"the rule and management of nations,"-whether their prosperity hinges altogether on their laws, he saw cause modify some of the opinions he had embraced at the dawn of the revolutionary movement in France. Mathews gave him no encouragement in the notion of their starting a monthly Magazine together, but told his friend that if he came up to town he would easily get work on the metropolitan press. He seems to have made up his mind at last, that it would be the best thing for him to make such a venture; and, on the 7th November 1794, having returned to his friend Calvert's house at Windybrow, Keswick, he writes to Mathews:-"You say a newspaper would be glad of me. Do you think you could insure me employment in that way, on terms similar to your own? mean, also, in an Opposition Paper, for I cannot abet, in the smallest degree, the measures pursued by the present ministry. They are already so deeply advanced in iniquity, that, like Macbeth, they cannot retreat. When I express war. I * myself in this manner, I am far from reprobating those whose sentiments differ from my own; I know that many good men are persuaded of the expediency of the present You would probably see that my brother has been honoured with two college declamation prizes. This goes towards a fellowship, which I hope he will obtain, and am sure he will merit. He is a lad of talents, and industrious withal. This same industry is a good old Roman quality, and nothing is to be done without it." † The notion that he might become a journalist was not seriously entertained by Wordsworth; or, if the idea ever crossed the horizon of his mind as a possibility, a true instinct led him to abandon it, as soon as the means * Christopher, then an under-graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge. + See Memoirs, vol. i. p. 85. of frugal livelihood were otherwise within his reach. He wrote slowly, and disliked the task of writing at all. How he afterwards came to write so many letters to so many friends—and some of them of such length and elaborateness -is a mystery to those who know his intense aversion to the physical labour of correspondence. To sit down before a writing desk was to him like taking a seat on a penancestool. Then his prose style-though at times rising to heights of austere beauty, even of grandeur, and incisive power—was, as a rule, heavy and dull; sometimes indeed it was exceedingly commonplace. It lacked the sparkle, the terseness, the verve, the light touch, and the humour that are the requisites of a good newspaper style. It is curious to speculate on the kind of Wordsworth the world would have had, if, by stress of circumstances, he had devoted himself, even for a few years, to the miscellaneous vocation of a pressman, and toiled as Samuel Taylor Coleridge did. Poems, wrung with new intensity from the wine-press of experience, and with some wilder ethereal flights? Perhaps. It is impossible to say. In any case I believe he would have kept himself well in hand. We should have had nothing of Burns's experience, or of Byron's to record. The mention of Burns recalls a supposed meeting of the two bards, suggested by a poet and literary critic of our time, whose name need not be given. The two men meet, at a time and place when conviviality was most natural, and pledge each other with enthusiasm, but with due sobriety, when Burns is supposed to rise, and ask the bard of Rydal to Tak a cup o' kindness yet To whom Wordsworth, replying, says, "Mr Burns, don't you think we've had enough! Waiting on at Keswick for a reply from Mathews, he had a sad duty to discharge. Raisley Calvert, the brother of the friend with whom he had travelled in the Isle. of Wight, and at whose house he and his sister were guests, had long been delicate. Symptoms of pulmonary disease now showed themselves. Even when writing to Mathews about going up to Town, Wordsworth had said, "I cannot think of quitting him in his present debilitated state.” Two months later, writing from Penrith (January 7, 1795), he says: "I have been here for some time. I am still much engaged with my sick friend, and sorry am I to add that he worsens daily. . . . He is barely alive." Soon afterwards Raisley Calvert died. In his will it was found that he had left the sum of £900 to the friend who had nursed him in his illness. This he did, not only as a mark of personal friendship, but because he believed that, if Wordsworth were only free from the pressure of monetary cares, he would write something, in verse or prose, that would benefit the world. Wordsworth's gratitude to his friend prompted the sonnet beginning "Calvert it must not be unheard by them,” * and a passage in the fourteenth book of The Prelude, beginning "A youth, he bore The name of Calvert." + It was William, not Raisley Calvert, who was Wordsworth's special friend. They were sons of R. Calvert, steward to the Duke of Norfolk. But Raisley knew the difficulty in which his brother's friend was placed, as to finding the means of livelihood. the question often discussed by his * See vol. iv., p. 40 and note. He had doubtless heard brother and sisters, and † See vol. iii., p. 400. by Dorothy Wordsworth; and having the tact to appreciate the genius of his brother's friend, and feeling that his own tenure of life was to be a short one, he generously devised this legacy, on public as well as personal grounds. He had mentioned to Wordsworth himself-a month before the latter wrote to Mathews (asking him to procure a post for him in the metropolitan press)—his intention to leave him a legacy, but he then spoke of £600. Wordsworth wrote to William Calvert, October 1, 1794, that Raisley meant to set out for the winter to Lisbon, and that he (Wordsworth) had a desire to accompany him, as he was too weak to go alone; adding that he had bequeathed all his property to William, with the exception of this legacy of £600. The legacy was to be subject to one condition: that on enquiry into the state of the Wordsworth family affairs in London (doubtless corresponding with Richard, the solicitor, and with Mr Cookson at Windsor), it should seem "advisable to do so." The result of Raisley's enquiries must have been to shew him that it was specially advisable, for he left, not £600, but £900. He did not live to visit Lisbon. Those who are familiar with the Life of Spinoza, will remember that when Simon de Vries of Amsterdam was dying of the same malady that carried off Raisley Calvert -he offered his friend a gift of 2000 florins, just to mark the intellectual debt he owed him, and to add a little to his comfort. Spinoza, accustomed to the most frugal mode of life, declined what would have been a burden rather than a comfort to him. De Vries then made a will, in which he left all his fortune to Spinoza. Spinoza hearing of this, at once visited de Vries, and remonstrated, reminding him that he had a brother, to whom his fortune would, in course of nature, descend. De Vries consented, only stipulating that his brother should pay a small annuity to Spinoza. A This incident has a curious parallel in Calvert's gift to Wordsworth. Wordsworth's sonnet to the memory of Calvert records his own feelings, and is a tribute to his friend's character. In a letter to Sir George Beaumont in 1805, he gives an account of the gift, and of the use he made of it. The following is part of that letter: "GRASMERE, Feb. 20th, 1805. "MY DEAR FRIEND,-My father, who was an attorney of considerable eminence, died intestate, when we were children: and the chief part of his personal property after his decease was expended in an unsuccessful attempt to compel the late Lord Lonsdale to pay a debt of about £5000 to my father's estate. Enough, however, was scraped together to educate us all in different ways. I, the second son, was sent to college with a view to the profession of the church or law; into one of which I should have been forced by necessity, had not a friend left me £900. This bequest was from a young man with whom, though I call him friend, I had had but little connection; and the act was done entirely from a confidence on his part that I had powers and attainments which might be of use to mankind. This I have mentioned, because it was his due, and I thought the fact would give you pleasure. Upon the interest of the £900, £400 being laid out in annuity, with £200 deducted from the principal, and £100 a legacy to my sister, and £100 more which the "Lyrical Ballads" have brought me, my sister and I contrived to live seven years, nearly eight. Lord Lonsdale then died, and the present Lord Lowther paid to my father's estate £8500. Of this sum I believe £1800 apiece will come to my sister and myself; at least, would have come: but £3000 was lent out to our poor |