BARTRAM'S INFLUENCE ON LITERATURE 149 



In 1827 Bartram was still in Coleridge's mind, for on March 

 12 of that year he remarked ^° that " the latest book of travels 

 I know, written in the spirit of the old travellers, is Bartram' s 

 account of his tour in the floridas." 



2. William Wordsworth 



Wordsworth's interest in travel literature was as keen as that 

 of Coleridge. That he read widely in this type of literature has 

 been proved in a series of articles by Professor Lane Cooper,^ 

 who believes that Wordsworth " read . . . practically all voyages 

 by land or sea that friends could place at his disposal." Dr. 

 Lienemann in his monograph on Wordsworth's reading attrib- 

 utes this interest of the Lake poet in books of travel to his gen- 

 eral passion for traveling and wandering. " Wordsworth," he 

 claims, '" regretted greatly that his means did not permit him in 

 his younger years to undertake long journeys." ^ But whatever 

 the cause may have been it is certain that Wordsworth " had at 

 all times a passion for the literature of travel, and insisted on its 

 value in widening his outlook and enriching his experience." ^ 

 In a letter to James Tobin, written some months before the 

 publication of Lyrical Ballads, he says: "If you could collect 

 for me any books of travels you would render me an essential 

 service, as without much of such reading my present labours 

 cannot be brought to any conclusion." * The last part of the 



his translation and poetic transmutation of Bartram's scientific names: quercus 

 tinctoria becoming " the gigantic black oak " and Liriodendron becoming '" a few 

 stately tulip trees." 



■"^ Table Talk, p. 43. 



^ See especially " Wordsworth Sources," Athenaeum, April 22, 1905, pp. 498- 

 500, and " A Glance at Wordsworth's Reading," Modern Language Notes, XXII, 

 83-89, 110-117, reprinted in Methods and Aims in the Study of Literature, 1915, 

 pp. 96-132. 



" K. Lienemann, Die Belesenheit von William Wordsworth, Berlin, 1908, p. 

 166. The section devoted to " Reisebeschreibungen " (pp. 166-172) lists a great 

 many travel books which Wordsworth read, among them (p. 169), "Travels 

 through North and South Carolina by William Bertram [sic]." 



' The Prelude, edited by Ernest de Selincourt, Oxford, 1926, p. xxix. 



* Letters of the Wordsworth Family, I, 115. 



