Later Years The later years of his life were peaceful. He had been given a job in the civil service in 1813 and thereafter took the large house called Rydal Mount, near Grasmere, where he was to live the rest of his life. He received honorary degrees from Durham and Oxford. In 1842 he resigned his civic post and was awarded a pension. The following year, on the death of Southey, he was appointed Poet Laureate. Towards the end of his life, he knew much fame. He was welcomed everywhere as a celebrity. The critics were stilled by his laureateship, and his verse became quite popular with the burgeoning middle class. (Gill 56) It was very fashionable among the early Victorians to gather for group readings of Wordsworth's poetry. In 1850, the death of his beloved daughter Dora brought a depression from which he could not recover. On April 23, he died at the age of eighty by a case of pleurisy, which is an inflammation that prevents breathing by causing terrible pain. It is the result of pneumonia. He was buried at St. Oswald's church in Grasmere. Several months later, Mary published his "poem to Coleridge" as "The Prelude." Thus was silenced one of the noblest voices of Romantic times and of all times.

6