CHAPTER VII. COLLEGE VACATIONS. UNIVERSITY life in England is diversified and relieved by vacations, of which that which recurs in the summer months is of sufficient length to afford a complete change of scene to the mind of the student. This is often a fortunate circumstance, and it was particularly so in the case of William Wordsworth. If his university course had been continued with little and brief intermission throughout the year, or if he had spent his vacations at Cambridge, it is probable that the influences derived from early familiarity with the grand and beautiful operations of nature, which had given vigour and independence to his intellect, and fervour to his imagination, would have become feebler and feebler, and that his spiritual and moral being would have declined in dignity, and have been impaired in strength. Happily for him, he returned for his first summer vacation, in 1788, to his beloved vale of Esthwaite. The young collegian lodged in the same house, and slept in the same bed, as that which he had occupied when a school-boy. He revisited his old haunts. The spirit of the lake and the vale, -the fresh air of the woods, and fields, and mountains, breathed new life into his soul. He derived new buoyancy and energy from the scenes of his early days, as one who has long been languishing on a bed of sickness drinks in health from the breezes of some beautiful region in which he was born. The revivifying effects of this natural agency are described by Wordsworth in the fourth book of his autobiographical poem: "When from our better selves we have too long And, describing the effect of one of his walks at early dawn at this time, and in this country, he says, "My heart was full; I made no vows, but vows "2 In thankful blessedness, which yet survives." Portions of his vacations were spent in other beautiful parts of England. His mother's relatives resided at Penrith, on the southern frontier of Cumberland. Here he was restored to the society of his sister, and of her who was one day to be nearer to him than a sister. He enjoyed with them those delightful scenes by which Penrith is surrounded. He mounted the Border Beacon, on the north-east of the town; and on that eminence, now overgrown with fir-trees which intercept the view, but which was then free and open, and displayed a glorious panorama, he beheld the wide plain stretched far and near below, closed by the dark hills of Ulleswater on the west, and by the dim ridges of Scotland on the north. 1 Prelude, p. 99. 3 Ibid. p. 144, 145. 2 Ibid. p. 99. The road from Penrith towards Appleby, on the south-east, passes, at about a mile's distance, the romantic ruins of that "monastic castle, mid tall trees, Lowstanding by the margin of the stream,' where the river Lowther flows into the Emont, which descends from the lake of Ulleswater through a beautiful and fertile valley, in which, at the village of Sockbridge, some of Wordsworth's ancestors lived, and where, at the church of Barton, some of them lie buried. That "monastic castle" is Brougham Castle, a noble and picturesque ruin. This was a favourite resort of the youthful Poet and his sister: "Those mouldering towers Have seen us side by side, when having clomb In after times, this castle was to be the subject of one of his noblest lyrical effusions, the "Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle:" High in the breathless hall the minstrel sate, And Emont's murmur mingled with the song."3 A little beyond the castle, by the road-side, stands the Countess' Pillar, a record of filial affection and Christian charity, to which also he has paid a poetical 1 Prelude, p. 143. 2 Ibid. p. 144. 3 Vol. ii. p. 144. tribute1; and the woods of Lowther, at a short distance on the south, were ever associated in his memory with the delightful days which he passed in his vacations at Penrith, and were afterwards the scene of intellectual enjoyment in the society of the noble family whose name they bear. A remarkable person, and one connected by friendship with the Poet, lived, between Penrith and Lowther, at Yanwath. This was Mr. Thomas Wilkinson, a quaker, a poet, a professor of the topiarian art, a designer of walks, prospects, and pleasure-grounds. Spade! with which Wilkinson hath tilled his lands, And shaped these pleasant walks by Emont's side," and the verses which follow, will hand down the name of Wilkinson to posterity, together with that of John Evelyn, and the Corycian old man of Virgil. William Wordsworth's last summer college-vacation was spent in a pedestrian tour in France. He was accompanied by his friend and brother collegian, Robert Jones, of Plas-yn-llan, near Ruthin, in Denbighshire, and afterwards a fellow of St. John's College, and incumbent of Soulderne, near Deddington, in Oxfordshire, the parsonage of which is so happily described in the sonnet "Where holy ground begins, unhallowed ends, Is marked by no distinguishable line.” 3 The character of Mr. Jones was drawn by the Poet in the lines beginning "I marvel how Nature could ever find space For so many strange contrasts in one human face."4 1 Vol. iii. p. 236. 3 Vol. ii. p. 300. 2 Vol. iv. p. 202. 4 Vol. iv. p. 183. The tourists quitted Dover for Calais on July 13th, 1790,- a memorable era in the history of the French Revolution, -the eve of the day when the king took an oath of fidelity to the new constitution. "JONES! as from Calais southward you and I Streamed with the pomp of a too credulous day, A letter has been preserved, addressed to his sister, which describes some of the impression's made by this tour; and it will be read with interest as a record of his feelings, and a specimen of his style, at that period of his life 2: 1 Vol. iii. p. 54.; see also Prelude, p. 149. 2 The route of the tourists was as follows: July 13. Calais. 14. Ardres. 17. Peronne. 18. Village near Coucy. 19. Soissons. 20. Château Thierry. 21. Sezanne. 22. Village near Troyes. 23. Bar le Duc. 24. Chatillon sur Seine. 26. Nuits. 27. Châlons. 28. Châlons. 29. On the Saone. 30. Lyons. 31. Condrieu. Aug. 1. Moreau. 2. Voreppe. 3. Village near Chartreuse. 4. Chartreuse. 6. Aix. 7. Town in Savoy. Aug. 8. Town on Lake of Geneva. 9. Lausanne. 10. Villeneuve. 11. St. Maurice in the Valais. 12. Chamouny. 13. Chamouny. 14. Martigny. 15. Village beyond Sion. 17. Spital on Alps. 18. Margozza. 19. Village beyond Lago 20. Village on Lago di Como. dona. 22. Jones at Chiavenna; W. W. at Samolaco. 23. Sovozza. 24. Splugen. 25. Flems. 26. Dissentis. 27. Village on the Reuss. |