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excessive organic sensibility, and perhaps from some morbid irritability of the nerves. At times the self-contracting and self-baffling of her feelings, caused her even to stammer. She stooped in walking. She did not cultivate the graces which preside over the person and its carriage. But, on the other hand, she was a person of very remarkable endowments intellectually. Her knowledge of literature was irregular, and not systematically built up; but what she knew, and had really mastered, lay where it could not be disturbed-in the temple of her own most fervent heart." Both ladies, at the time when De Quincy drew these portraits, were twenty-eight years old. And now for Wordsworth's portrait.

absolutely the indigenous face of the lake district, at any rate a variety of that face, a modification of the original type. The head was well filled out. The forehead was not remarkably lofty, but it was, perhaps, remarkable for its breadth, and expansive development. Neither were the eyes large; on the contrary, they were rather small, but that did not interfere with their effect, which, at times, was fine, and suitable to his intellectual character. The mouth, and the region of the mouth, the whole circumference of the mouth, was about the strongest feature in Wordsworth's face. There was nothing especially to be noticed in the mere outline of the lips, but the swell and protrusion of the parts above and around the mouth were noticeable. And then De Quincy tells us why. He had read that Milton's surviving daughter, when she saw the crayon drawing representing the likeness of her father, in Richardson the painter's thick octavo volume, of Milton, burst out in a rapture of passionate admiration, exclaiming, This is my father! this is my dear father!" And when De Quincy had procured this book, he saw in this likeness of Milton a perfect portrait of Wordsworth.

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"Wordsworth was upon the whole not a well made man. His legs were positively condemned by all female connoisseurs in legs; not that they were bad in any way that could force itself upon your notice there was no absolute deformity about them; and undoubtedly they had been serviceable legs beyond the average standard of human requisition; for with these identical legs Wordsworth must have travelled a distance of 175,000 to 180,000 English miles; but useful as they have proved themselves, the Wordsworthian Such then are sketches of the poet legs were not ornamental. But the and his household at the time of his worst part of Wordsworth's person was marriage, and a happy household it his bust; there was a narrowness and a was. The poet, however, could not live stoop about the shoulders which became without wandering from his home once striking, and had an effect of meanness or twice a year at least. Accordingly, when brought into close juxtaposition we find him about twelve months after with a figure of a more statuesque order. his marriage--that is August 14th, 1803 And yet Wordsworth was of a good-making a tour into Scotland, with height; just five feet ten, and not a slender man; on the contrary, by the side of Southey his limbs looked thick, almost in a disproportionate degree. I have heard from the country people that 'he walked like a cade'-a cade being an insect which advances by an oblique motion." De Quincy says further on, that by slow degrees he would gradually edge off his companion from the middle to the side of the high road, if he did not take great care, and dispute every inch of the ground. His face is described as the noblest for intellectual effect that could be imagined. Haydon has painted it as belonging to one of Christ's disciples, in his great picture, Christ's Entry into Jerusalem. It was of the long order, often claimed as oval; and if not

his sister and Coleridge, taking Carlisle on the way; subsequently visiting the grave of Burns, Glengyle, &c. He returned by way of Edinburgh, visiting Melrose Abbey and Sir Walter Scott. When they arrived home on the 25th of September, they found "Mary, (the poet's wife) in perfect health, Joanna Hutchinson with her, and little John asleep in the clothes' basket by the fire."

It was about this time that the second Lord Lonsdale paid the debt which his predecessor owed to Wordsworth's father, amounting to £1,800, as the share of each member of the family. De Quincy says that a regular succession of similar, but superior, godsends fell upon Wordsworth to enable him to sustain his expenditure

duly, as it grew with the growing claims upon his purse. A good old uncle died and left him several thousands; and further on, about 1814, the Stamp Distributorship for the county of Westmoreland grew vacant, and was given to the poet, yielding him £500 a year; and still further on in time the same post for the county of Cumberland fell in, and Wordsworth was appointed to this also, making the two situations worth about a thousand a year to him. Wordsworth resigned these offices in 1842, and they were bestowed upon his son, whilst the poet was put down upon the civil list for £300 a year, and finally made Poet Laureate.

In 1803, Sir George Beaumont, the painter, out of pure sympathy with the poet, and before he had seen or written to him, purchased a beautiful little estate at Applethwaite near Keswick, and presented it to him, in order that he (Wordsworth) and Coleridge, who was then residing at Greta Hall, might have the pleasure of a nearer and more permanent intercourse. Wordsworth, however, refused to accept this magnificent gift, but he and Sir George became the most attached friends ever after.

