MEMOIRS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. CHAPTER XXXII. REMOVAL TO RYDAL. In the spring of 1811, Mr. Wordsworth removed his family from Allan Bank, in consequence of the desire of the proprietor to occupy it with his own household, and he took up a temporary abode at the Parsonage, which is separate from the western boundary of the churchyard at Grasmere by the Keswick road. This sojourn was saddened by affliction. Two of his children, Catharine and Thomas, as before mentioned, died at the Parsonage, after a very short illness, the one on June 4th, 1812, the other on the 1st December of the same year. Under other circumstances, it would have been very difficult for him to withdraw from the Vale of Grasmere, which had been the first object of his choice in the beautiful region of the lakes, and had been his home for twelve years. But now its beauties were mingled with sad 6 6 reminiscences. The house,' he says, in a letter to Lord Lonsdale, which I have for some time occupied, is the Parsonage of Grasmere. It stands close by the churchyard' (where his two children were buried), and I have found it absolutely necessary that we should quit a place which, by recalling to our minds at every moment the losses we have sustained in the course of the last year, would grievously retard our progress towards that tranquillity which it is our duty to aim at.' This was written in the first freshness of sorrow; and it so happened, that a very desirable residence was then about to become vacant in the neighbourhood, about two miles distant from Grasmere; and thus a favourable occasion offered itself for a removal. This was RYDAL MOUNT. Thither Mr. Wordsworth migrated with his wife, his sister, sister-in-law, and three children, in the spring of 1813, and there he resided till his death in 1850. This place has been already described in a previous chapter. In that delineation, I have described its appearance by day, but have not touched on its nocturnal aspect. In the lines prefixed to the later editions of his poems, the author apostrophizes himself, and says, 'If thou indeed derive thy light from heaven, Then, to the measure of that heavenborn light, These and the following lines were suggested by the view of the starry heavens, as seen at Rydal Mount. On these verses the Poet said, 'They were written some time after we had become resident at Rydal Mount; and I will take occasion from them to observe upon the beauty of that situation, as being backed and flanked by lofty fells, 1 Dated Jan. 8, 1813. which bring the heavenly bodies to touch, as it were, the earth upon the mountain-tops, while the prospect in front lies open to a length of level valley, the extended lake, and a terminating ridge of low hills; so that it gives an opportunity to the inhabitants of the place of noticing the stars in both the positions here alluded to, namely, on the tops of the mountains, and as winter-lamps at a distance among the leafless trees.'1 The change of residence to Rydal was marked by another personal incident of importance in Mr. Wordsworth's life. This was his appointment to the distributorship of stamps in the county of Westmoreland: he was nominated to that situation on the 27th March, 1813. Whether his literary merits might have then been thought sufficient of themselves to entitle him to public recognition and reward, is not easy to say; certain it is he was indebted to that truly noble-minded person, the late Lord Lonsdale, for representing his claims, and for supporting them by his influence; and it was undoubtedly, in a great measure, through his lordship's good offices, that Mr. Wordsworth was placed in a situation which raised his income to an easy competency, and freed him from private cares, without oppressing him with public ones : he was released from anxiety, without forfeiting leisure and liberty; he was also left in his own picturesque county. Hence in the year following, he was able to complete and publish The Excursion,' in a prefatory sonnet to which he thus speaks : Now, by thy care befriended, I appear Before thee, LONSDALE; and this work present, ' MSS. I. F. It were much to be desired, that such situations as these were more numerous than they are, and that those which exist were more carefully conferred. They are better than pensions, as rewards for literary men; for they do not encourage the notion, that literary service of the highest order can be compensated by money, and they do not exhibit those who hold them as wearing the livery of a political party, or as stipendiaries of the state. It is no objection to say that some of them are almost sinecures. Mr. Wordsworth's office was by no means a sinecure, as his coadjutor and successor can attest. But, grant that some of these offices are sinecures: what then? A sinecure, which would have relieved Dante or Tasso from the cravings of penury, would have had a function attached to it of the noblest kind. Such sinecures (if so they must be called) are more useful to the public than some laborious offices, the duties of which are discharged with bustling and restless activity. Some time after Mr. Wordsworth received this appointment, another offer was made him of a much more lucrative office, -the collectorship of the town of Whitehaven. This, however, he declined. He had now enough to gratify his moderate desires; and no worldly allurements could remove him from the beautiful retirement of Rydal to a large town. It would be unpardonable to neglect another circumstance connected with his appointment, which tended much to relieve Mr. Wordsworth's mind from care, and to leave him free to follow his literary pursuits. This was his connection with a young man who then came to him as a clerk, Mr. John Carter. Many incidents of a domestic kind occurred in Mr. Wordsworth's life, which contributed, in their due order and degree, to aid in the removal of difficulties, and in the supply of means and appliances, in his poetical career. For example, his antipathy to writing was compensated by the readiness of those around him to commit his words to paper. He held a pen with reluctance and impatience, but he wielded many pens in the hands of others. * And in his official coadjutor, he not only found a person well qualified to administer his affairs, but also a vigilant corrector of the press, a sound scholar, and a judicious critic. And justice would not be done, and Mr. Wordsworth's feelings would be wronged, if his own name went down to posterity unaccompanied by that of one who served him faithfully, zealously, and efficiently for thirty-seven years, and, by thus serving him as he did, conferred a benefit on the world. * * [The following characteristic allusion is made to this subject by his friend Charles Lamb:-'Tell Mrs. W. her postscripts are always agreeable. They are so legible too. Your manual-graphy is terrible, dark as Lycophron. * I should not wonder if the constant making out of such paragraphs is the cause of that weakness in Mrs. W.'s eyes, as she is tenderly pleased to express it. Dorothy, I hear, has mounted spectacles; so you have deoculated two of your dearest relations in life. Well, God bless you, and continue to give you power to write with a finger of power upon our hearts what you fail to impress, in corresponding lucidness, upon our outward eye-sight!'-'Final Memorials of Charles Lamb,' Chap. VI. — H. R.] |