some further discourse about it, I pleasantly said to him, “Thou hast said much here of Paradise lost, but what hast thou to say of Paradise found?” He made me no answer, but sate some time in a muse; then brake off that discourse, and fell upon another subject.  After the sickness was over, and the city well cleansed and become safely habitable again, he returned thither; and when afterwards I went to wait on him there (which I seldom failed of doing whenever my occasions drew me to London), he showed me his second poem, called “Paradise Regained;” and in a pleasant tone said to me, “This is owing to you, for you put it into my head by the question you put to me at Chalford, which before I had not thought of.” But from this digression I return to the family I then lived in.’

Wordsworth was highly diverted with the apology of the worthy Quaker, for the digression, which has alone saved him from oblivion.  He offered to send us the old book, which came a few days after; and I shall add another digression in favour of John Milton, to whom he appears to have been introduced about the year 1661, by a Dr. Paget.  It is thus notified apropos to Thomas Elwood feeling a desire for more learning than he possessed, which having expressed to Isaac Pennington, with whom he himself lived as tutor to his children, he says, ’Isaac Pennington had an intimate acquaintance with Dr. Paget, a physician of note in London, and he with John Milton, a gentleman of great note for learning throughout the learned world, for the accurate pieces he had written on various subjects and occasions.  This person having filled a public station in the former times, lived now a private and retired life in London, and, having wholly lost his sight, kept always a man to read to him, which usually was the son of some gentleman of his acquaintance, whom in kindness he took to improve in his learning.

’He received me courteously, as well for the sake of Dr. Paget, who introduced me, as of Isaac Pennington who recommended me, to both whom he bore a good respect; and having inquired divers things of me, with respect to my former progression in learning, he dismissed me to provide myself of such accommodations as might be most suitable to my future studies.

’I went, therefore, and took myself a lodging as near to his house, which was then in Jewin-street, as conveniently I could, and from thenceforward went every day in the afternoon (except on the first days of the week), and sitting by him in his dining-room, read to him in such books in the Latin tongue as he pleased to hear me read.’

(VI.) MRS. DAVY (CONTINUED).

The Oaks, Ambleside, Jan. 15. 1845.