ART. VI. Lyrical Ballads, with other Poems: in Two Vols. By W. Wordsworth. Second Edition. Fine-paper 12mo. 10s. Longman and Rees. 1800. IN our Review for October, 1799, we noticed, with confiderable fatisfaction, the first edition of this work, then com prifed 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 Fofler Mother's Tale, the Nightingale, the Dungeon, and the poem entitled Love; all of which, as he informs us, are furnished by a friend, whofe opinions on the fubject of Poetry agree almost entirely with his own. From this fimilarity of mind, and from fome expreffions in the Advertisernent prefixed to the first edition, we were then led to attribute the whole to Mr. Coleridge, the fuppofed author of the Ancient Mariner we now, therefore, add to the lift of our Poets another name, no less likely to do it honour. Mr. Wordfworth has, indeed, appeared before the public fome years ago, as author of Defcriptive Sketches in Verfe, and of an Evening Walk; compofitions, in which were difcoverable the fire and fancy of a true poet, though obfcured by diction, often and intentionally inflated. His ftyle is now wholly changed, and he has adopted a purity of expreflion, which, to the faftidious car, may fometimes perhaps found poor and low, but which is infinitely more correfpondent with true feeling than what, by the courtesy of the day, is ufually called poetical language. Whatever may be thought of thefe Poems, it is evident that they are not to be confounded with the flood of poetry, which is poured forth in fuch profufion by the modern Bards of Science, or their brethren, the Bards of Infipidity. The author has thought for himself; he has deeply studied human nature, in the book of human action; and he has adopted his language from the fame fources as his feelings. Aware that "his Poems are fo materially different from those upon which general approbation is at present bestowed," he has now defended them in a Preface of fome length; not with the foulith hope of reafoning his readers into the approbation of thefe particular Poems, but as a neceffary juftification of the fpecies of poetry to which they belong. This Preface, though written in fome parts with a degree of metaphysical obfcurity, conveys much penetrating and judicious obfervation, important at all times, but efpecially when, as it is well obferved, "the invaluable works of our elder writers are driven into neglect neglect by frantic novels, fickly and ftupid German tragedies, and deluges of idle and extravagant ftories in verfe." Perhaps it would be expecting too much from any one but Shakspeare,. were we to demand that he fhould be the Poet of human nature. It would be no mean, it would indeed be a very lofty praife, to affert of a writer, that he is able to pour into other bofoms powerful feelings of a particular clafs, or belonging to a particular order of men. To this praife, Mr. Wordfworth Jays a well-fupported claim. He declares himself the Poet chiefly of low and ruftic life (fome fpecimens of ability he has given in other lines, but this is evidently his excellence) and he pourtrays it, not under its difgufting forms, but in fituations affording, as he thinks, the belt foil for the effential paffions of the heart, incorporated with an elementary and durable ftate of manners, and with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature*. Each feparate Poem has, as its diftin&t purpofe, the development of a feeling, which gives importance to the action and fituation, and not the action or fituation to the feeling. Whether the particular purpofe is, in every cafe, worthy of a Poet, will perhaps admit of fome doubt. We have no hefitation in faying, that it is generally interefting, often invaluable; but on these points the author fhail fpeak for himself. This object I have endeavoured in thefe fhort Effays to attain, by various means; by tracing the maternal paffion through many of its more fubtle windings, as in the Poems of the Ideot Boy and the Mad Mother; by accompanying the laft ftruggles of a human being at the approach of death, cleaving in folitude to life and fociety, as in the Poem of the Forfaken Indian; by fhewing, as in the flanzas entitled We are feven, the perplexity and obfcurity which in childhood attend our notion of death, or rather our utter inability to admit that notion; by difplaying the ftrength of fraternal, or, to fpeak more philofophically, of moral attachment, when early affociated with the great and beautiful objects of Nature, as in the Brothers; or as in the incident of Siman Lee, by placing my reader in the way of receiving, from ordinary moral fenfations, another and more falutary impreffion than we are accustomed to receive from them. It has alfo been part of my Mr. Wordfworth feems to be peculiarly well fituated for the fubjects of fuch a ftudy. The vicinity of the Lakes in Cumberland and Weftmoreland (the fcene of most of his Poems) is chiefly inhabitel by an order of men nearly extinct in other parts of England. Thefe are fmall farmers, called in that part of the country 'Statefmen, who, cultiyating their own little property, are raifed above the immediate preffure of want, with very few opportunities of acquiring wealth. They are a mild, hofpitable people, with fome turn for reading; and their peronal appearance is, for the moft part, interefting. general general purpose, to attempt to sketch characters under the influence of impaffioned feelings, as in the Old Man travelling, the Two Thieves, &c. characters of which the elements are fimple, belonging rather to Nature than to Manners; fuch as exift now, and will probably always exift, and which, from their conftitution, may be diftinctly and profitably contemplated." P. xv. Of the judicious degree of fimplicity in language which the author attained in his firft volume, we formerly expreffed our approbation. The fecond is written with equal felicity, being alike grounded upon an accurate and attentive obfervation of, thofe