This appendix assembles illustrative passages from letters directly related to the composition, reception, and revision of Wordsworth’s Guide to the Lakes. The selections appear chronologically and are grouped into five key phases in the Guide’s history: 1807–1811 (its origination and initial publication in Wilkinson’s Select Views); 1820 (its first appearance under Wordsworth’s name in The River Duddon); 1821–1834 (the text’s evolution into an independent guidebook in the third and fourth editions); 1835–1841 (Wordsworth’s final revisions and the reception of the fifth edition); and 1842–1850 (its reissue in Hudson’s Complete Guide and absorption by the early-Victorian travel book industry).
These excerpts derive from a number of sources, including original letters held at various repositories. Unless otherwise indicated in the footnotes, reliable and complete transcriptions of those letters by the Wordsworths may be found in The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth, 2nd ed., 8 vols. Oxford UP, 1967–93. Throughout our selections, we regularize punctuation, expand abbreviations, and offer slight emendations for the sake of clarity.
1807–1811: The Origins and First Edition of the Guide
1. Dorothy Wordsworth (DW) to Jane Marshall, 18 October 1807
[Note: In a postscript to this letter to her longtime friend, Dorothy notes that William is already musing on certain subjects that will become important in his topographical essays, including his proscriptions on the planting of larch trees.]
My Brother has made great use of Mr. Marshall’s
observations on planting, with which he has been greatly pleased, as they coincide with his own previous ideas of what should be. He recommends to every body to plant larches on their high rocky grounds—and oak, ash, etc. etc. on their richer and low grounds.
2. William Wordsworth (WW) to the Reverend J. Pering, 2 October 1808
[Note: John Pering, vicar of Skipton and Kildwick in North Yorkshire, toured the Lakes in the summer of 1808 and enjoyed meeting William and Dorothy Wordsworth. Hoping to enhance his travel journal, he later requested a written description of the local mountains from the poet. In this friendly reply, Wordsworth offered several reasons for respectfully declining the request. A copy of Wordsworth’s letter survives in Pering’s manuscript notebook.]
I am pleased to find that this beautiful country has made such an impression upon you as to induce you to record your feelings: but what shall I say to your request that I should communicate to you some description of the same objects?—Alas! you have but a faint notion how disagreeable writing, of all Sorts, is to me, except from the impulse of the moment.
I must be my own Task master or I can do nothing at all. Last autumn I made a little Tour, with my wife, and she was very anxious that I should preserve the memory of it by a written account. I tried to comply with her entreaty, but an insuperable dullness came over me, and I could make no progress.
This simple and true statement I am sure you will deem a sufficient apology for not venturing upon a theme so boundless as this sublime and beautiful region.
Besides, you can easily conceive that objects may be too familiar to a Man, to leave him the power of describing them. This is the case with me in regard to these Lakes and mountains, which are my native Country, and among which I have passed the greatest part of my life: and really I should be utterly at a loss were I about to set myself to a formal delineation of them, or of any part of them, where to begin, and where to end.
3. Joseph Wilkinson to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, early June 1809
[Note: The only surviving document detailing the negotiations surrounding the Select Views letterpress, this letter was posted by Wilkinson from his home in Norfolk to Grasmere, where Coleridge was residing with the Wordsworths. Presumably overwhelmed with his new periodical, The Friend, Coleridge had apparently suggested Wordsworth as a potential collaborator for Wilkinson. This letter includes Wilkinson’s response to Wordsworth’s concerns over Select Views competing with a similar series by the poet’s artist friend William Green of Ambleside (1725–1811, DNB). On its dating, see note 26 in the introduction to this edition.]
I am just returned from Town, where I have been making arrangements for my publication, and as I have seen some of Mr. Green’s numbers I will be obliged to you if you will tell our friend Wordsworth—that no two works, descriptive of the same country can be more different, or less likely to interfere with each other, than his and mine. But I shall write to Mr. Wordsworth in a few days more fully upon the subject when I hope either Mr. W.—or yourself, or both, will afford me the assistance I shall explain, to enable me to make my work more perfect and acceptable to the public than it otherwise would be.
