92 INVALIDISM AND ITALY. 



made Corstorphine Hill magnetic. The friendship thus 

 pleasantly commenced was followed up in the correspond- 

 ence of the following winter, and, even before its inevi- 

 table consummation, it exerted the happiest influence on 

 Mr Wilson. Not only had he alighted on a kindred spirit 

 to whose bright and gentle intuition his varying mood of 

 mind, whether grave or gay, lay open (and it is a great 

 comfort to be understood) ; but amidst the more serious 

 thoughts with which he was now familiar, he had found 

 a guide whose firmer faith and endearing goodness helped 

 him to rise to a higher level. The first of the following 

 letters to his " cousin," as he chose to misname her, ac- 

 companied a collected edition of Wordsworth's Poems : — 



"Christmas-day, 1S22. 



" Deae and good Cousin, — As you were so kind as 

 to listen very patiently during the last autumn to a great 

 deal of ill-expressed praise of William Wordsworth, my 

 'mind's father,' I think it my duty that you should 

 speedily be enabled to judge of his extraordinary merits 

 more fully and at leisure. 



" You will perceive that many of these poems, of no 

 striking interest at first or taken singly, will grow upon 

 you and increase in value when you come to view them 

 in connexion with each other, and as belonging to the 

 same system of thought ; and if the atheism and impiety 



