166 WILLIAM BARTRAM 



By chattering popinjays; the inner heart 

 Seemed trivial, and the impresses without 

 Of a too gaudy region (III, 445-449). 



Butterflies and popinjays are to be found in Bartram in several 

 places. Furthermore, Wordsworth's self-criticism is couched in 

 images derived from Bartram. Thus he recalls the time when 



The memory languidly revolved, the heart 

 Reposed in noontide rest, the inner pulse 

 Of contemplation almost failed to beat. 

 Such life might not inaptly be compared 

 To a floating island, an amphibious spot 

 Unsound, of spongy texture, yet withal 

 Not wanting a fair face of water weeds 

 And pleasant flowers. (Ill, 332-339) 



The self-criticism, as Professor Herford points out, is even 

 stronger in the earlier text: 



Rotted as by a charm, my life became 



A floating island, an amphibious thing, etc.^^ 



The image of a " floating island " is undoubtedly derived from 

 Wordsworth's observation of the lakes. In his Guide he writes: 



There occasionally appears above the surface of Derwentwater, and al- 

 ways in the same place, a considerable tract of spongy ground covered 

 with aquatic plants, which is called the Floating, but with more pro- 

 priet}' might be named the Buoyant, Island; and, on one of the pools 

 near the lake of Esthwaite, may sometimes be seen a mossy Islet, with 

 trees upon it, shifting about before the wind, a lusus naturae frequent 

 on the great rivers of America. . . .^^ 



But it will be noted, in the last line, that a reminiscence from 

 Bartram has floated into Wordsworth's mind and combined 

 with his own observation. The lusus naturae on the rivers of 

 America is Bartram's Vtstia stratiotes which " associates in large 

 communities, or floating islands" (p. 88). The image came 

 back to him once again in The Excursion: "... the little float- 



"Ll. 339-40, 1805-6 (De Selincourt). See C. H. Herford, Wordsworth. 

 London, 1930, p. 24. 



^^ Guide to the Lakes, Fifth Edition (De Selincourt), p. 38. In this con- 

 nection also see Dorothy Wordsworth's poem "" Floating Island " {Poems, VIII, 

 125). 



