nce, revisits his native
place, and thinks (as most people do) that there has been strange
alteration in his absence,--

"And that the rocks
And everlasting hills themselves were changed."

You see both these are good poetry; but after one has been reading
Shakspeare twenty of the best years of one's life, to have a fellow
start up and prate about some unknown quality which Shakspeare possessed
in a degree inferior to Milton and _somebody else_! This was not to be
_all_ my castigation. Coleridge, who had not written to me for some
months before, starts up from his bed of sickness to reprove me for my
tardy presumption; four long pages, equally sweaty and more tedious,
came from him, assuring me that when the works of a man of true genius,
such as W. undoubtedly was, do not please me at first sight, I should
expect the fault to lie "in me, and not in them," etc. What am I to do
with such people? I certainly shall write them a very merry letter.
Writing to _you_, I may say that the second volume has no such pieces as
the three I enumerated. It is full of original thinking and an observing
mind; but it does not often make you laugh or cry. It too artfully aims
at simplicity of expression. And you sometimes doubt if simplicity be
not a cover for poverty. The best piece in it I will send you, being
_short_. I have grievously offended my friends in the North by declaring
my undue preference; but I need not fear you.

"She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the Springs of Dove,--
A maid whom there were few (_sic_) to praise,
And very few to love.

"A violet, by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye,
Fair as a star when only one
Is shining in the sky.

"She lived unknown; and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in the grave, and oh,
The difference to me!"

This is choice and genuine, and so are many, many more. But one does
riot like to have 'em rammed down one's throat. "Pray take it,--it's
very good; let me help you,--eat faster."

XXXVIII.

TO MANNING,

_September_ 24, 1802

My Dear Manning,--Since the date of my last tetter, I have been a
traveller, A strong desire seized me of visiting remote regions. My
first impulse was to go aod see Paris. It was a trivial objection to my
aspiring mind that I did not understand a word of the language, since I
certainly intend some time in my life to see Paris, and equally
certainly never i