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YALE STUDIES IN ENGLISH 
 
 ALBERT S. COOK, Editor 
 LVII 
 
 ±L 
 
 A^7 1 
 
 WORDSWORTH'S THEORY OF 
 POETIC DICTION 
 
 A STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL AND PERSONAL 
 BACKGROUND OF THE LYRICAL BALLADS 
 
 MARJORIE LATTA BARSTOW 
 
 INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH IN CONNECTICUT COLLEGE 
 
 NEW HAVEN: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD 
 
 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 MDCCCC^VII 
 
 ' 7 ^ 
 
YALE STUDIES IN ENGLISH 
 
 ALBERT S. COOK, Editor 
 LVII 
 
 WORDSWORTH'S THEORY OF 
 POETIC DICTION 
 
 A STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL AND PERSONAL 
 BACKGROUND OF THE LYRICAL BALLADS 
 
 BY 
 
 MARJORIE LATTA BARSTOW 
 
 INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH IN CONNECTICUT COLLEGE 
 
 H 
 
 A Dissertation presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School 
 
 of Yale University, in Candidacy for the Degree of 
 
 Doctor of Philosophy 
 
 NEW HAVEN: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD 
 
 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 MDCCCCXVII 
 
a'^ 
 
 1y 
 
 ^%Q^^ 
 
 din 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The following study was undertaken as a doctoral dis- 
 sertation under the direction of Professor Albert S. Cook 
 of Yale University. To Professor Cook I am especially 
 indebted, not only for stimulating guidance in the field of 
 the English language in general, but for a most minute and 
 painstaking criticism of the proof. To Professor Lane 
 Cooper of Cornell University I owe a debt less easy of 
 definition. Although he has not read the manuscript of 
 this book, and is not responsible for particular statements 
 herein, the inspiration and the direction that I received 
 from him in my reading of Wordsworth as an under- 
 graduate at Cornell has been the most vital element in my 
 study of the poet; if there is anything good in this work 
 of mine, it is ultimately derived from him. I also wish to 
 make grateful acknowledgment to Professor Charlton M. 
 Lewis for criticism received from him in his course on 
 nineteenth-century poets in the Graduate School of Yale 
 University. 
 
 My indebtedness to books I have tried to indicate in 
 the footnotes. But, like many other students of Words- 
 worth, I wish to record my especial appreciation of the 
 Early Life of William Wordszvorth by Professor Emile 
 Legouis. Although, in many instances, I have been forced 
 to disagree with the conclusions of M. Legouis, I feel that 
 without the stimulating example of his beautiful work, 
 this study would have been impossible. In acknowledging 
 my special indebtedness to books, I wish to make grateful 
 mention of the beautiful collection of Wordsworthiana in 
 the possession of Mrs. Cynthia Morgan St. John of Ithaca, 
 New York, which she generously placed at my disposal. 
 
iv Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 In citing quotations from the prose of Coleridge and the 
 poetry of Wordsworth, I have tried to retain the original 
 punctuation and spelHng, because they represent the usage 
 of the authors themselves. In most other cases it has seemed 
 best to standardize the spelling and punctuation for the sake 
 of greater clearness and smoothness of reading. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction ....... vii 
 
 Chapter i. Poetic Diction in 'Our Elder Poets' . i 
 Chapter 2. Poetic Diction in 'Modern Times' . 19 
 Chapter 3. Wordsworth's Poetic Development Pre- 
 vious to the Meeting with Coleridge ... 67 
 Chapter 4. Coleridge and His Circle . . .113 
 Chapter 5, Coleridge and Wordsworth . . 126 
 Chapter 6. The Lyrical Ballads .... 141 
 
 Bibliography ....... 183 
 
 Index ........ 186 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 To those who read the poetry of Wordsworth in the light 
 of Matthew Arnold's criticism, with the enthusiasm of all 
 good Wordsworthians, the poet is primarily a teacher, a 
 philosopher, a pure soul with a message of healing for a 
 feverish w^orld. So, indeed, he regarded himself. *I wish 
 either to be considered as a teacher, or as nothing,'^ he 
 writes; and his wish has been fulfilled. But too often he 
 is so considered to the exclusion of a proper interest in 
 his merits as a stylist, as a great and peculiarly self-con- 
 scious artist *in a kind absolutely unborrowed and his 
 own.' 
 
 To the two most finely gifted critics of his own genera- 
 tion he presented himself in a quite different light. It was 
 not Wordsworth's philosophy that primarily interested 
 Coleridge and Lamb ; it was his style. To his philosophy 
 they were both more or less antagonistic. Coleridge 
 objected to the 'misty, rather than mystic, confusion of 
 God with the world'^ in poems like Tintern Abbey, though 
 at the same time he believed Wordsworth capable of writ- 
 ing the first genuine philosophical poem in English. Lamb 
 was inclined to make merry over Wordsworth's devotion 
 to stocks and stones, and other inanimate objects, and to 
 celebrate the superior attractions of the London streets.^ 
 But both immediately gave full recognition and homage 
 to Wordsworth's unique gift of imaginative expression — 
 'the original gift of spreading the tone, the atmosphere, 
 and with it the depth and height of the ideal world around 
 forms, incidents, and situations, of which, for the common 
 view, custom had bedimmed all the lustre, had dried up 
 the sparkle and the dew drops.'* 
 
 'L. W.F. I. 331. 
 ' Biographia Epistolaris 2. 195. 
 ^Letters of Charles Lamb i. 190-191. 
 'B. L. I. 59. 
 
VIU WORDSWORTH S THEORY OF POETIC DICTION 
 
 This gift, they felt, expressed itself in a diction 'highly 
 individualised and characteristic'^ — a 'diction peculiarly 
 his own, ... a style which cannot be imitated, with- 
 out its being at once recognised as originating in Mr. 
 Wordsworth.'^ This style both Coleridge and Lamb 
 believed they could distinguish without hesitation, wher- 
 ever they encountered it. 'That 
 
 "Uncertain heaven received 
 Into the bosom of the steady lake" 
 
 I should have recognised anywhere,' writes Coleridge,^ 
 *and had I met these lines running wild in the deserts 
 of Arabia, I should have instantly screamed out, "Words- 
 worth !" ' Lamb seems to hold a similar opinion. In 
 his characteristic remarks on the edition of 1815, in 
 which he proceeds from poem to poem, commenting 
 with the refined Epicurean enjoyment of a connoisseur 
 in language on the lines and phrases that most please 
 his taste, he continually implies that Wordsworth has 
 a distinct and recognizable manner. ' "Laodamia" is 
 a very original poem,' he writes. 'I mean original 
 with reference to your own manner. You have nothing 
 like it. I should have seen it in a strange place, and greatly 
 admired it, but not suspected its derivation.'* Again, in 
 speaking of the extracts from An Evening Walk and the 
 Descriptive Sketches included in the volumes of 181 5, he 
 remarks^: 'All the rest of your poems are so much of a 
 piece, they might have been written in the same v/eek; 
 these decidedly speak of an earlier period. They tell more 
 of what you had been reading.' 
 
 'B.L.1.77. 
 
 'B. L. I. 80. 
 
 ^Memoirs i. 139. 
 
 * Letters of Charles Lamb i. 353. 
 
 ' Ibid. I. 354- 
 
INTRODUCTION IX 
 
 This highly individuaHzed diction always tempted Cole- 
 ridge's powers of analysis. Indeed he was first led to his 
 speculation on the difference between imagination and 
 fancy by his attempts to define the peculiar quality of 
 Wordsworth's poetry, as distinguished from verse that 
 might seem more brilliant or clever or obviously skilful.^ 
 This analysis he carries further in his famous criticism of 
 Wordsworth's style, and theory of style, in the Biographia 
 Liter aria- 'Would any but a poet — at least could any one 
 without being conscious tliat he had expressed himself with 
 noticeable vivacity — ^have described a bird singing loud 
 by, "The thrush is busy in the wood," or have spoken of 
 boys with a string of club-moss round their rusty hats, as 
 the boys ''with their green coronal f" — or have translated a 
 beautiful May day into ''Both earth and sky keep jubilee" ? 
 or have brought all the different marks and circumstances 
 of a sea-loch before the mind, as the actions of a living and 
 acting powder ? or have represented tlie reflection of the sky 
 in the water, as ''That uncertain heaven received into the 
 bosom of the steady lake?" Even the grammatical con- 
 struction is not unfrequently peculiar; as "The wind, the 
 tempest roaring high, the tumult of a tropic sky, might 
 well be dangerous food to him, a youth to whom was given 
 etc." There is a peculiarity in the use of the acrvvapT-qrov 
 (that is the omission of the connective particle before the 
 last of several words, or several sentences used grammati- 
 cally as single words, all being in the same case and govern- 
 ing or being governed by the same verb) and not less in the 
 'construction of words by apposition {"to him, a youth").' 
 
 But Coleridge's brilliant and suggestive analysis of the 
 characteristic features of Wordsv/orth's style — the unique 
 and imaginative metaphors, the rich and often curiously 
 felicitous diction, and the peculiar grammatical structure — 
 
 ^B. L. I. 60. 
 ' B. L. 2. 83-84. 
 
X Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 is, after all, rather fragmentary. Every remark is a seed- 
 thought which needs development. Moreover, there is 
 something exasperating and even misleading in the attitude 
 that he chose to assume to the theory of diction which lies 
 at the basis of the Lyrical Ballads. Coleridge, rather than 
 Wordsworth, had been responsible for the critical propa- 
 ganda^ which, as he says, was the real cause of Words- 
 worth's unpopularity.^ The Preface that he does not 
 understand was half a child of his own brain,^ written by 
 Wordsworth to please him, and superintended and cor- 
 rected by him.* Forgetting all this, he proceeds to adopt 
 the hesitating manner of a stranger to statements that 
 partly originated in his own fertile brain, and fails to supply 
 the one invaluable thing that he only could supply — a more 
 detailed account of the thoughtful and eager dialogues that 
 were behind Wordsworth's somewhat inadequate utter- 
 ances in print. Hence, though this criticism by Coleridge 
 is the necessary starting-point for any investigation of 
 Wordsworth's theory and practice, he was far from saying 
 the last word on the subject. Wordsworth had more rea- 
 sons than wounded vanity for his dissatisfaction with the 
 remarks of his former collaborator. 
 
 Despite the natural unwillingness of lesser men to enter 
 into competition with Coleridge and Lamb, it is astonishing 
 
 ^ L. W. F. 3. 121, 152. 
 
 'B.L. I. 50-53. 
 
 ^ 'Although Wordsworth's Preface is half a child of my own 
 brain, and arose out of conversations so frequent that, with few 
 exceptions, we could scarcely either of us, perhaps, positively say 
 which first started any thought (I am speaking of the Preface 
 as it stood in the second volume), yet I am far from going all 
 lengths with Wordsworth.'— Letter to Southey, July 1802. {Letters 
 of Samuel Taylor Coleridge i. 386.) Coleridge speaks as if the first 
 consciousness of this difference in opinion were felt in 1802. — 
 Letters i. 375. 
 
 Mn Account of the Wordsworth and Coleridge MSS. in the 
 Possession of Mr. T. Norton Longman, p. 19. 
 
INTRODUCTION XI 
 
 that this analysis of Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 as illustrated in his style, so ably begun by them in the poet's 
 own lifetime, should not have been carried on more sys- 
 tematically by the many critics who have praised Words- 
 worth so well. We find, indeed, a considerable number of 
 scattered observations and brief studies of Wordsworth's 
 style which are highly illuminating. For instance R. H. 
 Button's little paper on Wordsworth's Two Styles is really 
 discriminating. So also are Principal Shairp's delicate 
 appreciation of the style of The White Doe of Rylstone, and 
 Bagehot's essay on Pure, Ornate, and Grotesque Art. The 
 various remarks of Hutchinson and Dowden — the accom- 
 plished students of Wordsworth's text — in their editions of 
 the whole or parts of his work are always valuable. More- 
 over, the definitive text of Wordsworth's complete poems 
 in the Oxford edition, and the Concordance of Professor 
 Lane Cooper, have furnished the indispensable basis for a 
 more scientific study of Wordsworth's poetic diction; and 
 Professor JEmile Legouis has set a shining example in the 
 detailed analysis of the Early Poems in The Early Life of 
 William Wordsworth. But these more scholarly efforts, 
 added to the brilliant comments of Wordsworth's innumer- 
 able critics from Aubrey de Vere to Professor Harper, have 
 been insufficient to dispel the popular misconceptions inher- 
 ited from the reviewers. Wordsworth's readers to-day 
 have more sympathy for his 'philosophy' than the Monthly 
 Reviewer of 1815, but they hold much the same opinions 
 concerning his style, and have scarcely more foundation for 
 them. 
 
