ated
in a work like yours, the better.

[169] Sic: qu. 'Misapprehensions.' _H.A._

[170] Sic: 1. 'Poems.' _II. A_.

Pray excuse my talking so much about myself: your letter and critique
called me to the subject. But I assure you it would have been more
grateful to me to acknowledge the debt we owe you in this house, where
we have read your poems with no common pleasure. Your 'Abbot of
Muchelnage' also makes me curious to hear more of him.

But I must conclude,

I was truly sorry to have missed you when you and Mrs. Alford called at
Rydal. Mrs. W. unites with me in kind regards to you both; and believe
me,

My dear Sir,
Faithfully yours,
Wm. Wordsworth.[171]

113. _Memorandum of a Conversation on Sacred Poetry (by Rev. R. P.
Graves)_.

I must try to give you a summary of a long conversation I had with
Wordsworth on the subject of _sacred poetry,_ and which I wish I were
able to report in full. In the course of it he expressed to me the
feelings of reverence which prevented him from venturing to lay his hand
on what he always thought a subject too high for him; and he accompanied
this with the earnest protest that his works, as well as those of any
other poet, should not be considered as developing all the influences
which his own heart recognised, but rather those which he considered
himself able as an artist to display to advantage, and which he thought
most applicable to the wants, and admitted by the usages, of the world
at large. This was followed by a most interesting discussion upon
Milton, Cowper, the general progress of religion as an element of
poetry, and the gradual steps by which it must advance to a power
comprehensive and universally admitted; steps which are defined in their
order by the constitution of the human mind, and which must proceed with
vastly more slowness in the case of the progress made by collective
minds, than it does in an individual soul.[172]

114. _Visit of Queen Adelaide to Rydal Mount_.

LETTER TO LADY FREDERICK BENTINCK.

July 1840.

I hope, dear Lady Frederick, that nothing will prevent my appearance at
Lowther towards the end of next week. But I have for these last few
years been visited always with a serious inflammation in my eyes about
this season of the year, which causes me to have fears about the
fulfilment of any engagement, however agreeable. Pray thank Lord
Lo