This neglect of the Schools point of view may be from principle or idleness. Its material effect is the same, and Wordsworth missed his fellowship. But in truth, Cambridge had, in the last years of the eighteenth century, but few attractions for this mountain lad. He could appreciate-it appealed to his historical sense-the tradition of cloistral life which bound him to the generations that had · been. The poets, above all, who are the especial glory of Cambridge, and Milton, chief among the poets, were recreated in his imagination, as he paced in their echo and shadow (iii. 269-324); and in the ampler perspective of the ancient University, the very greatness of the great seemed humanised and humbled to a more familiar kinship. He could appreciate, too, perhaps a trifle overconsciously, the peculiar transitional grace, that is part of the charm of University life, the "something that resembles an approach towards human business" (iii. 3545, 511-33). He could find, too, the spirit of the mountains rediscovered on the bosom of the plain, nature triumphant over her own diversity. But for the rest he was out of place, and in later life he was bound to his alma mater rather by the tradition of filial love than by any deep conviction of her surpassing beauty. "The stream-like windings of that glorious street," the High in Oxford, almost made him unfaithful to his "own beloved Cam." For, in point of fact, the tide of intellectual life at the University was at this time at its lowest ebb. "Newton," says Professor Legouis, was the veritable God of Cambridge, and his Principia her Bible." + And, though Wordsworth, from his bed in the first court of St * Cp. Miscellaneous Sonnets, part iii. 2. + La Jeunesse de Wordsworth, p. 76. bridge" is of considerable value. Oxford, May 30th, 1820. The whole chapter "Cam John's, could see, on a moonlight night, into Trinity ante chapel, "where the statue stood Of Newton with his prism and silent face, The marble index of a mind for ever Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone" (iii. 60), yet he was unlikely to follow the fashion of the hour, and bow his intellect to Newton's yoke. Equally unlikely was he, in the interval between Bentley's death and Porson's professorship, to gather from "the trade in classic niceties" (vi. 109) refreshment from a living spring of literature and language. Moreover, Cambridge was affected at this time by a reaction against the tendencies of free thought. Her disputatious theologians confined their high argument to a narrow circle of Anglican gospel; and the literal restraint which the Hawkshead boy now for the first time experienced was repeated in the mental fetters which his tutors sought to impose upon him,-"Let them parade among the Schools at will, but spare the House of God." (iii. 407). For this, then, and for his natural disposition to independent paths of study, Wordsworth's Cambridge experiment was not altogether a success. He passed his days in alternate frivolity and solitude, spending, as he says, the morning hours in "unprofitable talk," the afternoons in boisterous parties on horse or on the river, yet not wanting, at intervals frequent enough to save the derelict from wreck, serious thought in the silent companionship of the stars, or the subtler local influences shed by the place itself. Of her many great sons whom Cambridge gave to the muse, Wordsworth cannot be called the most devoted; but there is a large reserve of gratitude and affection in his temperate statement, themselves. The seeds were slow to flower, and ripened out of sight. Articulation waited on maturity of thought. Until November 1791, he drifted aimlessly about, in London for the most part, or with Robert Jones in Denbighshire, taking walks and attempting poems. Throughout these months the persistent problem of self prevented the self-forgetfulness which is in London's keeping, and Prelude vii., despite its conclusion, and despite its vindication in the "Retrospect" of viii., gives no exalted view of Wordsworth's "Residence in London." Winter found him in France, to learn the language fluently as the first step to a possible tutorship. He learnt much more than the language; he absorbed the spirit and drank the intoxicating enthusiasm of the French. At first, indeed, he had to train his emotions. He passed through Paris with more care, as he says, for "the painted Magdalen of Lebrun"; he sojourned in Orleans with more liking for "the formal haunts of men," polished in society and arts, than for the noise and notions of the revolutionaries. indifference was not without its apology. Not only was the first storm already overblown, but Wordsworth's interest in politics was in an academic rather than an active order. Moreover, as well from the traditions of the countryside as from the habit of undergraduate life, the revolution of power from king to commons struck on his sympathies with no sense of the extraordinary. This But at Blois, in the spring of 1792, mingling with the flower of Gallic soldiery, seeing the roads crowded with the chivalry of France, above all, enjoying the companionship and confidence of the Republican General, Beaupuy,* the previous suspense gave way, * Michel Beaupuy (1755-1796, when he perished at Elz on Oct. 19) was one of five brothers, three of whom, philosophers and warriors, " And I gradually withdrew Into a noisier world, and thus ere long Became a patriot; and my heart was all Given to the people, and my love was theirs" (ix. 121). Wordsworth's eulogy of Beaupuy, in the ninth book of The Prelude, is admitted on all sides to have been as just as it was discriminating. The Chartist of gentle blood, with the romance of arms about him, the poet's senior by fifteen years, his superior by a wealth of learning-for the descendants of Montaigne would not dishonour their ancestry-in walks and talks innumerable, by brilliant argument or trenchant silence, had fired his youthful disciple with the contagion of his own ideals. When they parted, on July 27, 1792, never to meet again, in place of the aimless visionary and pamphlet politician, who had seen in the first great outbreak "nothing out of nature's certain course," Beaupuy left in the young Englishman at Blois, on whom he had poured the passion and the magnanimity of his spirit, an ardent proselyte, a poet with a religion and a mission, burning to strike a blow in the cause of freedom and the people. His love was theirs, and the "joy for tens of millions" was presently interpreted according to the letter of revolutionary schemes. In the first week of September (1792) the "Massacres took place in Paris; on the 22nd their memory was readily wiped out (" Ephemeral monsters, to be seen but once ") in the proclamation of the Republic; and, early in October, Wordsworth returned to the French capital. died in the cause of the Republic. Their father's family was noble ; through their mother they were descended from Montaigne. Michel Beaupuy's career is a stainless record of heroism, humanity and faith. Cp. Prel. ix., 287 to 430. But Wordsworth is mistaken in the date of his hero's death. Cp. too, Le Général Michel Beaupuy, par G. Bussière et E. Legouis (Paris, 1891). Do not let us misjudge him. At this time he was a lad of two-and-twenty, consorting at that most impressionable age with the leading men in the grandest drama that the stage of Europe has seen. By every instinct of character and upbringing he was disposed to accept the cry of equality as the key to perfection. More than this, he was already convinced, by a degree of intimacy with nature and an insight into her spiritual unity granted to few, that some great work was awaiting his doing, and he had lacked, during the trying transition years, the wisdom of home influence to temper the egotism of youth. What wonder that, in this mood of fire, he had heard "a voice that cried to the whole city, 'Sleep no more""; he had prayed that the four corners of the earth might send their succours to France; he had evoked the precedent of Harmodius and Aristogiton to prove "that tyrannic power is weak," and in their example would have thrown himself into the arms of the Girondists, and have followed their fate to the scaffold.* His uncles took alarm. To them he was only a somewhat unsatisfactory charge, sent abroad to study French, and no doubt exceeding his commands. In December, to the benefit of English literature, his supplies were stopped, and he was forced to return to London. 1793-5. More years of tribulation succeeded. Shortly after his home-coming, and to avert the displeasure of his relatives, he published, through Johnson, in St Paul's Churchyard, two slim quarto volumes of verse, An Evening Walk and the Descriptive Sketches. The former was addressed to his sister, and had been written at school and college. The latter was a memorial of his Swiss tour with Jones, was dedicated to him in his new style of Reverend, and had been composed during * ix. 48-236. |