WILLIAM WORDSWORTH was born at Cockermouth, in Cumberland, April 7, 1770. His father was an attorney. William was educated at Penrith, at Hawkshead, and finally at Cambridge, where he graduated in 1791. He excelled in the classics, but otherwise was a poor student so far as the curriculum was concerned. He gave his time mainly to poetry, which he had begun to write at the age of thirteen.

During his last year in college he went on foot through France, and after graduating he visited that country again. He was strongly in sympathy with the revolution, and it is said that his intimacy with the Girondists was such as would have put him in serious danger, had he not been | compelled by his limited means to return to England. In 1793 he published two poems: "Descriptive Sketches, taken during a Pedes. trian Tour among the Alps," and "An Evening Walk, addressed to a Young Lady." Though these pieces exhibited somewhat of his peculiar genius, they made no special impression, and for a time the poet was in a dilemma what to do for a living. His friends urged him to take orders, but he would not consent to do any thing for which he had not a natural taste and aptitude. The problem was solved in a seemingly providential way. In 1795 an intimate friend of Wordsworth's, who had faith in his genius, dying, bequeathed him £900 for the special purpose of securing him leisure in which to cultivate his poetical powers.

Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy at once settled at Racedown Lodge, Dorsetshire; but in 1797 they removed to Alfoxden, Somersetshire, to be near Coleridge. Here the two young poets made a volume together, "Lyrical Ballads," and published it at Bristol in 1798; but it met with no success. Wordsworth, thoroughly believing in himself, and undaunted by the absolute indifference which the public manifested to his poetry, made a tour in Germany, and on his return

settled permanently in Cumberland, first at Grasmere and finally at Rydal Mount.

In 1802 he and his sister came into possession of some money which had been in litigation for twenty years, and thenceforth enjoyed a competence. Wordsworth at once married his cousin, Mary Hutchinson. In 1813 he was appointed distributor of stamps for Westinoreland, with a salary of £500.

He had published two volumes of poems in 1807, and in 1814 he brought out "The Excursion," his longest poem, which was intended as one section of an immense work to be called "The Recluse." Up to this time the critics had ridiculed Wordsworth unmercifully for the persistency with which he spent his poetical powers on mean and trivial subjects. Yet a few admirers had always insisted that a new genius had risen, and after the publication of "The Excursion" this began to be generally acknowledged. "Peter Bell," published in 1819, was a relapse into that for which he had been justly ridiculed; but some of his later poems again exhibited his real genius. Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey, who all lived in the lake district, became known as "the lake school," which at first was used as a term of contempt.

In 1842 Wordsworth received a government pension of £300 per annum. The same year he issued a collected edition of his works. In 1843, on the death of Southey, he became poetlaureate. He died on the 23d of April, 1850. "The Prelude," a long autobiographical poem in blank verse, was published posthumously.

It has become the fashion within a few years to admire Wordsworth violently and to believe in the plenary inspiration of his poems. But in truth there is scarcely a poet whose works demand so much discrimination, who has at once soared so far into the clear ether of song and dived so deeply into the utter depths of silliness.

THE EXCURSION.

BOOK FIRST.-THE WANDERER.

'Twas summer, and the sun had mounted high:
Southward the landscape indistinctly glared
Through a pale steam: but all the northern
In clearest air ascending, show'd far off [downs,
A surface dappled o'er with shadows flung
From brooding clouds: shadows that lay in spots
Determined and unmoved, with steady beams
Of bright and pleasant sunshine interposed;
Pleasant to him who on the soft cool moss
Extends his careless limbs along the front

Of some huge cave, whose rocky ceiling casts
A twilight of its own, an ample shade, [man,
Where the wren warbles; while the dreaming
Half conscious of the soothing melody,
With sidelong eye looks out upon the scene,
By power of that impending covert thrown
To finer distance. Other lot was mine;
Yet with good hope that soon I should obtain
As grateful resting-place, and livelier joy.
Across a bare wide common I was toiling
With languid steps that by the slippery ground
Were baffled; nor could my weak arm disperse
The host of insects gathering round my face,
And ever with me as I paced along.

Upon that open level stood a grove, [bound. The wish'd-for port to which my course was

Thither I came, and there, amid the gloom
Spread by a brotherhood of lofty elms,
Appear'd a roofless hut; four naked walls
That stared upon each other! I looked round,
And to my wish and to my hope espied
Him whom I sought; a man of reverend age,
But stout and hale, for travel unimpair'd.
There was he seen upon the cottage bench,
Recumbent in the shade, as if asleep;
An iron-pointed staff lay at his side.

