on the other hand, it is the work of patience, charity, and wisdom, to endeavour to remove the abuse, and restore the true use of that which has been abused. This he knew to be the vital principle of all genuine reform; and he taught also that no education is worthy of the name which does not look for habitual strength and support in divine grace given to united prayer.

In his maturer years, instead of desiring the cessation of daily services where they existed, he deplored it where they had been disused. He regretted the ancient times of

"Matrons and sires, — who, punctual to the call

Of their loved Church, on fast and festival,

Through the long year, the house of prayer would seek;
By Christmas snows, by visitation bleak

In another respect, also, he modified his judgment with regard to the university. While he was an undergraduate, his mind was not in harmony with the studies of the place. He did not tread in the beaten path, prescribed by academic authority, and leading to academic distinctions. He appears to have indulged a feeling of intellectual pride in taking a devious course

much to the disappointment of his relatives and friends. His last summer vacation was not spent amid his books, but among the Alps. The week before he took his degree he passed his time in reading Clarissa Harlowe. But in later years his view was changed. To one of his nephews, an under-graduate, he said, "Do not trouble yourself with reading modern authors at present; confine your attention to

1 See Sonnet on "Decay of Piety," vol. ii. p. 271.

L

ancient classical writers; make yourself master of them: and when you have done that, you will come down to us; and then you will be able to judge us according to our deserts." And he wrote a very earnest letter to one of his intimate friends, Mr. Clarkson, on hearing that his son did not intend to be a candidate for university honours; and he there expresses his regret at that intelligence, and endeavours to induce the young student to change his intention, and to devote himself to the studies, and to contend for the honours, of the university.

The academic life of an under-graduate, especially one so gifted as William Wordsworth, who feels that he is "not for that hour, nor for that place," is rarely a profitable or a happy one. He is inwardly dissatisfied, and ill at ease. He is liable to fall into a lower grade of society; to squander his time on aimless projects and desultory pursuits; to contract irregular habits; to cherish

"A treasonable growth

Of indecisive judgments, that impair
And shake the mind's simplicity;" 2

and to become familiar with scenes which are unfavourable to his moral progress, and prey on his inward strength. His aspirations decline; and, being discontented with his own position, he is apt to look with sour and splenetic sullenness on the laws of the institution in which he lives.

The mind of Wordsworth was indeed cheered at Cambridge, the "garden of great intellects," by visions of the illustrious dead, who had been trained

1 Prelude, p. 58.

2 Ibid. p. 64.

in that university - Chaucer, Spenser, Ben Jonson, Milton', Cowley, Dryden; and he resorted with delight to the groves and walks, especially those of St. John's,

"Whenever free to choose

Did I by night frequent the college groves
And tributary walks ;"2

and he describes one venerable tree, now no more, in those walks, which, on successive sojourns at Cambridge, he never failed to visit with feelings of

affection.

But it is remarkable, that while his school and school days had produced poetic fruits, and while his extant writings abound with beautiful and grateful allusions to the scenes of his infancy and boyhood, scarce a single line appears to have been suggested by his residence at Cambridge, while he was at the university. His "Evening Walk," 3 was, indeed, composed during the academic period, but none of its imagery is derived from academic scenes. The only verses which are known to have been produced by him at Cambridge are those "written while sailing in a boat at evening." These were composed on the Cam.

4

Upon the whole, the Poet's reminiscences of his college life are of a melancholy cast. They are characterised by the sternness of an Archilochus, mingled with the sadness of a Simonides. It was reserved to his later days to write those two noble sonnets 5 on King's College Chapel, Cambridge, and to characterise the universities of England, as

1 Prelude, p. 67.

3 Vol. i. p. 2-14.

5 Eccles. Sonnets, vol. iv. p. 121.

2 Ibid. p. 138.

.4 Vol. i. p. 14.

"The sacred nurseries of blooming youth,
In whose collegiate shelter England's flowers
Expand; enjoying through their vernal hours
The air of LIBERTY, the light of TRUTH.” 1

His portrait now graces the walls of St. John's College, Cambridge; and his reception at Oxford, when the degree of D. C. L. was conferred upon him in the year 1839, was one of the most enthusiastic that was ever given to any of those whom that noble university has delighted to honour.

1 Vol. ii. p. 297. Misc. Sonnets, part iii. Sonnet ii. written May, 1820.

CHAPTER VII.

COLLEGE VACATIONS.

UNIVERSITY life in England is diversified and relieved by vacations, of which that which recurs in the summer months is of sufficient length to afford a complete change of scene to the mind of the student. This is often a fortunate circumstance, and it was particularly so in the case of William Wordsworth. If his university course had been continued with little and brief intermission throughout the year, or if he had spent his vacations at Cambridge, it is probable that the influences derived from early familiarity with the grand and beautiful operations of nature, which had given vigour and independence to his intellect, and fervour to his imagination, would have become feebler and feebler, and that his spiritual and moral being would have declined in dignity, and have been impaired in strength.

Happily for him, he returned for his first summer vacation, in 1788, to his beloved vale of Esthwaite. The young collegian lodged in the same house, and slept in the same bed, as that which he had occupied when a school-boy. He revisited his old haunts. The spirit of the lake and the vale, -the fresh air of the woods, and fields, and mountains, -breathed new life into his soul. He derived new buoyancy and energy from the scenes of his early days, as one who has long been languishing on a bed of sickness