4. DW to Catherine Clarkson, 18 November 1809
[Note: Catherine Clarkson, wife of the prominent abolitionist Thomas Clarkson (1760–1846, DNB), was one of Dorothy’s closest friends. The Clarksons lived in the Lake District from 1796 to 1806, during which time they became intimates of the Wordsworths, but now they had moved back to the south of England. Dorothy here praises William’s introduction to Select Views and reports that he is considering publishing his own guidebook apart from Wilkinson, predicting that a guidebook will prove more lucrative than her brother’s poetry. The letter reveals various details about the textual history of Select Views, including that Sara Hutchinson sometimes acted as scribe for the project and that Wordsworth was awaiting proofs of Wilkinson’s prints before setting out on the “descriptions” part of his assignment.]
Sara has been kept almost constantly busy in transcribing: for William, and for ‘The Friend’; therefore she has desired me to write to you. For William she has been transcribing the introduction to a collection of prints to be published by Mr. Wilkinson of Thetford (of which I believe you know the history as your husband’s name is down among those of the subscribers). I hope you will be interested with William’s part of the work (he has only finished the general introduction, being unable to do the rest till he has seen the prints). It is the only regular and I may say scientific account of the present and past state and appearance of the country that has yet appeared. I think, if he were to write a Guide to the Lakes and prefix this preface, it would sell better, and bring him more money than any of his higher labours. He has some thoughts of doing this; but do not mention it, as Mr. W[ilkinson]’s work should have its fair run. He mentioned to Mr. Wilkinson his scheme, to which I should think that Mr. W. will have no objection; as the Guide will, by calling Mr. W.’s publication to mind, after its first run, perhaps help to keep up the sale.
5. WW to Joseph Wilkinson, ca. late May or June 1810
[Note: These two businesslike scribbles appear on undated Select Views manuscript material sent by Wordsworth to Wilkinson. The first, inserted in Wordsworth’s hand at the top of a sheet transcribed by Sara Hutchinson, illuminates the collaborative process of Select Views, showing all parties scrambling to keep up with the serial publication schedule. The second, a postscript, implies that Wilkinson’s art had impressed at least some in the extended Wordsworth family. Wordsworth’s notes have been conjecturally dated March 1810 by earlier editors, but our research suggests he wrote them later (see note 46 in our Introduction).]
My dear Sir, Herewith is matter for two more numbers; I shall send for two additional ones in a couple of days.—You will probably judge best to [print?] matter for two numbers with each month as [you] have only six months before you, and your numbers are 12.
Yours most truly
My B[rother] Dr. Wordsworth
seeing by chance a specimen of your work put down his name then as a Subscriber, being so much pleased with it. Pray let a copy of as good impressions as you can command be sent for him to the Palace at Lambeth[.]
6. WW to Lady Beaumont, 10 May 1810
[Note: This is the most commonly cited letter related to Select Views, largely because it contains Wordsworth’s private complaints about Wilkinson’s drawings. It begins with his estimate of the best features of his introduction and an explanation of his rhetorical aims before moving on to dismiss Wilkinson’s artwork. Sir George (1753–1827, DNB) and Lady Margaret Beaumont were important patrons of the arts, and Sir George was an amateur landscape painter himself.]
I am very happy that you have read the Introduction with so much pleasure, and must thank you for your kindness in telling me of it. I thought the part about the Cottages well-done; and also liked a sentence where I transport the Reader to the top of one of the Mountains, or rather to the Cloud chosen for his station, and give a sketch of the impressions which the Country might be supposed to make on a feeling mind, contemplating its appearance before it was inhabited. But what I wished to accomplish was to give a model of the manner in which topographical descriptions ought to be executed, in order to their being either useful or intelligible, by evolving truly and distinctly one appearance from another. In this I think I have not wholly failed.
The drawings, or Etchings, or whatever they may be called, are, I know[?], such as to you and Sir George must be intolerable. You will receive from them that sort of disgust which I do from bad Poetry, a disgust which can never be felt in its full strength, but by those who are practised in an art, as well as Amateurs of it. I took Sir George’s subscription as a kindness done to myself; and Wilkinson though not superabundant in good sense told me that he saw it in that light. I do however sincerely hope that the Author and his Wife (who certainly, notwithstanding her faults and foibles, is no ordinary Woman) may be spared any mortification from hearing them condemned severely by acknowledged judges. They will please many who in all the arts are most taken with what is most worthless. I do not mean that there is not in simple unadulterated minds a sense of the beautiful and sublime in art; but into the hands of few such do prints or picture fall.
