abruptly.

Seeing my surprise, he added, 'A poet who has not produced 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.

When I recovered from the shock of having heard the harsh sentence
passed by an elder bard on a younger brother of the Muses, I exclaimed,

'After all, poets are but earth. It is the old story,--envy--Cain and
Abel. Professions, sects, and communities in general, right or wrong,
hold together, men of the pen excepted; if one of their guild is worsted
in the battle, they do as the rooks do by their inky brothers--fly from
him, cawing and screaming; if they don't fire the shot, they sound the
bugle to charge.'

I did not then know that the full-fledged author never reads the
writings of his contemporaries, except to cut them up in a review, that
being a work of love. In after years, Shelley being dead, Wordsworth
confessed this fact; he was then induced to read some of Shelley's
poems, and admitted that Shelley was the greatest master of harmonious
verse in our modern literature. (Pp. 4-8.)[274]

[274] See our Index, under Shelley, G.

(_l_) FROM 'LETTERS, EMBRACING HIS LIFE, OF JOHN JAMES TAYLER, B.A.,
PROFESSOR OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY AND BIBLICAL THEOLOGY, AND PRINCIPAL
OF MANCHESTER NEW COLLEGE. LONDON, 1872' (TWO VOLS. 8vo).

Spring Cottage, Loughrigg, Ambleside, July 26. 1826.

Rydal, where we now are, has an air of repose and seclusion which I have
rarely seen surpassed; the first few days we were here we perfectly
luxuriated in the purity and sweetness of the air and the delicious
stillness of its pastures and woods. It is interesting, too, on another
account, as being the residence of the poet Wordsworth: his house is
about a quarter of a mile from ours; and since Osler joined us we have
obtained an introduction to him, and he favoured us with his company at
tea one evening last week. He is a very interesting man, remarkably
simple in his manners, full of enthusiasm and eloquence in conversation,
especially on the subject of his favourite art--poetry--which he seems
to have studied in a very philosophical spirit, and about which he
entertains some peculiar opinions. Spenser, Shakspeare, and Milton are
h