The Excursion. Note & Preface

Something must now be said of this poem, but chiefly, as has been done through
the whole of these notes, with reference to my personal friends, and especially
to her who has perseveringly taken them down from my dictation. Towards the
close of the first book stand the lines that were first written, beginning,
“Nine tedious years,” and ending, “Last human tenant of these ruined walls.”
These were composed in ’95 at Racedown; and for several passages describing the
employment and demeanour of Margaret during her affliction, I was indebted to
observations made in Dorsetshire, and afterwards at Alfoxden in Somersetshire,
where I resided in ’97 and ’98. The lines towards the conclusion of the fourth
book beginning, “For, the man, who, in this spirit,” to the words “intellectual
soul” were in order of time composed the next, either at Racedown or Alfoxden,
I do not remember which. The rest of the poem was written in the vale of
Grasmere, chiefly during our residence at Allan Bank. The long poem on my own
education was, together with many minor poems, composed while we lived at the
cottage at Town-end. Perhaps my purpose of giving an additional interest to
these my poems in the eyes of my nearest and dearest friends may be promoted
by saying a few words upon the character of the Wanderer, the Solitary, and the
Pastor, and some other of the persons introduced. And first, of the principal
one, the Wanderer. My lamented friend Southey (for this is written a month after
his decease) used to say that had he been born a papist, the course of life
which would in all probability have been his was the one for which he was most
fitted and most to his mind, that of a Benedictine monk in a convent, furnished,
as many once were and some still are, with an inexhaustible library. ‘Books’,
as appears from many passages in his writings, and as was evident to those who
had opportunities of observing his daily life, were in fact ‘his passion’; and
‘wandering’, I can with truth affirm, was ‘mine’; but this propensity in me was
happily counteracted by inability from want of fortune to fulfil my wishes.
But, had I been born in a class which would have deprived me of what is called
a liberal education, it is not unlikely that, being strong in body, I should
have taken to a way of life such as that in which my Pedlar passed the greater
part of his days. At all events, I am here called upon freely to acknowledge
that the character I have represented in his person is chiefly an idea of what
I fancied my own character might have become in his circumstances.
Nevertheless, much of what he says and does had an external existence that fell
under my own youthful and subsequent observation. An individual named Patrick,
by birth and education a Scotchman, followed this humble occupation for many
years, and afterwards settled in the town of Kendal. He married a kinswoman of
my wife’s, and her sister Sarah was brought up from her ninth year under this
good man’s roof. My own imaginations I was happy to find clothed in reality,
and fresh ones suggested, by what she reported of this man’s tenderness of
heart, his strong and pure imagination, and his solid attainments in literature,
chiefly religious whether in prose or verse. At Hawkshead also, while I was a
schoolboy, there occasionally resided a Packman (the name then generally given
to persons of this calling) with whom I had frequent conversations upon what had
befallen him, and what he had observed, during his wandering life; and, as was
natural, we took much to each other: and, upon the subject of “Pedlarism” in
general, as ‘then’ followed, and its favourableness to an intimate knowledge of
human concerns, not merely among the humbler classes of society, I need say
nothing here in addition to what is to be found in the “Excursion,” and a note
attached to it. Now for the Solitary. Of him I have much less to say. Not long
after we took up our abode at Grasmere, came to reside there, from what motive I
either never knew or have forgotten, a Scotchman a little past the middle of
life, who had for many years been chaplain to a Highland regiment. He was in no
respect as far as I know, an interesting character, though in his appearance
there was a good deal that attracted attention, as if he had been shattered in
fortune and not happy in mind. Of his quondam position I availed myself, to
connect with the Wanderer, also a Scotchman, a character suitable to my purpose,
the elements of which I drew from several persons with whom I had been
connected, and who fell under my observation during frequent residences in
London at the beginning of the French Revolution. The chief of these was, one
may ‘now’ say, a Mr. Fawcett, a preacher at a dissenting meeting-house at the
Old Jewry. It happened to me several times to be one of his congregation through
my connection with Mr. Nicholson of Cateaton Street, who at that time, when I
had not many acquaintances in London, used often to invite me to dine with him
on Sundays; and I took that opportunity (Mr. N. being a dissenter) of going to
hear Fawcett, who was an able and eloquent man. He published a poem on war,
which had a good deal of merit, and made me think more about him than I should
otherwise have done. But his Christianity was probably never very deeply
rooted; and, like many others in those times of like showy talents, he had not
strength of character to withstand the effects of the French Revolution, and
of the wild and lax opinions which had done so much towards producing it, and
far more in carrying it forward in its extremes. Poor Fawcett, I have been told,
became pretty much such a person as I have described; and early disappeared
from the stage, having fallen into habits of intemperance, which I have heard
(though I will not answer for the fact) hastened his death. Of him I need say
no more: there were many like him at that time, which the world will never be
without, but which were more numerous then for reasons too obvious to be dwelt
upon.

