PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1814.
The Title-page announces that this is only a portion
of a poem; and the Reader must be here apprised
that it belongs to the second part of a long and
laborious Work, which is to consist of three parts.—
The Author will candidly acknowledge that, if the
first of these had been completed, and in such a
manner as to satisfy his own mind, he should have
preferred the natural order of publication, and have
given that to the world first; but, as the second division
of the Work was designed to refer more to passing
events, and to an existing state of things, than the
others were meant to do, more continuous exertion
was naturally bestowed upon it, and greater progress
made here than in the rest of the poem; and as this
part does not depend upon the preceding, to a degree
which will materially injure its own peculiar interest,
the Author, complying with the earnest entreaties of
some valued Friends, presents the following pages to
the Public.
It may be proper to state whence the poem, of
which The Excursion is a part, derives its Title of
The Recluse.—Several years ago, when the Author
retired to his native mountains, with the hope of being
enabled to construct a literary Work that might live,
it was a reasonable thing that he should take a review
of his own mind, and examine how far Nature and
Education had qualified him for such employment.
As subsidiary to this preparation, he undertook to
record, in verse, the origin and progress of his own
powers, as far as he was acquainted with them. That
Work, addressed to a dear Friend, most distinguished
for his knowledge and genius, and to whom the
Author's Intellect is deeply indebted, has been long
finished; and the result of the investigation which
gave rise to it was a determination to compose a philosophical
poem, containing views of Man, Nature,
and Society; and to be entitled, the Recluse; as
having for its principal subject the sensations and
opinions of a poet living in retirement.—The preparatory
poem is biographical, and conducts the history
of the Author's mind to the point when he was
emboldened to hope that his faculties were sufficiently
matured for entering upon the arduous labour which
he had proposed to himself; and the two Works have
the same kind of relation to each other, if he may so
express himself, as the ante-chapel has to the body of
a gothic church. Continuing this allusion, he may be
permitted to add, that his minor Pieces, which have
been long before the Public, when they shall be
properly arranged, will be found by the attentive
Reader to have such connection with the main Work
as may give them claim to be likened to the little
cells, oratories, and sepulchral recesses, ordinarily
included in those edifices.
The Author would not have doomed himself justified
in saying, upon this occasion, so much of performances
either unfinished, or unpublished, if he had not
thought that the labour bestowed by him upon what
he has heretofore and now laid before the Public,
entitled him to candid attention for such a statement
as he thinks necessary to throw light upon his
endeavours to please and, he would hope, to benefit
his countrymen.—Nothing further need be added,
than that the first and third parts of The Recluse will
consist chiefly of meditations in the Author's own
person; and that in the intermediate part (The
Excursion) the intervention of characters speaking is
employed, and something of a dramatic form adopted.
It is not the Author's intention formally to
announce a system: it was more animating to him to
proceed in a different course; and if he shall succeed
in conveying to the mind clear thoughts, lively
images, and strong feelings, the Reader will have no
difficulty in extracting the system for himself.
