7° JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 
The extract given from Wordsworth’s poem calls to remem- 
brance the ‘“ Lost Leader,” by Browning. A letter in 1875, from 
Browning, acknowledges that Wordsworth was the lay figure for the 
“Lost Leader ;” just as Dicken’s admitted that Leigh Hunt was the 
prototype of Skimpole; and his own father of Micawber. Before 
middle life, Wordsworth lost some of his early ideals, and became 
out of touch with the aspirations of Browning. In his old age the 
latter, however, said the “‘Lost Leader” was not intended to be a full 
and true portrait of Wordsworth, or he would never have talked of 
‘‘handfuls of silver and bits of riband,” which he is sure never influ- 
enced the great poet’s change of politics. 
I. 
‘Just for a handful of silver he left us, 
Just for a riband to stick in his coat— 
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us, 
Lost all the others she lets us devote ; 
They with the gold to give doled him out silver, 
So much was theirs who so little allowed ; 
How all our coppers had gone for his service ! 
Rags—were they purple his heart had been proud ! 
We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him, 
Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, 
Learned his great language, caught his clear accents, 
Made him our pattern to live and to die! 
Shakespeare was of us; Milton was for us, 
Burns, Shelley were with us—they watch from their graves ; 
He alone breaks from the van and the free men, 
He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves ! 
II. 
We shall march prospering—not through his presence ; 
Songs may inspirit us—not from his lyre; 
Deeds will be done—while he boasts his quiescence, 
Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire : 
Blot out his name then, record one lost soul more, 
One task more declined, one more footpath untrod, 
One more devil’s triumph and sorrow for angels, 
One wrong more to man, one more insult to God! 
Life’s night begins ; let him never come back to us ! 
There would be doubt, hesitation and pain, 
Forced praise on our part—the glimmer of twilight, 
Never glad confident morning again ! 
Best fight on well, for we taught him—strike gallantly, 
Menace our heart ere we master his own, 
Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us, 
Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne.” 
“Sir Patrick Spens” is one of the best of the old Scottish bal- 
lads. It was first published in the Percy collection; but Sir Walter 
Scott was able, after much search, to give several additional stanzas 
