methods of drill and competition. They had left him free to take long rambles over the fells, scampers upon ponies, birds'-nesting expeditions, and skating parties on the frozen lakes. He had neither been trimmed into a model boy nor forced into rebellion, but had grown up after his own fashion. The early deaths of his parents had thrown him still more upon his own resources, and detached him from any close domestic ties. Every Englishman is an island, it is said, and Wordsworth was thoroughly insular or self-contained by temperament and circumstance. On the other hand, he was in thorough harmony with his social surroundings. He was on the friendliest terms with the old mistress of the dame-school, the 'statesmen,' and the country parsons of the district, whom he has idealised in his poetry. Wordsworth, in short, was as thorough a representative of the Cumbrian type as Scott of the Scottish borderers, though with a characteristic difference. He never cared, as he remarks in the Prelude, for history or tradition. While Scott's memory had recorded every legend and song connected with his beloved hills, Wordsworth was curiously indifferent to all the charm of historical association. He loved the
