he was fiercely and at the same time plausibly opposed. I in vain attempted then, as I have often done since, to urge on High Churchmen a coalition with Rationalistic Dissenters against the Evangelical Churchmen and the Calvinistic Dissenters. W. W., on the contrary, thought the church had more to fear from the Latitudinarians than from' the Methodistic party on the bench of bishops.

The same evening Wordsworth accompanied me to Chas. Aikin, where were Mrs Barbauld, all the Aikins, James Montgomery, the poet, Jane Porter, Roscoe, Yates, &c., and the peculiar friends of the R.'s. There was a conscious want of perfect harmony between Wordsworth and the Unitarian rational party-as well as the Orthodox party. But he gave his hand cordially to James Montgomery; and all were eager to get near him. The homage was involuntary. He had not then expressed the esteem for Mrs Barbauld which he late in life avowed. At this time Wordsworth was accustomed to express something like bitterness towards both Mrs B. and Dr Aikin, on account of their critical editions of the poets, by which they intercepted, he said, the natural judgments of unaffected readers. This evening Wordsworth gave offence by suggesting that possibly Sir Francis Burdett's violent speeches might have suggested to Bellingham the murdering of Percival; saying that when men conceived the idea of committing a horrid act, they tried to conceal the enormity from themselves, by fancying a laudable motive. He was opposed by the younger Roscoe. He said, Sir F. B.'s was a constitutional speech. What were the people to do who were starving?' 'Not murder people,' said W., 'unless they mean to eat their hearts.' He wished to see more of Montgomery, and liked Mr and Mrs Chas. Aikin. Of the others he said nothing.

May 19. Wordsworth has seen Coleridge several

1

times, and been much in his company; but they have not yet touched upon the subject of their correspondence. Thus, as I hoped, the wound is healed; but, as I observed to Mrs C. [Clarkson], probably the scar remains in Coleridge's bosom."

"May 20.-... Evening party at Dr Blackburne's. Some commotion about Wordsworth. I was warm in his praise. Montgomery seemed not displeased with my eulogy; and, in a tete-à-tete, expressed his high admiration of him. The study of the human heart, said M., is what I most delight in; and I know no writer so profound in all that respects the affections and feelings. The Leech-gatherer he is a great admirer of, but dares hardly praise it in company. The Cumberland Beggar he also referred to. I spoke severely of The Eclectic review of W. He pleaded in behalf of it; and once again referred to it when I (addressing M.) said, he who so praised the better parts of W., had a right to censure what he does not love. 'And why not extend that to the Eclectic?' said he; so that a suspicion occurred to me of his being the author."

W.

May 24.-A very interesting day.. . Joined Wordsworth in Oxford Road, and we then got into the fields and walked to Hampstead. We talked of Lord Byron. allowed him power, but denied his style to be English. his moral qualities we think the same. He adds that he believes Lord B. to be somewhat cracked. I read W. some

Of

of Blake's poems.
He was pleased with some of them, and
considered Blake as having the elements of poetry a thousand
times more than either Byron or Scott: but Scott he thinks
superior to Campbell. I was for carrying down the descent
to Rogers, but W. would not allow it. Rogers has an
effeminate mind, but he has not the bad obscure writing of
Campbell. W. says a very large proportion of our noble

families are affected by hereditary insanity, as well as of the royal families of Europe.

We met Miss Joanna Baillie, and accompanied her home. W. was eloquent in arraigning the press as the occasion of much evil by spreading dissatisfaction, and Miss B. concurred with him in thinking that the utter extinction of all love for the royal family, and the very slight attachment remaining to the constitution itself, are very menacing signs of the times. . . . We dined with them and W. talked with a great deal of eloquence, both on politics and poetry, and he was well listened to, and not effusively opposed, and on the state of the country W. always speaks excellently.

W., when alone, speaking of S.,* said he is one of the cleverest men now living. At the same time he justly denies him ideality in his works. He never enquires, says W., on what idea his poem is to be wrought; what feeling or passion is to be excited; but he determines on a subject, and then reads a good deal, and combines and corrects industriously; but he does not give anything which impresses the mind strongly, and is recollected in solitude. This was always my opinion of S.

We talked of Unitarians, and W. said he could not feel with the Unitarians in any way. Their religion allows no room for imagination, and satisfies none of the cravings of the soul. I can feel more sympathy with the orthodox believer, who needs a redeemer, and who, sensible of his own demerits, flies for refuge to him, than with the cold and rational notions of the Unitarians.

ridge's lecture † in the morning. He thinks C. makes a sad

* Evidently Southey.

+ His fourth Lecture on Comedy, etc.

This I have no

With

confusion of mythology, metaphysics, &c. doubt is the general opinion, nor is it unfounded. such powers of original thought, and real genius, both philosophical and poetical-such as few men in any age have possessed-Coleridge wants certain minor qualities, which render his great powers almost inefficient and useless; while most subordinate persons obtain all the fame he merits. . . . A pleasant chat with C. apart, and afterwards with W. more generally C. very metaphysical. C. very metaphysical. He adheres to Kant, notwithstanding all Schelling has written; and maintains that from S. he has gained no new ideas. All S. has said, he having either thought before, or found in Jacob Boëhm. W. talked very finely on poetry. He praised Burns for his introduction to Tam o' Shanter. He had given a poetical apology for drunkenness by bringing together all the circumstances which can serve to render excusable what is in itself disgusting; thus interesting our feelings, and making us tolerant of what would otherwise be not endurable.

W. also praised the conclusion of Death and Dr Hornbook. He compared this with the abrupt termination of the expected battle between Satan and the Archangel in Milton, but this remark did not bring its own evidence with it. I took occasion to apply the praise given to Burns for the passage quoted, to Goethe, and this led to my warm praise of him. C. denied merit to Torquato Tasso; and W. seemed disposed to think little of it. C. talked of the impossibility of being a good poet without being a good man; and urged the immorality of Goethe's works as a proof he is not a good poet. This I demurred to.

May 31. Sunday.—A day of great enjoyment. At half

* It is hardly necessary to add that the water-drinking bard of Rydal threw emphasis on the word poetical.

found Wordsworth demonstrating to H. some of the points of his philosophical theory. Speaking of his own poems, W. said he principally valued them as being a new power in the literary world. At Hammond's was one of the Millars, a clergyman, a cousin of Hammond. He esteemed W.

W. said he him

chiefly for the pure morality of his works. self looked to the powers of the mind his poems call forth, and the energies they presuppose and excite, as the standard by which they are to be estimated. W. purposes, as soon as his two last volumes are out of print, to reprint the four volumes, arranging the poems with some reference, either to the fancy, imagination, reflection, or mere feeling contained in them. The Kitten and the Falling Leaves, he speaks of as merely fanciful; The Highland Girl, one of the highest kind, being imaginative; The Happy Warrior, as appertaining to reflection. In illustration of his principle of imaginative power, he quoted his Cuckoo and in particular the " wandering voice," as giving local habitation to an abstraction. I stated as a compression of Wordsworth's rather obscure account of poetic abstraction—the following, as the operation. The poet first conceives the essential nature of his object, and strips it of all its casualties, and accidental individual dress, and in this he is a philosopher; but, to exhibit his abstraction nakedly would be the work of a mere philosopher; therefore he reclothes his idea, in an individual dress, which expresses the essential quality, and has also the spirit and life of a sensual object, and this transmutes the philosophic into a poetic exhibition. W. quoted the picture of the old man in The Leechgatherer, and the simile of the Stone on the Eminence, as an instance of an imaginative creation.

W. spoke with contempt of Campbell as a poet, and illustrated his want of truth and poetic sense in his imagery