Thirlmere is now a Manchester water-tank, and the place which
knew the Rock of Names now knows it no more. It was a sort of trysting
place of the poets of Grasmere and Keswick--being nearly half-way
between the two places--and there, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and other
members of their households often met. When Coleridge left Grasmere for
Keswick, the Wordsworths usually accompanied him as far as this rock;
and they often met him there on his way over from Keswick to Grasmere.
Compare the Hon. Mr. Justice Coleridge's Reminiscences. ('Memoirs of
Wordsworth,' vol. ii. p. 310. )
The rock was on the right hand of the road, a little way past Waterhead,
at the southern end of Thirlmere; and on it were cut the letters,
W. W.
M. H.
D. W.
S. T. C.
J. W.
S. H.
the initials of William Wordsworth, Mary Hutchinson, Dorothy Wordsworth,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Wordsworth, and Sarah Hutchinson. The
Wordsworths settled at Grasmere at the close of the year 1799. As
mentioned in a previous note, John Wordsworth lived with his brother and
sister during most of that winter, and during the whole of the spring,
summer, and autumn of 1800, leaving it finally on September 29, 1800.
These names must therefore have been cut during the spring or summer of
1800. There is no record of the occurrence, and no allusion to the rock,
in Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal of 1800. But that Journal, so
far as I have seen it, begins on the 14th of May 1800. Almost every
detail of the daily life and ways of the household at Dove Cottage is so
minutely recorded in it, that I am convinced that this incident of the
cutting of names in the Thirlmere Rock would have been mentioned, had it
happened between the 14th of May and John Wordsworth's departure from
Grasmere in September. Such references as this, for example, occur in
the Journal:
"Saturday, August 2. --William and Coleridge went to Keswick. John went
with them to Wytheburn, and staid all day fishing. "
I therefore infer that it was in the spring or early summer of 1800 that
the names were cut.
I may add that the late Dean of Westminster--Dean Stanley--took much
interest in this Rock of Names; and doubt having been cast on the
accuracy of the place and the genuineness of the inscriptions, in a
letter from Dr. Fraser, then Bishop of Manchester, which he forwarded to
me, he entered into the question with all the interest with which he was
wont to track out details in the architecture or the history of a
Church.
There were few memorials connected with Wordsworth more worthy of
preservation than this "upright mural block of stone. " When one
remembered that the initials on the rock were graven by the hands of
William and John Wordsworth, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, possibly with
the assistance of Dorothy Wordsworth, the two Hutchinsons (Mary and
Sarah), and that Wordsworth says of it,
'We worked until the Initials took
Shapes that defied a scornful look,'
this Thirlmere Rock was felt to be a far more interesting memento of the
group of poets that used to meet beside it, than the Stone in the
grounds of Rydal Mount, which was spared at Wordsworth's suit, "from
some rude beauty of its own. " There was simplicity, as well as strength,
in the way in which the initials were cut. But the stone was afterwards
desecrated by tourists, and others, who had the audacity to scratch
their own names or initials upon it. In 1877 I wrote, "The rock is as
yet wonderfully free from such; and its preservation is probably due to
the dark olive-coloured moss, with which the 'pure water trickling down'
has covered the face of the 'mural block,' and thus secured it from
observation, even on that highway;" but I found in the summer of 1882
that several other names had been ruthlessly added. When the Manchester
Thirlmere scheme was finally resolved upon, an effort was made to remove
the Stone, with the view of its being placed higher up the hill on the
side of the new roadway. In the course of this attempt, the Stone was
broken to pieces.
There is a very good drawing of "The Rock of Names" by Mr. Harry
Goodwin, in 'Through the Wordsworth Country, 1892'.
"The Muse" takes farewell of the Waggoner as he is proceeding with the
Sailor and his quaint model of the 'Vanguard' along the road toward
Keswick. She "scents the morning air," and
'Quits the slow-paced waggon's side,
To wander down yon hawthorn dell,
With murmuring Greta for her guide. '
The "hawthorn dell" is the upper part of the Vale of St. John.
'--There doth she ken the awful form
Of Raven-crag--black as a storm--
Glimmering through the twilight pale;
And Ghimmer-crag, his tall twin brother,
Each peering forth to meet the other. '
Raven-crag is well known,--H. C. Robinson writes of it in his 'Diary' in
1818, as "the most significant of the crags at a spot where there is not
one insignificant,"--a rock on the western side of Thirlmere, where the
Greta issues from the lake. But there is no rock in the district now
called by the name of Ghimmer-crag, or the crag of the Ewe-lamb. I am
inclined to think that Wordsworth referred to the "Fisher-crag" of the
Ordnance Survey and the Guide Books. No other rock round Thirlmere can
with any accuracy be called the "tall twin brother" of Raven-crag:
certainly not Great How, nor any spur of High Seat or Bleaberry Fell.
