course," indicating "a hardy slight of college studies and their set
rewards." And it seems, indeed, probable that Wordsworth and his
friend Jones were actually the first undergraduates who ever spent
their summer in this way. The pages of the _Prelude_ which narrate
this excursion, and especially the description of the crossing of
the Simplon,--

The immeasurable height
Of woods decaying, never to be decayed,--

form one of the most impressive parts of that singular
autobiographical poem, which, at first sight so tedious and insipid,
seems to gather force and meaning with each fresh perusal. These
pages, which carry up to the verge of manhood the story of
Wordsworth's career, contain, perhaps, as strong and simple a
picture as we shall anywhere find of hardy English youth,--its proud
self-sufficingness and careless independence of all human things.
Excitement, and thought, and joy, seem to come at once at its bidding;
and the chequered and struggling existence of adult men seems
something which it need never enter, and hardly deigns to comprehend.

Wordsworth and his friend encountered on this tour many a stirring
symbol of the expectancy that was running through the nations of
Europe. They landed at Calais "on the very eve of that great federal
day" when the Trees of Liberty were planted all over France. They
met on their return

The Brabant armies on the fret
For battle in the cause of liberty.