To what is said of the Pastor in the poem I have little to add, but what may be
deemed superfluous. It has ever appeared to me highly favourable to the
beneficial influence of the Church of England upon all gradations and classes
of society, that the patronage of its benefices is in numerous instances
attached to the estates of noble families of ancient gentry; and accordingly I
am gratified by the opportunity afforded me in the “Excursion,” to pourtray the
character of a country clergyman of more than ordinary talents, born and bred
in the upper ranks of society so as to partake of their refinements, and at the
same time brought by his pastoral office and his love of rural life into
intimate connection with the peasantry of his native district. To illustrate
the relation which in my mind this Pastor bore to the Wanderer, and the
resemblance between them, or rather the points of community in their nature, I
likened one to an oak and the other to a sycamore; and, having here referred to
this comparison, I need only add, I had no one individual in my mind, wishing
rather to embody this idea than to break in upon the simplicity of it, by
traits of individual character or of any peculiarity of opinion.

And now for a few words upon the scene where these interviews and conversations
are supposed to occur. The scene of the first book of the poem is, I must own,
laid in a tract of country not sufficiently near to that which soon comes into
view in the second book, to agree with the fact. All that relates to Margaret
and the ruined cottage, etc., was taken from observations made in the
south-west of England, and certainly it would require more than seven-league
boots to stretch in one morning from a common in Somersetshire or Dorsetshire
to the heights of Furness Fells and the deep valleys they embosom. For thus
dealing with space I need make, I trust, no apology, but my friends may be
amused by the truth. In the poem, I suppose that the Pedlar and I ascended from
a plain country up the vale of Langdale, and struck off a good way above the
chapel to the western side of the vale. We ascended the hill and thence looked
down upon the circular recess in which lies Blea-Tarn, chosen by the Solitary
for his retreat. After we quit his cottage, passing over a low ridge we descend
into another vale, that of Little Langdale, towards the head of which stands,
embowered or partly shaded by yews and other trees, something between a cottage
and a mansion or gentleman’s house such as they once were in this country. This
I convert into the Parsonage, and at the same time, and as by the waving of a
magic wand, I turn the comparatively confined vale of Langdale, its Tarn, and
the rude chapel which once adorned the valley, into the stately and comparatively
spacious vale of Grasmere, its Lake, and its ancient Parish Church; and upon the
side of Loughrigg Fell, at the foot of the Lake, and looking down upon it and
the whole vale and its encompassing mountains, the Pastor is supposed by me to
stand, when at sunset he addresses his companions in words which I hope my
readers will remember, or I should not have taken the trouble of giving so much
in detail the materials on which my mind actually worked. Now for a few
particulars of ‘fact’ respecting the persons whose stories are told or
characters are described by the different speakers. To Margaret I have already
alluded. I will add here, that the lines beginning, “She was a woman of a
steady mind,” faithfully delineate, as far as they go, the character possessed in
common by many women whom it has been my happiness to know in humble life; and
that several of the most touching things which she is represented as saying and
doing are taken from actual observation of the distresses and trials under which
different persons were suffering, some of them strangers to me, and others daily
under my notice. I was born too late to have a distinct remembrance of the
origin of the American war, but the state in which I represent Robert’s mind to
be I had frequent opportunities of observing at the commencement of our rupture
with France in ’93, opportunities of which I availed myself in the story of the
Female Vagrant as told in the poem on “Guilt and Sorrow.” The account given by
the Solitary towards the close of the second book, in all that belongs to the
character of the Old Man, was taken from a Grasmere pauper, who was boarded in
the last house quitting the vale on the road to Ambleside: the character of his
hostess, and all that befell the poor man upon the mountain, belong to
Paterdale: the woman I knew well; her name was J- -, and she was exactly such a
person as I describe. The ruins of the old chapel, among which the man was
found lying, may yet be traced, and stood upon the ridge that divides Paterdale
from Boardale and Martindale, having been placed there for the convenience of
both districts. The glorious appearance disclosed above and among the mountains
was described partly from what my friend Mr. Luff, who then lived in Paterdale,
witnessed upon that melancholy occasion, and partly from what Mrs. Wordsworth
and I had seen in company with Sir George and Lady Beaumont above Hartshope Hall
on our way from Paterdale to Ambleside.

