demned him. But still the critic was much more at fault than the poet; for, not content with tearing up weeds, Jeffrey (as Lockhart remarks) "in several cases set his heel upon a flower," and dealt but a scanty measure of justice to the nobler attributes of Wordsworth's genius. And therefore the depreciatory sentence of the Edinburgh reviewer has been very properly set aside as discreditable to his critical taste and penetration. As some compensation for the ill-usage of the critics, Wordsworth was appointed, about this time, distributor of stamps for the county of Westmoreland, an office which, it is presumed, he could transact by deputy, and which brought him a few hundreds a year.
"The White Doe of Rylstone" was published in 1815, and "Peter Bell" in 1819. Viewed as wholes these poems cannot be very highly commended; but they contain many passages of the most exquisite poetry, which, however, is sometimes laid on at the wrong places, leaving bald those spots where poetry is most wanted. This seems to be a not unfrequent fault with Wordsworth. In 1835 he published "Yarrow Revisited, and other poems," and in 1842 a volume containing "Guilt and Sorrow" and "The Borderers." His collected works have been frequently reprinted in various forms by Moxon, His popularity was now unquestioned. He received in 1839 the degree of D.C.L. from the university of Oxford, amid the enthusiastic plaudits of an unusually crowded theatre. In 1842 a pension of £300 a year was conferred upon him by Sir Robert Peel; and on Southey's death in the following year he was presented by the same minister to the laureateship, "as a tribute due to the first of living poets." But if honours fell thick upon his latter years, his home on the other hand was visited by some of those heavy sorrows, which few men escape whose life is protracted beyond the ordinary span. Some years before his death his sister's health became hopelessly disordered, and he lost his only surviving daughter, Dora, who had recently become the wife of Mr. Edward Quillinan. His own health continued strong until April, 1850, when he had reached his eightieth year. About the beginning of this month he was attacked with inflammation of the chest. The more painful symptoms of the malady were subdued, but he never rallied, and died peacefully on the 23rd of April. He was buried in Grasmere churchyard by the side of his children, two of whom he had lost many years before.
Wordsworth was about five feet ten inches in height. His figure was not graceful, but in his countenance there was a fine mixture of the poet and philosopher. He resembled the portraits of Locke; his eyes burned with an inward glare, and looked as if they saw things (which they did) in nature not revealed to ordinary vision. His manners were grave and rather austere; but never, even when his poetical fortunes were at their lowest ebb, was he, in the smallest degree, a soured or disappointed man; for nature had given him a sanguine temperament, equable, indeed elastic spirits, and he had moreover an unshaken faith in the genuineness of his own genius, and a correct appreciation of the value of his own writings, which he was sure would be finally rated at their proper worth, whatever vicissitudes they might meanwhile undergo. These vicissitudes are well summed up by De Quincey, who says, "From 1800 to 1820 the poetry of Wordsworth was trodden under foot, from 1820 to 1830 it was militant, from 1830 and onwards it has been triumphant." It must be remembered, however, that he had, from the first, a select fraternity of admirers who looked up to him as the very high priest of nature.
With regard to the poems themselves of Wordsworth there is but room for this single remark, that, of these poems it may perhaps be said, with greater truth than of any other modern poetry, that they contain passages and lines so startling in their simplicity, subtlety, and freshness, that the perusal of them forms an epoch in the intellectual life of every student of sensibility and taste. When first read they are felt to be unlike anything in poetry which the reader has ever met with before. As an instance of this spell-like originality take the two last lines of the following stanza—
" The stars of midnight shall be dear
To her; and she shall lean her ear
In many a secret place
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty born of murmuring sound
Shall pass into her face."
For the life of Wordsworth in full, see Memoirs of William Wordsworth, by Christopher Wordsworth, D.D.; Memoirs of William Wordsworth, compiled from authentic sources, by January Searle; neither of which, however, are works of much merit or interest. There is an excellent epitome of his life by Mr. Lockhart in vol. xcii. of the Quarterly Review.—J. F. F.
