ast verse; or shall be, in the lays
Of higher mood, which now I meditate;--
It gladdens me, O worthy, short-lived, Youth!
To think how much of this will be thy praise.

Raisley Calvert was the son of R. Calvert, steward to the Duke of
Norfolk. Writing to Sir George Beaumont, on the 20th February 1805,
Wordsworth said, "I should have been forced into one of the professions"
(the church or law) "by necessity, had not a friend left me L900. This
bequest was from a young man with whom, though I call him friend, I had
but little connection; and the act was done entirely from a confidence
on his part that I had powers and attainments which might be of use to
mankind.... Upon the interest of the L900, and L100 legacy to my sister,
and L100 more which the 'Lyrical Ballads' have brought me, my sister and
I contrived to live seven years, nearly eight." To his friend Matthews
he wrote, November 7th, 1794, "My friend" (Calvert) "has every symptom
of a confirmed consumption, and I cannot think of quitting him in his
present debilitated state." And in January 1795 he wrote to Matthews
from Penrith (where Calvert was staying), "I have been here for some
time. I am still much engaged with my sick friend; and am sorry to add
that he worsens daily ... he is barely alive." In a letter to Dr. Joshua
Stanger of Keswick, written in the year 1842, Wordsworth referred thus
to Raisley Calvert. Dr. Calvert--a nephew of Raisley, and son of the W.
Calvert whom the poet accompanied to the Isle of Wight and Salisbury in
1793--had just died. "His removal (Dr. Calvert's) has naturally thrown
my mind back as far as Dr. Calvert's grandfather, his father, and sister
(the former of whom was, as you know, among my intimate friends), and
his uncle Raisley, whom I have so much cause to remember with gratitude
for his testamentary remembrance of me, when the greatest part of my
patrimony was kept back from us by injustice. It may be satisfactory to
your wife for me to declare that my friend's bequest enabled me to
devote myself to literary pursuits, independent of any necessity to look
at pecuniary emolument, so that my talents, such as they might be, were
free to take their natural course. Your brothers Raisley and William
were both so well known to me, and I have so many reasons to respect
them, that I cannot forbear saying, that my sympathy with this last
bereavement is deepened by the remembrance that they both have been
taken from you...."