1825-1827] BLAKE ON WORDSWORTH 341 "He is now old" (sixty-eight), wrote Robinson on February 10, 1825, " pale, with a Socratic countenance and an expression of great sweetness, though with something of languor about it except when animated, and then he has about him an air of inspiration. When he said my visions,' it was in the ordinary unemphatic tone in which we speak of every-day matters.... He professes to be very hostile to Plato, and reproaches Wordsworth with being, not a Christian, but a Platonist.... He asked me whether Wordsworth believed in the Scriptures. On my replying in the affirmative, he said he had been much pained by reading the Introduction to The Excursion. It brought on a fit of illness. The passage was produced, and read: Jehovah with his thunder and the choir Of shouting angels, and the empyreal thrones- This pass them unalarmed' greatly offended Blake. Does Mr. Wordsworth think his mind can surpass Jehovah? I tried to explain this passage in a sense in harmony with Blake's own theories, but failed, and Wordsworth was finally set down as a Pagan; but still with high praise, as the greatest poet of the age." Flaxman, that other mystical genius, had expressed to Robinson similar misgivings about the same passage. Blake had a short and ready way with men who turned aside from "God" to "Nature," the two opposite principles in the universe as he conceived of it." Dante." he declared calmly, " was an Atheist-a mere politician, busied about this world, as Milton was, till in his old age he returned to God, whom he had had in his childhood." "I am to continue my visits," Robinson concluded," and to read to him Wordsworth, of whom he seems to entertain a high idea." On December 27 Robinson wrote: "I read to him Wordsworth's incomparable ode, which he heartily enjoyed. But he repeated, 'I fear Wordsworth loves nature, and nature is the work of the Devil. The Devil is in us as far as we are nature.' The parts of Wordsworth's ode which Blake most enjoyed were the most obscure-at all events, those which I least like and comprehend." Robinson called on Blake again on February 18, 1826, and found him still unsatisfied. "He gave me in his own handwriting a copy of Wordsworth's Preface to The Excursion." At the end of this the mystic had written some curious lines indicating his horror that a man could speak of Jehovah as a very inferior object of contemplation. He admitted that some of Wordsworth's writings proceeded from the Holy Spirit, but considered others to be the Devil's work. In the letter to Dorothy Wordsworth already cited, Robinson wrote of Blake: . "I gave your brother some poems in MS. by him, and they interested him, as well they might; for there is an affinity between them, as there is between the regulated imagination of a wise poet and the incoherent outpourings of a dreamer. After what I have said, Mr. Wordsworth will not be flattered by knowing that Blake deems him the only poet of the age, nor much alarmed by hearing that Blake thinks that he is often in his works an Atheist. Now, according to Blake, Atheism consists in worshipping the natural world, which same natural world, properly speaking, is nothing real, but a mere illusion produced by Satan. And after recounting the conversations from which the above quotations were made, he concludes: It is since then that I have lent Blake all the works which he but imperfectly knew. I doubt whether what I have written will excite your and Mr. Wordsworth's curiosity, but there is something so delightful about the man; though in great poverty, he is so perfect a gentleman, with such genuine dignity and independence -scorning presents, and of such native delicacy in words, etc., etc., etc. that I have not scrupled promising to bring him and Mr. Wordsworth together. He expressed his thanks strongly, saying: You do me honour. Mr. Wordsworth is a great man. Besides, he may convince me I am wrong about him; I have been wrong before now,' etc. Coleridge has visited Blake, and, I am told, talks finely about him." The convictions, however singular, of this rare spirit demand our entire respect, and are of value to us in 1827] BLAKE'S MISGIVINGS 343 proportion as they conflict with all our ways of thinking. In his Reminiscences for the year 1827, Robinson wrote: "I lent Blake the 8vo. edition, 2 vols., of Wordsworth's poems, which he had in his possession at the time of his death. They were sent me then. I did not at first recognize the pencil notes as his, and was on the point of rubbing them out when I made the discovery. In the fly-leaf, Vol. I., under the words Poems referring to the Period of Childhood, the following is written: 'I see in Wordsworth the natural man rising up against the spiritual man continually, and then he is no poet, but a heathen philosopher, at enmity with all true poetry or inspiration.' 