“Oh wad some power the giftie gie us
   To see our sel’s as others see us,”

besides several other manuscripts by the same poet, and also the autograph of a challenge sent by Byron to Lord Brougham for alleged insult, a fact to which no reference has been made in Byron’s biography.  From Liverpool, with my friends Professor Renwick and Professor Cuningham, I set out on a journey to the lakes of England.  We reached Bowness, on Lake Windermere, in the evening.  The next morning we went up to Elleray, the country residence of Professor Wilson ("Christopher North"), who, unfortunately, was absent in Edinburgh.  We hired a boatman to row us through exquisitely beautiful Windermere, and in the evening reached the Salutation Inn, at the foot of the lake.  My great interest in visiting Ambleside was to see the venerable poet, Wordsworth, who lived about a mile from the village.  I happened, just before supper, to look out of the window of the traveller’s room and espied an old man in a blue cloak and Glengarry cap, with a bunch of heather stuck jauntily in the top, driving by in a little brown phaeton from Rydal Mount.  “Perhaps,” thought I to myself, “that may be the patriarch himself,” and sure enough it was.  For, when I inquired about Mr. Wordsworth, the landlord said to me, “A few minutes ago he went by here in his little carriage.”  The next morning I called upon him.  The walk to his cottage was delightful, with the dew still lingering in the shady nooks by the roadside, and the morning songs of thanksgiving bursting forth from every grove.  At the summit of a deeply shaded hill I found “Rydal Mount” cottage.  I was shown, at once, into the sitting-room, where I found him with his wife, who sat sewing beside him.  The old man rose and received me graciously.  By his appearance I was somewhat startled.  Instead of a grave recluse in scholastic black, whom I expected to see, I found an affable and lovable old man dressed in the roughest coat of blue with metal buttons, and checked trousers, more like a New York farmer than an English poet.  His nose was very large, his forehead a lofty dome of thought, and his long white locks hung over his stooping shoulders; his eyes presented a singular, half closed appearance.  We entered at once into a delightful conversation.  He made many inquiries about Irving, Mrs. Sigourney and our other American authors, and spoke, with great vehemence, in favor of an international copyright law.  He said that at one time he had hoped to visit America, but the duties of a small office which he held (Distributer of Stamps), and upon which he was partly dependent, prevented the undertaking.  He occasionally made a trip to London to see the few survivors of the friends of his early days, but he told me that his last excursion had proved a wearisome effort.  His library was small but select.  He took down an American edition of his works, edited by Professor Reed, and told me that London had never produced an edition equal to it.  When I was about to leave, the good old poet got his broad slouched hat and put on his double purple glasses to protect his eyes, and we went out to enjoy the neighboring views.  We walked about from one point to another and kept up a lively conversation.  He displayed such a winning familiarity that, in the language of his own poem, we seemed