'Waiter,'  he  said,  '  is  that  our  carriage  ?  Why  did  you  not
tells  us  ?     Come,  lasses,  be  stirring;  the  freshness  of  the  day  is


Conversations  and  Personal  Reminiscences.       501

gone.  You  may  rejoice  in  not  having  to  walk  ;  there  is  a  chance
of  saying  the  remnants  of  skin  the  sun  has  left  on  our  chins  and
noses  ;  to-day  we  shall  he  stewed  instead  of  barbecued.'

On  their  leaving  the  room  to  get  ready  for  their  journey,  my
friend  Eoherts  told  me  the  strangers  were  the  poet  Wordsworth,
his  wife  and  sister.
Who  could  have  divined  this  ?  I  could  see  no  trace,  in  the
hard  features  and  weather-stained  brow  of  the  outer  man,  of  the
divinity  within  him.  In  a  few  minutes  the  travellers  reappeared  ;
we  cordially  shook  hands,  and  agreed  to  meet  again  at  Geneva.
Now  that  I  knew  that  I  was  talking  to  one  of  the  veterans  of
the  gentle  craft,  as  there  was  no  time  to  waste  in  idle  ceremony,
I  asked  him  abruptly  what  he  thought  of  Shelley  as  a  poet.
'Nothing,'  he  replied  as  abruptly.
Seeing  my  surpise,  he  added,  'A  poet  who  has  not  pro-
duced a  good  poem  before  he  is  twenty-five  we  may  conclude
cannot  and  never  will  do  so.'

'  The  "  Cenci"  !'  I  said  eagerly.
'  Won't  do,'  he  replied,  shaking  his  head,  as  he  got  into  the
carriage  :  a  rough-coated  Scotch  terrier  followed  him.
'  This  hairy  fellow  is  our  flea-trap,'  he  shouted  out  as  they
started  off.
