"The seventh was begun in the opening of that year; ... and the remaining seven were written before the end of June 1805, when his friend Coleridge was in the island of Malta, for the restoration of his health."
There is no uncertainty as to the year in which the later books were written; but there is considerable difficulty in fixing the precise date of the earlier ones. Writing from Grasmere to his friend Francis Wrangham--the letter is undated--Wordsworth says,
"I am engaged in writing a poem on my own earlier life, which will take five parts or books to complete, three of which are nearly finished."
The late Bishop of Lincoln supposed that this letter to Wrangham was written "at the close of 1803, or beginning of 1804." (See 'Memoirs of Wordsworth,' vol. i. p. 303.) There is evidence that it belongs to 1804. At the commencement of the seventh book, p. 247, he says:
_Six changeful years_ have vanished since I first Poured out (saluted by that quickening breeze Which met me issuing from the City's walls) _A glad preamble to this Verse:_ I sang Aloud, with fervour irresistible Of short-lived transport, like a torrent bursting, From a black thunder-cloud, down Scafell's side To rush and disappear. But soon broke forth (So willed the Muse) _a less impetuous stream, That flowed awhile with unabating strength, Then stopped for years; not audible again Before last primrose-time._
I have _italicised_ the clauses which give some clue to the dates of composition. From these it would appear that the "glad preamble," written on leaving Goslar in 1799 (which, I think, included only the first two paragraphs of book first), was a "short-lived transport"; but that "soon" afterwards "a less impetuous stream" broke forth, which, after the settlement at Grasmere, "flowed awhile with unabating strength," and then "stopped for years." Now the above passage, recording these things, was written in 1805, and in the late autumn of that year; (as is evident from the reference which immediately follows to the "choir of redbreasts" and the approach of winter). We must therefore assign the flowing of the "less impetuous stream," to 1802; in order to leave room for the intervening "years," in which it ceased to flow, till it was audible again in the spring of 1804, "last primrose-time."