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Gentleman's Magazine 1851 part 2 p.108
disturbing forces in order that he might fully embody the
statuesque pomp of the Hellenic legend, than Wordsworth
abstracted himself from the rougher contacts of society in
order that he might plenarily discharge his functions as the
interpreter and priest of external nature.
The principal documents employed in these memoirs are the
poet's own autobiographical dictations to an intimate female
friend; brief sketches of dates and facts for Dr.
Wordsworth's instruction; a few of his uncle's letters -
strangely few indeed they would seem for a veteran in
literature, did we not learn from more than one of them that
Wordsworth regarded his pen and desk as scarcely preferable
to an oar and bench in the galleys; letters and memoranda
contributed by his family and friends, among which those of
Mr. Justice Coleridge are particularly graphic; and,
finally, extracts from Miss Wordsworth's Journal, which for
grace, expression, and veracity, are the prominent gem, as
well as the principal nucleus, of these volumes. The poet's
sister was indeed, in all respects, a most gifted and
admirable lady - worthy of the affectionate mention of her
in her brother's letters and conversation, worthy of the
more permanent tribute of his verse, and worthy of being
held by all to whom his verse is precious in reverent and
grateful memory - a "clarum et venerabile nomen," wherever
the English language ministers to the instruction, the
consolation, or the imagination of mankind. She was the
sister of his intellect, whose native fervour and occasional
ruggedness were tempered and refined by her superior
sensibility; she catered for his eye and ear at all seasons
of travel or seclusion; she was a consellor well fitted to
advise in either fortune; she was assured of his coming
renown when the name of Wordsworth was almost bandied about
by the public as a bye-word; and her earnest faith was at
length rewarded by the increasing homage of his admirers and
by the certainty of his present and posthumous triumph.
We have so recently, in our notice of the "Prelude,"
surveyed the earlier portions of Wordsworth's life, that, on
this occasion, we shall merely refer briefly to the
favourable character of his education among mountains and a
people of simple yet picturesque manners, to the slight
restraints of his school-days, to his own active and hardy
habits in boyhood, to the unfavourable aspect which
Cambridge presented to him, to his residence in France, and
to the absorbing interest he felt in the first French
Revolution. All these circumstances, indeed, are so fully
and graphically delineated in the "Prelude," that the
reader, with that aurobiographical poem and the Memoirs
before him, would scarcely thank us for anticipating or
abridging so interesting a narrative of the life poetic. For
emphatically "poetic," as regards its plan and
details, Wordsworth's life deserves to be called. We doubt,
if the ends and aims which he set before himself be kept in
view, whether a more consistent life was ever led, or a
happier or more honourable lot ever assigned to man.
Chequered it doubtless was by the ordinary accidents of
mortality, by narrow means, by hope deferreed, and by the
visitations of death. But "against the ills which the flesh
is heir to," Wordsworth opposed a sterne heroism of content
which enabled him to mate and master poverty,
disapppointment and bereavement. And in his devotion to
poetry as his vocation, there was nothing emasculate; no
merely selfish exaltation; no petty claims for exemption
from ordinary duties and courtesies. Even a propensity to
speak of himself and his writings was not in Wordsworth an
appetite for praise or a habit of self-complacency, so much
as an unconscious betrayal of his efforts to realise his
superb ideal of the life-poetic.
From the moment when his poetic vocation became clear to
himself, Wordsworth's days were as uniform in their features
as it is possible for periods of time to be when environed
by the accidents of mortality. His naturally robust
constitution was invigorated by rigid temperance: "strength
from wine," he says in one of his letters, "is good, but
strength from water is better." He lived much in the open
air; and his daily feats as a pedestrian would probably
surpass the endurance of most men in these days, when wheels
would seem to have nearly supplanted the exercise of legs.
For a complete
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