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Wordsworth as Business Man

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Wallace W. Douglas
Wallace W. Douglas*
Affiliation:
Northwestern University
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Extract

Wordsworthians have long been puzzled and perhaps a little distressed by the poet's apparent shift in political opinion. It is curious that in all the discussion that has resulted no one has said much about Wordsworth's rather vigorous life as a man of business. The story begins with the popular picture of Wordsworth “virtuous, simple, and unaffectedly restricting every want and wish to the bounds of a very narrow income”, with his “little cottage, and the sister and wife dressing the mutton leg in the same room where it was to be eat.” There is probably some truth behind this picture, though it belongs to an earlier period than that of Scott's letter. For some years after his father's death (1784) Wordsworth very likely had more expectations than cash. But since his uncles and guardians were prepared to contribute almost 460 to his college expenses, Wordsworth's only real hardship must have been in not having his own money at hand. Moreover Wordsworth's father, who, in succession to his father and to his cousin, John Robinson, the favorite of George II, had been attorney and land-agent to the Earl of Lonsdale, left only part of his estate tied up in the famous debt owed by the Earl. It is difficult to determine the size of the remainder. Words worth's elder brother, had about 100 a year; and there seems to have been other real and personal property. Gordon Wordsworth, working from the account of his greatgrandfather, lists the following property as belonging at some time to John Wordsworth: the Sockbridge estate; “the various ‘Cattle Gates’ upon the moor”; Ingmire Close, which he had bought from his father-in-law, and which gave him a vote in Cumberland; two fields near Cockermouth, which had cost 200; and “other small properties in various parts of Cumberland.” And the other children must have had some share in an estate at Newbiggin, in Westmorland.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 63 , Issue 2 , June 1948 , pp. 625 - 641
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1948

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References

1 H. J. C. Grierson, ed., The Letters of Sir Walter Scott (London: Constable, 1932), i, 287 (Scott to Miss Seward, 10 April 1806); David Douglas, ed., Familiar Letters of Sir Walter Scott (Boston, 1894), ii, 336 (Lockhart to his wife, comparing this Wordsworth with the one he knew, and wishing that he had not changed).

2 Ernest de Selincourt, ed., The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth; the Later Years (Oxford: Clarendon, 1939), iii, 1329.

3 Idem, ed., The Early Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth (Oxford: Clarendon, 1935), p. 64.

4 Gordon G. Wordsworth, “The Boyhood of Wordsworth”, The Cornhill Magazine, n.s. xlviii (1920), 410-20. He does not date the account book, give the total value of the estate, or list the personal property which was also, if the title is to be trusted, included in the accounts.

5 Early Letters, p. 64. D. W. says they will receive 150 “out of the Newbiggin estate.” I do not know whether she means the lands of her mother's people, or some separate estate.

6 Ibid., pp. 63-4, 68, 108.

7 Ibid., p. 64.

8 Ibid., pp. 53, 450. 9 Later Years, m, 1108.

10 Early Letters, p. 126.

11 Later Years, iii, 1329–30.

12 In the end Calvert made the legacy 900 (Later Years, iii, 1331–32). W. W. received the 585 in the form of notes, maturing on successive dates, on which he received interest from the date of issue (ibid., pp. 1338-39).

13 Ibid., p. 1339: W.W. to R.W., 5 May 1798: Having listed “the sums which I have received”, he says, “You will receive the money.”

14 “You will receive the money. I should wish to have it all at my disposal about ten weeks from this time. 30 I shall want in six weeks. [He discusses affairs with Montagu and ‘the remainder of the money which Calvert will owe me.‘] As for the money you receive you will make the best use you can of it, with safety, for the short time.” Ibid.

15 Ibid.

18 Ibid., iii, 1332–33.

17 Ibid., pp. 1336, 1337. Note that an annuity like this ran for the life of the borrower, not of the lender.

18 Ibid., pp. 1338-39. This is so, if the notes were cashed as they came due.

19 Early Letters, p. 450. W.W. says that 400 were in the annuity, and 200 were “deducted from the principal”, presumably the principal of the legacy. The annuity was originally purchased for300, but then Montagu added another100 to his debt (Later Years, iii, 1336).

20 Commons Journal, xxxvi (1777), 492. The bill was dropped. For other objections see Lord Erskine, Reflections on Gaming, Annuities and Usurious Contracts (London, 1777), and Edward Sugden (Lord St. Leonards), “Considerations on the Rate of Interest, and on Redeemable Annuities”, The Pamphleteer, vii (1816), 271–90.

