SHELLEY AND WORDSWORTH. [To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR. "] SIR,—As
I have been out of England for a short time, I did not until the other day read the Review of Professor Knight's " Life of Wordsworth " in the Spectator of August 3rd. Your
reviewer there wishes that Mr. Knight had quoted the splendid
tribute, which, he says, Shelley paid to Wordsworth's poetry in " The Witch of Atlas."
Is there any mistake here P I thought I knew "The Witch of Atlas" pretty well, but have read it carefully since, and cannot imagine to what part of it your reviewer refer& No doubt Wordsworth is mentioned in the introductory stanzas " To Mary," but rather satirically than otherwise :—
"Wordsworth informs us he was nineteen years Considering and retouching ' Peter Bell,' Watering his laurels with the killing tears Of slow dull care."
And again :—
" Heaven and Earth conspire to foil The ever-busy gardener's blundering toil."
Shelley does, however, say :—
"My Witch, indeed, is not so sweet a creature
As Ruth or Lucy, whom his graceful praise Clothes for our grandsons—but she matches Peter, Though ho took nineteen years and the three days In dressing."
But this can hardly be considered a splendid tribute. I do
not write simply to point out what may be an error, but would gladly know of this tribute to Wordsworth, which may exist in some other poem. One learns from Mrs. Shelley that her husband greatly admired Wordsworth's poetry; she says that he read it perpetually, and taught others to appreciate its beauties : but, unfortunately, most of what he has written about Wordsworth rather bitterly inveighs against the elder poet's change from his early political faith. All the more would one desire to see a splendid tribute from Shelley to Wordsworth.
I add that I have no later copy of Shelley's poems than that edited by Mrs. Shelley in 1844.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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