140 ARTISTS AND AUTHORS anger, because the poet would persist, in spite of all friendly counsel, in misapply* ing his powers, has become a byword of ridiculous critical cocksureness. But the curious thing is that " The Excursion " has not " done," and that the Words- worthians who laugh at Jeffrey are in the habit of repeating the substance of his criticism, though in more temperate and becoming language. There can be little doubt that adverse criticism had a depressing influence on Wordsworth's poetical powers, notwithstanding his nobly expressed defiance of it, and his determination to hold on in his own path undisturbed. Its effect in retarding the sale of his poems, and thus depriving him of the legitimate fruits of his industry, was a favorite topic with him in his later years ; but the absence of general appreciation, and the ridicule of what he considered his best and most distinctive work, contributed in all probability to a still more unfortunate result the premature depression and deadening of his powers. He schooled himself to stoical endurance, but he was not superhuman, and in the absence of sym- pathy not only was any possibility of development checked, but he ceased to write with the spontaneity and rapture of his earlier verse. His resolute indus- try was productive of many wise, impressive, and charitable reflections, and many casual felicities of diction, but the poet very seldom reached the highest level of his earlier inspirations. Wordsworth was appointed poet-laureate on the death of Southey, in 1843. His only official composition was an ode on the installation of the prince con- sort as chancellor of Cambridge University, in 1847. This was his last writing in verse. He died at Rydal Mount, after a short illness, on April 23, 1850, and was buried in Grasmere Churchyard. WASHINGTON IRVING (1 783-1859) ashington Irving, the first American who obtained a European reputation merely as a man of letters, was born at New York, April 3, 1 783. Both his parents were immigrants from Great Britain, his father, originally an officer in the merchant service, but at the time of Irving's birth a considerable merchant, having come from the Orkneys and his mother from Falmouth. Irving was intended for the legal profession, but his studies were interrupted by an illness necessitating a voyage to Europe, in the course of which he proceeded as far as Rome and made the acquaintance of Washington Allston. He was called to the Bar upon his return, but made little effort to practice, preferring to amuse himself with literary vent- ures. The first of these of any importance, a satirical miscellany entitled " Sal- magundi," written in conjunction with his brother William and J. K. Paulding, gave ample proof of his talents as a humorist. These were still more con-
