f each sheet could be
sent to him the edition would be immaculate.

W. Wordsworth.[164]

109. _Death of his Nephew, John Wordsworth_.

LETTER TO LADY FREDERICK BENTINCK.

Rydal Mount, Ambleside (not Kendal), Jan. 3 [1840].

MY DEAR LADY FREDERICK,

Yesterday brought us melancholy news in a letter from my brother, Dr.
Wordsworth, which announced the death of his eldest son. He died last
Tuesday, in Trinity College, of which he was a fellow, having been
tenderly nursed by his father during rather a long illness. He was a
most amiable man, and I have reason to believe was one of the best
scholars in Europe. We were all strongly attached to him, and, as his
poor father writes, the loss is to him, and to his sorrowing sons,
irreparable on this side of the grave.

W. W.[165]

[164] _Memoirs_, ii. 358.

[165] _Ibid._ ii. 360.

110. _Of the Same_.

LETTER TO THE REV. THE MASTER OF TRINITY COLLEGE. CAMBRIDGE.

Friday, Jan. 3 [1840].

MY VERY DEAR BROTHER,

It is in times of trouble and affliction that one feels most deeply the
strength of the ties of family and nature. We all most affectionately
condole with you, and those who are around you, at this melancholy time.
The departed was beloved in this house as he deserved to be; but our
sorrow, great as it is for our own sakes, is still heavier for yours and
his brothers'. He is a power gone out of our family, and they will be
perpetually reminded of it. But the best of all consolations will be
with you, with them, with us, and all his numerous relatives and
friends, especially with Mrs. Hoare, that his life had been as blameless
as man's could well be, and through the goodness of God, he is gone to
his reward.

I remain your loving brother,
Wm. Wordsworth.[166]

111. _On the Death of a young Person_.[167]

Rydal Mount, Ambleside, May 21. 1840.

MY DEAR SIR,

Pray impute to anything but a want of due sympathy with you in your
affliction my not having earlier given an answer to your letter. In
truth, I was so much moved by it, that I had not, at first, sufficient
resolution to bring my thoughts so very close to your trouble, as must
have been done had I taken up the pen immediately. I have been myself
distressed in the same way, though my two children were taken from me at
an earlier age,