mposed a good deal all the morning."

28. "W. could not compose much; fatigued himself with altering."

30. "W. worked at his poem all the morning."

Nov. 10. "W. at the sheepfold."

12. "W. has been working at the sheepfold."

Dec. 9. "W. finished his poem to-day."'

It is impossible to say with certainty that the entry under Dec. 9
refers to 'Michael', but if it does, it is evident that Wordsworth
wrought continuously at this poem for nearly two months.

On April 9, 1801, Wordsworth wrote to Thomas Poole:

"In writing it" ('Michael'), "I had your character often before my
eyes; and sometimes thought that I was delineating such a man as you
yourself would have been, under the same circumstances."

The following is part of a letter written by Wordsworth to Charles James
Fox in 1802, and sent with a copy of "Lyrical Ballads":

"In the two poems, 'The Brothers' and 'Michael', I have attempted to
draw a picture of the domestic affections, as I know they exist
amongst a class of men who are now almost confined to the north of
England. They are small independent 'proprietors' of land, here called
'statesmen,' men of respectable education, who daily labour on their
own little properties. The domestic affections will always be strong
amongst men who live in a country not crowded with population; if
these men are placed above poverty. But, if they are proprietors of
small estates which have descended to them from their ancestors, the
power which these affections will acquire amongst such men, is
inconceivable by those who have only had an opportunity of observing
hired labourers, farmers, and the manufacturing poor. Their little
tract of land serves as a kind of permanent rallying point for their
domestic feelings, as a tablet on which they are written, which makes
them objects of memory in a thousand instances, when they would
otherwise be forgotten. It is a fountain fitted to the nature of
social man, from which supplies of affection as pure as his heart was
intended for, are daily drawn. This class of men is rapidly
disappearing.... The two poems that I have mentioned were written with
a view to show that men who do not wear fine clothes can feel deeply.
'Pectus enim est quod disertos facit, et vis mentis. Ideoque imperitis
quoque, si modo sint aliquo affectu concitati, verba non desunt.' The
poems are faithful copies from nature; and I hope whatever eff