 The principal reason for this neglect is that the world 
 has never taken Wordsworth's so-called theory of poetic 
 diction seriously. Having jumped to the conclusion that 
 Wordsworth's practice was inconsistent with his principles, 
 most of his readers have failed either to recognize the 
 scholarly background of much that he has to say, or to 
 perceive the real comprehensiveness of his complete ideal 
 
Xll WORDSWORTH S THEORY OF POETIC DICTION 
 
 of expression. In point of fact, Wordsworth is not incon- 
 sistent. His most dignified and elaborate style is incon- 
 sistent only with a single clause of his definition of the 
 proper language of poetry, when that is detached from its 
 context and arbitrarily taken to represent the whole. 
 
 The notion that poetry in general should employ the 
 language of the 'lower andmiddle classes of society' was 
 never Wordsworth's ideal at any time. It is only his defi- 
 nition of an experiment^ that he chose to try in thirteen 
 out of the nineteen poems by him in the first edition of the 
 Lyrical Ballads; and the famous Preface is little more than 
 a somewhat unwilling and frankly inadequate attempt to 
 explain this same experiment.^ Wordsworth himself sug- 
 gests that an exposition of the whole theory would involve 
 a complete history of literature and a social psycholog}^^ 
 After modifying his original suggestion until the 'language 
 of conversation in the lower and middle classes of society' 
 became, in 1800, *a selection of the real language of men 
 in a state of vivid sensation,' and after softening this, in 
 1802, by a further emphasis upon the selective power of 
 the poet, Wordsworth finally merges his special ideal in a 
 
 ^ The majority of the following poems are to be considered as 
 experiments.' Advertisement to Lyrical Ballads, 1798. 
 
 ^ 'I was still more unwilling to undertake the task [of writing 
 a systematic defense of the theory upon which the Lyrical Ballads 
 were written] because adequately to display the opinions, and fully 
 to enforce the arguments would require a space wholly dispro- 
 portionate to the nature of a preface. ... I have therefore 
 altogether declined to enter regularly upon this defense.' — Preface 
 to the Lyrical Ballads of 1800. 
 
 ® 'For to treat the subject with the clearness and coherence, of 
 which I believe it susceptible, it would be necessary to give a full 
 account of the present state of public taste in this country, and to 
 determine how far this taste is healthy or depraved; vv^hich again 
 could not be determined without pointing out in what manner 
 language and the human mind act and react on each other, and 
 without retracing the revolutions, not of literature alone, but 
 likewise of society itself.' — Ibid. 
 
INTRODUCTION Xlll 
 
 general respect for the purity and integrity of the English 
 language — a new and more vital interpretation of that 
 correctness so cherished by the eighteenth century. In 
 the first collected edition of his poems in 1815 (which 
 included the Lyrical Ballads and the poems of 1807, with 
 a few additions of later origin), he relegates his original 
 preface to the Appendix as containing iittle of special 
 appUcation to the greater part, perhaps, of the collection.'^ 
 Why has Wordsworth's own strict limitation of his 'theory' 
 to a few poems been so systematically ignored? 
 
 But if tlie theory, in its more limited form, was merely 
 an explanation of a small group of poems, much more was 
 meant by it than commonly meets the eye of the casual 
 
 ^ The observations prefixed to that portion of these volumes 
 which was published many years ago, under the title of "Lyrical Bal- 
 lads," have so little of special application to the greater part, per- 
 haps, of the collection as subsequently enlarged and diversified, that 
 they could not with any propriety stand as an introduction to it. 
 Not deeming it, hov/ever, expedient to suppress that exposition, 
 slight and imperfect as it is, of the feelings which had determined 
 the choice of subjects, and the principles which had regulated the 
 composition of those Pieces, I have transferred it to the end of the 
 second volume, to be attended to, or not, at the pleasure of the 
 reader.' In all the complete editions between 1815 and 1845 this 
 formed the first paragraph of the Preface which was reprinted from 
 the volumes of 181 5, as an introduction to the continually increas- 
 ing collection of Wordsworth's poems. When this preface was 
 transferred to the Appendix in the edition of 1845, the paragraph 
 just quoted was replaced by the following note: *In the succeeding 
 editions, when the collection was much enlarged and diversified, 
 this Preface [the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads] was transferred 
 to the end of the volumes, as having little of special application to 
 the contents.' In the reprints of the Preface of 181 5 by Grosart, 
 Knight, George, and Nowell Smith, the last edition has naturally 
 been followed ; and for this reason the important introductory para- 
 graph is known only to those who have access to an early edition. 
 When the critical edition of Wordsworth's literary criticism, which, 
 despite the efforts of Nowell Smith, is still a desideratum, shall 
 appear, it is to be hoped that so important an utterance will be 
 restored. 
 
xiv Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 reader. It was not a single isolated utterance. It had the 
 wide background of English poetry and criticism for two 
 centuries, and the narrower background of some very ear- 
 nest literary experiment and study on the part, not of 
 Wordsworth alone, but of an entire group of writers who 
 were publishing in that open-minded periodical. The 
 Monthly Magazine. Chief among these were Coleridge and 
 Lamb. Not till we realize what Coleridge brought with 
 him from Lamb to those memorable conversations in which 
 the Lyrical Ballads originated do we begin to understand 
 what was behind the curt sentences of the Advertisement of 
 
 1798. 
 
 It is not in their casual appearances in print that the 
 most vital critical reflections of Wordsworth and Coleridge 
 are to be sought, but in that remarkable oral discussion, 
 begun by them in their long walks among the Quantock 
 Hills, and continued day after day and year after year, not 
 only by them, but by a larger circle, which included at 
 various times Lamb, Southey, De Quincey, Hazlitt, Scott, 
 Landor, and others. 'I have never felt inclined to write 
 criticism,' said Wordsworth, 'though I have talked and am 
 daily talking a great deal.'^ And the echoes of this talk 
 are everywhere heard in the criticism of the period — in 
 Scott's edition of Dryden, in De Quincey's distinction 
 between the literature of knowledge and the literature 
 of power, which was originally Wordsworth's, in Cole- 
 ridge's lectures, and later in chance remarks by Sara 
 Coleridge and Aubrey de Vere. In order to understand 
 the true relation of Wordsworth's criticism to his poetic 
 creation, and to the literature of the past, we must, in 
 imagination, continually supply this background of vivid 
 conversation. And the beginnings of this are to be sought 
 in the development of Wordsworth and Coleridge, in rela- 
 tion to their respective circles of friends and critics, long 
 before they ever met. 
 
 ^L.W.F.z.is2. 
 
INTRODUCTION XV 
 
 Moreover, the reproduction of this background is par- 
 ticularly necessary because of the somewhat tmcompro- 
 mising tone of Wordswortli's formal criticism. Though 
 his ideals were not wholly original, his personality was. 
 What he took from without he translated into terms of his 
 own experience, and converted to the substance of a pecu- 
 liar and powerful nature — a nature unusually sensitive, and 
 yet inflexible even to crudeness and awkwardness. Hence, 
 since he always speaks from his own position, and does not 
 easily adapt himself to an audience, it is necessary for his 
 audience to adapt itself to him, and to discover in each 
 case what is behind his utterances. 
 
 This is what has been attempted in this study. Accept- 
 ing the poet's own declaration that any one who cares to 
 study the matter will see that his principles are in accord- 
 ance with the best traditions of English literature, I have 
 begun with a review of the theories of poetic diction in 
 England before the time of Wordsworth. Then, in the 
 light of this study, and of such scanty evidence as we pos- 
 sess, I have tried to reconstruct the processes of critical 
 thought which were responsible for the experiment of the 
 Lyrical Ballads, and to show exactly how this thought 
 affected his style— his vocabulary, his syntax, and his rhe- 
 torical devices— then and afterwards. And this I have done 
 in the belief that his criticism and his practice are mutually 
 illustrative, and that both, even in their exaggerations and 
 possible mistakes, are of supreme value for the art of 
 EngUsh poetry. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 POETIC DICTION IN 'oUR ELDER POETS.' 
 
 A great poet must create or recreate, not only the taste 
 by which he is enjoyed/ but the language in which he 
 writes. Like all artists, he must inform a medium already 
 developed by others with the new spirit and the new life 
 within him, thereby renewing and modifying the outward 
 form also. But, -unlike other artists, he derives his medium 
 from two sources — from the written words of poets, who 
 have thoughtfully adapted it to the purposes of beauty and 
 delight, and from the lips of his daily associates, who have 
 made a swift and haphazard adaptation of it to the pur- 
 poses of immediate utility. Between these two — the writ- 
 ten and the oral tradition — the poet, 'singing a song in 
 which all other human beings join with him,'^ must make 
 his own synthesis, so that the artist and the plowman may 
 both hear the message, each in his own tongue. 
 
 Of this duty the inheritors of the fertile English tongue 
 have never been wholly neglectful. But their efforts have 
 been complicated by a certain individualism in the English 
 character. The Englishman, whether poet or plowman, 
 likes to speak as he chooses. Between the characteristic 
 phraseology of bards who invented their own language, and 
 a rich popular speech, fond of short cuts, and uncritically 
 hospitable to new locutions, the plain and open path of a 
 generally intelligible and beautiful poetic diction has not 
 always been easy to find. Nevertheless, it was not for 
 want of self-criticism, and the vmremitting efforts of many 
 
 ^ A remark attributed by Wordsworth to Coleridge. It is quoted, 
 in slightly different forms, in the famous letter to Lady Beaumont 
 (May 21, 1807: Wordsworth's Literary Criticism, p. 47), and in the 
 Essay Supplementary to the Preface. 
 
 ^ Preface to Lyrical Ballads (in a passage added to the original 
 preface in 1802). 
 
2 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 generations, that the typical EngUsh style seemed to 
 Matthew Arnold wilful, barbarous, and violent. So it had 
 seemed to the most delicate spirits of Elizabethan England, 
 wistfully looking to polished Italy and ancient Rome, and 
 to their own well of English undefiled in Chaucer, and in 
 the light of those standards discovering in their contem- 
 porary style some want of measure and grace. So it had 
 seemed to the poets of the eighteenth century, scorning the 
 rich and various language into which this Elizabethan dic- 
 tion had flowered as a luxuriant wildwood growth, which 
 it was their task to reduce to French correctness and 
 elegance. So it had seemed to Wordsworth, in whose eyes 
 the effort of a century had resulted only in a phraseology 
 so gaudy and 'licentious,' so lacking in the naturalness 
 and good sense which had been constantly preached, that 
 the discovery of a standard of expression which would 
 protect the reader from the caprice of the poet seemed a 
 matter of immediate and paramount importance.^ 
 
 The most powerful and original of all these efforts was 
 that of Wordsworth; yet its originality consisted, not in 
 the creation of a new ideal of poetic diction, but in the 
 vitality with which he informed an old one. Wordsworth 
 was not the first to seek his poetic diction in a selection of 
 the real language of men, as opposed to a traditional 
 literary dialect. Chaucer had done it before, and Chaucer's 
 master, Dante; and the method of Chaucer had remained 
 the accepted one in English poetry, consciously imitated 
 by Spenser, and received by others from Chaucer's own 
 source — the vernacular literatures of the Continent, espe- 
 cially the Italian and French. Indeed, the modern poetry 
 of Europe, in every tongue, is the result of a choice similar 
 to that of Wordsworth on the part of poets, when Latin 
 was still the speech of the cultivated. In England a power- 
 
 ^ Cf. Bagehot, Literary Studies 2. 389 : *A dressy literature, an 
 exaggerated literature, seem to be fated to us ; these are our 
 curses.' 
 
