W. WORDSWORTH.[97]

61. Of Collins, Dyer, Thomson, &c.

LETTER TO REV.  ALEXANDER DYCE.

Rydal Mount, Kendal, Jan. 12. 1829.

DEAR SIR,

I regret to hear of the indisposition from which you have been suffering.

That you are convinced[98] gives me great pleasure, as I hope that every other editor of Collins will follow your example.  You are at perfect liberty to declare that you have rejected Bell’s copy in consequence of my opinion of it; and I feel much satisfaction in being the instrument of rescuing the memory of Collins from this disgrace.  I have always felt some concern that Mr. Home, who lived several years after Bell’s publication, did not testify more regard for his deceased friend’s memory by protesting against this imposition.  Mr. Mackenzie is still living; and I shall shortly have his opinion upon the question; and if it be at all interesting, I shall take the liberty of sending it to you.

[97] Memoirs, ii. 212-14, with important additions from the original.  G.

[98] i.e. convinced by what Wordsworth had remarked to me, that those portions of Collins’s ‘Ode on the Superstitions of the Highlanders,’ which first appeared in Bell’s edition of that Ode, were forgeries. A.D.

Dyer is another of our minor poets—­minor as to quantity—­of whom one would wish to know more.  Particulars about him might still be collected, I should think, in South Wales, his native country, and where in early life he practised as a painter.  I have often heard Sir George Beaumont express a curiosity about his pictures, and a wish to see any specimen of his pencil that might survive.  If you are a rambler, perhaps you may, at some time or other, be led into Carmarthenshire, and might bear in mind what I have just said of this excellent author.

I had once a hope to have learned some unknown particulars of Thomson, about Jedburgh, but I was disappointed.  Had I succeeded, I meant to publish a short life of him, prefixed to a volume containing ’The Seasons,’ ‘The Castle of Indolence,’ his minor pieces in rhyme, and a few extracts from his plays, and his ‘Liberty;’ and I feel still inclined to do something of the kind.  These three writers, Thomson, Collins, and Dyer, had more poetic imagination than any of their contemporaries, unless we reckon Chatterton as of that age.  I do not name Pope, for he stands alone, as a man most highly gifted; but unluckily he took the plain when the heights were within his reach.

Excuse this long letter, and believe me,

Sincerely yours,
WM. WORDSWORTH.[99]

[99] Memoirs, ii. 214-16.

62. Verses and Counsels.

LETTER TO PROFESSOR HAMILTON, OBSERVATORY, DUBLIN.

Rydal Mount, July 24. 1820.

MY DEAR SIR,