Wordsworth's having worn it first?

And in the meantime I shall see you to-morrow perhaps? or if it should
rain, on Monday at the same hour.

Ever yours, my dear friend,

E.B.B.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Friday Morning.
[Post-mark, June 7, 1845.]

When I see all you have done for me in this 'Prometheus,' I feel more
than half ashamed both of it and of me for using your time so, and
forced to say in my own defence (not to you but myself) that I never
thought of meaning to inflict such work on you who might be doing so
much better things in the meantime both for me and for
others--because, you see, it is not the mere reading of the MS., but
the 'comparing' of the text, and the melancholy comparisons between
the English and the Greek, ... quite enough to turn you from your
[Greek: philanthropou tropou][1] that I brought upon you; and indeed I
did not mean so much, nor so soon! Yet as you have done it for me--for
me who expected a few jottings down with a pencil and a general
opinion; it is of course of the greatest value, besides the pleasure
and pride which come of it; and I must say of the translation, (before
putting it aside for the nonce), that the circumstance of your paying
it so much attention and seeing any good in it, is quite enough reward
for the writer and quite enough motive for self-gratulation, if it
were all torn to fragments at this moment--which is a foolish thing to
say because it is so obvious, and because you would know it if I said
it or not.

And while you were doing this for me, you thought it unkind of me not
to write to you; yes, and you think me at this moment the very
princess of apologies and excuses and depreciations and all the rest
of the small family of distrust--or of hypocrisy ... who knows? Well!
but you are wrong ... wrong ... to think so; and you will let me say
one word to show where you are wrong--not for you to controvert, ...
because it must relate to myself especially, and lies beyond your
cognizance, and is something which I _must know best_ after all. And
it is, ... that you persist in putting me into a false position, with
respect to _fixing days_ and the like, and in making me feel somewhat
as I did when I was a child, and Papa used to put me up on the
chimney-piece and exhort me to stand up straight like a hero, which I
did, straigh