524. Dr. Bell.

    ‘Binding herself by Statute.’ [’Excursion,’ Book ix. l. 300.]

The discovery of Dr. Bell affords marvellous facilities for carrying this into effect; and it is impossible to over-rate the benefit which might accrue to humanity from the universal application of this simple engine under an enlightened and conscientious government.

II.  LETTERS AND EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS.

NOTE.

On this division of the Prose, the Reader may see our Preface, Vol.  I. G.

1. Autobiographical Memoranda dictated by William Wordsworth, P.L., at Rydal Mount, November 1847.

I was born at Cockermouth, in Cumberland, on April 7th, 1770, the second son of John Wordsworth, attorney-at-law, as lawyers of this class were then called, and law-agent to Sir James Lowther, afterwards Earl of Lonsdale.  My mother was Anne, only daughter of William Cookson, mercer, of Penrith, and of Dorothy, born Crackanthorp, of the ancient family of that name, who from the times of Edward the Third had lived in Newbiggen Hall, Westmoreland.  My grandfather was the first of the name of Wordsworth who came into Westmoreland, where he purchased the small estate of Sockbridge.  He was descended from a family who had been settled at Peniston in Yorkshire, near the sources of the Don, probably before the Norman Conquest.  Their names appear on different occasions in all the transactions, personal and public, connected with that parish; and I possess, through the kindness of Col.  Beaumont, an almery made in 1325, at the expense of a William Wordsworth, as is expressed in a Latin inscription[16] carved upon it, which carries the pedigree of the family back four generations from himself.

[16] The original is as follows, some of the abbreviations being expanded:  ’HOC OPUS FIEBAT ANNO DOMINI MCCCXXV EX SUMPIU WLLLELMI WOBDESWORTH FILII W. FIL.  JOH.  FIL.  W. FIL.  NICH.  VIRI ELIZABETH FILIAE ET HEREDIS W. PROCTOR DE PENYSTON QUORUM ANIMABUS PROPITIETUE DEUS.’

On the almery are carved the letters ‘I.H.S.’ and ‘M.;’ also the emblem of the Holy Trinity.

For further information concerning this oak press, see Mr. Hunter’s paper in Gentleman’s Magazine for July, 1850, p. 43.

The time of my infancy and early boyhood was passed partly at Cockermouth, and partly with my mother’s parents at Penrith, where my mother, in the year 1778, died of a decline, brought on by a cold, the consequence of being put, at a friend’s house in London, in what used to be called ‘a best bedroom.’  My father never recovered his usual cheerfulness of mind after this loss, and died when I was in my fourteenth year, a school-boy, just returned from Hawkshead, whither I had been sent with my elder brother Richard, in my ninth year.