am, troubled in conscience for having left her obliging letter so long unanswered; but she must excuse me as there is not a motive in my mind urging me to throw any interest into my letters to friends beyond the expression of kindness and esteem; and that she does not require from me.  Besides my friends in general know how much I am hindered in all my pursuits by the inflammation to which my eyes are so frequently subject.  I have long since given up all exercise of them by candle-light, and the evenings and nights are the seasons when one is most disposed to converse in that way with absent friends.  News you do not care about, and I have none for you, except what concerns friends.  My sister, God be thanked, has had a respite.  She can now walk a few steps about her room, and has been borne twice into the open air.  Southey to whom I sent your Sonnets had, I grieve to say, a severe attack of some unknown and painful complaint, about ten days ago.  It weakened him much, but he is now I believe perfectly recovered.  Coleridge I have reason to think is confined to his bed; his mind vigorous as ever.  Your Sonnets I think are as good as anything you have done in verse.  We like the 2d best; and I single it out the more readily as it allows me an opportunity of reminding you of what I have so often insisted upon, the extreme care which is necessary in the composition of poetry.

    ’The ancient image shall not depart
    From my soul’s temple, the refined gold
    Already prov’d remain.’

Your meaning is that it shall remain, but according to the construction of our language, you have said ‘it shall not.’

    ’The refined gold,
    Well proved, shall then remain,’

will serve to explain my objection.

Could not you take us in your way coming or going to Cambridge?  If Mrs.
H. accompanies you, we should be glad to see her also.

I hope that in the meeting about to take place in Cambridge there will be less of mutual flattery among the men of science than appeared in that of the last year at Oxford.  Men of science in England seem, indeed, to copy their fellows in France, by stepping too much out of their way for titles, and baubles of that kind, and for offices of state and political struggles, which they would do better to keep out of.

With kindest regards to yourself and Mrs. H., and to your sisters, believe me ever,

My dear Mr. H.,
                   Faithfully yours,
                        W.W.[134]

[134] Memoirs, ii. 276-7, with important additions from the original.

87. Of ‘Elia:’  Miss Wordsworth.

LETTER TO CHARLES LAMB, ESQ.

Rydal Mount [Friday, May 17. 1833, or thereabouts].

MY DEAR LAMB,