21 Later Years, ii1336.

22 Ibid.; Early Letters, p. 243. For other discussion of the affair, see Early Letters, p. 215.

23 Bergen Evans and Hester Pinney, “Racedown and the Wordsworths”, RES, iii (1932), 1-18, especially at pp. 5–7.

24 Emest de Selincourt, ed., The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth; the Middle Years (Oxford: Clarendon, 1937), n, 566-7; Later Years, iii.

25 The statement does not mean that the contract became non-usurious when W.W. insured Montagu's life; but that W.W. thereby relieved himself of an action at law to recover the principal should Montagu die. He did not avoid usury but the charge of usury.

26 Edith J. Morley, ed., Henry Crabb Robinson on Books and Their Writers (London: Dent [1938]), i, 210–11.

27 Montagu meant that he had not deducted the income tax, which, after 1803, would have been paid at the source.

28 Morley, Robinson on Books, i, 211.

29 Ibid., ii, 505, 618.

30 Early Letters, pp. 169, 171, 237; Later Years, iii, 1339.

31 Early Letters, pp. 138-9. Montagu was unable to pay the interest that year (ibid., p. 197).

32 Ibid., p. 197.

33 Ibid., pp. 282, 300; on a possible allowance from R. W., see pp. 299,324-5. For mention of gifts from R.W., see pp. 132,135, 173.

34 Ibid., pp. 215, 231, 234, 324, 353. This money may have come from gifts, or from the remaining 315 of the legacy, which must have been paid some time after July 1797. The published letters have no obvious record of its ever being invested, though in August 1799 W.W. thought he had 300 which could be invested in stocks (ibid., pp. 230–1).

35 Ibid., pp. 451, 543.

36 Ibid., p. 450. Since there were five children, I do not see how he arrived at this figure. De Selincourt, however, uses it in his biography of D.W. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1933), p. 145; though in the Early Letters (p. 4 n.) he says that after their share of the expenses had been deducted, W.W. and D.W. received 3825.

37 Ibid., pp. 317-22, passim, and p. 450. J.W. was drowned, 5 February 1805. Since the investment was insured, the Wordsworths did not lose what they had struggled so long to gain. I do not know what happened to the share of J.W., if it also was insured. His total investment amounted to about 20,000 (pp. 438–9).

38 Ibid., p. 331.

39 Ibid., pp. 233, 354, 543.

40 Middle Years, i, 55-6.

41 Early Letters, pp. 458–60.

42 George M. Harper, William Wordsworth (London: John Murray, 1929), p. 429. See also his letter to Beaumont (Middle Years, i, 60), where he explains his reasons for returning a portion of Lowther's money.

43 Middle Years, i, 238; ii, 560.

44 Ibid., i, 420.

45 In 1846 Crabb Robinson had to ask advice about the settlement of R.W.'s estate. Mor-ley, Robinson on Books, ii, 657.

46 Middle Years, π, 698.

47 Middle Years, ii, 707.

48 A letter to Montagu, 29 April 1816 (ibid., p. 737) mentions the bond; a letter of 3 May (ibid., pp. 737-8), the third in a series of which the first two are not extant, mentions his discovery about the bond. The bond was for 3000 (ibid., p. 737). In 1836 the estate still owed him 2000 (Morley, Robinson on Books, n, 485); I do not know whether the money was paid. At any rate it is clear that W.W. was able to carry on all the complicated financial dealings of his middle years without the use of this money.

49 Middle Years, ii, 739.

50 See ibid., pp. 739,741,743,746; also Leslie N. Broughton, ed., Some Letters of the Words worth Family Now First Published (Ithaca: Cornell, 1942), p. 68.

51 D.W. to Mrs. Clarkson, April 1817, Middle Years, ii, 785-6.

52 Middle Years, ii, 749, 750, 753-4, 759-60, 773, 774.

53 Ibid., pp. 764, 772, 773.

54 Ibid., p. 863. De Selincourt thought that the land was the Place Fell estate. If this is so, W.W. must have held other land in that neighborhood, for in 1825 D.W. was complaining to Jane Marshall that the Patterdale estate was “paying such poor interest for the money it cost”, and hinting that perhaps Mrs. Marshall could suggest that her husband should buy it (Later Years, i, 233).

55 E. V. Lucas, Charles Lamb and the Lloyds (London, 1898), pp. 274–5. The letter was not reprinted by De Selincourt.

56 Broughton, Letters, p. 63; Later Years, i, 221, 222.

57 Later Years, i, 170; iii, 1082. For his reluctance to discuss the annuity, see Stephen Potter, ed., Minnow Among Tritons ([London]: Nonesuch Press, 1934), p. 137.

58 Morley, Robinson on Books, i, 359; idem, Robinson Correspondence, i, 206, 215; Later Years, i, 432, 447, 450, 470. At one time he was prepared to lend either2500 or 3500; later he suggested 3000.

