1802]

BAD AND GOOD NEWS

27

am sure. My heart fails me." That night he could not sleep, but on the third day she records that he "finished the poem about C. and himself."

Coleridge came again on the 12th. "We sate up," the Journal says, "till one o'clock all together, then William went to bed, and I sate with C. in the sittingroom (where he slept) till a quarter past two o'clock." When Coleridge was not with them, there was an almost daily interchange of letters. His were melancholy, and caused great uneasiness. For example, on May 15 Dorothy writes: "We had a melancholy letter from Coleridge at bedtime. It distressed me very much, and I resolved upon going to Keswick the next day." She went, alone, on the 17th, and spent two days, Coleridge bringing her halfway home on the 19th. They found him again beside the Keswick road, on the 22nd," sitting under Sara's rock." He poured out his heart about his private affairs, and came home with them for two days. He was with them again from June 9 to 12.

My belief that Wordsworth's love for France and sympathetic interest in her affairs still persisted receives support from the sonnet beginning "I grieved for Buonaparté," which is doubtless one of the two referred to as follows on May 21: "William wrote two sonnets on Buonaparte, after I had read Milton's sonnets to him "; and also more strongly from a remark, under date of Feburary 8: "Coleridge's letter somewhat damped us. It spoke with less confidence about France." Coleridge had completely gone over to the side of " patriotism." The sonnet seems at most to express grief that a nation should expect true guidance from a man trained in battles, but there is a noticeable absence of hostility to France. It was printed in The Morning Post for September 16, 1802, unsigned, and on January 29, 1803, with the initials W. L. D.,* and incorrectly dated 1801 in Wordsworth's editions of his poems.

On June 18 came news that Lord Lowther intended. to pay the debt due to their father. Immediately letters

* Knight's Eversley edition of the Poems, II. 323.

on this subject were despatched to Coleridge, Mary Hutchinson, and Richard Wordsworth, the brother in London. The poet, now obliged to attend to business, and realizing that he was no longer too poor to marry, hastened away to Eusemere to consult his experienced friend Clarkson. One can imagine the excitement at Dove Cottage in his absence: a letter from Basil Montagu, who seems to have been their adviser in money matters, and one from Richard, bewildering the poor girl so that she "could settle to nothing "; her brother Christopher to be informed; recourse to Shakespeare to steady herself; and then in comes Coleridge, for whom she must cook supper and make ready a room. But she was not too tired to sit up and hear him talk till one o'clock. He came again, before the end of the month, and the letters went back and forth as usual.

CHAPTER XIX

MARRIAGE

IN June Wordsworth wrote the lines beginning "The sun has long been set," which contain an allusion, I think, to one of Charles Lamb's eulogies of London life as compared with country pleasures, and wrought at the great Intimations Ode. He also sent an elaborate reply, as we have seen, to John Wilson, of Glasgow. But what seems to have busied him most was the touching poem composed in anticipation of leaving Grasmere and breaking up the old life with his sister, the lines beginning "Farewell, thou little Nook of mountain ground." The time had come when he was able to marry. There is no reason to doubt the reality of his affection for Mary Hutchinson. Nothing in his existing letters, however, or in Dorothy's Journal, gives the slightest indication that, up to this time at least, it had risen to the height of a passion. Surely if his soul had been possessed with an overwhelming happy love, his sister, so unselfish, so observant, so exact and unflinching in what she wrote, would have revealed the fact. This poem is not the cry of an eager lover, but rather the farewell of a man reluctant to give up a blessed certainty of happiness, almost an apology to the sister who has been the companion of his past, and a promise that the future shall see as little change in their life as possible.

On the evening of July 8 poor Dorothy wrote in her Journal: "O beautiful place! dear Mary, William. The hour is come. . . I must prepare to go. The swallows, I must leave them, the wall, the garden, the roses, all. Dear creatures! they sang last night after I

was in bed; seemed to be singing to one another, just before they settled to rest for the night. Well, I must go. Farewell." And on July 9 they set out together for the Hutchinsons' place, Gallow Hill, near Scarborough, Yorkshire. Coleridge was watching for them at Sara's Rock. They spent two nights at Keswick, and had a melancholy parting with their friend. On the way to Eusemere, where they stayed two days with the Clarksons, they lingered and loitered that they might be alone. On the 16th they reached Gallow Hill, having travelled partly by post-chaise and partly on foot.

On

And now, instead of marrying his betrothed, what did this strange lover do, after a visit of ten days, but start off to France with his sister! To an attentive reader of the Journal, this is not so surprising as it might be to one who had failed to observe certain mysterious allusions, and a few words in a letter written by Dorothy to Mrs. Marshall, November 30, 1795, shortly after her arrival at Racedown. "William," she says, "has had a letter from France since we came here. Annette mentions having dispatched half a dozen, none of which he has received." In her Journal on December 21, 1801, she mentions the receipt of a letter from France. January 26, 1802, she says: "Wm. wrote to Annette." On February 13 there came a letter " from the Frenchman in London," and on the 15th "a letter from Annette." Under date of February 22 we find: " Wm brought me 4 letters to read-from Annette and Caroline, Mary and Sara and Coleridge;" and on February 24 Wm. wrote to Annette." On March 22 we find the following entry, in which going to Mary is connected with seeing Annette: " A rainy day. Wm. very poorly. 2 letters from Sara and one from poor Annette. Wrote to my brother Richard [a rare occurrence]. We talked a good deal about C. and other interesting things. We resolved to see Annette, and that Wm. should go to Mary." On the 26th "Wm. wrote to Annette." As we saw, Wordsworth went into Yorkshire early in April. And now, in July, leaving Mary on the 26th, they