BOOKS.

AN AMERICAN'S RECOLLECTIONS OF WORDS WORTH.*

COLERIDGE declared to an American visitor that, while he was only a poor poet in England, he was "a great philosopher in America"; and, indeed, it says much for the receptive imagination of the best Americans of two generations ago that they welcomed the idealism of Wordsworth and Cole- ridge more heartily than did these poets' own countrymen. The so-called Transcendental movement in New England largely derived its inspiration from the Lake Poets, and Emerson, who on his first visit to England in 1833 hastened to the two shrines at Highgate and Rydal Mount, spoke the sentiment of cultivated America when he declared that the famous "Ode on Immortality" had reached the high-water mark of modern poetry. Professor Henry Reed perhaps did more than any one else to spread the love for Words- worth in America, and ab Mr. Yarnall, the author of this work, was a friend of Reed's, and is an enthusiast for the Lake School, he enjoyed exceptional opportunities on his various visits to England of coming into contact with the Words. worths. He does not seem to have ever been actuated by that notoriety-hunting passion which led some of his country- men to intrude on the privacy of Carlyle and Tennyson ; he was genuinely interested in the poetry and ideas of Words- worth and Coleridge. The latter he never saw, as his first visit to England was made in 1849, but he was just in time to catch a glimpse of Wordsworth in the fading sunset splendours of the great poet's life.

The picture of Wordsworth in his decline is interesting :—

"I heard steps in the entry, the door was opened, and Words- worth came in; it could be no other— a tall figure, a little bent with age,his hair thin and grey, and his face deeply wrinkled. The

• Wordsworth and the Coteridpes, with other Memortes, Literary and , -Politica/. 13y Ellie Yarnall. New lork; The Macmillan Company. Dos. net.) '

expression of his countenance was sad, mournful I might say ; he seemed one on whom sorrow pressed heavily. He gave me his hand and welcomed me cordially, though without smiling. Leading the way, he conducted me at once to the dining-room. I could not but notice that his step was feeble. At the head of the table sat Mrs. Wordsworth, and their three grandchildren made up the party. It was a quaint apartment, not coiled, the rafters da.rk with age being visible ; having a large old-fashioned fireplace with a high mantelpiece."

The conversation ranged over a wide field. The spread of the English language as a result of the rush then going on

to the Pacific coast of America was spoken of, and Words- worth, always thinking of the moral being as the "prime

care," said that "it behoved those who wrote to see to it that what they put forth was on the side of virtue." Trinity College, Cambridge, being mentioned, its Royal founder, Henry VIII., was naturally suggested. Of him Wordsworth "spoke in terms of the strongest abhorrence. I wish I could recall his exact words ; the concluding sentence was, 'I loathe his very memory.'" The poet thought that Prince Albert had no claim to the Chancellorship of Cambridge ; and, old as he was, had he retained his University member- ship, he would have gone up to vote against him. The classics, he contended, should form the basis of true culture: "Where would one look for a greater orator than Demosthenes, or finer dramatic poetry, next to Shakespeare, than that of 2Eschylus and Sophocles, not to speak of Euripides ? " And as for Herodotus, his history was "the most interesting and instructive book, next to the Bible, which had ever been

written." He, who had witnessed with such enthusiasm the great French Revolution of 1789, had now lived to see the Revolution of 1848; and he was eager to learn from Mr. Yarnall, who had been in France, all that he could. He thought Louis Philippe and Guizot had shown a sad want of courage, and that Lamartine was "a poor writer of verses, not having the least claim to be considered a states- man." His constant love for and interest in France came out in the exclamation, "I should like to spend another month in France before I close my eyes." The touch of high ecclesiasticism which we expect from the admirer of Laud, but which is difficult to reconcile with the greater admiration of Milton, came.ont in Wordsworth's depreciation of Luther and his leaning towards the Oxford Movement : "I foresaw that the movement was for good, and such I conceive it has been beyond all question." Although he was within a year of his death, Mr. Yarnall observed an animated manner in the poet's conversation and sustained vigour in his thought :— "His eyes, though not glistening, had yet in them the fire which betokened the greatness of his genius. This no painter could represent, and it was this that gave his countenance its high intellectual expression. His features were not good ; indeed, but for this keen grey eye with its wondrous light his face could hardly have been called pleasing; but this atoned for all. His step I have already said was feeble, tottering; there was, too, this peculiarity that he walked with so uneven a gait as to encroach on my side of the path. One hand was generally thrust into his half-unbuttoned waistcoat. His dress was a black frock coat, grey trousers, a black waistcoat, and cravat of black silk carelessly tied ; his appearance, in fact, was somewhat rough, but not slovenly; his clothes were not old-fashioned, nor did he dress as an old man in any peculiar way.'

