Chapter Wolfe to Wordsworth of W by Biographical Dictionary of English Literature

pension of £300. The following year, 1843, he succeeded Southey as Poet Laureate. His long, tranquil, and fruitful life ended in 1850. He lies buried in the churchyard of Grasmere. After his death the Prelude, finished in 1805, was published It had been kept back because the great projected poem of which it was to have been the preface, and of which The Excursion is a part, was never completed.

The work of Wordsworth is singularly unequal. When at his best, as in the “Intimations of Immortality,” “Laodamia,” some passages in The Excursion, and some of his short pieces, and especially his sonnets, he rises to heights of noble inspiration and splendour of language rarely equalled by any of our poets. But it required his poetic fire to be at fusing point to enable him to burst through his natural tendency to prolixity and even dulness. His extraordinary lack of humour and the, perhaps consequent, imperfect power of self-criticism by which it was accompanied, together with the theory of poetic theme and diction with which he hampered himself, led him into a frequent choice of trivial subjects and childish language which excited not unjust ridicule, and long delayed the general recognition of his genius. He has a marvellous felicity of phrase, an unrivalled power of describing natural appearances and effects, and the most ennobling views of life and duty. But his great distinguishing characteristic is his sense of the mystic relations between man and nature. His influence on contemporary and succeeding thought and literature has been profound and lasting. It should be added that Wordsworth, like Milton, with whom he had many points in common, was the master of a noble and expressive prose style.

Summary.—Born 1770, educated at Cambridge, sympathiser with French Revolution in earlier stages, first publication Tour in the Alps and Evening Walk 1793, became acquainted with Coleridge 1795, published with him Lyrical Ballads 1798, visits Germany and begins Prelude, returns to England and settles at Grasmere, published second edition of Lyrical Ballads, with some additions, 1800, married Mary Hutchinson 1802, visits Scotland 1804 and becomes acquainted with Scott, published Poems in Two Volumes 1807, goes to Rydal Mount 1813, appointed Distributor of Stamps, revisits Scotland, writes Yarrow Visited and published The Excursion 1814, White Doe and collected works 1815, Waggoner, Ecclesiastical Sonnets, etc., 1819-35, pensioned 1842, Poet Laureate 1843, died 1850.

There are numerous good edition of the poems, including his own by Moxon (1836, 1845, and 1850), and those by Knight (1882-86), Morley (1888), Dowden (1893), Smith (1908). Another by Knight in 16 vols. includes the prose writings and the Journal by Dorothy (1896-97). Lives by Christopher Wordsworth (1857), Myers (1880), and others. See also criticism by W. Raleign (1903).