ABSTRACT
I perused the Colerigian & Wordsworthian letters. Sheer nonsense, by God. I wonder Coleridge (who I know is a poet – I don’t know that W. is not, but I’ll be damned if that be poetry he has passed [?] upon us in the 2d Vol.) – I say I wonder Coleridge can be taken in by such foolish stuff. By habit one may learn to be excited by any thing – one may live so long with sheep & silly shepperds as to take the Baaing of a Lamb for poetry – but what is that to the purpose – would Shakespear have taken it for poetry? Oh! but he’s no judge perhaps – would Milton then? To gravely, mind that, gravely tell us of a sheep drawn out of a hole, & chronicle the beggar’s two penny mishap – who is it, Pope or Swift that ridicules the poets who chronicle small beer? No, no, I believe tis the Huswifes. Well, I can’t spend any more time about an old woman’s Gossip.
