years and more from the era of that tour, to read it under the afflicting remembrances of all which has been suffered in the interval by two at least out of the three who composed the travelling party; for I fear that Miss Wordsworth has suffered not much less than Coleridge, and, in any general expression of it, from the same cause, viz. an excess of pleasurable excitement and luxurious sensibility, sustained in youth by a constitutional glow from animal causes, but drooping as soon as that was withdrawn. It is painful to point a moral from any story connected with those whom one loves or has loved; painful to look for one moment towards any "improvement" of such a case, especially where there is no reason to tax the parties with any criminal contribution to their own sufferings, except through that relaxation of the will and its potential energies through which most of us, at some time or other-I myself too deeply and sorrowfully stand accountable to our own consciences. Not, therefore, with any intention of speaking in a monitorial or censorial character, do I here notice a defect in Miss Wordsworth's self-education of something that might have mitigated the sort of suffering which, more or less, ever since the period of her too genial, too radiant youth, I suppose her to have struggled with. I have mentioned the narrow basis on which her literary interests had been made to rest the exclusive character of her reading, and the utter want of pretension, and of all that looks like bluestockingism, in the style of her habitual conversation and mode of dealing with literature. Now, to me it appears, upon reflection, that it would have been far better had Miss Wordsworth condescended a little to the ordinary mode of pursuing literature; better for her own happiness if she had been a bluestocking; or, at least, if she had been, in good earnest, a writer for the press, with the pleasant cares and solicitudes of one who has some little ventures, as it were, on that vast ocean. We all know with how womanly and serene a temper literature has been pursued by Joanna Baillie, by Miss Mitford, and other women of admirable genius—with how absolutely no sacrifice or loss of feminine dignity they have cultivated the profession of authorship; and, if we could hear their report, I have no doubt that the little cares of correcting proofs, and the forward-looking solicitudes connected with the mere business arrangements of new publications, would be numbered amongst the minor pleasures of life; whilst the more elevated cares connected with the intellectual business of such projects must inevitably have done much to solace the troubles which, as human beings, they cannot but have experienced, and even to scatter flowers upon their path. Mrs. Johnstone of Edinburgh has pursued the profession of literature—the noblest of professions, and the only one open to both sexes alike—with even more assiduity, and as a daily occupation; and, I have every reason to believe, with as much benefit to her own happiness as to the instruction and amusement of her readers; for the petty cares of authorship are agreeable, and its serious cares are ennobling.1 More especially is such an occupation useful to a woman without children, and without any prospective resources-resources in objects that involve hopes growing and unfulfilled. It is too much to expect of any woman (or man either) that her mind should support itself in a pleasurable activity, under the drooping energies of life, by resting on the past or on the present; some interest in reversion, some subject of hope from day to day, must be called in to reinforce the animal fountains of good spirits. Had that been opened for Miss Wordsworth, I am satisfied that she would have passed a more cheerful middle-age, and would not, at any period, have yielded to that nervous depression (or is it, perhaps, nervous irritation?) which, I grieve to hear, has clouded her latter days. Nephews and nieces, whilst young and innocent, are as good almost as sons and daughters to a fervid and loving heart that has carried them in her arms from the hour they were born. But, after a nephew has grown into a huge hulk of a man, six feet high, and as stout as a bullock; after he has come to have children of his own, lives at a distance, and finds occasion to talk much of oxen and turnips-no offence to him!-he ceases to be an object of any very pro 1 Mrs. Johnstone (1781-1857) was the authoress of several novels, a contributor to various periodicals, and editor of Tait's Magazine through a portion at least of De Quincey's connexion with it.