59 Morley, Robinson Correspondence, i, 200, 214, 269. The second letter may mean that he was adding 300, not 100 to his investment. Apparently he did not hold all the shares for the full five years; H.C.R. says that he paid Courtenay 117 10s. for the shares. This can hardly mean that W.W. lost money, for the shares were worth 22J, which W.W. called “unreasonably high.” H.C.R. paid 23 1/2. (Morley, Robinson on Books, i, 450).

60 Morley, Robinson on Books, i, 451.

61 Morley, Robinson Correspondence, i, 276, 279.

62 Ibid., i, 299.

63 Ibid., p. 363. He notes that he had had money in American bonds for forty years. 64 Ibid., pp. 361–2, 368; Later Years, ii, 945, 946, 947.

65 Buford Rowland, “William Wordsworth and Mississippi Bonds”, Journal of Southern History, i (1935), 501-7; Leslie N. Broughton, ed., Wordsworth and Reed (Ithaca: Cornell; London: Milford, 1933), p. 32.

66 Morley, Robinson Correspondence, i, 397, 447–8, 449; Broughton, Letters, p. 81. He sold out to Robinson, who seems to have been offended by the transaction; I do not know why. W.W.'s apology (Robinson Correspondence, i, 448) sounds as if he had had information which allowed him to get out before the bank failed, whereas H.C.R. was caught. But the only history of the bank I have been able to find does not mention any failure at this time. (See Maberly Phillips, A History of the Banks, Bankers and Banking in Northumberland, Durham and North Yorkshire [London, 1894], pp. 313–5.)

67 Rowland, Journ. of Southern History, i, 507 n., citing S. P. McCutcheon, The Political Career of Albert Gallatin Brown (unpublished thesis, Univ. of Chicago, 1929), p. 65, n. 27.

68 John Henry Overton and Elizabeth Wordsworth, Christopher Wordsworth, Bishop of Lincoln (London, 1888), p. 38.

69 Morley, Robinson on Books, 1,358.

70 H.C.R. calls it the “Rock Office.” This seems the most likely company. It is mentioned in Francis Baily, The Doctrine of Life-annuities and Assurance Analytically Investigated and Explained (London, 1810), pp. 495-6, 499. The money must have been in stock pf the company (see Morley, Robinson on Books, ii, 486).

71 Morley, Robinson on Books, ii, 459.

72 Ibid., p. 486. But compare p. 640: In 1842, when W.W. was seeking a pension, Moxon said that W.W. had received 1423 for his poems since 1836, of which 1000 had been paid in 1836. Apparently Moxon did not know of W.W.'s estimate of his yearly income.

73 Middle Years, ii, 475–6.

74 Ibid., pp. 522, 525.

75 Ibid., ii, 527.

76 Ibid., p. 537. This letter proves the pension to have been for 100.

77 Morley, Robinson on Books, i, 125.

78 Middle Years, ii, 570.

79 Middle Years, ii, 569.

80 At least so he explained to H.C.R.; see Morley, Robinson Correspondence, i, 176.

81 Later Years, i, 220-1, 224, 227; Morley, Robinson Correspondence, i, 163–4.

82 Morley, Robinson Correspondence, i, 164.

83 Samuel Smiles, Memoir and Correspondence of the Late John Murray (two volumes; London and New York, 1891), ii, 245. Smiles quotes Lockhart's letter, which went on to say that the whole thing depended on “the terms proposed by the great Laker, whose vanity, be it whispered, is nearly as remarkable as his genius.”

84 Morley, Robinson Correspondence, i, 176, 177.

85 Later Years, i, 338, 339, 344.

86 Ibid., p. 344.

87 Later Years, i, 339. He had, for example, mentioned it to guests at Lowther Castle, where the prospectus had reached him, a happy coincidence, which W.W. himself points out in this letter.

88 Mark Rutherford, “A Note or Two for Readers of Wordsworth”, Last Pages from a Journal (London, 1915), pp. 164–71, at p. 171.

89 Later Years, ii, 920. He told Peel that his poetry had brought him more in the seven years before 1838 than in the preceding thirty (ibid., p. 936).

90 Wilfrid Ward, Aubrey DeVere (London, 1904), p. 70.

91 Paul Knaplund, “Correspondence Relating to the Grant of a Civil List Pension to William Wordsworth, 1842”, MLN, xlii (1927), 385–9, at p. 387. A letter of 13 October 1842, based on information from Moxon.

92 Morley, Robinson Correspondence, i, 486.

93 Morley, Robinson Correspondence, i, 251.

94 Later Years, ii, 612.

95 Letters to Mathews: 23 May, June, and 7 November 1794, December 1794-January 1795. Letters on the legacy: 1, 10, 20 October 1794, 16 September 1795.

96 Morley, Robinson on Books, i, 448.