The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth Volume Iii Part 34

'Yes, I, and all about me here, Through all the changes of the year, Had seen him through the mountains go, In pomp of mist or pomp of snow, Majestically huge and slow: Or, with a milder grace adorning The landscape of a summer's morning; While Grasmere smoothed her liquid plain The moving image to detain; And mighty Fairfield, with a chime Of echoes, to his march kept time; When little other business stirred, And little other sound was heard; In that delicious hour of balm, Stillness, solitude, and calm, While yet the valley is arrayed, On this side with a sober shade; On that is prodigally bright-- Crag, lawn, and wood--with rosy light.'

From Dunmail-raise the Waggoner descends to Wytheburn. Externally,

'... Wytheburn's modest House of prayer, As lowly as the lowliest dwelling,'

remains very much as it was in 1805; but the primitive simplicity and "lowliness" of the chapel was changed by the addition a few years ago of an apse, by the removal of some of the old rafters, and by the reseating of the pews.

The Cherry Tree Tavern, where "the village Merry-night" was being celebrated, still stands on the eastern or Helvellyn side of the road.

It is now a farm-house; but it will be regarded with interest from the description of the rustic dance, which recalls ('longo intervallo') 'The Jolly Beggars' of Burns. After two hours' delay at the Cherry Tree, the Waggoner and Sailor "coast the silent lake" of Thirlmere, and pa.s.s the Rock of Names.

This rock was, until lately, one of the most interesting memorials of Wordsworth and his friends that survived in the Lake District; but the vale of Thirlmere is now a Manchester water-tank, and the place which knew the Rock of Names now knows it no more. It was a sort of trysting place of the poets of Grasmere and Keswick--being nearly half-way between the two places--and there, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and other members of their households often met. When Coleridge left Grasmere for Keswick, the Wordsworths usually accompanied him as far as this rock; and they often met him there on his way over from Keswick to Grasmere.

Compare the Hon. Mr. Justice Coleridge's Reminiscences. ('Memoirs of Wordsworth,' vol. ii. p. 310.)

The rock was on the right hand of the road, a little way past Waterhead, at the southern end of Thirlmere; and on it were cut the letters,

W. W.

M. H.

D. W.

S. T. C.

J. W.

S. H.

the initials of William Wordsworth, Mary Hutchinson, Dorothy Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Wordsworth, and Sarah Hutchinson. The Wordsworths settled at Grasmere at the close of the year 1799. As mentioned in a previous note, John Wordsworth lived with his brother and sister during most of that winter, and during the whole of the spring, summer, and autumn of 1800, leaving it finally on September 29, 1800.

These names must therefore have been cut during the spring or summer of 1800. There is no record of the occurrence, and no allusion to the rock, in Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal of 1800. But that Journal, so far as I have seen it, begins on the 14th of May 1800. Almost every detail of the daily life and ways of the household at Dove Cottage is so minutely recorded in it, that I am convinced that this incident of the cutting of names in the Thirlmere Rock would have been mentioned, had it happened between the 14th of May and John Wordsworth's departure from Grasmere in September. Such references as this, for example, occur in the Journal:

"Sat.u.r.day, August 2.--William and Coleridge went to Keswick. John went with them to Wytheburn, and staid all day fis.h.i.+ng."

I therefore infer that it was in the spring or early summer of 1800 that the names were cut.

I may add that the late Dean of Westminster--Dean Stanley--took much interest in this Rock of Names; and doubt having been cast on the accuracy of the place and the genuineness of the inscriptions, in a letter from Dr. Fraser, then Bishop of Manchester, which he forwarded to me, he entered into the question with all the interest with which he was wont to track out details in the architecture or the history of a Church.

There were few memorials connected with Wordsworth more worthy of preservation than this "upright mural block of stone." When one remembered that the initials on the rock were graven by the hands of William and John Wordsworth, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, possibly with the a.s.sistance of Dorothy Wordsworth, the two Hutchinsons (Mary and Sarah), and that Wordsworth says of it,

'We worked until the Initials took Shapes that defied a scornful look,'

this Thirlmere Rock was felt to be a far more interesting memento of the group of poets that used to meet beside it, than the Stone in the grounds of Rydal Mount, which was spared at Wordsworth's suit, "from some rude beauty of its own." There was simplicity, as well as strength, in the way in which the initials were cut. But the stone was afterwards desecrated by tourists, and others, who had the audacity to scratch their own names or initials upon it. In 1877 I wrote, "The rock is as yet wonderfully free from such; and its preservation is probably due to the dark olive-coloured moss, with which the 'pure water trickling down'

has covered the face of the 'mural block,' and thus secured it from observation, even on that highway;" but I found in the summer of 1882 that several other names had been ruthlessly added. When the Manchester Thirlmere scheme was finally resolved upon, an effort was made to remove the Stone, with the view of its being placed higher up the hill on the side of the new roadway. In the course of this attempt, the Stone was broken to pieces.