And now for a few words upon the Church, its Monuments, and the Deceased who are
spoken of as lying in the surrounding churchyard. But first for the one picture,
given by the Pastor and the Wanderer, of the Living. In this nothing is
introduced but what was taken from nature and real life. The cottage is called
Hacket, and stands as described on the southern extremity of the ridge which
separates the two Langdales: the pair who inhabited it were called Jonathan and
Betty Yewdale. Once when our children were ill, of whooping-cough I think, we
took them for change of air to this cottage, and were in the habit of going there
to drink tea upon fine summer afternoons, so that we became intimately acquainted
with the characters, habits, and lives of these good, and, let me say, in the
main, wise people. The matron had, in her early youth, been a servant in a house
at Hawkshead, where several boys boarded, while I was a schoolboy there. I did
not remember her as having served in that capacity; but we had many little
anecdotes to tell to each other of remarkable boys, incidents and adventures
which had made a noise in their day in that small town. These two persons
afterwards settled at Rydal, where they both died.

The church, as already noticed, is that of Grasmere. The interior of it has been
improved lately made warmer by under- drawing the roof and raising the floor but
the rude and antique majesty of its former appearance has been impaired by
painting the rafters; and the oak benches, with a simple rail at the back
dividing them from each other, have given way to seats that have more the
appearance of pews. It is remarkable that, excepting only the pew belonging to
Rydal Hall, that to Rydal Mount, the one to the Parsonage, and I believe another,
the men and women still continue, as used to be the custom in Wales, to sit
separate from each other. Is this practice as old as the Reformation? and when
and how did it originate? In the Jewish synagogues and in Lady Huntingdon’s
chapels the sexes are divided in the same way. In the adjoining churchyard
greater changes have taken place. It is now not a little crowded with tombstones;
and near the school-house which stands in the churchyard is an ugly structure,
built to receive the hearse, which is recently come into use. It would not be
worth while to allude to this building or the hearse-vehicle it contains, but
that the latter has been the means of introducing a change much to be lamented
in the mode of conducting funerals among the mountains. Now, the coffin is lodged
in the hearse at the door of the house of the deceased, and the corpse is so
conveyed to the churchyard gate: all the solemnity which formerly attended its
progress, as described in the poem, is put an end to. So much do I regret this,
that I beg to be excused for giving utterance here to a wish that, should it
befall me to die at Rydal Mount, my own body may be carried to Grasmere church
after the manner in which, till lately, that of every one was borne to that
place of sepulture, namely, on the shoulders of neighbours, no house being
passed without some words of a funeral psalm being sung at the time by the
attendants. When I put into the mouth of the Wanderer, “Many precious rites and
customs of our rural ancestry are gone or stealing from us; this I hope will
last for ever,” and what follows, little did I foresee that the observance and
mode of proceeding, which had often affected me so much, would so soon be
superseded. Having said much of the injury done to this churchyard, let me add
that one is at liberty to look forward to a time when, by the growth of the
yew-trees, thriving there, a solemnity will be spread over the place that will in
some degree make amends for the old simple character which has already been so
much encroached upon, and will be still more every year. I will here set down,
more at length, what has been mentioned in a previous note, that my friend Sir
George Beaumont, having long ago purchased the beautiful piece of water called
Loughrigg Tarn, on the Banks of which he intended to build, I told him that a
person in Kendal who was attached to the place wished to purchase it. Sir George,
finding the possession of no use to him, consented to part with it, and placed
the purchase-money twenty pounds at my disposal for any local use which I
thought proper. Accordingly I resolved to plant yew-trees in the churchyard, and
had four pretty strong large oak enclosures made, in each of which was planted,
under my own eye, and principally if not entirely by my own hand, two young trees,
with the intention of leaving the one that throve best to stand. Many years
after, Mr. Barber, who will long be remembered in Grasmere; Mr. Greenwood, the
chief landed proprietor; and myself, had four other enclosures made in the
churchyard at our own expense, in each of which was planted a tree taken from its
neighbour, and they all stand thriving admirably, the fences having been removed
as no longer necessary. May the trees be taken care of hereafter when we are all
gone, and some of them will perhaps at some far distant time rival in majesty
the yew of Lorton and those which I have described as growing in Borrowdale,
where they are still to be seen in grand assemblage.

