ABSTRACT
We have generally remarked, that persons of deep intellect, beautiful fancies, and gentle affections, are readers of Mr. Wordsworth’s Poetry. – It is true, these are not in him, that haughty melancholy and troubled spirit which so peculiarly distinguish Lord Byron, – nor the wild and melodious fancy, the wanted pleasantry, or lightsome mirthfullness of Moore; – neither are there the gentlemanly prettinesses, and snatches of antiquity of Scott: – (who, by the way, is nothing better than an artful libeller of chivalrous heroes.) The truth is, Mr. Wordsworth describes natural feelings and natural beauties – his thoughts come from him, purified through the heart. – He indulges in calm reasonings and rich reflections, and invites us to the feast, concluding that we have the same appetites with himself. – Of the Lyrical ballads, – we can imagine him to have composed many in the fields, with all his feelings fresh about him. – We can imagine him to have suffered his memory to wander at times so long in the fairy grounds of Childhood, – that the present seemed to fade, and the past seemed to brighten into life. We can believe that he may often have wept, over his own pure and fine reflections, such tears as were made sacred by the charm of his own mind. We never touch on the Lyrical Ballads without feeling that we are busied with the innocent and the beautiful. There have been no Pastoral Poems so truly sweet since the days of Sydney – none in which the simplicities of poetry and philosophy are so gracefully blended. The pieces by Shenstone, misnamed Pastoral, are totally destitute of feeling. We can get no other idea than that the shepherd walked about very discontented, – very amorous, and very affected. Shenstone deserves all the hard things that have been said of him by Gray and Dr. Johnson, – for it is very clear that he wrote merely from ‘vanity and vexation of spirit.’ All his descriptions of rural happiness are artificial. He would make us believe that the fields are for ever green, the sheep for ever feeding, and that the shepherds have nothing to do but to make love and play on a pipe.
