<- % ^^o^ .' ^^^^'^ ° ^ ;:\.^" Pome dToIlcgc Strict. N timber .-- Two. William Woudsworth S5|| BY DA^NIEL ^VSTISE, D.D, ^, NEW YORK: PHILLIPS & HUNT CINCINNATI: WALDEN & STOWE. 1883. The "Home College Series'' will contain one hundred short papers on a wide rauge of subjects — biographical, historical, scientitic, literary, domes- tic, political, and religious. Indeed, the religious tone will characterize all of tliera. They are written for every body — for all whose leisure is limited, but who desire to use tlie minutes for the enricliment of hfe. These papers contain seeds from the best gardens in all the world of luimaii knowledge, and if dropped wisely into good soil, will bring forth harvests of beauty and value. They are for the young — especially for young people (and older people, too.) who are out of the schools, who are full of "business" and "cares," who are in danger of reading nothing, or of reading a sensational literature tliat is worse than nothing. One of these papers a week read over and over, thought and talked about at "odd times," will give in one year a vast fund of information, an intel- lectual quickening, worth even moi-e than the mere knowledge required, a taste for solid reading, many hours of simple and wholesome pleasure, and abihty to talk intelligently and lielpfully to one's fi'iends. Pastors may organize "Home College" classes, or "Lyceum Reading Unions," or "Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circles," and help the young people to read nnd think and talk and live to worthier purpose. A young man may have his own little "college," all by himself, read this series of tracts one after the other, (there will soon be one hundred of them ready,) examine himself on them by the " Thought-Outline to Help the Mem- ory," and tlius gain knowledge, and, what is better, a love of knowledge. And what a young man may do in this respect a young woman, and both old men. and old women, may do. J. H. YlNCENT. jSTew York, Jan., 1883. Copyright, 1888, by Phillips & IIujst, New York. ^ Pome College Series, dumber Ctoo. t- WILLIAM WOEDSWORTH. ^ L ^ BY DANIEL WISE, D.D. William Wordsworth was born in an old manor house belonging to the Earl of Lonsdale, at Cockermonth in Cum- berland, England, on the 7th of April, 1770. Though not of what is sometimes called "gentle blood," he was of honor- able descent. The families of both his father and mother were ancient, and, though not noble, were yet of " good de- gree." His father was an attorney and managed a goodly portion of the wide domain of the Earl of Lonsdale, as that nobleman's law agent. William was the second of four sons. He had but one sister, named Dorothy, who was next to him in age, and of whom more w^ill be said hereafter. The place of Wordsworth's birth was on the banks of the Derwent, which he calls "fairest of all rivers." Little is known of his child-life beyond the fact that when five years old he was permitted to spend his summer days bathing in a mill-race on the banks of the Derwent. There he was to be seen, " now in the water, now out of it, now scouring the sandy fields naked as a savage, while the hot thundery noon was bronzing distant Skiddaw, and then plunging in once more." From this statement it would seem that little restraint was put upon his young life. Yet his free life on that river wa^ not without its influence on his tastes and character; for, he tells us that " the voice of that stream flowed along his dreams while he was a child." Already he had an ear for the sounds of nature which made the ripple of the crystal river sound like sweet music in his young soul. His mother, described as a wise and pious w^oman, was wont to say of him, " W^illiam is tlie only one of my chil- dren about whom I feel anxious. I am sure he will be re- markable either for good or evil. According to the Scottish William Wordsworth. proverb, he will either * make a spoon or spoil a horn.' " The cause of this good mother's anxiety was w^hat the poet calls his "^ stiff, moody, and violent temper." Herein he illustrates his well-known line, " the child is father of the man," in that his early moodiness grew into the meditative- ness which gave character to his poetry, and his self-willed temper, when shorn of its unreasoning violence, became that unconquerable resolve by which he conquered the prejudices of society and won recognition as a true and great poet. But his mother was not permitted to outlive her anxieties, and to see its c;mse shed such luster on the family name as to give it immortality on earth. When William was only eight years old she died, leaving only a dim but tender recollec- tion of her person on her boy's mind. One year after her death the poet and his elder brother were sent away to school at Ilawkshead, a villige situated amid beautiful scenery. The life of the boys at this school was better fitted to de- velop their physical than their mental powers. They boarded with the village dames in their cottages, and out of school hours were allowed to wander, at their own sweet will, in the fields, to range the woods, to climb the crags in search of ravens' nests, to skate on Esthwaite lake in winter, and boat on more distant Windermere in summer. In all these advent- ures William was a leader. None could ply a sturdier oar or climb a more dizzy crag than he. When he was in his four- teenth year his father, disheartened by his wife's death, fol- lowed her to the grave. But the poet was kept at Hawks- head until he was nearly eighteen, and was then sent to St. John's College, Cambridge University. His years at Havvkshead had not been wholly given to free life in the fields, but sufiiciently to study to enable him to enter college, if not with eclat, yet on an equality with the average freshman. Neither at school nor in after life was he given to much reading. Yet he had made himself familiar with the English ix)ets, and had begun to feel that passion Willi ajn Wordsworth. for natural objects which was the fountain of his poetic power. Here also he liad begun those close observations of natural objects which were to become the groundwork of many of Ills poems, lie began tliis habit, he tells us, when only four- tren years old, while walking between Hawksliead and Am- bleside. It was the sunset hour, an