Leslie Stephen

“ The life was simple and hardy. Wordsworth lived in the cottage of Anne Tyson, a ‘kind and motherly’ old dame, whom he commemorates affectionately in the ‘Prelude’ (iv. 27−43) . There were four masters during Wordsworth's time. William Taylor, master from 1782 till his death in 1786, won his warm regard, and was in some degree the original of the ‘Matthew’ of the well-known poems of 1799. An usher taught him more Latin in a fortnight than he had learnt in two years at Cockermouth; and he wrote some English verses which were admired, and of which a fragment or two is preserved. ”

“ Wordsworth was predisposed to republicanism by his education in a simple society and by his life in ‘the literary republic’ of Cambridge. Beaupuy's personal charm and accomplishments gave him great influence with his young friend, in whose eyes he resembled one of Plutarch's heroes (Prelude, ix. 419) . When Beaupuy pointed to a ‘hunger-bitten’ peasant girl, and said ‘it is against that that we are fighting’ (ib. ix. 517) , Wordsworth became a thorough disciple. ”

“ If there was no romantic incident, it proved at least that a poet might be capable of perfect domestic happiness. Wordsworth's wife had not the genius nor the remarkable acquirements of his sister, but she was a gentle, sympathetic, and sensible woman. He described her apparently with as much fidelity as love in the verses ‘She was a phantom of delight.’
In July 1802 Wordsworth and his sister left Grasmere, and, after visiting the Hutchinsons, made an expedition to Calais. Passing through London, he wrote (31 July) the famous sonnet upon Westminster Bridge. ”

“ In 1814 Wordsworth made another tour in Scotland, when he saw Hogg and Gillies, who published several of his letters in ‘Memoirs of a Literary Veteran.’ In July appeared the ‘Excursion.’ When finishing the ‘Prelude’ he says that the task ‘of his life’ will be over if he can finish the ‘Recluse’ and ‘a narrative poem of the epic kind’ (to Beaumont, 3 June 1805) . The epic was never begun, and the ‘Excursion’ (with a fragment published in 1888) , on which he worked at intervals from 1795 till its publication, represents the ‘Recluse.’ It marks the culmination of Wordsworth's poetical career. ”

“ Wordsworth settled down to the composition of poetry, working at the long philosophical work which was to sum up his whole theory of life, and writing many occasional poems, some of which are among his best. Dorothy's journals show that he laboured steadily at his task, and was often tired and upset by the excitement or by the trouble of revising. She was constantly noting effects of scenery with her usual delicacy, and recording little incidents which supplied texts for her brother. Coleridge was still their closest intimate. ”

“ Jeffrey in the ‘Edinburgh’ (October 1807) treated Wordsworth as a man of great ability, led into error by a perverse theory; but the ridicule was more pointed than the praise, and was thought to have stopped the circulation of the poems.
Wordsworth went to London to see Coleridge, who was ill, and heard him lecture in the beginning of 1808. He had now decided to leave Dove Cottage, where he had to work in the one room also used by the family, the children, and visitors. He moved to a house called Allan Bank, recently built under Silverhowe on the way to Easedale. ”

“ Coleridge objected that the ‘Excursion’ did not fulfil his anticipations that the ‘Recluse’ was to be the ‘first and only true philosophical poem in existence’ (Letters, pp. 643−50) ; whereas the philosophy was still subordinate to the exposition of commonplace truths. The poem took its place as Wordsworth's masterpiece among the younger generation now growing up. Wordsworth gradually abandoned any thought of carrying out any larger design. ”

“ The outward world, he says, seemed to him to be a dream; distant mountains assumed a spectral life, and affected him with a kind of superstitious awe (Prelude, i. 377, &c., ii. 351) . The love of boyish sports gradually developed into an almost mystical love of nature. Wordsworth may in later years have read a little too much into these early moods, but the general truth of his recollections is unmistakable. ”

“ The prospect of a better income probably encouraged him to marry Mary Hutchinson (b. 10 Aug. 1770) , who had been his schoolfellow at Penrith, and was the daughter of a man in business at Penrith. She was not, as has been said, his cousin, though there was a remote family connection, Wordsworth's uncle, Dr. Cookson, and her uncle, W. Monkhouse, having married sisters. Her parents had died in her childhood, and she lived with relations at Penrith, till in 1792−3 she went to keep house for her brother Thomas, who had a farm at Sockburn. ”

