Studies in Literature | Page 6

were the two
manliest and most wholesome men of genius of their time. They held
different theories of poetic art, but their affection and esteem for one
another never varied, from the early days when Scott and his young
wife visited Wordsworth in his cottage at Grasmere, down to that
sorrowful autumn evening (1831) when Wordsworth and his daughter
went to Abbotsford to bid farewell to the wondrous potentate, then just
about to start on his vain search for new life, followed by "the might of
the whole earth's good wishes."
Of Wordsworth's demeanour and physical presence, De Quincey's
account, silly, coxcombical, and vulgar, is the worst; Carlyle's, as might
be expected from his magical gift of portraiture, is the best. Carlyle
cared little for Wordsworth's poetry, had a real respect for the antique
greatness of his devotion to Poverty and Peasanthood, recognised his
strong intellectual powers and strong character, but thought him rather
dull, bad-tempered, unproductive, and almost wearisome, and found his
divine reflections and unfathomabilities stinted, scanty, uncertain,
palish. From these and many other disparagements, one gladly passes
to the picture of the poet as he was in the flesh at a breakfast-party
given by Henry Taylor, at a tavern in St. James's Street, in 1840. The
subject of the talk was Literature, its laws, practices, and

observances:--"He talked well in his way; with veracity, easy brevity
and force; as a wise tradesman would of his tools and workshop, and as
no unwise one could. His voice was good, frank, and sonorous, though
practically clear, distinct, and forcible, rather than melodious; the tone
of him business-like, sedately confident; no discourtesy, yet no anxiety
about being courteous: a fine wholesome rusticity, fresh as his
mountain breezes, sat well on the stalwart veteran, and on all he said
and did. You would have said he was a usually taciturn man, glad to
unlock himself to audience sympathetic and intelligent, when such
offered itself. His face bore marks of much, not always peaceful,
meditation; the look of it not bland or benevolent, so much as close,
impregnable, and hard; a man _multa tacere loquive paratus_, in a
world where he had experienced no lack of contradictions as he strode
along! The eyes were not very brilliant, but they had a quiet clearness;
there was enough of brow, and well shaped; rather too much of cheek
('horse-face,' I have heard satirists say), face of squarish shape and
decidedly longish, as I think the head itself was (its 'length' going
horizontal); he was large-boned, lean, but still firm-knit, tall, and
strong-looking when he stood; a right good old steel-gray figure, with
rustic simplicity and dignity about him, and a vivacious strength
looking through him which might have suited one of those old
steel-gray Markgrafs [Graf = _Grau_,'Steel-gray'] whom Henry the
Fowler set up to ward the 'marches,' and do battle with the intrusive
heathen, in a stalwart and judicious manner."
Whoever might be his friends within an easy walk, or dwelling afar, the
poet knew how to live his own life. The three fine sonnets headed
_Personal Talk_, so well known, so warmly accepted in our better
hours, so easily forgotten in hours not so good between pleasant levities
and grinding preoccupations, show us how little his neighbours had to
do with the poet's genial seasons of "smooth passions, smooth
discourse, and joyous thought."
For those days Wordsworth was a considerable traveller. Between 1820
and 1837 he made long tours abroad, to Switzerland, to Holland, to
Belgium, to Italy. In other years he visited Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.
He was no mechanical tourist, admiring to order and marvelling by
regulation; and he confessed to Mrs. Fletcher that he fell asleep before
the Venus de Medici at Florence. But the product of these wanderings

is to be seen in some of his best sonnets, such as the first on Calais
Beach, the famous one on Westminster Bridge, the second of the two
on Bruges, where "the Spirit of Antiquity mounts to the seat of grace
within the mind--a deeper peace than that in deserts found"--and in
some other fine pieces.
In weightier matters than mere travel, Wordsworth showed himself no
mere recluse. He watched the great affairs then being transacted in
Europe with the ardent interest of his youth, and his sonnets to Liberty,
commemorating the attack by France upon the Swiss, the fate of
Venice, the struggle of Hofer, the resistance of Spain, give no unworthy
expression to some of the best of the many and varied motives that
animated England in her long struggle with Bonaparte. The sonnet to
Toussaint l'Ouverture concludes with some of the noblest lines in the
English language. The strong verses on the expected death of Mr. Fox
are alive with a magnanimous public spirit that goes deeper than the