Biographia Literaria

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"Fast the church-yard fills;--anon
Look again and they all are gone;
The cluster round the porch, and the folk
Who sate in the shade of the Prior's Oak!
And scarcely have they disappeared
Ere the prelusive hymn is heard;--
With one consent the people rejoice,
Filling the church with a lofty voice!
They sing a service which they feel:
For 'tis the sun-rise now of zeal;
And faith and hope are in their prime
In great Eliza's golden time."

"A moment ends the fervent din,
And all is hushed, without and within;
For though the priest, more tranquilly,
Recites the holy liturgy,
The only voice which you can hear
Is the river murmuring near.
--When soft!--the dusky trees between,
And down the path through the open green,
Where is no living thing to be seen;
And through yon gateway, where is found,
Beneath the arch with ivy bound,
Free entrance to the church-yard ground--
And right across the verdant sod,
Towards the very house of God;
Comes gliding in with lovely gleam,
Comes gliding in serene and slow,
Soft and silent as a dream.
A solitary Doe!
White she is as lily of June,
And beauteous as the silver moon
When out of sight the clouds are driven
And she is left alone in heaven!
Or like a ship some gentle day
In sunshine sailing far away
A glittering ship that hath the plain
Of ocean for her own domain."

* * * * * *

"What harmonious pensive changes
Wait upon her as she ranges
Round and through this Pile of state
Overthrown and desolate!
Now a step or two her way
Is through space of open day,
Where the enamoured sunny light
Brightens her that was so bright;
Now doth a delicate shadow fall,
Falls upon her like a breath,
From some lofty arch or wall,
As she passes underneath."

The following analogy will, I am apprehensive, appear dim and
fantastic, but in reading Bartram's Travels I could not help
transcribing the following lines as a sort of allegory, or connected
simile and metaphor of Wordsworth's intellect and genius.--"The soil
is a deep, rich, dark mould, on a deep stratum of tenacious clay; and
that on a foundation of rocks, which often break through both strata,
lifting their backs above the surface. The trees which chiefly grow
here are the gigantic, black oak; magnolia grandi-flora; fraximus
excelsior; platane; and a few stately tulip trees." What Mr.
Wordsworth will produce, it is not for me to prophesy but I could
pronounce with the liveliest convictions what he is capable of
producing. It is the FIRST GENUINE PHILOSOPHIC POEM.

The preceding criticism will not, I am aware, avail to overcome the
prejudices of those, who have made it a business to attack and
ridicule Mr. Wordsworth's compositions.

Truth and prudence might be imaged as concentric circles. The poet may
perhaps have passed beyond the latter, but he has confined himself far
within the bounds of the former, in designating these critics, as "too
petulant to be passive to a genuine poet, and too feeble to grapple
with him;----men of palsied imaginations, in whose minds all healthy
action is languid;----who, therefore, feed as the many direct them, or
with the many are greedy after vicious provocatives."

So much for the detractors from Wordsworth's merits. On the other
hand, much as I might wish for their fuller sympathy, I dare not
flatter myself, that the freedom with which I have declared my
opinions concerning both his theory and his defects, most of which are
more or less connected with his theory, either as cause or effect,
will be satisfactory or pleasing to all the poet's admirers and
advocates. More indiscriminate than mine their admiration may be:
deeper and more sincere it cannot be. But I have advanced no opinion
either for praise or censure, other than as texts introductory to the
reasons which compel me to form it. Above all, I was fully convinced
that such a criticism was not only wanted; but that, if executed with
adequate ability, it must conduce, in no mean degree, to Mr.
Wordsworth's reputation. His fame belongs to another age, and can
neither be accelerated nor retarded. How small the proportion of the
defects are to the beauties, I have repeatedly declared; and that no
one of them originates in deficiency of poetic genius. Had they been
more and greater, I should still, as a friend to his literary
character in the present age, consider an analytic display of them as
pure gain; if only it removed, as surely to all reflecting minds even
the foregoing analysis must have removed, the strange mistake, so
slightly grounded, yet so widely and industriously propagated, of Mr.
Wordsworth's turn for simplicity! I am not half as much irritated by
hearing his enemies abuse him for vulgarity of style, subject, and
conception, as I am disgusted with the gilded side of the same
meaning, as displayed by some affected admirers, with whom he is,
forsooth, a "sweet, simple poet!" and so natural, that little master
Charles and his younger sister are so charmed with them, that they
play at "Goody Blake," or at "Johnny and Betty Foy!"

Were the collection of poems, published with these biographical
sketches, important enough, (which I am not vain enough to believe,)
to deserve such a distinction; even as I have done, so would I be done
unto.

