f  Extract  of  a  letter  to  a  friend,  by  Rev.  R  P.  Graves,  M.A.,  formerly  of  Win-
dermere, now  of  Dublin  :  Memoirs,  pp.  288-90.
Conversations  and  Personal  Reminiscences.       47 1

(h)  FURTHER  REMINISCENCES  OF  WORDSWORTH  BY  THE
SAME,  SENT  TO  THE  PRESENT  EDITOR.
I  remember  to  have  been  very  much  struck  by  what  ap-
peared to  me  the  wisdom  of  a  plan  suggested  by  Wordsworth,
for  the  revision  of  the  authorised  version  of  the  Bible  and  of  the
Book  of  Common  Prayer.
With  regard  to  the  former,  no  one,  he  said,  could  be  more
deeply  convinced  of  the  inestimable  value  of  its  having  been
made  when  it  was,  and  being  what  it  is.  In  his  opinion  it  was
made  at  the  happy  juncture  when  our  language  had  attained
adequate  expansion  and  flexibility,  and  when  at  the  same  time
its  idiomatic  strength  was  unimpaired  by  excess  of  technical
distinctions  and  conventional  refinements ;  and  these  circum-
stances, though  of  course  infinitely  subordinate  to  the  spiritual
influence  of  its  subject-matter,  he  considered  to  be  highly  im-
portant in  connection  with  a  volume  which  naturally  became  a
universally  recognised  standard  of  the  language ;  for  thus  the
fresh  well  of  English  undefiled  was  made  a  perennial  blessing
to  the  nation,  in  no  slight  degree  conducive  to  the  robust  and
manly  thinking  and  character  of  its  inhabitants.  He  was  satis-
fied, too,  as  to  its  general  and  most  impartial  accuracy,  and  its
faithfulness  in  rendering  not  only  the  words  but  the  style,  the
strength,  and  the  spirit  and  the  character  of  the  original  records.
