The Prelude," B, xiv).

Wordsworth's views as to a future career were unsettled; and desiring to acquire the French language more thoroughly, not uninfluenced also by the new hopes and aspirations of France, he left England in November of the same year to reside for a time at Orleans. As he passed through Paris he chose for his souvenir a pebble from the ruins of the Bastille. Somewhat austere of character and trained to simplicity of living, he accepted almost instinctively a republican faith; but this did not advance into distinct consciousness as a social and political creed until at Blois he came under the influence of a remarkable and admirable man, Michel Beaupuy, who afterwards highly distinguished himself as an officer in the Republican army. Wordsworth's interest in external nature now became subordinate to his interest in man; he looked for the speedy advent of a better age, when the inequalities of society should be redressed, when empty pomp should be abolished, when the injustice of power should cease, and when the people should be the framers of the laws under which they lived. In October, 1792, he was in Paris, and was deeply agitated by the events of the time; he would gladly have thrown himself into the political struggles of France, believing that one pure and energetic will might effect much. But his circumstances recalled him to England, and in December, after a year of memorable experiences, he was once more in London. For a time he was doubtless occupied with the superintendence of his "Evening Walk" and "Descriptive Sketches" as they passed through the press.

Although in 1793 Wordsworth defended the French Revolution in a letter to Watson, Bishop of Llandaff (posthumously published), the course of events gradually alienated his sympathies; he lost faith in the leaders of the movement and exulted when tidings reached him of the death of Robespierre; he found it difficult to retain faith in the

people of France; he still clung to the doctrine of the Revolution, but this support, too, gave way; his entire view of moral and social questions became confused, and for a while he fell into a state of profound discouragement. The declaration of war against the Republic shocked his feelings; and yet his heart could not be wholly given to France. Gradually, and by obscure processes, his mental health was restored; his belief in the Revolutionary theories was gone; but he gained even a deeper sense of the dignity of man, a deeper interest in human joys and sorrows; he felt the sanative touch of nature; hope returned to him in a purified form. And during the dark hours his sister's influence was one of healing; her sense of beauty was as quick and sure as his own; she had not perplexed her soul with tangled speculations; her temper was gentler than his; her sympathies were, not deeper indeed, but more delicate; she lived less in ideas than he, but came nearer to a thousand little, yet precious, realities.

In the summer of 1793 Wordsworth, in company with his friend William Calvert of Windybrow, Keswick, visited the Isle of Wight. The sight of the fleet off Portsmouth, preparing for war, filled him with gloomy anticipations; and as he wandered, a little later, for two days over Salisbury Plain, the thought of the calamities of the poor, consequent upon war, weighed upon him. From such reflections originated that powerful narrative of suffering and crime named, when first published in full in 1842, "Guilt and Sorrow." Having seen Stonehenge, Salisbury, and Bath, he journeyed by the Wye to the home of his friend Jones in Denbighshire. On the way he visited Tintern Abbey, and at Goodrich Castle met the little cottage girl of his "We are Seven." The remainder of the year was spent with his friend in Wales. But the North of England and his desire for his sister's presence drew him away. With her an indefati

gable pedestrian - he explored parts of the lake country in the days of spring, and again, alone or in her company, when the woods and hills showed their autumn colors. From the Calverts' house near Keswick he consulted a friend as to the possibility of his obtaining work as a journalist, and he even conceived the notion of starting a monthly miscellany under the title of "The Philanthropist." Such schemes were little suited to the genius of the poet; and, happily for literature, the generosity of a dying friend, whose confidence in Wordsworth's powers must have supported his own declining life, delivered him from the necessity of alien task-work. Early in 1795 young Raisley Calvert died, and it was found that he had made Wordsworth possessor of the sum of £900. We are all debtors to that young man, whose good deed, inspired by insight and faith, enabled a great poet to devote himself to his high calling.