WORLIDGE, Thomas, a celebrated painter and engraver, was born at Peterborough, Northamptonshire, in 1700. He practised first at Bath as a portrait painter in oil, crayons, and miniatures; and afterwards in London, where his portraits drawn with the lead pencil on vellum had a great run of popularity. But he is now best known by his etchings of portraits in the manner of Rembrandt, and by his copies of the etchings of that master—among others, the Hundred Guilder print. His most elaborate engraving was from a drawing, by himself, of "The Theatre at Oxford at the Installation of the Earl of Westmoreland," which contains a great number of portraits, but is not a work of much ability. His last work was a series of antique gems, sets of which were printed on white satin. He died September 23, 1766. His wife had a considerable reputation for her pictures in needlework.—J. T—e.
WORMIUS, Olaus, or Ole Worm, a distinguished Danish historian and writer on antiquities, was born at Aarhuus in Jutland in 1588. After studying at various German universities, and travelling in Italy, France, and England, betook the degree of doctor of medicine at Basle in 1611. Two years afterwards, his varied learning and knowledge of history and languages procured him a professorship in the university of Copenhagen, in connection with which institution he remained till his death, which occurred in 1654. He was several times rector of the university, and was also private physician to Kings Christian IV. and Frederick III. of Denmark. His chief archæological works, which are very learned and valuable, are the following—"Fasti Danici," 1626; "Literatura Danica Antiquissima," 1636; "Monumentorum Danicorum libri vi.," 1643; and "Lexicon Runicum et Appendix ad Monumenta Danica," 1650. Ole Worm has the merit of being the first who, by his archæological collections and writings, directed general attention to the antiquities of Scandinavia.—J. J.
* WORNUM, Ralph Nicholson, was born December 29, 1812, at Thornton, near Norham, Durham. Intending to practise painting as a profession, he, on the completion of his general education at University college in 1833, and after a few months' preparatory training in Sass's art school, proceeded to the continent, and spent six years in the schools and galleries of Munich, Dresden, Rome, and Paris. On his return to England at the end of 1839 he established himself as a portrait painter, but gradually turned from the practice to the literature of art. From 1840 to the completion of the work, Mr. Wornum wrote the greater part of the biographies of artists, and many of the articles on art, in the Penny Cyclopedia and its Supplement. In 1841 he contributed the article "Pictura" to Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. His "Epochs of Painting" appeared in two volumes of Knight's Monthly Volume, 1847; an enlarged edition in 1859. In 1845 he was authorized by the government to prepare the catalogue of the National gallery, in which, besides an account of every painting, he gave a careful biography of each painter. To the thirty-seventh edition, published in 1863, he added facsimiles of the monograms and signatures on the several pictures. Mr. Wornum was appointed in 1848 lecturer on the history and principles of art to the government schools of design, and in 1852 librarian. In this capacity he prepared a classified catalogue of the library in 1855; and in 1856 published the substance of his lectures under the title of the "Analysis of Ornament," a work of great research and value. In 1855 Mr. Wornum was appointed keeper and secretary to the National gallery, and to his judgment and energy may be ascribed many of the improvements which have since been made in the building, the general disposition of the pictures, the arrangement of the Turner bequest, &c. Besides the works already mentioned, Mr. Wornum wrote the memoir and illustrative text to "The Turner Gallery," folio, 1861; has contributed numerous papers on art to the Art-Journal and other serials; edited the Lectures of the Royal Academicians, for Bohn's Scientific Library, 1848; a new edition of Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, 1849; and a Biographical Catalogue of Italian Painters, 1855. He is also the author of the biographies of artists, signed R. N. W., in the present work—notices characterized, like all his writings, by fullness and precision of information.—J. T—e.
WORONZOW or VORONZOFF, is the name of a family