Fisher-crag resembles Raven-crag, as seen from Thirlmere Bridge, or from
the high road above it; and it is somewhat remarkable that Green--in his
Guide to the Lakes (a volume which the poet possessed)--makes use of the
same expression as that which Wordsworth adopts regarding these two
crags, Raven and Fisher.
"The margin of the lake on the Dalehead side has its charms of wood
and water; and Fischer Crag, twin brother to Raven Crag, is no bad
object, when taken near the island called Buck's Holm"
('A Description of Sixty Studies from Nature', by William Green of
Ambleside, 1810, p. 57). I cannot find any topographical allusion to a
Ghimmer-crag in contemporary local writers. Clarke, in his 'Survey of
the Lakes', does not mention it.
The Castle Rock, in the Vale of Legberthwaite, between High Fell and
Great How, is the fairy castle of Sir Walter Scott's 'Bridal of
Triermain'. "Nathdale Fell" is the ridge between Naddle Vale (Nathdale
Vale) and that of St. John, now known as High Rigg. The old Hall of
Threlkeld has long been in a state of ruinous dilapidation, the only
habitable part of it having been for many years converted into a
farmhouse. The remaining local allusions in 'The Waggoner' are obvious
enough: Castrigg is the shortened form of Castlerigg, the ridge between
Naddle Valley and Keswick.
In the "Reminiscences" of Wordsworth, which the Hon. Mr. Justice
Coleridge wrote for the late Bishop of Lincoln, in 1850, there is the
following reference to 'The Waggoner'. (See 'Memoirs', vol. ii. p. 310. )
"'The Waggoner' seems a very favourite poem of his. He said his object
in it had not been understood. It was a play of the fancy on a
domestic incident, and lowly character. He wished by the opening
descriptive lines to put his reader into the state of mind in which he
wished it to be read. If he failed in doing that, he wished him to lay
it down. He pointed out with the same view, the glowing lines on the
state of exultation in which Ben and his companions are under the
influence of liquor. Then he read the sickening languor of the morning
walk, contrasted with the glorious uprising of Nature, and the songs
of the birds. Here he has added about six most exquisite lines. "
The lines referred to are doubtless the eight (p. 101), beginning
'Say more; for by that power a vein,'
which were added in the edition of 1836.
The following is Sara Coleridge's criticism of 'The Waggoner'. (See
'Biographia Literaria', vol. ii. pp. 183, 184, edition 1847. )
"Due honour is done to 'Peter Bell', at this time, by students of
poetry in general; but some, even of Mr. Wordsworth's greatest
admirers, do not quite satisfy me in their admiration of 'The
Waggoner', a poem which my dear uncle, Mr. Southey, preferred even to
the former. 'Ich will meine Denkungs Art hierin niemandem aufdringen',
as Lessing says: I will force my way of thinking on nobody, but take
the liberty, for my own gratification, to express it. The sketches of
hill and valley in this poem have a lightness, and spirit--an Allegro
touch--distinguishing them from the grave and elevated splendour which
characterises Mr. Wordsworth's representations of Nature in general,
and from the passive tenderness of those in 'The White Doe', while it
harmonises well with the human interest of the piece; indeed it is the
harmonious sweetness of the composition which is most dwelt upon by
its special admirers. In its course it describes, with bold brief
touches, the striking mountain tract from Grasmere to Keswick; it
commences with an evening storm among the mountains, presents a lively
interior of a country inn during midnight, and concludes after
bringing us in sight of St. John's Vale and the Vale of Keswick seen
by day-break--'Skiddaw touched with rosy light,' and the prospect from
Nathdale Fell 'hoar with the frost-like dews of dawn:' thus giving a
beautiful and well-contrasted Panorama, produced by the most delicate
and masterly strokes of the pencil. Well may Mr. Ruskin, a fine
observer and eloquent describer of various classes of natural
appearances, speak of Mr. Wordsworth as the great poetic landscape
painter of the age. But Mr. Ruskin has found how seldom the great
landscape painters are powerful in expressing human passions and
affections on canvas, or even successful in the introduction of human
figures into their foregrounds; whereas in the poetic paintings of Mr.
Wordsworth the landscape is always subordinate to a higher interest;
certainly, in 'The Waggoner', the little sketch of human nature which
occupies, as it were, the front of that encircling background, the
picture of Benjamin and his temptations, his humble friends and the
mute companions of his way, has a character of its own, combining with
sportiveness a homely pathos, which must ever be delightful to some of
those who are thoroughly conversant with the spirit of Mr.
Wordsworth's poetry. It may be compared with the ale-house scene in
'Tam o'Shanter', parts of Voss's Luise, or Ovid's Baucis and Philemon;
though it differs from each of them as much as they differ from each
other. The Epilogue carries on the feeling of the piece very
beautifully. "
The editor of Southey's 'Life and Correspondence'--his son, the Rev.
