Wordsworth's "Thanksgivingode": An unpublished postscript

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Citation Bond, William H. 1947. Wordsworth's "Thanksgiving ode": Anunpublished postscript. Harvard Library Bulletin I (1), Winter 1947:115-116.

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Harvard University - Houghton Library / Harvard University. Harvard Library bulletin. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Library. Volume I, Number 1 (Winter 1947)

Notes 115 poem concludes with religious reflec-tions, a bit of heraldic and 1 a pidary 1ore1 and blessings on Thomas' de--scen d an ts.

With mch a well-kno,vn public character, we cannot expect to find here many new facts contributing to his biography .. From the superscrip-tion it is clear that the date of his birth was then set at 16 2 2 rather than 162 3, as more recent accounts will have it. One nice new tidbit adds to om lore

a.h out that ever-ready anagrammatis4 the first John Wilson, who greeted young Thoma~ Danforth when he first assumed high office with the perfect anagram: 'Handsom for that.'

On the ,vhole,. this elegy js one of Dan£ or thts beB t; it js of some literary mcrl~ a good example of the later Puri-tan elegiac tradition, and a precious document of the New England way of life.

HAROLD s. JANTZ

Wordsworth's Thanksgiving Ode: An Unpublished Postscript

ENGLISHMEN celebrated 18 January 18i6 as a day of gen-eral re j oicjng for the final de-

f eat of Napoleon" and Words,.vorth commemorated the occasion in his Thanksgiwng Ode,. published some three rn onths later .1 U nf ortunatcl y t the Ode is a somewhat fa bored occa-sional piece. There js in jt more of what its author called 'rational patri-otismJ and 'sound philosophy,. than of true poetic fire. It do es not seen1 to have enjoyed a wide contemporary popularity, and h has not ,vom ,vell.

Wordsworth cast his poem in the form of an irregular ode'" As he ex-plained his choice to Southey,

It is a drsma tised ej acul:a tion; and this1

if anything can, must excuse the irregular frame of the metre. In respect to a mnza for a grand mbj ect designed to be treated comprehensively, there are great obj cc-tions. H the stanza be sho~ it will scarcely allow of fervour 8.lld impetu-osity" unless so short that th-o sense is ran perpetually from one stanza to another,. as in Horace 1s nlcaics; and jf h be ]ong, it will i:J e as apt to generate diffuseness as to chec le

In its first e ditioni the sto.nz.as or movements of the Ode were indicated simply by spacing and indentation. This practice led to o printers error which was a source of some vexation to '\~lordsworth, and of which he com-plained in the hitherto-unpublished p astscript of a letter to John Scott~

The Ode was sent to the printer a bout 18 J\1arch 1816, th c d1itc of its pref 0rory :ad ver- • tisernentt fllr in :a letter of April 9 to R. P. Gil]ies, Words-worth speaks of h-a.ving sent k 1three weeks 0.go'; .fii~ The L-ett.trs of WilJinn tJnd Do,rotby JVord.sworth, ed. Ernest de SeUncourt ( 1937), 111 729. The published eonespondenc-e aJso indicates that the book finally a.ppeared between M~y 3, ( De Selincon.n, lit 740) and May :16 (De Se.Jin co~ lit 7 45) • The Harvard copy of th~ T ho.nksgfoj,ng Ode contains e. f our~page. publishers, advenisement dated April, 1 8 r 61 poss1bl y .indicative of a publication date early in M~y.

:I De Selincouftt op. cit"! 11, 717 I

Harvard University - Houghton Library / Harvard University. Harvard Library bulletin. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Library. Volume I, Number 1 (Winter1947)

I 16 Harvard Library Bulletin I ordered my publication to be sent to

I-la ydon~ Pray correct in your copy an error which entirely destroys the effect of one movem c nt of the .first Ode -'Sully the Jimpi d stream of thankfulness. - What robe can gratitude employ [~] So it ought to stand; but the stupid Printer, (why I coonot conceive) has broken the para.g.r:a ph jnto two, , • !

The verses quot~d sre lines 131 and 133 of the Ode1 appearing on page 10 of the first edition. There the second line of the pair is set a part from the preceding line both by ]ead 11.nd by in den ta.rion. With the five ]incs im .. mediately following, it receives the same typographic treatment -as a com-plete movement.

