BARTRAM'S INFLUENCE ON LITERATURE 167 



ing isles . . . beautiful ... by Nature charged With the same 

 pensive office " (III, 979-80) . The " spongy texture, yet withal 

 Not wanting a fair face of water weeds And pleasant flowers " 

 in The Prelude and " the considerable tract of spongy ground 

 covered with aquatic plants ... a mossy Islet . . . shifting about 

 before the wind " invite another quotation from Bartram: 



a very singular aquatic plant . . . communities, or floating islands . . . 

 a quarter of a mile in extent . . . impelled to and fro as the wind and 

 current may direct. ... In great storms of wind and rain . . . large 

 masses of these floating plains are broken loose, and driven from the 

 shores, into the wide water, where they have the appearance of islets 

 ... in order to enliven the delusion and form a most picturesque 

 appearance, we see not only flowery plants . . . old weather-beaten trees 

 . . . with the long moss waving from their snags . . . (88-89) . 



The " fair face of water weeds " in line 338 recalls Bartram's 

 " in short, these dark, loathsome waters . . . seem to be a . . . 

 tincture of the leaves of trees, herbs and reeds, arising from the 

 shores, and which almost overspread them, and float on the sur- 

 face, insomuch that a great part of these stagnate rivers, during 

 the summer and autumnal seasons, are constrained to pass under 

 a load of grass and weeds " (p. 426) . 



The word " pulse " in the phrase, " the inner pulse of con- 

 templation " (II, 333), Professor Cooper points out, " is com- 

 mon to both Bartram and Wordsworth," ^* and Dowden has 

 annotated the line "' The very pulse of the machine " in Words- 

 worth's " She Was a Phantom of Delight " with a reference to 

 Bartram. " It may be worth noting," says Dowden, " that a like 

 collocation occurs in Bartram: ' At the return of the morning, 

 by the powerful influence of light, the pulse of nature becomes 

 more active, and the universal vibration of life insensibly and 

 irresistibly moves the wondrous machine.' " ^^ 



The phrase " Reposed in noontide rest " (Prelude, III, 332- 

 33) reminds Professor Cooper ^^ of a similar self-criticism con- 



»* Athenaeum, April 22, 1905, p. 499. 



"^ Edward Dowden, "" Notes on Wordsworth," The Athenaeum, February 24, 

 1894, p. 246; Poems by William Wordsworth. Boston (Athenaeum Press), 1897, 

 p. 435. The quotation from the Travels is from p. 179- 



=' Athenaeum, April 22, 1905, p. 499. 