It was on the 5th of February, 1804, that Wordsworth's second brother, John, was lost in the Abergavenny, East Indiaman. He was a man of fine taste, and was an occasional visitor at the poet's home at Grasmere. All Wordsworth's family were deeply affected by this great loss, and the poet's lyre sounded his praises in three poems. The first is entitled: "Elegaic Stanzas," suggested by a picture of Peel Castle in a storm, painted by Sir George Beaumont. The second is to a "Daisy," which suggests his brother's love of quiet and peaceful things, and closes with the tragedy of his death, and the discovery and final burial of the body in the country churchyard at Wythe, a village near Weymouth. “And thou, sweet flower, shalt sleep and wake upon his senseless grave he concludes, returning thus finely to the simple flower which suggested the melancholy train of thought that runs through the poetry. The third of these sad lyrical verses refers to the scene where the poet bade his brother farewell, on the mountains from Grasmere to Patterdale.

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About a month after his brother's death, Wordsworth concluded his "Prelude," upon which he had been employed for upwards of six years. In a letter to Sir George Beaumont, dated 25th of December, 1804, he unfolds his own plan of the poem. It was to consist, first of all, of a poem to be called the "Recluse," wherein the poet was to express in verse, his own feelings concerning Man, Nature, and Society; and secondly, a poem on his Earlier life, or the growth of his own mind. This latter poem was the "Prelude,"two thousand verses of which he says, in the same letter, he had written during the last ten weeks. The "Prelude" therefore, which was not published until after the poet's death, was first written; and the "Recluse" subsequently. Only a part of this poem, however, viz., "The Excursion," except of course the "Prelude," is published; the "Recluse " proper being still in manuscript.

Besides these larger works, Wordsworth wrote many minor poems; and amongst them "The Waggoner," dedicated to Charles Lamb, but not published until 1819. In 1807, Wordsworth issued two new volumes of poetry, in 12mo., which contained some of his best pieces, but which, like all his poems, did not gain immediate popularity. Coleridge, however cheered him on by his letters; and on his return to England, in the summer of 1806, Wordsworth read "The Prelude" to him in the gardens of Coleortou, near Ashby-de-la-Zouch, in Leicestershire, where the poet was then residing at the habitation of Sir George Beaumont; and the high commendations which Coleridge poured upon this poem animated Wordsworth to increased exertion and perseverance. During his residence at this beautiful house, he composed the noble "Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle;" the finest thing of the kind in our language. The and an occasional one to Sir Walter poet's letters to Sir George Beaumont, Scott (who, in 1805, had climbed Helvellyn with him), are amongst the most interesting transcripts we have of his mind at this period. It was in the beginning of the winter of 1807, that De Quincy paid his first visit to Wordsworth; and I find great fault with Dr. Wordsworth that he makes no allusion to De Quincy throughout his

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Memoirs of the poet. This is the more unpardonable, inasmuch as De Quincy is a man of the highest intellect and scholarship, possessing the widest acquaintance with general literature of any man who has lived in this generaration. Unpardonable, likewise, because De Quincy was a devout lover and a chivalrous defender of Wordsworth, when it was not fashionable to speak well of him. Neither can I ever forgive the poet himself, for his cold neglect of the great Opium-Eater. Professor Wilson shares the same fate as De Quincy in the Memoirs, and is not once alluded to, although both these men were on the most intimate terms with Wordsworth for a long period. De Quincy has written a graphic account of his first visit to the poet, in company with Mrs. Coleridge, Hartley being then nine years old, in Tait's Magazine, entitled "Lake Reminiscences." And to this account the reader is now referred, as it is too long to quote here.

Southey was then living at Greta Hall, and Mrs. Coleridge was on her way there, when the above-named visit took place. It had been previously arranged that Coleridge and his family should reside with Southey, and during the week that De Quincy spent in the neighbourhood at this time, he went to see the household at Greta, and has given a beautiful picture of Southey, and his habits. De Quincy returned to Grasmere in 1808, and found that Wordsworth had removed to Allan Bank. He immediately hired, therefore, and took possession of the late cottage of the poet. The reason for Wordsworth's removal was the increasing number of his family. Here is a list of his children :

John, born 18th June, 1803. Dorothy, called and generally known

as Dora, born 16th August, 1804. Thomas, born 16th June, 1806. Catharine, born 6th September, 1808. William, born 12th May, 1810. Thomas and Catharine died in childhood; John and William are still living; and Dora, "My own Dora," as the poet loved to call her, after a wedded life, more or less happy (she married Edward Quillinan, Esq.) died in 1847, just three years before her venerable father.

