SUMMARY.—B. 1770, ed. at Camb., sympathiser with French Revolution in earlier stages, first publication Tour in the Alps and Evening Walk 1793, became acquainted with Coleridge 1795, pub. with him Lyrical Ballads 1798, visits Germany and begins Prelude, returns to England and settles at Grasmere, pub. second ed. of Lyrical Ballads, entirely his own, 1800, m. Mary Hutchinson 1802, visits Scotland 1804 and becomes acquainted with Scott, pub. Poems in Two Volumes 1807, goes to Rydal Mount 1813, appointed Distributor of Stamps, revisits Scotland, writes Yarrow Visited and pub. The Excursion 1814, White Doe and coll. works 1815, Waggoner, Ecclesiastical Sonnets, etc., 1819-35, pensioned 1842, Poet Laureate 1843, d. 1850.
There are numerous good ed. 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).
WOTTON, SIR HENRY (1568-1639).—Diplomatist and poet, s. of a Kentish gentleman, was b. at Boughton Park, near Maidstone, and ed. at Winchester and Oxf. After spending 7 years on the Continent, he entered the Middle Temple. In 1595 he became sec. to the Earl of Essex, who employed him abroad, and while at Venice he wrote The State of Christendom or a Most Exact and Curious Discovery of many Secret Passages and Hidden Mysteries of the Times, which was not, however, printed until 1657. Afterwards he held various diplomatic appointments, but Court favour latterly failed him and he was recalled from Venice and made Provost of Eton in 1624, to qualify himself for which he took deacon’s orders. Among his other works were Elements of Architecture (1624) and A Survey of Education. His writings in prose and verse were pub. in 1651 as Reliquiae Wottonianae. His poems include two which are familiar to all readers of Elizabethan verse, The Character of a Happy Life, “How happy is he born and taught,” and On his Mistress, the Queen of Bohemia, beginning “Ye meaner Beauties of the Night.” He was the originator of many witty sayings, which have come down.