Your first position, that every idea which passes through a poet's mind may be made passionate, and therefore poetical, I am not sure that I understand. If you mean through a poet's mind when in a poetical mood, the words are nothing but an identical proposition. But a poet must be subject to a thousand thoughts in common with other men, and many of them must, I suppose, be as unsusceptible of alliance with poetic passion as the thoughts that interest ordinary men. But the range of poetic feeling is far wider than is ordinarily supposed, and the furnishing new proofs of this fact is the only incontestible demonstration of genuine poetic genius. Secondly, "The moment a clear idea of any kind is conceived, it ought to be brought out directly, and as rapidly as possible, without a view to any particular style of language." I am not sure that I comprehend your meaning here. Is it that a man's thoughts should be noted down in prose? or that he should express them in any kind of verse that they most easily fall into? I think it well to make brief memoranda of our most interesting thoughts in prose; but to write fragments of verse is an embarrassing practice. A similar course answers well in painting, under the name of studies; but in poetry it is apt to betray a writer into awkwardness, and to turn him out of his course for the purpose of lugging on these readymade pieces by the head and shoulders. Or do you simply mean, that such thoughts as arise in the process of composition, should be expressed in the first words that offer themselves, as being likely to be most energetic and natural? If so, this is not a rule to be followed without cautious exceptions. My first expressions I often find detestable; and it is frequently true of second words, as of second thoughts, that they are the best. I entirely accord with you in your third observation, that we should be cautious not to waste our lives in dreams of imaginary excellence, for a thousand

reasons, and not the least for this, that these notions of excellence may perhaps be erroneous, and then our inability to catch a phantom of no value may prevent us from attempting to seize a precious substance within our reach.

When your letter arrived, I was in the act of reading to Mrs Wordsworth your Exile, which pleased me more, I think, than anything that I have read of yours. There is, indeed, something of 'mystification' about it, which does not enhance its value with me; but it is, I think, in many passages delightfully conceived and expressed. I was particularly charmed with the seventeenth stanza, first part. This is a passage which I shall often repeat to myself; and I assure you that, with the exception of Burns and Cowper, there is very little of recent verse, however much it may interest me, that sticks to my memory (I mean which I get by heart).

Mr Hogg's Badlew (I suppose it to be his) I could not get through. There are two pretty passages-the flight of the deer, and the falling of the child from the rock of Stirling, though both are a little outré. But the story is coarsely conceived, and, in my judgment, as coarsely executed; the style barbarous, and the versification harsh and uncouth. Mr Hogg is too illiterate to write in any measure or style that does not savour of balladism. This is much to be regretted; for he is possessed of no ordinary power.

Do not imagine that my principles lead me to condemn Scott's method of pleasing the public, or that I have not a very high respect for his various talents and extensive attainments. With great respect, I remain WILLIAM WORDSWORTH."

yours,

Other letters written to Gillies in 1815 and 1816 will be given in asubsequent chapter.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE EXCURSION: VARIOUS CORRESPONDENCE.

BEFORE Wordsworth started for Scotland in July 1814, he wrote thus to Lord Lonsdale :

"RYDAL MOUNT, June 4, 1814.

I have now in the press, and almost ready for publication, a portion of a work in verse, which I ask permission to inscribe to your Lordship, as the best testimony I can give of my respect for your character, and in gratitude for particular marks of favour shown to myself.

My labour is yet very far from being brought to a conclusion, but if this specimen receives your approbation, I shall cherish a hope of being enabled, at some future period, to request the same honour for the finished poems, &c. . .

The Excursion was published in July 1814 (in quarto form), with a dedicatory Sonnet to the Earl of Lonsdale, and a Preface, explaining the design, not only of The Excursion, but of the larger projected work, The Recluse, of which The Excursion was only to form a part. (See vol. v. of this edition, pp. 1-18.) The only sentences from that Preface which need reproduction here are these: "Several years ago, when the Author retired to his native mountains, with the hope of being enabled to construct a literary work that might live, it was a reasonable thing that he should take a review of his own mind, and examine how far Nature and Education had qualified him for such employment. As subsidiary to this, he undertook to record in verse the origin and progress of his own powers, as far as he was acquainted

with them. That work, addressed to a dear friend, most distinguished for his knowledge and genius, and to whom the author's intellect is deeply indebted,* has long been finished; and the result of the investigation which gave rise to it, was a determination to compose a Philosophical Poem, containing views of Man, Nature, and Society; and to be entitled The Recluse. The preparatory poem is biographical, and the two works have the same kind of relation to each other, if he may so express himself, as the ante-chapel has to the body of a Gothic church. Continuing this allusion, he may be permitted to add, that his Minor Poems, which have been long before the public, when they shall be properly arranged, will be found by the attentive reader to have such connection with the main work as may give them claim to be likened to the little cells, oratories, and sepulchral recesses, ordinarily included in these edifices." On August 13, Henry Crabb Robinson wrote in his Diary:

:

“.. . I stole out of the theatre to call on Madge, at whose apartments I found the new great poem of Wordsworth, The Excursion. I could only look into the preface, and read a few extracts with M. It is a poem of formidable size, and I fear too mystical to be popular. But it will, however, put an end to the sneers of those who consider him, or affect to consider him, as a puerile writer, who attempts only little things. But it will draw on him the imputation of dulness possibly; still, it will, I trust, strengthen the zeal of his few friends. My anxiety is great to read it.

As giving a sample of the contemporary verdicts on The Excursion when it first appeared, I may quote further from Robinson's Diary.

* This was written in 1814. It is significant after what we know of the clouds and shadows of the years, 1810-12.

"15th Oct. 1814.-. . . I read The Examiners for the last three months. They contain an excellent review of Wordsworth's poem by Hazlitt, excepting from this praise some very coarse and cynical remarks on a country life, in which the poor inhabitants of the Lakes are designed as more ignorant and worthless than the lower classes elsewhere. Hazlitt delights in bidding defiance to common opinion; and there is a twist about either his head or heart which gives a perverse turn to even his ablest writings.

25th Oct., Cambridge.-. . . Dined with Mr Tillbrook of Peterhouse. He is an admirer of Wordsworth. He says that Wilson, the poet, assured him that Jeffrey, the Edinburgh Reviewer, declared to him that he is a great admirer of Wordsworth; and that he had attacked him, not because he himself thinks lowly of him, but because the public think highly of him. I had heard a similar tale before, but never on such good authority. Jeffrey further asked Wilson to introduce him to Wordsworth, which Wilson refused doing. Wilson and Jeffrey are friends, and the Isle of Palms was sent to him in MS., with an offer to omit anything that might be offensive. It seems strange to me that any sincere admirer and disciple of Wordsworth should suffer such an elevation of himself at his master's expense.

Nov. 2nd.-Sat at home this evening reading Wordsworth's Excursion. I have yet read but little of this exquisite work. I have, however, already no doubt that it will be for other reasons as unpopular as his other works; and that it will be highly admired by his former admirers.

10th. . . The conclusion of the fourth book of Wordsworth's poem transcendently beautiful. . . . Lamb has written a review of W.'s poem for the Quarterly Review, which he says would have been fit for the first review, but will not do after others. .

23rd.-Finished this week Wordsworth's poem. . . . The

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