POETIC DICTION IN OUR ELDER POETS 3 
 
 £ul literary impulse from abroad, like that received from 
 Italy in the sixteenth century, or that from France in 
 the seventeenth century, has resulted in a new emphasis 
 on a 'selection of the real language' of Englishmen who 
 were not too deeply learned, as the only possible basis of 
 poetic expression. Not till the latter half of the eighteenth 
 century did the ideal of a special vocabulary for poetry 
 become widely prevalent in England through the powerful 
 influence of Gray; and even then it was opposed by the 
 precepts and e::ample of Goldsmith, Cowper, and Burns. 
 Hence, when Wordsworth began his attack on the 
 'gaudiness and inane phraseology' of contemporary verse, 
 with the statement that his practice was in accord with that 
 of 'our elder writers, and those in modern times who 
 have been the most successful in painting manners and 
 passions,'^ he was making a claim easily established by that 
 survey of English poetry which he invited his readers to 
 undertake. Since a review of this sort throws Words- 
 worth's own criticism into its proper perspective, and 
 emphasizes the new and vital elements in it, it will be well 
 to let it introduce an examination of his own theory and 
 practice. In so doing we may have the advantage of a 
 running comment by Wordsworth himself on the work of 
 his predecessors, since one of the excellences of his 
 remarks, as compared with those of many poets before him, 
 was their better critical basis in a study and deliberate 
 appraisal of English literature in the various stages of its 
 development. There are not many men of importance in 
 the poetic history of England concerning whom Words- 
 worth has not left some illuminating comment; and what 
 he left unsaid was generally said by Coleridge, whose 
 studies were sometimes the source,^ and sometimes the 
 result, of the vital thinking of his less bqpkish friend. 
 Accordingly, we may proceed to build upon the foundation 
 which they have already laid for us. 
 
 ^ Advertisement to the Lyrical Ballads of 1798. 
 
4 WORDSWORTH'S THEORY OF POETIC DICTION 
 
 Wordsworth and Coleridge divided English literature 
 after Chaucer into two great periods — the age of 'our 
 elder poets/ and 'modern times/ or the periods before and 
 after Dryden's conscious break with the traditions of the 
 past. For more than a century it had been the custom to 
 date all literary civilization from the reign of Charles II, 
 and to speak of the few great, unforgotten poets who had 
 the misfortune to write before that time, as the rude fore- 
 fathers of English verse, pre-eminent for the mighty force 
 of their natural genius, but sadly lacking in art. Chaucer, 
 Spenser, Shakespeare, and even Milton, had all been con- 
 descendingly rewritten into 'our language as it is now 
 refined.' As a late development from this peculiar habit 
 of refining, there had arisen the conception of a special 
 dialect for poetry — a collection of phrases too delicate for 
 ordinary use, or for the expression of vulgar real emotions 
 that had a substantial existence outside of books. Against 
 all this self-complacent criticism, Wordsworth vigorously 
 appealed to the historical facts. The ideal of a special dic- 
 tion, or of any refinement except that of pure natural feel- 
 ing, was not the ideal of the great age of English poetry 
 before Dryden, he said, nor did it correspond to the 
 best practice of poets after him. Was he right in this 
 contention ? 
 
 I. Chaucer and Spenser. 
 
 Concerning the practice of Chaucer, 'the first finder of 
 our fair language,' and Wordsworth's special model in 
 respect to language, there can be no doubt. With the well- 
 developed literary and courtly medium of French at his 
 command, he had turned to the mongrel vernacular, the 
 real language of his countrymen, and had found an adequate 
 poetic diction in a selection from that. Following here the 
 footing of Chaucer's feet, Spenser had labored to restore, 
 'as to their rightful heritage,' 'such good and natural Eng- 
 
POETIC DICTION IN *OUR ELDER POETS 5 
 
 lish words as have been long time out of use and almost 
 clean disherited.' To him, or to his apologist 'E. K.,'^ 
 it appeared shameful that his countrymen should have 'so 
 base regard and bastard judgment' of their own 'natural 
 speech which together with their nurse's milk they sucked,' 
 that they would not labor to garnish and beautify it by a 
 development of its native resources. Since such 'old and 
 obsolete words' as Spenser employs were 'most used of 
 country-folk,' the reform of the young poet of the Shep- 
 Jierd's Calendar had something in common with that of 
 the young poet of the Lyrical Ballads. As Wordsworth's 
 interest in the language of the middle and lower classes 
 of society incidentally involved a return to the speech of 
 'our elder poets,' so Spenser's return to the language of 
 the one glorious 'elder poet' incidentally involved an 
 approximation to rustic dialect.- 
 
 2. Classicists and Purists. 
 
 But Spenser did not stand alone. The purification and 
 enrichment of the English language constituted one of the 
 burning questions of the day. Scholars, poets, university 
 wits, churchmen, and travelers — all had their contribution 
 to make, a contribution immediately subjected to the criti- 
 cism of the others. Sir Humphrey Gilbert anticipated 
 
 ^ Epistle addressed to Gabriel Harvey prefixed to the Shepherd's 
 Calendar by E, K. I assume that E. K. represents the opinions 
 of Spenser himself, whoever the writer of this apology may be. 
 
 ' Coleridge includes practically all the Faerie Queenc in his list 
 of the poetry which illustrates Wordsworth's ideal of a beautiful 
 diction which is, at the same time, the language of conversation. 
 'Spite of the licentiousness with which Spenser occasionally com- 
 pels the orthography of his words into a subservience to his rhymes, 
 the whole "Faery Queen" is an almost continued instance of this 
 beauty' — i. e. the beauty of verse 'in which everything was expressed 
 just as one would wish to talk, and yet all dignified, attractive, and 
 interesting.' — B. L. 2. 71. 
 
6 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 Dryden and Matthew Arnold in planning an English acad- 
 em}'^, for the purpose of developing the resources of the 
 vulgar tongue.^ Under the influence of similar efforts on 
 the Continent, Englishmen began to consider the develop- 
 ment of the national speech a patriotic duty. All flourish- 
 ing states and politic commonwealths, remarks Gabriel 
 Harvey," have made the most of their own languages. Italy, 
 Spain, and France have spared no efforts to exalt their 
 own tongues over those of Greece and Rome; only the 
 English are backward in this respect. And Ascham 
 observes that when a nation ceases to care for its own 
 speech, its strength and moral integrity decline. A rude 
 and disorderly style is a sign of a rude and disorderly 
 character.^ 
 
 The desired improvement had been partly attained 
 through the deliberate importation of words from other 
 languages, especially Latin. In 1542, at a meeting of 
 Convocation, Bishop Gardiner had presented a list of about 
 a hundred Latin words which he wished either retained in 
 their original form, in the proposed revision of the Great 
 Bible, 'for their genuine and native meaning, and for the 
 majesty of the matter in them contained,' or 'fitly Eng- 
 lished with the least alteration.'* Some of the proposed 
 additions are such familiar words as contrite (contritus), 
 idiot (idiota), baptize {haptizare), martyr, ceremony {cere- 
 monia), etc. Equally familiar to a reader of to-day are 
 many of the words 'new made ... of a Latin or 
 French word' employed by Sir Thomas Elyot in The Gov- 
 ernour, where he takes great care to provide a gloss in the 
 text itself by coupling with them words of the same mean- 
 
 ^ Moore, Tudor-Stuart Views, pp. 96, 168-169. 
 ^ Gregory Smith i. 123-124. 
 ^ Ibid. I. 6. Cf. Timber, ed. Schelling, p. 32. 
 
 * Tudor-Stuart Views, pp. 89-90. Moore quotes from Mombert, 
 English Versions of the Bible, 1907, pp. 230-231. 
 
POETIC DICTION IN OUR ELDER POETS 7 
 
 ing already in good use — 'animate or give courage/ 'good 
 kind or lineage,' 'facile or easy/ 'gross and ponderous' — or 
 by giving the definition — 'metamorphosis, which is as much 
 as to say the changing of man into other figure or form.'^ 
 But this zeal for patching the language with borrowings 
 from abroad, to which Spenser objected, was condemned by 
 men of scholarly instinct and training, like Sir John Cheke, 
 Roger Ascham, Gabriel Harvey, and Sir Philip Sidney, 
 who strove to do for the literary English of the Renaissance 
 what Wordsworth tried to do for the language of the 
 eighteenth century— -to purify it from the arbitrary con- 
 ceits and curious inventions in which the Elizabethan mind 
 rejoiced, and to make it correspond, as far as possible, to 
 the actual spoken vernacular. 'Among all other lessons 
 this should first be learned,' says Thomas Wilson in the 
 Arte of Rhetorique,^ 'that we never affect any strange ink- 
 horn terms, but so speak as is commonly received; neither 
 seeking to be over fine or yet living over careless, using 
 our speech as most men do, and ordering our wits as the 
 fewest have done.' This same idea reappears in the 
 remark attributed by Ascham to his master Sir John Cheke. 
 The excellence of the language of Caesar and Cicero, said 
 Sir John Cheke,^ was due to the fact that they were 'daily 
 orators amongst the common people and greatest counsel- 
 lors in the Senate house, and therefore gave themselves to 
 use such speech as the meanest should well understand and 
 the wisest best allow, following carefully that good counsel 
 of Aristotle, loquendum lit multi, sapiendum ut pauci.' 
 The result of this Elizabethan ideal in the poetry of the 
 next century was observed by Coleridge: 'In the elder 
 poets, from Donne to Cowley, we find the most fantastic, 
 out-of-the-way thoughts, but in the most pure and genuine 
 
 ^ Tudor-Stuart Views, pp. 82-89. 
 
 ^ Arte of Rhetorique, ed. Mair, p. 162. 
 
 ^Gregory Smith i. 40. 
 
8 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 mother English; in the modern poets the most obvious 
 thoughts in language the most fantastic and arbitrary.'^ 
 The ideal of loquendum ut multi was applied to verse as 
 well as to prose. Nothing was more sacred to the scholarly 
 critics of verse in the sixteenth century, who were prepar- 
 ing the way for the marvelous flowering of the English 
 genius in Shakespeare and his brother poets, than the idiom 
 of the vernacular — those characteristic turns of speech 
 which own no law but the habit of the people, what a 
 Wordsworth of that day might have meant by 'language 
 actually used by men.' 'Eschew strange words,' says 
 Gascoigne,- 'or obsoleta et inusita, unless the theme do give 
 just occasion. . . . You shall do very well to use your 
 verse after the English phrase, and not after the manner 
 of other languages. . . . Even as I have advised you 
 to place all words in their natural and most common or 
 usual pronunciation, so I would wish to frame all sen- 
 tences in their mother phrase and proper idioma. Similarly 
 Harvey objects to Spenser's altering the quantity of any 
 one syllable otherwise than as 'our common speech and 
 general received custom' will bear him out. 'We are not 
 to go a little farther . . . than we are licensed and 
 authorized by the ordinary use, and custom, and propriety, 
 and idiom, and, as it were, the majesty of our speech, which 
 I account the only infallible and sovereign Rule of all 
 Rules,' he says, referring Spenser to Horace's penes usum, 
 and ius, and norma loquendi.^ This philosophy was 
 expressed in more violent terms in the famous controversy 
 between Nash and Harvey, in which each sent his opponent 
 a list of his offenses against the sacred 'majesty of our 
 
 B. L. I. 15. Cf. Schopenhaur, 'A poet should think like a genius, 
 but talk the same language as any one else'— a saying used by A. J. 
 George to illustrate Wordsworth's ideal of expression. See Words- 
 worth's Prefaces, pp. 105-106. 
 
 ^ Gregory Smith i. 52-53. 
 
 ^ Ibid. I. 117-119. 
 
