lf in this poem. It is somewhat curious that Dorothy Wordsworth,
writing to Miss Pollard from Forncett in 1793, quotes the line from 'The
Minstrel', book I. stanza 22,

"In truth he was a strange and wayward wight,"

and adds

"That verse of Beattie's 'Minstrel' always reminds me of him, and
indeed the whole character of Edwin resembles much what William was
when I first knew him after leaving Halifax."

Mr. T. Hutchinson called the attention of Professor Dowden to the same
resemblance between the two pictures. With lines 35, 36, compare in
Shelley's 'Adonais', stanza xxxi.:

'And his own thoughts, along that rugged way,
Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and their prey.'

Ed.]

There can now be no doubt that, in the first four of these 'Stanzas',
Wordsworth refers to himself; and that, in the last four, he refers to
Coleridge. For a time it was uncertain whether in the earlier stanzas he
had Coleridge, or himself, in view; and whether, in the later ones, some
one else was, or was not, described. De Quincey, quoting (as he often
did) in random fashion, mixes up extracts from each set of the stanzas,
and applies them both to Coleridge; and Dorothy Wordsworth, in her
Journal, gives apparent (though only apparent) sanction to a reverse
order of allusion, by writing of "the stanzas about C. and himself" (her
brother). The following are her references to the poem in that Journal:

"9th May (1802).-After tea he (W.) wrote two stanzas in the manner of
Thomson's 'Castle of Indolence', and was tired out.

"10th May.--William still at work, though it is past ten o'clock ...
William did not sleep till three o'clock."

"11th May.--William finished the stanzas about C. and himself. He did
not go out to-day. ... He completely finished his poem. He went to bed
at twelve o'clock."

From these extracts two things are evident,

(1) who the persons are described in the stanzas, and

(2) the immense labour bestowed upon the poem.

In the 'Memoirs of Wordsworth', by the late Bishop of Lincoln, there is
a passage (vol. ii. chap. li. p. 309) amongst the "Personal
Reminiscences, 1836," in which the Hon. Mr. Justice Coleridge virtually
decides the question of the identity of the two persons referred to, in
his record of a conversation with the poet. It is as follows:

"October 10th.--I have passed a great many hours to-day with
Wordsworth in his home. I stumbled on him with proof shee