s. Sadler did not
know me; and before dinner he began to launch forth in a critical
dissertation on contemporary English Poetry. 'Among living poets, your
Grace may know there is one called Wordsworth, whose writings the world
calls childish and puerile, but I think some of them wonderfully
pathetic.' 'Now, Mr. Sadler,' said the Archbishop, 'what a scrape you
are in! here is Mr. Wordsworth: but go down with him to dinner, and you
will find that, though a great poet, he does not belong to the "genus
irritabile."' This was very happy.

After returning one day from church at Addington, I took the liberty of
saying a few words on the sermon we had heard. It was a very homely
performance. 'I am rather surprised, my Lord Archbishop, that when your
Grace can have the choice of so many preachers in England, you do not
provide better for yourself.' 'Oh!' said he, 'I think I can bear bad
preaching better than most people, and I therefore keep it to myself.'
This seemed to me a very pleasing trait in the gentle and loveable
character of that admirable man.

Patriarchal usages have not quite deserted us of these valleys. This
morning (new year's day) you were awakened early by the minstrels
playing under the eaves, 'Honour to Mr. Wordsworth!' 'Honour to Mrs.
Wordsworth!' and so to each member of the household by name, servants
included, each at his own window. These customs bind us together as a
family, and are as beneficial as they are delightful. May they never
disappear!

In my Ode on the 'Intimations of Immortality in Childhood,' I do not
profess to give a literal representation of the state of the affections
and of the moral being in childhood. I record my own feelings at that
time--my absolute spirituality, my 'all-soulness,' if I may so speak. At
that time I could not believe that I should lie down quietly in the
grave, and that my body would moulder into dust.

Many of my poems have been influenced by my own circumstances when I was
writing them. 'The Warning' was composed on horseback, while I was
riding from Moresby in a snow-storm. Hence the simile in that poem,

'While thoughts press on and feelings overflow,
And quick words round him fall like _flakes of snow_.'

In the 'Ecclesiastical Sonnets,' the lines concerning the Monk (Sonnet
xxi.),

'Within his cell.
Round the decaying trunk of human pride.
At morn, and eve, and midnight's silent hour,
Do penitential cogitations cling:
L