case which prompted my remark, for in that place, to repair, or in any respect to alter, was to destroy. It was a passage in the 'Excursion,' where the Solitary had described the baptismal rite as washing away the taint of original sin, and, in fact, working the effect which is called technically _regeneration_. In the 'Excursion' this view was advanced, not as the poet's separate opinion, but as the avowed doctrine of the English Church, to which Church Wordsworth and myself yielded gladly a filial reverence. But _was_ this the doctrine of the English Church? _That_ I doubted--not that I pretended to any sufficient means of valuing the preponderant opinion between two opinions in the Church; a process far more difficult than is imagined by historians, always so ready to tell us fluently what 'the nation' or 'the people' thought upon a particular question, (whilst, in fact, a whole life might be often spent vainly in collecting the popular opinion); but, judging by my own casual experience, I fancied that a considerable majority in the Church gave an interpretation to this Sacrament differing by much from that in the 'Excursion.' Wordsworth was startled and disturbed at hearing it whispered even before Helvellyn, who is old enough to keep a secret, that his divinity might possibly limp a little. I, on _my_ part, was not sure that it _did_, but I feared so; and, as there was no chance that I should be murdered for speaking freely, (though the place was lonely, and the evening getting dusky,) I stood to my disagreeable communication with the courage of a martyr. The question between us being one of mere fact, (not what _ought_ to be the doctrine, but what _was_ the doctrine of our Church at that time,) there was no opening for any discussion; and, on Wordsworth's suggestion, it was agreed to refer the point to his learned brother, Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, just then meditating a visit to his native lakes. That visit in a short time 'came off,' and then, without delay, our dispute 'came on' for judgment. I had no bets upon the issue--one can't bet with Wordsworth--and I don't know that I should have ventured to back myself in a case of that nature. However, I felt a slight anxiety on the subject, which was very soon and kindly removed by Dr. Wordsworth's deciding, 'sans phrase,' that I, the original mover of the strife, was wrong, wrong as wrong could be. To this decision I bowed at once, on a principle of courtesy. One ought always to presume a man right within his own _profession_ even if privately one should think him wrong. But I could not think _that_ of Dr. Wordsworth. He was a D.D.; he was head of Trinity College, which has _my_ entire permission to hold its head up amongst twenty and more colleges, as the leading one in Cambridge, (provided it can obtain St. John's permission), 'and which,' says _Phil_., 'has done more than any other foundation in Europe for the enlightenment of the world, and for the overthrow of literary,