it may laudably be made the principal object
of intellectual pursuit by any man who, with reasonable consideration of
circumstances, has faith in his own impulses.

The Poem of 'Peter Bell,' as the Prologue will show, was composed under
a belief that the Imagination not only does not require for its exercise
the intervention of supernatural agency, but that, though such agency be
excluded, the faculty may be called forth as imperiously and for kindred
results of pleasure, by incidents, within the compass of poetic
probability, in the humblest departments of daily life. Since that
Prologue was written, _you_ have exhibited most splendid effects of
judicious daring, in the opposite and usual course. Let this
acknowledgment make my peace with the lovers of the supernatural; and I
am persuaded it will be admitted that to you, as a Master in that
province of the art, the following Tale, whether from contrast or
congruity, is not an inappropriate offering. Accept it, then, as a
public testimony of affectionate admiration from one with whose name
yours has been often coupled (to use your own words) for evil and for
good; and believe me to be, with earnest wishes that life and health may
be granted you to complete the many important works in which you are
engaged, and with high respect,

Most faithfully yours,
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
Rydal Mount, April 7, 1819.

182. _Peter Bell: the Poem_.

Alfoxden, 1798. Founded upon an anecdote which I read in a newspaper, of
an ass being found hanging his head over a canal in a wretched posture.
Upon examination a dead body was found in the water, and proved to be
the body of its master. The countenance, gait, and figure of Peter were
taken from a wild rover with whom I walked from Builth, on the river
Wye, downwards, nearly as far as the town of Hay. He told me strange
stories. It has always been a pleasure to me, through life, to catch at
every opportunity that has occurred in my rambles of becoming acquainted
with this class of people. The number of Peter's wives was taken from
the trespasses, in this way, of a lawless creature who lived in the
county of Durham, and used to be attended by many women, sometimes not
less than half a dozen, as disorderly as himself; and a story went in
the country, that he had been heard to say while they were quarrelling,
'Why can't you be quiet, there's none so many of you.' Benoni, or the
child of sorrow, I knew