Wordsworth was singularly fortunate in his family. There were no

jars nor discords in the sacred temple of his home; but beauty, love, and all the virtues and the graces dwelt with him, and ministered to his happiness and repose. He loved his children with an intense affection, and sweet Dora, his best beloved, exercised an influence over him, more beautiful and harmonising, perhaps, even than that which his sister exercised in his early life, and still continued to exercise, because it was deeper, and struck deeper into the very being of the poet. This child threw a sacred halo round his soul, and inspired one of the sweetest of his lyrics. He addresses her only a month after her birth; and in the autumn of the same year we find him writing the lines, "The Kitten and the Falling Leaves," suggested by her delight at the pretty frolics of a kitten on the wall playing with the leaves of autumn. "The Longest Day," is addressed to her; and later on, when the possibility of blindness came like a gloomy shaddow to darken his more thoughtful moments, he anticipates the time when his own Dora shall guide his lonely steps. But in all the poems in which she is alluded to, that called “The Triad" is the best. There is a surfeit of sweet painting in this poem which is true to the spirit of the beautiful girl; the spirit which stirs her thoughts, and makes all her movements an impulsive comminglement of music and poetry. A more airy, celestial form could not be imagined than hers. It seems to float in the atmosphere.

When Wordsworth was living at Allan Bank, and during the time that Coleridge sojourned with him, two prose works appeared by these two poets, which are memorable to all scholars. The former wrote his famous "Essay on the Convention of Cintra,” and the latter dictated (for he did not write it) his still more famous work entitled, "The Friend." Wordsworth and Professor Wilson contributed several papers to this serial. In 1810, Wordsworth wrote an introduction to, and edited the text of a folio volume entitled, "Select Views in Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Lancashire," by the Rev. Jos. Wilkinson, which was afterwards printed in his volume of "Sonnets on the River Duddon," and still later as a separate publication.

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In 1811, the poet left Allan Bank, and took up his temporary residence

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at the parsonage, Grasmere; but his children, Catharine and Thomas, dying in 1812, threw such a gloom over the neighbourhood, that he resolved to quit it altogether. Accordingly, he removed to Rydal Mount in 1813, where he resided until his death, in 1850. It was in 1814 that the great poem was published, upon which Wordsworth's fame is built, viz., "The Excursion." We have no room here to give any analysis of this poem, and must be content therefore with the simple announcement of its publication. "The White Doe of Rylestone," written under the lee of a row of corn-stacks in a field near Stocton-on-Tees, in 1807, was published in 1815. The next group of poems, and two of them certainly amongst the grandest triumphs of poetic art, were composed respectively as follows: "Laodamia," in 1814; "Dion," in 1816; and the "Ode to Lycoris," in 1817. "Peter Bell" appeared in 1819, although composed, as we have already said, twenty years before. Five hundred copies were exhausted in one month. "The Waggoner," and "Sonnets on the River Duddon," appeared during the same year. In 1822, Wordsworth published & volume of sonnets and other poems, entitled, "Memorials of a Tour on the Continent." In 1828, accompanied by his daughter Dora, he mode an excursion to see Coleridge, through Belgium and up the Rhine. It was at this time that the "Incident at Bruges" was written. In 1829, the poet made a tour in Ireland with J. Marshall, Esq., M.P., of Leeds. It supplied him, however, with very few materials for poetry, although the lines in the poem on the "Power of Sound," one of the finest poems which Wordsworth has written, commencing

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Thou, too, be heard, lone Eagle !" were suggested near the Giants' Causeway," where he saw a pair of eagles wheel over his head, and then

dart off, as 66 if to hide themselves in a blaze of sky made by the setting sun." It was about this time also that the sweet poem, entitled "The Triad," was written, in which the daughters of Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge are bound together in the most musical and flowing forms, as the three graces. The gorgeous magnificence of Miss Southey; the wild, bird-like nature of Dora; the mystic, spiritual, meditative

beauty of Miss Coleridge;-here was material enough for the highest art— and something finer than the most vivid sculpture was the result, as the poem proves. A great number of minor poems succeeded the "Triad,” down to the year 1831, when the poet wrote his "Elegaic Musings," on the death of Sir George Beaumont, who died February 7th, 1827. In the same year were composed "The Armenian Lady," "The Egyptian Maid," and the Russian Fugitive"-poems in which all the beauties of language are pressed, along with the simplicity which marks the old English ballads.

