He at first proposed establishing a
periodical journal to be called "The Philanthropist," but luckily went no
further with it, for the receipts from an organ of opinion which
professed republicanism, and at the same time discountenanced the plans
of all existing or defunct republicans, would have been necessarily
scanty. There being no appearance of any demand, present or prospective,
for philanthropists, he tried to get employment as correspondent of a
newspaper. Here also it was impossible that he should succeed; he was too
great to be merged in the editorial We, and had too well defined a
private opinion on all subjects to be able to express that average of
public opinion which constitutes able editorials. But so it is that to
the prophet in the wilderness the birds of ill omen are already on the
wing with food from heaven; and while Wordsworth's relatives were getting
impatient at what they considered his waste of time, while one thought he
had gifts enough to make a good parson, and another lamented the rare
attorney that was lost in him,[335] the prescient muse guided the hand of
Raisley Calvert while he wrote the poet's name in his will for a legacy
of L900. By the death of Calvert, in 1795, this timely help came to
Wordsworth at the turning point of his life and made it honest for him to
write poems that will never die, instead of theatrical critiques as
ephemeral as play bills, or leaders that led only to oblivion.
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