Hawkshead furnished him not only with images of natural beauty, which enlarged and elevated his thoughts, and gave power, freshness, and grandeur to his imagination; but it also supplied material for the exercise of reflection and the affections. The character of "Matthew "1 was doubtless formed in part from remembrances of his own instructors. His musings in the church-yard on the grave of his youthful playmate — "There was a boy; ye knew him well, ye cliffs And islands of Winander " 2 are full of pathos as well as of imaginative beauty. The "Lines left upon a Seat in a Yew Tree near Esthwaite Lake" indicate a nice observation of human character, and are a noble protest against moody selfishness and pride. To which it may be added that the portraits of the Hanoverian and Non-Juror of "The Excursion"4 were drawn from recollections at Hawkshead. 66 3 Concerning the lines left upon a yew-tree seat, Mr. Wordsworth thus expressed himself in 18435: Composed in part at school at Hawkshead. The tree has disappeared, and the slip of common on which it stood, that ran parallel to the lake, and lay open to it, has long been enclosed, so that the road has lost much of its attraction. This spot was my favourite walk in the evenings during the latter part of my schooltime. The individual whose habits and character are here given was a gentleman of the neighbourhood, a man of talent and learning, who had been educated at one of our universities, and returned to pass his 1 Vol. iv. p. 193-197. 3 Vol. i. p. 39. 5 MSS. I. F. 2 Prelude, p. 122. time in seclusion on his own estate. He died a bachelor in middle age. Induced by the beauty of the prospect, he built a small summer-house on the rocks above the peninsula on which the ferry-house stands. "This property afterwards passed into the hands of the late Mr. Curwen. The site was long ago pointed out by Mr. West in his "Guide" as the pride of the Lakes, and now goes by the name of "The Station." So much used I to be delighted with the view from it, while a little boy, that some years before the first pleasure-house was built, I led thither from Hawkshead a youngster about my own age, an Irish boy, who was a servant to an itinerant conjuror. My motive was to witness the pleasure I expected the boy would receive from the prospect of the islands below, and the intermingling water. I was not disappointed." Nature appears to have done more for Wordsworth than books; yet he was not remiss as a student. He read much of English literature, especially works of imagination. He knew a great deal of English poetry by heart; and he wrote English verses at school. At that time it was not the custom of north-country schools to exercise their pupils much in classical composition. But Wordsworth was a fair Latin scholar; and he had made respectable progress in mathematics before he left school. His feelings on quitting Hawkshead are expressed in the lines — "Dear native regions, I foretell, His father had died while William was yet a schoolboy, and left him and his three brothers, and his sister, orphans in the year 1783. His father's estate was derived mainly from professional labour; and at his death the bulk of his fortune consisted in sums due to him from Sir James Lowther, afterwards Earl Lonsdale, whose legal agent he was. This debt was claimed on behalf of the orphans; but in vain. It remained unpaid till the Earl's death, in 1802, when it was liquidated, in a prompt and liberal manner, by his successor, the late Earl Lonsdale. At their father's decease the brothers were placed under the care of their two uncles, Richard Wordsworth and Christopher Crackanthorpe; and in the year 1787 William was sent by them to the University of Cambridge. 45 CHAPTER VI. COLLEGE LIFE. १ In the month of October, 1787, William Wordsworth, then in the eighteenth year of his age, commenced his residence at St. John's College, Cambridge. His feelings on his first arrival at the university are vividly pourtrayed by himself in his biographical poem.1 He there also describes his occupations; and to that description the reader is referred. Suffice it to say, the picture is not a bright one. In some respects he was not very well prepared to profit by the influences of the university. His previous scholastic training had not been of a kind to qualify him for pursuing the studies of Cambridge with the same prospect of success as was within the reach of students tutored in the great public schools. Hence, intellectually, he and the university were not in full sympathy with each other. Besides, he had never been subject to restraint: his school days were days of freedom; and latterly, since the death of his parents, he was almost entirely his own master. In addition to this, his natural temperament was eager, impetuous, and impatient of control. he says, "While yet an innocent, I breathed,” 1 Prelude, books iii. and vi. Among wild appetites, and blind desires, He was not prepared by habit or disposition to submit with genial affection and reverent humility to the discipline of a college; especially when that discipline was administered by some who did not appear to comprehend its true meaning, and did not embody its spirit in their lives. But, on the other hand, William Wordsworth brought with him to Cambridge an imagination elevated, an intellect enlarged, and affections solemnised, by intercourse with the powers of nature in their most majestic form. And he had a clear sense of what was noble, just, and true. If, therefore, the tone of the university had then been higher than it was if the lives of the members of the university, and especially of its rulers, had been holierif a spirit of dignified self-respect and severe selfdenial had breathed in their deportment and if an adequate appreciation of what was due to the memory and injunctions of their founders and benefactors, and a religious reverence for the inheritance of piety, wisdom, and learning, bequeathed to them by antiquity, had manifested itself in their practice; then, it can hardly be doubted, the authentic influence of the academic system would have made itself felt by him. Cambridge would have stamped its image upon the mind of Wordsworth; he would have paid it dutiful homage, filial obedience, and affectionate veneration. But, at that period of academic history, the case First book of "The Recluse," still unpublished. |