August  2Sthj  1841. — Mr. Wordsworth,  Miss  Fenwiek,  and
Mrs. Hill  came  to  dine,  and  it  rained  on  the  whole  day,  but
happily  the  Poet  talked  on  from  two  to  eight  without  being
weary,  as  we  certainly  were  not. After  dinner,  when  we  came
to  the  drawing-room,  the  conversation  turned  on  the  treatment
of  Wordsworth  by  the  reviews  of  the  day. I  had  never  heard
him  open  out  on  it  before,  and  was  much  struck  with  the  man-
ner in  which  he  did  it ;  from  his  present  elevation  looking
calmly  back  on  the  past,  and  at  the  same  time  feeling  that  an
irreparable  injury  had  been  done  to  him  at  the  time  when  life
and  hope  were  young. As  nearly  as  I  can  I  shall  record  his
words  as  they  were  spoken. He  said :

'  At  the  time  I  resolved  to  dedicate  myself  to  poetry  and  sepa-
rate myself  from  the  ordinary  lucrative  professions,  it  would  cer-
tainly have  been  a  great  object  to  me  to  have  reaped  the  pro-
fits I  should  have  done  from  my  writings  but  for  the  stupidity  of
Mr. Gifford  and  the  impertinence  of  Mr. Jeffrey. It  would  have
enabled  me  to  purchase  many  books  which  I  could  not  obtain,
and  I  should  have  gone  to  Italy  earlier,  which  I  never  could
afford  to  do  until  I  was  sixty-five,  when  Moxon  gave  me  a  thou-
sand pounds  for  my  writings. This  was  the  only  kind  of  in-
jury Mr. Jeffrey  did  me,  for  I  immediately  perceived  that  his
mind  was  of  that  kind  that  his  individual  opinion  on  poetry
was  of  no  consequence  to  me  whatever,  that  it  was  only  by
the  influence  his  periodical  exercised  at  the  time  in  preventing
my  poems  being  read  and  sold  that  he  could  injure  me ;  for
feeling  that  my  writings  were  founded  on  what  was  true  and
spiritual  in  human  nature,  I  knew  the  time  would  come  when
they  must  be  known,  and  I  never  therefore  felt  his  opinion
of  the  slightest  value,  except  in  preventing  the  young  of  that
generation  from  receiving  impressions  which  might  have  been
of  use  to  them  through  life. 