POETIC DICTION IN 'OUR ELDER POETS' 9 
 
 Speech/ and loudly accused him of being that most 
 detestable of all literary criminals — an inkhornist.^ 
 
 Nevertheless, these defenders of the idiom are the clas- 
 sicists of the day, opposing to every innovation not only 
 the law of their own language, but the shining examples 
 of antiquity. Yet theirs is a vital and wholesome classicism, 
 which looks, not to the letter, but to the spirit, of the law, 
 and really succeeds in translating the advice of Cicero, 
 Horace, and Quintilian into terms of their own needs 
 and experience. What could be more sensible than 
 Ascham's remarks on the style of the Latin classics? He 
 reminds his countrymen that the excellence of Cicero's 
 language was not something peculiar to himself — a literary 
 achievement; it was the reflection of the conversation of 
 the cultivated men of his time. The style of Cicero's let- 
 ters, he observes, differs very little from the style of those 
 who wrote to him. Behind the eloquence of Cicero, and 
 the chaste and simple diction of Terence, lies a good habit 
 of daily speech, 'the pure fine talk of Rome, which was 
 used by the flower of the worthiest nobility that ever Rome 
 bred.'^ Sir Philip Sidney represents the same classical 
 good sense, before it had become so rigid and self-com- 
 placent that it had ceased to be sensible at all. It leads 
 him, not only into a mild objection to Spenser's archaisms, 
 but to an anticipation of tw^o of the leading principles of 
 Wordsworth's criticism. Quite in the spirit of the Appen- 
 dix on Poetic Diction, he censures imitators of the classics 
 for reproducing the peculiarities which, in Cicero, are the 
 natural expression of genuine passion, when there is no 
 passion to be expressed. And so, he says, 'they do that 
 artificially v/hich we see men do in choler naturally.'^ Had 
 
 ^ Ibid. 2. 275. 
 
 'Gregory Smith i. 28. 
 
 ^ Ibid. I. 202. Cf. Wordsworth: 'The earliest poets of all 
 nations generally wrote from passion excited by real events ; 
 they wrote naturally, and as men : feeling powerfully as they did, 
 their language was daring and figurative. In later times, Poets, 
 
lO WORDSWORTH S THEORY OF POETIC DICTION 
 
 critics and poets always retained this vivid consciousness 
 that the classical writers were men like themselves, speak- 
 ing 'naturally and as men/ instead of dead models of a 
 perfect excellence, the utterances of Wordsworth would 
 have been less necessary, and would have seemed less 
 revolutionary. Again, Sidney anticipates Wordsworth in 
 his method of testing verse by writing it into prose. 
 Besides Chaucer's Troilus, the Mirror of Magistrates, and 
 the Shepherd's Calendar, he remembered few verses that 
 had poetical sinews in them ; 'for proof whereof,' he says, 
 iet but most of the verses be put in prose, and then ask 
 the meaning; and it will be found that one verse did but 
 beget another, without ordering at the first what should be 
 at the last; which becomes a confused mass of words with 
 a tingling sound of rime, barely accompanied with reason.'^ 
 However, we cannot say that the two doctrines especially 
 associated with the name of Wordsworth appear in Eliza- 
 bethan literary criticism in quite the form in which they are 
 generally understood by his readers. The 'common use' 
 or 'common speech' so often referred to is not strictly the 
 language of conversation in the lower and middle classes. 
 Though Wilson seems to object to the formation of a 
 literary language, as opposed to the language of country- 
 folk,2 and Spenser implies that the well of English unde- 
 filed may be sought, in some instances, among the 
 peasantry, Puttenham's definition of standard English — a 
 selection of the real language of well-bred men within a 
 radius of sixty miles around London^ — seems to be the 
 
 and Men ambitious of the fame of Poets, perceiving the influence 
 of such language, and desirous of producing the same effect with- 
 out being animated by the same passion, set themsehes to a mechan- 
 ical adoption of these figures of speech, and made use of them, 
 sometimes with propriety, but much more frequently applied them 
 to feelings and thoughts with which they had no natural connexion 
 whatsoever.' — Appendix to Lyrical Ballads of 1802. 
 
 ^ Gregory Smith i. 196. 
 
 ^ Arte of Rhetorique, p. 164. 
 
 ^Gregory Smith 2. 150. 
 
POETIC DICTION IN 'OUR ELDER POETS' II 
 
 accepted one. But these well-bred men are not pedants or 
 university wits. They are men of affairs who speak clearly 
 and intelligently, with more regard for matter than for 
 words. Hence what Wordsworth perhaps was really 
 seeking— a speech which was universally intelligible, and 
 not the arbitrary creation of poets — was also the goal of 
 these stout defenders of the 'common use' and the 
 'generally received custom.' 
 
 Again, though Dr. Johnson^ says that before Dryden 
 there was no poetical diction, no system of words especially 
 refined and appropriated to poetry, it is generally imaplied 
 in Elizabethan criticism that there is some difference, apart 
 from metre, between the language of prose and the lan- 
 guage of verse. Verse, says Puttenham,^ is *a manner of 
 utterance more eloquent and rhetorical than the ordinary 
 prose which we use in our daily talk, because it is decked 
 and set out with all manner of fresh colors and figures, 
 which maketh that it sooner inveigleth the judgement of 
 men, and carrieth their opinion this way and that, whither- 
 soever the heart by the impression of the ear shall be most 
 affectionately bent and directed.' Nevertheless, though as 
 much difference as this definition suggests is generally 
 taken for granted, the efforts to purify the literary language 
 are apparently directed toward prose and verse alike, and 
 the same standard is usually applied to both.^ This stand- 
 ard is to be found both in Horace's Art of Poetry, and in 
 Cicero's Orator and Quintilian's Institutes of Oratory.^ 
 The transference to verse of the ideal of a pure and 
 universally intelligible diction which the greatest of Roman 
 
 '^Dryden {Lives, ed. Hill, i. 420). 
 
 ^ Gregory Smith 2. 8-9. 
 
 ^ Gascoigne says : 'You may use the same figures or tropes in 
 verse which are used in prose.' — Gregory Smith i. 52. 
 
 * The references to these authorities in EHzabethan criticism are 
 too numerous to reproduce here. They may be found by consult- 
 ing the excellent index at the end of the second volume of Eliza- 
 bethan Critical Essays. 
 
12 WORDSWORTH'S THEORY OF POETIC DICTION 
 
 orators had acquired from a study of the Greek classics, 
 on the one hand, and from his own experience as a 'daily 
 orator among the common people,' on the other hand, 
 tended to maintain a wholesome relation between poetry 
 and prose. 
 
 The peculiar vitality of the Elizabethan classicism, crude 
 as it was — this sense of a living contact of man with man 
 in discipleship — enabled the critics of the age to approach 
 more nearly to the spirit of their teachers than did many 
 who felt themselves better instructed. Their faith in the 
 necessity of preserving the native idiom at all costs, and of 
 modifying the method of the Latin writers to serve their 
 own purpose, nearly resembled the attitude of their masters 
 to Greek — the attitude of Cicero, especially. He had 
 always emphasized the necessity of following the law of his 
 own language, inferior as it was by nature, and of admit- 
 ting no foreign splendor incompatible with it. Those who 
 had learned this lesson from him had learned something 
 far better than a servile regard for correctness, and the 
 disposition, not wholly unknown in antiquity, to plunder 
 the classics of every figure of speech and every flower of 
 poesy, and deck out their own verse in the unnatural spoils. 
 This vital relation to Greek, and especially to Latin, poetry 
 and literary criticism also enabled the Elizabethan critics to 
 reproduce without too much exaggeration the classical 
 attitude to verse and prose. This had more and more 
 tended to emphasize the essential community between the 
 two types of expression, without, however, failing to 
 recognize the differences resulting sometimes from a dif- 
 ference in purpose, and always from a difference in the 
 associations and the external effect of the medium. Thus 
 the relation of the more scholarly Elizabethans to their 
 ancient models was somewhat like the relation of Sidney's 
 ideal poet to Nature. Lifted in the glory of their own 
 freedom, they were preparing themselves to go hand in 
 hand with the classics, not bound within the narrow war- 
 
POETIC DICTION IN 'OUR ELDER POETS' 1 3 
 
 ranty of their masters' gifts, but freely ranging only within 
 the zodiac of their own wit. 
 
 J. The Heirs of the Elizabethan Tradition in the 
 Seventeenth Century. 
 
 In the seventeenth century this wholesome Elizabethan 
 tradition comes to a rather violent end — not to be revived 
 again until the days of Coleridge and Wordsworth ; and 
 what Coleridge calls the second period of our language 
 begins with the criticism and poetry of Dryden. During 
 the earlier part of the century the Elizabethan ideals were 
 maintained, not only by the plain and manly classicism of 
 Ben Jonson, whom Dryden regarded as his master, but by 
 two lesser poets, Drayton and Daniel, who made a peculiar 
 appeal to Wordsworth and Coleridge, and w^ere consciously 
 imitated by them. Ben Jonson was apparently less attrac- 
 tive to the poets of the Lyrical Ballads, because he lacked 
 the tenderness of heart that was associated with Words- 
 worth's ideal of simple expression ; but he, too, battled 
 bravely with the besetting sins of English style, and 
 sought, in his own incomparable phrase, to 'redeem arts 
 from their rough and braky seats, where they lay hid and 
 overgrown with thorns, to a pure, open, and flowery light, 
 where they may take the eye and be taken by the hand.'^ 
 But in this effort he did not strive to lift the literary 
 language too far above the understanding of the vulgar 
 multitude, whom, nevertheless, he frankly scorned. 'Pure 
 and neat language I love,' he says, 'but plain and cus- 
 tomary.'^ This plain and customary style, which resulted 
 from the striving after the golden mean in speech as well 
 as in the rule of life, in Jonson's own time did not wholly 
 escape the censure directed against simplicity in Words- 
 worth's day. 'The true artificer will not run away from 
 
 ' Timber, ed. Schelling, p. 7. 
 ^Ihid., p. 59. 
 
14 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 Nature as if he were afraid of her/ he observes, *or 
 depart from Ufe and the Ukeness of truth, but speak to the 
 capacity of his hearers. And though his language differ 
 from the vulgar somewhat, it shall not fly from all humanity, 
 with the Tamerlanes and the Tamer-chams of the late age, 
 which had nothing in them but the scenical strutting and 
 vociferation to warrant them to the ignorant gapers. . . . 
 In the meantime, perhaps, he is called barren, dull, lean, a 
 poor writer, or by what contumelious word can come in 
 their cheeks, by these men who without labor, judgment, 
 knowledge, or almost sense, are received or preferred before 
 him. He gratulates them and their fortune. Another 
 age or juster men will acknowledge the virtues of his 
 studies.'^ This suggests the very tone of Wordsworth 
 with reference to the more popular and showy graces of 
 Scott and Byron. Jonson's scorn of rhetoric 'that cannot 
 suffer the sun or a shower, nor bear the open air,' his 
 liking for 'strength and sinews' in verse or prose, echo 
 Sidney, and anticipate the emphasis of Wordsworth and 
 Coleridge on poetic substance — that substratum of fact and 
 sense in verse which remains when it is turned into prose, 
 or subjected to the test of intellectual analysis. 
 
 Meanwhile Drayton, too, was looking back with some 
 complacency to the passing of the violent splendors of the 
 'Tamerlanes and Tamer-chams of the late age,' and the 
 banishing of superfluous alliteration, forced antitheses, 
 and far-fetched similitudes from a ridiculous natural his- 
 tory, which Euphues had made popular, and Sir Philip 
 Sidney had striven to laugh out of existence. Sidney, 
 writes Drayton,^ 
 
 throughly pac'd our language, as to show- 
 That plenteous English hand in hand might go 
 With Greek and Latin, and did first reduce 
 Our tongue from Lillie's writing then in use. 
 
 ^ Timber, ed. Schelling, pp. 26-27. 
 ^ Spingarn i. 137. 
 
