The Prose Works of William Wordsworth. William Wordsworth

Shower with a bounteous hand on Thee and Thine

       Felicity that only can be given

       On earth to goodness blest by grace divine.

      Lady! devoutly honoured and beloved

       Through every realm confided to thy sway;

       Mayst Thou pursue thy course by God approved,

       And He will teach thy people to obey.

      As Thou art wont, thy sovereignty adorn

       With woman's gentleness, yet firm and staid;

       So shall that earthly crown thy brows have worn

       Be changed for one whose glory cannot fade.

      And now, by duty urged, I lay this Book

       Before thy Majesty, in humble trust

       That on its simplest pages Thou wilt look

       With a benign indulgence more than just.

      Nor wilt Thou blame an aged Poet's prayer,

       That issuing hence may steal into thy mind

       Some solace under weight of royal care,

       Or grief—the inheritance of humankind.

      For know we not that from celestial spheres,

       When Time was young, an inspiration came

       (Oh, were it mine!) to hallow saddest tears,

       And help life onward in its noblest aim?

      W.W.

      9th January 1846.

PREFACE.

       Table of Contents

      In response to a request put in the most gratifying way possible of the nearest representatives of WORDSWORTH, the Editor has prepared this collection of his Prose Works. That this should be done for the first time herein seems somewhat remarkable, especially in the knowledge of the permanent value which the illustrious Author attached to his Prose, and that he repeatedly expressed his wish and expectation that it would be thus brought together and published, e.g. in the 'Memoirs,' speaking of his own prose writings, he said that but for COLERIDGE'S irregularity of purpose he should probably have left much more in that kind behind him. When COLERIDGE was proposing to publish his 'Friend,' he (WORDSWORTH) had offered contributions. COLERIDGE had expressed himself pleased with the offer, but said, "I must arrange my principles for the work, and when that is done I shall be glad of your aid." But this "arrangement of principles" never took place. WORDSWORTH added: "I think my nephew, Dr. Wordsworth, will, after my death, collect and publish all I have written in prose. … " "On another occasion, I believe, he intimated a desire that his works in Prose should be edited by his son-in-law, Mr. Quillinan."[1] Similarly he wrote to Professor REED in 1840: 'I am much pleased by what you say in your letter of the 18th May last, upon the Tract of the "Convention of Cintra," and I think myself with some interest upon its being reprinted hereafter along with my other writings [in prose]. But the respect which, in common with all the rest of the rational part of the world, I bear for the DUKE OF WELLINGTON will prevent my reprinting the pamphlet during his lifetime. It has not been in my power to read the volumes of his Despatches, which I hear so highly spoken of; but I am convinced that nothing they contain could alter my opinion of the injurious tendency of that or any other Convention, conducted upon such principles. It was, I repeat, gratifying to me that you should have spoken of that work as you do, and particularly that you should have considered it in relation to my Poems, somewhat in the same manner as you had done in respect to my little volume on the Lakes.'[2]

      It is probable that the amount of the Prose of WORDSWORTH will come as a surprise—surely a pleasant one—on even his admirers and students. His own use of 'Tract' to describe a goodly octavo volume, and his calling his 'Guide' a 'little volume' while it is a somewhat considerable one, together with the hiding away of some of his most matterful and weightiest productions in local and fugitive publications, and in Prefaces and Appendices to Poems, go far to explain the prevailing unacquaintance with even the extent, not to speak of the importance, of his Prose, and the light contentment with which it has been permitted so long to remain (comparatively) out of sight. That the inter-relation of the Poems to the Prose, and of the Prose to the Poems—of which above he himself wrote—makes the collection and publication of the Prose a duty to all who regard WILLIAM WORDSWORTH as one of the supreme intellects of the century—as certainly the glory of the Georgian and Victorian age as ever SHAKESPEARE and RALEIGH were of the Elizabethan and Jacobean—will not be questioned to-day.

      The present Editor can only express his satisfaction at being called to execute a task which, from a variety of circumstances, has been too long delayed; but only delayed, inasmuch as the members of the Poet's family have always held it as a sacred obligation laid upon them, with the additional sanction that WORDSWORTH'S old and valued friend, HENRY CRABB ROBINSON, Esq., had expressed a wish in his last Will (1868) that the Prose Works of his friend should one day be collected; and which wish alone, from one so discriminating and generous—were there no other grounds for doing so—the family of WORDSWORTH could not but regard as imperative. He rejoices that the delay—otherwise to be regretted—has enabled the Editor to furnish a much fuller and more complete collection than earlier had perhaps been possible. He would now briefly notice the successive portions of these Volumes:

VOL. I.

       Table of Contents

      I. POLITICAL.

      (a) Apology for the French Revolution, 1793.

      This is from the Author's own MS., and is published for the first time. Every reader of 'The Recluse' and 'The Excursion' and the 'Lines on the French Revolution, as it appeared to Enthusiasts at its Commencement'—to specify only these—is aware that, in common with SOUTHEY and the greater COLERIDGE, WORDSWORTH was in sympathy with the uprising of France against its tyrants. But it is only now that we are admitted to a full discovery of his youthful convictions and emotion by the publication of this Manuscript, carefully preserved by him, but never given to the world. The title on the fly-leaf—'Apology,' &c., being ours—in the Author's own handwriting, is as follows:

      A

       LETTER

       TO THE

       BISHOP OF LANDAFF

       ON THE EXTRAORDINARY AVOWAL OF HIS

       POLITICAL PRINCIPLES,

       CONTAINED IN THE

       APPENDIX TO HIS LATE SERMON:

       BY A

       REPUBLICAN.

      It is nowhere dated, but inasmuch as Bishop WATSON'S Sermon, with the Appendix, appeared early in 1793, to that year certainly belongs the composition of the 'Letter.' The title-page of the Sermon and Appendix may be here given;

      A

       SERMON

       PREACHED BEFORE THE

       STEWARDS

       OF THE

       WESTMINSTER DISPENSARY,

       AT THEIR

       ANNIVERSARY MEETING,

       CHARLOTTE STREET CHAPEL, APRIL 1785.

       WITH AN APPENDIX, BY R. WATSON, D.D.

       LORD BISHOP OF LANDAFF.

       LONDON:

       PRINTED FOR T. CADELL IN THE STRAND; AND T. EVANS