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 ON THE 
 
 Ipilatonism of MorbswortF). 
 
ON THE 
 
 PLATONISM 
 
 OF 
 
 "WORDSWORTH. 
 
 A PAPEE EEAD TO THE WORDSWORTH SOCIETY, 
 JULY 19th, 1881. 
 
 By J. H. jSHORTHOUSE, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "JOHN INGLESANT ; A ROMANCE: 
 
 BIRMINGHAM : 
 CORNISH BROTHERS, 37, NEW STREET. 
 
Advertisenwnt to the New Edition. 
 
 It is hoped that the reader will pereeive that no allusion 
 is made in this Essay to the general religious opinions of 
 the Poet. The writer has simply attempted to trace certain 
 lines^of thought which seem to him to exist in Wordsworth's 
 l>hilosophic poetry. 
 
THE 
 
 PLATONISM OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 A Paxyer read to the Wordsivorth Soeiety, 
 July 19th, ISSl. 
 
 write of Wordsworth Avould seem futile. 
 Wordsworth is himself; to paraphrase or 
 parody his words or characters is un- 
 speakably painful ; nay more, it is useless, 
 it will convey no adequate idea to the man who is 
 ignorant of Wordsworth's poetry. It is the per- 
 fection of certain passages which induces the wish 
 to call attention to them, but this perfection leaves 
 nothing to be desired or added ; nor can any want 
 of variety be pleaded as an excuse for using any 
 words other than the poet's own. The stage is 
 crowded already. Think of the press of fairy folk 
 who throng upon your memory as you turn over 
 his pages in your recollection — the miller and his 
 maids on their island platform in the river — that 
 strange woman and her no less weird mate beneath 
 the tower of Jedburgh — the stealthy mystic form of 
 the leech-gatherer — the stately march of figures which 
 fill the pathways of the White Doe — the valleys and 
 
 ivi7l4GG5J 
 
 ^^3 
 
 65" 
 
hill-slopes gay with blithe or hallowed with solemn 
 figures which delight our fancy in the pages of the 
 Excursion — the churchyard where the brother 
 sleeps — the mountain sheepfold where Michael 
 toiled and sorrowed — the foot plank which bore the 
 last impress of Lucy's feet — the dusty highway 
 along which the Cumberland beggar moved, and 
 will move now for ever — the ghastly fellowship 
 that haunted the prosaic everyday walks of the 
 travelling potter, Peter Bell — Matthew, the school- 
 master, and his mysteriously provoking witty 
 rhymes — Simon Lee — old childless Timothy and 
 the hunt, and that exquisite apologue which genius 
 heard even in the chance echo of the cuckoo's cry — 
 
 " unsolicited reply 
 To a babbling wanderer sent." 
 
 Wordsworth was a leader of men in the truest 
 sense. On his guidance the jaded and perplexed 
 intellect may safely depend ; he possessed a power 
 of cheerful calm, clear as the dawn and unvarying 
 as the stars. 
 
 "The Kitten and " That, when time brings on decaj', 
 
 F^^en Leaves " -^^^^ ^nd then may I possess 
 
 p. 130, Ed. 1849. ^ . ,1 
 
 Hours of perfect gladsomeness ; 
 
 Keep the sprightly soul awake, 
 
 And have faculties to take 
 
 Even from things by sorrow wrought, 
 
 Matter for a jocund thought ; 
 
 Spite of care and spite of grief 
 
 To gambol with life's falling leaf." 
 
" It is the spirit of Paradise, p. 121, EU. 1849. 
 
 -a spirit strong, 
 
 That gives to all the selfsame bent 
 Where life is wise and innocent." 
 
 It may be that there are lines of thought which 
 the poet merely indicated, but which it is possible 
 to trace out more clearly, and to follow farther on, 
 not only to our own delight and advantage but also 
 to the appreciation of the poet. 
 
