ABSTRACT
Have you yet read the Lyrical Ballads & how do you like them? They are reviewed in the Critical of last month and are, or rather perhaps their author is, very highly spoken of. I say their author, for the Reviewer, though he thinks the work displays the highest genius, is not pleased wth. the subjects on which he has chosen to write – and the manner (experimental) in which most of them are treated. The Reviewer is no doubt Southey – and perhaps one may see something of his enmity to Coleridge in the manner in wh. he speaks of the ‘Ancient Marinere’. For my own part the Ballads now (at first I thought them strange) please me by far the most – particularly the ‘Idiot Boy’ – the ‘Thorn’ and the ‘We are Seven’. Lloyd thinks the ballads too bare of ornament – I confess I do not – I feel them I think more strongly for the want of it.
