Indeed 'tis true. I did and do commit (I sigh to tell) Began to spread and to expatiate there: Out of the caldron getting, soon I fled Unto my house, where to repair the strength But when I thought to sleep out all these faults, I found that some had stuff'd the bed with thoughts, The caldron suppled what was grown too hard: The thorns did quicken what was grown too dull: CHAPTER XX. THE FORMER SUBJECT CONTINUED THE NEUTRAL STYLE, OR THAT COMMON TO PROSE AND POETRY, EXEMPLIFIED BY SPECIMENS FROM CHAUCER, HERBERT, AND OTHERS. I HAVE no fear in declaring my conviction, that the excellence defined and exemplified in the preceding chapter is not the characteristic excellence of Mr. Wordsworth's style; because I can add with equal sincerity, that it is precluded by higher powers. The praise of uniform adherence to genuine, logical English is undoubtedly his; nay, laying the main emphasis on the word uniform, I will dare add that, of all contemporary poets, it is his alone. For, in a less absolute sense of the word, I should certainly include Mr. Bowles, Lord Byron, and, as to all his later writings, Mr. Southey, the exceptions in their works being so few and unimportant. But of the specific excellence described in the quotation from Garve, I appear to find more, and more undoubted specimens in the works of others; for instance, among the minor poems of Mr. Thomas Moore, and of our illustrious Laureate. To me it will always remain a singular and noticeable fact; that a theory, which would establish this lingua communis, not only as the best, but as the only commendable_style, should have proceeded from a poet, whose diction, next to that of Shakspeare and Milton, appears to me of all others the most inaividualized and characteristic. And let it be remembered, too, that I am now interpreting the controverted passages of Mr. Wordsworth's critical preface by the purpose and object, which may be supposed to have intended, rather than by the sense * [The three poems are at pp. 87, 40, and 133 respectively.—S. C.] he which the words themselves must convey, if they are taken without this allowance. A person of any taste, who had but studied three or four of Shakspeare's principal plays, would without the name affixed scarcely fail to recognize as Shakspeare's a quotation from any other play, though but of a few lines. A similar peculiarity, though in a less degree, attends Mr. Wordsworth's style, whenever he speaks in his own person; or whenever, though under a feigned name, it is clear that he himself is still speaking, as in the different dramatis personæ of THE RECLUSE. ́ Even in the other poems, in which he purposes to be most dramatic, there are few in which it does not occasionally burst forth. The reader might often address the poet in his own words with reference to the persons introduced : "It seems, as I retrace the ballad line by line That but half of it is theirs, and the better half is thine." Who, having been previously acquainted with any considerable portion of Mr. Wordsworth's publications, and having studied them with a full feeling of the author's genius, would not at once claim as Wordsworthian the little poem on the rainbow? "The Child is father of the Man, &c." Or in the Lucy GRAY? "No mate, no comrade Lucy knew; The sweetest thing that ever grew * [Altered from The Pet Lamb, P. W. p. 30.—S. C.] P. W. p. 2, line 7. "My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky; So was it when my life began; So is it now I am a man; So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die! The Child is father of the Man; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety.”—S. C.] [Ib. i. p. 16.-S. C.] Or in the IDLE SHEPHERD-BOYS ?* "Along the river's stony marge A thousand lambs are on the rocks, That plaintive cry! which up the hill Need I mention the exquisite description of the Sea Loch in THE BLIND HIGHLAND BOY. Who but a poet tells a tale in such language to the little ones by the fire-side-as "Yet had he many a restless dream; Both when he heard the eagle's scream, Beside a lake their cottage stood, For to this lake, by night and day, Then hurries back the road it came- As long as earth shall last. And with the coming of the tide, * [Ib. i. p. 31.-S. C.] † [Ib. iii. pp. 145-6. Mr. Wordsworth has altered "sweetly" in the last I might quote almost the whole of his RUTH,* but take the following stanzas: "But as you have before been told, This Stripling, sportive, gay, and bold, So beautiful, through savage lands The wind, the tempest roaring high, Might well be dangerous food Whatever in those climes he found A kindred impulse, seemed allied Nor less, to feed voluptuous thought, The breezes their own languor lent; Yet in his worst pursuits, I ween, Pure hopes of high intent: For passions linked to forms so fair Of noble sentiment." But from Mr. Wordsworth's more elevated compositions, which already form three fourths of his works; and will, I trust, constitute hereafter a still larger proportion ;—from these, whether stanza to "safely." In the first I venture to prefer "the eagle's scream," which my father wrote, to "the eagles," as it is written by Mr. Wordsworth-because eagles are neither gregarious nor numerous, as the first expression seems to mark the nature of the bird, and to bring it more interestingly before the mind, than the last.-S. C.] * [P. W. ii. p. 106.-S. C.] |