’To dearest Miss Fenwick are we obliged for these Notes, every word of which was taken down by her kind pen from my father’s dictation.  The former portion was transcribed at Rydal by Mr. Quillinan, the latter by me, and finished at the Vicarage, Brigham, this twenty-fifth day of August 1843.—­D.Q.’

The MS., he it repeated, is now printed in extenso, nor will the least acceptable be ‘DORA’S’ own slight pencillings intercalated.  The Miss COOKSONS of Grasmere were good enough to present the Editor with a copy of the ‘Two Letters to the Freeholders of Westmoreland’, when he had almost despaired of recovering the pamphlet.  Thanks are due to several literary friends for aid in the Notes and Illustrations.  There must be named Professor DOWDEN and Rev. E.P.  GRAVES, M.A.,[14] Dublin; F.W.  COSENS, Esq., and G.A.  SIMCOX, Esq., London; W. ALDIS WRIGHT, Esq., M.A., Trinity College, Cambridge.

[14] Mr. Graves has published the following on the Wordsworths:  (a) ‘Recollections of Wordsworth and the Lake Country’; a lecture, and a capital one. (b) ‘A Good Name and the Day of Death:  two Blessings’; a sermon preached in Ambleside Church, January 30, 1859, on occasion of the death of Mrs. Wordsworth—­tender and consolatory. (c) ’The Ascension of our Lord, and its Lessons for Mourners’; a sermon (1858) finely commemorative of Arnold, the Wordsworths, Mrs. Fletcher, and others.

One point only remains to be noticed.  Every one who knows our highest poetical literature knows the ‘Lost Leader’ of ROBERT BROWNING, Esq.  Many have been the speculations and surmises and assertions and contradictions as to who the ‘Lost Leader’ was.  The verdict of one of the immortals on his fellow-immortal concerns us all.  Hence it is with no common thankfulness the Editor of WORDSWORTH’S Prose embraces this opportunity of settling the controversy beyond appeal, by giving a letter which Mr. BROWNING has done him the honour to write for publication.  It is as follows: 

     ’19 Warwick-crescent, W. Feb. 24, ’75.

     DEAR MR. GROSART,

I have been asked the question you now address me with, and as duly answered it, I can’t remember how many times:  there is no sort of objection to one more assurance, or rather confession, on my part, that I did in my hasty youth presume to use the great and venerated personality of WORDSWORTH as a sort of painter’s model; one from which this or the other particular feature may be selected and turned to account:  had I intended more, above all, such a boldness as portraying the entire man, I should not have talked about “handfuls of silver and bits of ribbon”.  These never influenced the change of politics in the great poet; whose defection, nevertheless, accompanied as it was by a regular face about of his special party, was to my juvenile apprehension, and even mature consideration, an event to deplore.  But just as in the tapestry on my wall I can