32 MEMOIR OF JOHN WILSON. 



every respect similar. I find that my remarks upon several of your 

 other poems must be reserved for another letter. If you think this 

 one deserves an answer, a letter from Wordsworth would be to me a 

 treasure. If your silence tells me that my letter was beneath your 

 notice, you will never again be troubled by one whom you consider 

 as an ignorant admirer. But, if your mind be as amiable as it is 

 reflected in your poems, you will make allowance for defects that 

 age may supply, and make a fellow-creature happy, by dedicating a 

 few moments to the instruction of an admirer and sincere friend, 



" John Wilson. 



" Professor Jardine's College, Glasgow, 



2±th May, 1802. 

 "William Wordsworth, Esq., 

 Ambleside, Westmoreland, England." * 



CHAPTER III. 



LOVE AND POETRY. LIFE AT OXFORD. 



1803-08. 



"Then, after all the joys and sorrows of these few years, which 

 we now call transitory, but which our boyhood felt as if they would 

 be endless — as if they would endure forever — arose upon us the 

 glorious dawning of another new life, — Youth, with its insupport- 

 able sunshine and its agitating storms. Transitory, too, we now 

 know, and well deserving the same name of dream. But while it 

 lasted, long, various, and agonizing, as, unable to sustain the eyes 

 that first revealed to us the light of love, we hurried away from the 

 parting hour, and looking up to moon and stars, invocated in sacred 

 oaths, hugged the very heavens to our heart." 



These sentences contain one among many references in my father's 

 writings to an episode in his early life, of which, had we only these 

 incidental and sometimes imaginative allusions to guide us, no more 



* The answer to this letter will be found at page 192, vol. i., of Memoirs of W. Wordsworth, 

 by C. Wordsworth, D. D., 1851. For the foregoing letter I am indebted to Mr. W. Wordsworth^ 

 son of the poet, who kindly sent it to me, and also pointed out the reply, which is introduced in 

 the Memoirs, without a hint as to whom it was addressed. 



