Grasmere. The deaths of two of his children in 1812 made it impossible to stay in a place which, standing quite close to the churchyard, was to the parents an hourly reminder of their loss. In the early months of 1813, then, they moved to Rydal Mount, close to Ambleside, which was to be Wordsworth's home for the remainder of his long life. He was at the same time appointed Distributor of Stamps for the county of Westmoreland. Wordsworth now resided at Rydal as in a "Sabine valley," void of care and disturbance, with a few neighbours whom he distinguished with his friendship, and who deserved it. He became more and more conservative in his attitude towards life, and it is obvious that rather early what is called progress passed him by. After 1810, moreover, he grew gradually fossilised, or at least unbending, in his attitude to literature also, and the most fruitful portion of his career closes with the publication of The Excursion in 1814. In 1815 he published The White Doe of Rylstone, his only long poem with a story; and in a famous brace of essays, in which a reissue of his minor lyrics was set, he summed up his practical theory of poetics. In 1820 he issued his Sonnets on the River Duddon, and in 1820 he wrote a great deal of verse during a prolonged visit to Switzerland and Italy. The Ecclesiastical Sketches and Memorials of a Tour on the Continent Peel Castle, the subject of Wordsworth's Poem After the Picture by Sir George Beaumont in 1834 he was called upon to bear the death of Coleridge. In 1835 he published Yarrow Revisited. All this time his reputation was steadily increasing, and he was seen magnified in that "celestial light" which Keble attributed to his genius. When Southey died in 1843, Wordsworth was with difficulty persuaded to yield to the Queen's personal wish, and accept the post of Poet Laureate. In M William Wordsworth From a Drawing by " Alfred Croquis" [Daniel Maclise] 1847 his daughter, Dora Quillinan, died at Rydal, and her loss was a wound which never healed. He sank from weakness, resulting on an attack of pleurisy, on the 23rd of April 1850, and his last words were, "Is that Dora ?" He had just entered his eighty-first year. Wordsworth possessed a temperament of rare concentration, and he had the power of retiring. to the inner fount of his own being, and resting there, to a degree scarcely paralleled in literary history. A heroic inward happiness, founded upon exalted reflection, is the keynote of Wordsworth's character. "Fits of poetic inspiration," as Aubrey de Vere has told us, "descended on him like a cloud, and, till the cloud had drifted, he could see nothing beyond." In these fits Wordsworth was, in his own words, "exalted to the highest pitch of delight by the joyousness and beauty of nature." The personal appearance of this most spiritual of poets was apt to disappoint his hasty admirers. He looked a tall, bony, Cumbrian yeoman, with a hard-featured countenance, honest and grave, but in no sense, and at no time of life, beautiful. FROM "TINTERN ABBEY." O sylvan Wye! Thou wand'rer through the woods, And now, with gleams of half-extinguish'd thought, And somewhat of a sad perplexity, The picture of the mind revives again : While here I stand, not only with the sense Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts That in this moment there is life and food For future years. And so I dare to hope, Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first My dear Cottle a Incided your letter 5L Bank note. Jam in want of money I shall therefore be abliged to you will remit remit to me not to if you My Brother as и before requested) can wrth your umaining 15 t as soon as you d. out inconvenience. Thost probably Stationent is accurate for myself nothing about it. What I told you was from Dorothy's one mory is by the ans certain about it, she is 20 You till me the poems have not sold ill. If it we got, able Iscould wish to know what number have been sotch.. Letter from Wordsworth to Cottle that the Angent Marone has afon From what I can ather it seems the whole ben njury to the volume, I. An mean that the old wars I the strangeness of it ham deferred on If the volume should from going to a eccond Edition I would but. is ats place some little thing which would be more Whely to suit the common taste. over you send the losh money. this letter & reply to this part of it. Schall be obliged to you if you will send me three cofres of the Ballads mclosed your parcel to Charles Ho Ishall carly get be are with which from highly gratified by the affections._ you othef in Somersetshire. to see us ay ay wi get mined where we shall settled. for ・deter you love to dear Cottle 3 her very God bless you your affectionate F Madwork our box, we do not at present you for your care of want any 9 its contents. pear Sockburn Northallerton Gorheten To be left at Tomaton boy have never heard from Coleridge our arrival in England, we are any your for news of him. I hope he is coming home is he does not write to us M |