In our
view it is only another illustration of that scripture which describes
the righteous as never forsaken. Good luck is the willing handmaid of
upright, energetic character, and conscientious observance of duty.
Wordsworth owed his nomination to the friendly exertions of the Earl of
Lonsdale, who desired to atone as far as might be for the injustice of
the first Earl, and who respected the honesty of the man more than he
appreciated the originality of the poet.[346] The Collectorship at
Whitehaven (a more lucrative office) was afterwards offered to
Wordsworth, and declined. He had enough for independence, and wished
nothing more. Still later, on the death of the Stamp-Distributor for
Cumberland, a part of that district was annexed to Westmoreland, and
Wordsworth's income was raised to something more than L1,000 a year.
In 1814 he made his second tour in Scotland, visiting Yarrow in company
with the Ettrick Shepherd. During this year "the Excursion" was
published, in an edition of five hundred copies, which supplied the
demand for six years. Another edition of the same number of copies was
published in 1827, and not exhausted till 1834. In 1815 "The White Doe of
Rylstone" appeared, and in 1816 "A Letter to a Friend of Burns," in which
Wordsworth gives his opinion upon the limits to be observed by the
biographers of literary men.
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