The error certainly does destroy the effect of the passaget hut Words-worth apparently took no steps to cor-rect it in the first edhion. ( Two year.li earlier I the omission of t\vo lines from The Excursion had been corrected by the insertion of a cancel leaf.)' He had plenty of opportunity to do so,

for many cop ics of the first cd icion re-mained to b D bound up ,vith Peter HellJ The l-Vaggoner~ and The River Duddon and issued in 1820 as a. rup-plementary volume to the P orou of 1815.~ No cancel or other \'arjant has been recorded in this volume~ The copy in the Houghton Library agrees in every respect with the earlier sepa-rate 1ssue.

But in the 18 2 o edition of his po,.. etical works Wordsworth at last cor-rected the error, and steps ,·ii-ere taken to sec that it should not be repeated .. 6

There and in all succeeding editions the passage reads as the author in-tended,. and the movements a.re num ... bercd consecutivcl y so that their arrangement is comp]etely unambigu-ous~ Wordnvorth 1s postscript to Scott thus ill um in ates an apparent revision in form of the Thanksgivi11g Ode, end may a Iso explaj n ,v h y its di visions ,vere numbered in the second and sub .. sequent editions.

WILLIAM H. BONO

• This ftagmentery letter survives in :11. slip consisting of the autograph s-ignature and post-script onlyi ell'idently cut from a longer letter .. It~ now in the Houghton Library. Enough of the 11ddtes.s remains on the verso to id cntil y the addressee. The fragment is undated, but most probably it was written in May. 1816. It may actually be :11 part of one: of the t'Wo pub-lished lcttcfS from WordS"Worth to Scott in th-at mouth (De Sclincourtt op. cit., II, 740 and 746); the editor is not specific as to the extent of his quotatiorut but both apparently lack sign a tu res.

4, See George F. \Vhicher-. Wotes <ln a Wordsworth Collection,, The Col"pbo11.. N.S01 II ( 193 7)., 3, 7 3-J 7 5. The cr.ror in The Excurdon is admittedly much mor.c serjous than that in the Ode.

1 TI1om·as J. W~ Tiwo Lake Poeir (1917)t p. 2,. "The Miscellane.om Poemr of William WordPt.UOrth ( 181o)t Ill~ 173-198. The pass3ge. in

question is on p. :187,

Harvard University - Houghton Library / Harvard University. Harvard Library bulletin. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Library. Volume I, Number 1 (Winter1947)

List of Contributors

KEYES D. METCALF~ Professor of Bibliography, Director of the Harvard University Library, and Librarian of Harvard Co1lege

HAMILTON VAUGHAN IlATLt Harcland, \Tennont

FRED N. Gum ey Professor of English Literature, Emeritus, Harvard University

PHILIP HoFERt Curator of Printing and Graphic Arts in the Harvard College Library

WILLIA.NI A .. JACKSON, Professor of Bibliography-and Assistant Lihradan of the Harvard College Library in charge of the Hough ton Library

ETHEL B. ClARK\ Honorary Keeper of Rare Ilooks,. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library

CLIFFORD K~ SHIPTON, Custodjan of the Harvard University Archives; Librarian of the American Antiq uarjan Society

DAVID McCoRDt Honorary Curator of the Farnsworth and Poetry Rooms of the Harvard College Library, Executive Secretary of the Harvard Fund Council, and Editorial Chairman of the Ha,wrd Alumni Bulletin

I. BERNARD CoHEN, lnstmctor jn Physical Science, Harvard University HAROLD S. J AN'r'£, Associate Professor t Department of Modem Languages and

Literatures, Princeton Uni vcrsity WltLtAM H. Bo'.No, Houghton Library W1tLTAM VAN LENNEP 1 Curator of the Theatre Collection in the Harvard

ColJege Library J 01 m H. Bmss1 Assistant Professor,. Department of English, University C,Olleget

New York University Hvnrn E. RoLLlNS, Gurney Profess-or of English Literature, Harvard

University ELMER M~ GRIEDER 1 Genera] Assistant in the Harvard College Library

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