n that is done I shall be glad of your aid." But
this "arrangement of principles" never took place. WORDSWORTH added: "_I
think my nephew, Dr. Wordsworth, will, after my death, collect and
publish all I have written in prose_...." "On another occasion, I
believe, he intimated a desire that his _works in Prose should be edited
by his son-in-law, Mr. Quillinan_."[1] Similarly he wrote to Professor
REED in 1840: 'I am much pleased by what you say in your letter of the
18th May last, upon the Tract of the "Convention of Cintra," and _I
think myself with some interest upon its being reprinted hereafter along
with my other writings_ [in prose]. But the respect which, in common
with all the rest of the rational part of the world, I bear for the DUKE
OF WELLINGTON will prevent my reprinting the pamphlet during his
lifetime. It has not been in my power to read the volumes of his
Despatches, which I hear so highly spoken of; but I am convinced that
nothing they contain could alter my opinion of the injurious tendency of
that or any other Convention, conducted upon such principles. _It was, I
repeat, gratifying to me that you should have spoken of that work as you
do, and particularly that you should have considered it in relation to
my Poems, somewhat in the same manner as you had done in respect to my
little volume on the Lakes_.'[2]

[1] 'Memoirs,' vol. ii. p. 466.

[2] Ibid. vol. i. p. 420.

It is probable that the _amount_ of the Prose of WORDSWORTH will come as
a surprise--surely a pleasant one--on even his admirers and students.
His own use of 'Tract' to describe a goodly octavo volume, and his
calling his 'Guide' a 'little volume' while it is a somewhat
considerable one, together with the hiding away of some of his most
matterful and weightiest productions in local and fugitive publications,
and in Prefaces and Appendices to Poems, go far to explain the
prevailing unacquaintance with even the _extent_, not to speak of the
importance, of his Prose, and the light contentment with which it has
been permitted so long to remain (comparatively) out of sight. That the
inter-relation of the Poems to the Prose, and of the Prose to the
Poems--of which above he himself wrote--makes the collection and
publication of the Prose a duty to all who regard WILLIAM WORDSWORTH as
one of the supreme intellects of the century--as certainly the glory of
the Georgian and Victorian age as ever SHAKESPEARE and RALEIGH were of
the Elizabethan and