The subsequent career of Wordsworth belongs to the history of poetry. Of events in the ordinary sense there are few to record. He successively occupies three houses in the Lake Country after abandoning Dove Cottage. We find him at Allan Bank in 1808, in the Parsonage at Grasmere in 1810, and at Rydal Mount from 1813 to his death in 1850. He makes occasional excursions to Scotland or the Continent, and at long intervals visits London, where Carlyle sees him and records his vivid impressions. For many years Wordsworth enjoys the sinecure of Distributor of Stamps for Westmoreland (400 pounds a year), and on his resignation of that office in his son's favor, he is placed on the Civil List for a well deserved pension of 300 pounds. On Southey's death, in 1843, he is appointed Poet Laureate. He died at Grasmere on April 23rd, 1850. Wordsworth's principal long poems are: _The Prelude_ (1805 published 1850); _The Excursion_ (1814); _The White Doe of Rylstone_ (1815) and _Peter Bell The Waggoner_ (1819). His fame rests principally on his shorter narrative poems, his meditative lyrics, including his two great odes, _To Duty_ and _On the Intimations of Immortality_, and on the sonnets, which rank with the finest in the language. The longer poems have many fine passages exhibiting his powers of graphic description, and illustrating his mystical philosophy of nature. Thomas Carlyle's description of Wordsworth is of interest: "For the rest, he talked well in his way; with veracity, easy brevity, and force, as a wise tradesman would of his tools and workshop, and as no unwise one could. His voice was good, frank, and sonorous, though practically clear, distinct, and forcible, rather than melodious; the tone of him, businesslike, sedately confident; no discourtesy, yet no anxiety about being courteous. A fine wholesome rusticity, fresh as his mountain breezes, sat well on the stalwart veteran, and on all he said and did. You would have said that he was a usually taciturn man, glad to unlock himself to audience sympathetic and intelligent, when such offered itself. His face bore marks of much, not always peaceful, meditation; the look of it not bland or benevolent so much as close, impregnable, and hard; a man _multa tacere loquive paratus_, in a world where he had experienced no lack of contradictions as he strode along. The eyes were not very brilliant, but they had a quiet clearness; there was enough of brow, and well-shaped; rather too much cheek ('horse face' I have heard satirists say); face of squarish shape, and decidedly longish, as I think the head itself was (its length going horizontal); he was large-boned, lean, but still firm-knit, tall, and strong-looking when he stood, a right good old steel-gray figure, with rustic simplicity and dignity about him, and a vivacious strength looking through him, which might have suited one of those old steel-gray markgrafs whom Henry the Fowler set up towards the 'marches'