Eh?—­that’s very good,’ said the Professor, laughing.  But Wordsworth, who had De Quincey’s arm, gave a grunt, and turned on his heel, and leading the little opium-chewer aside, he addressed him in these disdainful and venomous words:—­’Poets?  Poets?—­What does the fellow mean?—­Where are they?’ Who could forgive this?  For my part, I never can, and never will!  I admire Wordsworth; as who does not, whatever they may pretend? but for that short sentence I have a lingering ill-will at him which I cannot get rid of.  It is surely presumption in any man to circumscribe all human excellence within the narrow sphere of his own capacity.  The ‘Where are they?’ was too bad!  I have always some hopes that De Quincey was leeing, for I did not myself hear Wordsworth utter the words.”

Appended to this anecdote is a characteristic observation on the poetry of Wordsworth.

“It relates to the richness of his works for quotations.  For these they are a mine that is altogether inexhaustible.  There is nothing in nature that you may not get a quotation out of Wordsworth to suit, and a quotation too that breathes the very soul of poetry.  There are only three books in the world that are worth the opening in search of mottos and quotations, and all of them are alike rich.  These are, the Old Testament, Shakspeare, and the poetical works of Wordsworth, and, strange to say, the ‘Excursion’ abounds most in them.”

We chanced to fall upon the Shepherd’s allusion to the liberties taken with his name in Blackwood’s Magazine, which work owes its establishment and much of its early success to Mr. Hogg’s co-operation.  We believe it to be pretty well known that the offensive language attributed to the Shepherd in the “Noctes” has no more to do with Mr. Hogg than by attempting to imitate his conversational style.  This impropriety, which is beyond a literary joke, was reprobated some months since by the Quarterly Review, but here the offending parties are properly visited with a burst of honest indignation which may not pass unheeded.  Mr. Hogg says

“For my part, after twenty years of feelings hardly suppressed, he has driven me beyond the bounds of human patience.  That Magazine of his, which owes its rise principally to myself, has often put words and sentiments into my mouth of which I have been greatly ashamed, and which have given much pain to my family and relations, and many of those after a solemn written promise that such freedoms should never be repeated.  I have been often urged to restrain and humble him by legal measures as an incorrigible offender deserves.  I know I have it in my power, and if he dares me to the task, I want but a hair to make a tether of.”

The Shepherd appears to have written since 1813, fifteen volumes of poetry and as many volumes of prose, besides his contributions to periodical works; and, what is not the less extraordinary he was forty years of age before he wrote his first poem.