, actually spoken by
WORDSWORTH, of exactly the type of which Lord COLERIDGE, among other
things, wrote the Editor: 'I hope we shall have a transcript from you of
the thoughts and opinions of that very great and noble person, of whom
(as far as I know them) it is most true that "the very dust of his
writings is gold." Any grave and deliberate opinion of his is entitled
to weight; and if we have his opinions at all, we should have them whole
and entire.'

The Editor has studied to give WORDSWORTH'S own conversations and
sayings--not others' concerning him. Hence such eloquent
pseudo-enthusiasm as is found in De Quincey's 'Recollections of the
Lakes' (Works, vol. ii.) is excluded. He dares to call it
pseudo-enthusiasm; for this book of the little, alert, self-conscious
creature, with the marvellous brain and more marvellous tongue--a monkey
with a man's soul somehow transmigrated into it--opens and shuts without
preserving a solitary saying of the man he professes to honour. That is
a measure of _his_ admiration as of his insight or no insight. There are
besides personal impertinencies, declarative of essential
vulgarity.[13] Smaller men have printed their 'Recollections,' or rather
retailed their gossip; but they themselves occupy the foreground, much
as your chimney-sweep introduces himself prominently in front of his
signboard presentment of some many-chimneyed 'noble house.' Even
Emerson's 'English Traits' (a most un-English book) belongs to the same
underbred category. The new 'Recollections' by AUBREY DE VERE, Esq., it
is a privilege to publish--full of reverence and love, and so daintily
and musically worded, as they are.

[13] Possibly indignation roused by the 'Recollections' has provoked too
vehement condemnation. Let it therefore be noted that it is the
'Recollections' that are censured. Elsewhere DE QUINCEY certainly shows
a glimmering recognition of WORDSWORTH'S great qualities, and that
before they had been fully admitted; but everywhere there is an
impertinence of familiarity and a patronising self-consciousness that is
irritating to any one who reverences great genius and high rectitude. It
may be conceded that DE QUINCEY, so far as he was capable, did reverence
WORDSWORTH; but his exaggerations of awe and delays bear on the face of
them unveracity.

Such is an account of the contents of these volumes; and it may be
permitted the Editor to record his hearty thanks to the Sons of the
Poet--WILLIAM WORDS