Note DH — 1818
Reading edition
In the lines "Wings at my shoulders seem to play," etc., I am under obligation to the exquisite picture by Mr. Alstone, now in America. It is pleasant to make this public acknowledgment to men of genius, whom I have the honour to rank among my friends.—W. W. 1820.
The phrase "men of genius" includes Haydon. The first part of this note of 1820, being one on Peter Bell, referring to Haydon's Bible picture of Christ's Entry into Jerusalem. (See note to Peter Bell, l. 979.)
The American painter was Mr. Washington Allston. Wordsworth sent him a MS. copy of the poem, transcribed "in gratitude for the pleasure he had received from the sight of Mr. Allston's pictures, in particular 'Jacob's Dream,'" and at the end of the MS. of his poem, Wordsworth wrote, "The Author does not know how far he was indebted to Mr. Allston for part of the 3rd stanza. The multiplication of ridges in a mountainous country, as Mr. A. has probably observed, arises from two causes, sunny or watery vapour—the former is here meant. When does Mr. A. return to England?" In a letter on "Wordsworth and Allston," in The Athenæum, Mr. J. Dykes Campbell refers to "something in the picture having given definite form to observations of natural phenomena the significance of which the poet had not immediately noted." "Wordsworth," he adds, "was a close and untiring rather than a quick or keen observer, and his mind was at all times stored with a wealth of notes which sometimes had to wait long before they could either be worked out or worked in. Sometimes—as in this instance, perhaps—they were revivified by the suggestions of some kindred observer who happened to anticipate the poet in giving them form."—See The Athenæum, August 7, 1894.—Ed.