ut 1826, or 7, Professor Airy (now our Astronomer Royal)
and his Brother William called on the Daddy at Rydal. In the course of
Conversation Daddy mentioned that sometimes when genteel Parties came to
visit him, he contrived to slip out of the room, and down the garden walk
to where 'The Party's' travelling Carriage stood. This Carriage he would
look into to see what Books they carried with them: and he observed it
was generally 'WALTER SCOTT'S.' It was Airy's Brother (a very veracious
man, and an Admirer of Wordsworth, but, to be sure, more of Sir Walter)
who told me this. It is this conceit that diminishes Wordsworth's
stature among us, in spite of the mountain Mists he lived among. Also, a
little stinginess; not like Sir Walter in that! I remember Hartley
Coleridge telling us at Ambleside how Professor Wilson and some one else
(H. C. himself perhaps) stole a Leg of Mutton from Wordsworth's Larder
for the fun of the Thing.

Here then is a long Letter of old world Gossip from the old Home. I hope
it won't tire you out: it need not, you know.

P.S. By way of something better from the old World, I post you Hazlitt's
own Copy of his English Poets, with a few of his marks for another
Edition in it. If you like to keep it, pray do: if you like better to
give it to Hazlitt's successor, Mr. Lowell, do that from yourself.

_To Mrs. Cowell_.

12 MARINE TERRACE, LOWESTOFT.
_April_ 8/76.

. . . If you go to Brittany you must go to my dear Sevigne's 'Rochers.'
If I had the 'Go' in me, I should get there this Summer too: as to
Abbotsford and Stratford. She has been my Companion here; quite alive in
the Room with me. I sometimes lament I did not know her before: but
perhaps such an Acquaintance comes in best to cheer one toward the End.

_To C. E. Norton_.

LITTLE GRANGE, WOODBRIDGE.
_June_ 10 {196}, [1876].

MY DEAR SIR,

I don't know that I should trouble you so soon again--(only, don't
trouble yourself to answer for form's sake only)--but that there is a
good deal of Wordsworth in the late Memoir of Haydon by his Son. All
this you might like to see; as also Mr. Lowell. And do you, or he, know
of some dozen very good Letters of Wordsworth's addressed to a Mr.
Gillies who published them in what he calls the Life of a Literary
Veteran some thirty years ago, {197} I think? This Book, of scarce any
value except for those few Letters, and a few Notices of Sir Walter
Scott, all good, is now not very common, I t