er, and happier. Farewell! I will not apologize for this letter, though its length demands an apology. Believe me, eagerly wishing for the happy day when I shall see you and Sir George here, Most affectionately yours, W. WORDSWORTH FROM A LETTER TO SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT MY DEAR SIR GEORGE, I am quite delighted to hear of your picture for " Peter Bell"; I was much pleased with the sketch, and I have no doubt that the picture will surpass it as far as a picture ought to do. I long much to see it. I should approve of any engraver ap proved by you. But remember that no poem of mine will ever be popular; and I am afraid that the sale of "Peter" would not carry the expense of the engraving, and that the poem, in the estimation of the public, would be a weight upon the print. I say not this in modest disparagement of the poem, but in sorrow for the sickly taste of the public in verse. The people would love the poem of " Peter Beil," but the public (a very different being) will never love it. Thanks for dear Lady B.'s transcript from your friend's letter; it is writ ten with candor, but I must say a word or two not in praise of it. "Instances of what I mean," says your friend, 66 to be found in a poem on a Daisy," (by the by, it is on the Daisy, a mighty difference!) " and on Daffodils reflected in the Water." Is this accurately transcribed by Lady Beaumont ? If it be, what shall we think of criticism or judgment founded upon, and exemplified by, a poem which must have been so nattentively perused? My language is precise; and theresore it would be false modesty to charge myself with blame: "Beneath the trees, Ten thousand dancing in the breeze. The waves beside them danced, but they are Can expression be more distinct? And let me ask your friend how it is possible for flowers to be reflected in water where there are waves? They may, indeed, in still water; but the very object of my poem is the trouble or agitation, both of the flowers and the water. I must needs respect the understanding of every one honored by your friendship; but sincerity compels me to say that my poems must be more nearly looked at, before they can give rise to any remarks of much value, even from the strongest minds. With respect to this individual poem, Lady B. will recollect how Mrs. Fermor expressed herself upon it. A letter also was sent to me, addressed to a friend of mine, and by him communicated to me, in which this identical poem was singled out for fervent approbation. What then shall we say? Why, let the poet first consult his own heart, as I have done, and leave the rest to posterity, to, I hope, an improving posterity. The fact is, the English public are at this moment in the same state of mind with respect to my poems, if small things may be compared with great, as the French are in respect to Shakespeare, and not the French alone, but almost the whole Continent. In short, in your friend's letter, I am condemned for the very thing for which I ought to have been praised, viz. that I have not written down to the level of superficial observers and unthinking minds. Every great poet is a teacher: I wish either to be considered as a teacher, or as nothing. An Evening Walk. VOLUME I. Addressed to a Young Lady. The young lady to whom this was addressed was my sister. It was composed at school and during my first two college vacations. There is not an image in it which I have not observed; and, now in my seventy-third year, I recollect the time and place where most of them were noticed. I will confine myself to one instance. "Waving his hat, the shepherd, from the vale Directs his wandering dog the cliffs to scale; The dog, loud barking 'mid the glittering rocks, Hunts, where his master points, the intercepted flocks." I was an eyewitness of this for the first time while crossing the pass of Dunmail Raise. Upon second thought, I will mention another image: "And, fronting the bright west, yon oak entwines Its darkening boughs and leaves in stronger lines." This is feebly and imperfectly expressed, but I recollect dis tinctly the very spot where this first struck me. It was on the way between Hawkshead and Ambleside, and gave me extreme pleasure. The moment was important in my poetical history; for I date from it my consciousness of the infinite variety of natural appearances which had been unnoticed by the poets of any age or country, so far as I was acquainted with them; and I made a resolution to supply in some degree the deficiency. I could not have been at that time above fourteen years of age. The description of the Swans that follows was taken from the daily opportunities I had of observing their habits, not as confined to the gentleman's park, but in a state of nature. There were two pairs of them that divided the lake of Esthwaite and its in-and-out-flowing streams between them, never trespassing a single yard upon each other's separate domain. They were of the old magnificent