And now for the persons that are selected as lying in the churchyard. But first
for the individual whose grave is prepared to receive him. His story is here
truly related: he was a school- fellow of mine for some years. He came to us when
he was at least seventeen years of age, very tall, robust, and full-grown. This
prevented him from falling into the amusements and games of the school:
consequently he gave more time to books. He was not remarkably bright or quick,
but by industry he made a progress more than respectable. His parents not being
wealthy enough to send him to college, when he left Hawkshead he became a
schoolmaster, with a view to prepare himself for holy orders. About this time he
fell in love as related in the poem, and everything followed as there described,
except that I do not know when and where he died. The number of youths that came
to Hawkshead school, from the families of the humble yeomanry, to be educated to
a certain degree of scholarship as a preparation for the church, was considerable,
and the fortunes of these persons in after life various of course, and of some
not a little remarkable. I have now one of this class in my eye who became an
usher in a preparatory school and ended in making a large fortune. His manners
when he came to Hawkshead were as uncouth as well could be; but he had good
abilities, with skill to turn them to account; and when the master of the school,
to which he was usher, died, he stept into his place and became proprietor of
the establishment. He contrived to manage it with such address, and so much to
the taste of what is called high society and the fashionable world, that no
school of the kind, even till he retired, was in such high request. Ministers of
state, the wealthiest gentry, and nobility of the first rank, vied with each
other in bespeaking a place for their sons in the seminary of this fortunate
teacher. In the solitude of Grasmere, while living as a married man in a cottage
of eight pounds per annum rent, I often used to smile at the tales which reached
me of his brilliant career. Not two hundred yards from the cottage in Grasmere,
just mentioned, to which I retired, this gentleman, who many years afterwards
purchased a small estate in the neighbourhood, is now erecting a boat-house,
with an upper story, to be resorted to as an entertaining-room when he and his
associates may feel inclined to take their pastime on the lake. Every passenger
will be disgusted with the sight of this edifice, not merely as a tasteless thing
in itself, but as utterly out of place, and peculiarly fitted, as far as it is
observed (and it obtrudes itself on notice at every point of view), to mar the
beauty and destroy the pastoral simplicity of the vale. For my own part and that
of my household it is our utter detestation, standing by a shore to which, before
the highroad was made to pass that way, we used daily and hourly to repair for
seclusion and for the shelter of a grove under which I composed many of my poems,
the “Brothers” especially, and for this reason we gave the grove that name.

“That which each man loved
And prized in his peculiar nook of earth
Dies with him, or is changed.”