 It has been suggested that one of these lines of 
 thought is the similarity of Wordsworth's teaching 
 to that of Plato. I have said the similarity of 
 Wordsworth to Plato, because it is not asserted that 
 Wordsworth consciously Platonized ; on the con- 
 trary, it is not likely that he ever read the Dialogues. 
 It is not impossible that Coleridge may have talked 
 to him upon the matter. We know he discoursed 
 at length to him upon Spinoza, and Mr. Frederick 
 Pollock fancies that he can trace the effect of those 
 conversations in the poet's work. 
 
 I should suppose that any ordinarily educated 
 man would, if asked, describe Wordsworth as a poet 
 of nature, and he has with the utmost emphasis 
 described himself as a "worshipper of nature;" 
 nevertheless it would seem that Wordsworth is 
 essentially the poet of Man. He is in fact less of a 
 poet than of a Seer. It is man whom he chiefly 
 busies himself about. It is the emotions and 
 thoughts of men which fill his thoughts. Nature is 
 the type of permanence and reality, man is transient 
 and ever changing ; nevertheless nature is ever sub- 
 
p. 449. 
 
 Excursion, servient to man. Seen by man's intellect inanimate 
 
 UT'!^Kd.\m. nature becomes " an ebbing and a flowing mind." 
 
 It is intellect projected upon the bleak side of some 
 
 tall peak " familiar with forgotten years," that gave 
 
 to it its *' visionary character." It was the transitory 
 
 nature of the being that stood upon its bank that 
 
 gave to the flowing stream its lesson of *' life 
 
 Despondency continuous — being unimpair'd." By these forms of 
 
 p.^482? ' nature, " In the relation which they bear to man " 
 
 idem, p. 487. ^^.^ evoked "The spiritual presences of absent 
 
 idem, 1st edition things, convoked by knowledge." 
 
 The Excursion. " Amid the gi'oves, beneath the shadowy hills 
 
 p.^50^!"EdS^ The generations are prepared." 
 
 ^, „ . '* Their manners, their enjoyments and pursuits, 
 
 The Excursion. ^, , . ',.,,. y • n .^ 
 
 The Wanderer. Their passions, and their feelings ; chiefly those 
 
 p. 449, Ed. 1849. Essential and eternal in the heart." 
 
 But, though man consecrates nature, nature 
 elevates man — man and nature act and re-act. 
 That glorious universe, the intelligent succession 
 of conditioned existence, has 
 
 " meanings which it brought 
 The Wanderer. From j'cars of youth. Which like a Being made 
 
 p. 450, Ed. 1849. Of many Beings, it has wondrous skill 
 
 To blend with knowledge of the years to come ; " 
 
 and thus to lure mankind from a superstitious 
 manicheeism into a state of abiding and gracious 
 calm, in which he is at last able to recognize the 
 eternal unity which pervades all things, the syn- 
 thesis of thought and matter, the clear dawning 
 of the perfect intellectual day. 
 
" 'Tis nature's law ^ The 
 
 That none, the meanest of created things, Beggar. 
 
 Of forms created the most vile and brute, P- ^25, Ed. 1849, 
 
 The dullest or most noxious, should exist 
 Divorced from good — a spirit and pulse of good, 
 A life and soul to every mode of being 
 Inseparably link'd." 
 
 If this is the nature of Wordsworth's poetry what 
 is the result? He has himself told us that he did 
 not intend to found a system ; but the effect pro- 
 duced by his teaching is a sacred peace, in the 
 presence of pure and absolute Being. The petty 
 troubles of existence vanish before the passionless 
 face of nature, and in the presence of invariable 
 Law an entrance is won into the kingdom of the 
 pure Intellect, 
 
 " by mystery and hope, The Excursion. 
 
 And the first virgin passion of a soul p^ 449^EifTm 
 
 Communing with the glorious universe." 
 
 " Immutably survive The Excursiou. 
 
 leasures and the forms 
 :elligence supplies, 
 Whose kingdom is, where time and space are not." 
 
