Wordsworth does not seem, during any period of his life, to have been on intimate terms with any of his contemporaries. He preferred the flower of the literateurs, Coleridge, Scott, Southey; and these, with the exception perhaps of Rogers, were his chief friends. We have letters of his, however, to much smaller fry; to Mrs. Hemans, and Miss Jewsbury, for example--and to sundry editors of other men’s wares; but there is little or no recognition of Byron, Shelly, Keats, Tennyson, Baily, Campbell, Moore, nor yet of Dickens or Bulwer. His letters represent his character even better than his poetry; they are Wordsworth in undress, without the “garland and singing robe,” and are worthy to be studied. I like much what he says to the Rev. Robert Montgomery, author of “The Devil and Father Luther,” and pious Robert would do well even at this late day to think on it. Montgomery had sent Wordsworth a copy of his poems, and in reply, the poet answers: “I cannot conclude without one word of literary advice which I hope you will deem my advanced age entitles me to give. Do not, my dear sir, be anxious about any individual’s opinion concerning your writings, however highly you may think of his genius, or rate his judgment. Be a severe critic to yourself; and depend upon it no person’s decision upon the merit of your works will bear comparison in point of value with your own. You must be conscious from what feeling they have flowed, and how far they may or may not be allowed to claim on that account, permanent respect; and above all I would remind you, with a view to tranquillise and steady your mind, that no man takes the trouble of surveying and pondering another’s writings with a hundredth part of the care which an author of sense and genius will have bestowed upon his own. Add to this reflection another, which I press upon you, as it has supported me through life--viz.: That posterity will settle all accounts justly, and that works which deserve to last will last; and if undeserving this fate, the sooner they perish the better.” In the year 1836 the sister of the poet’s wife--Miss Sarah Hutchinson, who had resided with the family at Rydal, died, and was buried in Grasmere church, “near the graves of two young children removed from a family to which through life she was devoted.”