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suture of the composition not being a jot more cunning or more fitted for endurance than the first fastening together of fig-leaves in Paradise. But I need not press upon you the necessity of labour, as you have avowed your conviction upon this subject. . . . Pray remember me to the Wilsons most kindly. When does Mr Wilson return to Westmoreland? I have not yet seen his City of the Plague; the more the pity, for I quarrel with the title. Tell Mr Wilson this

from me, and repeat the two following quotations:—

and this

But whate'er enjoyments dwell

In the impenetrable cell

Of the silent heart which Nature
Furnishes for every creature;

Cock-a-doodle doo,

My dame has lost her shoe;

My master's lost his fiddle-stick,
And knows not what to do!

-Farewell, with great regard and esteem, yours,

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH."

"RYDAL MOUNT, Nov. 16, 1816.*

MY DEAR SIR,- .. If you write more blank verse, pray pay particular attention to your versification, especially as to the pauses on the first, second, third, eighth, and ninth syllables. These pauses should never be introduced for convenience, and not often for the sake of variety merely, but for some especial effect of harmony or emphasis. . . .—I remain, with great respect, most truly yours,

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH."

"RYDAL MOUNT (date wanting), 1817.+

MY DEAR SIR,-I am unworthy of the many acts of kind attention you bestow on me. I know nothing of the treatise

* Memoirs of a Literary Veteran, vol. ii. p. 169.

† Ibid., vol. ii. pp. 169-70.

of Wieland, which you inquired after, or I should have written immediately on receipt of your letter..

Of

But how could you write: 'at every step the scenery seemed improving'? This is a thoroughly bad verse; bad even for prose. . . Your essay is desultory enough. the soundness of the opinions it becomes me not to judge. The famous passage on Solitude, which you quote from Lord Byron, does not deserve the notice which has been bestowed on it. As composition it is bad, particularly the line

Minions of grandeur shrinking from distress,

is foisted in for the sake of the rhyme. But the sentiment by being expressed in an antithetic manner is taken out of the region of high and imaginative feeling to be placed in that of point and epigram. To illustrate my meaning, and for no other purpose, I refer to my own lines on the Wye, where you will find the same sentiment not formally put as it is here, but ejaculated as it were fortuitously in the musical succession of preconceived feeling. Compare the paragraph ending

How often has my spirit turned to thee,

and the one where occur the lines—

And greetings where no kindness is, and all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,

with these lines of Lord Byron, and you will perceive the
difference. You will give me credit for writing for the sake
of truth, and not for so disgusting a motive as self-com-
mendation at the expense of a man of genius. .-Most
faithfully yours,
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH."

CHAPTER XXIX.

VISITS TO LONDON, 1815-1820: HENRY CRABB ROBINSON: LIFE AT RYDAL MOUNT.

FROM Henry Crabb Robinson's Diary we learn that the Wordsworths were in London in the spring of 1815. His remarks on those he met in society are so vivid, and his literary judgments frequently so just, that some extracts from his Diary may fitly begin this chapter.

"April 16, 1815.-In the evening, in my chambers, enjoyed looking over Wordsworth's new edition of his poems. The 'supplement' to his Preface I wish he had left unwritten, for it will afford a triumph to his enemies. He betrays resentment, and that he has suffered pain. His reproaches of the bad taste of the times will be ascribed to merely personal feelings, and to disappointment. But his manly avowal of his sense of his own poetic merits, I by no means censure. His preface contains subtle remarks on poetry, but they are not clear or intelligible; and I wish he would incorporate all his critical ideas into a work of taste, in either the dialogue or novel form, otherwise his valuable suggestions are in danger of being lost. His classification of his poems displeases me from an obvious fault, that it is partly subjective and partly objective.

May 9.-Took tea with the Lambs. Mr and Mrs Wordsworth there. . . . W., in answer to the common reproach that his sensibility is excited by objects which produce no effect on others, admits the fact, and is proud of it. He says that he cannot be accused of being insensible to the real concerns

of life. He does not waste his feelings on unworthy objects, for he is alive to the actual interests of society. I think the justification complete. If W. expected immediate popularity he would betray his ignorance of public taste, reproachful to a man of character.

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W. spoke of the changes in his new poems. He has substituted ebullient' for 'fiery,' speaking of the nightingale; and 'jocund' for laughing' applied to the daffodils; but he will probably restore the original epithets. agreed in preferring the original reading; but on my gently alluding to the line, 'Three feet long by two feet wide,' and confessing that I dared not read them aloud in company, he said, 'They ought to be liked!'...

Wordsworth particularly recommended to me among his Poems of Imagination, Yew Trees, and a description of Night. These, he says, are amongst the best for the imaginative power displayed in them. I have since read them. They are fine; but I believe I do not understand in what their excellence consists. W. himself, as Hazlitt has well observed, has a pride in deriving no aid from his subject. It is the mere power, which he is conscious of exerting, in which he delights; not the production of a work in which men rejoice, on account of the sympathies and sensibilities it excites in them. Hence he does not much esteem his Laodamia, as it belongs to the inferior class of poems founded on the affections. Yet in this, as in other peculiarities of Wordsworth, there is a German bent in his mind.

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June 4.... Came home to read The White Doe of Rylstone. This legendary tale will be less popular than Walter Scott's, from the want of that vulgar intelligibility, and that freshness and vivacity of description which please even those who are not of the vulgar. Still the poem will be better liked than better pieces of W.'s writing. There is

a delicate sensibility, and an exquisite moral running through the whole, but it is not the happiest of his narrative poems.

June 15.-... I called on Wordsworth at his lodgings, and spent the forenoon with him, walking. We talked about Hazlitt in consequence of a malignant attack on W. by him in Sunday's Examiner. W. on that very day called on Hunt, who in a manly way asked whether W. had seen the paper of the morning, saying if he had he would consider his call as a higher honour. He disclaimed the article. . . .

This led to W. mentioning the cause of his coolness towards H. It appears that H. when at Keswick narrowly escaped being ducked by the populace, and probably sent to prison... The populace were incensed against him, and pursued him, but he escaped to W., who took him into his house at midnight, gave him clothes, and money (from £3 to £5). Since that time W., though he never refused to meet H., when by accident they came together, did not choose that with his knowledge he should be invited. In consequence Lamb never asked H. while W. was in town, which probably provoked H., and which Lamb himself disapproved of. But L., who needs very little indulgence for himself, is very indulgent towards others, and never reproaches W. for being inveterate against H. . .

Wordsworth spoke with interest of his White Doe, as an imaginative poem, especially the ascription of more than human feelings to that animal, in connection with the tragic story, which is purified and elevated by it. . . .

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June 17.-... At Lamb's. a numerous and odd set. Of Basil Montagu, Wordsworth says he is a philanthropised courtier.

He was lately with

June 28.-Called on Godwin. Wordsworth; and, after spending a night at his house, seems to have left him with very bitter and hostile feelings.

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