ITALIAN TOUR--ECCLESIASTICAL SONNETS--POLITICAL VIEWS--LAUREATESHIP.

Wordsworth was fond of travelling, and indulged this taste whenever
he could afford it. Comparing himself and Southey, he says in 1843:
"My lamented friend Southey used to say that had he been a Papist,
the course of life which in all probability would have been his
was that of a Benedictine monk, in a convent furnished with
an inexhaustible library. _Books_ were, in fact, his passion;
and _wandering_, I can with truth affirm, was mine; but this
propensity in me was happily counteracted by inability from want of
fortune to fulfil my wishes." We find him, however, frequently able
to contrive a change of scene. His Swiss tour in 1790, his residence
in France in 1791-2, his residence in Germany, 1798-9, have been
already touched on. Then came a short visit to France in August 1802,
which produced the sonnets on Westminster Bridge and Calais Beach.
The tour in Scotland which was so fertile in poetry took place in
1803. A second tour in Scotland, in 1814, produced the _Brownie's
Cell_ and a few other pieces. And in July, 1820, he set out with his
wife and sister and two or three other friends for a tour through
Switzerland and Italy.

This tour produced a good deal of poetry; and here and there are
touches which recall the old inspiration. Such is the comparison of
the clouds about the Engelberg to hovering angels; and such the
description of the eclipse falling upon the population of statues
which throng the pinnacles of Milan Cathedral. But for the most part
the poems relating to this tour have an artificial look; the
sentiments in the vale of Chamouni seem to have been laboriously
summoned for the occasion; and the poet's admiration for the Italian
maid and the Helvetian girl is a mere shadow of the old feeling for