The result of this literary alliance was the first volume of the “Lyrical Ballads.” The quiet but perfect melody of Wordsworth’s versification and the depth of the human sentiment in his reflections, the more swelling tone of Coleridge’s verse and his wild unearthly imaginings, might have secured a more favourable reception for his work, had it not been announced as the result of a new theory of poetry. That theory was misapprehended by the critics of the day, and was indeed inadequately expressed by its authors themselves. Coleridge subsequently developed it in more precise and unexceptionable language in his Biographia Literaria. The effect of its premature announcement was, that the Lyrical Ballads were judged, not by their own intrinsic merits, but by the theory upon which they were said to have been constructed. The insurmountable indolence of Coleridge—always planning works too great for human accomplishment, and resting satisfied with projects—left Wordsworth to pursue his path alone. This he did with characteristic pertinacity of purpose; if criticism had any influence on him at all, it was only to confirm him in his foregone conclusions. After an excursion to Germany, in which he was accompanied by his sister and Coleridge, he returned to his native country, ‘with the hope,’ as he has told us in his Preface to the Excursion, ‘of being enabled to construct a literary work that might live.’ In 1803, Wordsworth married his cousin, Miss Mary Hutchinson, and settled at Grasmere. He removed in a few years to Rydal Mount, where he continued to reside till his death. Subsequently to this time his life is utterly devoid of personal incident, and may be briefly recapitulated before proceeding to chronicle his poetical productions, which are indeed his life. By his wife, who survives him, he had one daughter, who died before him, and two sons, one of whom holds a vicarage in Cumberland, the other is a distributor of stamps. In 1814, Wordsworth, by the patronage of the Earl of Lonsdale, was appointed distributor of stamps for Cumberland and Westmoreland—a recognition of the claims of genius to public support only second in eccentricity to the making of Burns an exciseman. After holding this office for twenty-eight years, he was allowed to relinquish it to his eldest son, and retire upon a pension of 300_l._ a year. In 1843, he succeeded Southey in the limited emoluments and questionable dignity of the Laureateship. His slender inheritance, the beneficence of Raisley Calvert, his office under Government, his retiring pension, and his emoluments as Laureate, sufficed, with his simple tastes, to enable him to wait the slow pecuniary returns of his literary labours.