POETIC DICTION IN 'oUR ELDER POETS 15 
 
 By its effect upon Wordsworth, Drayton's own energetic 
 and manly, though not highly poetic, style, illustrative of 
 the purified Elizabethan diction, furnishes another link 
 between the ideals of this age and those of the reforma- 
 tion at the beginning of the nineteenth century. A still 
 greater favorite with Wordsworth was Samuel Daniel, 
 w^ho, as Drayton said, wrote pure and excellent English, 
 though his 'manner better fitted prose.' In Wordsworth's 
 eyes this reputation for a diction too unadorned was 
 naturally no discredit. Both in his literary criticism and 
 in his own poetry, Daniel represented the native tradition, 
 in opposition to those who had too fond a regard for alien 
 elegancies. The ideal which Harvey, Spenser, and Sidney 
 had applied to language, while they rather inconsistently 
 dallied with classical metres, Daniel, in his controversy 
 with Campion, applied to versification also. Every tongue, 
 he says, has not only its own idiom, but its own peculiar 
 music, endeared to the hearts of the people through long 
 association. If we speak the language of our own people, 
 why should we not sing the tunes of our people too? Let 
 us keep our 'tinkerly sound' of rhyme despite the Greeks 
 and the Romans, and cease this attempt to tune our ears 
 to foreign harmonies.^ In substituting the simple melody 
 of the old popular ballads, and all the varied rhythms in 
 which lyrical emotion naturally expresses itself, for the 
 regular music of the heroic couplet, Wordsworth had 
 worked in the spirit of this creed, though his objection to 
 Pope's versification was only a corollary to his main thesis. 
 Meanwhile, the eternal adversary of pure English style, 
 having been partly conquered in the form of Euphuisji, 
 reappeared in a new shape in the metaphysical poets, 
 and left lingering traces of itself in the quaint and 
 balanced prose of Sir Thomas Browne and his school. The 
 fault of the metaphysical poets was not that they did not 
 speak genuine English, but that they did not speak the 
 
 ^ Gregory Smith 2. 356-384. 
 
1 6 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 'genuine language of passion.'^ Nevertheless, in their pur- 
 suit of far-fetched similes and out-of-way thoughts, they 
 displayed an intellectual power and a clearness of conception 
 which kept Wordsworth and Coleridge from a wholesale 
 condemnation of them. 'Read all Cowley ; he is very valu- 
 able to a collector of English sound sense,' said Words- 
 worth, who nevertheless condemned the taste of an age in 
 which the booksellers' stalls in London swarmed with the 
 folios of this 'able writer and amiable man', while Milton 
 was neglected.^ But in Cowley's own age the metaphysical 
 school did not escape the censure that always awaits 
 offenders against Nature and simplicity, popular as they too 
 often are. The rough versification of Donne, of whom 
 Ben Jonson said that 'for not keeping the accent he deserved 
 hanging,'^ the wild metres of Cowley's Pindaric odes, and 
 what Addison called the general Gothicism of taste 
 among these curious thinkers, began to weary the gay 
 spirits of the Restoration; and they turned with relief to 
 the easy and mellifluous couplets of Waller, which 
 demanded no effort on the part of the reader either to 
 scan them or to comprehend their meaning. Thence came 
 that mighty reform which in a single generation rendered 
 the style of all English poetry hitherto hopelessly anti- 
 quated, and in 1675, the year after Milton's death, had 
 produced an almost complete silence of all singers 'beyond 
 the verge of the present age.'* 
 
 4. Milton. 
 
 • But before we consider this new school of poetry and 
 poetic diction, which prevailed down to the time of Words- 
 worth, and against which his criticism was chiefly directed, 
 
 JB.L. I. 15. 
 
 " Essay Supplementary to the Preface. 
 
 ^ Spingarn i. 211. 
 
 ^ Ibid. 2. 263. 
 
POETIC DICTION IN 'oUR ELDER POETS 17 
 
 we must turn aside for a moment to do honor to the 
 splendid and lonely figure of Milton. It is not inappro- 
 priate that this brief mention of him should seem like a 
 digression, an interruption of the main course of the dis- 
 cussion. Despite his manifold relations to literature and 
 the political life of his own time, he seems to stand apart — 
 to represent ideals which are peculiarly his own, and not, 
 as in the case of Spenser and Shakespeare, simply the 
 most glorious expression of a spirit common to a whole 
 literary group. But this appearance of loneliness is due 
 to the fact that Milton's proper background is not England 
 alone, but the Continent. In spite of his intense patriotism, 
 he thinks of himself as one of a European commonwealth 
 of scholars and poets. As such he is not only an EngUsh- 
 man, but a representative of England. When we place him 
 where he consciously belonged, in the main stream of the 
 European Renaissance, we discover that he too is express- 
 ing, in terms of his continental relationships, the ideal 
 which we have discovered in the most fruitful Elizabethan 
 criticism, as well as in the prefaces of Wordsworth. Like 
 his Italian masters, he thinks of the cultivated and literary 
 language at his command as being, not a certain kind of 
 English, but Latin ; and the speech of the people as being, 
 not the language of the country as opposed to that of the 
 town, or the language of unaffected, well-bred men as 
 opposed to the language of wits or pedants, but the whole 
 of the English language as compared with the universal 
 literary medium of Europe. When the choice between this 
 literary language and the spoken vernacular is thus pre- 
 sented to his mind, he unhesitatingly elects the latter. *I 
 applied myself to that resolution which Ariosto followed 
 against the persuasion of Bembo,' he says,^ *to fix all the 
 industry and art I could unite to the adorning of my native 
 tongue; not to make verbal curiosities the end (that were 
 a toilsome vanity) ; but to be an interpreter and relater of 
 
 ^ Spingarn i. 195. 
 
i8 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 the best and sagest things among mine own citizens 
 throughout this island in the mother dialect. That what 
 the greatest and choicest wits of Athens, Rome, or modern 
 Italy, and those Hebrews of old, did for their country, I, 
 in my proportion, with this over and above of being a 
 Christian, might do for mine ; not caring to be once named 
 abroad, though perhaps I could attain to that, but content 
 with these British islands as my world.' This sentiment 
 was read and echoed by Wordsworth, who consciously tried 
 to take up the work of Milton, and to carry out some of his 
 plans for relating the best and sagest things among his 
 own citizens.^ Hence, even Milton, whose diction is the 
 very antithesis of the 'language of conversation in the 
 lower and middle classes,' and who certainly was respon- 
 sible for some of the dulcia vitia in the poetry of the eigh- 
 teenth century, proves upon examination to hold an ideal 
 not altogether different from that of Wordsworth. The 
 difference in their application of it was due to the immense 
 range of Milton's historical and geographical imagination, 
 and to his cosmopolitan culture. What a little group of 
 lakes and hills was to Wordsworth, 'these British islands' 
 were to Milton. He could localize his conceptions no 
 further. As Wordsworth modifies the language of con- 
 versation in order to give it the melody and grace of the 
 English poets whom he loves, so Milton raises and har- 
 monizes the homely or over-luxuriant vernacular to the 
 dignity of Greek and Latin. 
 
 ^ See Prelude i. 168-169, and the brief preface to Artegal and 
 Elidure. 
 
CHAPTER 2. 
 
 POETIC DICTION IN 'MODERN TIMES/ 
 
 Milton was the last of the elder poets. Even in his 
 own lifetime, a reform had begun which was to render him 
 almost as obsolete as Spenser and Shakespeare. Despite 
 the efforts of the Elizabethan classicists and purists, Eng- 
 lish poetry hitherto had never attained to that even sim- 
 plicity which had been the ideal of many. There were still 
 'rough and braky seats' between its purple patches of 
 flowery bloom. In Shakespeare there is no such relation 
 between taste and genius, inspiration and moderating good 
 sense, the glowing inner life and the gracious external 
 manner, as that which we find in the tragedies of Sopho- 
 cles; even in Milton there is an occcasional harshness and 
 irregularity of style which seems crude beside the bright 
 and limpid verse of Homer.^ As the first flush of the won- 
 derful creative energy of the Renaissance died away, this 
 disproportion became more and more evident.^ It was 
 
 ^ From the standpoint of the new school of poetic diction, Phillips, 
 Milton's nephew, refers to 'Spenser, with all his rusty, obsolete 
 words' and his 'rough hewn, clouterly verses,' and Shakespeare 
 'with all his unfiled expressions' and his 'rambling and indigested 
 fancies' (Spingarn 2. 271). Dryden speaks in a similar tone, 
 though in somewhat less picturesque terms : 'Yet it must be allowed 
 to the present age that the tongue in general is so much refined 
 since Shakespeare's time that many of his words, and more of his 
 phrases, are scarce intelligible. And, of those which we understand, 
 some are ungrammatical, others coarse, and his whole style is so 
 pestered with figurative expressions that it is as affected as it is 
 obscure' (Ker i. 203). 
 
 " Sprat's analysis of the influence of the Civil Wars upon the 
 language is interesting in this connection : 'The truth is, it has 
 hitherto been a little too carelessly handled, and, I think, has had 
 less labor spent about its polishing than it deserves. Till the time 
 of King Henry the Eighth, there was scarce any man regarded it 
 but Chaucer, and nothing was written in it which one would be 
 
20 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 then discovered that, while poets had been singing so 
 sweetly, and speaking so clearly and well, the laws of 
 English prosody and grammar had never been really 
 defined.^ Each man had found them out for himself. The 
 treatises of Gascoigne and Puttenham had been individual 
 
 willing to read twice but some of his poetry. But then it began 
 to raise itself a little, and to sound tolerably well. From that age 
 down to our late Civil Wars, it was still fashioning and beautifying 
 itself. In the wars themselves (.which is a time wherein all lan- 
 guages use, if ever, to increase by extraordinary degrees, for in 
 such busy and active times there arise more new thoughts of men 
 which must be signified and varied by new expressions), then, I say, 
 it received many fantastical terms, which were introduced by our 
 religious sects, and many outlandish phrases, which several writers 
 and translators in that great hurry brought in and made free as they 
 pleased, and withal it was enlarged by many sound and necessary 
 forms and idioms. . . . And now, when men's minds are somewhat 
 settled and their passions allayed, ... if some sober and judicious 
 men would take the whole mass of our language into their hands 
 as they find it, and would set a mark on the ill words, correct those 
 which are to be retained, admit and establish the good, and make 
 some emendations in the accent and grammar, I dare pronounce 
 that our speech would quickly arrive at as much plenty as it is 
 capable to receive, and at the greatest smoothness which its deriva- 
 tion from the rough German will allow it' — Spingarn 2. Ii3-I4- 
 
 ^ See William Wotton's review of English grammar down to 
 1694 (Spingarn 3. 224-225). He says very sensibly: 'For, in the 
 first place, it ought to be considered that every tongue has its own 
 peculiar form as well as its proper words, not communicable to, 
 nor to be regulated by the analogy of another language; where- 
 fore he is the best grammarian who is the perfectest master of 
 the analogy of the language which he is about, and gives the truest 
 rules by which another man may learn it. Next, to apply this to 
 our own tongue, it may certainly be affirmed that the grammar 
 of English is so far our own that skill in the learned languages is 
 not necessary to comprehend it Ben Jonson was the first man that 
 I know of that did anything considerable in it; but Lyly's grammar 
 was his pattern, and for want of reflecting upon the grounds of a 
 language which he understood as well as any man of his age, he 
 drew it by violence to a dead language that was of a different make, 
 and so left his work imperfect' Some years before this (in 1679) 
 Dryden had written: 'In the age of that poet [^schylus] the 
 
POETIC DICTION IN MODERN TIMES 21 
 
 efforts only; there had been no general and consistent 
 attempt on the part of the whole literary world to discover 
 exactly what constituted the virtues and vices of poetic 
 style. If the classical and puristic criticism, which had 
 hitherto been the organizing and restraining influence in 
 English verse, was not to fail entirely, it must cease to be 
 general and spasmodic. It was now necessary to descend 
 to minutiae, and to develop a standard so narrow and defi- 
 nite that its demands should be always quite unmistakable. 
 It was not enough to say that poets should make a judicious 
 selection from the spoken language. All the literary 
 expressions that did not occur in that language must be 
 interdicted one by one, specifically and by name; and the 
 interpretation of the phrase, 'judicious selection', must not 
 be left to the judgment of every scribbler. The wild 
 individualism of the metaphysical school had shown that 
 private judgments were not to be trusted. 
 
