The welcome it has met with--having bounded into a third edition already--is at once proof of the soundness of judgment that at long-last issued it, if it be also accusatory that many have gone who yearned to read it.

The Editor ventures to invite special attention to WORDSWORTH'S own express wish that the foreign 'Journals' of Miss WORDSWORTH and Mrs.WORDSWORTH should be published.
Surely _his_ words ought to be imperative (vol.iii.p.

77)?
There _is_ the select circle of lovers of WORDSWORTH--yearly widening--and there are the far-off multitudes of the future to whom WILLIAM WORDSWORTH will be the grand name of the 18th-19th century, and all that SHAKESPEARE and MILTON are now; and consequently the letters of one so chary in letter-writing ought to be put beyond the risks of loss, and given to Literature in entirety and trueness.

WORDSWORTH had a morbid dislike of writing letters, his weak eyes throughout rendering all penmanship painful; but the present Editor, while conceding that his letters lack the charm of style of COWPER'S, and the vividness and passion of BYRON'S, finds in them, even the hastiest, matter of rarest biographic and interpretative value.

He was not a great sentencemaker; in a way prided himself that his letters were so (intentionally) poor as sure to be counted unworthy of publication; and altogether had the prejudices of an earlier day against the giving of letters to the world; but none the less are his letters informed with his intellect and meditative thoughtfulness and exquisiteness of feeling.