 For our support the measures and the forms Despondency 
 
 Which an abstract intelligence supplies, p. 476, Ed. 1849. 
 
 Now let us turn for a moment to the banks of 
 the llissus and we shall find something of the 
 same character. 
 
 Standing under the shady Yylane trees, Avhich 
 have long since vanished, groups of earnest looking 
 
young men are discussing those themes which, as 
 the years roll on, generation after generation will 
 discuss : while among them a queer looking little 
 man whom all reverence, and make way for, and 
 listen to, walks about asking questions, and showing 
 each one of them, to his own satisfaction, how great 
 a fool he is. Plato's dialogues, just as much as 
 Wordsworth's poems, form a volume of Philo- 
 sophical Romance. For his groundwork he seized 
 upon a Avonderful and unique man. His philosophy 
 is based upon the story of a life and death, his 
 pages are crowded with men ; without the aid of 
 narrative he can create character : but story is not 
 wanting. Anecdote and incident, apologue and 
 poetry enliven the page. The trials, the difficulties, 
 the follies and aims of men are his theme. Nor 
 does he stop here, his philosophy (transcendental 
 as it has been called) is human, his ideas are those 
 of earth. Unlike Aristotle and the schoolmen he 
 does not occupy himself with Existence, Substance, 
 Attribute, Essence, Eternity, but with matters of 
 everyday life ; in the first place destroying false and 
 pedantic notions, and then basing his idealism 
 upon recognised facts, such as love, hatred, strength, 
 and even horses, dogs, and mud. 
 
 Let us endeavour to trace this likeness still more 
 clearly by two examples before we attempt to realise 
 the metaphysic result, and the particular mode in 
 which it forced itself on the poet's imagination 
 and by which he is still enabled to communicate 
 it to us. 
 
He speaks of 
 
 "another gift 
 Of aspect more sublime ; that blessed mood 
 In which the burden of the myster}% 
 In which the heavy and the weary weight 
 Of all this unintelligible world 
 Is lighten'd : that serene and blessed mood 
 In which the affections gently lead us on, 
 Until, the breath of this corporeal frame 
 And even the motions of our human blood 
 Almost suspended, we are laid asleep 
 In body, and become a living soul ; 
 "While, with an eye made quiet by the power 
 Of harmony and the deep power of joy, 
 We see into the life of things." 
 
 Such an extract as this has said everything that 
 need be said on the subject. It covers all possible 
 ground. Let us remain silent, and turn to the other 
 master. 
 
 "And what think you w^ould happen were it given 
 to anyone to behold beauty itself, clear as the light, 
 pure and undefiled, not daubed with human colour- 
 ing, nor polluted with human fleshlyness, and other 
 kinds of mortal trash ; so that, in its singleness of 
 form he were able to see the beautiful and the god- 
 like in one. Think you that the life of a man would 
 be of little account if he look thitherward (without 
 fear) and has such fellowship as this I Do you not 
 see that to him alone will power be given (who alone 
 has the power to behold the beautiful) to beget, not 
 the deceitful show of virtue, as not being tempted 
 by deceitful shows, but the truth itself, as one who 
 embraces a reality :— and so begetting virtue (as a 
 lovely daughter) and bringing her up, it will happen 
 to him to be God-beloved, and, if any man can be, 
 immortal."' 
 
 Tintern Al)hcv. 
 p. 160, Ed. li^d. 
 
 Plato 
 
 Syniposiuiu 
 
 xxix. E. 
 
 Ed. Stallbaum. 
 
10 
 
 Apart from all the distracting terminology of 
 metaphysic, then, the meaning of the English poet 
 and the Greek philosopher seems to be this — The 
 forces of life, which we call intellectual, may be 
 actually of similar birth with the physical, but 
 phenomenally they stand out in clear distinction. 
 Love, self-sacrifice and self-denial, courage, and 
 the other virtues are so far immaterial at least that 
 they are indestructible, invisible, invariable in action, 
 unregulated by the laws which attach to matter. 
 So long as the race endures they are eternal. But 
 a difficulty seems to present itself at the outset. 
 Love and self-denial, courage and the rest, are all 
 that you state them to be, but so are hatred, revenge, 
 fear and the like. Will then the eternal world of 
 Pure Intellect, which an abstract intelligence has 
 peopled, prove nothing more than a repetition of 
 this? — with all its unintelligible gloom, its per- 
 plexities, its cruelties, its Sphinx-riddles which lead 
 to despair and death ? 
 
