Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson Part 9

WORDSWORTH

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

William Wordsworth was born at c.o.c.kermouth, c.u.mberland, on April 7th, 1770. His father, John Wordsworth, was the agent of Sir J. Lowther, who later became the first Earl of Lonsdale. At the age of eight the boy was sent to school at Hawkshead. The impressions of his boyhood period are related in the autobiographical poem, _The Prelude_, (written 1805, published 1850), and from this poetical record we discern how strong the influences of Nature were to shape and develop his imagination. Wordsworth's father died in 1783, leaving the family poorly provided for. The main a.s.set was a considerable claim upon the Earl of Lonsdale, which that individual refused to pay. On his death, in 1802, the successor to the t.i.tle and estates paid the amount of the claim in full with acc.u.mulated interest. In the interval, however, the Wordsworth family remained in very straitened circ.u.mstances. Enough money was provided by Wordsworth's guardians to send him to Cambridge University In 1787. He entered St. John's College, and after an undistinguished course graduated without honors in January, 1791. His vacations were spent chiefly in Hawkshead and Wales, but one memorable vacation was marked by a walking excursion with a friend through France and Switzerland, the former country then being on the verge of revolution.

Shortly after leaving the University, in November, 1791, Wordsworth returned to France, remaining there until December of the following year. During this period he was completely won over to the principles of the revolution. The later reaction from these principles const.i.tuted the one moral struggle of his life.

In 1793 his first work appeared before the public--two poems, ent.i.tled _The Evening Walk_ and _Descriptive Sketches_. Coleridge, who read these pieces at Cambridge, divined that they announced the emergence of an original poetical genius above the horizon. Readers of the poems to-day, who are wise after the event, could scarcely divine as much.

At about this period Wordsworth received a bequest of 900 pounds from Raisley Calvert, which enabled him and his sister Dorothy to take a small cottage at Racedown in Dorsets.h.i.+re. Here he wrote a number of poems in which he worked off the ferment of his revolutionary ideas.

These ideas can scarcely be said to have troubled him much in later years.

An important incident in his life, hardly second in importance to the stimulating companions.h.i.+p of his sister, was his meeting with Coleridge, which occurred probably towards the close of 1795.

Coleridge, who was but little younger than Wordsworth, had the more richly equipped, if not the more richly endowed, mind. He was living at Nether Stowey, and in order to benefit by the stimulus which such a friends.h.i.+p offered, the Wordsworth's moved to Alfoxden, three miles away from Stowey (July, 1797). It was during a walking expedition to the Quantock Hills in November of that year that the poem of _The Ancient Mariner_ was planned. It was intended that the poem should be a joint production, but Wordsworth's contribution was confined to the suggestion of a few details merely, and some scattered lines which are indicated in the notes to that poem. Their poetic theories were soon to take definite shape in the publication of the famous _Lyrical Ballads_ (September, 1798), to which Coleridge contributed _The Ancient Mariner_, and Wordsworth some characteristic lyrical, reflective, and narrative poems. The excessive simplicity and alleged triviality of some of these poems long continued to give offence to the conservative lovers of poetry. Even to-day we feel that Wordsworth was sometimes the victim of his own theories.

In June of this same year (1798) Wordsworth and his sister accompanied Coleridge to Germany. They soon parted company, the Wordsworths settling at Goslar, while Coleridge, intent upon study, went in search of German metaphysics at Gottingen. Wordsworth did not come into any contract with German life or thought, but sat through the winter by a stove writing poems for a second edition of the _Lyrical Ballads_.

April, 1799, found the brother and sister again in England. In December they settled down at Dove Cottage, Town End, Grasmere, and never, save for brief intervals, abandoned the Lake Country. In 1802, as has been said, a slight accession of fortune fell to Wordsworth by the settlement of the Lonsdale claim. The share of each of the family was 1,800 pounds. On the strength of this wind-fall the poet felt that he might marry, and accordingly brought home Mary Hutchinson as his wife.

The subsequent career of Wordsworth belongs to the history of poetry.

Of events in the ordinary sense there are few to record. He successively occupies three houses in the Lake Country after abandoning Dove Cottage. We find him at Allan Bank in 1808, in the Parsonage at Grasmere in 1810, and at Rydal Mount from 1813 to his death in 1850.

