The death of the romantic poet was very sad news, although he had been in poor health and had recently lost his daughter, Dora. Most people will know at least the first line of his poem Daffodils. And what, I wonder, would Horace Rumpole have made of the news that his ‘dear old sheep of the Lake District‘ had died?
“On Tuesday, Mr. Wordsworth died at his house, Rydal Mount, near Ambleside. He was very well, and vigorous for his age, during the last autumn, and was, in some degree, recovering his spirits, which had suffered a severe shock in the death of his only daughter. About a month since he was attacked with serious illness, from which he never more than partially rallied, and at last he died – so far as such a man can die – on Tuesday, at noon. He had lately completed his 80th year. In losing him, the country lost one of the noblest minds which, in these times, have been devoted to poetry. In the present century, rich as its earlier years were in poetry, there has been no poet combining such purity with such elevation of thought as Wordworth. But he was, in every way, a valuable man – a man of strictly moral life and of noble simplicity of manners. Though his work in this world is done, and well done, we cannot but mourn the loss of so great a man.”
The Stamford Mercury, 23rd April, 1850.
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“Funeral of the Poet Laureate
The remains of Wordsworth were consigned to the earth, at the little church of Grasmere, on Saturday last. The funeral was intended to be as private as possible, but the attendance of ladies and gentlemen assembled to pay honour to the reamins of the illustrious dead was very large. There was a long procession of carriages and horsemen, and the church was filled with ladies and gentlemen of the neighbourhood, attired in deep mourning.” – Westmorland Gazette.
The Stamford Mercury, 26th April, 1850.