Andrew Mitchell: There was the dinner, long after the break-up of their friendship, where both Wordsworth and Coleridge were present, one at either end of the dining table. Crabb Robinson eavesdropped on both conversations, Wordsworth was quoting his own poems, Coleridge was quoting Wordsworth.

Martin Sorrell: I wonder if purists work on the principle, which may or may not be unconscious, that there is one ideal translation for every poem, which, once attained, will put paid to the need for all others. On the other hand, is it that the translator who goes for versions is a relativist who can live with imperfection? Fabulous things have come out of the latter position. Wasn’t the King James Bible translated by a committee of relativists? Some purists say that if you want the truth, you’ll have to go back further, to the Hebrew and Greek.

Katharine Tynan: Francis Thompson’s place in the poetry stands somewhere between Crashaw and Shelley, with each of whom he had affinities. He had the lofty spiritual passion and flight, “the flaming heart” of Crashaw, and he had the disembodied passion of Shelley, which had as much to do with common humanity and its wrongs and suffering as the cloud and the lark that Shelley rightly sang.