Although Mr. Yarnall never knew Coleridge, he had a very intimate acquaintance with many members of that singularly gifted family,—with Henry Nelson, Derwent, Sir John Taylor, and the late Lord Chief Justice. He heard Derwent preach in Grasmere Church, and he heard him read his father's exquisite poems in the twilight with the expanse of Derwentwater lying before them. He dined with Dement at Chelsea, where he met Macaulay, who, though in declining health, discoursed with his usual facile dogmatism, maintain- ing, among other things, that music required no high mental power. He had never seen, and could not have understood it had he seen, the score of a great Beethoven symphony. A visit to Rogers, then a very aged man, is recorded, and this little narrative at the expense of Rogers is not without in- terest :—" Wordsworth with Rogers had spent an evening with Coleridge at Highgate. As the two poets walked away together I did not altogether understand the latter part of what Coleridge said,' was the cautious remark of Rogers.

did not understand any of it,' was Wordsworth's hasty reply. No more did I,' exclaimed Rogers, doubtless much relieved." Mr. Yarnall was informed by the daughter of Coleridge that Carlyle's picturesque but ill-natured account of the poet-philosopher snuffling about "Somm-ject " and " Omm-ject" on the slopes of Highgate was an utterly false picture, which had given the Coleridge family not a little pain.

Derwont Coleridge having remarked the rugged and unfinished character of the poetry of both Mr. and Mrs. Browning, which he thought would be fatal to its permanence, Mr. Yarnell adds a remark which he says he knows Tennyson to have made: "Browning would do well to add something of beauty to the great things he gives to the world." The remark is scarcely just in view of the great beauty in "Saul," " Abt Vogler," and the famous Dedication to Mrs. Browning, but the terse criticism is not bad.

Many other visits to prominent men, to Kingsley, Gladstone, Foreter, and Mill, are recorded. Mr. Yarnell was invited to dine with Mill, whose appearance he describes thus :—

"He has a nervous twitching of the eyelids, which perhaps leads to his raising his hand now and again to his brow. There is something almost of timidity in his manner, which surprises one, considering his great place in the world as a writer. He is especially courteous in giving careful heed to what is said to him. You feel him to be a man of good heart, of entire simplicity. I was struck with his deferential attention to remarks of his wife from her end of the table."

Mill spoke disparagingly of the English Universities, and of English scholarship, and be described the Oxford Movement as the "romance of Church of Englandism," speaking with deep respect of the character of Pusey. The visit to Kingsley is pleasant, hut there is nothing in it worth special notice. Mr. Yarnall saw a great deal of Forster both here and in the United States. Forster's father, as is generally known, was a devout Quaker, who died in America while engaged on a mission there against slavery, his mother, though frail in health, being also addicted to preaching. "Forster used to tell of an incident of his childhood. He was travelling in a coach in charge of his nurse when a benevo- lent old gentleman began to talk to him. Where is your papa, my dear ? ' said his fellow-passenger. Papa is preach- ing in America,' was the reply. 'And where is your mamma ? '

continued the gentleman. 'Mamma is preaching in Ireland,' was the answer which the astonished stranger received."

One gathers from what Mr. Yarnell says of Mr. Gladstone's unhappy eulogium on Jefferson Davis, that it was due, as Dr. Johnson would have said, to "pure ignorance." Mr. Gladstone did not then understand, as he afterwards admitted, the character of the North or the real strength of the American Constitution.