'On the lines And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety, he wrote: There is no such thing as natural piety, because the natural man is at enmity with God.' On the verses To H. C., Six Years Old (p. 43) the comment is: 'This is all in the highest degree imaginative and equal to any poet-but not superior. I cannot think that real poets have any competition. None are greatest in the kingdom of heaven. It is so in poetry. At the bottom of p. 44, On the Influence of Natural Objects, is written: Natural objects always did and now do weaken, deaden, and obliterate imagination in me. Wordsworth must know that what he writes valuable is not to be found in nature. Read Michael Angelo's Sonnet, Vol. II., p. 179.' That is, the one beginning No mortal object did these eyes behold When first they met the lucid light of thine." Robinson found that Blake had written, regarding Wordsworth's Essay Supplementary to the Preface: "I do not know who wrote these Prefaces. They are very mischievous, and directly contrary to Wordsworth's own practice." CHAPTER XXXI SOCIETY AND TRAVEL THE death of Sir George Beaumont, on February 7, 1827, made the first gap in the circle of friends who had accompanied Wordsworth through middle life. The loss was deeply felt. Sir George had about him a sweet dignity which caused men in his presence to speak and act as becomingly as they could." He was a sincere and accomplished lover of the arts. His kindness and generosity to Wordsworth should never be forgotten. But wherever the latter deferred to his taste in matters of poetry, the result was unfortunate. To a desire to please Sir George we must attribute, in many of Wordsworth's poems, a pietistic flavour, a shrinking conservatism, a return to a conventional style, and a general air of having been written by one who felt himself to be old. As a final proof of friendship, Sir George bequeathed to the poet an annuity of £100" to defray the expenses of a yearly tour."t The form of the gift was well chosen, for Wordsworth had truly said that wandering was his passion. His library, for example, which was ill provided with works of modern fiction and poetry, was remarkably rich in books of travel, some of them ancient and rare. The period of five years which followed the publication * Coleridge, writing in his note-book at Syracuse, October 5, 1804, exclaims : Coleridge! Coleridge! will you never learn to appropriate your conversation to your company! Is it not desecration, indelicacy, and a proof of great weakness, and even vanity, to talk to etc., etc., etc., as if you [were talking to] Wordsworth or Sir G. Beaumont ?" (“ Anima Poeta," p. 67). ↑ Mrs. Coleridge, in a letter to Poole, July, 1827 (original in the British Museum), says that Sir George left to her and Southey £100 apiece, and to Wordsworth £100 and an annuity of £100 for life. 1827] COLLECTIVE EDITION 345 of "Ecclesiastical Sketches " ended in the issue of a collective edition of Wordsworth's poems, including "The Excursion," the preface to the second edition of "Lyrical Ballads," and the Essay Supplementary, in five handsome volumes. The dedication is to Sir George Beaumont. Longman was the publisher, the date 1827, and the price forty-five shillings. The periodical correcting of old poems for new editions gave work to the whole household. The state of Wordsworth's eyes preventing him from holding the pen, an immense deal of drudgery fell upon his wife, his sister, his daughter, and Sara Hutchinson. As far back as 1816, Charles Lamb had hinted that perhaps he leaned too heavily upon his loving helpers: "Your manual graphy is terrible, dark as Lycophron.... I should not wonder if the constant making out of such Paragraphs is the cause of that weakness in Mrs. W.'s Eyes, as she is tenderly pleased to express it. Dorothy, I hear, has mounted spectacles; so you have deoculated two of your dearest relations in life." The labour of preparing the edition of 1827 was enormous, when added to the nervous strain of ministering to the mental and moral needs of a man suffering from depression of spirits. Moreover, among several suitors for Dora's hand, the one favoured by her was Edward Quillinan, and for many years Wordsworth refused to give his consent, or gave it with such painful reluctance that the marriage did not take place until 1841. From Wordsworth's letters to Allan Cunningham, the Scottish poet, who assisted Chantrey, the sculptor, we learn that he was much occupied, in the spring of 1828, with distributing copies of his bust to various friends. This bust had been made by Chantrey about 1820 for Sir George Beaumont. He was also busy defending himself against the enterprise of the editors of poetical annuals. At first he refused to contribute to these gift-books, and his consistency was put to a strain when the high prices offered to him for a few pages of verse caused him to change * E. V. Lucas," Works of Charles and Mary Lamb," VI. 485. |