So much for my old school-fellow and his exploits. I will only add that the
foundation has twice failed, from the lake no doubt being intolerant of the
intrusion.

The Miner, next described as having found his treasure after twice ten years of
labour, lived in Paterdale, and the story is true to the letter. It seems to me,
however, rather remarkable that the strength of mind which had supported him
through this long unrewarded labour did not enable him to bear its successful
issue. Several times in the course of my life I have heard of sudden influxes
of great wealth being followed by derangement, and in one instance the shock of
good fortune was so great as to produce absolute idiocy: but these all happened

where there had been little or no previous effort to acquire the riches, and
therefore such a consequence might the more naturally be expected than in the
case of the solitary Miner. In reviewing his story, one cannot but regret that
such perseverance was not sustained by a worthier object. Archimedes leapt out
of his bath and ran about the streets proclaiming his discovery in a transport
of joy, but we are not told that he lost either his life or his senses in
consequence. The next character, to whom the Priest is led by contrast with the
resoluteness displayed by the foregoing, is taken from a person born and bred in
Grasmere, by name Dawson; and whose talents, disposition, and way of life were
such as are here delineated. I did not know him, but all was fresh in memory
when we settled at Grasmere in the beginning of the century. From this point,
the conversation leads to the mention of two individuals who, by their several
fortunes, were, at different times, driven to take refuge at the small and obscure
town of Hawkshead on the skirt of these mountains. Their stories I had from the
dear old dame with whom, as a schoolboy and afterwards, I lodged for nearly the
space of ten years. The elder, the Jacobite, was named Drummond, and was of a
high family in Scotland: the Hanoverian Whig bore the name of Vandeput, and might
perhaps be a descendant of some Dutchman who had come over in the train of King
William. At all events his zeal was such that he ruined himself by a contest for
the representation of London or Westminster, undertaken to support his party; and
retired to this corner of the world, selected, as it had been by Drummond, for
that obscurity which, since visiting the Lakes became fashionable, it has no
longer retained. So much was this region considered out of the way till a late
period, that persons who had fled from justice used often to resort hither for
concealment; and some were so bold as to, not unfrequently, make excursions from
the place of their retreat, for the purpose of committing fresh offences. Such
was particularly the case with two brothers of the name of Weston who took up
their abode at Old Brathay, I think about seventy years ago. They were highwaymen,
and lived there some time without being discovered, though it was known that they
often disappeared in a way and upon errands which could not be accounted for.
Their horses were noticed as being of a choice breed, and I have heard from the
Relph family, one of whom was a saddler in the town of Kendal, that they were
curious in their saddles and housings and accoutrements of their horses. They, as
I have heard, and as was universally believed, were in the end both taken and hanged.

“Tall was her stature; her complexion dark
And saturnine.”

This person lived at Town-end, and was almost our next neighbour. I have little
to notice concerning her beyond what is said in the poem. She was a most striking
instance how far a woman may surpass in talent, in knowledge, and culture of mind,
those with and among whom she lives, and yet fall below them in Christian virtues
of the heart and spirit. It seemed almost, and I say it with grief, that in
proportion as she excelled in the one, she failed in the other. How frequently has
one to observe in both sexes the same thing, and how mortifying is the reflection!

“As, on a sunny bank, a tender lamb
Lurks in safe shelter from the winds of March.”

The story that follows was told to Mrs. Wordsworth and my sister by the sister of
this unhappy young woman; and every particular was exactly as I have related. The
party was not known to me, though she lived at Hawkshead, but it was after I left
school. The clergyman, who administered comfort to her in her distress, I knew
well. Her sister who told the story was the wife of a leading yeoman in the vale
of Grasmere, and they were an affectionate pair and greatly respected by every one
who knew them. Neither lived to be old; and their estate which was perhaps the
most considerable then in the vale, and was endeared to them by many remembrances
of a salutary character not easily understood, or sympathised with, by those who
are born to great affluence passed to their eldest son, according to the practice
of these vales, who died soon after he came into possession. He was an amiable
and promising youth, but was succeeded by an only brother, a good-natured man, who
fell into habits of drinking, by which he gradually reduced his property; and the
other day the last acre of it was sold, and his wife and children and he himself,
still surviving, have very little left to live upon, which it would not perhaps
have been worth while to record here but that, through all trials, this woman has
proved a model of patience, meekness, affectionate forbearance, and forgiveness.
Their eldest son, who, through the vices of his father, has thus been robbed of an
ancient family inheritance, was never heard to murmur or complain against the
cause of their distress, and is now (1843) deservedly the chief prop of his
mother’s hopes.

