ABSTRACT
I have volunteer’d to reply to your Note, because of a mistake I am desirous of rectifying on the spot – There can be none, to whom the last Vol. of W. W. has come more welcome than to me. – I have traced the Duddon in thought, & with repetition, along the banks (alas!) of the Lea – unpoetical name – it is always flowing & murm[uri]ng, & dashing in my ears – The story of Dion is divine – the genius of Plato falling on him like moonlight the finest thing ever express’d. Then there is Elidure – & Kirkstone Pass – this last not new to me – & let me add one of the sweetest of all to me, The Longest Day. – Loving all these as much as I can love Poetry, new to me, what could I wish or desire or extravagantly desiderate in a new Vol. That I did not write to W. W. was simply that he was to come so soon, & that flattens Letters. –
This volume will be published next week; and we are called upon to give our opinion upon it, as far and as correctly as one perusal admits. Under such circumstances, it is a very gratifying relief to our minds to have a report almost unmixedly favourable to make. We consider these poems to be by much the least mannered and most beautiful of any that this distinguished individual has ever written. There is a tenderness which runs through them of the truest nature; their pathos is genuine and affecting; many of their images bear the impress of genius, and touches of soul are thickly sown over them; . . . and, to those who are familiar with our sentiments respecting the mis-called simplicities of Peter Bells, Waggoners, Daffodils, &c., it will not seem a slight recommendation of the forthcoming work, that it is almost entirely unstained with similar
puerilities. We might perhaps instance two or three pretty conceits; but they are in a very minor degree objectionable, when compared with what of the same kind have preceded them; while the noble thoughts clothed in fine language are infinitely more abundant. Some of the adjectives and epithets may be questioned, as quaint or inapplicable; but others are happily chosen and eminently appropriate. In short, the blemishes are trifling in themselves and thinly scattered; the excellencies great and numerous.
