inconsiderable pleasure; it is full of
natural sentiments and pleasing pictures: among the minor pieces, the
last pleased me much the best, and especially the latter part of it.
This little volume, with what I saw of yourself during a short
interview, interest me in your welfare; and the more so, as I always
feel some apprehension for the destiny of those who in youth addict
themselves to the composition of verse. It is a very seducing
employment, and, though begun in disinterested love of the Muses, is too
apt to connect itself with self-love, and the disquieting passions which
follow in the train of that our natural infirmity. Fix your eye upon
acquiring independence by honourable business, and let the Muses come
after rather than go before. Such lines as the latter of this couplet,

'Where lovely woman, chaste as heaven above.
Shines in the golden virtues of her love,'

and many other passages in your poem, give proof of no common-place
sensibility. I am therefore the more earnest that you should guard
yourself against this temptation.

Excuse this freedom; and believe me, my dear Sir, very faithfully,

Your obliged servant,
WM. WORDSWORTH.[96]

[95] _Memoirs_, ii. 205-9.

[96] _Ibid._ ii. 211-12.

60. _Of Hamilton's 'It haunts me yet' and Miss Hamilton's 'Boys'
School.'_

LETTER TO W.R. HAMILTON, ESQ., OBSERVATORY, NEAR DUBLIN.

Rydal Mount, near Kendal, Sept. 24. 1827.

MY DEAR SIR,

You will have no pain to suffer from my sincerity. With a safe
conscience I can assure you that in my judgment your verses are animated
with true poetic spirit, as they are evidently the product of strong
feeling. The sixth and seventh stanzas affected me much, even to the
dimming of my eye and faltering of my voice while I was reading them
aloud. Having said this, I have said enough; now for the _per contra_.

You will not, I am sure, be hurt, when I tell you that the workmanship
(what else could be expected from so young a writer?) is not what it
ought to be; even in those two affecting stanzas it is not perfect:

'Some touch of human sympathy find way,
And whisper that though Truth's and Science' ray
With such serene effulgence o'er thee shone.'

Sympathy might whisper, but a '_touch_ of sympathy' could not. 'Truth's
and Science' ray,' for the ray of truth and science, is not only
extremely harsh, but a 'ray _shone_' is, if not absol