PREFACE. PR5852 W5 1859 MAIN WILLIAM WORDSWORTH was born in the town of Cockermouth, Cumberland, April 7, 1770. His father, an attorney of skill and repute, died December 30, 1783. The birthplace of the Poet favoured the growth of his poetical feelings; the Derwent soothed him with its murmurs, and the mouldering castle opened its green courts for the chase of the butterfly. He lost his mother early; and soon afterwards the sweet companionship-in later years to be recovered and prized-of his sister DOROTHY. Like Shenstone, he began with a "Schoolmistress; " No pompous title did debauch her ear, In his ninth year Wordsworth was removed to a School at Hawkshead, a small market town in Lancashire, embosomed in the green Vale of Esthwaite, with the still lake for a mirror. The School, which was founded by Archbishop Sandys, consisted of a schoolroom on the ground-floor, and some apartments for the Master; the boys being boarded in the neighbouring cottages. The indoor education was good, but the out-of-door was better. 932 The Poet has told us of the fair seed-time of his soul; then he felt Gleams like the flashing of a shield: the earth and even He had already begun to write verses. But a new scene opened. In his eighteenth year he was sent to Cambridge, and on a dreary morning, as he informs us, of October, 1787, he at the Hoop alighted, famous Inn. The Evangelist St. John was his patron; in prosaic phrase, he was entered a student of St. John's College; the Kitchens were under his rooms, and Trinity's "loquacious clock" and pealing organ were his near neighbours. His picture of Academic life is drawn in dark and forbidding colours. But the place was full of solemn interest. One of his friends occupied the room which had been Milton's; and there his young disciple once poured out memorial libations, so many and copious, that they drove him to` Chapel in more than Minstrel's phrenzy. The vacations were seasons of joy to the Poet, and carried him back among the green valleys and mountain shadows. He spent his last vacation, August, 1790, on the Continent, in the company of a Cambridge friend. They made the journey on foot, carrying their bundles on their heads, and an oak stick in their hands. The "Descriptive Sketches"-published in 1793-were the fruit of the Tour. Wordsworth took his Bachelor's degree, 1791, and his University career was ended. A visit to London, when the "spirit of Nature" came upon him in the crowd, an exploring walk through North Wales, and a prolonged sojourn in France, filled his heart with many beautiful thoughts and sad reflections. His friends wished him to enter the Church; but the twenty-third year came and went without bringing the pastoral disposition. His mind continued to heave with the swell of the French Revolution. Without a profession, or any sure means of subsistence, he wandered from place to place, and was preparing to fling himself on the London Press, when a young man, whom he had kindly attended in a sickness, died, and left him nine hundred pounds. Upon the interest of that sum, added to a legacy of one hundred pounds to his Sister, and an equal amount derived from the Lyrical Ballads, he contrived to live nearly eight years. He has recorded his The great calm was yet to come. gratitude : A youth-(he bore The name of Calvert-it shall live, if words Of mine can give it life,)— in his last decay By a bequest sufficient for my needs Enabled me to pause for choice, and walk At large and unrestrained, nor damped too soon He cleared a passage for ine, and the stream In the autumn of 1795, we see the brother and sister spending golden days in a pleasant house,-Racedown Lodge,-near Crewkerne, Somersetshire; William handling the spade, and Dorothy reading Ariosto. They did not remain long at Racedown. There Coleridge— The noticeable man with large grey eyes came to visit them, June, 1797; and the charm of his conversation drew his enamoured hearers after him into the village of Nether Stowey, Somersetshire, where the Magician abode. The situation was lovely-a deer-park, wild woods, clear-flowing brooks, and the sounding sea, were some of the delights of Alfoxden. Many of Wordsworth's sweetest Poems were composed in that romantic home," We are Seven" being of the number. Towards the close of 1798, the Lyrical Ballads were published, and fell dead from the Press;-the Copyright being soon afterwards thrown aside as lumber. The same year found the Poet and his Sister moping and shivering in the dull old city of Goslar, in Lower Saxony. They remained in Germany until February, 1799; and on their return to England, settled at Grasmere, Westmoreland, among the corn-fields and meadows, green as an emerald, which thirty years before had enchanted the eyes of Gray. In that "dear valley," happy in his orchard-ground, the woody steeps, his Sister's flowers, and the cottages of mountain-stone, Wordsworth spent eight years; and thither he brought MARY HUTCHINSON, to whom he was married at Brompton Church, near Scarborough, October 4th, 1802. The Poems entitled the "Idle Shepherd Boys," the "Pet Lamb," and the "Naming of Places," give the true history of his life at Grasmere. His happiness flowed into song ; and the wisdom and the devotion of a week often breathe in the music of a single verse. And so, while the ear and the eye were nourished and charmed by the dappling shade, the yellow light on the lake, the sound of water falling, or the sunny rustle of the birch-tree, the rejoicing Poet read Spenser and wrote "The Excursion." In the spring of 1808, he removed his family to a larger house - Allan Bank-in the same Vale, where two children died. |