Immediately after the publication of the 'Lyrical Ballads.' Wordsworth, his sister and Coleridge sailed for Hamburg, with a view of perfecting their acquaintance with the German language by a winter at Goslar. During the four months spent in that dull and dismal town, in a particularly cold and disagreeable season, Wordsworth wrote some of his best and most characteristic poems, full of the loveliness of English rural scenery and life. Coleridge trav eled independently of his friends a part of the time they were abroad, but the three made ex cursions together in the rural districts of Ger many, and had some unpleasant experiences. Sometimes they found it difficult to obtain food and shelter in the wretched inns of the country. In one instance, as Coleridge records, they were actually driven out of doors and had to spend the night in the fields. But they met with no worse misadventures than these, and the Words worths got safely back to England in the spring of 1799.
The poet was always fond of travel, and in later years frequently indulged in it both in the British Isles and on the Continent. In August 1802, he went to France again, and in 1803 and 1814 visited Scotland. In 1820 he went with his and sister through Switzerland and Italy. In 1823 he traveled in Holland, in 11:24 in North Wales, in 1828 in Belgium with Coleridge, and it 1829 in Ireland with his friend Marshall. In 1831 he and his daughter visited Scott at Ab botsford. In 1833 he made another tour in Scotlandnd in 1837 a long one in Italy with Robinson.R Crabbe In an these journeys he found more or less material and inspiration for his poems.
After his return to England in 1799 he and his sister decided to settle down in their ances tral Lake Country, and soon took a small cot tage at Grasmere. Here and in the immediate vicinity the remainder of their lives, except for the occasional journeys abroad. was passed in domestic and poetic seelnsion, with few import ant incidents to disturb the calm current of the lapsing years. In 18412 the poet married Mary Hutchinson. whom he had known from child hood and with whom he had attended the came °dame's school* at Penrith. where his boyhood was partly spent with his mother's parents. After his marriage he and his wife continued to reside with his sister at Grasmere, and there three of his children were born. From 1818 to 1813 the family lived in the same neighborhood In two other houses, and then removed to Rydal Item, a few miles distant, which was the poet's home for 37 happy years. There, among his native lakes and hills, he died in his 81st year.
In his early manhood the poet's resources were very slender, hut his tastes were simple and he made what he had suffice for his needs. He and his sister managed to live for six or seven on about $500 a year. Later he came Into possession of a little property, and later still was appointed stamp-distributor for Cumberland and Westmoreland, an office worth 1.500 a year, the duties of which were mostly discharged by a clerk, leaving the poet leisure for his literary pursuits. In 1803 he be
came acquainted with Sir George Beaumont. a descendant of the dramatist and a cultivated man, who presented him with a beautiful piece of land at Applethwaite, near Skiddaw, hoping that he might be induced to settle there, but he could not make tip his mind to leave his chosen home at Grasmere. His friendship with Beaumont remained unbroken until the death of the latter in 1827.
Wordsworth retained the stamp-collectorship until 1842, when it was transferred to his second son. A more lucrative office, the col lectorship of Whitehaven, was offered him, but he declined it, being unwilling to exchange his secluded life at Rydal *for riches and a load of care.* In 1843, he was made poet-laureate on the death of Southey. He declined the honor at first as imposing duties which at his advanced age he hesitated to undertake; but he finally accepted it, at the personal solicita tion of Sir Robert Peel, who assured him that nothing *should be required of him,* adding that the appointment was °a tribute of respect justly due to the first of living poets,' that °the queen entirely approved of the nomina tion,' and that there was •one unanimous feel ing on the part of all who had heard of the proposal that there could not be a question about the'selection.• In 180D a second edition of 'Lyrical Bal lads,' with other poems, was published, and others appeared in 1802 and 1805. Meanwhile, the poet had made few friends and many and bitter enemies. The issue of two more volumes of 'Poems' in 1807 led to a fresh onslaught upon the author, who persisted in writing verse after the autocratic Edinluirgh Review had given judgment against him. Jeffrey, in notic ing the new volumes in the Review, remarked: *Even in the worst of these productions there are, no doubt, occasional little touches of deli cate feeling and original fancy: hut these are quite lost and obscured in the mass of child ishness and simplicity with which they are in corporated.' Such was the high critical ver dict upon a collection of poems that included the 'Ode to Duty,' the 'Sonnets dedicated to Liberty,' The Happy Warrior,' the exquisite lines, °She was a Phantom of Delight,* etc., and the sublime 'Ode on the Intimations of Immortality.' Eight years elapsed before an other edition of the poems was printed; and the year previous (1814) Wordsworth had published 'The Fscursion Five hundred copies of this sufficed to supply the demand for sir nears The new poem was savagely treated /,‘' Jeffrey. who boasted that he had °crushed 'The Excursion' • Southey remarked: 'He might as well scat himself on Skiddaw, and fancy that he crushed the mountain.' Jeffrey began his crushing criticism with "This will never do,' and went on to pronounce the poem 'longer, weaker and tamer than any of Mr. NN'ordsworth's other productions'; but though he and his fellow reviewers prevented the sale of the poem, they could not kill it, in spite of its obvious faults.