7. WW to Mary Wordsworth, 22 July 1810
[Note: In one of the love letters the poet sent his wife, Mary, during an extended visit to Coleorton Hall, the Beaumonts’ rural retreat in Leicestershire, he complains of his eye trouble and fatigue with Select Views and notes the assistance Dorothy is rendering in fulfilling his commitments to Wilkinson.]
I have read nothing at all since I came here, nor had any inclination to read; but I am somewhat grieved that my eye has benefited so little by this long holiday. D[orothy] has been so good as to abridge the sheets I wrote for Wilkinson[.] [F]or my own part I have no longer any interest in the thing; so he must make what he can of them; as I can not do the thing in my own way I shall merely task myself with getting through it with the least trouble.
8. DW to Catherine Clarkson, 12 November 1810
[Note: The final surviving record of the composition of Select Views, this letter opens a window into Dorothy’s contributions to and William’s procrastination in completing the Select Views letterpress, the last installment of which was due to ship in roughly two weeks.]
I wrote so far last night after W[illiam] and M[ary] were gone to bed; for in the evening Wm. Employed me to compose a description or two for the finishing of his work for Wilkinson. It is a most irksome task to him, not being permitted to follow his own course, and I daresay you will find this latter part very flat.
1820: The River Duddon Collection
9. WW to Longman and Co., 11 April 1820
[Note: Wordsworth here sends his publisher a few final corrections for the forthcoming River Duddon volume. Significantly, he requests that advertisements for the book mention his “Topographical Description,” the heavily revised version of his Select Views letterpress that would first appear under Wordsworth’s name as an appendix to this 1820 collection. Also preparing for the July 1820 release of a new four-volume edition of his collected poems, Wordsworth shows his usual concern with the physical format and aesthetics of his books.]
Will you please to transmit the following additional corrections and Errata to the Printer without delay. My Brother, and Sister (who is now in London)
will speak to you about reprinting my miscellaneous poems. I had agreed with them that they should be printed in 3 vol. the same size as the last Edition—but I prefer a smaller size in 4 vols. and likewise a Paper more of a cream colour than has recently been used. Shew my Sister a copy of Southey’s Madoc, one of those pages contains as many lines, without being crowded, as my two volumes, which are so much larger size.
I am Sirs yours etc.
Announce in the Ad: the Topographical description of the lakes.
10. WW to Lord Lonsdale, 28 or 29 April 1820
[Note: Writing on business to his patron and fellow Lakelander, William Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale (1757–1844, DNB), Wordsworth seizes the occasion to mention his new River Duddon collection and, more particularly, the “Topographical Description.” ]
Your Lordship perhaps has already received a Publication of mine. The account of the Rev[erend] Robert Walker, in the Notes to the 1st Poem, will I think interest you; as probably will some parts of the Description of the Lake Country at the end of the vol.
11. Sara Hutchinson to John Monkhouse, 15 October 1820
[Note: In 1820, the artist William Westall (1781–1850, DNB)
published a set of aquatint Views of the Lake and of the Vale of Keswick, for which Robert Southey wrote the introduction. In this letter to her cousin, Wordsworth’s sister-in-law Sara Hutchinson compares Westall’s admirable landscapes with Joseph Wilkinson’s from Select Views. She also compares Southey’s and Wordsworth’s introductions to these respective series. This letter likely captures a general consensus view in the Wordsworth household about the relative values of Wilkinson’s art and Wordsworth’s prose.]
I hope you will not be disappointed in the 2 Nos now sent. . . . Westall tells me that the former has gained him great credit amon[g] the Artists for its execution—and I could not have believed tha[t] an Engraving could have given the quiet and solemn feeling inspired by such a scene as the latter. The extra 18d upon the 3rd is occasioned by the Letter press. W[estall] would scarcely let me pay it, although he said it really cost him as much, ie. the paper & printing, for Southey furnished the matter gratis—Don’t expect from this that it is anything but a mere description—or rather information for it is all about Becks & the waters—intended only to be useful—& not like Wm’s Preface to Wilkinson’s the only part of the Publication worth any thing.