Him had I mark'd the day before-alone
And station'd in the public way, with face

His graces unreveal'd and unproclaim'd.
But, as the mind was fill'd with inward light,
So not without distinction had he lived,
Beloved and honour'd-far as he was known.
And some small portion of his eloquent speech,
And something that may serve to set in view
The feeling pleasures of his loneliness,
His observations, and the thoughts his mind
Had dealt with-I will here record in verse;
Which, if with truth it correspond, and sink
Or rise as venerable nature leads,
The high and tender muses shall accept

Detain'd for contemplation or repose,

Graceful support; his countenance meanwhile
Was hidden from my view, and he remain'd
Unrecognised; but, stricken by the sight,
With slacken'd footsteps I advanced, and soon
A glad congratulation we exchanged,
At such unthought of meeting.-For the night
We parted, nothing willingly; and now
He by appointment waited for me here,
Beneath the shelter of these clustering elms.

We were tried friends: amid a pleasant vale,
In the antique market village where were pass'd
My school-days, an apartment he had own'd,
To which at intervals the Wanderer drew,
And found a kind of home or harbour there.
He loved me; from a swarm of rosy boys
Singled out me, as he in sport would say,
For my grave looks-too thoughtful for my years.
As I grew up, it was my best delight
To be his chosen comrade. Many a time,
On holydays, we rambled through the woods:
We sate-we walk'd; he pleased me with report
Of things which he had seen; and often touch'd
Abstrusest matter, reasonings of the mind
Turn'd inward; or at my request would sing
Old songs-the product of his native hills;
A skilful distribution of sweet sounds,
Feeding the soul, and eagerly imbibed
As cool, refreshing water by the care
Of the industrious husbandman, diffused [drought,
Through a parch'd meadow-ground, in time of
Still deeper welcome found his pure discourse:
How precious when in riper days I learn'd
To weigh with care his words, and to rejoice
In the plain presence of his dignity!

O! many are the poets that are sown By nature; men endow'd with highest gifts, The vision and the faculty divine; Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse, (Which, in the docile season of their youth, It was denied them to acquire, through lack Of culture and th' inspiring aid of books, Or haply by a temper too severe, Or a nice backwardness afraid of shame,) Not having here as life advanced, been led By circumstance to take unto the height The measure of themselves, these favour'd beings, All but a scatter'd few, live out their time, Husbanding that which they possess within, And go to the grave unthought of. Strongest minds Are often those of whom the noisy world Hears least; else surely this man had not left

And listening time reward with sacred praise.
Among the hills of Athol he was born;
Where, on a small hereditary farm,

An unproductive slip of rugged ground,

His parents, with their numerous offspring, dwelt
A virtuous household, though exceeding poor!
Pure livers were they all, austere and grave,
And fearing God; the very children taught
Stern self-respect, a reverence for God's word,
And an habitual piety, maintain'd

With strictness scarcely known on English ground
From his sixth year, the boy of whom I speak,
In summer tended cattle on the hills;
But, through th' inclement and the perilous days
Of long-continuing winter, he repair'd,
Equipp'd with satchel, to a school, that stood
Sole building on a mountain's dreary edge,
Remote from view of city spire, or sound
Of minster clock! From that bleak tenement
He, many an evening, to his distant home
In solitude returning, saw the hills
Grow larger in the darkness, all alone
Beheld the stars come out above his head,
And travell'd through the wood, with no one near
To whom he might confess the things he saw.
So the foundations of his mind were laid.
In such communion, not from terror free,
While yet a child, and long before his time,
He had perceived the presence and the power
Of greatness; and deep feelings had impress'd
Great objects on his mind, with portraiture
And colour so distinct, that on his mind
They lay like substances, and almost seem'd
To haunt the bodily sense. He had received
A precious gift; for, as he grew in years,
With these impressions would he still compare
All his remembrances, thoughts, shapes, and forms
And, being still unsatisfied with aught
Of dimmer character, he thence attain'd
An active power to fasten images
Upon his brain; and on their pictured lines
Intensely brooded, even till they acquired
The liveliness of dreams. Nor did he fail,
While yet a child, with a child's eagerness
Incessantly to turn his ear and eye
On all things which the moving seasons brought
To feed such appetite: nor this alone
Appeased his yearning:-in the after day
Of boyhood, many an hour in caves forlorn,
And mid the hollow depths of naked crags
He sate, and e'en in their fix'd lineaments,
Or from the power of a peculiar eye,
Or by creative feeling overborne.