Wordsworth at Cambridge Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- FRONTISPIECE
- The Wordsworth Centenary Celebrations
- The Master's Address: St John's College in Wordsworth's Time
- Reading and Commentary
- The Toast: “Wordsworth”, by the Master of Trinity College
- The Exhibition in the Library
- Additional Notes on St John's College in Wordsworth's Time
- Wordsworth's Ash Tree
- Wordsworth Portraits: A Biographical Catalogue
- ILLUSTRATIONS
Wordsworth Portraits: A Biographical Catalogue
from The Wordsworth Centenary Celebrations
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- FRONTISPIECE
- The Wordsworth Centenary Celebrations
- The Master's Address: St John's College in Wordsworth's Time
- Reading and Commentary
- The Toast: “Wordsworth”, by the Master of Trinity College
- The Exhibition in the Library
- Additional Notes on St John's College in Wordsworth's Time
- Wordsworth's Ash Tree
- Wordsworth Portraits: A Biographical Catalogue
- ILLUSTRATIONS
Summary
Painting by William Shuter, 1798.
Dorothy Wordsworth wrote in her Alfoxden journal for 6 May 1798: “Expected the painter and Coleridge.” Soon after, Coleridge, writing to Joseph Cottle about the printing of Lyrical Ballads, remarked: “The picture shall be sent.” When Cottle published the letter, he added a footnote to Coleridge's bare statement: “A portrait of Mr Wordsworth, correctly and beautifully executed, by an artist then at Stowey; now in my possession.” The artist's conception of Wordsworth agrees marvellously with Hazlitt's description of him when he visited Alfoxden in 1798:
There is a severe, worn presence of thought about the temples, a fire in his eye (as if he saw something in objects more than outward appearance), an intense, high, narrow forehead, a Roman nose, cheeks furrowed by strong purpose and feeling, and a convulsive inclination to laughter about the mouth, a good deal at variance with the solemn, stately expression of the rest of his face.
Professor de Selincourt considered this the earliest known portrait, but it could not have been taken more than a few months before Hancock's (No. 2), because the subject left for Germany in September 1798. William Shuter exhibited paintings at the Royal Academy from 1771 to 1791. At that time his speciality was fruit.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Wordsworth at CambridgeA Record of the Commemoration Held at St John's College, Cambridge in April 1950, pp. 41 - 72Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009First published in: 1950
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