which the memory of these yearly journeys must have given and recalled to such a mind-the critic, I say, who, from the multitude of possible associations, should pass by all these in order to fix his attention exclusively on the pin-papers and stay-tapes which might have been among the wares of his pack; this critic, in my opinion, cannot be thought to possess a much higher or much healthier state of moral feeling than the Frenchmen above recorded.

CHAPTER XXII.

The characteristic defects of Wordsworth's poetry, with the principles from which the judgment, that they are defects, is deduced-Their proportion to the beauties-For the greatest part characteristic of his theory only.

IF Mr. Wordsworth have set forth principles of poetry which his arguments are insufficient to support, let him and those who have adopted his sentiments be set right by the confutation of those arguments, and by the substitution of more philosophical principles. And still let the due credit be given to the portion and importance of the truths, which are blended with his theory: truths, the too exclusive attention to which had occasioned its errors, by tempting him to carry those truths beyond their proper limits. If his mistaken theory have at all influenced his poetic compositions, let the effects be pointed out, and the instances given. But let it likewise be shown, how far the influence has acted; whether diffusively, or only by starts; whether the number and importance of the poems and passages thus infected be great or trifling compared with the sound portion; and lastly, whether they are inwoven into the texture of his works, or are loose and inseparable. The result of such a trial would evince beyond a doubt, what it is high time to announce decisively and aloud, that the supposed characteristics of Mr. Wordsworth's poetry, whether admired or reprobated; whether they are simplicity or simpleness; faithful adherence to essential nature, or wilful selections from human nature of its meanest forms and under the least attractive associations; are as little the real characteristics of his poetry at large, as of his genius and the constitution of his mind.

In a comparatively small number of poems he chose to try an experiment; and this experiment we will suppose to have failed.

Yet even in these poems it is impossible not to perceive that the natural tendency of the poet's mind is to great objects and elevated conceptions. The poem entitled FIDELITY1 is for the greater part written in language as unraised and naked as any perhaps in the two volumes. Yet take the following stanza and compare it with the preceding stanzas of the same poem.

"There sometimes doth a leaping fish

Send through the tarn a lonely cheer;
The crags repeat the raven's croak,
In symphony austere;

Thither the rainbow comes-the cloud-
And mists that spread the flying shroud;
And sun-beams; and the sounding blast,
That, if it could, would hurry past;

But that enormous barrier holds it fast."

Or compare the four last lines of the concluding stanza with the former half:

"Yes, proof was plain that, since the day

On which the Traveller thus had died,

The Dog had watched about the spot,

Or by his Master's side:

How nourish'd here through such long time
He knows, who gave that love sublime,

And gave that strength of feeling, great
Above all human estimate!" 2

Can any candid and intelligent mind hesitate in determining, which of these best represents the tendency and native character of the poet's genius? Will he not decide that the one was written because the poet would so write, and the other because he could not so entirely repress the force and grandeur of his mind, but that he must in some part or other of every composition write otherwise? In short, that his only disease is the being out of his element; like the swan, that, having amused himself, for a while, with crushing the weeds on the river's bank, soon returns to his own majestic movements on its reflecting and sustaining

1 [P. W., v., p. 43. S. C.]

2 [The second line of this stanza is now

"When this ill-fated Traveller died." S. C.]

surface. Let it be observed that I am here supposing the ima gined judge, to whom I appeal, to have already decided against the poet's theory, as far as it is different from the principles of the art, generally acknowledged.

I cannot here enter into a detailed examination of Mr. Wordsworth's works; but I will attempt to give the main results of my own judgment, after an acquaintance of many years, and repeated perusals. And though, to appreciate the defects of a great mind it is necessary to understand previously its characteristic excellences, yet I have already expressed myself with sufficient fulness, to preclude most of the ill effects that might arise from my pursuing a contrary arrangement. I will therefore commence with what I deem the prominent defects of his poems hitherto published.

The first characteristic, though only occasional defect, which I appear to myself to find in these poems, is the inconstancy of the style. Under this name I refer to the sudden and unprepared transitions from lines or sentences of peculiar felicity-(at all events striking and original)-to a style, not only unimpassioned but undistinguished. He sinks too often and too abruptly to that style, which I should place in the second division of language, dividing it into the three species; first, that which is peculiar to poetry; second, that which is only proper in prose; and third, the neutral or common to both. There have been works, such as Cowley's Essay on Cromwell, in which prose

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3 This is an eloquent declamation against Cromwell, in the guise of an argument, the defence of "the late man, who made himself to be called Protector," being put into the mouth of one whose appearance was strange and terrible," and whose figure was taller than that of a giant or" the shadow of any giant in the evening." This personage turns out to be the Wicked One himself, and the discourse which he utters is, indeed, most dramatically appropriate to him, however unserviceable to the cause of Cromwell. After despatching the Protector's religion and morals, disparaging his powers, reducing his parts to diligence and dissimulation, and making away with his achievements at home and abroad, or bringing them very nearly to nothing, the Evil One's opponent proceeds to demolish his intellectual pretensions; and here he attacks him on the side of his speeches, which Mr. Carlyle has lately brought forth from the shadows in which they have so long been lying.

According to this essay, all the war and bloodshed at the time of the

and verse are intermixed (not as in the Consolation of Boethius,* or the ARGENIS of Barclay," by the insertion of poems supposed to have been spoken or composed on occasions previously related in prose, but), the poet passing from one to the other, as the nature of the thoughts or his own feelings dictated. Yet this mode of composition does not satisfy a cultivated taste. There is something unpleasant in the being thus obliged to alternate states of feeling so dissimilar, and this too in a species of writing, the pleasure from which is in part derived from the preparation and previous expectation of the reader. A portion of that awkwardness is felt which hangs upon the introduction of songs in our modern comic operas; and to prevent which the judicious Metastasio (as to whose exquisite taste there can be no hesitation, whatever doubts may be entertained as to his poetic genius) uniformly placed the aria at the end of the scene, at the same time that he almost always raises and impassions the style of the

Rebellion, was on account of "a little ship-money," or to revenge the loss" of three or four ears,"-not to decide whether the country was to be governed by an absolute or a limited monarchy; whether the Church of England should be approximated to Rome or maintained in the spirit of the Reformation; whether ecclesiastical rulers were to fine, scourge, mutilate, and immure for life in wretched prisons any who opposed their views and proceedings, or whether they must learn to uphold the Church in a manner more conformable to Christianity. Yet Cowley, while he thus could represent the cause of Hampden, exalts that of Brutus !—whom Dante places for his rebellion in the lowest deep of punishment; such is poetical injustice! Methinks this whole discourse against old Noll is like "the shadow of a giant in the evening"-big and black, but of no force or substance.

Cowley wrote eleven other discourses by way of essays in verse and prose, ib., p. 79-148. This remarkable writer and worthy man died July 28, 1667, aged forty-nine. S. C.]

4 [An. Manl. Sever. Boëtii Consolationis Philosophiæ, Lib. v. Boëtius or Boëthius was born about A.D. 470. S. C.]

5 [The Argenis, quoted at p. 275, towards the end of chap. ix., is a sort of didactic romance, in imitation of the Satyricon of Petronius. The author, John Barclay, was born 1582, died 1621. He flourished at the Court of James I. (who was delighted with his Satyricon Euphormionis) -and published, besides several prose works, a collection of poems in two vols. 4to. It is said that his prose is superior to his verse, but that all his works discover wit and genius. S. C.]