SOURCE: “Editor's Literary Record.” Harper's New Monthly Magazine 50 (December 1874): 137.

In the following excerpted review, the anonymous author assesses Wordsworth's Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland, making special note of the preface written by the journal's editor.

Not the least interesting part of Dorothy Wordsworth's Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland, a.d. 1803 (G. P. Putnam's Sons) is the preface by the editor, Principal J. C. Shairp. Those readers who recall De Quincey's graphic and gossipy account of Wordsworth and his sister will read with peculiar zest, heightened by this glimpse of the poet's simple life, Principal Shairp's brief biographical sketch; and all who delight to visit personally and familiarly those whom they have learned to love in and through literature will only regret that the visit he permits us to make is so short. Of Dorothy's character we get a very pleasant picture, and rejoice to...