no
reluctance to relate it (since called upon so to do), as correctly as
the distance of time and the impression of intervening events will
permit me. In the year 1812, more than three years after the
publication of "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," I had the honour
of meeting Mr. Bowles in the house of our venerable host of "Human
Life," &c. the last Argonaut of classic English poetry, and the
Nestor of our inferior race of living poets. Mr. Bowles calls this
"soon after" the publication; but to me three years appear a
considerable segment of the immortality of a modern poem. I recollect
nothing of "the rest of the company going into another room,"--nor,
though I well remember the topography of our host's elegant and
classically furnished mansion, could I swear to the very room where
the conversation occurred, though the "taking _down_ the poem" seems
to fix it in the library. Had it been "taken _up_" it would probably
have been in the drawing-room. I presume also that the "remarkable
circumstance" took place _after_ dinner; as I conceive that neither
Mr. Bowles's politeness nor appetite would have allowed him to detain
"the rest of the company" standing round their chairs in the "other
room," while we were discussing "the Woods of Madeira," instead of
circulating its vintage. Of Mr. Bowles's "good humour" I have a full
and not ungrateful recollection; as also of his gentlemanly manners
and agreeable conversation. I speak of the _whole_, and not of
particulars; for whether he did or did not use the precise words
printed in the pamphlet, I cannot say, nor could he with accuracy. Of
"the tone of seriousness" I certainly recollect nothing: on the
contrary, I thought Mr. Bowles rather disposed to treat the subject
lightly: for he said (I have no objection to be contradicted if
incorrect), that some of his good-natured friends had come to him and
exclaimed, "Eh! Bowles! how came you to make the Woods of Madeira?"
&c. &c. and that he had been at some pains and pulling down of the
poem to convince them that he had never made "the Woods" do any thing
of the kind. He was right, and _I was wrong,_ and have been wrong
still up to this acknowledgment; for I ought to have looked twice
before I wrote that which involved an inaccuracy capable of giving
pain. The fact was, that, although I had certainly before read "the
Spirit of Discovery," I took the quotation from the review. But the
mistake was mine, and not the _review's,_ wh