1821–1834: The Third and Fourth Editions
12. WW to Richard Sharp, 16 April 1822
[Note: The politician and wit Richard Sharp (1759–1835, DNB), known as “Conversation Sharp,” was a seasoned traveler and, as the DNB notes, “such an expert on itineraries that many were grateful for his advice.” After the body of this letter expresses hope that Sharp’s travels abroad have not “driven the North out of [his] estimation,” Wordsworth’s postscript preemptively asks for his correspondent’s reactions to the forthcoming third edition of the Guide, its first appearance as a stand-alone book.]
I have in the press a little book on the Lakes, containing some illustrative remarks on Swiss scenery. If I have fallen into any errors, I know no one better able to correct them than yourself, and should the book (which I must mention is chiefly a republication) meet your eye, pray point out to me the mistakes. The part relating to Switzerland is new.
13. DW to Henry Crabb Robinson, 21 December 1822
[Note: This letter to Robinson (1775–1867, DNB), notable diarist and friend of both William and Dorothy, records harried efforts to prepare the 1823 Guide for press. Though the 1823 is usually called the fourth edition (following its own title page), Dorothy refers to it as the second, presumably because the 1822 version was the first to be published separately. Note that Dorothy speaks of “our” job preparing this new edition of the Guide. She had contributed to the project at each stage of its evolution, and this new edition would include (without acknowledging her authorship) a second travel account from one of her notebooks.]
My Brother’s mind, since our summer company left us has been so much taken up with anxiety that till within the last 3 weeks he has done nothing. Our first job was to prepare, with additions—a second Edition of his little Book on the Lakes. He is now giving his mind to Poetry again, but I do not think he will ever, in his life-time—publish any more poems—for they hang on hand—never selling—the Sketches and the Memorials
have not, I daresay half sold[.]
14. WW to Longman and Co., 25 November 1828
[Note: Reviewing accounts with his London publisher, Wordsworth here inquires about the availability of the 1823 Guide. Several hundred copies of the 1,000-copy edition remained unsold in 1828.]
The draft on account of the Book of the Lakes did not reach me till within a very few days before I received your letter of enquiry—I, having left London previous to your sending it to Bryanston St.
—where it had lain during the long absence of my friend. The bill is now afloat, and will no doubt soon find its way to you.
I was suprized to hear from a Gentleman yesterday, by letter, that he had sent to P.N. Row
for a copy of the Companion to the Lakes but was told it could not be had.—I presume it being asked for by that title has been the cause of the disappointment—not that the book is out of Print? Pray send a copy with the author’s respects to G. Huntly Gordon Esq[ui]re[,] Cannon Row Chambers, Cannon Row.
I am, dear Sirs very sincerely y[ou]rs
15. WW to George Huntly Gordon, 15 December 1828
[Note: Discussing a passage of the Guide with a friend and admirer, Wordsworth clarifies a fine aesthetic point and makes one of his better-known statements about the work: “it could not have been written without long experience.”]
In the Book of the Lakes, which I have not at hand—is a passage rather too vaguely expressed where I content myself with saying—that after a certain point of elevation—the effect of the Mountains depends much more upon their form than their absolute Height—This point which ought to have been defined, is the one to which fleecy clouds (not thin and watery vapours) are accustomed to descend.—I am glad you are so much interested with this little tract—it could not have been written without long experience.
1835–1841: The 1835 Guide
16. WW to John Hudson and Cornelius Nicholson, 7 May 1835
[Note: With the last copies of the 1823 Guide having finally sold, Wordsworth pitches the idea of a new edition to the Kendal publishers Hudson and Nicholson. He feels confident a locally produced and sold fifth edition will turn a respectable profit.]
My Book upon the Lakes is out of Print, and it has struck me that an arrangement might be made with you for its being printed and published at Kendal; and I should like to know, if you approve of the proposal, upon what terms you would undertake it, so as that the joint interests of Author and Publisher might be fairly and best promoted.—I am persuaded that this little Book would have a considerable sale, if any Publisher Resident in the Country would undertake to circulate it through the Lake district, and in the leading Towns of the North. Of course an arrangement would be expedient so that the Book might be had at Messrs. Longmans and Moxon my Publishers in London, and any other Bookseller.
Let me have your answer as soon as you can, as I wish to go to press instantly in order to secure the advantage of the sale of the approaching season.—
If either of you Gentlemen should be coming this way I should be glad to settle the terms etc. by conversation.
