Wordsworth’s American Champion

Nearly two centuries ago, Penn professor Henry Hope Reed put William Wordsworth on America’s cultural map. More or less forgotten today (make that more), Reed was an impressive scholar whose enthusiasm for Wordsworth and English Romanticism helped shape the nation’s literary values. At a time when most schools barely acknowledged contemporary literature, he also played a role in the University’s rebound from its early 19th-century “Low Water” mark.

By Peter Conn

enn’s oldest surviving university average number of graduates for the In 1831, after practicing law unhappily catalogue is an eight-page pamphlet previous 15 years. The small size of the for a few years, Reed returned to Penn as published in 1825. Unlike its mod- class was a sad but accurate indicator of “assistant professor of moral philosophy, P ern descendants, this venerable the college’s early 19th-century decline. having charge of the Department of Eng- document contains neither course So, too, was Penn’s fi rst printed library lish Literature.” Four years later, the Trust- descriptions, nor a specifi cation of re- catalogue, published in 1829. It recorded ees elected him to the Professorship of quirements, nor the college rules (if there that, 80 years after the founding of the Rhetoric and English Literature, a position were any). Following a list of the 25 trust- University, the library owned only 1,670 they had designed for him. The combina- ees, the catalogue provides only the num- volumes, comprising 884 titles. Not sur- tion of Reed’s assignments perfectly bers of students, and the names of the prisingly, the fi fth chapter of Edward matched his own conception of his aca- University’s 17 professors, divided into the Potts Cheney’s 1940 history of the Uni- demic role: What he considered a moral categories of “Arts” (three faculty mem- versity, which reviews those decades, is imperative informed all of his teaching in bers), “Medicine” (seven), “Natural Science” titled, “Low Water.” language, literature, and history. (fi ve), “Law” (one), and “General Literature” The Arts graduates of 1825 included From the beginning of his 20-year teach- (one). Three non-professorial teachers 17-year-old Henry Hope Reed, the son of ing career, Reed championed the poetry are identifi ed (one each in French, German, lawyer Joseph Reed, Jr., and the grandson of William Wordsworth, ranking him, and Spanish), and the tally concludes of Joseph Reed, who had served as along with Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, with the janitor, William Dick. George Washington’s adjutant during the and Milton, as one of “the fi ve poets of the The Medical Department was thriving: Revolutionary War. Henry, a young man highest order.” While that judgment would 484 students had attended classes that “remarkable for his indiff erence to the not fi nd much support today, Wordsworth year. The undergraduate college, on the athletic games in which his comrades continues to command a central place in other hand, was doing rather less well. delighted,” was named the Latin Saluta- the history of English poetry. Just 16 men graduated from the “Colle- torian for his class, a forecast of the aca- giate Department” in 1825—about the demic distinction he would go on to earn. Facing page: Portrait of Henry Hope Reed by Samuel Bell Waugh. 42 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE Nov|Dec 2018 The Penn Art Collection, photography by Candace diCarlo Nov|Dec 2018 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE 43 In teaching the poetry of Wordsworth, the spiritual elevation of mankind.” While mensely consequential essay, Nature, or indeed any contemporary literature, this is not the sort of vocabulary that later which would appear in 1836, just three Reed was something of a pioneer. “I doubt critics would deploy in their assessments years after his English sojourn. many American colleges or universities of Wordsworth, it seems to have stimu- Bryant and Emerson typifi ed a fervent of the 1830–1850s era were devoting fac- lated a wide appreciation of the poet appreciation of Wordsworth’s poetry but ulty positions and courses to the serious among antebellum readers. one that was embraced by a fairly narrow study of literature,” says John Thelin, a Wordsworth was by no means un- coterie of literary practitioners. Scholars professor of higher education and public known in the US prior to Reed’s edition who have examined the question of policy at the University of Kentucky who of his work. An American edition of Wordsworth’s reputation in America have is a leading authority on the history of Lyrical Ballads had been published in concluded that it was through Henry higher education in America. “Most of 1799, just a year after this landmark vol- Reed’s “interested eff orts”—his 1837 edi- the colleges were following the Yale ume appeared in England, and other tion of the poems and his 1839 essay, in Report [of 1828] and tended to have no editions followed. Furthermore, over the particular—that “Wordsworth was fi rst ‘majors’ and a fairly tedious classical fi rst three decades of the 19th century, a made widely known, and admired, in this curriculum,” in line with the document’s number of American poets had made country.” This conclusion was fi rst ven- defense of a traditional course of study their Wordsworthian loyalties clear. tured more than 90 years ago by Annabel built around Greek and Latin. “So, the To cite the most striking example, Wil- Newton, in her book, Wordsworth in fact that Penn would hire and allow a liam Cullen Bryant, America’s fi rst major Early American Criticism; most writers professor to teach English literature, Romantic poet, responded to Word- on the subject in the subsequent nine including the poetry of Wordsworth, sworth with an emotion akin to rever- decades have agreed. suggests a very distinctive university. ence. William Henry Dana, author of the Note that the aging and pious Word- Way ahead of the curve.” classic memoir, Two Years Before the sworth whom Reed celebrated in his Reed’s enthusiasm for Wordsworth’s Mast, reported that “I never shall forget lectures and essays was quite a diff erent poetry expressed itself most infl uen- with what feeling my friend Bryant … poet from the 20-something radical tially when, in 1837, he edited and pub- described to me the eff ect produced upon who had, nearly four decades earlier, lished The Complete Works of William him by his meeting for the fi rst time with famously welcomed the coming of the Wordsworth, the fi rst one-volume col- Wordsworth’s ballads. He said that, upon French Revolution: lection to appear on either side of the opening the book, a thousand springs Atlantic. (Wordsworth, motivated both seemed to gush up at once in his heart, Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, by pride and by a keen desire to enhance and the face of Nature, of a sudden, to But to be young was very heaven! his income, had been hectoring his own change into a strange freshness and life.” English publisher to bring out such an Ralph Waldo Emerson traveled to Eng- That youthful dream of heaven quick- edition, without success.) land in 1833, pilgrim-like, to meet Word- ly evaporated. As he watched the Revolu- A little over a year after his edition ap- sworth and Coleridge. Arriving unan- tion collapse into the Terror, Word- peared, Reed published an anonymous nounced at Rydal Mount, the Word- sworth’s allegiances shifted irreversibly and quite favorable commentary on the sworth family’s cottage in the Lake toward a reverence for the status quo, book in the New York Review. (Anony- District, Emerson was received with both in politics and religion. Edmund mous and friendly self-reviews occupied courtesy and spent several hours in a Burke, the towering defender of conser- a sizable place in early 19th-century criti- conversation that ranged from nature to vatism against revolutionary change, cism.) Much of Reed’s 27,000-word essay education to politics. Along the way, became the poet’s most important intel- is given over to establishing his high Wordsworth did not disguise his rather lectual mentor. claims for poetry among the arts and for low estimate of Emerson’s fellow Amer- Although Reed’s allegiance embraced Wordsworth among the poets. At its core, icans: “I fear that they are too much the entire Wordsworthian canon, it was Reed’s conception of poetry’s value is more given to the making of money, and sec- anchored primarily in his affi nity for the theological than aesthetic: “The highest ondly, to politics.” later work, in which the poet affi rmed the poetry must be sacred,” exhibiting “for its Emerson left Rydal Mount with a some- values of Christian piety and social order. own glory … its affi nity and subordina- what diminished admiration for the man In 1836, while Reed’s edition was still tion to religion.” Wordsworth, Reed con- he had traveled several thousand miles a work in progress, he opened a corre- tends, more successfully than any other to meet. Nonetheless, Wordsworth’s infl u- spondence with Wordsworth that con- modern poet, has, through his verses, ence can be detected across much of the tinued until shortly before the poet’s made “strenuous and constant eff orts for Emersonian canon, including his im- death. In all, the two men exchanged 71

