turned entirely upon English and German literature, and in the course of it Wordsworth gave ample proofs of his great taste, industry, and information, and even showed that he was better acquainted with the highest German writers than the author of the ‘Messiah’ himself. On his informing the latter that Coleridge intended to translate some of his odes, the old man said to Coleridge--‘I wish you would render into English some select passages of the “Messiah,” and _revenge_ me of your countrymen.’ ‘This,’ says Coleridge, ‘was the liveliest thing he produced in the whole conversation.’ That genius was, however, deeply moved, but could not help being disgusted with the venerable bard’s snow-white periwig, which felt to his eye what Mr. Virgil would have been to his ear. After this, Coleridge left Hamburg, and resided four months in Ratzeburg, and five in Gottingen. Wordsworth had two subsequent interviews with Klopstock, and dined with him. He kept notes of these conversations, some of which are given in ‘Satyrane’s Letters,’ in the second volume of the ‘Biographia Literaria.’ One or two incidents strongly illustrate Wordsworth’s peculiar character and poetical taste. He complained, for example, of Lessing making the interest of the ‘Oberon’ turn upon mere appetite. ‘Well, but,’ said Klopstock, ‘you see that such poems please everybody.’ He immediately replied, that ‘it was the province of a great poet to raise a people up to his own level--not to descend to theirs.’ Klopstock afterwards found fault with the Fool in ‘Lear,’ when Wordsworth observed that ‘he gave a terrible wildness to the distress’--a remark which evinced a deep appreciation of that awful drama. Wordsworth subsequently made a short tour, and visited Coleridge at Gottingen on his return.’