1787 - 1790
University

October 1787 - January 1791: St John's College, Cambridge

After an initial burst of enthusiasm, he does not take to Cambridge. His status as a 'sizar' marks him out as a hard-up student, and it is probable that his experiences in the Cookson household have left him particularly sensitive to his 'impoverished' status, though it is also true that his general assessment of academic life at Cambridge was not very positive.

Wordsworth records:

.. I had a full twelve month's start of the freshmen of my year, and accordingly got into rather an idle way; reading nothing but classic authors according to my fancy, and Italian poetry. (Autobiogtraphical Memoir, Rydal Mount, 1847)

Of his time at Cambridge University generally, he writes:

I did not, as I in some respects greatly regret, devote myself to the studies of the University. This neglect of University studies will be easily comprehended by you, when I inform you, that I employed the last of my summer vacations in a pedestrian tour of the Alps. (Letter to Miss Taylor 9 April 1801)

Not sure that this explains everything, though the action is ostentatiously refractory: the expectation being, perhaps, that he would spend this time 'swotting' for his finals.

Further evidence of his refractory personality may be read into the fact that, having clearly already demonstrated considerable talent in poetic composition (see his poem An Evening Walk mainly composed while he was at Hawkshead), he refuses to write verses on the death of Dr Chevallier, the Master of St John's College, despite the fact that the man's death offers him a significant opportunity to distinguish himself, refusing on the grounds that he felt no interest in the person, with whom he had had no intercourse, arguably demonstrating thereby considerable ability to stand by his principles even when this was apparently against his own interest.

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July to October 1790: Walking tour of France, Switzerland, Northern Italy and Germany

During the long vacation of 1790 (20), he goes on a walking tour of France, Switzerland, Northern Italy and Germany (around 3000 kilometres in total) with his friend Robert Jones, at a time when the whole of France was in full enthusiasm during the initial phases of the French Revolution. They return along the Rhine in a boat purchased in Basle, which they sell in Cologne, and by mid October, he is back at Cambridge. The trip is covered at length in the poem Descriptive Sketches, written during his second visit to France in 1791/2.

On his return to England, he goes back to Cambridge briefly (candidates were required to reside for the 'greater part' of any term counting towards their degree),

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December 1790: six weeks in Forncett with his sister

He spends six weeks at the parsonage of his uncle William Cookson (the brother of their unsympathetic uncle Christopher of Penrith) in Forncett where his sister has been living happily since 1787, helping with the household chores, the care of the children and the pastoral work of her uncle.

...we used to walk every morning about two hours, and every evening we went into the garden at four or half past four and used to pace backwards and forwards till six (Dorothy Wordsworth, letter to Jane Pollard, Forncett, 23 May 1791)

Dorothy comments later:

We have been endeared to each other by early misfortune - We in the same moment lost a father, a mother, a home, we have been equally deprived of our patrimony by the cruel Hand of lordly Tyranny. These afflictions have all contributed to unite us closer by the bonds of affection notwithstanding we have been compelled to spend our youth far asunder. We drag at each remove a lengthening chain.'(Letter to Jane Pollard, Forncett,16 February 1793)

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