that the first verses which I wrote were a task imposed by my master;
the subject, _The Summer Vacation_; and of my own accord I added
others upon _Return to School_. There was nothing remarkable in
either poem; but I was called upon, among other scholars, to write
verses upon the completion of the second centenary from the
foundation of the school in 1585 by Archbishop Sandys. These verses
were much admired--far more than they deserved, for they were but a
tame imitation of Pope's versification, and a little in his style."

But it was not from exercises of this kind that Wordsworth's
school-days drew their inspiration. No years of his life, perhaps,
were richer in strong impressions; but they were impressions derived
neither from books nor from companions, but from the majesty and
loveliness of the scenes around him;--from Nature, his life-long
mistress, loved with the first heats of youth. To her influence we
shall again recur; it will be most convenient first to trace
Wordsworth's progress through the curriculum of ordinary education.

It was due to the liberality of Wordsworth's two uncles, Richard
Wordsworth and Christopher Crackanthorp (under whose care he and his
brothers were placed at there father's death, in 1783), that his
education was prolonged beyond his school-days. For Sir James
Lowther, afterwards Lord Lonsdale,--whose agent Wordsworth's father,
Mr. John Wordsworth, was--becoming aware that his agent had about
5000L at the bank, and wishing, partly on political grounds, to
make his power over him absolute, had forcibly borrowed this sum of
him, and then refused to repay it. After Mr. John Wordsworth's death
much of the remaining fortune which he left behind him was wasted in
efforts to compel Lord Lonsdale to refund this sum; out it was never
recovered till his death in 1801, when his successor repaid 8500L