be realized no long time afterwards, thanks to the unlooked-for
outcome of another friendship. If the poet's sister was his first
admirer, Kaisley Calvert may fairly claim the second place. Calvert
was the son of the steward of the Duke of Norfolk, who possessed
large estates in Cumberland. He attached himself to Wordsworth, and
in 1793 and 1794 the friends were much together. Calvert was then
attacked by consumption, and Wordsworth, nursed him with patient care.
It was found at his death that he had left his friend a legacy of 900L.
"The act," says Wordsworth, "was done entirely from a confidence on
his part that I had powers and attainments--which might be of use to
mankind. Upon the interest of the 900L--400L being laid out in
annuity--with 200L deducted from the principal, and 100L a
legacy to my sister, and 100L more which the _Lyrical Ballads_ have
brought me, my sister and I contrived to live seven years, nearly
eight."

Trusting in this small capital, and with nothing to look to in the
future except the uncertain prospect of the payment of Lord
Lonsdale's debt to the family, Wordsworth settled with his sister at
Racedown, near Crewkerne, in Dorsetshire, in the autumn of 1795, the
choice of this locality being apparently determined by the offer of a
cottage on easy terms. Here, in the first home which he had possessed,
Wordsworth's steady devotion to poetry began. He had already,
in 1792 [2], published two little poems, the _Evening Walk_: and
_Descriptive Sketches_, which Miss Wordsworth, (to whom the _Evening
Walk_ was addressed) criticises with candour--in a letter to the same
friend (Forncett, February 1792):--

[Footnote 2: The _Memoirs_ say in 1793, but the following
MS. letter of 1792 speaks of them as already published.]