176 WILLIAM BARTRAM 



If Bartram seems to have been too active for the last line to 

 apply to him, his activity consisted entirely in seeing and " listen- 

 ing " to Nature. And there were many occasions when he sat 

 in his canoe or under a tree and permitted the " Powers " to 

 feed his mind. Finally, every page of Bartram expresses the call 

 in Wordsworth's sequel to the poem: 



Come forth into the light of things, 



Let Nature be your Teacher (" The Tables Turned," 15-16) . 



Come forth, and bring with you a heart 

 That watches and receives (31-32). 



3. Other English Writers 



It is obvious that a book which exerted so strong an influence 

 upon the imagination of such important poets as Coleridge and 

 Wordsworth came to the attention of other English writers. As 

 a matter of fact, there is enough evidence pointing to Bartram' s 

 influence on most of the Romantic poets of the late eighteenth 

 and early nineteenth centuries. Echoes of Bartram seem to recur 

 even in late Victorian literature. The present study cannot hope 

 to work out all the details of such an indebtedness. Further 

 research is needed, the results of which will, it is hoped, make 

 a supplementary study. As a basis for such an investigation cer- 

 tain materials, accumulated in connection with this study, need 

 be set down here: 



Dorothy Wordsworth: 



There is no definite statement in any of Dorothy Words- 

 worth's writings as to her having read Bartram' s Travels. Yet 

 the probability is strong that she read the book which so power- 

 fully impressed her brother. Her Alfoxden journal indicates the 

 close companionship of the two, who walked and read together 

 and shared their thoughts, and it was at Alfoxden, as we have 

 seen, just before the writing in Germany of " Ruth," that 

 Wordsworth read or reread Bartram. If she did read the travel 

 book, it is, of course, impossible to determine definitely just 

 what influence it had upon her, or even if it had any at all. 

 Professor Lowes, however, has called attention to some " curious 



