"
(See 'Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey,' vol.
(See 'Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey,' vol.
William Wordsworth
Ruskin has found how seldom the great
landscape painters are powerful in expressing human passions and
affections on canvas, or even successful in the introduction of human
figures into their foregrounds; whereas in the poetic paintings of Mr.
Wordsworth the landscape is always subordinate to a higher interest;
certainly, in 'The Waggoner', the little sketch of human nature which
occupies, as it were, the front of that encircling background, the
picture of Benjamin and his temptations, his humble friends and the
mute companions of his way, has a character of its own, combining with
sportiveness a homely pathos, which must ever be delightful to some of
those who are thoroughly conversant with the spirit of Mr.
Wordsworth's poetry. It may be compared with the ale-house scene in
'Tam o'Shanter', parts of Voss's Luise, or Ovid's Baucis and Philemon;
though it differs from each of them as much as they differ from each
other. The Epilogue carries on the feeling of the piece very
beautifully. "
The editor of Southey's 'Life and Correspondence'--his son, the Rev.
Charles Cuthbert Southey--tells us, in a note to a letter from S. T.
Coleridge to his father, that the Waggoner's name was Jackson; and that
"all the circumstances of the poem are accurately correct. " This
Jackson, after retiring from active work as waggoner, became the tenant
of Greta Hall, where first Coleridge, and afterwards Southey lived. The
Hall was divided into two houses, one of which Jackson occupied, and the
other of which he let to Coleridge, who speaks thus of him in the letter
to Southey, dated Greta Hall, Keswick, April 13, 1801:
"My landlord, who dwells next door, has a very respectable library,
which he has put with mine; histories, encyclopedias, and all the
modern poetry, etc. etc. etc. A more truly disinterested man I never
met with; severely frugal, yet almost carelessly generous; and yet he
got all his money as a common carrier, by hard labour, and by pennies
and pennies. He is one instance among many in this country of the
salutary effect of the love of knowledge--he was from a boy a lover of
learning.
"
(See 'Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey,' vol. ii. pp. 147,
148. )
Charles Lamb--to whom 'The Waggoner' was dedicated--wrote thus to
Wordsworth on 7th June 1819:
"My dear Wordsworth,--You cannot imagine how proud we are here of the
dedication. We read it twice for once that we do the poem. I mean all
through; yet 'Benjamin' is no common favourite; there is a spirit of
beautiful tolerance in it. It is as good as it was in 1806; and it
will be as good in 1829, if our dim eyes shall be awake to peruse it.
Methinks there is a kind of shadowing affinity between the subject of
the narrative and the subject of the dedication.
. . .
"I do not know which I like best,--the prologue (the latter part
especially) to 'P. Bell,' or the epilogue to 'Benjamin. ' Yes, I tell
stories; I do know I like the last best; and the 'Waggoner' altogether
is a pleasanter remembrance to me than the 'Itinerant. '
.
landscape painters are powerful in expressing human passions and
affections on canvas, or even successful in the introduction of human
figures into their foregrounds; whereas in the poetic paintings of Mr.
Wordsworth the landscape is always subordinate to a higher interest;
certainly, in 'The Waggoner', the little sketch of human nature which
occupies, as it were, the front of that encircling background, the
picture of Benjamin and his temptations, his humble friends and the
mute companions of his way, has a character of its own, combining with
sportiveness a homely pathos, which must ever be delightful to some of
those who are thoroughly conversant with the spirit of Mr.
Wordsworth's poetry. It may be compared with the ale-house scene in
'Tam o'Shanter', parts of Voss's Luise, or Ovid's Baucis and Philemon;
though it differs from each of them as much as they differ from each
other. The Epilogue carries on the feeling of the piece very
beautifully. "
The editor of Southey's 'Life and Correspondence'--his son, the Rev.
Charles Cuthbert Southey--tells us, in a note to a letter from S. T.
Coleridge to his father, that the Waggoner's name was Jackson; and that
"all the circumstances of the poem are accurately correct. " This
Jackson, after retiring from active work as waggoner, became the tenant
of Greta Hall, where first Coleridge, and afterwards Southey lived. The
Hall was divided into two houses, one of which Jackson occupied, and the
other of which he let to Coleridge, who speaks thus of him in the letter
to Southey, dated Greta Hall, Keswick, April 13, 1801:
"My landlord, who dwells next door, has a very respectable library,
which he has put with mine; histories, encyclopedias, and all the
modern poetry, etc. etc. etc. A more truly disinterested man I never
met with; severely frugal, yet almost carelessly generous; and yet he
got all his money as a common carrier, by hard labour, and by pennies
and pennies. He is one instance among many in this country of the
salutary effect of the love of knowledge--he was from a boy a lover of
learning.
"
(See 'Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey,' vol. ii. pp. 147,
148. )
Charles Lamb--to whom 'The Waggoner' was dedicated--wrote thus to
Wordsworth on 7th June 1819:
"My dear Wordsworth,--You cannot imagine how proud we are here of the
dedication. We read it twice for once that we do the poem. I mean all
through; yet 'Benjamin' is no common favourite; there is a spirit of
beautiful tolerance in it. It is as good as it was in 1806; and it
will be as good in 1829, if our dim eyes shall be awake to peruse it.
Methinks there is a kind of shadowing affinity between the subject of
the narrative and the subject of the dedication.
. . .
"I do not know which I like best,--the prologue (the latter part
especially) to 'P. Bell,' or the epilogue to 'Benjamin. ' Yes, I tell
stories; I do know I like the last best; and the 'Waggoner' altogether
is a pleasanter remembrance to me than the 'Itinerant. '
.
