In 1838, Wordsworth received an honorary doctorate in Civil Law from the University of Durham and the following year he was awarded the same honorary degree by the University of Oxford, when John Keble praised him as the "poet of humanity", praise greatly appreciated by Wordsworth. (It has been argued that Wordsworth was a great influence on Keble's immensely popular book of devotional poetry, "The Christian Year" (1827).) In 1842, the government awarded him a Civil List pension of £300 a year.