For more than eighteen months have the volume of Poems, entitled
SIBYLLINE LEAVES, and the present volume, up to this page, been
printed, and ready for publication. But, ere I speak of myself in the
tones, which are alone natural to me under the circumstances of late
years, I would fain present myself to the Reader as I was in the first
dawn of my literary life:

When Hope grew round me, like the climbing vine,
And fruits, and foliage, not my own, seem'd mine!

For this purpose I have selected from the letters, which I wrote home
from Germany, those which appeared likely to be most interesting, and
at the same time most pertinent to the title of this work.

SATYRANE'S LETTERS

LETTER I

On Sunday morning, September 16, 1798, the Hamburg packet set sail
from Yarmouth; and I, for the first time in my life, beheld my native
land retiring from me. At the moment of its disappearance--in all the
kirks, churches, chapels, and meeting-houses, in which the greater
number, I hope, of my countrymen were at that time assembled, I will
dare question whether there was one more ardent prayer offered up to
heaven, than that which I then preferred for my country. "Now then,"
(said I to a gentleman who was standing near me,) "we are out of our
country." "Not yet, not yet!" he replied, and pointed to the sea;
"This, too, is a Briton's country." This bon mot gave a fillip to my
spirits, I rose and looked round on my fellow-passengers, who were all
on the deck. We were eighteen in number, videlicet, five Englishmen,
an English lady, a French gentleman and his servant, an Hanoverian and
his servant, a Prussian, a Swede, two Danes, and a Mulatto boy, a
German tailor and his wife, (the smallest couple I ever beheld,) and a
Jew. We were all on the deck; but in a short time I observed marks of
dismay. The lady retired to the cabin in some confusion, and many of
the faces round me assumed a very doleful and frog-coloured
appearance; and within an hour the number of those on deck was
lessened by one half. I was giddy, but not sick, and the giddiness
soon went away, but left a feverishness and want of appetite, which I
attributed, in great measure, to the saeva Mephitis of the bilge-
water; and it was certainly not decreased by the exportations from the
cabin. However, I was well enough to join the able-bodied passengers,
one of whom observed not inaptly, that Momus might have discovered an
easier way to see a man's inside, than by placing a window in his
breast. He needed only have taken a saltwater trip in a packet-boat.

I am inclined to believe, that a packet is far superior to a stage-
coach, as a means of making men open out to each other. In the latter
the uniformity of posture disposes to dozing, and the definitiveness
of the period, at which the company will separate, makes each
individual think more of those to whom he is going, than of those with
whom he is going. But at sea, more curiosity is excited, if only on
this account, that the pleasant or unpleasant qualities of your
companions are of greater importance to you, from the uncertainty how
long you may be obliged to house with them. Besides, if you are
countrymen, that now begins to form a distinction and a bond of
brotherhood; and if of different countries, there are new incitements
of conversation, more to ask and more to communicate. I found that I
had interested the Danes in no common degree. I had crept into the
boat on the deck and fallen asleep; but was awakened by one of them,
about three o'clock in the afternoon, who told me that they had been
seeking me in every hole and corner, and insisted that I should join
their party and drink with them. He talked English with such fluency,
as left me wholly unable to account for the singular and even
ludicrous incorrectness with which he spoke it. I went, and found some
excellent wines and a dessert of grapes with a pine-apple. The Danes
had christened me Doctor Teology, and dressed as I was all in black,
with large shoes and black worsted stockings, I might certainly have
passed very well for a Methodist missionary. However I disclaimed my
title. What then may you be? A man of fortune? No!--A merchant? No!--A
merchant's traveller? No!--A clerk? No!--Un Philosophe, perhaps? It
was at that time in my life, in which of all possible names and
characters I had the greatest disgust to that of "un Philosophe." But
I was weary of being questioned, and rather than be nothing, or at
best only the abstract idea of a man, I submitted by a bow, even to
the aspersion implied in the word "un Philosophe."--The Dane then
informed me, that all in the present party were Philosophers likewise.
Certes we were not of the Stoick school. For we drank and talked and
sung, till we talked and sung all together; and then we rose and
danced on the deck a set of dances, which in one sense of the word at
least, were very intelligibly and appropriately entitled reels. The
passengers, who lay in the cabin below in all the agonies of sea-
sickness, must have found our bacchanalian merriment

------a tune
Harsh and of dissonant mood from their complaint.

I thought so at the time; and, (by way, I suppose, of supporting my
newly assumed philosophical character,) I thought too, how closely the
greater number of our virtues are connected with the fear of death,
and how little sympathy we bestow on pain, where there is no danger.

