I find it difficult to speak publicly of good men while alive, especially if they are persons who have power.  The world ascribes the eulogy to interested motives, or to an adulatory spirit, which I detest.  But of LORD LONSDALE, I will say to you, that I do not think there exists in England a man of any rank more anxiously desirous to discharge his duty in that state of life to which it has pleased God to call him.  His thought and exertions are constantly directed to that object; and the more he is known the more is he beloved, and respected, and admired.

[94] Memoirs, ii. 155-6.

I ought to have thanked you before for your version of VIRGIL’S ECLOGUES, which reached me at last.  I have lately compared it line for line with the original, and think it very well done.  I was particularly pleased with the skill you have shown in managing the contest between the shepherds in the third Pastoral, where you have included in a succession of couplets the sense of Virgil’s paired hexameters.  I think I mentioned to you that these poems of Virgil have always delighted me much; there is frequently either an elegance or a happiness which no translation can hope to equal.  In point of fidelity your translation is very good indeed.

You astonish me with the account of your books; and I should have been still more astonished if you had told me you had read a third (shall I say a tenth part?) of them.  My reading powers were never very good, and now they are much diminished, especially by candle-light; and as to buying books, I can affirm that in new books I have not spent five shillings for the last five years, i.e., in Reviews, Magazines, Pamphlets, &c. &c.; so that there would be an end of Mr. Longman, and Mr. Cadell, &c. &c., if nobody had more power or inclination to buy than myself.  And as to old books, my dealings in that way, for want of means, have been very trifling.  Nevertheless, small and paltry as my collection is, I have not read a fifth part of it.  I should, however, like to see your army.

    ’Such forces met not, nor so wide a camp,
    When Agrican, with fill his northern powers,
    Besieged Albracca, as romances tell.’

Not that I accuse you of romancing; I verily believe that you have all the books you speak of.  Dear Wrangham, are you and I ever like to meet in this world again? Yours is a corner of the earth; mine is not so.  I never heard of anybody going to Bridlington; but all the world comes to the Lakes.  Farewell.  Excuse this wretched scrawl; it is like all that proceeds from, my miserable pen.

* * * * *

Ever faithfully yours,
WM. WORDSWORTH.

DEAR WRANGHAM,