For the most part the recollections which Wordsworth brought away from Cambridge are such as had already found expression more than once in English literature; for it has been the fortune of that ancient University to receive in her bosom most of that long line of poets who form the peculiar glory of our English speech. Spenser, Ben Jonson, and Marlowe; Dryden, Cowley, and Waller; Milton, George Herbert, and Gray--to mention only the most familiar names--had owed allegiance to that mother who received Wordsworth now, and Coleridge and Byron immediately after him. "Not obvious, not obtrusive, she;" but yet her sober dignity has often seemed no unworthy setting for minds, like Wordsworth's, meditative without languor, and energies advancing without shock or storm. Never, perhaps, has the spirit of Cambridge been more truly caught than in Milton's _Penseroso_; for this poem obviously reflects the seat of learning which the poet had lately left, just as the _Allegro_ depicts the cheerful rusticity of the Buckinghamshire village which was his now home. And thus the _Penseroso_ was understood by Gray, who, in his _Installation Ode_, introduces Milton among the bards and sages who lean from heaven, To bless the place where, on their opening soul, First the genuine ardour stole. "'Twas Milton struck the deep-toned shell," and invoked with the old affection the scenes which witnessed his best and early years: Ye brown o'er-arching groves, That contemplation loves, Where willowy Camus lingers with delight! Oft at the blush of dawn I trod your level lawn. Oft wooed the gleam of Cynthia silver-bright In cloisters dim, far from the haunts of Folly, With Freedom by my side, and soft-eyed Melancholy. And Wordsworth also "on the dry smooth-shaven green" paced on solitary evenings "to the far-off curfew's sound," beneath those groves of forest-trees among which "Philomel still deigns a song" and the spirit of contemplation lingers still; whether the silent avenues stand in the summer twilight filled with fragrance of the lime, or the long rows of chestnut engirdle the autumn river-lawns with walls of golden glow, or the tall elms cluster in garden or _Wilderness_ into towering citadels of green. Beneath one exquisite ash-tree, wreathed with ivy, and hung in autumn with yellow tassels from every spray, Wordsworth used to linger long "Scarcely Spenser's self," he tells us, Could have more tranquil visions in his youth, Or could more bright appearances create Of human forms with superhuman powers, Than I beheld loitering on calm clear nights Alone, beneath this fairy work of earth.