The two Danes were brothers. The one was a man with a clear white
complexion, white hair, and white eyebrows; looked silly, and nothing
that he uttered gave the lie to his looks. The other, whom, by way of
eminence I have called the Dane, had likewise white hair, but was much
shorter than his brother, with slender limbs, and a very thin face
slightly pockfretten. This man convinced me of the justice of an old
remark, that many a faithful portrait in our novels and farces has
been rashly censured for an outrageous caricature, or perhaps
nonentity. I had retired to my station in the boat--he came and seated
himself by my side, and appeared not a little tipsy. He commenced the
conversation in the most magnific style, and, as a sort of pioneering
to his own vanity, he flattered me with such grossness! The parasites
of the old comedy were modest in the comparison. His language and
accentuation were so exceedingly singular, that I determined for once
in my life to take notes of a conversation. Here it follows, somewhat
abridged, indeed, but in all other respects as accurately as my memory
permitted.

THE DANE. Vat imagination! vat language! vat vast science! and vat
eyes! vat a milk-vite forehead! O my heafen! vy, you're a Got!

ANSWER. You do me too much honour, Sir.

THE DANE. O me! if you should dink I is flattering you!--No, no, no!
I haf ten tousand a year--yes, ten tousand a year--yes, ten tousand
pound a year! Vel--and vat is dhat? a mere trifle! I 'ouldn't gif my
sincere heart for ten times dhe money. Yes, you're a Got! I a mere
man! But, my dear friend! dhink of me, as a man! Is, is--I mean to ask
you now, my dear friend--is I not very eloquent? Is I not speak
English very fine?

ANSWER. Most admirably! Believe me, Sir! I have seldom heard even a
native talk so fluently.

THE DANE. (Squeezing my hand with great vehemence.) My dear friend!
vat an affection and fidelity ve have for each odher! But tell me, do
tell me,--Is I not, now and den, speak some fault? Is I not in some
wrong?

ANSWER. Why, Sir! perhaps it might be observed by nice critics in the
English language, that you occasionally use the word "is" instead of
"am." In our best companies we generally say I am, and not I is or
I'se. Excuse me, Sir! it is a mere trifle.

THE DANE. O!--is, is, am, am, am. Yes, yes--I know, I know.

ANSWER. I am, thou art, he is, we are, ye are, they are.

THE DANE. Yes, yes,--I know, I know--Am, am, am, is dhe praesens, and
is is dhe perfectum--yes, yes--and are is dhe plusquam perfectum.

ANSWER. And art, Sir! is--?

THE DANE. My dear friend! it is dhe plusquam perfectum, no, no--dhat
is a great lie; are is dhe plusquam perfectum--and art is dhe plasquam
plue-perfectum--(then swinging my hand to and fro, and cocking his
little bright hazel eyes at me, that danced with vanity and wine)--You
see, my dear friend that I too have some lehrning?

ANSWER. Learning, Sir? Who dares suspect it? Who can listen to you
for a minute, who can even look at you, without perceiving the extent
of it?

THE DANE. My dear friend!--(then with a would-be humble look, and in
a tone of voice as if he was reasoning) I could not talk so of prawns
and imperfectum, and futurum and plusquamplue perfectum, and all dhat,
my dear friend! without some lehrning?

ANSWER. Sir! a man like you cannot talk on any subject without
discovering the depth of his information.

THE DANE. Dhe grammatic Greek, my friend; ha! ha! Ha! (laughing, and
swinging my hand to and fro--then with a sudden transition to great
solemnity) Now I will tell you, my dear friend! Dhere did happen about
me vat de whole historia of Denmark record no instance about nobody
else. Dhe bishop did ask me all dhe questions about all dhe religion
in dhe Latin grammar.

ANSWER. The grammar, Sir? The language, I presume--

THE DANE. (A little offended.) Grammar is language, and language is
grammar--

ANSWER. Ten thousand pardons!

THE DANE. Vell, and I was only fourteen years--

ANSWER. Only fourteen years old?

THE DANE. No more. I vas fourteen years old--and he asked me all
questions, religion and philosophy, and all in dhe Latin language--and
I answered him all every one, my dear friend! all in dhe Latin
language.

ANSWER. A prodigy! an absolute prodigy!

THE DANE. No, no, no! he was a bishop, a great superintendent.

ANSWER. Yes! a bishop.

THE DANE. A bishop--not a mere predicant, not a prediger.

ANSWER. My dear Sir! we have misunderstood each other. I said that
your answering in Latin at so early an age was a prodigy, that is, a
thing that is wonderful; that does not often happen.

THE DANE. Often! Dhere is not von instance recorded in dhe whole
historia of Denmark.

