it will be admitted that to you, as a Master in that province of the art, the following Tale, whether from contrast or congruity, is not an inappropriate offering.  Accept it, then, as a public testimony of affectionate admiration from one with whose name yours has been often coupled (to use your own words) for evil and for good; and believe me to be, with earnest wishes that life and health may be granted you to complete the many important works in which you are engaged, and with high respect,

Most faithfully yours,
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 
Rydal Mount, April 7, 1819.

182. Peter Bell:  the Poem.

Alfoxden, 1798.  Founded upon an anecdote which I read in a newspaper, of an ass being found hanging his head over a canal in a wretched posture.  Upon examination a dead body was found in the water, and proved to be the body of its master.  The countenance, gait, and figure of Peter were taken from a wild rover with whom I walked from Builth, on the river Wye, downwards, nearly as far as the town of Hay.  He told me strange stories.  It has always been a pleasure to me, through life, to catch at every opportunity that has occurred in my rambles of becoming acquainted with this class of people.  The number of Peter’s wives was taken from the trespasses, in this way, of a lawless creature who lived in the county of Durham, and used to be attended by many women, sometimes not less than half a dozen, as disorderly as himself; and a story went in the country, that he had been heard to say while they were quarrelling, ‘Why can’t you be quiet, there’s none so many of you.’  Benoni, or the child of sorrow, I knew when I was a school-boy.  His mother had been deserted by a gentleman in the neighbourhood, she herself being a gentlewoman by birth.  The circumstances of her story were told me by my dear old dame, Ann Tyson, who was her confidante.  The lady died broken-hearted.  In the woods of Alfoxden I used to take great delight in noticing the habits, tricks, and physiognomy of asses; and I have no doubt that I was thus put upon writing the poem out of liking for the creature that is so often dreadfully abused.  The crescent moon, which makes such a figure in the prologue, assumed this character one evening while I was watching its beauty in front of Alfoxden House.  I intended this poem for the volume before spoken of, but it was not published for more than twenty years afterwards.  The worship of the Methodists, or Ranters, is often heard during the stillness of the summer evening, in the country, with affecting accompaniments of rural beauty.  In both the psalmody and voice of the preacher there is, not unfrequently, much solemnity likely to impress the feelings of the rudest characters under favourable circumstances.

Potter (foot-note).

    ‘A Potter, Sir, he was by trade’ (Pt.  I. l. 11).

In the dialect of the North, a hawker of earthenware is thus designated.