Now, my dear Sir George, what chance is there of your being in Wales during any part of the autumn?  I would strain a point to meet you anywhere, were it only for a couple of days.  Write immediately, or should you be absent without Lady B. she will have the goodness to tell me of your movements.  I saw the Lowthers just before I set off, all well.  You probably have heard from my sister.  It is time to make an end of this long letter, which might have been somewhat less dry if I had not wished to make you master of our whole route.  Except ascending one of the high mountains, Snowdon or Cader Idris, we omitted nothing, and saw as much as the shortened days would allow.  With love to Lady B. and yourself, dear Sir George, from us all, I remain, ever,

                    Most faithfully yours,
                        WM. WORDSWORTH.[40]

[40] Memoirs, vol. ii. pp. 121—­7.

(g) LETTER TO THE RIGHT HON.  CHARLES JAMES FOX.

With the ’Lyrical Ballads’ (1801):  with critical Remarks on his Poems.

Grasmere, Westmoreland, January 14th. 1801.

SIR,

It is not without much difficulty that I have summoned the courage to request your acceptance of these volumes.  Should I express my real feelings, I am sure that I should seem to make a parade of diffidence and humility.

Several of the poems contained in these volumes are written upon subjects which are the common property of all poets, and which, at some period of your life, must have been interesting to a man of your sensibility, and perhaps may still continue to be so.  It would be highly gratifying to me to suppose that even in a single instance the manner in which I have treated these general topics should afford you any pleasure; but such a hope does not influence me upon the present occasion; in truth I do not feel it.  Besides, I am convinced that there must be many things in this collection which may impress you with an unfavourable idea of my intellectual powers.  I do not say this with a wish to degrade myself, but I am sensible that this must be the case, from the different circles in which we have moved, and the different objects with which we have been conversant.

Being utterly unknown to you as I am, I am well aware that if I am justified in writing to you at all, it is necessary my letter should be short; but I have feelings within me, which I hope will so far show themselves, as to excuse the trespass which I am afraid I shall make.

In common with the whole of the English people, I have observed in your public character a constant predominance of sensibility of heart.  Necessitated as you have been from your public situation to have much to do with men in bodies, and in classes, and accordingly to contemplate them in that relation, it has been your praise that you have not thereby been prevented from looking upon them as individuals, and that you have habitually left your heart open to be influenced by them in that capacity.  This habit cannot but have made you dear to poets; and I am sure that if, since your first entrance into public life, there has been a single true poet living in England, he must have loved you.