Wordsworth was shocked, however, when England, after the death of the king, on January 21st, 1793, declared war with France; and now resolved to withdraw his mind, as much as possible, from the disappointed hopes which politics had brought him as their harvest, and devote himself to poetry. Accordingly, he left London, and once more commenced his ramblings, and poetic labours. He passed a part of the summer of 1793 in the Isle of Wight, hoping to find repose there; but the booming of terrible cannon, every evening, at Portsmouth, and the consciousness that a fleet was equipping in that port against France, made him sad, and full of misgivings as to the result of the enterprise. He soon left the beautiful island, therefore, and wandered, on foot, all over the vast plain of Salisbury--visiting the old and melancholy temple of the ancient Druids--and passing thence by Bristol and Tintern to North Wales. It was during this tour, on Salisbury Plain, that he commenced his poem entitled “Guilt and Sorrow;” a production of considerable vigour and ability. Having now, in 1793, completed his twenty-third year, his friends again urged him to receive holy orders; but, feeling that he was not _inwardly_ prepared for this important step, he again refused. The principle manifested in this refusal, is all the more worthy and memorable, because the poet had, at this time, no hearthstone, no place that he could call _his_. His time was employed, therefore, in travelling about, from place to place, and from friend to friend; now to good Robert Jones, in Wales,--the man whom De Quincy conjectures to have had no brains, and for which I owe the said De Quincy a grudge, notwithstanding that I think more highly of him than any other man now living in these realms,--and now to Mr. Rawson’s, of Millhouse, Halifax, who had married Wordsworth’s cousin, Miss Threlkeld, the lady who brought up Dorothy Wordsworth, the dearly beloved sister of the poet. In 1794, Wordsworth writes to his friend Mathews “that his sister is under the same roof with him; but that he is doing nothing, and knows not what will become of him.” All his path lay dark and gloomy before him. He was recommended to study the law, but he absolutely refused; and the Fates seemed to be sporting with him. His love for Dorothy grew in him every day, and it was in the year I am now speaking of, that she, having accompanied him by coach from Halifax to Kendal, _walked_ with him from the latter place to Grasmere--eighteen miles, and from thence to Keswick--fifteen miles further, where they put up at a farm-house, called Windybrow, and became thenceforth all-in-all to each other.