"WILLIAM WORDSWORTH,
"Rydal Mount."
The poet seems to have read the old book pretty closely, for there are evident marks of his liking throughout its pages.
* * * * *
Connected with the Bard of the Lakes is another work in my friend's library, which I always handle with a tender interest. It is a copy of Wordsworth's Poetical Works, printed in 1815, with all the alterations afterwards made in the pieces copied in by the poet from the edition published in 1827. Some of the changes are marked improvements, and nearly all make the meaning clearer. Now and then a prosaic phrase gives place to a more poetical expression. The well-known lines,
"Of Him who walked in glory and in joy,
Following his plough along the mountain-side,"
read at first,
"Behind his plough upon the mountain-side."
* * * * *
In a well-preserved quarto copy of "Rasselas," with illustrations by Smirke, which my friend picked up in London a few years ago, I found the other day an unpublished autograph letter from Dr. Johnson, so characteristic of the great man that it is worth transcribing. It is addressed