Note CB — 1816

That Wordsworth knew the Elgin marbles—where the half-recumbent Ilissus, a torso, is one of the finest pieces of the pediment—is certain. There is a reproduction of it in his nephew's (the late Bishop of Lincoln's) book on Greece. In Henry Crabb Robinson's Diary (vol. ii. p. 195) there is an interesting account of the poet's visit to the British Museum, to see the Elgin marbles, etc. See also the Autobiography of B. R. Haydon, where, in a letter to the artist, Wordsworth says, "I am not surprised to hear that Canova expressed himself highly pleased with the Elgin marbles: a man must be senseless as a clod, or as perverse as a fiend, not to be enraptured with them" (vol. i. p. 325).—Ed.