Wordsworth and the Coleridges, with other memories, literary and political

Preface

I OWE the suggestion of this volume to my friend, Professor Albert H. Smyth. I am indebted to him also for kind and efficient help in preparing it for publication.

Professor Smyth's wide knowledge of English literature and his keen desire to further the love of it in others make his influence in Philadelphia akin to that of the late Professor Henry Reed.

The first of the following papers was written mainly in 1889. I have made slight changes in it since.

The paper, " A Visit to Wordsworth," was in part published by Dr. Christopher Wordsworth (afterward Bishop of Lincoln), in 1851, in his life of the poet; passages were omitted by him because of their reference to persons then living; there is no reason now why my record should not appear as a whole.

I rejoice to be able to say something in regard to Sir John Taylor Coleridge, — better known as Mr. Justice Coleridge, — the friend at once of Dr. Arnold and of Mr. Keble. Nothing in the way of memoir of this eminent man has ever appeared in this country, nor has any adequate life been written vi PREFACE

in England. Dr. Arnold's letters to him form a veryimportant part of Stanley's " Life of Arnold." Judge Coleridge's letters to Arnold unhappily were not preserved; a like fate attended his letters to our great lawyer, Horace Binney. Judge Coleridge told me he had preserved all Mr. Binney 's letters. Both Dr. Arnold and Mr. Binney, I believe, thought it their duty to direct that the letters they had received should be destroyed. In these two cases, at least, the loss to literature and to recent history has been serious.

In publishing what I can recall of William Edward Forster, I cannot but be impressed by the thought that what was his supreme desire as a statesman seems now at last to be fulfilled, — the essential union of England and America, — a union not of a treaty or of diplomatic arrangement, but the declaration, as by a common instinct, of two great peoples that their interests are one, and that in their standing together lies the chief hope for the peace and advancement of the world. Englishmen of far-reaching view have at different times expressed a wish for this union. As early as 1808 Bishop Watson, — Bishop of Llandaff , — a man of much weight of character and of high intelligence, declared it to be his strong desire that England should enter " as speedily as possible into an alliance, cordial, sincere, offensive and defensive, with America." I may note also that in 1804 Bishop Watson expressed it as his belief

PREFACE vu

that America was destined to become the greatest naval power on the globe.

I have referred in my final paper to Mr. Bright's deep interest in America, his strong belief in our future, and his earnest wish for a cordial union of all English-speaking men.

My thanks are due to the publishers of Lippincot£s Magazine for permission to reprint the articles *' Walks and Visits in Wordsworth's Country " and " Charles Kingsley : a Reminiscence."

ELLIS YARNALL.

May Place, Haverford, Pa., March, 1899.

Contents

PAGE

OCCASIONAL RECOLLECTIONS DURING SEVENTY YEARS ... I

WALKS AND VISITS IN WORDSWORTH'S COUNTRY . . . .53