The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth — Volume 1 (of 8) · Chapter 26Appendix I
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The following is the full text of the original edition of
Descriptive Sketches
, first published in 1793:
Descriptive Sketches In Verse. Taken During A Pedestrian Tour In The Italian, Grison, Swiss, And Savoyard Alps. By W. Wordsworth, B.A. Of St. John's, Cambridge. "Loca Pastorum Deserta Atque Otia Dia." Lucret. "Castella In Tumulis — Et Longe Saltus Lateque Vacantes." Virgil. London: Printed For J. Johnson, St. Paul's Church-yard. 1793.
To the Rev. Robert Jones, Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge.
Dear sir, However desirous I might have been of giving you proofs of the high place you hold in my esteem, I should have been cautious of wounding your delicacy by thus publicly addressing you, had not the circumstance of my having accompanied you amongst the Alps, seemed to give this dedication a propriety sufficient to do away any scruples which your modesty might otherwise have suggested.
In inscribing this little work to you I consult my heart. You know well how great is the difference between two companions lolling in a post chaise, and two travellers plodding slowly along the road, side by side, each with his little knap-sack of necessaries upon his shoulders. How much more of heart between the two latter!
I am happy in being conscious I shall have one reader who will approach the conclusion of these few pages with regret. You they must certainly interest, in reminding you of moments to which you can hardly look back without a pleasure not the less dear from a shade of melancholy. You will meet with few images without recollecting the spot where we observed them together, consequently, whatever is feeble in my design, or spiritless in my colouring, will be amply supplied by your own memory.
With still greater propriety I might have inscribed to you a description of some of the features of your native mountains, through which we have wandered together, in the same manner, with so much pleasure. But the sea-sunsets which give such splendour to the vale of Clwyd, Snowdon, the chair of Idris, the quiet village of Bethkelert, Menai and her druids, the Alpine steeps of the Conway, and the still more interesting windings of the wizard stream of the Dee remain yet untouched. Apprehensive that my pencil may never be exercised on these subjects, I cannot let slip this opportunity of thus publicly assuring you with how much affection and esteem,
I am Dear Sir,
Your most obedient very humble Servant
W. Wordsworth.
Argument
'Happiness (if she had been to be found on Earth) amongst the Charms of Nature—Pleasures of the pedestrian Traveller—Author crosses France to the Alps—Present state of the Grande Chartreuse—Lake of Como—Time, Sunset—Same Scene, Twilight—Same Scene, Morning, it's Voluptuous Character; Old Man and Forest Cottage Music—River Tusa—Via Mala and Grison Gypsey. Valley of Sckellenen-thal—Lake of Uri, Stormy Sunset—Chapel of William Tell—force of Local Emotion—Chamois Chaser—View of the higher Alps—Manner of Life of a Swiss Mountaineer interspersed with views of the higher Alps—Golden Age of the Alps—Life and Views continued—Ranz des Vaches famous Swiss Air—Abbey of Einsiedlen and it's Pilgrims—Valley of Chamouny—Mont Blanc—Slavery of Savoy—Influence of Liberty on Cottage Happiness—France—Wish for the extirpation of Slavery—Conclusion.'
Footnote A:
All the notes to this reprint of the edition of 1793 are Wordsworth's own, as given in that edition.—Ed.
Footnote B:
The lyre of Memnon is reported to have emitted melancholy or chearful tones, as it was touched by the sun's evening or morning rays.
Footnote C:
There are few people whom it may be necessary to inform, that the sides of many of the post-roads in France are planted with a row of trees.
Footnote D:
Alluding to crosses seen on the tops of the spiry rocks of the Chartreuse, which have every appearance of being inaccessible.
Footnote E:
Names of rivers at the Chartreuse.
Footnote F:
Name of one of the vallies of the Chartreuse.
Footnote G:
If any of my readers should ever visit the Lake of Como, I recommend it to him to take a stroll along this charming little pathway: he must chuse the evening, as it is on the western side of the Lake. We pursued it from the foot of the water to it's head: it is once interrupted by a ferry.
Footnote H:
Solo, e pensoso i più deserti campi Vò misurando à passi tardi, e lenti.
Petrarch
.
Footnote I:
The river along whose banks you descend in crossing the Alps by the Semplon pass. From the striking contrast of it's features, this pass I should imagine to be the most interesting among the Alps.
Footnote J:
Most of the bridges among the Alps are of wood and covered: these bridges have a heavy appearance, and rather injure the effect of the scenery in some places.
Footnote K:
"Red came the river down, and loud, and oft The angry Spirit of the water shriek'd."
Home's
Douglas
.
Footnote L:
The Catholic religion prevails here, these cells are, as is well known, very common in the Catholic countries, planted, like the Roman tombs, along the road side.
Footnote M:
Crosses commemorative of the deaths of travellers by the fall of snow and other accidents very common along this dreadful road.
Footnote N:
The houses in the more retired Swiss valleys are all built of wood.
Footnote O:
I had once given to these sketches the title of Picturesque; but the Alps are insulted in applying to them that term. Whoever, in attempting to describe their sublime features, should confine himself to the cold rules of painting would give his reader but a very imperfect idea of those emotions which they have the irresistible power of communicating to the most impassive imaginations. The fact is, that controuling influence, which distinguishes the Alps from all other scenery, is derived from images which disdain the pencil. Had I wished to make a picture of this scene I had thrown much less light into it. But I consulted nature and my feelings. The ideas excited by the stormy sunset I am here describing owed their sublimity to that deluge of light, or rather of fire, in which nature had wrapped the immense forms around me; any intrusion of shade, by destroying the unity of the impression, had necessarily diminished its grandeur.