Charles Cuthbert Southey--tells us, in a note to a letter from S. T.
Coleridge to his father, that the Waggoner's name was Jackson; and that
"all the circumstances of the poem are accurately correct. " This
Jackson, after retiring from active work as waggoner, became the tenant
of Greta Hall, where first Coleridge, and afterwards Southey lived. The
Hall was divided into two houses, one of which Jackson occupied, and the
other of which he let to Coleridge, who speaks thus of him in the letter
to Southey, dated Greta Hall, Keswick, April 13, 1801:
"My landlord, who dwells next door, has a very respectable library,
which he has put with mine; histories, encyclopedias, and all the
modern poetry, etc. etc. etc. A more truly disinterested man I never
met with; severely frugal, yet almost carelessly generous; and yet he
got all his money as a common carrier, by hard labour, and by pennies
and pennies. He is one instance among many in this country of the
salutary effect of the love of knowledge--he was from a boy a lover of
learning. "
(See 'Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey,' vol. ii. pp. 147,
148. )
Charles Lamb--to whom 'The Waggoner' was dedicated--wrote thus to
Wordsworth on 7th June 1819:
"My dear Wordsworth,--You cannot imagine how proud we are here of the
dedication. We read it twice for once that we do the poem. I mean all
through; yet 'Benjamin' is no common favourite; there is a spirit of
beautiful tolerance in it. It is as good as it was in 1806; and it
will be as good in 1829, if our dim eyes shall be awake to peruse it.
Methinks there is a kind of shadowing affinity between the subject of
the narrative and the subject of the dedication.
. . .
"I do not know which I like best,--the prologue (the latter part
especially) to 'P. Bell,' or the epilogue to 'Benjamin. ' Yes, I tell
stories; I do know I like the last best; and the 'Waggoner' altogether
is a pleasanter remembrance to me than the 'Itinerant. '
. . .
"C. LAMB. "
(See 'The Letters of Charles Lamb,' edited by Alfred Ainger, vol. ii.
pp.
[Variant 50:
1836.
On . . . 1819. ]
[Variant 51:
1836.
He's in the height . . . 1819. ]
[Variant 52:
1836.
He wheel'd--. . . 1819. ]
[Variant 53:
1827.
And, rambling on . . . 1819. ]
[Variant 54:
1819.
Now hidden by the glittering steam: 1836.
The text of 1845 returns to that of 1819. ]
[Variant 55:
1845. The previous eight lines were added in 1836, when they read thus:
Say more: for by that power a vein
Seems opened of brow-saddening pain:
As if their hearts by notes were stung
From out the lowly hedge-rows flung;
As if the warbler lost in light
Reproved their soarings of the night;
In strains of rapture pure and holy
Upbraided their distempered folly. 1836. ]
[Variant 56:
1845.
They are drooping, weak, and dull; 1819.
Drooping are they, and weak and dull;--1836. ]
[Variant 57:
1836.
Knowing that there's cause . . . 1819.
Knowing there is cause . . . 1827. ]
[Variant 58:
1845.
They are labouring to avert
At least a portion of the blame 1819.
They now are labouring to avert
(Kind creatures! ) something of the blame, 1836. ]
[Variant 59:
1836.
Which full surely will alight
Upon his head, whom, in despite
Of all his faults, they love the best; 1819.
Upon _his_ head, . . . 1820. ]
[Variant 60:
1836.
Blends . . . 1819. ]
[Variant 61:
1845.
Never, surely, old Apollo,
He, or other God as old,
Of whom in story we are told,
Who had a favourite to follow
Through a battle or elsewhere,
Round the object of his care,
In a time of peril, threw
Veil of such celestial hue; 1819.
Never Venus or Apollo,
Pleased a favourite chief to follow
Through accidents of peace or war,
In a time of peril threw,
Round the object of his care,
Veil of such celestial hue; 1832.
Never golden-haired Apollo,
Nor blue-eyed Pallas, nor the Idalian Queen,
When each was pleased some favourite chief to follow
Through accidents of peace or war,
In a perilous moment threw
Around the object of celestial care
A veil so rich to mortal view. 1836.
Never Venus or Apollo,
Intent some favourite chief to follow
Through accidents of peace or war,
Round the object of their care
In a perilous moment threw
A veil of such celestial hue. C.
Round each object of their care C. ]
[Variant 62:
1819.
Fails to shield . . . 1836.
The text of 1845 returns to that of 1819. ]
[Variant 63:
1836.
Or . . . 1819. ]
[Variant 64:
1819.
If, as he cannot but forebode, 1836.
The text of 1845 returns to that of 1819. ]
[Variant 65:
1836.
Thou hast loitered . . . 1819. ]
[Variant 66:
1836.
