Two unpublished letters

These two unpublished letters give fresh insights into different stages of Wordsworth’s life. The first, to Basil Montagu, contains a previously unrecorded reaction to a review of Wordsworth's The Excursion,1814, by William Hazlitt: ‘dear Hazlitt’s critique (sent me by an unknown hand) is a crude & somewhat pretentious performance; indicating little penetration or judgement; but there is some vigor in the expression, occasionally’. The second letter, in Mary Wordsworth's hand, was addressed to Robert Southey’s second wife, Caroline, as Southey's dementia was by then far advanced. Its subject is Southey’s poem ‘My Days among the Dead are Past’, composed in 1818 but published only shortly before Wordsworth wrote his letter. Wordsworth expresses his high opinion of the poem, as one which ‘will frequently be inserted in miscellanies, & Extracts’, but he also feels able to suggest three ‘slight alterations’, through which the poem’s 'expression might be a little improved' ; a demonstration of how freely ideas and opinions must have circulated between the three ‘Lake Poets', Wordsworth, Southey and the latter's brother-in-law Coleridge.