How and where the summer of 1795 passed is uncertain; probably for part of the time Wordsworth was in the North of England, for part of the time in London. It is likely that he first met Coleridge in this year at Bristol, but the meeting did not yet lead to close intercourse or friendship. The loan of a house at Racedown, Dorsetshire, by the son of Mr. Pinney, a Bristol merchant, and the proposal of Basil Montague that he should take charge of his little boy, made Wordsworth's way clear; and now the possessors of an income of £70 or £80 a year, he and his sister entered into occupation of the Racedown farmhouse in the days of autumn. a time he was engaged upon imitations, never published, of the satires of Juvenal, but for satire he had no real vocation. The more ambitious enterprise of a tragedy occupied him until the summer of the following year; but "The Borderers" was not published until 1842. It is deficient in action and wholly unsuited to the stage; yet the characterization

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of Marmaduke, the ardent youth who leads the band of borderers, and of his tempter Oswald, is not without power; remarkable acquaintance is shown with what may be called the psychology of the passions; moral problems are skillfully probed; and certain passages deserve to be remembered as poetic interpretations of deep things of the heart and conscience. The rejection of the drama when offered to Covent Garden Theatre was, however, natural and was right.

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During the summer and autumn of 1796 there may have been meetings with Coleridge, and when on the last day of that year Coleridge took up his abode in the cottage at Nether Stowey, the acquaintance ripened with a diminished distance between the two homes. In June, 1797, Coleridge was a guest at Racedown, and felt himself "a little man" by Wordsworth's side. The story of "Margaret," incorporated in "The Excursion," but then known as The Ruined Cottage" and "The Borderers," were read aloud; and Coleridge in return repeated a part of his tragedy "Osorio." In July the Wordsworths accompanied their new friend to Nether Stowey, and Coleridge felt not only the power of Wordsworth's genius, but also the charm of his "exquisite sister" "her information various; her eye watchful in minutest observation of nature; her taste a perfect electrometer. It bends, protrudes, and draws in at subtlest beauties and most recondite faults." During the visit Charles Lamb also made a brief sojourn at Nether Stowey.

The presence of Coleridge and the beauty of the Nether Stowey district were strong inducements to a change of residence; and it fortunately happened that a spacious house at three miles' distance, surrounded by beautiful grounds, Alfoxden, was to be obtained at a trifling rent. Hither in mid July came Wordsworth with his sister, and for a time Coleridge and the Wordsworths were "three

people, but one soul." A delightful record of their daily life remains in the journal of Dorothy Wordsworth; but the spirit of the season is best of all discovered in the poems of her brother which were written at Alfoxden; in those which are narrative there is a deep inquisition into the permanent passions of humanity; in those which are personal there is the wisdom of a calm but radiant joy. To this period belong Simon Lee, The Last of the Flock, The Thorn, Her Eyes are Wild, and also Expostulation and Reply, The Tables Turned, Lines Written in Early Spring, To My Sister. On an autumn excursion on foot to the Valley of Stones, with Wordsworth and his sister, Coleridge's Ancient Mariner was planned, and as poems multiplied in manuscript, the joint volume of "Lyrical Ballads " was designed. Coleridge's contributions were meant to ennoble romance by allying it to truth of human feeling; Wordsworth's, to shed an ideal light over reality. The volume, which opened with "The Ancient Mariner" and closed with "Lines Written a few Miles above Tintern Abbey," was issued late in the year 1798 by Cottle, a friendly publisher at Bristol. Before the "Lyrical Ballads" appeared, the two poets, accompanied by Dorothy Wordsworth, had left England (September 16) to spend the winter in Germany.

At Hamburg they parted, Coleridge proceeding to Ratzeburg, Wordsworth and his sister to Goslar, close to the Hartz forest. It was a lifeless town, in which the English visitors saw little or no society, and the winter was one of extreme severity. Wordsworth's heart and imagination turned fondly to his native country; he walked daily on the ramparts, or in the public grounds, having for his sole companion a glancing kingfisher; but in thought he was among the English woodlands and meadows. During these months of ice and snow he composed the "Lucy" group of poems, Ruth," "Lucy Gray," "Nutting" and "The Poet's Epi

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