LETTER TO PROFESSOR REED.

Rydal Mount, Jan. 23. 1846.

MY DEAR MR. REED,

* * * * *

I hope to be able to send you an impression of an engraving, from a picture of Mr. Haydon, representing me in the act of climbing Helvellyn.  There is great merit in this work, and the sight of it will show my meaning on the subject of expression.  This, I think, is attained; but, then, I am stooping, and the inclination of the head necessarily causes a foreshortening of the features below the nose, which takes from the likeness accordingly; so that, upon the whole, yours has the advantage, especially under the circumstance of your never having seen the original.  Mrs. Wordsworth has been looking over your letters in vain to find the address of the person in London, through whose hands any parcel for you might be sent.  Pray take the trouble of repeating the address in your next letter, and your request shall be attended to of sending you my two letters upon the offensive subject of a Railway to and through our beautiful neighbourhood.

* * * * *

You will be sorry to hear that Mrs. Wordsworth and I have been, and still are, under great trouble and anxiety.  Our daughter-in-law fell into bad health between three and four years ago.  She went with her husband to Madeira, where they remained nearly a year; she was then advised to go to Italy.  After a prolonged residence there, her six children, whom her husband returned to England for, went, at her earnest request, to that country, under their father’s guidance:  there he was obliged, on account of his duty as a clergyman, to leave them.  Four of the number resided with their mother at Rome, three of whom took a fever there, of which the youngest, as noble a boy, of nearly five years, as ever was seen, died, being seized with convulsions when the fever was somewhat subdued.  The father, in a distracted state of mind, is just gone back to Italy; and we are most anxious to hear the result.  My only surviving brother, also, the late Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and an inestimable person, is in an alarming state of health; and the only child of my eldest brother, long since deceased, is now languishing under mortal illness at Ambleside.  He was educated to the medical profession, and caught his illness while on duty in the Mediterranean.  He is a truly amiable and excellent young man, and will be universally regretted.  These sad occurrences, with others of like kind, have thrown my mind into a state of feeling, which the other day vented itself in the two sonnets which Mrs. Wordsworth will transcribe as the best acknowledgment she can make for Mrs. Reed’s and your kindness.

Ever faithfully and affectionately yours,
WM. WORDSWORTH.[214]

[214] Memoirs, ii. 422-3.

146. Bishop White:  Mormonites, &c.