Volume 5 — NOTES
Reading edition
The following are the notes which Wordsworth added to The Excursion in the edition of 1814. In the case of the second, it will be observed that a new note was substituted in 1827 for that of 1814 and 1820. In other respects these "notes" remained unaltered throughout the editions, from 1814 to 1850. I have not thought it necessary to indicate the few, and very slight, changes in the phraseology of separate sentences. The text of the passages, on which the notes are based, is taken from the edition of 1850.—ED.
Preface, page 25.
Descend, prophetic Spirit! that inspir'st The human Soul, etc. Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic Soul Of the wide world dreaming on things to come. Shakespeare's Sonnets.—W.W. (1814).
Page 43.
——much did he see of men.
In Heron's Tour in Scotland is given an intelligent account of the qualities by which this class of men used to be, and still are in some degree, distinguished, and of the benefits which society derives from their labours. Among their characteristics, he does not omit to mention that, from being obliged to pass so much of their time in solitary wandering among rural objects, they frequently acquire meditative habits of mind, and are strongly disposed to enthusiasm poetical and religious. I regret that I have not the book at hand to quote the passage, as it is interesting on many accounts. (1814.)
At the risk of giving a shock to the prejudices of artificial society, I have ever been ready to pay homage to the aristocracy of nature; under a conviction that vigorous human-heartedness is the constituent principle of true taste. It may still, however, be satisfactory to have prose testimony how far a Character, employed for purposes of imagination, is founded upon general fact. I, therefore, subjoin an extract from an author who had opportunities of being well acquainted with a class of men, from whom my own personal knowledge emboldened me to draw this portrait.
"We learn from Cæsar and other Roman Writers, that the travelling merchants who frequented Gaul and other barbarous countries, either newly conquered by the Roman arms, or bordering on the Roman conquests, were ever the first to make the inhabitants of those countries familiarly acquainted with the Roman modes of life, and to inspire them with an inclination to follow the Roman fashions, and to enjoy Roman conveniences. In North America, travelling merchants from the Settlements have done and continue to do much more towards civilising the Indian natives, than all the missionaries, papist or protestant, who have ever been sent among them.
"It is farther to be observed, for the credit of this most useful class of men, that they commonly contribute, by their personal manners, no less than by the sale of their wares, to the refinement of the people among whom they travel. Their dealings form them to great quickness of wit and acuteness of judgment. Having constant occasion to recommend themselves and their goods, they acquire habits of the most obliging attention, and the most insinuating address. As in their peregrinations they have opportunity of contemplating the manners of various men and various cities, they become eminently skilled in the knowledge of the world. As they wander, each alone, through thinly-inhabited districts, they form habits of reflection and of sublime contemplation. With all these qualifications, no wonder, that they should often be, in remote parts of the country, the best mirrors of fashion, and censors of manners; and should contribute much to polish the roughness, and soften the rusticity of our peasantry. It is not more than twenty or thirty years since a young man going from any part of Scotland to England, of purpose to carry the pack, was considered as going to lead the life and acquire the fortune of a gentleman. When, after twenty years' absence, in that honourable line of employment, he returned with his acquisitions to his native country, he was regarded as a gentleman to all intents and purposes."—Heron's Journey in Scotland, vol. i. p. 89.—W.W. (1827).
Page 110.
Lost in unsearchable eternity!
Since this paragraph was composed, I have read with so much pleasure, in Burnet's Theory of the Earth, a passage expressing corresponding sentiments, excited by objects of a similar nature, that I cannot forbear to transcribe it.
"Siquod verò Natura nobis dedit spectaculum, in hâc tellure, verè gratum, et philosopho dignum, id semel mihi contigisse arbitror; cùm ex celsissimâ rupe speculabundus ad oram maris Mediterranei, hinc æquor cæruleum, illinc tractus Alpinos prospexi; nihil quidem magìs dispar aut dissimile, nec in suo genere, magìs egregium et singulare. Hoc theatrum ego facile prætulerim Romanis cunctis, Græcisve, atque id quod natura hîc spectandum exhibet, scenicis ludis omnibus, aut amphitheatri certaminibus. Nihil hîc elegans aut venustum, sed ingens et magnificum, et quod placet magnitudine suâ et quâdam specie immensitatis. Hinc intuebar maris æquabilem superficiem, usque et usque diffusam, quantum maximùm oculorum acies ferri potuit; illinc disruptissimam terræ faciem, et vastas moles variè elevatas aut depressas, erectas, propendentes, reclinatas, coacervatas, omni situ inæquali et turbido: Placuit ex hâc parte Naturæ unitas et simplicitas, et inexhausta quædam planities; ex alterâ, multiformis confusio magnorum corporum, et insanæ rerum strages: quas cùm intuebar, non urbis alicujus aut oppidi, sed confracti mundi rudera, ante oculos habere mihi visus sum.