His doubts--his fears . . . 1819. ]
[Variant 67:
1827. (Compressing two lines into one. )
Sometimes, as in the present case,
Will show a more familiar face; 1819.
Or, proud all rivalship to chase,
Will haunt me with familiar face; 1820. ]
[Variant 68:
1819.
Or, with milder grace . . . 1832.
The edition of 1845 reverts to the text of 1819. ]
[Variant 69:
1836.
. . . window . . . 1819. ]
[Variant 70: "Once" 'italicised' in 1820 only. ]
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT
[Footnote A: The title page of the edition of 1819 runs as follows: The
Waggoner, A Poem. To which are added, Sonnets. By William Wordsworth.
"What's in a NAME? "
. . .
"Brutus will start a Spirit as soon as Caesar! "
London, etc. etc. , 1819,--Ed. ]
[Footnote B: See 'The Seasons' (Summer), ll. 977-79. --Ed. ]
[Footnote C: Such is the progress of refinement, this rude piece of
self-taught art has been supplanted by a professional production. --W. W.
1819.
Mr. William Davies writes to me,
"I spent a week there (the Swan Inn) early in the fifties, and well
remember the sign over the door distinguishable from afar: the inn,
little more than a cottage (the only one), with clean well-sanded
floor, and rush-bottomed chairs: the landlady, good old soul, one day
afraid of burdening me with some old coppers, insisted on retaining
them till I should return from an uphill walk, when they were duly
tendered to me. Here I learnt many particulars of Hartley Coleridge,
dead shortly before, who had been a great favourite with the host and
hostess. The grave of Wordsworth was at that time barely grassed
over. "--Ed. ]
[Footnote D: See Wordsworth's note [Note I to this poem, below], p.
109. --Ed. ]
[Footnote E: A mountain of Grasmere, the broken summit of which presents
two figures, full as distinctly shaped as that of the famous cobler,
near Arracher, in Scotland. --W. W. 1819. ]
[Footnote F: A term well known in the North of England, as applied to
rural Festivals, where young persons meet in the evening for the purpose
of dancing. --W. W. 1819. ]
[Footnote G: At the close of each strathspey, or jig, a particular note
from the fiddle summons the Rustic to the agreeable duty of saluting his
Partner. --W. W. 1819. ]
[Footnote H: Compare in 'Tristram Shandy':
"And this, said he, is the town of Namur, and this is the citadel: and
there lay the French, and here lay his honour and myself. "--Ed. ]
[Footnote J: See Wordsworth's note [Note III to this poem, below], p.
109. --Ed. ]
[Footnote K: The crag of the ewe lamb. --W. W. 1820. ]
[Footnote L: Compare Tennyson's "Farewell, we lose ourselves in
light. "--Ed. ]
[Footnote M: Compare Wordsworth's lines, beginning, "She was a Phantom
of delight," p. i, and Hamlet, act II. sc. ii. l. 124. --Ed. ]
* * * * *
SUB-FOOTNOTE ON THE TEXT
[Sub-Footnote a: See Wordsworth's note [Note II to the poem, below], p.
109. --Ed. ]
* * * * *
NOTES ON THE TEXT
(Added in the edition of 1836)
I
Several years after the event that forms the subject of the foregoing
poem, in company with my friend, the late Mr. Coleridge, I happened to
fall in with the person to whom the name of Benjamin is given. Upon our
expressing regret that we had not, for a long time, seen upon the road
either him or his waggon, he said:--"They could not do without me; and
as to the man who was put in my place, no good could come out of him; he
was a man of no _ideas_. "
The fact of my discarded hero's getting the horses out of a great
difficulty with a word, as related in the poem, was told me by an
eye-witness.
II
'The Dor-hawk, solitary bird. '
When the Poem was first written the note of the bird was thus described:
'The Night-hawk is singing his frog-like tune,
Twirling his watchman's rattle about--'
but from unwillingness to startle the reader at the outset by so bold a
mode of expression, the passage was altered as it now stands.
III
After the line, 'Can any mortal clog come to her', followed in the MS.
an incident which has been kept back. Part of the suppressed verses
shall here be given as a gratification of private feeling, which the
well-disposed reader will find no difficulty in excusing. They are now
printed for the first time.
Can any mortal clog come to her?
It can: . . .
. . .
But Benjamin, in his vexation,
Possesses inward consolation;
He knows his ground, and hopes to find
A spot with all things to his mind,
An upright mural block of stone,
Moist with pure water trickling down.
A slender spring; but kind to man
It is, a true Samaritan;
Close to the highway, pouring out
Its offering from a chink or spout;
Whence all, howe'er athirst, or drooping
With toil, may drink, and without stooping.
Cries Benjamin, "Where is it, where?