44 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE Nov|Dec 2018 Painting of Rydal Mount, Wordsworth’s family cottage, and the poet’s favorite portrait of himself, both by Henry Inman.

poems. He discloses a prompting “sense of obligation”: communing with these poems, he confi des, “I have felt my nature elevated.” Reed closes by pronouncing “blessings” on his idol. What Reed did not tell Wordsworth was that he had already completed most of the work on the edition he would pub- lish the following year. Soon after he received the book, Wordsworth wrote to Reed on August 19, 1837—16 months after receiving Reed’s fi rst letter. Al- though he briefly declared himself pleased to learn of the wider circulation of his work, Wordsworth devoted most of his letter to complaints about the lack letters that fi ll well over 200 pages in the printed edition. Here lies another of Reed’s distinctions. It is surely safe to claim that no other 19th-century American academic carried on such a volume of communication with a major English poet. It would be gratifying to report that these letters are fi lled with elevated lit- erary talk and biographical insights, seasoned with dollops of titillating gos- sip, all in memorable prose on both sides. Instead, they reveal a tug of war between an importunate admirer and an aging and—initially, at least—reluc- tant interlocutor. The ratio of letters and pages signals the imbalance in the correspondence: Reed wrote 48 of the letters, accounting for 175 printed pages; Wordsworth wrote just 23 letters, total- ing 63 pages. From the outset, Reed adopted a tone marked by an unctuous fl attery that barely conceals an almost audible need for the poet’s attention. In the fi rst letter Reed sent, on April 25, 1836, he intro- duces himself in fulsome terms. His letter, he assures Wordsworth, is not intended to fl atter but to express “the fl ow of grate- fulness, which so naturally gushes” when- ever he re-reads one of the great man’s