"In singulis ferè montibus erat aliquid insolens et mirabile, sed præ cæteris mihi placebat ilia, quâ sedebam, rupes; erat maxima et altissima, et quâ terram respiciebat, molliori ascensu altitudinem suam dissimulabat: quà verò mare, horrendúm præceps, et quasi ad perpendiculum facta instar parietis. Prætereà facies ilia marina adeò erat lævis ac uniformis (quod in rupibus aliquando observare licet) ac si scissa fuisset à summo ad imum, in illo plano, vel terræ motu aliquo, aut fulmine divulsa.
"Ima pars rupis erat cava, recessusque habuit, et saxeos specus, euntes in vacuum montem; sive naturâ pridem factos, sive exesos mari, et undarum crebris ictibus: In hos enim cum impetu ruebant, et fragore æstuantis maris fluctus, quos iterum spumantes reddidit antrum, et quasi ab imo ventre evomuit.
"Dextrum latus mentis erat præruptum, aspero saxo et nudâ caute; sinistrum non adeò neglexerat Natura, arboribus utpote ornatum: et prope pedem montis rivus limpidæ aquæ prorupit, qui cùm vicinam vallem irrigaverat, lento motu serpens, et per varios mæandros, quasi ad protrahendam vitam, in magno mari absorptus subito periit. Denique in summo vertice promontorii, commodè eminebat saxum, cui insidebam contemplabundus. Vale augusta sedes, Rege digna: Augusta rupes, semper mihi memoranda!" P. 89. Telluris Theoria sacra, etc. Editio secunda.—W. W. 1814).
Page 139.
Of Mississippi, or that northern stream.
"A man is supposed to improve by going out into the World, by visiting London. Artificial man does; he extends with his sphere; but, alas! that sphere is microscopic; it is formed of minutiæ, and he surrenders his genuine vision to the artist, in order to embrace it in his ken. His bodily senses grow acute, even to barren and inhuman pruriency; while his mental become proportionally obtuse. The reverse is the Man of Mind: he who is placed in the sphere of Nature and of God, might be a mock at Tattersall's and Brooks's, and a sneer at St. James's: he would certainly be swallowed alive by the first Pizarro that crossed him:—But when he walks along the river of Amazons; when he rests his eye on the unrivalled Andes; when he measures the long and watered savannah; or contemplates, from a sudden promontory, the distant, vast Pacific—and feels himself a freeman in this vast theatre, and commanding each ready produced fruit of this wilderness, and each progeny of this stream—his exaltation is not less than imperial. He is as gentle, too, as he is great: his emotions of tenderness keep pace with his elevation of sentiment; for he says, 'These were made by a good Being, who, unsought by me, placed me here to enjoy them.' He becomes at once a child and a king. His mind is in himself; from hence he argues, and from hence he acts, and he argues unerringly, and acts magisterially; his mind in himself is also in his God; and therefore he loves, and therefore he soars."—From the notes upon The Hurricane, a Poem, by William Gilbert.[LJ]
The Reader, I am sure, will thank me for the above quotation, which, though from a strange book, is one of the finest passages of modern English prose.—W.W. (1814).
Page 149.
'Tis, by comparison, an easy task Earth to despise, etc.
See, upon this subject, Baxter's most interesting review of his own opinions and sentiments in the decline of life. It may be found (lately reprinted) in Dr. Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biography.—W.W. (1814).
Page 152.
Alas! the endowment of immortal Power, Is matched unequally with custom, time, etc.
This subject is treated at length in the Ode, Intimations of Immortality.—W.W. (1814).
Page 156.
Knowing the heart of man is set to be, etc.
The passage quoted from Daniel is taken from a poem addressed to the Lady Margaret, Countess of Cumberland, and the two last lines, printed in Italics, are by him translated from Seneca. The whole Poem is very beautiful. I will transcribe four stanzas from it, as they contain an admirable picture of the state of a wise Man's mind in a time of public commotion.
