“...And when we chanced One day to meet a hunger-bitten girl, Who crept along fitting her languid gait Unto a heifer’s motion, by a cord Tied to her arm, and picking thus from the lane Its sustenance, while the girl with pallid hands Was busy knitting in a heartless mood Of solitude, and at the sight my friend In agitation said, ’’Tis against that That we are fighting.’”

Just as Wordsworth was prepared to throw himself personally into the conflict, his relatives recalled him to England.  When the Revolution passed into a period of anarchy and bloodshed, his dejection was intense.  As he slowly recovered from his disappointment, he became more and more conservative in politics and less in sympathy with violent agitation; but he never ceased to utter a hopeful though calm and tempered note for genuine liberty.

Maturity and Declining Years.—­Although Wordsworth was early left an orphan, he never seemed to lack intelligent care and sympathy.  His sister Dorothy, a rare soul, helped to fashion him into a poet.  Their favorite pastime was walking and observing nature.  De Quincey estimates that Wordsworth, during the course of his life, mast have walked as many as 175,000 miles.  He acted on his belief that—­

  “All things that love the sun are out of doors,”

and he composed his best poetry during his walks, dictating it after his return.

He must have had the capacity of impressing himself favorably on his associates or he might never have had the leisure to write poetry.  When he was twenty-five, a friend left him a legacy of L900 to enable him to follow his chosen calling of poet.  Seven years later, friends saw that he was appointed distributor of stamps for Westmoreland, at the annual salary of L400.  Years afterward, a friend gave him a regular allowance to be spent in traveling.

The summer of 1797 saw him and Dorothy begin a golden year at Alfoxden in Somersetshire, in close association with Coleridge.  The result of this companionship was Lyrical Ballads, an epoch-making volume of romantic verse, containing such gems as Wordsworth’s Lines composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, Lines written in Early Spring, We Are Seven, and Coleridge’s The Ancient Mariner.  “All good poetry,” wrote Wordsworth in the Preface to the second edition of this volume, “is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.”  This is the opposite of the belief of the classical school.

In 1797, after a trip to Germany, he and Dorothy settled at Dove Cottage, Grasmere, in the Lake Country.  She remained a member of the household after he married his cousin, Mary Hutchinson, in 1802.  The history of English authors shows no more ideal companionship than that of these three kindred souls.  Dove Cottage where he wrote the best of his poetry, remains almost unchanged.  It is one of the most interesting literary homes in England.

[Illustration:  DOVE COTTAGE.]