WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, a distinguished English poet, was born on the 7th of April, 1770, at Cockermouth, in Cumberland. He was sent to school at Penreth, where his parents had gone to reside; and after the death of his mother in 1778, he was transferred to Hawkshead, in Lancashire, at the public school of which his earlier education was completed. In 1783, his father died, leaving his family income difficulty. He remained at Hawkshead till 1787, in which year he entered at St. John's College, Cambridge. In January, 1791, he left Cambridge, after taking his degree as Bachelor.
In 1793, Wordsworth appeared before the public as an author in two poems, entitled "An Evening Walk, addressed to a Young Lady;" and "Descriptive Sketches taken during a Pedestrian Tour among the Alps." These pieces abound in touches of refined and original observations of nature, but are otherwise not in themselves especially remarkable. In 1797, he removed to Alfoxden in Somersetshire, in order to be near Coleridge, who had established himself some three miles off at Nether-Stowey. Out of the intimacy thus established came the famous "Lyrical Ballads," published in 1798, by Cottle of Bristol, as a joint adventure of the two poets. On the death of the old Lord Lonsdale, a claim of the Wordsworths' was admitted; and in 1802, a sum of about £8000 was by his successor made over to the family. Wordsworth was within the year, married to Mary Hutchinson, a cousin of his own with whom he had been close since childhood. In 1813, by the kindness of Lord Lonsdale, he was appointed distributor of stamps for the county of Westmoreland, a situation that brought him, without much to do for it, a salary of £500 a year. When the year after he published his great poem, "The Excursion," he dedicated it to Lord Lonsdale, in a sonnet expressive of "high respect and gratitude sincere." Meantime, and pending the appearance of this elaborate work, the reputation of the poet had been surely if slowly rising. In 1800, he had published in two volumes, a second edition of the "Lyrical Ballads" disjoining his own from those of Coleridge, and adding a quantity of new matter; and in 1802 and 1805, further editions had been issued. To these succeeded, in 1807, a new collection under the title of "Poems in Two Volumes." In these earlier writings, there was a good deal which almost wilfully seemed to invite ridicule; and for a good while Wordsworth was merely the laughing-stock of reviewers, more particularly of Jeffrey, who as the editor of the great Edinburg, at that time figured as chief Aristarchus of the day. The more to popularize the ridicule, a nickname was invented; and the "Lake School," as it was called, which with Wordsworth included Coleridge and Southey, who chanced to reside in the same district, passed current as an easy name of scorn. It could not be long concealed, however, that these volumes of Wordsworth's, despite an occasional eccentricity in the choice of mean and impracticable subjects, contained a large body of true poetry, of a singularly fresh and original kind. A select circle of passionate admirers, including men like Leigh Hunt, DeQuincey, and Wilson, eagerly pressed the true claims of the poet; and after the publication of the Excursion, a volume of high and serious verse, it came more and more to be felt that the laughers were getting the worst of it, and that Wordsworth was really a man of true and lofty genius, against whom ridicule could not permanently avail. The day of idle jeer was over; the tide of genuine appreciation had set in, and it continued to flow steadily, till, long before his death, Wordsworth found himself recognized as the head of the poetical literature of his country. His latest days were passed serenely in honor. In 1839, the university of Oxford conferred on him its honorary degree of D.C.L. In 1842, a pension of £300 per annum was assigned him by government, and on the death of his friend Southey, in 1843, he succeeded to the vacant laureateship. On the 23rd of April, 1850, he peacefully closed a life so pure, serene, and priest-like in its consecration to a lofty purpose, that we must go back to Milton to find its parallel.
By remanding it to truth and simplicity of natural feeling as its basis, Wordsworth did more than perhaps any other writer of his time to forward the great revival of English poetry which distinguished the opening of the century.