Voice it hath none, but must be near. "
--A star, declining towards the west,
Upon the watery surface threw
Its image tremulously imprest,
That just marked out the object and withdrew:
Right welcome service! . . .
. . .
ROCK OF NAMES!
Light is the strain, but not unjust
To Thee and thy memorial-trust,
That once seemed only to express
Love that was love in idleness;
Tokens, as year hath followed year,
How changed, alas, in character!
For they were graven on thy smooth breast
By hands of those my soul loved best;
Meek women, men as true and brave
As ever went to a hopeful grave:
Their hands and mine, when side by side
With kindred zeal and mutual pride,
We worked until the Initials took
Shapes that defied a scornful look. --
Long as for us a genial feeling
Survives, or one in need of healing,
The power, dear Rock, around thee cast,
Thy monumental power, shall last
For me and mine! O thought of pain,
That would impair it or profane!
Take all in kindness then, as said
With a staid heart but playful head;
And fail not Thou, loved Rock! to keep
Thy charge when we are laid asleep.
W. W.
There is no poem more closely identified with the Grasmere district of
the English Lakes--and with the road from Grasmere to Keswick--than 'The
Waggoner' is, and in none are the topographical allusions more minute
and faithful.
Wordsworth seemed at a loss to know in what "class" of his poems to
place 'The Waggoner;' and his frequent changes--removing it from one
group to another--shew the artificial character of these classes. Thus,
in the edition of 1820, it stood first among the "Poems of the Fancy. "
In 1827 it was the last of the "Poems founded on the Affections. " In
1832 it was reinstated among the "Poems of the Fancy. " In 1836 it had a
place of its own, and was inserted between the "Poems of the Fancy" and
those "Founded on the Affections;" while in 1845 it was sent back to its
original place among the "Poems of the Fancy;" although in the table of
contents it was printed as an independent poem, closing the series.
The original text of 'The Waggoner' underwent little change, till the
year 1836, when it was carefully revised, and altered throughout. The
final edition of 1845, however, reverted, in many instances--especially
in the first canto--to the original text of 1819.
As this poem was dedicated to Charles Lamb, it may be of interest to
note that, some six months afterwards, Lamb presented Wordsworth with a
copy of the first edition of 'Paradise Regained' (the edition of 1671),
writing on it the following sentence,
"Charles Lamb, to the best knower of Milton, and therefore the
worthiest occupant of this pleasant edition. --Jan. 2nd, 1820. "
The opening stanzas are unrivalled in their description of a sultry June
evening, with a thunder-storm imminent.
' 'Tis spent--this burning day of June!
Soft darkness o'er its latest gleams is stealing;
The buzzing dor-hawk, round and round, is wheeling,--
That solitary bird
Is all that can be heard
In silence deeper far than that of deepest noon!
. . .
. . .
The mountains against heaven's grave weight
Rise up, and grow to wondrous height.
The air, as in a lion's den,
Is close and hot;--and now and then
Comes a tired and sultry breeze
With a haunting and a panting,
Like the stifling of disease;
But the dews allay the heat,
And the silence makes it sweet. '
The Waggoner takes what is now the middle road, of the three leading
from Rydal to Grasmere (see the note to 'The Primrose of the Rock'). The
"craggy hill" referred to in the lines
'Now he leaves the lower ground,
And up the craggy hill ascending
. . .
Steep the way and wearisome,'
is the road from Rydal Quarry up to White Moss Common, with the Glowworm
rock on the right, and the "two heath-clad rocks," referred to in the
last of the "Poems on the Naming of Places," on the left. He next passes
"The Wishing Gate" on the left, John's Grove on the right, and descends
by Dove Cottage--where Wordsworth lived--to Grasmere.
'. . . at the bottom of the brow,
Where once the DOVE and OLIVE-BOUGH
Offered a greeting of good ale
To all who entered Grasmere Vale;
And called on him who must depart
To leave it with a jovial heart;
There, where the DOVE and OLIVE-BOUGH
Once hung, a Poet harbours now,
A simple water-drinking Bard. '
He goes through Grasmere, passes the Swan Inn,
'He knows it to his cost, good Man!
Who does not know the famous SWAN?
Object uncouth! and yet our boast,
For it was painted by the Host;
His own conceit the figure planned,
'Twas coloured all by his own hand. '
As early as 1819, when the poem was first published, "this rude piece of
self-taught art had been supplanted" by a more pretentious figure. The
Waggoner passes the Swan,
'And now the conqueror essays
The long ascent of Dunmail-raise. '
As he proceeds, the storm gathers, and "struggles to get free. " Road,
hill, and sky are dark; and he barely sees the well-known rocks at the
summit of Helm-crag, where two figures seem to sit, like those on the
Cobbler, near Arrochar, in Argyle.