species, bearing in beauty and majesty about the same relation to the Thames swan which that does to a goose. It was from the remembrance of these noble creatures I took, thirty years after, the picture of the swan which I have discarded from the poem of "Dion." While I was a school-boy, the late Mr. Curwen introduced a little fleet of these birds, but of the inferior species, to the lake of Windermere. Their principal home was about his own islands; but they sailed about into remote parts of the lake, and, either from real or imagined injury done to he adjoining fields, they were got rid of at the request of the farmers and proprietors, but to the great regret of all who had become attached to them from noticing their beauty and quiet habits. I will conclude my notice of this poem by observing that the plan of it has not been confined to a particular walk, ɔr an individual place; a proof (of which I was unconscious at the time) of my unwillingness to submit the poetic spirit to the chains of fact and real circumstance. The country is idealized rather than described in any one of its local aspects. Page 20. Descriptive Sketches taken during a Pedestrian Tour among the Alps. Much the greatest part of this poem was composed during my walks upon the banks of the Loire, in the years 1791, 1792. I will only notice that the description of the valley filled with mist, beginning, "In solemn shapes," &c., was taken from that beautiful region, of which the principal features are Lungarn and Sarnen. Nothing that I ever saw in nature left a more delightful impression on my mind than that which I have attempted, alas, how feebly! to convey to others in these lines. Those two lakes have always interested me, especially from bearing, in their size and other features, a resemblance to those of the North of England. It is much to be deplored that a district so beautiful should be so unhealthy as it is. Page 51. Guilt and Sorrow; or, Incidents upon Salisbury Plain. Unwilling to be unnecessarily particular, I have assigned this poem to the dates 1793 and 1794; but, in fact, much of the Female Vagrant's story was composed at least two years before. All that relates to her sufferings as a soldier's wife in America, and her condition of mind during her voyage home, were faithfully taken from the report made to me of her own case by a friend who had been subjected to the same trials, and affected in the same way. Mr. Coleridge, when I first became acquainted with him, was so much impressed with this poem, that it would have encouraged me to publish the whole as it then stood; but the Mariner's fate appeared to me so tragical, as to require a treatment more subdued, and yet more strictly applicable in expression, than I had at first given to it. This fault was corrected near fifty years afterwards, when I de *ermined to publish the whole. It may be worth while to re mark, that though the incidents in this attempt do only in a small degree produce each other, and it deviates accordingly from the general rule by which narrative pieces ought to be governed, it is not therefore wanting in continuous hold upon the mind, or in unity, which is effected by the identity of moral interest that places the two personages upon the same footing in the reader's sympathies. My ramble over many parts of Salisbury Plain put me, as mentioned in the preface, upon writing this poem, and left upon my mind imaginative impressions the force of which I have felt to this day. From that district I proceeded to Bath, Bristol, and so on to the banks of the Wye; when I took again to travelling on foot. In remembrance of that part of my journey, which was in 1793, I began the verses, "Five years have passed," &c. Page 80. The Borderers. A Tragedy. Of this dramatic work I have little to say in addition to the short printed note which will be found attached to it. It was composed at Racedown in Dorsetshire, during the latter part of the year 1795, and in the course of the following year. Had it been the work of a later period of life, it would have been different in some respects from what it is now. The plot would have been something more complete, and a greater variety of characters introduced, to relieve the mind from the pressure of incidents so mournful; the manners also would have been more attended to. My care was almost exclusively given to the passions and the characters, and the positions in which the persons in the drama stood relatively to each other, that the reader (for I never thought of the stage at the time it was written) might be moved, and to a degree instructed, by lights penetrating somewhat into the depths of our nature. In this endeavor, I cannot think, upon a very late review, that I have failed. As to the scene and period of action, little more was required for my purpose than the absence of established law and government, so that the agents might be at liberty to act on their own impulses. Nevertheless, I do remember, that |