The Prose Works of William Wordsworth eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,714 pages of information about The Prose Works of William Wordsworth.

P. 36, ll. 13-15.  Quotation from Thomson, ‘The Seasons,’ ‘Summer,’ l. 980.

P. 44, l. 17.  Quotation from Sir John Beaumont, ’The Battle of Bosworth Field,’ l. 100. (Poems in the Fuller Worthies’ Library, p. 29.) Accurately it is, ‘The earth assists thee with the cry of blood.’

P. 47, ll. 17-19.  ‘The Triad.’  Sara Coleridge thus wrote of this poem:  ’Look at “The Triad,” written by Mr. Wordsworth four-or five-and-twenty years ago.  That poem contains a poetical glorification of Edith Southey (now W.), of Dora, and of myself.  There is truth in the sketch of Dora, poetic truth, though such as none but a poet-father would have seen.  She was unique in her sweetness and goodness.  I mean that her character was most peculiar—­a compound of vehemence of feeling and gentleness, sharpness and lovingness, which is not often seen’ (’Memoirs and Letters of Sara Coleridge, edited by her Daughter,’ 2 vols. 8vo, 3d edition, 1873, p. 68).  Later:  ’I do confess that I have never been able to rank “The Triad” among Mr. Wordsworth’s immortal works of genius.  It is just what he came into the poetical world to condemn, and both by practice and theory to supplant.  It is to my mind artificial and unreal.  There is no truth in it as a whole, although bits of truth, glazed and magnified, are embodied in it, as in the lines, “Features to old ideal grace allied”—­a most unintelligible allusion to a likeness discovered in dear Dora’s contour of countenance to the great Memnon head in the British Museum, with its overflowing lips and width of mouth, which seems to be typical of the ocean.  The poem always strikes me as a mongrel,’ &c. (p. 352).

P. 56, l. 7.  ‘Mr. Duppa.’  See note in Vol.  II. on p. 163, l. 2.

P. 56, l. 27. ‘179—.’ Sic in the MS. He died in January 1795.

P. 60, l. 16.  ‘Mr. Westall;’ viz.  William Westall’s ’View of the Caves near Ingleton, Gosdale Scar, and Malham Cove, in Yorkshire.’ 1818, folio.

P. 62, l. 31.  ‘The itinerant Eidouranian philosopher,’ &c.  Query—­the Walker of the book on the Lakes noticed in Vol.  II. on p. 217?

P. 63, l. 6.  ‘I have reason,’ &c.  Cf.  Letter to Sir W.R.  Hamilton, first herein printed, pp. 310-11.

P. 68, l. 24.  Dampier’s’ Voyages, ‘etc.; viz.’  Collection of Voyages.’  London, 1729, 4 vols. 8vo.

P. 72, l. 29.  ‘Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke.’  His complete Works in Verse and Prose are given in the Fuller Worthies’ Library, 4 vols.

P. 76, l. 14.  Spenser.  An apparent misrecollection of the ‘Fairy Queen,’ b. iii. c. viii. st. 32, l. 7, ‘Had her from so infamous fact assoyld.’

P. 78, l. 6.  ‘Armstrong;’ i.e. Dr. John Armstrong, whose ’Art of Preserving Health,’ under an unpromising title, really contains splendid things.  His portrait in the ‘Castle of Indolence’ is his most certain passport to immortality.

P. 80, l. 21.  ‘The Last Supper of Leonardo da Vinci.’  A reproduction of the head of our Blessed Lord, taken from the fresco (photograph), is given in the quarto edition of Southwell’s complete Poems in the Fuller Worthies’ Library—­none the less precious that it pathetically reveals the marks of Time’s ‘effacing fingers.’  No engraving approaches the ‘power’ of this autotype of the supreme original.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The Prose Works of William Wordsworth from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.