" and Wordsworth, though occasionally a writer "for the nursery masters and misses, • Who took their little porringer, And ate their porridge there,' "now and then expressed ideas worth imita 66 ting; but, like brother Southey, he had his "price; and since he is turned tax-gatherer, is 66. 66 only fit to rhyme about asses and waggoners. Shelley repeated to me the other day a stanza "from Peter Bell' that I thought inimitably 66 66 66 good. It is the rumination of Peter's ass, who gets into a brook, and sees reflected there a family circle, or tea-party. But you shall have "it in his own words: Is it a party in a parlour, Cramm'd just as you on earth are cramm'd ? And every one, as you may see, All silent and all d―d !* There was a time when he would have "written better; but perhaps Peter thinks "feelingly. 66 "The republican trio, when they began to publish in common, were to have had a com"munity of all things, like the ancient Britons; "to have lived in a state of nature, like savages, "and peopled some island of the blest' with "children in common, like. A very pretty "Arcadian notion! It amuses me much to com pare the Botany Bay Eclogues, the Panegyric " of Martin the Regicide, and 'Wat Tyler,' with "the Laureate Odes, and Peter's Eulogium on "the Field of Waterloo. There is something "more than rhyme in that noted stanza containing 66 Carnage is God's daughter!' "I offended the par nobile mortally-past all 66 hope of forgiveness-many years ago. I met, • Wordsworth's Thanksgiving Ode. 6 "at the Cumberland Lakes, Hogg the Ettrick "Shepherd, who had just been writing The "Poetic Mirror,' a work that contains imita"tions of all the living poets' styles, after the manner of the 'Rejected Addresses.' The 66 66 burlesque is well done, particularly that of me, "but not equal to Horace Smith's. I was 66 66 66 pleased with Hogg; and he wrote me a very witty letter, to which I sent him, I suspect, a very dull reply. Certain it is that I did not spare the Lakists in it; and he told me he "could not resist the temptation, and had "shewn it to the fraternity. It was too tempt ing; and as I could never keep a secret of my own, as you know, much less that of other people, I could not blame him. I remember saying, among other things, that the Lake poets were such fools as not to fish in their own waters; but this was the least offensive part of the epistle." 66 "Bowles is one of the same little order of spirits, who has been fussily fishing on for fame, and is equally waspish and jealous. "What could Coleridge mean by praising his 66 poetry as he does? 66 "It was a mistake of mine, about his mak ing the woods of Madeira tremble, &c.; but "it seems that I might have told him that there "were no woods to make tremble with kisses, "which would have been quite as great a "blunder. G I met Bowles once at Rogers's, and thought "him a pleasant, gentlemanly man-a good "fellow, for a parson. When men meet to"gether after dinner, the conversation takes a "certain turn. I remember he entertained us "with some good stories. The reverend gentle 66 man pretended, however, to be much shocked "at Pope's letters to Martha Blount. Ꭱ "I set him and his invariable principles at "rest. He did attempt an answer, which was "no reply; at least, nobody read it. I believe "he applied to me some lines in Shak 66 66 * speare. A man is very unlucky who has "a name that can be punned upon; and his 6 "I have been reading Johnson's Lives,' a "book I am very fond of. I look upon him 66 as the profoundest of critics, and had occa"sion to study him when I was writing to "Bowles. "Of all the disgraces that attach to England "in the eye of foreigners, who admire Pope "more than any of our poets, (though it is the "fashion to under-rate him among ourselves,) "the greatest perhaps is, that there should be * "I do remember thee, my Lord Biron," &c. |