[12] Will the Reader indulgently correct a most unfortunate oversight of the printers in vol. iii. p. 497, l. 15, where 'no angel smiled' (mis)reads 'no angle smiled'?
[13] Possibly indignation roused by the 'Recollections' has provoked too vehement condemnation. Let it therefore be noted that it is the 'Recollections' that are censured. Elsewhere DE QUINCEY certainly shows a glimmering recognition of WORDSWORTH'S great qualities, and that before they had been fully admitted; but everywhere there is an impertinence of familiarity and a patronising self-consciousness that is irritating to any one who reverences great genius and high rectitude. It may be conceded that DE QUINCEY, so far as he was capable, did reverence WORDSWORTH; but his exaggerations of awe and delays bear on the face of them unveracity.
[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.
[15] M. Gregoire.
[16] See Athalie, [act i.] scene 2:
'Il faut que sur le trône un roi soit élevé,
Qui se souvienne un jour qu'au rang de ses ancêtres.
Dieu l'a fait remonter par la main de ses prêtres:
L'a tiré par leurs mains de l'oubli du tombeau,
Et de David éteint rallumé le flambeau.'
The conclusion of the same speech applies so strongly to the present period that I cannot forbear transcribing it:
'Daigne, daigne, mon Dieu, sur Mathan, et sur elle
Répandre cet esprit d'imprudence et d'erreur,
De la chute des rois funeste avant-coureur!'