Nor is he moved with all the thunder-cracks Of tyrant's threats, or with the surly brow Of Power, that proudly sits on others' crimes; Charged with more crying sins than those he checks. The storms of sad confusion that may grow Up in the present for the coming times, Appal not him; that hath no side at all, But of himself, and knows the worst can fall. Although his heart (so near allied to earth) Cannot but pity the perplexed state Of troublous and distressed mortality, That thus make way unto the ugly birth Of their own sorrows, and do still beget Affliction upon Imbecility; Yet seeing thus the course of things must run, He looks thereon not strange, but as fore-done. And whilst distraught ambition compasses, And is encompassed, while as craft deceives, And is deceived: whilst man doth ransack man, And builds on blood, and rises by distress; And th' Inheritance of desolation leaves To great-expecting hopes: He looks thereon, As from the shore of peace, with unwet eye, And bears no venture in Impiety. Thus, Lady, fares that man that hath prepared A rest for his desires; and sees all things Beneath him; and hath learned this book of man, Full of the notes of frailty; and compared The best of glory with her sufferings: By whom, I see, you labour all you can To plant your heart! and set your thoughts as near His glorious mansion as your powers can bear. (1814.)
Page 221.
Or rather, as we stand on holy earth. And have the dead around us. Leo. You, Sir, could help me to the history Of half these graves? Priest. For eight-score winters past, With what I've witnessed, and with what I've heard, Perhaps I might; ... By turning o'er these hillocks one by one, We two could travel, Sir, through a strange round; Yet all in the broad highway of the world.
See the Author's poem of The Brothers, published in the "Lyrical Ballads," in the year 1800.—W.W. (1814).
Page 233.
And suffering Nature grieved that one should die. Southey's Retrospect.—W.W. (1814).
Page 233.
And whence that tribute? wherefore these regards?
The sentiments and opinions here uttered are in unison with those expressed in the ... Essay upon Epitaphs, which was furnished by me for Mr. Coleridge's periodical work, The Friend; and as they are dictated by a spirit congenial to that which pervades this and the two succeeding books, the sympathising reader will not be displeased to see the Essay here annexed.[LK]—W.W. (1814).
Page 236.
And spires whose 'silent finger points to heaven.'
An instinctive taste teaches men to build their churches in flat countries with spire-steeples, which as they cannot be referred to any other object, point as with silent finger to the sky and stars, and sometimes, when they reflect the brazen light of a rich though rainy sunset, appear like a pyramid of flame burning heaven-ward. See The Friend, by S. T. Coleridge, No. 14, p. 223.—W. W. (1814).
Page 308.
That sycamore, which annually holds Within its shade, as in a stately tent. This Sycamore oft musical with Bees; Such Tents the Patriarchs loved. S. T. Coleridge.—W.W. (1814).
(It is in his Inscription for a fountain on a Heath.—ED.)
Page 323.
Perish the roses and the flowers of kings.
The "Transit gloria mundi" is finely expressed in the Introduction to the Foundation-charters of some of the ancient Abbeys. Some expressions here used are taken from that of the Abbey of St. Mary's, Furness, the translation of which is as follows:—
"Considering every day the uncertainty of life, that the roses and flowers of Kings, Emperors, and Dukes, and the crowns and palms of all the great, wither and decay; and that all things, with an uninterrupted course, tend to dissolution and death: I therefore," etc.—W.W. (1814).
Page 331.
——Earth has lent Her waters, Air her breezes.
In treating this subject, it was impossible not to recollect, with gratitude, the pleasing picture, which, in his Poem of The Fleece, the excellent and amiable Dyer has given of the influences of manufacturing industry upon the face of this Island. He wrote at a time when machinery was first beginning to be introduced, and his benevolent heart prompted him to augur from it nothing but good. Truth has compelled me to dwell upon the baneful effects arising out of an ill-regulated and excessive application of powers so admirable in themselves.—W. W. (1814).
Page 363.
Binding herself by statute.
The discovery of Dr. Bell affords marvellous facilities for carrying this into effect; and it is impossible to over-rate the benefit which might accrue to humanity from the universal application of this simple engine under an enlightened and conscientious government.—W. W. (1814).
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