William Wordsworth by Woof Robert;

Author:Woof, Robert;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 179117
Publisher: Routledge

186.

Unsigned review, Monthly Review, November 1815, LXXVIII, 235–8

We had scarcely completed the preceding notice of Mr. Wordsworth’s new poems and re-publications, when we were called to listen again to his lyre, or harp, or hurdy-gurdy, (as it too often may be denominated,) and to sympathize with his ‘White Doe of Rylstone.’ We hoped to be able to meet him now with a less interrupted pleasure than before: but indeed this is not yet the case. So tired, however, are we with pointing out errors which we fear must be now regarded as incurable, that, after having remarked that all the author’s usual excentricities of thought and defects in composition are to be found in the thin quarto before us, we shall resign the wearisome office of censure for the present, and amuse ourselves and our readers with a few extracts which display elegance and tenderness of manner.

It must previously be observed that this poem is founded on a local tradition, and on the ballad in Percy’s Collection, (a book to which Mr. Wordsworth very gratefully acknowledges his manifold obligations,) intitled ‘The Rising of the North.’ [Summarises the tradition.]

As the part of this poem which is concerned with human affairs is, in our apprehension, very inferior to that in which the supernatural Doe is depicted, we shall confine our selections to the latter; and, as the introduction of this extraordinary animal and the final dismissal of her are among the most successful passages, they are those which we shall now transcribe, submitting them without farther criticism to the qualified approbation of the discerning reader.

The people being all gone into church at Bolton Abbey,

[Quotes The White Doe of Rylstone, PW, III, pp. 284–6, ll.35–99

—scarcely have they disappeared …

And where no flower hath leave to dwell.]

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