ANSWER. And since then, Sir--?

THE DANE. I was sent ofer to dhe Vest Indies--to our Island, and
dhere I had no more to do vid books. No! no! I put my genius anodher
way--and I haf made ten tousand pound a year. Is not dhat ghenius, my
dear friend?--But vat is money?--I dhink dhe poorest man alive my
equal. Yes, my dear friend; my little fortune is pleasant to my
generous heart, because I can do good--no man with so little a fortune
ever did so much generosity--no person--no man person, no woman person
ever denies it. But we are all Got's children.

Here the Hanoverian interrupted him, and the other Dane, the Swede,
and the Prussian, joined us, together with a young Englishman who
spoke the German fluently, and interpreted to me many of the
Prussian's jokes. The Prussian was a travelling merchant, turned of
threescore, a hale man, tall, strong, and stout, full of stories,
gesticulations, and buffoonery, with the soul as well as the look of a
mountebank, who, while he is making you laugh, picks your pocket. Amid
all his droll looks and droll gestures, there remained one look
untouched by laughter; and that one look was the true face, the others
were but its mask. The Hanoverian was a pale, fat, bloated young man,
whose father had made a large fortune in London, as an army-
contractor. He seemed to emulate the manners of young Englishmen of
fortune. He was a good-natured fellow, not without information or
literature; but a most egregious coxcomb. He had been in the habit of
attending the House of Commons, and had once spoken, as he informed
me, with great applause in a debating society. For this he appeared to
have qualified himself with laudable industry: for he was perfect in
Walker's Pronouncing Dictionary, and with an accent, which forcibly
reminded me of the Scotchman in Roderic Random, who professed to teach
the English pronunciation, he was constantly deferring to my superior
judgment, whether or no I had pronounced this or that word with
propriety, or "the true delicacy." When he spoke, though it were only
half a dozen sentences, he always rose: for which I could detect no
other motive, than his partiality to that elegant phrase so liberally
introduced in the orations of our British legislators, "While I am on
my legs." The Swede, whom for reasons that will soon appear, I shall
distinguish by the name of Nobility, was a strong-featured, scurvy-
faced man, his complexion resembling in colour, a red hot poker
beginning to cool. He appeared miserably dependent on the Dane; but
was, however, incomparably the best informed and most rational of the
party. Indeed his manners and conversation discovered him to be both a
man of the world and a gentleman. The Jew was in the hold: the French
gentleman was lying on the deck so ill, that I could observe nothing
concerning him, except the affectionate attentions of his servant to
him. The poor fellow was very sick himself, and every now and then ran
to the side of the vessel, still keeping his eye on his master, but
returned in a moment and seated himself again by him, now supporting
his head, now wiping his forehead and talking to him all the while in
the most soothing tones. There had been a matrimonial squabble of a
very ludicrous kind in the cabin, between the little German tailor and
his little wife. He had secured two beds, one for himself and one for
her. This had struck the little woman as a very cruel action; she
insisted upon their having but one, and assured the mate in the most
piteous tones, that she was his lawful wife. The mate and the cabin
boy decided in her favour, abused the little man for his want of
tenderness with much humour, and hoisted him into the same compartment
with his sea-sick wife. This quarrel was interesting to me, as it
procured me a bed, which I otherwise should not have had.

In the evening, at seven o'clock, the sea rolled higher, and the Dane,
by means of the greater agitation, eliminated enough of what he had
been swallowing to make room for a great deal more. His favourite
potation was sugar and brandy, i.e. a very little warm water with a
large quantity of brandy, sugar, and nutmeg His servant boy, a black-
eyed Mulatto, had a good-natured round face, exactly the colour of the
skin of the walnut-kernel. The Dane and I were again seated, tete-a-
tete, in the ship's boat. The conversation, which was now indeed
rather an oration than a dialogue, became extravagant beyond all that
I ever heard. He told me that he had made a large fortune in the
island of Santa Cruz, and was now returning to Denmark to enjoy it. He
expatiated on the style in which he meant to live, and the great
undertakings which he proposed to himself to commence, till, the
brandy aiding his vanity, and his vanity and garrulity aiding the
brandy, he talked like a madman--entreated me to accompany him to
Denmark--there I should see his influence with the government, and he
would introduce me to the king, etc., etc. Thus he went on dreaming
aloud, and then passing with a very lyrical transition to the subject
of general politics, he declaimed, like a member of the Corresponding
Society, about, (not concerning,) the Rights of Man, and assured me
that, notwithstanding his fortune, he thought the poorest man alive
his equal. "All are equal, my dear friend! all are equal! Ve are all
Got's children. The poorest man haf the same rights with me. Jack!
Jack! some more sugar and brandy. Dhere is dhat fellow now! He is a
Mulatto--but he is my equal.--That's right, Jack! (taking the sugar
and brandy.) Here you Sir! shake hands with dhis gentleman! Shake
hands with me, you dog! Dhere, dhere!--We are all equal my dear
friend! Do I not speak like Socrates, and Plato, and Cato--they were
all philosophers, my dear philosophe! all very great men!--and so was
Homer and Virgil--but they were poets. Yes, yes! I know all about it!
--But what can anybody say more than this? We are all equal, all Got's
children. I haf ten tousand a year, but I am no more dhan de meanest
man alive. I haf no pride; and yet, my dear friend! I can say, do! and
it is done. Ha! ha! ha! my dear friend! Now dhere is dhat gentleman
(pointing to Nobility) he is a Swedish baron--you shall see. Ho!
(calling to the Swede) get me, will you, a bottle of wine from the
cabin. SWEDE.--Here, Jack! go and get your master a bottle of wine
from the cabin. DANE. No, no, no! do you go now--you go yourself you
go now! SWEDE. Pah!--DANE. Now go! Go, I pray you." And the Swede
went!!

