'MOST SWEET IT IS WITH UNUPLIFTED EYES' 'A POET! HE HATH PUT HIS HEART TO SCHOOL I. THE LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. WORDSWORTH'S life was quiet and uneventful. The main facts are given in the following memoranda dictated by the poet himself, in November, 1847, at the request of his nephew and biographer, Rev. Christopher Wordsworth, D.D. :* "I was born at Cockermouth, in Cumberland, on April 7th, 1770, the second son of John Wordsworth, attorney-atlaw as lawyers of this class were then called-and lawagent to Sir James Lowther, afterwards Earl of Lonsdale. My mother was Anne, only daughter of William Cookson, mercer, of Penrith, and of Dorothy, born Crackanthorp, of the ancient family of that name, who from the times of Edward the Third had lived in Newbiggen Hall, Westmoreland. My grandfather was the first of the name of Wordsworth who came into Westmoreland, where he purchased the small estate of Sockbridge. He was descended from a family who had been settled at Peniston, in Yorkshire, near the sources of the Don, probably before the Norman Conquest. Their names appear on different occasions in all the transactions, personal and public, connected with that parish; and I possess, through the kindness of Colonel Beaumont, an almery, made in 1525, at the expense of a William Wordsworth, as is expressed in a Latin inscription carved upon it, which carries the pedigree of the family back four generations from himself. The time of my infancy and early boyhood was passed partly at Cockermouth, and partly with my mother's parents at Penrith, where my mother, in the year 1778, died of a decline, brought on by a cold, in consequence of being put, at a friend's house in London, in what used to be called 'a best bedroom.' My father never recovered his usual cheerfulness of mind after this loss, and died *For a fuller treatment of the subject see Memoirs of William Wordsworth, by Christopher Wordsworth, D.D. (London, 1851; reprinted in Boston same year), or better, the Wordsworth by F. W. H. Myers in the "English Men of Letters" series (London, 1884; reprinted by the Harpers same year, and in cheaper form in their "Handy Series," 1887); also The Prelude, of which there is an excellent American edition with notes by Mr. A. J. George (Boston, 1887). when I was in my fourteenth year, a school-boy, just returned from Hawkshead, whither I had been sent with my elder brother Richard in my ninth year. "I remember my mother only in some few situations, one of which was her pinning a nosegay to my breast, when I was going to say the catechism in the church, as was customary before Easter. An intimate friend of hers told me that she once said to her that the only one of her five children about whose future life she was anxious was William; and he, she said, would be remarkable either for good or for evil. The cause of this was that I was of a stiff, moody, and violent temper; so much so that I remember going once into the attics of my grandfather's house at Penrith, upon some indignity having been put upon me, with an intention of destroying myself with one of the foils which I knew was kept there. I took the foil in hand, but my heart failed. Upon another occasion, while I was at my grandfather's house at Penrith, along with my eldest brother, Richard, we were whipping tops together in the large drawing-room, on which the carpet was only laid down upon particular occasions. The walls were hung round with family pictures, and I said to my brother, 'Dare you strike your whip through that old lady's petticoat?' He replied, ‘No, I won't.' 'Then,' said I, ‘here goes!' and I struck my lash through her hooped petticoat; for which, no doubt, though I have forgotten it, I was properly punished. But, possibly from some want of judgment. in punishments inflicted, I had become perverse and obstinate in defying chastisement, and rather proud of it than otherwise. "Of my earliest days at school I have little to say, but that they were very happy ones, chiefly because I was left at liberty then, and in the vacations, to read whatever books I liked. For example, I read all Fielding's works, Don Quixote, Gil Blas, and any part of Swift that I liked-Gulliver's Travels and the Tale of a Tub being both much to my taste. |