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In 1835 Wordsworth published his "Yarrow re-visited, and other Poems;" and in 1842 appeared his "Poems, chiefly of early and late years." In 1839 he received the degree of D.C.L. from the University of Oxford, which was conferred on him in the Sheldonian Theatre, amidst shouts of rejoicing such as had never before been heard in the city, except upon the occasion of an unexpected visit of the Duke of Wellington. In 1838 Wordsworth prepared a new edition of his poems, to be published by Moxon, and continued to live at Rydal in his quiet and musical manner, writing poems, taking rambles, and conducting his correspondence until 1843, when he was appointed Poet Laureate of England, Southey having died on the 21st of March of that year, and the appointment having been offered to Wordsworth on the 31st of the same month.

From the time of Wordsworth's appointment as Laureate which it ought to be said he at first refused, and only accepted with the understanding that it should be an honorary office-he wrote very little poetry. His work indeed, was done; his mission accomplished; and his old days were spent in rambling over the hills, and in the quiet enjoyment of his family, friends, fame, and fortune. Honours of a high order were subsequently heaped upon him. He was put into nomination for the office of Lord Rector of the University of Oxford, and gained a majority of twenty one votes, in opposition to the premier, Lord John Russell. He lost the election however, through the single vote of the subrector (according to the forms of that election) voting for his superior.

Wordsworth's younger son William

was married 20th January, 1847, and sweet Dora died on the 9th of July, 1847, and was buried in Grasmere church-yard. Wordsworth was now in his 80th year, and the death of this dear child was his death-blow; for, three years afterwards, he was called away. This happened on the 23rd of April, 1850, on the birth-day and death-day of Shakspeare! He was buried on the 27th, in Grasmere church-yard.

Such was the life and death of Wordsworth; a poet of the highest order of mind and genius, whose writings form a new era in literature. Surely he lived a beautiful and poetic life, and was, on the whole, such a man as we shall not for long years see again. His works are his best eulogium-save his life.

JACQUARD.

MARIE JOSEPH JACQUARD was born at Lyons, on the 7th of July, 1752. His father was a journeyman weaver of figured goods, and his mother was a reader of designs in the same manufactory. The duties of a reader of designs consist in directing another operative what threads to put in motion to produce the proper pattern. Biographers further inform us that the grandfather of Jacquard, on his father's side, was an agricultural labourer. He saw, with deep regret, that his son abandoned the plough for the loom, and predicted to him that poverty would be the result- -a just chastisement, he observed, for those ungrateful children who refuse the sweat of their brow to their mother earth, in return for that bread which she produces for their support. But, allured by the bait of higher wages than those of which he was in the receipt from a neighbouring farmer, the father of Jacquard resisted all persuasion and determined to take his seat at the loom. At this period the silk manufacture of Lyons was rapidly growing in importance, and, like a vampire, sucking the generous blood of the rural populations. The number of hands engaged in agricultural pursuits on the fertile banks of the Rhone sensibly diminished, and the old vine-dressers, of whom these hills were the wealth and the pride, bemoaned to see the most hardy of their children drop off one by one to squat

down on the stool of the draw-boy, and after a few years to die of consumption. Those who did not die, after some years of toil perhaps succeeded in becoming the owners of a loom; but even then the most ordinary lot of such was to see the fruits of their humble savings dwindle away in their enterprize, and after again becoming jour neymen weavers, to die in an hospital. When Joseph Jacquard was born, his father was at the height of his fortunes in his career as a workman. He had just established himself on his own account, and the priest who baptized the infant, at the same time blessed the loom, according to the custom of those days. We know not whence Joseph Jacquard was not destined from his infancy to follow the calling of his father. Perhaps the latter had a quicker foresight than others of the probable decrease of his little fortune, and therefore wished to bring up his son to some occupation in which there was less risk and competition; or, it may have been, on the contrary, that entertaining the hope of future prosperity, he had more ambi tious views, and meant to educate the child for a sphere superior to that in which he himself had lived contentedly. Whatever the cause may have been, little Joseph Jacquard was sent to school to learn to read, at an age when other children in the same condition of life were entering, at the expense of their health, on the painful apprenticeship of the loom.

At that period, schoolmasters knew and taught but one thing-reading. Joseph Jacquard, in a very short time knew everything that his old teacher could impart to him. It was then that his father, seeing him so learned, decided on giving him the choice of a business. The boy, on being consulted, chose that of a bookbinder. In the house in which his master resided, lived an old clerk, who, after working the whole day at his ledger, came sometimes in the evening, out of pure friendship, to make up the accounts of the bookbinder. He it was who gave the youthful apprentice the first insight into the rudiments of mathematics. Joseph Jacquard was then between twelve and thirteen years, when his turn for mechanics revealed itself by a host of ingenious inventions which perfectly astounded the old

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