“ The ‘northern villager’ appeared uncouth enough to the ‘chattering popinjays’ whom men called fellow-commoners, and looked with little reverence upon the dons of the time, quaint ‘old humorists,’ who left the youths to themselves, and in whose hands the chapel services seemed to him a ‘mockery.’ He managed to indulge in his poetic reveries even in the ‘level fields of Cambridgeshire’. ”

“ In the spring of 1812 Coleridge was on the lakes, but refused, in spite of Dorothy's entreaties, to visit Grasmere. In May 1812 Wordsworth came to London, and Crabb Robinson acted as a friendly mediator. The difficulty was that, although Wordsworth could deny that he had sent any message or used the words repeated by Coleridge, who had probably exaggerated Montagu's exaggerated version, he could not deny that he had said something which would be painful to Coleridge. ”

“ Unluckily it was entrusted to De Quincey, who was unbusinesslike, and worried the printers by theories of punctuation. The publication was delayed, but, as Southey wrote to Scott, it would have failed in any case from its ‘long and’ ‘involved’ sentences. Wordsworth, he says became obscure, partly because he imitated Milton, and partly because the habit of dictating hides a man's obscurity from himself. The series of sonnets ‘dedicated to national independence and liberty,’ written about this time, represent the same mood. ”

“ His ‘philosophy,’ if he be allowed to have one, must be taken to correspond to a profound and consistent perception of certain vitally important aspects of human life. His aim from the first was to find fit utterance for the primary and simple feelings. The attempt to utter the corresponding truths has an awkward tendency to degenerate into platitude ”

“ Wordsworth had finished the ‘Prelude,’ having worked at it for some months. He observes that it is ‘unprecedented’ for a man to write nine thousand lines about himself, but explains that he was induced to this by ‘real humility.’ He was afraid of any more arduous topic. The poem was meant to be ‘a sort of portico to the "Recluse,"’ which he hoped soon to begin in earnest. It remained unprinted till his death. Meanwhile Dove Cottage was becoming untenable. Sir G. Beaumont was at this time rebuilding his house at Coleorton, near Ashby-de-la-Zouche, Leicestershire. ”

“ WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM (1770−1850) , poet, son of John Wordsworth, was born at Cockermouth, Cumberland, on 7 April 1770. The poet's grandfather, Richard Wordsworth (1680?−1762) , descendant of a family which had been settled for many generations at Penistone, near Sheffield, bought an estate at Sockbridge, near Penrith. His eldest son, also Richard (d. 1794) , became collector of customs at Whitehaven. His daughter Anne married Thomas Myers, vicar of Lazonby, Cumberland (Appendix to Memoirs, 1851) . ”

“ On another occasion he thought of committing suicide by way of resenting a punishment, but stopped in very good time. He was sent to schools at Cockermouth and Penrith, where he learnt little. His father at the same time made him get by heart passages from Shakespeare, Spenser, and Milton (Memoirs, i. 34) .
In 1778 Wordsworth and his elder brother were sent to the grammar school at Hawkshead founded by Archbishop Edwin Sandys [q. v.] ) . ”

“ The ‘Evening Walk,’ composed during his college vacations spent at the lakes, is remarkable for its series of accurate transcripts of natural scenery, obviously made on the spot. The ‘Descriptive Sketches’ describes the journey to Switzerland and was composed in France, where he helped a fading memory of details from the work of the French painter Ramond (Legouis, p. 117; Sainte-Beuve's Causeries, x. 454) , who in 1781 translated Archdeacon Coxe's letters from Switzerland, with additional notes. ”

“ De Quincey says that the ‘Richardson’ portrait of Nelson was an exact likeness; but the impression is scarcely confirmed by his portraits. They show a strong bony framework, a heavy mouth, and a prominent nose, and some are more suggestive of strength than of fire. After leaving Racedown he was entirely without the sense of smell (Southey, Life, i. 63) .
Professor Knight gives a list of Wordsworth's portraits in ‘Works,’ ii. 402−31. Original portraits are:
Half-length, by an unknown artist at Stowey in 1797, mentioned in Cottle's ‘Early Recollections’ (i. 317) ”

“ For an account of various places associated with Wordsworth see Professor Knight's ‘English Lake District as interpreted in the Poems of Wordsworth,’ 1891, and Canon Rawnsley's ‘Literary Associations of the English Lakes,’ Glasgow, 1894.
Wordsworth's works are: 1. ‘An Evening Walk: an Epistle ... to a Young Lady from the Lakes of the North of England,’ 1793. 2. ‘Descriptive Sketches in Verse,’ ‘taken during a pedestrian tour in the Italian, Grison, Swiss, and Savoyard Alps,’ 1793. 3. ‘Lyrical Ballads, with a few other poems,’ 1798, 1 vol. 8vo (anon.) There are four poems by Coleridge. ”