I am Gentlemen Your obedient Serv[a]nt
17. WW to Edward Moxon, 2 August 1835
[Note: Wordsworth here promises copies of the 1835 Guide to Moxon (1801[?]–1858, DNB), a former Longman employee now in business on his own and poised to become the poet’s new publisher.]
I have been reprinting and republishing at Kendal my little Book on the lakes with some additions. I took the liberty of adding your name to Longmans on the Title page; the Publishers, on their part, added their own London publisher, Whit[t]aker. —I hope some Copies have been forwarded to you, as I requested they might.
18. WW to Hudson and Nicholson, 11 August 1835
[Note: In this letter to the Guide’s new publishers, Wordsworth urges them to send copies of the fifth edition to Longman for sale in the metropolis.]
I am surprized to find by a letter from Longmans this morn[in]g that they have not rec[eive]d a Supply of the book of the Lakes—Pray, if you have not already done so lose no time in forwarding a parcel to that house, and also to Mr. Moxon and—
I am truly y[ou]rs etc.
19. WW to Simpkin Marshall and Co., 24 September 1835 [?]
[Note: Evidencing, despite his protests to the contrary, the 65-year-old poet’s ongoing concerns over the Guide’s distribution, this letter responds to a complaint from a London bookseller about the new edition’s pricing.
In answer to your Letter received some time ago, I have to say, that I have never had any thing to do with the Sale of my books—Some time since Messrs. Longman informed me that my Book on the Lakes was out of Print, and for the sake of interesting a local Publisher in it, I put the work into his hands, leaving to him to fix the Price, without being in the least aware of the probability of any person being injured in any way by the change, or that any inconvenience could arize out of it to any one; and I cannot see what I can do in the case—
Sorry for your disappointment, which seems inevitable, in cases of this kind.
I remain Sirs Your Obedient Servant
20. WW to Edward Moxon, 25 September 1835
[Note: Wordsworth here reassures Moxon that, despite being his new poetry publisher, he does not expect his firm to actively market the 1835 Guide.]
Don’t give yourself the least trouble about pushing my Lake Book—it is a mere trifle, and I had your name put into the title page solely out of regard to you.
21. WW to Henry Reed, 14 September 1840
[Note: Henry Hope Reed, professor of English literature and rhetoric at the University of Pennsylvania, was Wordsworth’s American editor. In this letter, the poet expresses pleasure in finding that Reed has appreciated the intertwined nature of his poetry and prose. Reed had written to Wordsworth in January 1839, thanking him for a copy of the 1835 Guide and offering what would become a typical North American response: “It may not be uninteresting to you to learn that a volume so purely local in its nature should afford so much value to a distant reader as I have drawn from it. I have found it a guide to the mind in kindred scenes and that it cultivates a taste for landscape which finds its indulgence in the worthy admiration of regions that are accessible to us.”
]
I am much pleased by what you say in your letter of the 18th of May last, upon the tract of the Convention of Cintra,
and I think myself with some interest upon its being reprinted hereafter, along with my other writings. . . . It was I repeat gratifying to me that you should have spoken of that work as you do, and particularly that you should have considered it in relation to my Poems, somewhat in the same manner you had done in respect to my little Book upon the Lakes.
22. WW to Thomas Powell, 19 August 1841
[Note: Recognizing the growth of a “Lake Poet” industry, the author here encourages his friend Powell to send prints of an engraved portrait of Wordsworth to Kendal for sale alongside the Guide.
]
At Kendal the Booksellers I employ, who publish my little Vol: upon the Lakes, are named Hudson and Nicholson. They are responsible people, and perhaps a few Copies might be disposed of there by them.
1842–1850: “Hudson’s Guide” and the Victorian Wordsworth
23. Adam Sedgwick to WW, 26 March 1842
[Note: With this letter, the Rev. Adam Sedgwick (1785–1873, DNB), a distinguished geologist at Cambridge, agreed to contribute to the Guide’s latest incarnation, a collection published later that year as Hudson’s Complete Guide to the Lakes. Sedgwick and Wordsworth had been friendly since the early 1820s. This unpublished letter now resides at the Wordsworth Trust (WLMS A/Sedgwick, Adam /1).]
I have heard, from Kendal, that a new Edition of your beautiful little work on the Lake Country was in the press; & I have been asked to contribute a short essay, on the muscular integuments, ribs and bones of your mountains. . . .[I]f you now claim my promise, and do not fear to forfeit [your?] inspiration, by seeming to league yourself with one on whom the nine sisters have never so much as smiled, I will send a short essay to your printer.