Footnote P:
Pike is a word very commonly used in the north of England, to signify a high mountain of the conic form, as Langdale pike, etc.
Footnote Q:
For most of the images in the next sixteen verses I am indebted to M. Raymond's interesting observations annexed to his translation of Coxe's
Tour in Switzerland
.
Footnote R:
The rays of the sun drying the rocks frequently produce on their surface a dust so subtile and slippery, that the wretched chamois-chasers are obliged to bleed themselves in the legs and feet in order to secure a footing.
Footnote S:
The people of this Canton are supposed to be of a more melancholy disposition than the other inhabitants of the Alps: this, if true, may proceed from their living more secluded.
Footnote T:
These summer hamlets are most probably (as I have seen observed by a critic in the
Gentleman's Magazine
) what Virgil alludes to in the expression "Castella in tumulis."
Footnote U:
Sugh, a Scotch word expressive of the sound of the wind through the trees.
Footnote V:
This wind, which announces the spring to the Swiss, is called in their language Foen; and is according to M. Raymond the Syroco of the Italians.
Footnote W:
This tradition of the golden age of the Alps, as M. Raymond observes, is highly interesting, interesting not less to the philosopher than to the poet. Here I cannot help remarking, that the superstitions of the Alps appear to be far from possessing that poetical character which so eminently distinguishes those of Scotland and the other mountainous northern countries. The Devil with his horns, etc., seems to be in their idea, the principal agent that brings about the sublime natural revolutions that take place daily before their eyes.
Footnote X:
Alluding to several battles which the Swiss in very small numbers have gained over their oppressors the house of Austria; and in particular, to one fought at Naeffels near Glarus, where three hundred and thirty men defeated an army of between fifteen and twenty thousand Austrians. Scattered over the valley are to be found eleven stones, with this inscription, 1388, the year the battle was fought, marking out as I was told upon the spot, the several places where the Austrians attempting to make a stand were repulsed anew.
Footnote Y:
As Schreck-Horn, the pike of terror. Wetter-Horn, the pike of storms, etc. etc.
Footnote Z:
The effect of the famous air called in French Ranz des Vaches upon the Swiss troops removed from their native country is well known, as also the injunction of not playing it on pain of death, before the regiments of that nation, in the service of France and Holland.
Footnote Aa:
Optima quæque dies, etc.
Footnote Bb:
This shrine is resorted to, from a hope of relief, by multitudes, from every corner of the Catholick world, labouring under mental or bodily afflictions.
Footnote Cc:
Rude fountains built and covered with sheds for the accommodation of the pilgrims, in their ascent of the mountain. Under these sheds the sentimental traveller and the philosopher may find interesting sources of meditation.
Footnote Dd:
This word is pronounced upon the spot Chàmouny, I have taken the liberty of reading it long thinking it more musical.
Footnote Ee:
It is only from the higher part of the valley of Chàmouny that Mont Blanc is visible.
Footnote Ff:
It is scarce necessary to observe that these lines were written before the emancipation of Savoy.
Footnote Gg:
A vast extent of marsh so called near the lake of Neuf-chatel.
Footnote Hh:
This, as may be supposed, was written before France became the seat of war.
Footnote Ii:
An insect so called, which emits a short, melancholy cry, heard, at the close of the summer evenings, on the banks of the Loire.
Footnote Jj:
The river Loiret, which has the honour of giving name to a department, rises out of the earth at a place, called La Source, a league and a half south-east of Orleans, and taking at once the character of a considerable stream, winds under a most delicious bank on its left, with a flat country of meadows, woods, and vineyards on its right, till it falls into the Loire about three or four leagues below Orleans. The hand of false taste has committed on its banks those outrages which the Abbé de Lille so pathetically deprecates in those charming verses descriptive of the Seine, visiting in secret the retreat of his friend Watelet. Much as the Loiret, in its short course, suffers from injudicious ornament, yet are there spots to be found upon its banks as soothing as meditation could wish for: the curious traveller may meet with some of them where it loses itself among the mills in the neighbourhood of the villa called La Fontaine. The walks of La Source, where it takes its rise, may, in the eyes of some people, derive an additional interest from the recollection that they were the retreat of Bolingbroke during his exile, and that here it was that his philosophical works were chiefly composed. The inscriptions, of which he speaks in one of his letters to Swift descriptive of this spot, are not, I believe, now extant. The gardens have been modelled within these twenty years according to a plan evidently not dictated by the taste of the friend of Pope.
Footnote Kk:
The duties upon many parts of the French rivers were so exorbitant that the poorer people, deprived of the benefit of water carriage, were obliged to transport their goods by land.
Footnote Ll:
—And, at his heels, Leash'd in like hounds, should Famine, Sword, and Fire, Crouch for employment.
The following is Wordsworth's Itinerary of the Tour, taken by him and his friend Jones, which gave rise to
Descriptive Sketches
.
The pedestrians bought a boat at Basle, and in it floated down the Rhine as far as Cologne, intending to proceed in the same way to Ostend; but they returned to England from Cologne by Calais. In the course of this tour, Wordsworth wrote a letter to his sister, dated "Sept. 6, 1790, Keswill, a small village on the Lake of Constance," which will be found amongst his letters in a subsequent volume.—Ed.