1830-1831] Wordsworth and Jeffrey 235 



and pray together; in short I think it is growing into a 

 very religious world. The only thing I think is a pity is 

 the number of people who believe in the Scotch miracles 

 [Edward Irving], and the number of people who perform 

 them. There are at least half a dozen other people, some 

 maid servants and some ladies, who speak with tongues, 

 besides the Port Glasgow people, and when Mrs Rich gives 

 one the accounts with the solemnity of perfect belief in 

 them herself, one is almost infected by it oneself. 



Fanny had a grand dinner yesterday, Bishop Copleston, 1 

 Sir T. Denman (whom I admire very much he has all the 

 dignity of virtue in his look and manner), Jeffrey, Lord 

 Nugent and Shell , and for ladies Lady Gifford and Miss 

 Thornton. There was a party in the evening too which 

 was made memorable by bringing Wordsworth and Jeffrey 

 together. When Sir James proposed to Mr Wordsworth to 

 introduce them to one another he did not agree to it : We 

 are fire and water," he said, " and if we meet we shall only 

 hiss besides he has been doing his utmost to destroy me." 

 " But he has not succeeded," 2 Sir James said, " and he really 



1 The grand dinner was as follows: Bishop Copleston (of Llandaff), 

 1776 1849, was a strong Toiy, famous for his bodily strength and 

 activity. He wrote a parody on the early numbers of the Edin. 

 Rev. "full of the finest irony." Sir Thomas Denman (1779 

 1854), Attorney-general, afterwards Lord Chief Justice. He was 

 " gifted with a handsome face, a winning, though shy, manner, an 

 exquisite voice, and a tall and active figure." The well-known 

 Francis Jeffrey (1773 1850), founder of the Edin. Rev., and then 

 Lord Advocate in Lord Grey's ministry. Lord Nugent (1788 

 1860), younger son of the first Marquis of Buckingham, M.P. for 

 Aylesbury, an extreme whig and supporter of Queen Caroline. 

 Richard Lalor Sheil (1791 1851), dramatist and Irish politician. 

 The ladies were also distinguished. Lady Clifford, the eldest of 

 the handsome Miss Drewes, and Marianne Thornton, a woman of 

 remarkable character, one of the well-known Thorntons of Clapham, 

 handsome, dignified, witty, and an admirable talker. 



2 Wordsworth would of course think of Jeffrey as the man who 

 had done all that critical authority could do to bring to naught 

 the work of his life. It may be said that Jeffrey is now best re- 

 membered by the " This will never do !" with winch (seventeen 

 years before this time the Edinburgh Review had saluted the appear- 

 ance of the Excursion. He had heaped like contempt on the two 

 little volumes of 1807 wherein the world had read for the first time 

 the Ode to Duty, the Song of the Feast of Brougham Castle, and the 

 Ode on Intimations of Immortality. 



