ABSTRACT
What shall I say of Wordsworth? that I praise The pure and spotless tenor of his lays: But that his rhymes are bad, his sense obscure, His diction childish, and his fancy poor: That if he be a poet, well I wot Milton and Shakespeare, Pope and Gray were not: If verse be just the talk of common men, Dealt out by line, and measured eight or ten: If knights and heroes, kings and gods, be toys, Compared with duffle cloaks, and idiot boys – Thou shalt be read, when Homer is forgotten, And the great Goth in dust and worms is rotting; Then shalt thou live the joy of babes and men – But, gentle Wordsworth, hope it not till then.
