ood looking out of the window, he resembled in
a lively manner the portrait of him by Phillips, by far the best that
has appeared; I mean the best of him at his best time of life, and the
most like him in features as well as expression. He sat one morning so
long, that Lady Byron sent up twice to let him know she was waiting. Her
ladyship used to go on in the carriage to Henderson's nursery ground, to
get flowers. I had not the honor of knowing her, nor ever saw her but
once, when I caught a glimpse of her at the door. I thought she had a
pretty, earnest look, with her "pippin" face; an epithet by which she
playfully designated herself.
* * * * *
It was here also I had the honor of a visit from Mr. Wordsworth. He came
to thank me for the zeal I had shown in advocating the cause of his
genius. I had the pleasure of showing him his book on my shelves by the
side of Milton; a sight which must have been the more agreeable,
inasmuch as the visit was unexpected. He favored me, in return, with
giving his opinion of some of the poets his contemporaries, who would
assuredly not have paid him a visit on the same grounds on which he was
pleased to honor myself. Nor do I believe, that from that day to this,
he thought it becoming in him to reciprocate the least part of any
benefit which a word in good season may have done for him. Lord Byron,
in resentment for my having called him the "prince of the bards of his
time," would not allow him to be even the "one-eyed monarch of the
blind." He said he was the "blind monarch of the one-eyed." I must still
differ with his lordship on that point; but I must own, that, after all
which I have seen and read, posterity, in my opinion, will differ not a
little with one person respecting the amount of merit to be ascribed to
Mr. Wordsworth; though who that one person is, I shall leave the reader
to discover.
Mr. Wordsworth, whom Mr. Hazlitt designated as one who would have had
the wide circle of his humanities made still wider, and a good deal more
pleasant, by dividing a little more of his time between his lakes in
Westmoreland and the hotels of the metropolis, had a dignified manner,
with a deep and roughish, but not unpleasing voice, and an exalted mode
of speaking. He had a habit of keeping his left hand in the bosom of his
waistcoat; and in this attitude, except when he turned round to take one
of the subjects of his criticism from the shelves (for his
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