There is a very good drawing of "The Rock of Names" by Mr. Harry Goodwin, in 'Through the Wordsworth Country, 1892'.

"The Muse" takes farewell of the Waggoner as he is proceeding with the Sailor and his quaint model of the 'Vanguard' along the road toward Keswick. She "scents the morning air," and

'Quits the slow-paced waggon's side, To wander down yon hawthorn dell, With murmuring Greta for her guide.'

The "hawthorn dell" is the upper part of the Vale of St. John.

'--There doth she ken the awful form Of Raven-crag--black as a storm-- Glimmering through the twilight pale; And Ghimmer-crag, his tall twin brother, Each peering forth to meet the other.'

Raven-crag is well known,--H.C. Robinson writes of it in his 'Diary' in 1818, as "the most significant of the crags at a spot where there is not one insignificant,"--a rock on the western side of Thirlmere, where the Greta issues from the lake. But there is no rock in the district now called by the name of Ghimmer-crag, or the crag of the Ewe-lamb. I am inclined to think that Wordsworth referred to the "Fisher-crag" of the Ordnance Survey and the Guide Books. No other rock round Thirlmere can with any accuracy be called the "tall twin brother" of Raven-crag: certainly not Great How, nor any spur of High Seat or Bleaberry Fell.

Fisher-crag resembles Raven-crag, as seen from Thirlmere Bridge, or from the high road above it; and it is somewhat remarkable that Green--in his Guide to the Lakes (a volume which the poet possessed)--makes use of the same expression as that which Wordsworth adopts regarding these two crags, Raven and Fisher.

"The margin of the lake on the Dalehead side has its charms of wood and water; and Fischer Crag, twin brother to Raven Crag, is no bad object, when taken near the island called Buck's Holm"

('A Description of Sixty Studies from Nature', by William Green of Ambleside, 1810, p. 57). I cannot find any topographical allusion to a Ghimmer-crag in contemporary local writers. Clarke, in his 'Survey of the Lakes', does not mention it.

The Castle Rock, in the Vale of Legberthwaite, between High Fell and Great How, is the fairy castle of Sir Walter Scott's 'Bridal of Triermain'. "Nathdale Fell" is the ridge between Naddle Vale (Nathdale Vale) and that of St. John, now known as High Rigg. The old Hall of Threlkeld has long been in a state of ruinous dilapidation, the only habitable part of it having been for many years converted into a farmhouse. The remaining local allusions in 'The Waggoner' are obvious enough: Castrigg is the shortened form of Castlerigg, the ridge between Naddle Valley and Keswick.

In the "Reminiscences" of Wordsworth, which the Hon. Mr. Justice Coleridge wrote for the late Bishop of Lincoln, in 1850, there is the following reference to 'The Waggoner'. (See 'Memoirs', vol. ii. p. 310.)

"'The Waggoner' seems a very favourite poem of his. He said his object in it had not been understood. It was a play of the fancy on a domestic incident, and lowly character. He wished by the opening descriptive lines to put his reader into the state of mind in which he wished it to be read. If he failed in doing that, he wished him to lay it down. He pointed out with the same view, the glowing lines on the state of exultation in which Ben and his companions are under the influence of liquor. Then he read the sickening languor of the morning walk, contrasted with the glorious uprising of Nature, and the songs of the birds. Here he has added about six most exquisite lines."

The lines referred to are doubtless the eight (p. 101), beginning

'Say more; for by that power a vein,'

which were added in the edition of 1836.

The following is Sara Coleridge's criticism of 'The Waggoner'. (See 'Biographia Literaria', vol. ii. pp. 183, 184, edition 1847.)