After this the Dane commenced an harangue on religion, and mistaking
me for un philosophe in the continental sense of the word, he talked
of Deity in a declamatory style, very much resembling the devotional
rants of that rude blunderer, Mr. Thomas Paine, in his Age of Reason,
and whispered in my ear, what damned hypocrism all Jesus Christ's
business was. I dare aver, that few men have less reason to charge
themselves with indulging in persiflage than myself. I should hate it,
if it were only that it is a Frenchman's vice, and feel a pride in
avoiding it, because our own language is too honest to have a word to
express it by. But in this instance the temptation had been too
powerful, and I have placed it on the list of my offences. Pericles
answered one of his dearest friends, who had solicited him on a case
of life and death, to take an equivocal oath for his preservation:
Debeo amicis opitulari, sed usque ad Deos [75]. Friendship herself
must place her last and boldest step on this side the altar. What
Pericles would not do to save a friend's life, you may be assured, I
would not hazard merely to mill the chocolate-pot of a drunken fool's
vanity till it frothed over. Assuming a serious look, I professed
myself a believer, and sunk at once an hundred fathoms in his good
graces. He retired to his cabin, and I wrapped myself up in my great
coat, and looked at the water. A beautiful white cloud of foam at
momently intervals coursed by the side of the vessel with a roar, and
little stars of flame danced and sparkled and went out in it: and
every now and then light detachments of this white cloud-like foam
darted off from the vessel's side, each with its own small
constellation, over the sea, and scoured out of sight like a Tartar
troop over a wilderness.

It was cold, the cabin was at open war with my olfactories, and I
found reason to rejoice in my great coat, a weighty high-caped,
respectable rug, the collar of which turned over, and played the part
of a night-cap very passably. In looking up at two or three bright
stars, which oscillated with the motion of the sails, I fell asleep,
but was awakened at one o'clock, Monday morning, by a shower of rain.
I found myself compelled to go down into the cabin, where I slept very
soundly, and awoke with a very good appetite at breakfast time, my
nostrils, the most placable of all the senses, reconciled to, or
indeed insensible of the mephitis.

Monday, September 17th, I had a long conversation with the Swede, who
spoke with the most poignant contempt of the Dane, whom he described
as a fool, purse-mad; but he confirmed the boasts of the Dane
respecting the largeness of his fortune, which he had acquired in the
first instance as an advocate, and afterwards as a planter. From the
Dane and from himself I collected that he was indeed a Swedish
nobleman, who had squandered a fortune, that was never very large, and
had made over his property to the Dane, on whom he was now utterly
dependent. He seemed to suffer very little pain from the Dane's
insolence. He was in a high degree humane and attentive to the English
lady, who suffered most fearfully, and for whom he performed many
little offices with a tenderness and delicacy which seemed to prove
real goodness of heart. Indeed his general manners and conversation
were not only pleasing, but even interesting; and I struggled to
believe his insensibility respecting the Dane philosophical fortitude.
For though the Dane was now quite sober, his character oozed out of
him at every pore. And after dinner, when he was again flushed with
wine, every quarter of an hour or perhaps oftener he would shout out
to the Swede, "Ho! Nobility, go--do such a thing! Mr. Nobility!--tell
the gentlemen such a story, and so forth;" with an insolence which
must have excited disgust and detestation, if his vulgar rants on the
sacred rights of equality, joined to his wild havoc of general grammar
no less than of the English language, had not rendered it so
irresistibly laughable.

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