'Black is the sky--and every hill,
Up to the sky, is blacker still--
Sky, hill, and dale, one dismal room,
Hung round and overhung with gloom;
Save that above a single height
Is to be seen a lurid light,
Above Helm-crag--a streak half dead,
A burning of portentous red;
And near that lurid light, full well
The ASTROLOGER, sage Sidrophel,
Where at his desk and book he sits,
Puzzling aloft his curious wits;
He whose domain is held in common
With no one but the ANCIENT WOMAN,
Cowering beside her rifted cell,
As if intent on magic spell;--
Dread pair, that, spite of wind and weather,
Still sit upon Helm-crag together! '
At the top of the "raise"--the water-shed between the vales of Grasmere
and Wytheburn--he reaches the familiar pile of stones, at the boundary
between the shires of Westmoreland and Cumberland.
'. . . that pile of stones,
Heaped over brave King Dunmail's bones;
. . .
Green is the grass for beast to graze,
Around the stones of Dunmail-raise! '
The allusion to Seat-Sandal laid bare by the flash of lightning, and the
description, in the last canto, of the ascent of the Raise by the
Waggoner on a summer morning, are as true to the spirit of the place as
anything that Wordsworth has written. He tells his friend Lamb, fourteen
years after he wrote the poem of 'The Waggoner,'
'Yes, I, and all about me here,
Through all the changes of the year,
Had seen him through the mountains go,
In pomp of mist or pomp of snow,
Majestically huge and slow:
Or, with a milder grace adorning
The landscape of a summer's morning;
While Grasmere smoothed her liquid plain
The moving image to detain;
And mighty Fairfield, with a chime
Of echoes, to his march kept time;
When little other business stirred,
And little other sound was heard;
In that delicious hour of balm,
Stillness, solitude, and calm,
While yet the valley is arrayed,
On this side with a sober shade;
On that is prodigally bright--
Crag, lawn, and wood--with rosy light. '
From Dunmail-raise the Waggoner descends to Wytheburn. Externally,
'. . . Wytheburn's modest House of prayer,
As lowly as the lowliest dwelling,'
remains very much as it was in 1805; but the primitive simplicity and
"lowliness" of the chapel was changed by the addition a few years ago of
an apse, by the removal of some of the old rafters, and by the reseating
of the pews.
The Cherry Tree Tavern, where "the village Merry-night" was being
celebrated, still stands on the eastern or Helvellyn side of the road.
It is now a farm-house; but it will be regarded with interest from the
description of the rustic dance, which recalls ('longo intervallo') 'The
Jolly Beggars' of Burns. After two hours' delay at the Cherry Tree, the
Waggoner and Sailor "coast the silent lake" of Thirlmere, and pass the
Rock of Names.
This rock was, until lately, one of the most interesting memorials of
Wordsworth and his friends that survived in the Lake District; but the
vale of Thirlmere is now a Manchester water-tank, and the place which
knew the Rock of Names now knows it no more. It was a sort of trysting
place of the poets of Grasmere and Keswick--being nearly half-way
between the two places--and there, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and other
members of their households often met. When Coleridge left Grasmere for
Keswick, the Wordsworths usually accompanied him as far as this rock;
and they often met him there on his way over from Keswick to Grasmere.
Compare the Hon. Mr. Justice Coleridge's Reminiscences. ('Memoirs of
Wordsworth,' vol. ii. p. 310. )
The rock was on the right hand of the road, a little way past Waterhead,
at the southern end of Thirlmere; and on it were cut the letters,
W. W.
M. H.
D. W.
S. T. C.
J. W.
S. H.
the initials of William Wordsworth, Mary Hutchinson, Dorothy Wordsworth,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Wordsworth, and Sarah Hutchinson. The
Wordsworths settled at Grasmere at the close of the year 1799. As
mentioned in a previous note, John Wordsworth lived with his brother and
sister during most of that winter, and during the whole of the spring,
summer, and autumn of 1800, leaving it finally on September 29, 1800.
These names must therefore have been cut during the spring or summer of
1800. There is no record of the occurrence, and no allusion to the rock,
in Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal of 1800. But that Journal, so
far as I have seen it, begins on the 14th of May 1800. Almost every
detail of the daily life and ways of the household at Dove Cottage is so
minutely recorded in it, that I am convinced that this incident of the
cutting of names in the Thirlmere Rock would have been mentioned, had it
happened between the 14th of May and John Wordsworth's departure from
Grasmere in September. Such references as this, for example, occur in
the Journal:
"Saturday, August 2. --William and Coleridge went to Keswick. John went
with them to Wytheburn, and staid all day fishing. "
I therefore infer that it was in the spring or early summer of 1800 that
the names were cut.
I may add that the late Dean of Westminster--Dean Stanley--took much
interest in this Rock of Names; and doubt having been cast on the
accuracy of the place and the genuineness of the inscriptions, in a
letter from Dr. Fraser, then Bishop of Manchester, which he forwarded to
me, he entered into the question with all the interest with which he was
wont to track out details in the architecture or the history of a
Church.