modes of fpeech, which are prompted by the natural flow of paffion. Where the fubjects are fupplied by ruftic life, the language of ruftics, purified only from accidental affociations of difguft, is alfo adopted, and for this fimple and weighty reafon; because, "fuch a language, arifing out of repeated experience and regular feelings, is a more permanent, and a far more philofophical, language, than that which is frequently fubftituted for it by poets, who think that they are conferring honour upon themfelves and their art, in pro-, portion as they feparate themfelves from the fympathies of men, and indulge in arbitrary and capricious habits of expreffion, in order to furnish food for fickle tastes, and fickle appetites, of their own creation." The author has argued with great ingenuity, and at fome length, on the abfurdity of the diftinction frequently made between the appropriate language of profe, and that of metrical, compofition. He has fhown, that the two fpecies of wruing may be wholly fimilar in every thing but metre; and that nei-. ther of them can be dignified by any other means than energy. and loftinefs of thought. A great part of this argument would appear ufelefs, had we not unhappily witneffed, in fome ftriking inflances, how much the public tafte may be mifled by affected pomp and falfe glitter of language. We cannot too often repeat, that the frippery and fuftian of the Darwinian phrafeology, is no more compatible with a juft claffical tafte, than the heterogeneous mixture of fcience and fancy is allowable in a poetical fubject. The faults of this kind, in the fecond volume, are fo very few, as to deserve no notice, in com parison with the general purity of the ftyle. As to the fubjects, it must be owned that their worth does not always appear at first fight; but, judging from our own feelings, we mu affert, that it generally grows upon the reader by fubfequent perufal. The following remarks may, perhaps, illuftrate the caufe of this improving intereft. 1. It is not requifite that the poetic feeling fhould be ftrictly referable to any of thofe known and powerful claffes, called the the fublime, the terrible, the pathetic, &c. It may fometimes confult in a gentle agitation of the contending emotions, from which a preponderance of pleafure is ultimately produced, as from the melancholy recollections of a cheerful old man, in the Two April Mornings, and the Fountain; fometimes it may arise from the mixture of lively imagery with various feelings, as with exultation and pity, in the two parts of Hartleap Well; fometimes it may be founded on the foft, and almoft infenfible affections which we receive from natural fcenery, aided, perhaps, by fome accidental affociation in our own minds. Of this kind are the different Poems on the Naming of Places, Lines written with a Slate Pencil, c. Rural Architecture, and fome others. 2. Even where the feeling intended to be called forth is of a rich and noble character, fuch as we may recur to, and feed upon, it may yet be wrought up fo gradually, including fo many preparatory circumstances of appropriate manners, of local defcription, of actual events, &c. that the fubtle uniting thread will be loft, without a perfevering effort toward attention on the part of the reader. Who, that has ftudied Shakfpeare, must not be confcious how often the connection of minute and trifling incidents with the main ftory has eluded his obfervation, until after repeated perufals? Something of this kind will probably occur to the readers of the Brothers, the Cumberland Beggar, and more particularly of the Poem, entitled Michael; yet thefe three are of the highest order of Poems in the volume. The intereft, efpecially of the firft, is fo dramatically wrought up, the minute touches are fo accurately ftudied, the general effect is fo infenfibly produced, and appeals fo forcibly to the heart, as to rank its author far beyond the reach of common-place praife or cenfure. 3. There is a third clafs of Poems poffeffing a strong effect, which refults equally from the power of imagination and of feeling; in thefe, the prominent features of the ftory are all along attended with a concurring fplendour of poetic ornament, and the combined influence of thefe agents pervades every part of the compofition. This is greatly the cafe in the Poem of Ruth, and in that of Ellen Irwin, of which the latter is merely narrative; the former intermixes much of deep and interesting fpeculation: to this clafs alfo may be referred Lury Gray and Poor Sufan, with feveral beautiful fpecimens in the fecond volume. 4. Other fmall pieces have different characteristics. The Fragment of the Danish Boy is a mere creation of fancy; the Pet Lamb prefents a portraiture of infantine fimplicity; and the the lines in pages 50 and 53, are masterly sketches of those "ftrange fits of paffion," which sometimes unaccountably flash across a poetical mind. From the longer Poems it is almost impoffible to select any paffage without injury to its effect, owing to a want of that interest which the context fupplies. We fhall, however, venture to cite the following tender touches from the Brothers. though their parents Lay buried fide by fide, as now they lie, The old man was a father to the boys, Two fathers in one father: and if tears Shed, when he talk'd of them where they were not, And hauntings from the infirmity of love Are aught of what makes up a mother's heart, This old man, in the day of his old age, Was half a mother to them." P. 32. In the Poet's Epitaph, an effufion of good-humoured fatire, is fucceeded by this picture of animated and engaging fenfibility. "But who is he with modeft looks, He is retired as noon-tide dew, The outward fhews of fky and earth, In common things that round us lie, That broods and fleeps on his own heart. But he is weak, both man and boy, The things which others underftand. Come hither in thy hour of ftrength, Or build thy houfe upon this grave." P. 167. 1 Perhaps |