 To grapple with this difficulty Plato fell back 
 upon what may be called a principle of excellence, 
 which rules the formation and government of all 
 animate and inanimate things. What this principle 
 was he was often at a loss to decide, but he appealed 
 boldly to the experience of his hearers to acknow- 
 ledge that there was such a principle, and to 
 pronounce uj^on the success or failure of any Work 
 or Being in proportion as it adheres to or departs 
 from it. This being so it follows that all temporary, 
 accidental, and unsuitable adjuncts being eliminated, 
 nothing but the pure idea of the perfect object will 
 
176-9. 
 
 11 
 
 exist in the intellect ; so that to the perfectly in- 
 structed man there would be no such thing as evil 
 or bad workmanship in the world. Indeed this is 
 really the case in the pure intellect, in which alone 
 all things exist, (all things, that is, in their perfect 
 form,) and which is God. 
 
 The general truth of this I think will not be 
 denied. The latest efforts of modern speculation 
 have declared that the world of thought and that 
 alone is subjective and objective at once, and that vid. Mr. Fred. 
 
 Pollock's 
 
 all conceivable attributes turn out to be objective spinoza,pp. 
 aspects of thought itself. " The ultimate elements 
 of thought are not merely correlated with the 
 ultimate elements of things. They are the elements 
 of things themselves." 
 
 Nor is Platonism antagonistic to any older or 
 later form of philosophic thought. You may make 
 matter as eternal as you like. You may deny the 
 argument of design, and conclude that no evidence 
 exists of a Creator, beneficent or otherwise. You 
 may endow matter with such vital energies and 
 such faculties of thought as you may require. Y'^ou 
 may satisfy yourself that force, or motion, or exten- 
 sion is the immanent cause of all things : but the 
 Platonic theory can never be antiquated or impos- 
 sible. 
 
 From every phenomenon you will always be able 
 to eliminate the transitory and the accidental, until 
 you arrive at an abstract idea which exists only in 
 the pure intellect. It is into this world of ideas that 
 the Platonist forces his way. In this fourth dimen- 
 sion of intellectual space he finds himself in a 
 
u 
 
 world familiar and yet wonderful. Into this world, 
 neither change, nor corruption, nor decay can enter. 
 This is the true eternal life. Of all earthly things 
 the ideas are eternal., and this pure intellect, this 
 world in which they live and move and have their 
 being, and some portion of which we have each of 
 us received, is none other than the all-perfect, all- 
 containing intellect, the mind of God. 
 
 In what way then does Wordsworth speak of this 
 Avorld? Under what aspect did its eternal glories 
 present themselves to him? He tells us that 
 
 Michael, 
 p. 96, Ed. 1849. 
 
 " The power 
 Of nature, by the gentle agency 
 Of natural objects, led me on to feel 
 For passions that were not my own, and think 
 On man, the heart of man, and human life." 
 
 Preface to 
 
 Excursion. 
 
 p. 445, Ed. 1849. 
 
 " How exquisitely the individual mind 
 
 to the external world 
 
 Is fitted, and how exquisitely too 
 
 The external world is fitted to the mind." 
 
 Excursion. 
 The Wanderer, 
 p. 447, Ed. 1849. 
 
 " From that bleak tenement 
 He many an evening to his distant home 
 In solitude returning, saw the hills 
 Grow larger in the darkness ; all alone 
 Beheld the stars come out above his head, 
 And travelled through the Avood with no one near, 
 To whom he might confess the things he saw. 
 So the foundations of his mind were laid 
 In such communion not from terror free." 
 
