the poem has surpassed them much. We think you have completely attained your object. The book is throughout interesting and entertaining, and the picture of manners as lively as possible."

In the autumn of 1805, Walter Scott and his wife visited the Wordsworths at Dove Cottage; and during the visit, Wordsworth and Scott, accompanied by Humphry Davy, ascended Helvellyn-an expedition often afterwards referred to. In the Musings near Aquapendente, written during the Italian tour of 1837, he thought of

Old Helvellyn's brow

Where once together, in his day of strength,
We stood rejoicing, as if earth were free
From sorrow, like the sky above our heads.

Scott was in one of his raciest moods, overflowing with mirth and anecdote.

Shortly afterwards, Wordsworth wrote the following letter to Sir Walter, on the literary work which the latter had undertaken, viz., an edition of Dryden. The letter contains Wordsworth's critical opinion on many points besides the merits of Dryden.

MY DEAR SCOTT,-.

"PATERDALE, November 7, 1805. Your letter was very wel

come. I am not apt to haunt myself with fears of accident from flood and field, &c. It was nevertheless pleasant to hear that you had got home well. . . . I often think with delight of the few days you were with us, and live in hope that we may enjoy something of the same kind at some future period. I should like exceedingly to meet you somewhere next summer, either here or in your own country, or both; and certainly (if an engagement, under which I am at present partly bound, does not take place) shall do so,

provided you have as much leisure and inclination as I. I long much to see more of Scotland, both north and south. It is (not excepting the Alps) the most poetical country I ever travelled through.

Like you, I had been sadly disappointed with Todd's Spenser; not with the Life, which I think has a sufficient share of merit, though the matter is badly put together; but three parts of four of the notes are absolute trash. That style of compiling notes ought to be put an end to. I was much pleased to hear of your engagement with Dryden; not that he is, as a poet, any great favourite of mine. I admire his talents and genius highly, but his is not a poetical genius. The only qualities I can find in Dryden that are essentially poetical, are a certain ardour and impetuosity of mind with an excellent ear. It may seem strange that I do not add to this great command of language; that he certainly has, and of such language too, as it is most desirable that a poet should possess, or rather, that he should not be without. But it is not language that is, in the highest sense of the word, poetical, being neither of the imagination nor of the passions-I mean of the amiable, the ennobling, or intense passions. I do not mean to say that there is nothing of this in Dryden, but as little, I think, as is possible, considering how much he has written. You will easily understand my meaning, when I refer to his versification of Palamon and Arcite, as contrasted with the language of Chaucer. Dryden has neither a tender heart, nor a lofty sense of moral dignity. Whenever his language is poetically impassioned, it is mostly upon unpleasing subjects, such as the follies, vices, and crimes of classes of men, or of individuals. That his cannot be the language of imagination, must have necessarily followed from this; that there is not a single image from nature in the whole body of his works; and in his translation from

1

Virgil, whenever Virgil can be fairly said to have his eye upon his object, Dryden always soils the passage.

But too much of this; I am glad that you are to be his editor. His political and satirical pieces may be greatly benefited by illustration, and even absolutely require it. . . . I have read Dryden's works (all but his plays) with great attention, but my observations refer entirely to matters of taste. Things of this kind appear better anywhere than when tagged to a poet's works, where they are absolute impertinences. In the beginning of the Absalom you find an allusion to a freak or revel of the Duke of Monmouth of rather a serious kind. This I remember is mentioned in Andrew Marvel's poem, which I have not seen these many years; but that I think you might peep into with advantage for your work. One or two of the Prologues may be illustrated from Cibber's Apology. A correct text is the first object of an editor; then such notes as explain difficult or unintelligible passages, or throw light upon them; and lastly, which is of much less importance, notes pointing out passages or authors to whom the poet has been indebted, not in the paddling way of a phrase here and phrase there (which is detestable as a general practice), but where the poet has had essential obligations as to matter or manner.

If I can

One thing

Let me hear from you as soon as convenient. be of any use, do not fail to apply to me. I may take the liberty to suggest, which is, when you come to the Fables, might it not be advisable to print the whole of the Tales of Boccaccio in a smaller type in the original language? If this should look too much like swelling a book, I should certainly make such extracts as would show where Dryden had most strikingly improved upon, or fallen below, his original. I think his translations from Boccaccio are the best, at least the most poetical, of his poems. It is many years since I saw Boccaccio, but I

remember that Sigismunda is not married by him to Guiscard (the names are different in Boccaccio in both tales, I believe, certainly in Theodore, &c.). I think Dryden has much injured the story by the marriage, and degraded Sigismunda's character by it. He has also, to the best of my remembrance, degraded her still more, by making her love absolute sensuality and appetite; Dryden had no other notion of the passion. With all these defects, and they are very gross ones, it is a noble poem. Guiscard's answer, when first reproached by Tancred, is noble in Boccaccio, nothing but this: Amor può molto più che ne voi ne io possiamo. This, Dryden has spoiled. He says first very well, 'The faults of love by love are justified,' and then come four lines of miserable rant, quite à la Maximin. Farewell, and believe me ever,-Your affectionate friend,

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH."

This letter was written from Paterdale, during an excursion which Wordsworth made with his sister in 1805, from November 7th to 13th. Dorothy Wordsworth wrote one of her customary journal records of this tour, or "mountain ramble;" and it is one of the most curious instances of the literary "communism" between them, already referred to, that when, in 1835, the brother prepared a new edition of his Guide through the District of the Lakes in the North of England, &c. (it was the 5th edition), he concluded it by incorporating the whole, or nearly the whole, of his sister's journal, without any indication to the reader of who the real journalist was, or when his own work ended, and that of his sister began! As found amongst the sister's MS., it is simply entitled, "A Mountain Ramble," and is as follows:

Wednesday, November 7th.-On a damp and gloomy morn

ing we set forward, William on foot, and I upon the pony, with William's greatcoat slung over the saddle crutch, and a wallet containing our bundle of "needments." As we went along the mist gathered upon the valleys, and it even rained all the way to the head of Patterdale; but there was never a drop upon my habit larger than the smallest pearls upon a lady's ring. The trees of the larger island upon Rydale Lake were of the most gorgeous colours; the whole island reflected in the water, as I remember once in particular to have seen it with dear Coleridge, when either he or William observed that the rocky shore, spotted and streaked with purplish brown heath, and its image in the water, together were like an immense caterpillar, such as, when we were children, we used to call Woolly Boys, from their hairy coats. As the mist thickened, our enjoyments increased, and my hopes grew bolder; and when we were at the top of Kirkstone (though we could not see fifty yards before us) we were as happy travellers as ever paced side by side on a holiday ramble. At such a time and in such a place every scattered stone the size of one's head becomes a companion. There is a fragment of an old wall at the top of Kirkstone, which, magnified yet obscured as it was by the mist, was scarcely less interesting to us, when we cast our eyes upon it, than the view of a noble monument of ancient grandeur has been-yet this same pile of stones we had never before observed. When we had descended considerably, the fields of Hartsop, below Brotherswater, were first seen like a lake, coloured by the reflection of yellow clouds. I mistook them for the water; but soon after we saw the lake itself, gleaming faintly, with a grey steelly brightness; then appeared the brown oaks, and the birches of splendid colour, and, when we came still nearer to the valley, the cottages under their tufts of trees, and the old Hall of Hartsop, with its long irregular front and elegant chimneys...