The clergyman and his family described at the beginning of the seventh book were,
during many years, our principal associates in the vale of Grasmere, unless I were
to except our very nearest neighbours. I have entered so particularly into the main
points of their history, that I will barely testify in prose that with the single
exception of the particulars of their journey to Grasmere, which, however, was
exactly copied from in another instance the whole that I have said of them is as
faithful to the truth as words can make it. There was much talent in the family:
the eldest son was distinguished for poetical talent, of which a specimen is given
in my notes to the sonnets to the Duddon. Once, when in our cottage at Town-end I
was talking with him about poetry, in the course of conversation I presumed to find
fault with the versification of Pope, of whom he was an enthusiastic admirer: he
defended him with a warmth that indicated much irritation: nevertheless I would
not abandon my point, and said, “In compass and variety of sound your own
versification surpasses his.” Never shall I forget the change in his countenance
and tone of voice: the storm was laid in a moment; he no longer disputed my
judgment, and I passed immediately in his mind, no doubt, for as great a critic
as ever lived. I ought to add, he was a clergyman and a well-educated man, and
his verbal memory was the most remarkable of any individual I have known, except
a Mr. Archer, an Irishman, who lived several years in this neighbourhood, and who,
in this faculty, was a prodigy; he afterwards became deranged, and I fear continues
so, if alive. Then follows the character of Robert Walker, for which see notes to
the Duddon. Then that of the deaf man, whose epitaph may be seen in the churchyard
at the head of Haweswater, and whose qualities of mind and heart, and their benign
influence in conjunction with his privation, I had from his relatives on the spot.
The blind man, next commemorated, was John Gough, of Kendal, a man known, far
beyond his neighbourhood, for his talents and attainments in natural history and
science. Of the Infant’s grave, next noticed, I will only say, it is an exact
picture of what fell under my own observation; and all persons who are intimately
acquainted with cottage life must often have observed like instances of the working
of the domestic affections.

“A volley thrice repeated o’er the corse
Let down into the hollow of that grave.”

This young volunteer bore the name of Dawson, and was younger brother, if I am not
mistaken, to the prodigal of whose character and fortunes an account is given
towards the beginning of the preceding book. The father of the family I knew well;
he was a man of literary education and of experience in society much beyond what
was common among the inhabitants of the vale. He had lived a good while in the
Highlands of Scotland, as a manager of iron- works at Bunaw, and had acted as clerk
to one of my predecessors in the office of Distributor of Stamps, when he used to
travel round the country collecting and bringing home the money due to Government,
in gold, which, it may be worth while to mention for the sake of my friends, was
deposited in the cell or iron closet under the west window of the long room at
Rydal Mount, which still exists with the iron doors that guarded the property.
This of course was before the time of Bills and Notes. The two sons of this person
had no doubt been led by the knowledge of their father to take more delight in
scholarship, and had been accustomed in their own minds to take a wider view of
social interests than was usual among their associates. The premature death of
this gallant young man was much lamented, and, as an attendant at the funeral,
I myself witnessed the ceremony and the effect of it as described in the poem.

“Tradition tells
That, in Eliza’s golden days, a Knight
Came on a war-horse.”
“The house is gone.”