He makes occasional excursions to Scotland or the Continent, and at long intervals visits London, where Carlyle sees him and records his vivid impressions. For many years Wordsworth enjoys the sinecure of Distributor of Stamps for Westmoreland (400 pounds a year), and on his resignation of that office in his son's favor, he is placed on the Civil List for a well deserved pension of 300 pounds. On Southey's death, in 1843, he is appointed Poet Laureate. He died at Grasmere on April 23rd, 1850.

Wordsworth's princ.i.p.al long poems are: _The Prelude_ (1805 published 1850); _The Excursion_ (1814); _The White Doe of Rylstone_ (1815) and _Peter Bell The Waggoner_ (1819). His fame rests princ.i.p.ally on his shorter narrative poems, his meditative lyrics, including his two great odes, _To Duty_ and _On the Intimations of Immortality_, and on the sonnets, which rank with the finest in the language. The longer poems have many fine pa.s.sages exhibiting his powers of graphic description, and ill.u.s.trating his mystical philosophy of nature.

Thomas Carlyle's description of Wordsworth is of interest: "For the rest, he talked well in his way; with veracity, easy brevity, and force, as a wise tradesman would of his tools and workshop, and as no unwise one could. His voice was good, frank, and sonorous, though practically clear, distinct, and forcible, rather than melodious; the tone of him, businesslike, sedately confident; no discourtesy, yet no anxiety about being courteous. A fine wholesome rusticity, fresh as his mountain breezes, sat well on the stalwart veteran, and on all he said and did. You would have said that he was a usually taciturn man, glad to unlock himself to audience sympathetic and intelligent, when such offered itself. His face bore marks of much, not always peaceful, meditation; the look of it not bland or benevolent so much as close, impregnable, and hard; a man _multa tacere loquive paratus_, in a world where he had experienced no lack of contradictions as he strode along.

The eyes were not very brilliant, but they had a quiet clearness; there was enough of brow, and well-shaped; rather too much cheek ('horse face' I have heard satirists say); face of squarish shape, and decidedly longish, as I think the head itself was (its length going horizontal); he was large-boned, lean, but still firm-knit, tall, and strong-looking when he stood, a right good old steel-gray figure, with rustic simplicity and dignity about him, and a vivacious strength looking through him, which might have suited one of those old steel-gray markgrafs whom Henry the Fowler set up towards the 'marches'

and do battle with the intrusive heathen in a stalwart and judicious manner."

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

Born, April 7, 1770, at c.o.c.kermouth, c.u.mberland.

Goes to Hawkshead Grammar School, 1778.

Sent by guardians to St. John's College, Cambridge, October, 1787.

Foreign tour with Jones, 1790.

Graduates as B.A. without honors, January, 1791.

Residence in France, November, 1791, to December, 1792.

Publication of _The Evening Walk_, and _Descriptive Sketches_, 1793.

Legacy from Raisley Calvert of 900 pounds, 1794.

Lives at Racedown, Dorsets.h.i.+re, autumn of 1795 to summer of 1797.

Composes _The Borderers_, a tragedy, 1795-1796.

Close friends.h.i.+p with Coleridge begins in 1797.

Rents a house at Alfoxden, 1797.

Genesis of the _Lyrical Ballads_, 1797.

_Lyrical Ballads_ published September, 1798.

German visit, September, 1798, to April, 1799.

Lives at Dove Cottage, Grasmere, December 21, 1799 to 1806, 1807-1808.

The Lonsdale debt of 8,500 pounds repaid, 1802.

Marries Mary Hutchinson, October, 1802.

Death by drowning of his brother, Captain John Wordsworth, 1805.

Lives at Coleorton, Leicesters.h.i.+re, 1806 to 1807.

Collected Edition of poems, 1807.

Lives at Allan Bank, Easedale, 1808 to 1810.

Lives at the Parsonage, Grasmere, 1810 to 1812.

Loss of two children and removal to Rydal Mount, Grasmere, 1813 to 1850.

Appointed distributor of stamps for Westmoreland (400 pounds a year), 1813.

_The Excursion_ appears, July, 1814.

Honorary degree of D.C.L. from Oxford, 1839.

Resigns his office as distributor of stamps, 1842.

Receives a pension from Sir R. Peel of 300 pounds, 1842.

Appointed Poet Laureate, 1843.

Dies at Grasmere, April 23, 1850.