at is, it has an energetic
and varied flow of sound crowding into narrow room more of the combined
effect of rhyme and blank verse than can be done by any other kind of
verse I know. The Sonnets of Milton which I like best are that to
_Cyriack Skinner_; on his _Blindness_; _Captain or Colonel_; _Massacre
of Piedmont_; _Cromwell_, except two last lines; _Fairfax_, &c.'[51]

[51] _Memoirs_, i. 287.

29. _Death of Captain John Wordsworth_.

LETTER TO SIR GEORGE H. BEAUMONT, BART.

Grasmere, Feb. 11. 1805.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

The public papers will already have broken the shock which the sight of
this letter will give you: you will have learned by them the loss of the
Earl of Abergavenny East-Indiaman, and, along with her, of a great
proportion of the crew,--that of her captain, our brother, and a most
beloved brother he was. This calamitous news we received at 2 o'clock
to-day, and I write to you from a house of mourning. My poor sister, and
my wife who loved him almost as we did (for he was one of the most
amiable of men), are in miserable affliction, which I do all in my power
to alleviate; but Heaven knows I want consolation myself. I can say
nothing higher of my ever-dear brother, than that he was worthy of his
sister, who is now weeping beside me, and of the friendship of
Coleridge; meek, affectionate, silently enthusiastic, loving all quiet
things, and a poet in every thing but words.

Alas! what is human life! This present moment, I thought, this morning,
would have been devoted to the pleasing employment of writing a letter
to amuse you in your confinement. I had singled out several little
fragments (descriptions merely), which I purposed to have transcribed
from my poems, thinking that the perusal of them might give you a few
minutes' gratification; and now I am called to this melancholy office.

I shall never forget your goodness in writing so long and interesting a
letter to me under such circumstances. This letter also arrived by the
same post which brought the unhappy tidings of my brother's death, so
that they were both put into my hands at the same moment....

Your affectionate friend,
W. WORDSWORTH.

I shall do all in my power to sustain my sister under her sorrow, which
is, and long will be, bitter and poignant. We did not love him as a
brother merely, but as a man of original mind, and an honour to all
abo