13 
 
 " While yet a child and long before his time idem, Ist Ed. 
 
 Had he perceived the presence and the power ^' * 
 
 Of greatness : and deep feelings had impressed 
 
 Great objects on his mind, with portraiture 
 
 And colour so distinct, that on his mind 
 
 They lay like substances, and almost seem'd 
 
 To haunt the bodily sense." 
 
 I venture to think that these lines deserve the 
 closest study. They seem to me to contain the key 
 not only to Wordsworth's Platonism, but to that 
 peculiar conception of his that an entrance into the 
 world of abstract thought may be won by the help of 
 material objects. 
 
 ** The presence and the power of greatness " — 
 this is that " principle of excellence " in which Plato 
 believed. This expression includes all that can be 
 conceived of absolute perfection — of immutable 
 morality, absolute in itself — independent of space 
 and time, of locality and temperament. It includes 
 that power within us which, in Mr. Matthew 
 Arnold's phrase, '* makes for righteousness," that 
 consciousness which assures us that, in the Divine 
 Intellect, love must rule and not hatred, confidence 
 and not fear. 
 
 By deep feeling, the poet goes on to tell us, this 
 greatness is impressed upon our mind, so that its 
 attributes lie like substances upon us and haunt 
 the bodily sense. It is evident, I think, that he 
 uses the word " substance " in this place not in 
 the strict metaphysical sense, but in that secondary 
 sense which has vitiated all the terms which express 
 essence or reality, popular use and wont invariably 
 
14 
 
 Preface to 
 Excursion. 
 
 attaching these two last terms to that which is not 
 essential or real. The poet evidently refers to that 
 lower substantiality which belongs to matter, and 
 which is perceived by the senses. He seems to 
 affirm that by the help of the vast objects of nature, 
 perceived in silence and in solitude, we are enabled 
 to understand and to conceive the great realities of 
 abstract thought, and to 
 
 " Breathe in worlds 
 To which the Heaven of Heavens is but a veil." 
 
 Excursion. 
 
 Tlie Wanderer. 
 
 1st Ed., p. 14. 
 
 The Excursion. 
 p. 497, Ed. 1849. 
 To H.C., 
 Six years old. 
 The Excursion. 
 The Wanderer, 
 p. 455, Ed. 1849. 
 
 To H.C., p. 62. 
 
 " But in the mountains did he feel his faith, 
 There did he see the writing — all things there 
 Breathed immortality, revolving life 
 And greatness still revolving ; — infinite. 
 There littleness was not, the least of things 
 Seemed infinite : and there his spirit shaped 
 Her prospects." 
 
 This is that ** divine hope of pure imagination," 
 that "fittest to unutterable thought," "the passing 
 shows of being." 
 
 " The silence and the calm of mute insensate things." 
 " Where earth and heaven create one imagery." 
 
 Matter therefore is a thought of God. The rural 
 
 gods of Greece would seem to have occupied a 
 
 similar position in the mind of the Platonist as did 
 
 ""^Sredfed!^ tlicse " Spiritual presences of absent things," " This 
 
 p. 487, Ed. 1849. g^^j imparted to brute matter," in the poet's " pure 
 
 The Parsonage, . . ,. , ,, 
 
 imaginative soul. 
 
 p. 523. 
 
 Despondency 
 Corrected. 
 
 p. 482. 
 
 " We live by admiration, hope, and love." 
 
15 
 
 '* A spirit hung, 
 Beautiful region o'er thy towns and farms, 
 And emanations were perceived, and acts 
 Of immortality, on nature's course. 
 Exemplified by mysteries, that were felt 
 As bonds." 
 
 Excursion, 
 
 p. 482, Ed. 1849. 
 
 Despondency 
 
 Corrected. 
 
 The means are not very different, the result is the 
 same. This absolute being is described as including 
 within itself, as the sea its waves, all adoring and 
 conscious and apprehending existence. 
 
