The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth Volume Iii Part 47

[Footnote F: Wordsworth's earliest teachers, before he was sent to Hawkshead School, were his mother and the Rev. Mr. Gilbanks at c.o.c.kermouth, and Mrs. Anne Birkett at Penrith. His mother and Dame Birkett taught him to read, and trained his infant memory. Mr. Gilbanks also gave him elementary instruction; while his father made him commit to memory portions of the English poets. At Hawkshead he read English literature, learned Latin and Mathematics, and wrote both English and Latin verse. There was little or no method, and no mechanical or artificial drill in his early education. Though he was taught both languages and mathematics he was left as free to range the "happy pastures" of literature, as to range the Hawkshead woods on autumn nights in pursuit of woodc.o.c.ks. It is likely that the reference in the above pa.s.sage is to his education both in childhood and in youth, although specially to the former. In his 'Autobiographical Memoranda', Wordsworth says,

"Of my earliest days at School I have little to say, but that they were very happy ones, chiefly because I was left at liberty, then and in the vacations, to read whatever books I liked. For example, I read all Fielding's works, 'Don Quixote', 'Gil Blas', and any part of Swift that I liked; 'Gulliver's Travels' and the 'Tale of a Tub' being both much to my taste."

As Wordsworth alludes to Coleridge's education, along with his own, "in the season of unperilous choice," the reference is probably to Coleridge's early time at the vicarage of Ottery St. Mary's, Devonshire, and at the Grammar School there, as well as at Christ's Hospital in London, where (with Charles Lamb as school-companion) he was as enthusiastic in his exploits in the New River, as he was an eager student of books.--Ed.]

[Footnote G: Mrs. Wordsworth died at Penrith, in the year 1778, the poet's eighth year.--Ed.]

[Footnote H: Compare, in 'Expostulation and Reply' (vol. i. p. 273),

'Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum Of things for ever speaking, That nothing of itself will come, But we must still be seeking?'

Ed.]

[Footnote I: See the Fenwick note to the poem, 'There was a Boy', vol.

ii. p. 57, and Wordsworth's reference to his schoolfellow William Rainc.o.c.k.--Ed.]

[Footnote K: Hawkshead Grammar School.--Ed.]

[Footnote L: Lines 364-97 were first published in "Lyrical Ballads,"

1800, and appeared in all the subsequent collective editions of the poems, standing first in the group of "Poems of the Imagination."

The grave of this "immortal boy" cannot be identified. His name, and everything about him except what is here recorded, is unknown; but he was, in all likelihood, a school companion of Wordsworth's at Hawkshead.

'And through that churchyard when my way has led On summer evenings.'

One may localize the above description almost anywhere at Hawkshead--Ed.]

[Footnote M: Hawkshead School, in which Wordsworth was taught for eight years--from 1778 to 1786--was founded by Archbishop Sandys of York, in 1585, and the building is still very much as it was in Wordsworth's time. The main school-room is on the ground floor. One small chamber on the first floor was used, in the end of last century, by the head master, as a private cla.s.s-room, for teaching a few advanced pupils. In another is a small library, formed in part by the donations of the scholars; it having been a custom for each pupil to present a volume on leaving the school, or to send one afterwards. Very probably one of the volumes now in the library was presented by Wordsworth. There are several which were presented by his school-fellows, during the years in which Wordsworth was at Hawkshead. The master, in 1877, promised me that he would search through his somewhat musty treasures, to see if he could discover a book with the poet's autograph; but I never heard of his success. On the wall of the room containing the library is a tablet, recording the names of several masters. There also, in an old oak chest, is kept the original charter of the school. The oak benches downstairs are covered with the names or initials of the boys, deeply cut; and, amongst them, the name of William Wordsworth--but not those of his brothers Richard, John, or Christopher--may be seen. For further details as to the Hawkshead School, see the 'Life' of the Poet in this edition.

Towards the close of last century, when Wordsworth and his three brothers were educated there, the school was one of the best educational inst.i.tutions in the north of England.--Ed.]

[Footnote N: Compare in the lines beginning "She was a Phantom of delight" p. 2:

'Creature not too bright or good For human nature's daily food.'

Ed.]

[Footnote O: Compare book iv. ll. 50 and 383, with relative notes--Ed.]

[Footnote P: Compare in 'Fidelity', p. 45:

'There sometimes doth a leaping fish Send through the tarn a lonely cheer.'

Ed.]

[Footnote Q: Compare the 'Ode, Intimations of Immortality', stanza v.--Ed.]

[Footnote R: Compare, in 'Tintern Abbey', vol. ii. p.54:

'That time is past, And all its aching joys are now no more, And all its dizzy raptures.'

And in the 'Ode, Intimations of Immortality', vol. viii.:

'What though the radiance which was once so bright Be now for ever taken from my sight.'

Ed.]

[Footnote S: This friend of his boyhood, with whom Wordsworth spent these "delightful hours," is as unknown as is the immortal Boy of Windermere, who blew "mimic hootings to the silent owls," and who sleeps in the churchyard "above the village school" of Hawkshead, and the Lucy of the Goslar poems. Compare, however, p. 163. Wordsworth _may_ refer to John Fleming of Rayrigg, with whom he used to take morning walks round Esthwaite:

'... five miles Of pleasant wandering ...'

Ed.]

[Footnote T: Esthwaite.--Ed.]

[Footnote U: Probably they were pa.s.sages from Goldsmith, or Pope, or writers of their school. The verses which he wrote upon the completion of the second century of the foundation of the school were, as he himself tells us, "a tame imitation of Pope's versification, and a little in his style."--Ed.]

SUB-FOOTNOTE ON THE TEXT

[Sub-Footnote a: Wordsworth studied Spanish during the winter he spent at Orleans (1792). Don Quixote was one of the books he had read when at the Hawkshead school.--Ed.]