for William wrote out part of his poem, and endeavoured to alter it, and so made himself ill. I copied out the rest for him.” . . ... "William worked hard at the Pedlar, and "William worked at the Pedlar." . . . "William thought a little about the Pedlar." "Sate yp late at the Pedlar." Sunday, 7th.—“William ad a bad night, and was working at his poem. We sate by the fire, and did not walk, but read the Pedlar, thinking it done; but lo! . . could find fault with no one part of it -it was uninteresting, and must be altered. Poor William !" Wednesday, 10th Feb.-"We read the first part of the poem, and were delighted with it, but William afterwards got to some ugly place, and went to bed tired out." Thursday, 11th.— Pedlar." Friday, 12th.- . time at work. "I re-copied the Pedlar; but poor William all the We sate a long time with the window unclosed, and almost finished writing the Pedlar, but poor William wore himself out and me with labour. Went to bed at 12 o'clock." Saturday, 13th.-"It snowed a little. Still at work at the Pedlar, altering and re-fitting. William read parts of his Recluse aloud to me. Sunday, 4th Feb.— .. passages of the Pedlar, and "William left me at work altering some went into the orchard." Sunday, Feb. 28.- . . . "William very ill; employed himself with the Pedlar." Friday morning.—. "I wrote the Pedlar, and finished it.” These extracts-which will recall the laborious way in which he toiled over the poem Michael (see Vol. II. p. 144)-all refer to the close of the year 1801, and the beginning of the year 1802. It is impossible to find out, with exactness, what were the parts of The Excursion which were then so carefully written, and so fastidiously altered-since The Pedlar was the Wordsworth household name for the entire poem, until it was recast for publication, at Allan Bank. But after February 1802 he turned to other subjects of composition, chiefly lyrical, and laid aside The Pedlar for a time-his sister, at least, regarding it as finished." What was completed, however, did not, probably, extend beyond the story of the Wanderer, and perhaps a part of that of the Solitary. The person, whose character gave rise to the Solitary, came to reside at Grasmere not long after the Wordsworths settled there; but as the Fenwick note expressly says that the poem was written "chiefly during our residence at Allan Bank," I do not think that more than the first two books belong to the Town-end period. The Excursion was originally published in quarto in 1814. The second edition, octavo, appeared in 1820.* It was included in all the collected editions of 1820, 1827, 1836, 1843, 1845, 1849-50, in the Paris reprint of 1828, and in the American editions by Henry Reed. It was also republished by itself in 1836, 1844, and 1847. The textual changes in the several editions were numerous and significant. The longest and most important passage in the earlier ones, omitted after 1820, occurs at the close of the sixth book. Another (shorter) fragment, near the beginning of book seventh, refers to the Sympson household at the Wytheburn parsonage.. No edition of The Excursion has as yet been issued with adequate notes, either topographical or literary. The first book-"The Wanderer "-has, however, been annotated, both by Mr H. H. Turner (published in Rivington's English School Classics), and also by the Rev. H. G. Robinson, Prebendary of York, and published at Edinburgh by Messrs Oliver & Boyd. In the Notes to the text I have confined myself chiefly to the explanation of obscure allusions, topographical, historical, or legendary; and have reserved the discussion of Wordsworth's teaching in The Excursion, his views of Man and Nature, of human character and destiny, as well as a comparison of the teaching of The Prelude with that of The Excursion, and the meaning he attached to such phrases as "imaginative will," for the Critical Essay in the last volume of this work.-ED. ΤΟ THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM, EARL OF LONSDALE, K.G., Erc., Erc. OFT, through thy fair domains,† illustrious Peer! Of high respect and gratitude sincere. *See Appendix, Note B.-ED. + The grounds of Lowther Castle. Compare the sonnet beginning "Lowther! in thy majestic Pile are seen.” -ED. The Lowther stream, rising amongst the Shap Fells, joins the Famont at Brougham Castle.-ED, Gladly would I have waited till my task RYDAL MOUNT, WESTMORELAND, July 29, 1814. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 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, 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* 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 antechapel 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 *The Prelude.-ED. + As they were-according to their Author's somewhat arbitrary classification-in the editions of 1815, and subsequent years.-ED. 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 mean time 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. 'On Man, on Nature, and on Human Life, Pure, or with no unpleasing sadness mixed; And dear remembrances, whose presence soothes Of moral strength, and intellectual Power; |