THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, VOL. 8 (Completed)

MEMORIALS OF A TOUR IN ITALY 1837

Composed 1837.--Published 1842

[During my whole life I had felt a strong desire to visit Rome and the other celebrated cities and regions of Italy, but did not think myself justified in incurring the necessary expense till I received from Mr.Moxon, the publisher of a large edition of my poems, a sum sufficient to enable me to gratify my wish without encroaching upon what I considered due to my family. My excellent friend H.C. Robinson readily consented to accompany me, and in March 1837, we set off from London, to which we returned in August, earlier than my companion wished or I should myself have desired had I been, like him, a bachelor. These Memorials of that tour touch upon but a very few of the places and objects that interested me, and, in what they do advert to, are for the most part much slighter than I could wish. More particularly do I regret that there is no notice in them of the South of France, nor of the Roman antiquities abounding in that district, especially of the Pont de Degard, which, together with its situation, impressed me full as much as any remains of Roman architecture to be found in Italy. Then there was Vaucluse, with its Fountain, its Petrarch, its rocks of all seasons, its small plots of lawn in their first vernal freshness, and the blossoms of the peach and other trees embellishing the scene on every side. The beauty of the stream also called forcibly for the expression of sympathy from one who, from his childhood, had studied the brooks and torrents of his native mountains. Between two and three hours did I run about climbing the steep and rugged crags from whose base the water of Vaucluse breaks forth. "Has Laura's Lover," often said I to myself, "ever sat down upon this stone? or has his foot ever pressed that turf?" Some, especially of the female sex, would have felt sure of it: my answer was (impute it to my years) "I fear, not." Is it not, in fact, obvious that many of his love verses must have flowed, I do not say from a wish to display his own talent but from a habit of exercising his intellect in that way rather than from an impulse of his heart? It is otherwise with his Lyrical poems, and particularly with the one upon the degradation of his country: there he pours out his reproaches, lamentations, and aspirations like an ardent and sincere patriot. But enough: it is time to turn to my own effusions such asthey are.--I.F.]

TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON[60]

Companion! by whose buoyant Spirit cheered,

In[61] whose experience trusting, day by day

Treasures I gained with zeal that neither feared

The toils nor felt the crosses of the way,

These records take, and happy should I be

Were but the Gift a meet Return to thee

For kindnesses that never ceased to flow,

And prompt self-sacrifice to which I owe

Far more than any heart but mine can know.

W. WORDSWORTH.

RYDAL MOUNT, Feb. 14th, 1842.

[60] The following is the Itinerary of the Italian Tour of 1837, supplied by Mr. Henry Crabb Robinson. (See Memoirs of Wordsworth, vol. ii. pp. 316, 317.) The spelling of the names of places is Robinson's.

March, 1837.

19. By steam to Calais.

20. Posting to Samer.

21. Posting to Granvilliers.

22. Through Beauvais to Paris.

26. To Fontainbleau.