--M. found sentiment. There is nothing in such a subject to rouse the flagging pulses of the heart, and to sustain a fervid spirit, to whom, at the very best, human life offers little of an adequate or sufficing interest, unless when idealized by the magic of the mighty poets. Farewell, Miss Wordsworth! farewell, impassioned Dorothy! I have not seen you for many a day-shall, too probably, never see you again; but shall attend your steps with tender interest so long as I hear of you living: so will Professor Wilson ; and, from two hearts at least, that knew and admired you in your fervid prime, it may sometimes cheer the gloom of your depression to be assured of never-failing remembrance, full of love and respectful pity.1 1 In the recast by De Quincey, for the collective edition of his writings in 1853, of his Tait articles on Wordsworth in 1839, there were some omissions of matter that had appeared in the magazine. One was this concluding paragraph in the article for April 1839:-"I have traced the history of each [i.e. of William and Dorothy Wordsworth] until the time when I became personally acquainted with them; and, henceforwards, anything which it may be interesting to know with respect to either will naturally come forward, not in a separate narrative, but in connexion with my own life; for in the following year I became myself the tenant of that pretty cottage in which I found them; and from that time, for many years, my life flowed on in daily union with theirs."-M. CHAPTER IV THE LAKE POETS: WILLIAM WORDSWORTH AND THAT night-the first of my personal intercourse with Wordsworth--the first in which I saw him face to face-was (it is little, indeed, to say) memorable: it was marked by a change even in the physical condition of my nervous system. Long disappointment-hope for ever baffled (and why should it be less painful because self-baffled ?)—vexation and selfblame, almost self-contempt, at my own want of courage to face the man whom of all since the Flood I most yearned to behold these feelings had impressed upon my nervous sensibilities a character of irritation—agitation—restlessness -eternal self-dissatisfaction-which were gradually gathering into a distinct, well-defined type, that would, but for youth— almighty youth, and the spirit of youth-have shaped itself into some nervous complaint, wearing symptoms sui generis (for most nervous complaints, in minds that are at all eccentric, will be sui generis); and, perhaps, finally, have been immortalized in some medical journal as the anomalous malady of an interesting young gentleman, aged twenty-two, who was supposed to have studied too severely, and to have perplexed his brain with German metaphysics. To this result things tended; but, in one hour, all passed away. It was gone, never to return. The spiritual being whom I had anticipated-for, like Eloisa, 1 From Tait's Magazine for July 1839. See explanation in Editor's Preface to this volume.-M. "My fancy framed him of the angelic kind, this ideal creature had at length been seen-seen "in the flesh"-seen with fleshly eyes; and now, though he did not cease for years to wear something of the glory and the aureola which, in Popish legends, invests the head of superhuman beings, yet it was no longer as a being to be feared: it was as Raphael, the "affable" angel, who conversed on the terms of man with man, that I now regarded him. It was four o'clock, perhaps, when we arrived. At that hour in November the daylight soon declined; and, in an hour and a half, we were all collected about the tea-table. This, with the Wordsworths, under the simple rustic system of habits which they cherished then, and for twenty years after, was the most delightful meal in the day; just as dinner is in great cities, and for the same reason—because it was prolonged into a meal of leisure and conversation. And the reason why any meal favours and encourages conversation is pretty much the same as that which accounts for the breaking down of so many lawyers, and generally their ill-success in the House of Commons. In the courts of law, when a man is haranguing upon general and abstract topics, if at any moment he feels getting beyond his depth, if he finds his anchor driving, he can always bring up, and drop his anchor anew upon the terra firma of his case: the facts of this, as furnished by his brief, always assure him of a retreat as soon as he finds his more general thoughts failing him; and the consciousness of this retreat, by inspiring confidence, makes it much less probable that they should fail. But, in Parliament, where the advantage of a case with given facts and circumstances, or the details of a statistical report, does not offer itself once in a dozen times that a member has occasion to speak-where he has to seek unpremeditated arguments and reasonings of a general nature, from the impossibility of wholly evading the previous speeches that may have made an impression upon the House ;-this necessity, at any rate a trying one to most people, is doubly so to one who has always walked in the leading-strings of a case-always swum with the help of bladders, in the conscious resource of his facts. The reason, therefore, why a lawyer succeeds ill as a senator |