Not identified. Contributed more verses to H.W. than did any other writer except Miss Procter and OIlier. No clue in Office Book as to his identity. Payment for some of his items marked "Enclosed & fetched"; payment for others made by cheque; two of cheque payments marked as by "C.D.". The contributor cannot be the Manchester poet WilIiam Harper (1806-1857), author of The Genius and Other Poems and Cain and Abel, since that writer, aside from contributing to the Manchester Keepsake, 1844, published all his shorter poems in the Manchester Courier (Obituary, Manchester Courier, Jan. 31,1857). Moreover, WilIiam Harper's poems, as D.N.B. states, contain "good and even lofty lines". The statement cannot be made of the prosaic verses of the H. W. contributor.

In June 1851, Harper was paid "£10 for six poems". The poems include "Knowledge and Ignorance", June 21, and the four poems assigned to Harper in the three following numbers, but not "Change and the Changeless" (for which payment is specifically recorded as £1.1.0 "Enclosed"). The sixth poem included in the £10.0.0 is probably "Smiles", July 19, recorded in the Office Book without authorship or payment notation.  

Author: Anne Lohrli; © University of Toronto Press, 1971.