 Hence came the reform of Dryden and his school. They 
 did not invent a new standard; they merely tried to make 
 the Latin standard inherited from Sidney through Ben 
 Jonson as specific and practical as possible. It was the old 
 war, conducted with slightly different tactics, on the old 
 enemy in a new guise, with substantial re-enforcements 
 from France. Even before the Revolution the sons of Ben, 
 with their doughty sire, had begun to anticipate the con- 
 ception of a more chastened style and a smoother versi- 
 fication.^ Ben Jonson seemed to Dryden to illustrate the 
 
 Greek language was arrived to its full perfection ; they had amongst 
 them an exact standard of writing and speaking. The English 
 language is not capable of such certainty; and we are so far 
 from it that we are wanting in the very foundation of it, a perfect 
 grammar' (Preface to Troilus and Cressida, Ker i. 203). In 1693 
 he wrote: 'We have yet no English prosodia, not so much as 
 a tolerable dictionary, or a grammar; so that our language is in a 
 manner barbarous' {ibid. 2. no). 
 
 ' See Schelling, 'Ben Jonson and the Classical School,' Pub. Mod. 
 Lang. Assoc. 13. 235. 
 
22 WORDSWORTH S THEORY OF POETIC DICTION 
 
 ideal of correctness which was to dominate the eighteenth 
 century. Jonson, he said, 'is to be admired for many 
 excellencies; and can be taxed with fewer failings than 
 any English poet.'^ But to the Horatian criticism of the 
 royal Ben was now added the Horatian criticism of Mal- 
 herbe and Boileau and the new French Academy,^ which 
 insisted on the need of discarding the tawdry and outworn 
 decorations of the old poetic diction, in favor of a judicious 
 selection from the spoken language. In England, as in 
 France, *an attack was directed against distortions and 
 intricacies in all forms of literature. The substitution of 
 general for technical terms and imagery, the elimination of 
 the Latin coinage of Browne and his school, . . . the 
 attempt to make literature approximate more and more to 
 conversation, the trend toward precision of word and 
 idea — these are different phases of the same movement, 
 and all find reasoned expression in the criticism of the 
 period.'^ A certain sobriety and externality in the new 
 criticism was mainly due to the loss of energy which had 
 made the reform necessary and possible. The splendor and 
 bravery of the old lawlessness was gone, and with it some 
 of the freedom and spirit which had animated the stout 
 defenders of the law. But the vivid animation was no 
 longer necessary. Henceforth there was to be a steady and 
 peaceable conquest. 
 
 The relation of the criticism of Dryden and Pope to the 
 age of Shakespeare and the aberrations of the metaphysical 
 school may be best described in the language of Petit de 
 JuUeville concerning the relation of Malherbe and Boileau 
 
 ^Ker I. 138. Dryden notes also that Jonson 'did a little too 
 much Romanize our tongue.' — Ibid. i. 82. 
 
 ^ 'La principale fonction de I'Academie sera de travailler avec 
 tout le soin et toute la diligence possible, a donner des regies cer- 
 taines a notre langue, et a la rendre pure, eloquente et capable de 
 traiter les arts et les sciences.' — Quoted by Petit de JuUeville from 
 the statutes of the Academy, Histoire 4. 138. 
 
 ^ Spingarn, p. xlviii. 
 
POETIC DICTION IN MODERN TIMES 23 
 
 to the poetry of the Pleiade. The situation is almost 
 exactly parallel. 'Ce n'est point manquer de respect a Mal- 
 herbe, ni d'admiration pour son oeuvre que de dire: apres 
 I'effort violent, tumultueux, desordonne de la Pleiade et de 
 cette foule de poetes qu'elle suscita derriere elle, il etait 
 natural que le gout public, un peu fatigue par les hardi- 
 esses des novateurs, se montrat dispose a favoriser sur- 
 tout des qualites toutes differentes: une facture ferme et 
 soutenue dans le vers, fiit-elle un peu monotone; une 
 ordonnance reguliere dans la composition, dut le poete y 
 montrer plus de sagesse dans le raisonnement que de 
 vivacite d'imagination ; une langue reguliere, sobre et 
 chatiee, tout opposee a I'exuberance de Ronsard et de son 
 ecole. Malherbe repondit merveilleusement a cette dis- 
 position generale des esprits, prets a goiiter paisiblement 
 un excellent ecrivain en vers, plutot qu' a suivre dans les 
 nues un grand poete intemperant.'^ 
 
 In England the poets who marvelously responded to the 
 demands of the change in public taste were those rather 
 insignificant versifiers, Waller and Denham^ ; and to them, 
 accordingly, the credit of the reform was generally given. 
 But, as Dr. Johnson points otit, the authority of such natur- 
 ally minor persons would have been ineffectual without the 
 powerful support of Dryden. Enlisting under the banners 
 of Aristotle, Horace, Ben Jonson, and Corneille, he began 
 a mighty onslaught on the sins of the old poetic diction, 
 and inaugurated at once the modern period of English 
 prose and the age of the heroic couplet. But Dryden's 
 own heedless practice was not the best possible recommen- 
 dation of 'correctness.* It was not until the patiently 
 
 ^ Histoire 4. i. This chapter is by Petit de Julleville himself. 
 
 ^ 'After about a half a century of forced thoughts and rugged 
 metres some advances toward nature and harmony had been made 
 by Waller and Denham.' — Life of Dryden (Lives i. 419). See ibid. 
 I. 393, notes I and 6, for a list of some of the numerous references 
 in the eighteenth century to Denham's strength and Waller's 
 sweetness. 
 
24 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 artistic Pope took up the good work that the triumph of 
 the new style was complete. In the development of the art 
 and fame of Pope, and the reaction against Pope, are 
 summed up the whole history of English literature between 
 Milton and Wordsworth. The period ended in a wholesale 
 abolishment of poetic diction, and a return to the spoken 
 language as the source and standard of literary expression. 
 We do not usually recall that it began in exactly the same 
 manner. 
 
 I. The Development of the School of Pope. 
 
 Although Dryden and Pope were later celebrated as the 
 discoverers of those elegances and flowers of speech on 
 which the eighteenth century especially plumed itself,^ 
 these were an indirect result of their practice, rather than 
 a direct aim of their criticism. The point was not to 
 develop a new poetic diction, but to get rid of an old one ; 
 and the attempt was chiefly directed against what all must 
 admit to be vices in any style — careless workmanship, and 
 a system of antiquated words or forms of words which 
 did not correspond to the language as it was actually 
 spoken. In both cases the effort was negative rather than 
 positive, characterized by Thou shalt nots rather than by 
 Thou shahs. 
 
 The desire to avoid careless workmanship — to trust noth- 
 ing to the caprice of the poet — led to the development of 
 a standard metre, the heroic couplet, which had been a 
 
 ^ 'There was, therefore, before the time of Dryden no poetical 
 diction, no system of words at once refined from the grossness of 
 domestic use, and free from the harshness of terms appropriated 
 to particular arts. . . , Those happy combinations of words 
 which distinguish poetry from prose had rarely been attempted; 
 we had few elegances or flowers of speech ; the roses had not yet 
 been plucked from the bramble, or different colors had not yet 
 been joined to enliven one another.' — Dryden {Lives i. 420). 
 
POETIC DICTION IN MODERN TIMES 25 
 
 favorite with Ben Jonson/ and had become increasingly 
 popular through the century. The rules for the manipu- 
 lation of this type of verse became so strict that the art of 
 packing thoughts and feelings of every sort into these 
 neat lines w^ithout any apparent difficulty might seem to 
 demand a miracle of ingenuity.- In the first place, the 
 poet must close the sense with the couplet. These couplets 
 he must make metrically readable, without departing from 
 the normal character and relation of words in prose. He 
 must invert the order as little as possible,^ and must avoid 
 the use of words unnecessary to the sense, or forms that 
 had become obsolete. Under this latter type were included 
 the expletive do,"^ and the old ending of the second and 
 third person of the present indicative est^ and eth. 
 Moreover, the versification must be not only readable, but 
 distinctly melodious to the ear.^ There must be no hiatus," 
 no wearisome repetition of the same vowel, no clash of 
 
 ^ 'Aside from his strictly lyrical verse, in which Jonson shared the 
 metrical inventiveness of his age, the decasyllabic rimed couplet 
 was all but his constant measure.' Schelling, 'Ben Jonson and the 
 Classical School/ Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc. 13. 235, 
 
 ^ See Pope's letter on versification, Letters i. 56-59. 
 
 ^ Cf . the Earl of Musgrave's Essay upon Poetry (Spingarn 2, 
 288) : 
 
 Th' expression easy, and the fancy high. 
 
 Yet that not seems to creep, nor this to fly; 
 
 No words transpos'd, but in such just cadence 
 
 As though, hard .wrought, may seem th' effect of chance. 
 
 * Dr. Johnson censures Waller for using the expletive do very 
 frequently, 'though he lived to see it almost universally ejected.' — 
 Waller (Lives i. 294). Cf. Pope, Essay on Criticism 347. Dryden 
 is not careful to avoid the expletive; there are four examples of it 
 in the first fifteen lines of Absalom and Achitophel. 
 
 ^ 'He sometimes uses the obsolete termination of verbs,' says 
 Dr. Johnson of Waller, mentioning this as another 'abatement' of 
 his 'excellence in versification.' 
 
 ® Pope, Essay on Criticism 364. 
 
 ^ Ibid. 345: 'Though oft the ear the open vowels tire.' But cf. 
 his remarks on hiatus, Letters i. 58. Pope says that in all Mal- 
 herbe's poems he found but one example of hiatus. — Letters i. 78. 
 
26 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 consonants; the music must be full, clear, and continually 
 varied.^ The rhyme must be exact,- and must fall on 
 naturally accented syllables, not on weak words like of, to, 
 etc. If to all these virtues the poet could add the sweet- 
 ness of alliteration, for which Waller was famed, and the 
 onomatopoeic skill displayed by Dryden in his song for 
 St. Cecilia's day, and by Pope in his Essay on Criticism, 
 he was in a fair way to escape the censure that awaited 
 the careless craftsman. To be a good craftsman, a thor- 
 ough master of the technique of rhyming, was the chief 
 ambition of the poets of the new generation. For it they 
 were willing to surrender all claim to those rarer graces 
 that lie beyond the reach of art. 
 
 While this emphasis upon correctness and polish in 
 versification naturally led to a similar emphasis in the 
 choice of words, the reform began in France with a notable 
 anticipation of Wordsworth's preference for the language 
 of the lower and middle classes. Of the literary principles 
 of Malherbe, Petit de Julleville writes^:' *Elle se reduit a 
 un petit nombre de preceptes, plutot negatifs; comme de 
 decrire les choses par leur traits les plus generaux; de 
 relever seulement, par une harmonic savante et un habile 
 arrangement, des idees et expressions si simples qu'en des 
 mains moins adroites elles sembleraient purement pro- 
 saiques. Cette simplicite presque banale des termes 
 
 ^ 'T is all we can do to give sufficient sweetness to our language : 
 we must not only choose our words for elegance, but for sound; 
 to perform which a mastery in the language is required ; but the 
 poet must have a magazine of words, and have the art to manage 
 his few vowels to the best advantage, that they may go further. 
 He must also know the nature of the vowels, which are more 
 sonorous, and which more soft and sweet.' — Ker 2. 215-216. 
 
 ^ See Johnson's remarks on Waller's rhymes. — Waller (Lives i. 
 294). Pope's rhymes were not always exact; see the list of inexact 
 rhymes in the concordance to Pope. Klopstock remarked upon 
 Dryden's carelessness in this respect to Wordsworth, who defended 
 Dryden.— 5. L. 2. 178. 
 
 ^ Histoire 4. 9-10. 
 
POETIC DICTION IN MODERN TIMES 27 
 
 employes lui faisait dire que "les crocheteurs du Port au 
 Foin etaient ses maitres en fait de langage/' ' As Mal- 
 herbe sought his language among the 'crocheteurs/ the 
 Royal Society in England turned to the language of 'arti- 
 sans, country-men, and merchants' for clear and effective 
 expression.^ Although the Royal Society was interested in 
 the simplification of English prose style for the sake of 
 scientific clearness, rather than of artistic beauty, it helped 
 to establish a new ideal. The sins of English prose were 
 the sins of English verse also; and Sprat's criticism of the 
 misuse of ornament in the one was equally applicable to 
 the other. 
 
