For printing the following Piece, some reason should be given, as not a word of it is original: it is simply a fine stanza of Akenside,[401] connected with a still finer from Beattie[402]by a couplet of Thomson.[403] This practice, in which the author sometimes indulges, of linking together, in his own mind, favourite passages from different authors, seemed in itself unobjectionable; but, as the _publishing_ such compilations might lead to confusion in literature, he should deem himself inexcusable in giving this specimen, were it not from a hope that it might open to others a harmless source of _private_ gratification.--W. W. 1835. Throned in the Sun’s descending car, What Power unseen diffuses far This tenderness of mind? What Genius smiles on yonder flood? What God in whispers from the wood 5 Bids every thought be kind? O ever-pleasing solitude, Companion of the wise and good. Thy shades, thy silence, now be mine Thy charms my only theme; 10 Why haunt the hollow cliff whose Pine Waves o’er the gloomy stream; Whence the scared Owl on pinions grey Breaks from the rustling boughs, And down the lone vale sails away 15 To more profound repose! [401] See his Ode V., _Against Suspicion_, stanza viii.--ED. [402] See his poem, _Retirement_, 1758.--ED. [403] See his _Hymn on Solitude_, which begins, “Hail, ever-pleasing Solitude!”--ED. “AND OH! DEAR SOOTHER OF THE PENSIVE BREAST” The following ten lines were written by Wordsworth in a copy of his works, after the lines _To the Moon_ (Rydal) 1835. They may have been intended as a possible sequel to them, or to the lines _To the Moon, composed by the Seaside--on the coast of Cumberland_ (1835).--ED. And oh! dear soother of the pensive breast, Let homelier words without offence attest How where on random topics as they hit The moments’ humour, rough Tars spend their wit. Thy changes, which to wiser Spirits seem 5 Dark as a riddle, prove a favourite theme; Thy motions, intricate and manifold, Oft help to make bold fancy’s flight more bold; Beget strange themes; and to freaks give birth Of speech as wild as ever heightened mirth. 10 1836 “SAID RED-RIBBONED EVANS” On the 26th of March 1836, Wordsworth sent the following lines to Henry Crabb Robinson; written, he tells him, “immediately on reading Evans’s modest self-defence speech the other day.” George de Lacy Evans was radical member of Parliament for Westminster. “In 1835, he took command of the British Legion raised for the service of the Queen Regent of Spain against Don Carlos.” (Professor Dowden.)--ED.