in any case where they were likely to become questionable, he would
have declined to make one of the party."

Wordsworth has been accused of excessive penuriousness, of overwhelming
conceit, and of being slovenly and regardless of dress. For the first
accusation there seems little warrant, other than that he was prudent
and thrifty, and knew the value of money. His most intimate friends
exonerate him from meanness of any sort, and often praise his kindness
to the poor and dependent. As regards conceit there can probably be no
denial, though doubtless the stories told of it are much exaggerated. He
is said never to have read any poetry but his own, and to have been
exceedingly ill-natured and contemptuous in his estimate of his
contemporaries. His estimate of Dickens is well known:--

"I will candidly avow that I thought him a very talkative, vulgar
young person,--but I dare say he may be very clever. Mind, I don't
want to say a word against him, for I have never read a word he has
written."

He greeted Charles Mackay thus, when the latter called upon him:--

"I am told you write poetry. I never read a line of your poems and
don't intend to. You must not be offended with me; the truth is, I
never read anybody's poetry but my own."

Even James T. Fields, whose opinion of the poet was high, remarks:--

"I thought he did not praise easily those whose names are
indissolubly connected with his own in the history of literature.
It was languid praise, at least; and I observed that he hesitated
for mild terms which he could apply to names almost as great as his
own."

Carlyle testifies on the same point:--

"One evening, probably about this time, I got him upon the subject
of great poets, who I thought might be admirable equally to us
both; but was rather mistaken, as I gradually found. Pope's partial
failure I was prepared for; less for the narrowish limits visible
in Milton and others. I tried him with Burns, of whom he had sung
tender recognition; but Burns also turned out to be a limited,
inferior creature, any genius he had a theme for one's pathos
rather; even Shakespeare himself had his blind sides, his
limitations. Gradually it became apparent to me that of
transcendent unlimited, there was to this critic probably but one
specimen known,--Wordsworth."

As regards eccentricities of dress, we w