it might prove an awful and a profitable warning. I should also be glad to see a monument erected on the banks of Loch Leven to the memory of the innocent and tender-hearted Michael Bruce, who after a short life, spent in poverty and obscurity, was called away too early to have left behind him more than a few trustworthy promises of pure affections and unvitiated imagination. Let the gallant defenders of our country be liberally rewarded with monuments; their noble actions cannot speak for themselves, as the writings of men of genius are able to do. Gratitude in respect to them stands in need of admonition; and the very multitude of heroic competitors which increases the demand for this sentiment towards our naval and military defenders, considered as a body, is injurious to the claims of individuals. Let our great statesmen and eminent lawyers, our learned and eloquent divines, and they who have successfully devoted themselves to the abstruser sciences, be rewarded in like manner; but towards departed genius, exerted in the fine arts, and more especially in poetry, I humbly think, in the present state of things, the sense of our obligation to it may more satisfactorily be expressed by means pointing directly to the general benefit of literature. 6 Trusting that these opinions of an individual will be candidly interpreted, I have the honour to be "Your obedient servant, 'W. WORDSWORTH.' The following letter, though written a quarter of a century later, may, from its subject, find a proper place here. 6 To J. Peace, Esq., City Library, Bristol. My dear Mr. Peace, 'Rydal Mount, April 8, 1844. 'You have gratified me by what you say of Sir Thomas Browne. I possess his Religio Medici, Christian Morals, Vulgar Errors, &c. in separate publications, and value him highly as a most original author, I almost regret that you did not add his Treatise upon Urn Burial to your publication; it is not long, and very remarkable for the vigour of mind that it displays. • Have you had any communication with Mr. Cottle upon the subject of the subscription which he has set on foot for the erection of a Monument to Southey in Bristol Cathedral ? We are all engaged in a like tribute to be placed in the parish church of Keswick. For my own part, I am not particularly fond of placing monuments in churches, at least in modern times. I should prefer their being put in public places in the town with which the party was connected by birth or otherwise; or in the country, if he were a person who lived apart from the bustle of the world. And in Southey's case, I should have liked better a bronze bust, in some accessible and not likely to be disturbed part of St. Vincent's Rocks, as a site, than the cathedral. Thanks for your congratulations upon my birthday. I have now entered, awful thought! upon my 75th year. 'God bless you, and believe me, my dear friend, Ever faithfully yours, 'WM. WORdsworth. 'Mrs. Wordsworth begs her kind remembrance, as does Miss Fenwick, who is with us.' [The following poem, alluded to in a previous note in this chapter, is taken from 'The Examiner' (London) to which it was communicated; and is introduced here, as having an interest in connection with the course of argument and feeling in Wordsworth's Letter to a Friend of Burns': "THE AGE OF IRREVERENCE. To You might have won the poet's name, But you have made the wiser choice; And you have missed the irreverent doom For now the poet cannot die, Nor leave his music as of old, But round him ere he scarce be cold "Give out the faults he would not show! Break lock and seal! betray the trust! Keep nothing sacred: 't is but just Ah, shameless! for he did but sing A song that pleased us from its worth; No blazoned statesman he, nor king. He gave the people of his best : His worst he kept, his best he gave. Who make it sweeter seem to be Than he that warbles long and loud ALFRED TENNYSON.' Wordsworth's estimation and hopes of the genius of Tennyson will be found expressed in a letter dated July 1, 1845, in chapter LIX. of this volume. — H. R.] CHAPTER XXXIX. PETER BELL. THE WAGGONER. DUDDON. SONNETS ON THE In the year 1819 appeared the poem of 'Peter Bell'1 dedicated to Mr. Southey. As has been already mentioned, it was written nearly twenty years before. The occasion of its composition has been also described. The nature of its reception is intimated in the Sonnet,2 'A book came fort of late called "Peter Bell."' The Poet does not set his own claims very high, when he suggests that the censure which followed it was not more deserved than that which attended the publication with which it is paralleled, Milton's 'Apology for Divorce.' However, this detraction does not appear to have been very injurious. It is somewhat remarkable that Peter Bell' was more in request than any of the author's previous publications.* An edition of 500 copies was printed 1 Vol. ii. p. 220. 2 Vol. ii. p. 269. * [See Vol. 1. Chap. XII. of these 'Memoirs.'- Coleridge, in the account which he has given of his friend, Captain Sir Alexander Ball, says, 'The only poetical composition, of which I have ever heard him speak, was a manuscript poem ["Peter Bell”] written by one of my friends, which I read to his lady in his presence. To my surprise he afterwards spoke of this with warm interest; but it was evident to me, that it was not so much the poetic merit |