of the albatross, from an incident I had met with in one of Shelvocke’s voyages.  We tried the poem conjointly for a day or two, but we pulled different ways, and only a few lines of it are mine.’  From Coleridge, the discourse then turned to Scotland.  Mr. Wordsworth, in his best manner, with earnest thoughts given out in noble diction, gave his reasons for thinking that as a poet Scott would not live.  ‘I don’t like,’ he said, ’to say all this, or to take to pieces some of the best reputed passages of Scott’s verse, especially in presence of my wife, because she thinks me too fastidious; but as a poet Scott cannot live, for he has never in verse written anything addressed to the immortal part of man.  In making amusing stories in verse, he will be superseded by some newer versifier; what he writes in the way of natural description is merely rhyming nonsense.’  As a prose writer, Mr. Wordsworth admitted that Scott had touched a higher vein, because there he had really dealt with feeling and passion.  As historical novels, professing to give the manners of a past time, he did not attach much value to those works of Scott’s so called, because that he held to be an attempt in which success was impossible.  This led to some remarks on historical writing, from which it appeared that Mr. Wordsworth has small value for anything but contemporary history.  He laments that Dr. Arnold should have spent so much of his time and powers in gathering up and putting into imaginary shape the scattered fragments of the history of Rome.[248]

These scraps of Wordsworth’s large, thoughtful, earnest discourse, seem very meagre as I note them down, and in themselves perhaps hardly worth preserving and yet this is an evening which those who spent it in his company will long remember.  His venerable head; his simple, natural, and graceful attitude in his arm-chair; his respectful attention to the slightest remarks or suggestions of others in relation to what was spoken of; his kindly benevolence of expression as he looked round now and then on the circle in our little parlour, all bent to ’devour up his discourse,’ filled up and enlarged the meaning which I fear is but ill conveyed in the words as they are now set down.

(V.) LADY RICHARDSON:  WORDSWORTH’S BIRTH-DAY.

On Tuesday, April the 7th, 1844, my mother[249] and I left Lancrigg to begin our Yorkshire journey.  We arrived at Rydal Mount about three o’clock, and found the tables all tastefully decorated on the esplanade in front of the house.  The Poet was standing looking at them with a very pleased expression of face; he received us very kindly, and very soon the children began to arrive.  The Grasmere boys and girls came first, and took their places on the benches placed round the gravelled part of the esplanade; their eyes fixed with wonder and admiration on the tables covered with oranges, gingerbread, and painted eggs, ornamented with daffodils, laurels, and moss, gracefully intermixed.  The plot soon began to