The pillars of the gateway in front of the mansion remained when we first took up
our abode at Grasmere. Two or three cottages still remain, which are called Knott
-houses from the name of the gentleman (I have called him a knight) concerning
whom these traditions survive. He was the ancestor of tho Knott family, formerly
considerable proprietors in the district. What follows in the discourse of the
Wanderer upon the changes he had witnessed in rural life, by the introduction of
machinery, is truly described from what I myself saw during my boyhood and early
youth, and from what was often told me by persons of this humble calling. Happily,
most happily, for these mountains, the mischief was diverted from the banks of
their beautiful streams, and transferred to open and flat countries abounding in
coal, where the agency of steam was found much more effectual for carrying on those
demoralising works. Had it not been for this invention, long before the present
time every torrent and river in this district would have had its factory, large
and populous in proportion to the power of the water that could there have been
commanded. Parliament has interfered to prevent the night-work which was once
carried on in these mills as actively as during the daytime, and by necessity still
more perniciously a sad disgrace to the proprietors, and to the nation which could
so long tolerate such unnatural proceedings. Reviewing at this late period, 1843,
what I put into the mouths of my interlocutors a few years after the commencement
of the century, I grieve that so little progress has been made in diminishing the
evils deplored, or promoting the benefits of education which the Wanderer
anticipates. The results of Lord Ashley’s labours to defer the time when children
might legally be allowed to work in factories, and his endeavours to limit still
farther the hours of permitted labour, have fallen far short of his own humane
wishes, and those of every benevolent and right- minded man who has carefully
attended to this subject: and in the present session of Parliament (1843) Sir
James Graham’s attempt to establish a course of religious education among the
children employed in factories has been abandoned, in consequence of what might
easily have been foreseen, the vehement and turbulent opposition of the Dissenters:
so that, for many years to come, it may be thought expedient to leave the
religious instruction of children entirely in the hands of the several
denominations of Christians in the island, each body to work according to its own
means and in its own way. Such is my own confidence, a confidence I share with
many others of my most valued friends, in the superior advantages, both religious
and social, which attend a course of instruction presided over and guided by the
clergy of the Church of England, that I have no doubt that, if but once its
members, lay and clerical, were duly sensible of those benefits, their church
would daily gain ground, and rapidly, upon every shape and fashion of Dissent: and
in that case, a great majority in Parliament being sensible of these benefits, the
Ministers of the country might be emboldened, were it necessary, to apply funds of
the State to the support of education on Church principles. Before I conclude, I
cannot forbear noticing the strenuous efforts made at this time in Parliament, by
so many persons, to extend manufacturing and commercial industry at the expense of
agricultural, though we have recently had abundant proofs that the apprehensions
expressed by the Wanderer were not groundless.

“I spake of mischief by the wise diffused
With gladness, thinking that the more it spreads
The healthier, the securer, we become
Delusion which a moment may destroy!”

The Chartists are well aware of this possibility, and cling to it with an ardour
and perseverance which nothing but wiser and more brotherly dealing towards the
many, on the part of the wealthy few, can moderate or remove.

“While, from the grassy mountain’s open side,
We gazed, in silence hushed.”

The point here fixed upon in my imagination is half-way up the northern side of
Loughrigg Fell, from which the Pastor and his companions were supposed to look
upwards to the sky and mountain- tops, and round the vale, with the lake lying
immediately beneath them.

“But turned not without welcome promise made,
That he would share the pleasures and pursuits
Of yet another summer’s day, consumed
In wandering with us.”

When I reported this promise of the Solitary, and long after, it was my wish,
and I might say intention, that we should resume our wanderings, and pass the
Borders into his native country, where, as I hoped, he might witness, in the
society of the Wanderer, some religious ceremony a sacrament, say, in the open
fields, or a preaching among the mountains which, by recalling to his mind the
days of his early childhood, when he had been present on such occasions in
company with his parents and nearest kindred, might have dissolved his heart
into tenderness, and so have done more towards restoring the Christian faith in
which he had been educated, and, with that, contentedness and even cheerfulness
of mind, than all that the Wanderer and Pastor, by their several effusions and
addresses, had been able to effect. An issue like this was in my intentions.
But, alas!

