No More Learning

We must
therefore assign the flowing of the "less impetuous stream," to 1802; in
order to leave room for the intervening "years," in which it ceased to
flow, till it was audible again in the spring of 1804, "last
primrose-time. "

A second reference to date occurs in the sixth book, p. 224, entitled
"Cambridge and the Alps," in which he says,

_Four years and thirty, told, this very week,_
Have I been now a sojourner on earth.

This fixes definitely enough the date of the composition of _that_ part
of the work, _viz. _ April 1804, which corresponds exactly to the "last
primrose-time" of the previous extract from the seventh book, in which
he tells us that after its long silence, his Muse was heard again. So
far Wordsworth's own allusions to the date of 'The Prelude. '

But there are others supplied by his own, and his sister's letters, and
also by the Grasmere Journal. In the Dove Cottage household it was
known, and talked of, as "the Poem to Coleridge;" and Dorothy records,
on 11th January 1803, that her brother was working at it. On 13th
February 1804, she writes to Mrs. Clarkson that her brother was engaged
on a poem on his own life, and was "going on with great rapidity. " On
the 6th of March 1804, Wordsworth wrote from Grasmere to De Quincey,

"I am now writing a poem on my own earlier life: I have just finished
that part of it in which I speak of my residence at the University. "
. . . It is "better than half complete, viz.
four books, amounting to
about 2500 lines. "[A]

On the 24th of March, Dorothy wrote to Mrs. Clarkson, that since
Coleridge left them (which was in January 1804), her brother had added
1500 lines to the poem on his own life. On the 29th of April 1804,
Wordsworth wrote to Richard Sharpe,

"I have been very busy these last ten weeks: having written between
two and three thousand lines--accurately near three thousand--in that
time; namely, four books, and a third of another. I am at present at
the Seventh Book. "

On the 25th December 1804, he wrote to Sir George Beaumont,

"I have written upwards of 2000 verses during the last ten weeks. "

We thus find that Books I. to IV. had been written by the 6th of March
1804, that from the 19th February to the 29th of April nearly 3000 lines
were written, that March and April were specially productive months, for
by the 29th April he had reached Book VII. while from 16th October to
25th December he wrote over 2000 lines.

Dorothy and Mary Wordsworth transcribed the earlier books more than
once, and a copy of some of them was given to Coleridge to take with him
to Malta.

It is certain that the remaining books of 'The Prelude' were all written
in the spring and early summer of 1805; the seventh, eighth, ninth,
tenth, eleventh, and part of the twelfth being finished about the middle
of April; the last 300 lines of book twelfth in the last week of April;
and the two remaining books--the thirteenth and fourteenth--before the
20th of May. The following extracts from letters of Wordsworth to Sir
George Beaumont make this clear, and also cast light on matters much
more important than the mere dates of composition.

GRASMERE, Dec. 25, 1804.

"My dear Sir George,--You will be pleased to hear that I have been
advancing with my work: I have written upwards of 2000 verses during
the last ten weeks.