The Penn Art Collection, photography by Candace diCarlo Nov|Dec 2018 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE 45 of copyright protection. In the absence Here is the sestet that closes “The Europe. Since his wife was ill, his sister- of legislation protecting the publications Pilgrim Fathers”: in-law, Anne Emily Bronson, accompa- of British authors, Wordsworth writes, nied him. They traveled widely, in Great American publishers inevitably succumb Men they were who could not bend; Britain and on the Continent. Reed sent to the “temptation” to issue cheap and Blest Pilgrims, surely, as they took extended and excited reports to his fam- shoddy re-prints, sharing none of their for guide ily about the ancient castles and church- ill-gotten proceeds with the authors A will by sovereign Conscience sanctifi ed; es he and Bronson visited. But he found whose work they are eff ectively stealing. Blest while their Spirits his greatest satisfaction in the quiet days (Charles Dickens was only the most fa- from the woods ascend he and his sister-in-law spent at Rydal mous and most voluble of the writers Along a Galaxy that knows no end, Mount, where Wordsworth’s surviving who frequently made the same accusa- But in His glory who for Sinners died. family hospitably entertained them. tion. In the event, the protections of After four months of travel, Reed and copyright were not extended to British As those lines suggest, these verses do Bronson boarded the S.S. Arctic in authors until 1891.) not add much to Wordsworth’s body of Liverpool for their return to the United These fi rst two exchanges between work, either in bulk—he wrote over 500 States. On September 27, 1854, both were Reed and Wordsworth anticipate the sonnets—or in quality. For his part, among the more than 300 men, women, competing emphases of much of the cor- though, Wordsworth thought enough of and children who drowned when the respondence: Reed pelting Wordsworth them to include all three in his next col- Arctic collided with the S.S. Vesta and with repeated and eff usive compliments, lection, a volume called Poems, Chiefl y sank off the coast of Newfoundland. The the poet more interested in his sales and of Early and Late Years. In any event, the shock of the disaster—one of 19th-cen- lost income, along with the losses he had signifi cant point is that the three son- tury America’s most calamitous naval suff ered by investing in several Ameri- nets earned Henry Reed the rare if not accidents—was compounded by the can companies. In a letter dated July 18, unique distinction of having more or less news that none of the several children 1842, Wordsworth declares that, because commissioned bespoke poetry from one aboard had survived, while dozens of of the money troubles he was experienc- of the most important literary fi gures of crewmen had abandoned the passengers ing, “nothing would tempt me to trust the 19th century. and commandeered the lifeboats. any portion of my little Property to an Reed and Wordsworth never met. Each Henry Reed’s death at the age of 46 unqualifi ed Democracy.” time Reed began to contemplate an At- was widely mourned by his family and Several of Reed’s letters combine salu- lantic crossing, the obligations of teach- his large circle of friends in Philadelphia. tations with advice and suggestions, ing and the needs of his family inter- A long, admiring obituary was entered some of which Wordsworth accepted. vened. To ameliorate his lingering disap- into the minutes of the American Philo- The most signifi cant recommendation pointment, Reed persuaded Henry Inman, sophical Society, to which Reed had been was in a letter Reed sent on April 28, an important painter of portraits and elected in 1838. 1841, in which he proposed that Word- landscapes, to journey to Rydal Mount Beyond that, Reed’s death impelled his sworth add to his Ecclesiastical Son- and complete a portrait of the 74-year- brother, William, to undertake a memo- nets—a long sequence celebrating the old Wordsworth, now Poet Laureate. In rial labor that would encompass anoth- history of the Anglican Church—verses just nine sittings, Inman produced a er of Reed’s distinctive accomplish- carrying the story into the New World. likeness that Wordsworth called the fi n- ments, this one posthumous. Along with By including “the transmission of the est of the 27 for which he had posed. his work as an editor (of Thomas Arnold spiritual functions of the Church of Eng- Without Henry Reed’s intervention, this and Thomas Gray, as well as Word- land to the daughter Church on this compelling image of Wordsworth in his sworth), Henry Reed had published only Western continent,” Reed argued, Word- old age, now in Penn’s collection, would a number of rather miscellaneous essays sworth would complete his narrative never have been created. in his lifetime. William gathered the co- with a gesture of “moral sublimity.” Along with the portrait, Inman also pious notes his brother had written for In relatively prompt response, Word- produced several sketches of Rydal his classes and for his public lectures, sworth mailed three sonnets to Reed, Mount, one of which he later used as the which had attracted hundreds of Phila- gathered under the heading, “Aspects of basis for an oil painting. Two fi gures, delphians. Over the next several years, Christianity in America.” The three identifi able as poet and painter, stand William transcribed and published sev- poems are titled “The Pilgrim Fathers,” in front of the cottage. eral volumes under Henry’s name, “Continued,” and “Concluded—Ameri- Wordsworth died in 1850. Four years among them Lectures on English Litera- can Episcopacy.” later, Reed fi nally organized a trip to ture, from Chaucer to Tennyson and Lec-