There were few memorials connected with Wordsworth more worthy of
preservation than this "upright mural block of stone. " When one
remembered that the initials on the rock were graven by the hands of
William and John Wordsworth, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, possibly with
the assistance of Dorothy Wordsworth, the two Hutchinsons (Mary and
Sarah), and that Wordsworth says of it,
'We worked until the Initials took
Shapes that defied a scornful look,'
this Thirlmere Rock was felt to be a far more interesting memento of the
group of poets that used to meet beside it, than the Stone in the
grounds of Rydal Mount, which was spared at Wordsworth's suit, "from
some rude beauty of its own. " There was simplicity, as well as strength,
in the way in which the initials were cut. But the stone was afterwards
desecrated by tourists, and others, who had the audacity to scratch
their own names or initials upon it. In 1877 I wrote, "The rock is as
yet wonderfully free from such; and its preservation is probably due to
the dark olive-coloured moss, with which the 'pure water trickling down'
has covered the face of the 'mural block,' and thus secured it from
observation, even on that highway;" but I found in the summer of 1882
that several other names had been ruthlessly added. When the Manchester
Thirlmere scheme was finally resolved upon, an effort was made to remove
the Stone, with the view of its being placed higher up the hill on the
side of the new roadway. In the course of this attempt, the Stone was
broken to pieces.
There is a very good drawing of "The Rock of Names" by Mr. Harry
Goodwin, in 'Through the Wordsworth Country, 1892'.
"The Muse" takes farewell of the Waggoner as he is proceeding with the
Sailor and his quaint model of the 'Vanguard' along the road toward
Keswick. She "scents the morning air," and
'Quits the slow-paced waggon's side,
To wander down yon hawthorn dell,
With murmuring Greta for her guide. '
The "hawthorn dell" is the upper part of the Vale of St. John.
'--There doth she ken the awful form
Of Raven-crag--black as a storm--
Glimmering through the twilight pale;
And Ghimmer-crag, his tall twin brother,
Each peering forth to meet the other. '
Raven-crag is well known,--H. C. Robinson writes of it in his 'Diary' in
1818, as "the most significant of the crags at a spot where there is not
one insignificant,"--a rock on the western side of Thirlmere, where the
Greta issues from the lake. But there is no rock in the district now
called by the name of Ghimmer-crag, or the crag of the Ewe-lamb. I am
inclined to think that Wordsworth referred to the "Fisher-crag" of the
Ordnance Survey and the Guide Books. No other rock round Thirlmere can
with any accuracy be called the "tall twin brother" of Raven-crag:
certainly not Great How, nor any spur of High Seat or Bleaberry Fell.
Fisher-crag resembles Raven-crag, as seen from Thirlmere Bridge, or from
the high road above it; and it is somewhat remarkable that Green--in his
Guide to the Lakes (a volume which the poet possessed)--makes use of the
same expression as that which Wordsworth adopts regarding these two
crags, Raven and Fisher.
"The margin of the lake on the Dalehead side has its charms of wood
and water; and Fischer Crag, twin brother to Raven Crag, is no bad
object, when taken near the island called Buck's Holm"
('A Description of Sixty Studies from Nature', by William Green of
Ambleside, 1810, p. 57). I cannot find any topographical allusion to a
Ghimmer-crag in contemporary local writers. Clarke, in his 'Survey of
the Lakes', does not mention it.
The Castle Rock, in the Vale of Legberthwaite, between High Fell and
Great How, is the fairy castle of Sir Walter Scott's 'Bridal of
Triermain'. "Nathdale Fell" is the ridge between Naddle Vale (Nathdale
Vale) and that of St. John, now known as High Rigg. The old Hall of
Threlkeld has long been in a state of ruinous dilapidation, the only
habitable part of it having been for many years converted into a
farmhouse. The remaining local allusions in 'The Waggoner' are obvious
enough: Castrigg is the shortened form of Castlerigg, the ridge between
Naddle Valley and Keswick.
In the "Reminiscences" of Wordsworth, which the Hon. Mr. Justice
Coleridge wrote for the late Bishop of Lincoln, in 1850, there is the
following reference to 'The Waggoner'. (See 'Memoirs', vol. ii. p. 310. )
"'The Waggoner' seems a very favourite poem of his. He said his object
in it had not been understood. It was a play of the fancy on a
domestic incident, and lowly character. He wished by the opening
descriptive lines to put his reader into the state of mind in which he
wished it to be read. If he failed in doing that, he wished him to lay
it down. He pointed out with the same view, the glowing lines on the
state of exultation in which Ben and his companions are under the
influence of liquor. Then he read the sickening languor of the morning
walk, contrasted with the glorious uprising of Nature, and the songs
of the birds. Here he has added about six most exquisite lines. "
The lines referred to are doubtless the eight (p. 101), beginning
'Say more; for by that power a vein,'
which were added in the edition of 1836.