“‘Mid the wreck of IS and WAS,
Things incomplete and purposes betrayed
Make sadder transits o’er thought’s optic glass
Than noblest objects utterly decayed!”
_____________

TO THE RIGHT HON.
WILLIAM, EARL OF LONSDALE, K.G.
ETC. ETC.

OFT, through thy fair domains, illustrious Peer!
In youth I roamed, on youthful pleasures bent:
And mused in rocky cell or sylvan tent,
Beside swift-flowing Lowther’s current clear.
Now, by thy care befriended, I appear
Before thee, LONSDALE, and this Work present,
A token (may it prove a monument!)
Of high respect and gratitude sincere.
Gladly would I have waited till my task
Had reached its close; but Life is insecure,
And Hope full oft fallacious as a dream:
Therefore, for what is here produced, I ask
Thy favour; trusting that thou wilt not deem
The offering, though imperfect, premature.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

RYDAL MOUNT, WESTMORELAND,
July 29, 1814.

PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1814
THE Title-page announces that this is only a portion of a poem; and the Reader
must be here apprised that it belongs to the second part of a long and laborious
Work, which is to consist of three parts. The Author will candidly acknowledge
that, if the first of these had been completed, and in such a manner as to
satisfy his own mind, he should have preferred the natural order of publication,
and have given that to the world first; but, as the second division of the Work
was designed to refer more to passing events, and to an existing state of things,
than the others were meant to do, more continuous exertion was naturally bestowed
upon it, and greater progress made here than in the rest of the poem; and as this
part does not depend upon the preceding to a degree which will materially injure
its own peculiar interest, the Author, complying with the earnest entreaties of
some valued Friends, presents the following pages to the Public.

It may be proper to state whence the poem, of which “The Excursion” is a part,
derives its Title of THE RECLUSE. Several years ago, when the Author retired to
his native mountains, with the hope of being enabled to construct a literary Work
that might live, it was a reasonable thing that he should take a review of his own
mind, and examine how far Nature and Education had qualified him for such
employment. As subsidiary to this preparation, he undertook to record, in verse,
the origin and progress of his own powers, as far as he was acquainted with them.
That Work [The Prelude], addressed to a dear Friend, most distinguished for his
knowledge and genius, and to whom the Author’s Intellect is deeply indebted, has
been long finished; and the result of the investigation which gave rise to it was
a determination to compose a philosophical poem, containing views of Man, Nature,
and Society; and to be entitled, “The Recluse”; as having for its principal subject
the sensations and opinions of a poet living in retirement. The preparatory poem 1
is biographical, and conducts the history of the Author’s mind to the point when
he was emboldened to hope that his faculties were sufficiently matured for entering
upon the arduous labour which he had proposed to himself; and the two Works have
the same kind of relation to each other, if he may so express himself, as the ante-
chapel has to the body of a Gothic church. Continuing this allusion, he may be
permitted to add, that his minor Pieces, which have been long before the Public,
when they shall be properly arranged, will be found by the attentive Reader to
have such connection with the main Work as may give them claim to be likened to
the little cells, oratories, and sepulchral recesses, ordinarily included in
those edifices.

The Author would not have deemed himself justified in saying, upon this occasion,
so much of performances either unfinished or unpublished, if he had not thought
that the labour bestowed by him upon what he has heretofore and now laid before
the Public entitled him to candid attention for such a statement as he thinks
necessary to throw light upon his endeavours to please and, he would hope, to
benefit his countrymen. Nothing further need be added, than that the first and
third parts of “The Recluse” will consist chiefly of meditations in the Author’s
own person; and that in the intermediate part (“The Excursion”) the intervention
of characters speaking is employed, and something of a dramatic form adopted.

It is not the Author’s intention formally to announce a system; it was more
animating to him to proceed in a different course; and if he shall succeed in
conveying to the mind clear thoughts, lively images, and strong feelings, the
Reader will have no difficulty in extracting the system for himself. And in the
meantime the following passage, taken from the conclusion of the first book of
“The Recluse,” may be acceptable as a kind of “Prospectus” of the design and
scope of the whole Poem.
-William Wordsworth