No More Learning

In his seventy-third
year, he said, looking back on his 'Evening Walk', that there was not an
image in the poem which he had not observed, and that he "recollected
the time and place where most of them were noted. " In the Fenwick notes,
we constantly find him saying, "the fact occurred strictly as recorded,"
"the fact was as mentioned in the poem"; and the fact very often
involved the accessories of place.

Any one who has tried to trace out the allusions in the "Poems on the
Naming of Places," or to discover the site of "Michael's Sheepfold," to
identify "Ghimmer Crag," or "Thurston-Mere,"--not to speak of the
individual "rocks" and "recesses" near Blea Tarn at the head of Little
Langdale so minutely described in 'The Excursion',--will admit that
local commentary is an important aid to the understanding of Wordsworth.
If to read the 'Yew Trees' in Borrowdale itself,

in mute repose
To lie, and listen to the mountain flood
Murmuring from Glaramara's inmost caves,

to read 'The Brothers' in Ennerdale, or "The Daffodils" by the shore of
Ullswater, gives a new significance to these "poems of the imagination,"
a discovery of the obscurer allusions to place or scene will deepen our
appreciation of those passages in which his idealism is most pronounced.
Every one knows Kirkstone Pass, Aira Force, Dungeon Ghyll, the Wishing
Gate, and Helm Crag: many persons know the Glowworm Rock, and used to
know the Rock of Names; but where is "Emma's Dell"? or "the meeting
point of two highways," so characteristically described in the twelfth
book of 'The Prelude'? and who will fix the site of the pool in Rydal
Upper Park, immortalised in the poem 'To M. H. '? or identify "Joanna's
Rock"? Many of the places in the English Lake District are undergoing
change, and every year the local allusions will be more difficult to
trace. Perhaps the most interesting memorial of the poet which existed,
viz. the "Rock of Names," on the shore of Thirlmere, is now sunk under
the waters of a Manchester reservoir. Other memorials are perishing by
the wear and tear of time, the decay of old buildings, the alteration of
roads, the cutting down of trees, and the modernising, or "improving,"
of the district generally. All this is inevitable.
But it is well that
many of the natural objects, over and around which the light of
Wordsworth's genius lingers, are out of the reach of "improvements," and
are indestructible even by machinery.

If it be objected that several of the places which we try to
identify--and which some would prefer to leave for ever undisturbed in
the realm of imagination--were purposely left obscure, it may be
replied that Death and Time have probably now removed all reasons for
reticence, especially in the case of those poems referring to domestic
life and friendly ties. While an author is alive, or while those are
alive to whom he has made reference in the course of his allusions to
place, it may even be right that works designed for posterity should not
be dealt with after the fashion of the modern "interviewer. " But
greatness has its penalties; and a "fierce light" "beats around the
throne" of Genius, as well as round that of Empire. Moreover, all
experience shows that posterity takes a great and a growing interest in
exact topographical illustrations of the works of great authors. The
labour recently bestowed upon the places connected with Shakespeare,
Scott, and Burns sufficiently attests this.

The localities in Westmoreland, which are most permanently associated
with Wordsworth, are these: Grasmere, where he lived during the years of
his "poetic prime," and where he is buried; Lower Easdale, where he
passed so many days with his sister by the side of the brook, and on the
terraces at Lancrigg, and where 'The Prelude' was dictated; Rydal Mount,
where he spent the latter half of his life, and where he found one of
the most perfect retreats in England; Great Langdale, and Blea Tarn at
the head of Little Langdale, immortalised in 'The Excursion'; the upper
end of Ullswater, and Kirkstone Pass; and all the mountain tracks and
paths round Grasmere and Rydal, especially the old upper road between
them, under Nab Scar, his favourite walk during his later years, where
he "composed hundreds of verses. " There is scarcely a rock or mountain
summit, a stream or tarn, or even a well, a grove, or forest-side in all
that neighbourhood, which is not imperishably identified with this poet,
who at once interpreted them as they had never been interpreted before,
and added

the gleam,
The light that never was, on sea or land,
The consecration, and the Poet's dream.

It may be worthy of note that Wordsworth himself sanctioned the
principle of tracing out local allusions both by dictating the Fenwick
notes, and by republishing his Essay on the topography of the Lakes,
along with the Duddon Sonnets, in 1820--and also, by itself, in
1822--"from a belief that it would tend materially to illustrate" his
poems.

In this edition the topographical Notes usually follow the Poems to
which they refer. But in the case of the longer Poems, such as 'The
Prelude', 'The Excursion', and others, it seems more convenient to print
them at the foot of the page, than to oblige the reader to turn to the
end of the volume.

From the accident of my having tried long ago--at Principal Shairp's
request--to do what he told me he wished to do, but had failed to carry
out, I have been supposed, quite erroneously, to be an 'authority' on
the subject of "The English Lake District, as interpreted in the Poems
of Wordsworth. " The latter, it is true, is the title of one of the books
which I have written about Wordsworth: but, although I visited the Lakes
in 1860,--"as a pilgrim resolute"--and have re-visited the district
nearly every year for more than a quarter of a century, I may say that I
have only a partial knowledge of it. Others, such as Canon Rawnsley, Mr.
Harry Goodwin, and Mr. Rix, for example, know many parts of it much
better than I do; but, as I have often had to compare my own judgment
with that of such experts as the late Dr.