The following is Sara Coleridge's criticism of 'The Waggoner'. (See
'Biographia Literaria', vol. ii. pp. 183, 184, edition 1847. )
"Due honour is done to 'Peter Bell', at this time, by students of
poetry in general; but some, even of Mr. Wordsworth's greatest
admirers, do not quite satisfy me in their admiration of 'The
Waggoner', a poem which my dear uncle, Mr. Southey, preferred even to
the former. 'Ich will meine Denkungs Art hierin niemandem aufdringen',
as Lessing says: I will force my way of thinking on nobody, but take
the liberty, for my own gratification, to express it. The sketches of
hill and valley in this poem have a lightness, and spirit--an Allegro
touch--distinguishing them from the grave and elevated splendour which
characterises Mr. Wordsworth's representations of Nature in general,
and from the passive tenderness of those in 'The White Doe', while it
harmonises well with the human interest of the piece; indeed it is the
harmonious sweetness of the composition which is most dwelt upon by
its special admirers. In its course it describes, with bold brief
touches, the striking mountain tract from Grasmere to Keswick; it
commences with an evening storm among the mountains, presents a lively
interior of a country inn during midnight, and concludes after
bringing us in sight of St. John's Vale and the Vale of Keswick seen
by day-break--'Skiddaw touched with rosy light,' and the prospect from
Nathdale Fell 'hoar with the frost-like dews of dawn:' thus giving a
beautiful and well-contrasted Panorama, produced by the most delicate
and masterly strokes of the pencil. Well may Mr. Ruskin, a fine
observer and eloquent describer of various classes of natural
appearances, speak of Mr. Wordsworth as the great poetic landscape
painter of the age. But Mr. Ruskin has found how seldom the great
landscape painters are powerful in expressing human passions and
affections on canvas, or even successful in the introduction of human
figures into their foregrounds; whereas in the poetic paintings of Mr.
Wordsworth the landscape is always subordinate to a higher interest;
certainly, in 'The Waggoner', the little sketch of human nature which
occupies, as it were, the front of that encircling background, the
picture of Benjamin and his temptations, his humble friends and the
mute companions of his way, has a character of its own, combining with
sportiveness a homely pathos, which must ever be delightful to some of
those who are thoroughly conversant with the spirit of Mr.
Wordsworth's poetry. It may be compared with the ale-house scene in
'Tam o'Shanter', parts of Voss's Luise, or Ovid's Baucis and Philemon;
though it differs from each of them as much as they differ from each
other. The Epilogue carries on the feeling of the piece very
beautifully. "
The editor of Southey's 'Life and Correspondence'--his son, the Rev.
Charles Cuthbert Southey--tells us, in a note to a letter from S. T.
Coleridge to his father, that the Waggoner's name was Jackson; and that
"all the circumstances of the poem are accurately correct. " This
Jackson, after retiring from active work as waggoner, became the tenant
of Greta Hall, where first Coleridge, and afterwards Southey lived. The
Hall was divided into two houses, one of which Jackson occupied, and the
other of which he let to Coleridge, who speaks thus of him in the letter
to Southey, dated Greta Hall, Keswick, April 13, 1801:
"My landlord, who dwells next door, has a very respectable library,
which he has put with mine; histories, encyclopedias, and all the
modern poetry, etc. etc. etc. A more truly disinterested man I never
met with; severely frugal, yet almost carelessly generous; and yet he
got all his money as a common carrier, by hard labour, and by pennies
and pennies. He is one instance among many in this country of the
salutary effect of the love of knowledge--he was from a boy a lover of
learning. "
(See 'Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey,' vol. ii. pp. 147,
148. )
Charles Lamb--to whom 'The Waggoner' was dedicated--wrote thus to
Wordsworth on 7th June 1819:
"My dear Wordsworth,--You cannot imagine how proud we are here of the
dedication. We read it twice for once that we do the poem. I mean all
through; yet 'Benjamin' is no common favourite; there is a spirit of
beautiful tolerance in it. It is as good as it was in 1806; and it
will be as good in 1829, if our dim eyes shall be awake to peruse it.
Methinks there is a kind of shadowing affinity between the subject of
the narrative and the subject of the dedication.
. . .
"I do not know which I like best,--the prologue (the latter part
especially) to 'P. Bell,' or the epilogue to 'Benjamin. ' Yes, I tell
stories; I do know I like the last best; and the 'Waggoner' altogether
is a pleasanter remembrance to me than the 'Itinerant. '
. . .
"C. LAMB. "
(See 'The Letters of Charles Lamb,' edited by Alfred Ainger, vol. ii.
pp.
