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Yes, I was an only son. I was an only child also, speaking as the world speaks, and not as Wordsworth's "simple child" spoke. But let me rather use the "little maid's" reckoning, and say that I have, rather than that I had, a sister. "Her grave is green, it may be seen." She peeped into the world, and we called her Alice; then she went away again and took my mother with her.
And Wordsworth's living successor to the laurel no less participates with him in his appreciation of their forgotten brother.
The autobiographical notes on his own works above alluded to were dictated by the poet to his friend Miss Isabella Fenwick, at her urgent request, in 1843, and preserve many interesting particulars as to the circumstances under which each poem was composed. They are to be found printed entire among Wordsworth's prose works, and I shall therefore cite them only occasionally.
On the Saturday, the Sunday, and ten days after my arrival at Stowey, I felt a depression too dreadful to be described. So much I felt my genial spirits droop, My hopes all flat; Nature within me seemed In all her functions, weary of herself, Wordsworth's conversation aroused me somewhat, but even now I am not the man I have been, and I think I never shall.
But Wordsworth's school-time was happy too. Hawkshead was among the beautiful lake and mountain scenery that he loved. He had a great deal of freedom, and out of school hours could take long rambles, day and night too. When moon and stars were shining he would wander among the hills until the spirit of the place laid hold of him, and he says
As we entered the room, and I saw Rogers sitting there so venerable and strange, I was reminded of that line of Wordsworth's, "The oldest man he seemed that ever wore gray hair." But old as he was, he seemed full of verve, vivacity, and decision. Knowing his homage for Ben Franklin, I had brought to him as a gift from America an old volume issued by the patriot printer in 1741.
Wordsworth's former admirers, as conclusive on this occasion. If these volumes, which have all the benefit of the author's former popularity, turn out to be nearly as popular as the lyrical ballads if they sell nearly to the same extent or are quoted and imitated among half as many individuals, we shall admit that Mr.
The lad with us had been learning Wordsworth's "Rainbow," a favorite of Mr. Burroughs, and it was no unusual thing of a morning to hear the rustic philosopher while frying the bacon for breakfast, singing contentedly in a sort of tune of his own making: "And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety."
There was, indeed, a frugal and housewifely Muse, that brewed a cup, neither cheering unduly nor inebriating, out of the emptyings of Wordsworth's teapot. How that little busy B. improved each shining hour, how neatly he laid his wax, it gives us a cold shiver to think of, ancora ci raccappriccia!
The country squires and farmers whose blood flowed in Wordsworth's veins were not far enough above local life to be out of sympathy with it, and the poet's interest in the common scenes and common folk of the North Country hills and dales had a traceable hereditary bias.
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