eories of political economy
are boastfully pleading for the practice, inhumanity pervades all our
dealings in buying and selling. This selfishness wars against
disinterested imagination in all directions, and, evils coming round in
a circle, barbarism spreads in every quarter of our island. Oh, for the
reign of justice! and then the humblest man among us would have more
peace and dignity in and about him than the highest have now.

119. *_Rural Illusions_. [XXV.]

Rydal Mount, 1832. Observed a hundred times in the grounds at Rydal
Mount.

120. *_The Kitten and the falling Leaves_. [XXXI.]

1805. Seen at Town-End, Grasmere. The elder bush has long since
disappeared; it hung over the wall near the cottage, and the kitten
continued to leap up, catching the leaves as here described. The infant
was Dora.

121. _The Waggoner_. [XXXIII.]

DEDICATION.

'In Cairo's crowded streets
The impatient Merchant, wondering, waits in vain,
And Mecca saddens at the long delay.'

THOMSON.

To CHARLES LAMB, ESQ.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

When I sent you, a few weeks ago, 'The Tale of Peter Bell,' you asked
'why "The Waggoner" was not added?'--To say the truth,--from the higher
tone of imagination, and the deeper touches of passion aimed at in the
former, I apprehended, this little Piece could not accompany it without
disadvantage. In the year 1806, if I am not mistaken, 'The Waggoner' was
read to you in manuscript, and, as you have remembered it for so long a
time, I am the more encouraged to hope that, since the localities on
which the Poem partly depends did not prevent its being interesting to
you, it may prove acceptable to others. Being therefore in some measure
the cause of its present appearance, you must allow me the gratification
of inscribing it to you; in acknowledgment of the pleasure I have
derived from your Writings, and of the high esteem with which I am very
truly yours,

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
Rydal Mount, May 20, 1819.

122. *_The Waggoner_.

Town-End, 1805. The character and story from fact.

123. _Benjamin 'the Waggoner.'_

Several years after the event that forms the subject of the Poem, in
company with my friend, the late Mr. Coleridge, I happened to fall in
with the person to whom the name of Benjamin is given. Upon our
expressing regret that we had not, for a long time, seen upon the road
either him or his waggon, he said:--'They c