William Wordsworth was born at Cockermouth, Cumberland, 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 asset was a considerable claim upon the
Earl of Lonsdale, which that individual refused to pay. On his death,
in 1802, the successor to the title and estates paid the amount of the
claim in full with accumulated interest. In the interval, however, the
Wordsworth family remained in very straitened circumstances. 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
constituted the one moral struggle of his life.
In 1793 his first work appeared before the public--two poems, entitled
_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 Dorsetshire. 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 companionship 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
friendship 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 principal 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 principally 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 passages exhibiting his powers of graphic description,
and illustrating 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."