ABSTRACT
I find here a letter from Wordsworth recommending me to enlist in the Monthly Fencibles but little know I of their soft phrase, for till now some 3 moons wasted I never dreamt of criticising & know not one of that Corps – If my literary Talents entitle me to become ‘an occasional Writer in the British Critic’ tis all I can hope – the Christian humility of Dr. Parr aspired no higher, & shall I who am nothing to that great man lift myself into a loftier pulpit – Yet if I can contrive to creep into the Monthly I will – but as I said before pressus nihil sum,1 by the favor of Dr. Shaw I may be introduced into the Antichamber of Poeticide in the British Critic, but who shall say unto Griffiths enroll him among the Elders of your venerable bench. Perhaps if you were to come to town & take me by the hand even Phillips might suppose me in the way of being a great literary character –
b. Unsigned review, British Critic, February 1801, xvii, 125-31
In our Review for October, 1799, we noticed, with considerable satisfaction, the first edition of this work, then comprised in one anonymous volume. It is now extended, by the addition of another volume; and the author has given his name to it, with the exception of the Ancient Mariner, the Foster Mother’s Tale, the Nightingale, the Dungeon, and the poem entitled Love; all of which, as he informs us, are furnished by a friend, whose opinions on the subject of Poetry agree almost entirely with his own. From this similarity of mind, and from some expressions in the Advertisement prefixed to the first edition, we were then led to attribute the whole to Mr. Coleridge, the supposed author of the Ancient Mariner: we now, therefore, add to the list of our Poets another name, no less likely to do it honour. Mr. Wordsworth has, indeed, appeared before the public some years ago, as author of Descriptive Sketches in Verse, and of an Evening Walk; compositions, in which were discoverable the fire and fancy of a true poet, though obscured by diction, often and intentionally inflated. His style is now wholly changed, and he has adopted a purity of expression, which, to the fastidious ear, may sometimes perhaps sound poor and low, but which is infinitely more correspondent with true feeling than what, by the courtesy of the day, is usually called poetical language.
