ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOL. II WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, FROM NASH'S DRAWING (Photo gravure) DOVE COTTAGE, FROM THE ORCHARD THE LIVING-ROOM, DOVE COTTAGE RYDAL MOUNT IN WORDSWORTH'S TIME WILLIAM WORdsworth, FROM HAYDON'S PAINTING WILLIAM WORDsworth, FROM PICKERSGILL'S DRAWING GRASMERE CHURCH Frontispiece PAGE I wish to express my thanks to the Hon. Ferdinand Jelke, of Cincinnati, for a copy of this picture. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH HIS LIFE, WORKS, AND INFLUENCE CHAPTER XVIII HAPPINESS AND WORK COLERIDGE was probably taking mere idle talk for a serious project, when he wrote to Humphry Davy, on February 3, 1801, that the Wordsworths were thinking of leaving Town-end:* "A gentleman resident here [Keswick], his name Calvert, an idle, good-hearted, and ingenious man, has a great desire to commence fellow-student with me and Wordsworth in chemistry. He is an intimate friend of Wordsworth's, and he has proposed to W. to take a house which he (Calvert) has nearly built, called Windy Brow, in a delicious situation, scarce half a mile from Greta Hall, the residence of S. T. Coleridge, Esq., and so for him (Calvert) to live with them—that is, Wordsworth and his sister. In this case he means to build a little laboratory, etc. Wordsworth has not quite decided, but is strongly inclined to adopt the scheme, because he and his sister have before lived with Calvert on the same footing, and are much attached to him." On March 16, 1801, Coleridge writes to Poole † that he has "completely extricated the notions of time and space," and " overthrown the doctrine of association as taught by Hartley, and with it all the irreligious metaphysics of modern infidels—especially the doctrine of necessity"; he had been engaged in deducing all the five senses from one sense and stating their growth and the causes of their difference, but had desisted "at E. H. Coleridge, "Letters of S. T. Coleridge," I. 345. Ibid., 348. Wordsworth's advice, or, rather, fervent entreaty.' The fever of his mind had reached such a pitch as to alarm his friend, and he would therefore take a week's respite and prepare "Christabel " for the press. He adds: “You have seen, I hope, the Lyrical Ballads. In the divine poem called Michael, by an infamous blunder of the printer, near twenty lines are omitted in page 210, which makes it nearly unintelligible. Wordsworth means to write to you and to send them together with a list of the numerous errata. The character of the Lyrical Ballads is very great, and will increase daily. They have extolled them in the British Critic." A week later he unfolds his philosophical projects more fully to the same correspondent, adding: "I assure you, solemnly assure you, that you and Wordsworth are the only men on earth to whom I would have uttered a word on this subject." He is "oppressed with a heart-gnawing melancholy at the thought of the poverty and famine that afflict England, and is convinced that bad government is the cause. "God knows," he cries," it is as much as I can do to put meat and bread on my own table, and hourly some poor starving wretch comes to my door to put in his claim for part of it." We must remember that he describes the time when the lamentable era of industrial expansion was coming in. Dear Poole," he exclaims, "it is our pestilent commerce, our unnatural crowding together of men in cities, and our government by rich men, that are bringing about the manifestations of offended Deity." He would like to go and settle near Priestley, in America: "I say I would go to America if Wordsworth would go with me, and we could persuade two or three farmers of this country, who are exceedingly attached to us, to accompany us." Poole, in reply, describes the effects of hunger and unrest in Devonshire, Cornwall, and Somerset. He has no time, being busy alleviating the wants of his neighbours, to express at large his opinions of the preface * E. H. Coleridge, “Letters of S. T. Coleridge,” I. 350. |