Of his poetry they did not think much, and whatever was good in it they ascribed to his wife, his sister, and Hartley Coleridge. He wrote poetry, they said, ‘because he couldn’t help it—because it was his hobby’—for sheer love, and not for money. They could not understand his doing work ‘for nowt,’ and held his occupation in somewhat light esteem because it did not bring in ‘a deal o’ brass to the pocket.’ ‘Did you ever read his poetry, or see any books about in the farmhouses?’ asked Mr. Rawnsley. The answer was curious: ‘Ay, ay, time or two. But ya’re weel aware there’s potry and potry. There’s potry wi’ a li’le bit pleasant in it, and potry sic as a man can laugh at or the childer understand, and some as takes a deal of mastery to make out what’s said, and a deal of Wudsworth’s was this sort, ye kna. You could tell fra the man’s faace his potry would niver have no laugh in it. His potry was quite different work from li’le Hartley. Hartley ’ud goa running along beside o’ the brooks and mak his, and goa in the first oppen door and write what he had got upo’ paper. But Wudsworth’s potry was real hard stuff, and bided a deal of makking, and he’d keep it in his head for long enough. Eh, but it’s queer, mon, different ways folks hes of making potry now. . . . Not but what Mr. Wudsworth didn’t stand very high, and was a well-spoken man enough.’ The best criticism on Wordsworth that Mr. Rawnsley heard was this: ‘He was an open-air man, and a great critic of trees.’ There are many useful and well-written essays in Professor Knight’s volume, but Mr. Rawnsley’s is far the most interesting of all. It gives us a graphic picture of the poet as he appeared in outward semblance and manner to those about whom he wrote. _Wordsworthiana_: _A Selection from Papers read to the Wordsworth Society_. Edited by William Knight. (Macmillan and Co.) MR. SWINBURNE’S _POEMS AND BALLADS_ (THIRD SERIES) (_Pall Mall Gazette_, June 27, 1889.)