How do you come on with Skelton?  And is there any prospect of a new edition of your Specimens of British Poetesses?  If I could get at the original works of the elder poetesses, such as the Duchess of Newcastle, Mrs. Behn, Orinda, &c., I should be happy to assist you with my judgment in such a publication, which, I think, might be made still more interesting than this first edition, especially if more matter were crowded into a page.  The two volumes of Poems by Eminent Ladies, Helen Maria Williams’s works, Mrs. Smith’s Sonnets, and Lady Winchelsea’s Poems, form the scanty materials which I possess for assisting such a publication.

It is a remarkable thing, that the two best ballads, perhaps, of modern times, viz.  ‘Auld Robin Grey’ and the ’Lament for the Defeat of the Scots at Flodden-field,’ are both from the pens of females.

I shall be glad to hear that your health is improved, and your spirits good, so that the world may continue to be benefited by your judicious and tasteful labours.

Pray let me hear from you at your leisure; and believe me, dear Sir,

Very faithfully yours,
W. WORDSWORTH.

P.S.  It is a pity that Mr. Hartley Coleridge’s Sonnets had not been published before your Collection was made, as there are several well worthy of a place in it.  Last midsummer I made a fortnight’s tour in the Isle of Man, Staffa, Iona, &c., which produced between thirty and forty sonnets, some of which, I think, would please you.

Could not you contrive to take the Lakes in your way, sometimes, to or from Scotland?  I need not say how glad I should be to see you for a few days.

What a pity that Mr. Heber’s wonderful collection of books is about to be dispersed![144]

[144] Memoirs, ii. 284-6.

92. Proposed Dedication of Poems to Wordsworth.

LETTER TO MRS. HEMANS.

Rydal Mount, April 1834.

MY DEAR MRS. HEMANS,
       * * * * *

You have submitted what you intended as a dedication of your poems to me.  I need scarcely say that, as a private letter, such expressions from such a quarter could not have been received by me but with pleasure of no ordinary kind, unchecked by any consideration but the fear that my writings were overrated by you, and my character thought better of than it deserved.  But I must say, that a public testimony, in so high a strain of admiration, is what I cannot but shrink from:  be this modesty true or false, it is in me; you must bear with it, and make allowance for it.  And, therefore, as you have submitted the whole to my judgment, I am emboldened to express a wish that you would, instead of this dedication, in which your warm and kind heart has overpowered you, simply inscribe them to me, with such expression of respect or gratitude as would come within the limits of the rule which, after what has been said above, will naturally suggest itself.  Of course, if the sheet has been struck off, I must hope that my shoulders may become a little more Atlantean than I now feel them to be.