I know not for what reason the marriage ceremony was not performed at Birmingham; but a resolution was taken that it should be at Derby, for which place the bride and bridegroom set out on horseback, I suppose in very good humor. But tho Mr. Topham Beauclerk used archly to mention Johnson's having told him, with much gravity, "Sir, it was a love marriage on both sides," I have had from my illustrious friend the following curious account of their journey to church upon the nuptial morn (9th July): "Sir, she had read the old romances, and had got into her head the fantastical notion that a woman of spirit should use her lover like a dog. So, sir, at first she told me that I rode too fast, and she could not keep up with me; and, when I rode a little slower, she passed me, and complained that I lagged behind. I was not to be made the slave of caprice; and I resolved to begin as I meant to end. I therefore pushed on briskly, till I was fairly out of her sight. The road lay between two hedges, so I was sure she could not miss it; and I contrived that she should soon come up with me. When she did, I observed her to be in tears." This, it must be allowed, was a singular beginning of connubial felicity; but there is no doubt that Johnson, tho he thus showed a manly firmness, proved a most affectionate and indulgent husband to the last moment of Mrs. Johnson's life: and in his "Prayers and Meditations," we find very remarkable evidence that his regard and fondness for her never ceased, even after her death. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: From Boswell's "Life of Johnson."] [Footnote 2: The author of the "Lectures on Rhetoric," who was born in 1718 and died in 1800.] [Footnote 3: From Boswell's "Life of Johnson."] [Footnote 4: From Boswell's "Life of Johnson." Wilkes was the famous publicist and political agitator who was expelled from Parliament, imprisoned and outlawed, but afterward elected Lord Mayor of London and allowed to sit in Parliament many years.] [Footnote 5: From Boswell's "Life of Johnson." Johnson was married in 1734, when his age was twenty-five.] WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Born in 1770; died in 1850; graduated from Cambridge in 1791; traveled on the Continent in 1790-92; settled at Grasmere in 1799; married Mary Hutchinson in 1802; settled at Rydal Mount in 1813; traveled in Scotland in 1814 and in 1832; traveled on the Continent again in 1820 and in 1837; became poet laureate in 1843; published his first volume in 1793 and his last, "The Prelude," in 1850. A POET DEFINED[6]