WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

    Rydal Mount, New Year’s Day, 1840.’

    ’To I.F.

    The star which comes at close of day to shine
    More heavenly bright than when it leads the morn
    Is Friendship’s emblem, whether the forlorn
    She visiteth, or shedding light benign
    Through shades that solemnise Life’s calm decline,
    Doth make the happy happier.  This have we
    Learnt, Isabel, from thy society,
    Which now we too unwillingly resign
    Though for brief absence.  But farewell! the page
    Glimmers before my sight through thankful tears,
    Such as start forth, not seldom, to approve
    Our truth, when we, old yet unchill’d by age,
    Call thee, though known but for a few fleet years,
    The heart-affianced sister of our love!

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

    Rydal Mount, Feb. 1840.’

In addition to these Sonnets the beautiful memory of Miss FENWICK has been reillumined in the ‘Memoir and Letters of Sara Coleridge’ (2 vols. 1873); e.g. ’I take great delight in Miss Fenwick, and in her conversation.  Well should I like to have her constantly in the drawing-room, to come down to and from my little study up-stairs—­her mind is such a noble compound of heart and intelligence, of spiritual feeling and moral strength, and the most perfect feminineness.  She is intellectual, but—­what is a great excellence—­never talks for effect, never keeps possession of the floor, as clever women are so apt to do.  She converses for the interchange of thought and feeling, no matter how, so she gets at your mind, and lets you into hers.  A more generous and a tenderer heart I never knew.  I differ from her on many points of religious faith, but on the whole prefer her views to those of most others who differ from her’ (ii. 5).  Again:  ’Miss FENWICK is to me an angel upon earth.  Her being near me now has seemed a special providence.  God bless her, and spare her to us and her many friends.  She is a noble creature, all tenderness and strength.  When I first became acquainted with her, I saw at once that her heart was of the very finest, richest quality, and her wisdom and insight are, as ever must be in such a case, exactly correspondent’ (ibid. p. 397).  Such words from one so penetrative, so indeceivable, so great in the fullest sense as was the daughter of the COLERIDGE, makes every one long to have the same service done for Miss FENWICK as has been done for SARA COLERIDGE and Miss HARE, and within these weeks for Mrs. FLETCHER.  Her Diaries and Correspondence would be inestimable to lovers of WORDSWORTH; for few or none got so near to him or entered so magnetically into his thinking.  The headings and numberings of the successive Notes—­lesser and larger—­will guide to the respective Poems and places.  The numberings accord with ROSSETTI’S handy one-volume edition of the Poems, but as a rule will offer no difficulty in any.  The I.F.  MSS. are marked with an asterisk [*]:  They are for the first time furnished in their entirety, and accurately.