 The ornaments of speech have much degenerated from 
 their original use, writes Sprat.- 'They were at first, no 
 doubt, an admirable instrument in the hands of wise men ; 
 when they were only employed to describe goodness, 
 honesty, obedience, in larger, fairer, and more moving 
 images, to represent truth clothed with bodies, and to bring 
 knowledge back again to our very senses, from whence it 
 was at first derived to our understandings. But now they 
 are generally changed to worse uses; they are in open 
 defiance to reason, professing not to hold much correspond- 
 ence with that.' Finding this bad habit of speech utterly 
 at variance with all scientific honesty, the Royal Society 
 'is most rigorous in putting into execution the only remedy 
 that can be found for this extravagance.' Accordingly it 
 exacts from all its members a 'close, naked, natural way 
 of speaking ; positive expressions, clear senses ; a native 
 easiness, bringing all things as near the mathematical 
 plainness as the}" can; and preferring the language of 
 artisans, country-men, and merchants before that of wits 
 and scholars.' 
 
 ^ The parallel .with the Lyrical Ballads is recognized by Professor 
 Raleigh, who comments on the difference in purpose also. — Intro- 
 duction to the selections from Sprat, in Craik, English Prose 3. 270. 
 
 ^ Spingarn 2. 117-118. 
 
28 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 Of course the language of 'artisans, country-men, and 
 merchants' played little part in the verse of Dryden's day; 
 but a 'natural way of speaking' was religiously cultivated. 
 Every remnant of the older diction which had persisted in 
 poetry, but not in the spoken language, was unconditionally 
 banished. This vehement objection to words and phrases 
 that had become purely literary was due to the causes that 
 inspired a similar reform on the part of Wordsworth. By 
 a judicious combination of the turns of speech especially 
 consecrated to verse, an ignorant or uninspired rhymester 
 could conceal his own lack of invention or skill, and could 
 fill up a line with something which looked like poetry, but 
 was not. The 'dismal slaughter' of this time-honored 
 poetic diction is humorously described by Robert Wolseley 
 in 1685^: 'The eds went away with the for tos and the 
 untils in the general rout that fell on the whole body 
 of the thereons, the thereins, and the therehys, when 
 those useful expletives, the althos, and those most con- 
 venient synalsephas, 'midst, 'mongst, 'gainst, and 'twixt, 
 were every one cut off; which dismal slaughter was fol- 
 lowed by the utter extirpation of the ancient house of the 
 therehys and the therefroms, etc. Nor is this reformation 
 the arbitrary fancy of a few who wou'd impose their own 
 private opinions and practice upon the rest of their coun- 
 trymen, but grounded on the authority of Horace, who tells 
 us in his Epistle De Arte Poetica that present use is the 
 final judge of language (the verse is too well known to 
 need quoting), and on the common reason of mankind, 
 which forbids us those antiquated words and obsolete 
 idioms of speech whose worth time has worn out, how well 
 so ever they may seem to stop a gap in verse and suit our 
 shapeless immature conceptions, for what is grown pedantic 
 and unbecoming when 'tis spoken will not have a jot the 
 better grace for being writ down.'^ 
 
 ^ Spingarn 3. 27. 
 
 " Malherbe said that 'ce qui est banni du langage, doit I'etre de 
 I'ecriture.'— Petit de Julleville, Histoire 4. 679. 
 
POETIC DICTION IN 'MODERN TIMES* 29 
 
 In this attempt to make verse approximate to the spoken 
 language, Dryden even goes so far as to object to any 
 departure in verse from the normal order of words in 
 prose, and particularly condemns a mannerism frequent in 
 the Female Vagrant^ in the first volume of Lyrical Ballads — 
 the habit of so inverting the order that the rhyme falls on 
 the verb. 'And therefore I admire that some men should 
 perpetually stumble in a way so easy,' he remarks," 'and, 
 inverting the order of words, constantly close their lines 
 with verbs, which, though commended sometimes in writ- 
 ing Latin, yet we were whipt at Westminster if we used 
 it twice together. I know some who, if they were to write 
 in blank verse, "Sir, I ask your pardon," would think 
 it sounded more heroically to write, "Sir, I your pardon 
 ask."3 I should judge him to have little command of 
 English whom a necessity of rhyme would force upon this 
 rock; though sometimes it cannot easily be avoided; and 
 indeed this is the only inconvenience with which rhyme 
 can be charged. This is that which makes them say rhyme 
 is not natural, it being only so when the poet makes a 
 vicious choice of words, or places them, for rhyme's sake, 
 so unnaturally as no man would in ordinary speaking ; but 
 when it is so judiciously ordered tliat the first word in the 
 verse seems to beget the second, and that the next, till that 
 becomes the last words in the line which in the negligence 
 of prose would be so, it must then be granted that rhyme 
 has all the advantages of prose, besides its own/ This 
 sounds very much like Wordsworth's suggestion that poetry 
 
 ^ No joy to see a neighboring house, or stray- 
 Through pastures not his own, the master took; 
 My Father dared his greedy wish gainsay. 
 
 — The Female Vagrant, lines 41-43- 
 'Keri. 6. 
 
 ^But compare the preface to the works of Waller, 1690, which 
 expresses the new ideals also. There Waller is praised for giving 
 firmness and point to his lines by closing them with verbs, 'in 
 which we know the life of language consists.' 
 
30 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 is only the language of prose with metrical beauty super- 
 added, though every reader must be aware of a subtle 
 difference which cannot now be defined. 
 
 Although Dryden did not often succeed in preserving the 
 order of prose in rhymed couplets, he was careful to do so 
 in his blank verse. The result of his attempt may be seen 
 in the following passage from Antony's dying speech to 
 Cleopatra,^ which has the simplicity and pathos too often 
 lacking in Dryden's dramas : 
 
 But grieve not, while thou stayest 
 
 My last disastrous times. 
 
 Think we have had a clear and glorious day, 
 
 And Heav'n did kindly to delay the storm 
 
 Just till our close of evening. Ten years' love, 
 
 And not a moment lost, but all improved 
 
 To the utmost joys, — what ages have we lived! 
 
 And now to die each other's ; and so dying, 
 
 While hand in hand we walk in groves below, 
 
 Whole troops of lovers' ghosts shall flock about us, 
 
 And all the train be ours. 
 
 But Dryden did not accept the ideal of Malherbe without 
 question. He made certain modifications which all tended 
 in the direction of greater freedom and expressiveness. 
 Although Malherbe was content with the speech of the 
 'crocheteurs,' he also believed in the abolishment of all 
 special terms ; he would employ only so much of the vocab- 
 ulary of the porters as was generally intelligible. This, 
 of course, was a good principle, but it was subject to 
 misinterpretation and abuse. On this account Dryden scorn- 
 fully opposed it. Dr. Johnson, the most notable represen- 
 tative of this French ideal in England, is forced to devote 
 several paragraphs to the refutation of Dryden's statement 
 that the use of general terms^ serves only to conceal the 
 
 M// for Love 5. i {Works 5. 432). 
 
 ^Of course the type of language opposed to general terms was 
 not specific descriptive adjectives, etc., but the cant terms, the 
 slang of particular professions. But the phrase was often given a 
 wider application. 
 
POETIC DICTION IN MODERN TIMES 3 1 
 
 poet's ignorance — or, in Wordsworth's phrase, makes it 
 unnecessary for him to write with his eye on the object.^ 
 'It is a general rule in poetry,' remarks Dr. Johnson, 'that 
 all appropriated terms of art should be sunk in general 
 expressions, because poetry is to speak a general language. 
 . . . Yet Dryden was of the opinion that a sea-fight ought 
 to be described in nautical language, and certainly, says 
 he, "as those who in a logical disputation keep to general 
 terms would hide a fallacy, so those who do it in any poetical 
 description would veil their ignorance." ' Dryden adds 
 that he is not ashamed to learn something about language 
 from sailors.^ Evidently, w^hen he does not write with his 
 eye on the object, his sins are not due to his theory of 
 poetry, but to other circumstances of which we must speak 
 later. 
 
 Besides those modifications in the French practice which 
 were due to Dryden's own English common sense, there 
 was always a tendency to reaction in favor of the vigor 
 and freedom of imaginative expression which character- 
 ized the elder poets, and which the moderns were fast 
 losing. This was partly responsible for the inconsist- 
 ency with which Dryden's criticism was often charged. 
 He seemed to find the French ideal somewhat inadequate^; 
 and, though he was not the most honorable and admirable 
 of men, as far as moral character was concerned, he had a 
 kind of intellectual honesty. Real contact with the works 
 of his great predecessors, whom he was so ready to refine 
 
 ^Dryden (Lives i. 433). Johnson is quoting from the preface to 
 the Annus Mirabilis (Ker i. 13). Of course Dryden changed his 
 mind on this subject, as he did on most others at some time in his 
 Hfe. See Ker, p. xxxiii. 
 
 " 'If I have made some few mistakes, it is only . . . because I 
 have wanted opportunity to correct them ; the whole poem being 
 first written . . . where I have not so much as the converse of any 
 seaman.' — Ker i. 13. 
 
 ^ Ker I. 194-195. Note his characteristic remarks on French 
 refinement. 'For my part,' he says, 'I desire to be tried by the 
 laws of my own country.' 
 
32 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 and censure/ often led to a temporary reaction against the 
 new standard of good sense and regular versification — in 
 his defense of poetic license in the preface to the Fall of 
 Man, for example, and in his attempt to recapture some 
 of the richness of the old blank verse in All for Love. 
 There is often a kind of wistfulness, as well as a manly 
 and unaffected reverence, in his appreciation of Shake- 
 speare and Milton. He was not altogether unconscious of 
 the ancient liberty and power which were departing from 
 English verse, not to be recovered until the days of Words- 
 worth. For the loss of this liberty, and the creation of a 
 substitute poetry more obnoxious than all the unpruned 
 growths of the metaphysical imagination, Dryden himself 
 was responsible, as we shall see; but this was largely the 
 indirect result of some deficiencies in his own poetic gifts. 
 His precepts, like his most characteristic practice, were in 
 favor of that selection of the 'language actually used by 
 men' which he called 'plain English.' 
 
 But Dryden's blunt, heedless, vigorous spirit was natu- 
 rally inclined to those very sins against which his criticism 
 was often directed. He knew how to be simple, and simple 
 in so homely and manly a style that one of the first symp- 
 toms of the reaction against Pope was a preference for the 
 bolder rhythms and plainer language of Dryden.- But he 
 did not know how to be polished : 
 
 ^Dr. Johnson speaks of Dryden's favorite pleasure of discredit- 
 ing his predecessors. Dryden {Lives i. 349)- A similar complaint 
 seems to have been made in Dryden's lifetime. 'I am made a de- 
 tractor from my predecessors, whom I do confess to have been my 
 masters in the art,' he writes. — Ihid. i. 349, note 4. 
 
 "In speaking of the advantage of using simple and homely lan- 
 guage, Warton says: 'Dryden often hazarded it, and gave by it a 
 secret charm and a natural air to his verses.' As an example, he 
 quotes : 
 
 Sir Balaam now, he lives like other folks. 
 He takes his chirping pint and cracks his jokes. 
 'Live like yourself was now my Lady's word, 
 And lo ! two puddings smoked upon the board. 
 
 — Essay 2. 175. 
 
POETIC DICTION IN 'MODERN TIMES' 33 
 
 Even copious Dryden wanted or forgot 
 The last and greatest art, the art to blot. 
 
 The importation of this somewhat aUen virtue into English 
 verse required an artist of more patience and address. 
 Such an artist was Pope. He completed the work of 
 reforming and refining the literary language by the stand- 
 ard of well-bred conversation in England, somewhat as his 
 master, Boileau, completed the work of Malherbe in France. 
 In his hands the conception of a 'selection of the real 
 language of men' lost the more universal character that 
 Dryden was inclined to give it, and was more regularly 
 associated with the ideal of correctness, and the avoidance 
 of everything vulgar. 
 
