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. 182, l. 24.  ‘Peter Henry Bruce ... entertaining Memoirs.’  Published 1782, 4to.

P. 185, ll. 2-3.  Verse-quotation, from Milton, ‘Il Penseroso,’ ll. 109-110.

P. 190, l. 27.  ‘Light will be thrown,’ &c.  We have still to deplore that the Letters of Lamb are even at this later day either withheld or sorrowfully mutilated; e.g. among the Wordsworth Correspondence (unpublished) is a whole sheaf of letters in their finest vein from Lamb and his sister.  Some of the former are written in black and red ink in alternate lines, and overflow with all his deepest and quaintest characteristics.  His sister’s are charming.  The same might be said of nearly all Wordsworth’s greatest contemporaries.  Surely these MSS. will not much longer be kept in this inexplicable and, I venture to say, scarcely pardonable seclusion?

P. 192, foot-note.  This deliciously naive note of ‘Dora’ to her venerated father suggests that it is due similarly to demur—­with all respect—­to the representation given of Mrs. Hemans (pp. 193-4).  Three things it must be permitted me to recall:  (a) That the ’brevity’s sake’ hardly condones the fulness of statement of an imagined ignorance of ‘housewifery’ on the part of Mrs. Hemans. (b) That a visitor for a few days in a family could scarcely be expected to set about using her needle in home duties. (c) That unquestionable testimony, furnished me by those who knew her intimately, warrant me to state that Wordsworth was mistaken in supposing that Mrs. Hemans ’could as easily have managed the spear of Minerva as her needle.’  Her brave and beautiful life, and her single-handed upbringing of her many boys worthily, make one deeply regret that such sweeping generalisation from a narrow and hasty observation should have been indulged in.  My profound veneration for Wordsworth does not warrant my suppression of the truth in this matter.  Be it remembered, too, that other expressions of Wordsworth largely qualify the present ungracious judgment.

P. 209, l. 8.  ‘Lord Ashley.’  Now the illustrious and honoured Earl of Shaftesbury.

P. 212, l. 17.  ‘Burnet;’ i.e. Thomas Burnet, whose Latin treatise was published in 1681 and 1689; in English, 1684 and 1689.  Imaginative genius will be found in this uncritical and unscientific book.

P. 214, l. 12.  ‘The Hurricane,’ &c.; viz.  ’The Hurricane; a Theosophical and Western Eclogue,’ &c. 1797; reprinted 1798.

P. 216, ll. 4-5.  Quotation from Coleridge, from ‘Sibylline Leaves,’ Inscription for a Fountain on a Heath.

P. 216, l. 29.  ‘Dr. Bell.’  Southey edited the bulky Correspondence of this pioneer of our better education, in 3 vols. 8vo.

P. 233, ll. 34-36.  ‘They have been treated,’ &c. (’Evening Walk,’ &c., 1794.)

P. 247, foot-note [A].  De Quincey, in his ’Recollections of the Lakes and the Lake Poets, Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Southey’ (Works, vol. ii. pp. 151-6), gives a very realistic expose of the Lonsdales—­abating considerably the glow of Wordsworth’s recurring praise and homage.

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