46 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE Nov|Dec 2018 Loss of the U.S.M. Steam Ship Arctic, 1854. Published by Nathaniel Currier.

dertaking. Reed’s chapters survey the history of England from the 14th to the 16th centuries, relying on Shakespeare’s plays as infallible guides to the character and motives of the kings, noblemen, and even the commoners of the period. Reed’s procedure is out of date, to be sure. Modern scholarship has labored to excavate the historical contexts that il- luminate Shakespearean drama. Reed, once again refl ecting the critical tenden- cies of his time, depends on Shakespeare to illuminate history. At the same time, the lectures reveal an astonishing com- mand of Shakespeare’s texts and are punctuated by many useful local in- sights. In other words, whatever its con- temporary irrelevance to literary histo- rians, English History and Tragic Poetry tures on English History and Tragic on the moral and spiritual qualities of off ers an underappreciated but uncom- Poetry as Illustrated by Shakespeare, each writer’s work. Thus, the “poetry of monly interesting example of antebel- both of them reaching to more than 400 Chaucer is distinguished for what is an lum American education and taste. closely printed pages. inseparable quality of all high poetry, its These transcribed lectures represent genuine and healthy morality.” Spenser’s I mentioned earlier that Edward Cheney a relatively rare and important set of Faerie Queene is, above all, “the great titled the fi fth chapter of his Penn his- documents in the history of higher edu- sacred poem of English literature.” tory, which ends Part Two of that vol- cation in the United States. The archives In Byron’s verses, on the other hand— ume, “Low Water.” Part Three, which of antebellum colleges house scatterings Reed here predictably deducing his liter- documents a turning point in the 1830s, of notes taken by students as they sat in ary judgments from his horror at the is entitled “The Renaissance.” Under the their courses at Princeton, Harvard, Yale, poet’s behavior—he fi nds “disease, deep- leadership of a new and stronger provost, and other institutions. However, few seated, clinging disease. You search in William DeLancey (the senior offi cer, copies of the lectures, as written by the vain for a single healthful impersonation since Penn had no president at the time), professors themselves, have survived. of humanity; all the creations are hollow a number of new faculty were recruited. (Sermons, on the contrary, were regu- images, with no life or heart in them.” These included accomplished scientists larly transcribed and published.) If Reed Apparently, Lady Caroline Lamb was and scholars, whose combined contribu- had lived long enough to retire, he right: Byron was “mad, bad, and danger- tions quickly moved the College forward. would probably have done what most ous to know,” or even to read. Along with the gifted mathematician early 19th-century professors appar- Not surprisingly, Wordsworth receives Robert Adrain; the classical scholar ently did at that point: discarded the the highest praise. His “genius” transforms Samuel Brown Wylie; and Alexander lecture notes that he had been writing his poetry into “a ministry of wisdom and Dallas Bache, Benjamin Franklin’s great- and revising for 20 years. happiness, both in the homely realities grandson, who made important contribu- Beyond their sheer survival, what do of daily life, and in the deepest spiritual tions in physics, Cheney calls particular the lectures in these volumes reveal recesses of our being.” Reed’s lectures on attention to Henry Hope Reed, “whose about the content of Reed’s courses? poetry, in short, disclose his affi liation gifted mind is attested alike by tradition While he comments from time to time with the religiously tinctured, earnest, and his own literary remains.” on the specifi cally linguistic qualities of and idealizing convictions of much mid- the writers he includes, Lectures on 19th-century literary commentary. Peter Conn is the Vartan Gregorian Professor English Literature is drenched in Reed’s Lectures on English History and Tragic of English Emeritus and Executive Director of Christian piety. His focus remains fi xed Poetry is an ambitious and learned un- the Athenaeum of Philadelphia.

Michele and Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, Massachusetts. Nov|Dec 2018 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE 47 Gift of Lenore B. and Sidney A. Alpert, supplemented with Museum Acquisition Funds. Photography by David Stansbury.