WORDSWORTH 



6358 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION 



which fully sufficed for the somewhat frugal 

 life of the family. During his remaining years 

 he made several tours on the Continent and 

 through England and Scotland, accompanied 

 sometimes by members of his family, some- 

 times by friends. 



Appreciation Came Slowly. Very slow in- 

 deed were the critics and the public to admit 

 the genius of this man whose poetry differed 

 so radically from almost everything that had 



RYDAL MOUNT 



preceded it. From the time of the publication 

 of a second edition of the Lyrical Ballads, in 

 1800, when his theory of poetry was made 

 known in a celebrated Prejace, he was met for 

 thirty years with harsh and almost uniformly 

 unappreciative criticism. During this period, 

 however, he gained the loyal support of friends, 

 notably of Coleridge, Southey, DeQuincey, 

 Lamb and Keats; and, confident of his own 

 power, he continued to produce the poems 

 which finally changed the idea of the very 

 nature of poetry itself, replacing the artificiali- 

 ties which the previous age had demanded with 

 simplicity and naturalness. 



Became Poet Laureate. In 1843 he was hon- 

 ored by Victoria with the laureateship. Among 

 the poems which show Wordsworth at his best 

 are the Ode on the Intimations oj Immortality, 

 the Ode to Duty, The Happy Warrior, The 

 Solitary Reaper, The Daffodils and his sonnets. 

 The Excursion, a lengthy poem which is at times 

 tiresome, and The Prelude, an autobiographical 

 poem, contain many beautiful passages, but as 

 a whole they do not approach the shorter lyr- 

 ics. Of almost every poet who ever wrote it is 

 true that his work is uneven and that he left 

 some things which add nothing to his fame; 

 but this is true in a higher degree of Words- 

 worth than of most poets. Some of his poems, 

 especially of the earlier ones, are almost ludi- 

 crous in their striving after simplicity ; but the 



larger part of his work is such that he deserves 

 to be ranked with the very greatest English 

 poets immediately after Shakespeare, Milton 

 and Chaucer, perhaps. 



His Views of Poetry and Life. It was Words- 

 worth's expressed belief that the language of 

 poetry should not differ greatly from the lan- 

 guage of prbse. His aim was to choose his 

 subjects and his characters from everyday life, 

 and to use the language of the people, depend- 

 ing for poetic beauty on imaginative coloring 

 and the poet's interpretation of nature and life. 

 His style is, indeed, remarkably simple, but his 

 diction is very often far removed from that of 

 commonplace prose. 



It is as an interpreter of nature and of the 

 brotherhood of man that he stands supreme. 

 To him nature seemed a living and intelligent 

 being, capable of communicating with man, and 

 worthy of all admiration; and in the very 

 humblest lives he found a nobility, a strength, 

 that proved to him the equality of man. Such 

 a poem as Michael is a masterpiece by reason 

 of its sympathetic comprehension of the worth 

 and dignity of the life of an humble shepherd. 

 As a writer of sonnets Wordsworth is the great- 

 est of English poets since Milton. A.MC c. 



Consult Winchester's William Wordsworth: 

 How to Know Him; Robertson's Wordsworth and 

 the English Lake Country. 



WORKMEN'S COMPENSA'TION LAWS, 



statutes designed to protect the workman from 

 loss due to injuries which were the result of his 

 trade or occupation. For a detailed account of 

 the principles and operation of such laws, see 

 EMPLOYERS' LIABILITY. 



WORLD'S COLUM'BIAN EXPOSITION, 

 THE, a great international exhibition held in 

 Chicago in 1893, in which all the nations of the 

 world joined with America to celebrate the 

 400th anniversary of its discovery. Columbus 

 had landed on the island of San Salvador, 

 supposed to be the present Watling's Island, 

 on October 12, 1492 the birthday of the New 

 World. The corresponding date in the New 

 Style calendar is October 23; and on that day, 

 in the year 1892, the magnificent World's Fair 

 of Chicago was formally dedicated. It was not 

 completed, however, until May 1, 1893, when 

 President Cleveland touched the electric but- 

 ton that unfurled the official flags and set the 

 machinery in motion. For six months people 

 from all over the world streamed through the 

 gates of this wondrous "City Beautiful," drink- 

 ing in its glories and absorbing the rich educa- 

 tional benefits it bestowed. 



