R.P.  GRAVES.  Windermere, 1850.

To the above memorandum I now (Sept. 1874) add two items, of which I retain a distinct remembrance.

(1) He was in favour of the officiating clergyman being allowed to introduce into his reading of the Lessons in church the authorised marginal corrections.

(2) He expressed in very strong terms his opinion that the prefatory portion of the Marriage Service should be altered so as to make it not only less repulsive to modern feelings, but more accordant with the higher aspects of the union to be solemnised.

Passion in Poetry.—­One day, speaking of passion as an element of poetry, he referred to his own poems, and said that he thought there was a stronger fire of passion than was elsewhere to be found among them in the lyrical burst near the conclusion of ’The Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle:’ 

    ’Armour rusting in his halls,
    On the blood of Clifford calls: 
    “Quell the Scot,” exclaims the Lance—­
    “Bear me to the heart of France,”
    Is the longing of the Shield.’

Chronological Classification of Poems.—­Many years ago I expressed to Wordsworth a wish that his poems were printed in the order of their composition, assigning as reasons for the wish the great interest which would attach to observing the progressive development of the poet’s thought, and the interpretative value of the light mutually reflected by poems of the same period.  I remember being surprised by the feeling akin to indignation which he manifested at the suggestion.  He said that such proceeding would indicate on the part of a poet an amount of egotism, placing interest in himself above interest in the subjects treated by him, which could not belong to a true poet caring for the elements of poetry in their right proportion, and designing to bring to bear upon the minds of his readers the best influences at his command in the way best calculated to make them effectual.  I felt that his ground of objection made me revere him the more both as a man and as a poet; yet I retained the opinion that much might be said on the reader’s part in the case of a great poet for such an arrangement of his poems as I had been suggesting, and I welcomed in after-days the concession made by him in consenting to put dates to the poems, while adhering to their classification according to subject or predominant element.

Verbal Criticism.—­Wordsworth not only sympathised with the feelings expressed in Southey’s touching lines upon The Dead, but admired very much the easy flow of the verse and the perfect freedom from strain in the expression by which they are marked.  Yet in the first two stanzas he noted three flaws, and suggested changes by which they might have been easily avoided.  I have underlined the words he took exception to: 

    ’My days among the dead are past;
    Around me I behold,

    Where’er these casual eyes are cast,
        The mighty minds of old;
    My never-failing friends are they,
    With whom I converse day by day.