 '• Life continuous — being unimpaired, 
 
 That hath been, is, and where it was, and is, 
 
 There shall be — seen, and heard, and felt, and known, 
 
 And recognised — existence unexposed 
 
 To the blind walk of mortal accident, 
 
 From diminution safe, and weakening age. 
 
 While man grows old, and dwindles and decays, 
 
 And countless generations of mankind 
 
 Depart, and leave no vestige where he trod." 
 
 Despondency 
 
 Corrected, 
 
 1st Ed. 
 
 " Thou, thou alone 
 Art everlasting, and the blessed spirits 
 Which thou ineludest as the sea her waves : 
 For adoration thou endurest. Endure 
 For consciousness, the motions of thy will, 
 For apprehension those transcendent truths 
 Of the pure intellect that stand as laws 
 Even to Thy Being's infinite majesty." 
 
 Despondency 
 
 Corrected. 
 
 p. 476, Ed. 1849. 
 
 The inborn conscience of humanity has recognised 
 the perfection of Being in a variety of forms — by 
 diverse myths and it may be grotesque imagina- 
 tions at which a misdirected intellect mav sneer. 
 The " secret spirit of Humanity 
 
 The Wanderer, 
 
 has consented p. 455, Ed. 1819. 
 
16 
 
 with a marvellous unanimity to conceive of a world 
 where wrong is made right, where suffering is 
 turned to joy, where inequality is removed, and the 
 rough places of misery and oppression made smooth 
 — where the poor and the afflicted who have seen or 
 felt little in this life to delight or elevate may find 
 existence somewhat more worthy to be lived. That 
 this blessed consummation may never arrive in 
 the form religionists have dreamed may be true : 
 but that the idea can ever be aught else than true 
 and righteous is impossible. 
 
 Despondency, " The life where hope and memory are as one, 
 
 p. 469, Ed. 1849. Earth quiet and unchanged, the human soul 
 
 Consistent in self-rule, and heaven revealed 
 To meditation in that quietness." 
 
 Miserable indeed would the world become were 
 this ideal of righteousness ever entirely lost. 
 
 Despondency "Who in this spirit communes with the forms 
 
 1st Ed?pri95 ^^ nature, who with understanding heart 
 
 Doth know and love such objects as excite 
 
 Kg morbid passions." 
 
 p. 196. " the light of love 
 
 Not failing, perseverance from his steps 
 Departing not, he shall at length obtain 
 The glorious habit by which sense is made 
 Subservient still to moral purposes, 
 Auxiliar to divine." 
 
 p. 197. " Thus deeply drinking in the soul of things 
 
 He shall be wise perforce, and while inspired 
 
17 
 
 By choice, and conscious that the will is free, 
 
 Unswerving shall he move, as if impelled 
 
 By strict necessity, along the path 
 
 Of order and of good. Whate'er he see, 
 
 "Whate'er he feel of agency direct 
 
 Or indirect, shall tend to feed and nurse 
 
 His faculties, shall fix in calmer seats 
 
 Of moral strength, and raise to loftier heights 
 
 Of love divine, his intellectual soul." 
 
 It would be easy to go on. This synthesis of 
 thought and matter is the key-note of every line 
 in the poem. But the line of thought has been 
 sufficiently laid down; who will follow it up? 
 
 " He excels," says Jewish proverb, when at loss 
 for words of highest praise, *' He excels upon 
 Sheminith " — the eighth string of the world to 
 come which shall be added to the Kinnor of the 
 Sanctuary when Messias bep^ins his rei^^n. Listen- 
 ing, wTary and sad, amidst the rustling echoes of 
 the selva selvaggia of metaphysical tradition, we 
 may catch from these two master-singers, as Dante 
 heard in the stately rhythm of the volume he so 
 long had conned, the clear resonance of this 
 mystical string. 
 
 COBMISH BBUTU£BS, 'SI, NEW STBEET, BIBMIXGHAH. 
 
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