24. WW to Adam Sedgwick, ca. late March or early April 1842
[Note:Replying to the letter above, Wordsworth thanks Sedgwick for agreeing to contribute what will become three short essays on the Lake District for Hudson’s Guide.
The poet describes his own oversight of the project, emphasizing that while he has given editorial rights to Hudson, he remains committed to its still serving, as he asserted in opening his 1835 edition, as “a Guide or Companion for the Minds of Persons of taste.”]
You have much obliged me by the promptitude with which you have met the request made through an Acquaintance or Friend of my Publishers; and I should be very happy to be the Medium of conveying to the public your view of the Geology of this interesting District, however concisely given. First, however, I must tell you exactly how the matter stands between me and the Publishers. The last edition of my little work being nearly out I undertook about a twelvemonth since to furnish some new Matter in the way of a more minute Guide for the Body of the Tourist, as I found that the Guide Books which attended mainly to this were preferred much, by the generality of Tourists, to mine, which, though in fact containing as much of this sort of matter as could be of any real use, appeared to be wanting in this respect. The employment to which I had by a sort of promise committed myself I found upon further consideration to be very troublesome and infra dig.:
and as I was still desirous that my Book should be circulated, not for any pecuniary emolument, for that was quite trifling, but for the principles of Taste which it recommended, I turned all that I had written over to Mr. Hudson the Publisher, stipulating only that all that related to mind, should in my book be printed entire and separated from other matter, and so it now stands. Every thing of mine will be reprinted, but the guide matter of mine will be interwoven with what Mr. Hudson has undertaken to write or compile, the whole however before struck off to be submitted to my approbation. Mr. Gough of Kendal,
a Son of the celebrated blind man of that place, will, Mr. Hudson expects, promote the Botany, and if you would condescend to act upon your promise made to me long ago under somewhat different circumstances, I think a Book would be produced answering every purpose that could be desired.
25. WW to John Hudson, early April 1842
[Note: Writing to the Guide’s Kendal publisher, Wordsworth promises to attend to the page proofs for the new “Complete Guide” and recommends rearranging its botany section to outdo A Concise Description of the English Lakes, a rival guidebook by fellow Lakelander Jonathan Otley, which had gone into a fifth edition in 1834.]
I am sorry to say that your letter and proof arrived together with several other communications and putting yours aside I entirely forgot it till this morning. I wrote to Prof. Sedgwick in answer to a Letter from him, pressing him to prepare the essay as soon as he could; which I have no doubt he will do.—Any thing I have to say, had better be reserved for a brief advertisement. I am truly sorry to have disdained your proof as mentioned; but will take care the like shall not occur in future. The introduction is well planned and I wish you success in the [? Onerous] undertaking.
Ever yours,
Mr. Hill my neighbor tells me that the Botany in Otley is not arranged scientifically. Would Mr. Gough be so kind as to do it for us; pray ask him, joining my request with your own. It would be a decided advantage to have this done.—
26. WW to Adam Sedgwick, 11 May 1842 [?]
[Note: Wordsworth here praises Sedgwick’s first essay for the Complete Guide and eagerly anticipates the others, trusting they will boost the book’s value and appeal. He also explains a passage from his 1815 poem The Excursion that might, to Sedgwick’s eyes, seem dismissive of geology.
]
I snatch a moment from the hurry of this place to thank you for the first of the Series of Letters on the Geology of the Lake district which you have done me the honor of addressing to me. I received it yesterday from Mr. Danby,
liked it very much, and am impatient for the rest. It will give the Kendal lake Book so decided a superiority over every other, that the Publishers have good reason to rejoice. I am happy to think that my endeavours to illustrate the beautiful Region may be thought not unworthy of accompanying your scientific researches. I address this to you at random, but hope it will be forwarded should you be no longer at Cambridge.
You perhaps don’t remember that the Pocket Hammerers were complained of not by me in my own person, but in the character of a splenetic Recluse; I will, however, frankly own that to a certain extent I sympathized with my imaginary personage, but I am sure I need not define for you how far, but no farther, I went along with him. Geology and Minerology are very different things.
Ever, my dear Mr. Sedgwick, Faithfully yours,
