"O how my mind Not a thought, That I can find, All to nought! Short ends of threds, And narrow shreds Knots, snarled ruffs, Are my torn meditation's ragged clothing, Which, wound and woven, shape a sute for nothing: To think how to unthink that thought again!" Immediately after these burlesque passages I cannot proceed to the extracts promised, without changing the ludicrous tone of feeling by the interposition of the three following stanzas of Herbert's. VIRTUE. "Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, The dew shall weep thy fall to-night; Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave Thy root is ever in its grave, And thou must dye. Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses, A nest, where sweets compacted lie: My musick shews, ye have your closes, THE BOSOM SIN : A SONNET BY GEORGE HERBERT. "Lord, with what care hast thou begirt us round, ΤΟ 15 Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin, LOVE UNKNOWN. "Dear friend, sit down, the tale is long and sad: To him I brought a dish of fruit one day, 25 30 35 A stream of blood, which issued from the side And have good cause there it was dipt and dyed, (I sigh to tell) The greatness shew'd the owner. So I went Thinking with that, which I did thus present, Which at a board, while many drank bare wine, I found that some had stuffed the bed with thoughts, 5 ΤΟ 15 20 25 30 35 40 CHAPTER XX The former subject continued. 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 5 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 10 include MR. BOWLES, LORD BYRON, and, as to all his later writings, MR. SOUTHEY, the exceptions in their work 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; 15 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 20 from a poet, whose diction, next to that of Shakespeare and Milton, appears to me of all others the most individualized and characteristic. And let it be remembered too, that I am now interpreting the controverted passages of Mr. W's. critical preface by the purpose and object, which he may 25 be supposed to have intended, rather than by the sense 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 Shakespeare's principal plays, would without the name affixed scarcely fail to recognise as Shakespeare'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 5 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 10 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 15 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; Or in the "Idle Shepherd-boys"? "Along the river's stony marge The sand-lark chaunts a joyous song; 20 25 And carols loud and strong. A thousand lambs are on the rocks, 30 All newly born! both earth and sky Keep jubilee, and more than all, That plaintive cry! which up the hill 35 |