"Due honour is done to 'Peter Bell', at this time, by students of poetry in general; but some, even of Mr. Wordsworth's greatest admirers, do not quite satisfy me in their admiration of 'The Waggoner', a poem which my dear uncle, Mr. Southey, preferred even to the former. 'Ich will meine Denkungs Art hierin niemandem aufdringen', as Lessing says: I will force my way of thinking on n.o.body, but take the liberty, for my own gratification, to express it. The sketches of hill and valley in this poem have a lightness, and spirit--an Allegro touch--distinguis.h.i.+ng them from the grave and elevated splendour which characterises Mr. Wordsworth's representations of Nature in general, and from the pa.s.sive tenderness of those in 'The White Doe', while it harmonises well with the human interest of the piece; indeed it is the harmonious sweetness of the composition which is most dwelt upon by its special admirers. In its course it describes, with bold brief touches, the striking mountain tract from Grasmere to Keswick; it commences with an evening storm among the mountains, presents a lively interior of a country inn during midnight, and concludes after bringing us in sight of St. John's Vale and the Vale of Keswick seen by day-break--'Skiddaw touched with rosy light,' and the prospect from Nathdale Fell 'h.o.a.r with the frost-like dews of dawn:' thus giving a beautiful and well-contrasted Panorama, produced by the most delicate and masterly strokes of the pencil. Well may Mr. Ruskin, a fine observer and eloquent describer of various cla.s.ses of natural appearances, speak of Mr. Wordsworth as the great poetic landscape painter of the age. But Mr. Ruskin has found how seldom the great landscape painters are powerful in expressing human pa.s.sions and affections on canvas, or even successful in the introduction of human figures into their foregrounds; whereas in the poetic paintings of Mr.

Wordsworth the landscape is always subordinate to a higher interest; certainly, in 'The Waggoner', the little sketch of human nature which occupies, as it were, the front of that encircling background, the picture of Benjamin and his temptations, his humble friends and the mute companions of his way, has a character of its own, combining with sportiveness a homely pathos, which must ever be delightful to some of those who are thoroughly conversant with the spirit of Mr.

Wordsworth's poetry. It may be compared with the ale-house scene in 'Tam o'Shanter', parts of Voss's Luise, or Ovid's Baucis and Philemon; though it differs from each of them as much as they differ from each other. The Epilogue carries on the feeling of the piece very beautifully."

The editor of Southey's 'Life and Correspondence'--his son, the Rev.

Charles Cuthbert Southey--tells us, in a note to a letter from S.T.

Coleridge to his father, that the Waggoner's name was Jackson; and that "all the circ.u.mstances of the poem are accurately correct." This Jackson, after retiring from active work as waggoner, became the tenant of Greta Hall, where first Coleridge, and afterwards Southey lived. The Hall was divided into two houses, one of which Jackson occupied, and the other of which he let to Coleridge, who speaks thus of him in the letter to Southey, dated Greta Hall, Keswick, April 13, 1801:

"My landlord, who dwells next door, has a very respectable library, which he has put with mine; histories, encyclopedias, and all the modern poetry, etc. etc. etc. A more truly disinterested man I never met with; severely frugal, yet almost carelessly generous; and yet he got all his money as a common carrier, by hard labour, and by pennies and pennies. He is one instance among many in this country of the salutary effect of the love of knowledge--he was from a boy a lover of learning."

(See 'Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey,' vol. ii. pp. 147, 148.)

Charles Lamb--to whom 'The Waggoner' was dedicated--wrote thus to Wordsworth on 7th June 1819:

"My dear Wordsworth,--You cannot imagine how proud we are here of the dedication. We read it twice for once that we do the poem. I mean all through; yet 'Benjamin' is no common favourite; there is a spirit of beautiful tolerance in it. It is as good as it was in 1806; and it will be as good in 1829, if our dim eyes shall be awake to peruse it.

Methinks there is a kind of shadowing affinity between the subject of the narrative and the subject of the dedication.

"I do not know which I like best,--the prologue (the latter part especially) to 'P. Bell,' or the epilogue to 'Benjamin.' Yes, I tell stories; I do know I like the last best; and the 'Waggoner' altogether is a pleasanter remembrance to me than the 'Itinerant.'

"C. LAMB."

(See 'The Letters of Charles Lamb,' edited by Alfred Ainger, vol. ii.

pp. 24-26.)

To this may be added what Southey wrote to Mr. Wade Browne on 15th June 1819:

"I think you will be pleased with Wordsworth's 'Waggoner', if it were only for the line of road which it describes. The master of the waggon was my poor landlord Jackson, and the cause of his exchanging it for the one-horse cart was just as is represented in the poem; n.o.body but Benjamin could manage it upon these hills, and Benjamin could not resist the temptations by the wayside."

(See 'The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey', vol. iv. p.

318.)--Ed.