“ He seems to have thought that because the peasant has the feelings common to man, the peasant's language could give them adequate expression. He became inartistic at times from fear of being unnatural. He fully recognised, indeed, the necessity of polishing his poems, as is shown by his continual revisions (given in Knight's edition) . A certain clumsiness always remains ”

“ The enthusiasm of the younger generation was beginning to be roused.
The death of Lord Lonsdale in 1802 improved Wordsworth's financial position. The sum originally due was 5,000l., and the second earl [see under William Lowther, third Earl of Lonsdale] , on succeeding to his cousin's estates, repaid the original debt with interest, making altogether 8,500l. (Knight, i. 98) . William and his sister were each to have about 1,800l.; of this they had lent 1,200l. to John Wordsworth, and in February 1805 (ib. i. 98) William was still uncertain as to the final result. ”

“ The ‘Female Vagrant’ appeared in the ‘Lyrical Ballads;’ the whole in the ‘Poems’ of 1842. He wrote at Racedown some satires, imitated from Juvenal, which he proposed to publish in a joint volume with his friend Archdeacon Wrangham. ”

“ His second son, John (1741−1783) , the poet's father, was an attorney at Cockermouth, and in 1766 became agent to Sir James Lowther (afterwards first Earl of Lonsdale) [q. v.] On 5 Feb. 1766 John Wordsworth married Anne (b. January 1747) , daughter of William Cookson, mercer, of Penrith, by Dorothy (Crackanthorpe) . They had five children: Richard (1768−1816) , William, Dorothy (1771−1855) , John (1772−1805) , and Christopher (1774−1846) [q. v.] , afterwards master of Trinity College, Cambridge. The mother died ‘of a decline’ in March 1778. Brief references in the ‘Prelude’ (v. 256, &c.) ”

“ Other ‘Selections’ are edited by F. T. Palgrave, 1865, Matthew Arnold, 1879, and by Professor Knight and other members of the Wordsworth Society, 1888. The prose works, in 3 vols. 8vo, were edited by Dr. Grosart in 1876.
Professor Dowden's ‘Bibliography and Chronological List’ appears in vol. vii. of his edition of ‘Wordsworth's Poetical Works.’ There is also a bibliography in Professor Knight's 1882−6 edition (vol. i. pp. xxxix−xlvii) , and a chronological table in the same volume, revised and corrected in vol. viii. pp. ”

“ William Boxall, 1831, belonging to Mr. Gordon Wordsworth, the poet's grandson; engraved for Reed's American edition of 1844, and elsewhere. Lithograph by William Wilkins; drawn for ‘Men of the Day’ about 1835; called by Wordsworth the ‘Stamp-Distributor.’ Medallion in wax by W. W. Wyon, 1835. Portrait by Joseph Severn [q. v.] when at Rome in 1837; in possession of the poet's grandson, principal of the Elphinstone College, Bombay. Three-quarter length by Henry William Pickersgill [q. v.] , painted for St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1832 ”

“ Letters of S. T. Coleridge, 1893; Letters of the Lake Poets (privately printed in 1889) , pp. 329−86 for Wordsworth's letters; Memorials of Coleorton, 1887, 2 vols. edited by Professor Knight; Mrs. Sandford's Thomas Poole, 1888, i. 225, 238, 241, 298, ii. 54, 58, 120, 269, &c.; Lamb's Letters; Southey's Life and Letters and Select Correspondence; Lockhart's Life of Scott; De Quincey's Wordsworth in ‘Lake Poets;’ Moore's Diaries; Crabb Robinson's Diaries, passim; Campbell's Life of Coleridge; Clayden's Samuel Rogers and his Contemporaries, 1889, 2 vols. many references) ”

“ Two letters reprinted from the Morning Post, revised, with additions,’ n.d. (end of 1844) . 22. ‘Ode on the Installation of H.R.H. Prince Albert as Chancellor of the University of Cambridge,’ [1847] , 4to. 23. ‘The Prelude, or Growth of a Poet's Mind,’ 1850, 1 vol. 8vo (posthumous) . 24. The first book of the ‘Recluse’ was published in 1888.
Collective editions during Wordsworth's life are: 1. ‘Poems,’ 1815, 2 vols. 8vo. It included previous publications, except the ‘Excursion,’ and some additional poems. There was a new preface, and at the end of vol. i. ”