ight my friend
In agitation said, ''Tis against _that_
That we are fighting.'"

Just as Wordsworth was prepared to throw himself personally into the
conflict, his relatives recalled him to England. When the Revolution
passed into a period of anarchy and bloodshed, his dejection was
intense. As he slowly recovered from his disappointment, he became
more and more conservative in politics and less in sympathy with
violent agitation; but he never ceased to utter a hopeful though calm
and tempered note for genuine liberty.

Maturity and Declining Years.--Although Wordsworth was early left an
orphan, he never seemed to lack intelligent care and sympathy. His
sister Dorothy, a rare soul, helped to fashion him into a poet. Their
favorite pastime was walking and observing nature. De Quincey
estimates that Wordsworth, during the course of his life, mast have
walked as many as 175,000 miles. He acted on his belief that--

"All things that love the sun are out of doors,"

and he composed his best poetry during his walks, dictating it after
his return.

He must have had the capacity of impressing himself favorably on his
associates or he might never have had the leisure to write poetry.
When he was twenty-five, a friend left him a legacy of L900 to enable
him to follow his chosen calling of poet. Seven years later, friends
saw that he was appointed distributor of stamps for Westmoreland, at
the annual salary of L400. Years afterward, a friend gave him a
regular allowance to be spent in traveling.

The summer of 1797 saw him and Dorothy begin a golden year at Alfoxden
in Somersetshire, in close association with Coleridge. The result of
this companionship was _Lyrical Ballads_, an epoch-making volume of
romantic verse, containing such gems as Wordsworth's _Lines composed a
Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, Lines written in Early Spring, We Are
Seven_, and Coleridge's _The Ancient Mariner_. "All good poetry,"
wrote Wordsworth in the _Preface_ to the second edition of this
volume, "is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings." This is
the opposite of the belief of the classical school.

In 1797, after a trip to Germany, he and Dorothy settled at Dove
Cottage, Grasmere, in the Lake Country. She remained a member of the
household after he married his cousin, Mary Hutchinson, in 1802. The
history of English authors shows no more ideal companionship than that
of these three kindred souls. Dove Cottage where he wrote the bes