e original, and think it very well done. I was particularly
pleased with the skill you have shown in managing the contest between
the shepherds in the third Pastoral, where you have included in a
succession of couplets the sense of Virgil's paired hexameters. I think
I mentioned to you that these poems of Virgil have always delighted me
much; there is frequently either an elegance or a happiness which no
translation can hope to equal. In point of fidelity your translation is
very good indeed.

You astonish me with the account of your books; and I should have been
still more astonished if you had told me you had read a third (shall I
say a tenth part?) of them. My reading powers were never very good, and
now they are much diminished, especially by candle-light; and as to
_buying_ books, I can affirm that in _new_ books I have not spent five
shillings for the last five years, _i.e._, in Reviews, Magazines,
Pamphlets, &c. &c.; so that there would be an end of Mr. Longman, and
Mr. Cadell, &c. &c., if nobody had more power or inclination to buy than
myself. And as to old books, my dealings in that way, for want of means,
have been very trifling. Nevertheless, small and paltry as my collection
is, I have not read a fifth part of it. I should, however, like to see
your army.

'Such forces met not, nor so wide a camp,
When Agrican, with fill his _northern_ powers,
Besieged Albracca, as _romances_ tell.'

Not that I accuse you of romancing; I verily believe that you have all
the books you speak of. Dear Wrangham, are you and I ever like to meet
in this world again? _Yours_ is a _corner_ of the earth; _mine_ is _not_
so. I never heard of anybody going to Bridlington; but all the world
comes to the Lakes. Farewell. Excuse this wretched scrawl; it is like
all that proceeds from, my miserable pen.

* * * * *

Ever faithfully yours,
WM. WORDSWORTH.

DEAR WRANGHAM,

You are very good in sending one letter after another to inquire after a
person so undeserving of attentions of this kind as myself. Dr. Johnson,
I think, observes, or rather is made to observe by some of his
biographers, that no man delights to _give_ what he is accustomed to
_sell_. 'For example: you, Mr. Thrale, would rather part with anything
in this way than your porter.' Now, though I have never been much of a
salesman in matters of literature (the whole of my returns--I do