 Pope, indeed, was just the man to finish such a work, 
 after it had been inaugurated by a man of greater intel- 
 lectual initiative than he. Although endowed with Uttle 
 originality of mind, he was by nature a poet and an artist- 
 more of a poet, perhaps, than the world was ever permitted 
 to discover, more exclusively an artist than any other Eng- 
 Hsh poet. In him the purely artistic impulse seemed to 
 predominate over every other. All his joy and ambition 
 lay in the skilful adaptation of means to the attainment of 
 a desired end. But he readily accepted the end proposed 
 to him by others. In an age which emphasized good sense, 
 he devoted a lifetime to bringing reason and rhyme 
 together.^ When Walsh told him that the only virtue yet 
 to be attained in English poetry was the virtue of correct- 
 ness, he determined that, before his death, the English 
 should boast this virtue also. While poets were struggling 
 with an unperfected medium, he demonstrated how bril- 
 liantly and easily a mere lad could do what they only 
 tried to do. In his hands the couplet was condensed to 
 the last degree of condensation, and polished to the highest 
 beauty that polish alone can confer. In this delight in 
 skill — in the exercise of it, and the fine and astonishing 
 results of it— lay the secret of his whole activity. 
 
 ^ Preface to the Miscellaneous Works of Pope, 1716. 
 
34 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 But in all this he really made no original modification of 
 what he received from others. The ideal had been com- 
 pletely defined before he adopted it. His criticism, much 
 more than his poetry, is summed up in his own famous 
 words : 'What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd.' 
 His criticism, more than his poetry, we say, because in 
 poetry he seems to have possessed a delicate and original 
 vein of his own that in a different age might have made 
 of him a very different poet. In his willingness to let 
 others do his critical thinking for him, he unconsciously 
 stifled impulses which might have resulted in something 
 besides the most airy and subtly malicious of satires. The 
 forms that his imagination took when the carefully clipped 
 wings happen to attain to some brief flight — as in the fairy 
 machinery of the Rape of the Lock, or the mediaeval back- 
 ground of Eloisa and Ahelard — reveal a graceful and 
 romantic spirit. He had a gift of pathos, too. Under all 
 the glossy language of Eloisa and Abelard and the Elegy 
 on the Death of an Unfortunate Lady, there is a real sub- 
 stance of pathetic thought. The impression derived from 
 these deviations from the normal course of satirical and 
 didactic verse is strengthened by numerous instances of his 
 romantic taste in his letters, by his lifelong love of the 
 Faerie Queene, and by the quality and music of his early 
 verses on solitude. Had his artistic ambitions and his 
 wonderful skill in imitation been inspired by other models 
 than Waller, and Dryden, and Boileau, England might have 
 lost a sparkling satirist, and gained a lyrical poet. 
 
 This Wordsworth always realized. To Pope he never 
 denied what he denied to Dryden — the possession of the 
 true poetic gift. Had Pope trusted more to his native 
 genius, and less to the praise which his boyish display in 
 the pastorals brought him, said Wordsworth, he could 
 never have descended to the position of an immediately 
 popular poet. This descent Wordsworth ascribes to his 
 boyish inexperience when he began to write, and to his 
 
POETIC DICTION IN 'MODERN TIMES 35 
 
 inordinate love of praise.^ Perhaps it may be as justly 
 ascribed to that strong artistic and histrionic instinct 
 which led him to take more delight in a character deliber- 
 ately adopted or created than in the qualities that were his 
 own. Such a disposition is sufficiently obvious in his 
 plotting life. 
 
 However this may be, Pope threw all his artistic ambi- 
 tion into the perfection of the French ideal already natu- 
 ralized in England by Dryden, and partly suggested to Pope 
 himself by Boileau. This ideal was the Horatian doctrine 
 of a polite and well-bred mean in language as in life. The 
 poet must be familiar, but not vulgar,- carefully avoiding 
 low and rustic expressions on the one hand, and bombast on 
 the other hand, just as a gentleman avoids pomposity and 
 constraint of manner without being coarse or awkward, or 
 failing to do the right thing at the right time. The pleasant 
 ease of the man to the manner born, the elegant and 
 unadorned simiplicity of the well-dressed lady — these corre- 
 spond in life to the ideal of politeness in literary expres- 
 sion. Just as the well-bred man does what the rest of the 
 company are doing, quite naturally and gracefully, never 
 pretending to invent manners and customs for himself ; so 
 the poet must use the language that other people talk, giving 
 it only the inconspicuous, yet all-pervading charm of an 
 exquisite propriety in the choice and application of it. 
 This gentlemanly scorn for unseemly ornament is expressed 
 by the youthful Pope in the Essay on Criticism/' 
 
 Words are like leaves ; and where they most abound 
 Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found. 
 False eloquence, like the prismatic glass, 
 Its gaudy colors spreads on every place ; 
 
 ^ Essay Supplcjiientary to the Preface. 
 
 ^ 'As there is a difference betwixt simplicity and rusticity, so the 
 expression of simple thoughts should be plain, but not clownish.' — 
 Preface to the Pastorals. 
 
 '^ Essay on Criticism 319-333. In a letter to Caryll, Pope gives 
 expression to his preference for simplicity, in terms that are much 
 
36 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 The face of Nature we no more survey ; 
 
 All glares alike, without distinction gay. 
 
 But true expression, like the unchanging sun, 
 
 Clears and improves whate'er it shines upon ; 
 
 It gilds all objects, but it alters none. 
 
 Expression is the dress of thought,^ and still 
 
 Appears more decent as more suitable ; 
 
 A vile conceit in pompous words expressed 
 
 Is like a clown in regal purple dressed : 
 
 For different styles with different subjects sort, 
 
 As several garbs with country, town, and court. 
 
 The difference between this ideal of simplicity and that of 
 Wordsworth is not easy to define. Like the difference 
 between the courtesy of a kindly, well-bred man and the 
 passionate gentleness of a Bernard of Clairvaux, it is not 
 so much a matter of outward conduct as of degrees of 
 intensity and purity in the spirit that suggests and controls 
 the outward action. 
 
 In his attempt to attain this urbane simplicity, Pope 
 neither spared the file nor shunned the flames that Horace 
 so mercilessly recommends to young writers. 'With 
 the unwearied application of a plodding Flemish painter, 
 who draws a shrimp with the most minute exactness,' says 
 Cowper,^ 'he had all the genius of one of the first masters. 
 Never, I believe, were such talents and such drudgery 
 united.' He found as much pleasure in correcting as in writ- 
 more like Wordsworth: 'I have often found by experience that 
 nature and truth, though never so low and vulgar, are yet pleasing 
 when openly and without artifice represented ; insomuch that it 
 would be diverting to me to read the very letters of an infant, could 
 it write its innocent inconsistencies and tautologies just as it thought 
 them.' — Letters i. 190. 
 
 ^ 'Language is the apparel of poesy.' — Sir William Alexander, in 
 Spingarn i. 182. 'Language is the dress of thought.' — Dryden {Lives 
 I. 58). Wordsworth told DeQuincey that it was highly unphilosophi- 
 cal to call language the 'dress of thought' He would call it the 
 'incarnation of thought.' 
 
 ^ Cowper, Letters 4. 168-169. 
 
POETIC DICTION IN 'MODERN TIMES' 37 
 
 ing/ and not in correcting once, but many times. 'After 
 writing a poem, one should correct it all over with one single 
 view at a time,' he told Spence.- Thus for language, if 
 an elQgy, — "these lines are very good, but are they not in 
 too heroical a strain?" ' *In translating both the Iliad and 
 the Odyssey my usual method was to take advantage of 
 the first heat; and then to correct each book, first by 
 the original text and then by other translations ; and lastly 
 to give it a reading for the versification only.'^ But after 
 he had thus used the file, he did not always spare the 
 application of the flames. *I have prevented not only many 
 mean things from seeing the light, but many which I 
 thought tolerable. For what I have published I can only 
 hope to be pardoned ; but for what I have burned I deserve 
 to be praised.'* 
 
 The result of this unwearied effort was that, within the 
 sphere which he had made his own, he set an example of 
 fine and conscientious wordmanship that might be applied 
 with advantage to other types of poetry. But this sphere 
 was a very limited one. When he carried the ideal of 
 'what oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed' outside 
 of the field of experience of which he himself was a proper 
 judge, the badness of the thought or the lack of thought 
 was made only more pernicious by that polished grace with 
 which he uttered it. Nothing could be more different, for 
 instance, than Pope's 'interiors' and his 'landscapes' — to 
 borrow terms from painting. The simplicity, the exact- 
 ness, the use of familiar and specific terms to designate 
 familiar and specific things, in the first, are only equaled 
 by the glossy vagueness of the second. As an example of 
 this difference we may compare the reference to 
 
 ^ 'I corrected because it was as pleasant for me to correct as to 
 write.' — Preface to the Miscellaneous Works of Pope 1716. 
 "^ Spence' s Anecdotes, p. 270. 
 
 * Ibid., p. 23, 
 
 * Preface to the Miscellaneous Works. 
 
38 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 The darksome pines that o'er yon rocks reclined 
 
 Wave high, and murmur to the hollow wind, 
 
 The wandering streams that shine between the hills, 
 
 The grots that echo to the tinkling rills. 
 
 The lakes that quiver to the curling breeze,^ etc. 
 
 with the following; 
 
 In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half-hung, 
 The floor of plaister, and the walls of dung. 
 On once a flock-bed, but repaired with straw, 
 With tape-tied curtains, never meant to draw. 
 The George and Garter dangling from the bed 
 Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red, 
 Great Villiers lies.^ 
 
 If, as Joseph Warton said, with a disapproving glance at 
 some of Pope's work, 'The use, the force, and the excellence 
 of language certainly consists in raising clear, complete, 
 and circumstantial images, and in turning readers into 
 spectators,'^ Pope often succeeds in writing very forcibly 
 and excellently. It is in this malicious choice and assemblage 
 of specific and characteristic circumstances, in the airy 
 simplicity with which he calls a spade a spade, that his 
 power as a satirist lies. This power, of which he gives so 
 few illustrations in landscape and ideal 'historical' painting, 
 is always conspicuous in his genre pictures. He does not 
 name or characterize the blossoms in a 'flowery mead'; 
 but he does name the contents of Belinda's toilet-table. 
 The tasks of the shepherds in the pastorals are indicated in 
 the vaguest terms, but the game of cards in the Rape of the 
 Lock is described in all its complicated technical details. 
 In Wordsworth's pathetic use of 'natural little circum- 
 stances' in his narrative of the ruined cottage, he is put- 
 ting to nobler uses the art of being specific which he 
 might have learned from Pope, or from Pope's disciple, 
 Goldsmith. 
 
 ^ Eloisa to Ahelard 155-160. 
 'Moral Essays 3. 299-305. 
 ^ Essay 2. 165. 
 
POETIC DICTION IN 'MODERN TIMES' 39 
 
 This enormous difference in Pope's style when he is deal- 
 ing with different types of subject-matter suggests the real 
 origin and character of the poetic diction to which 
 Wordsworth objected. It also shows how inseparably the 
 new style of the Lyrical Ballads was connected with a new 
 poetic substance. As long as Dryden and Pope were deal- 
 ing with their own proper material — the life that they 
 themselves knew — there is little in their style or their theory 
 of style that is in essential disagreement with that of 
 Wordsworth. They were quite as insistent as he upon the 
 necessity of writing as unaffected persons talk, and of avoid- 
 ing all special literary diction. In emphasizing this, they 
 rendered a permanent service to English style by establish- 
 ing a literary standard of grammar and syntax which really 
 corresponded to the normal structure of the spoken English 
 sentence. It is this clear and natural structure that makes 
 Dryden's prose seem modern. It gives an appearance of 
 ease and lucidity to the vaguest and most periphrastic verse 
 of the century. One reason why Wordsworth, with all his 
 natural tendency to involved and peculiar syntax, can 
 write so clearly, is that the despised eighteenth century had 
 preceded him, and had not preached grammar and correct- 
 ness for a hundred years for nothing. An excellent clear- 
 ness and simplicity of diction, as well as of grammar, are 
 characteristic of Pope's generation. Toward the end of 
 the century Cowper, complaining that 'simplicity is become 
 a very rare quality in a writer,' remarks^ : 'Swift and 
 Addison were simple; Pope knew how to be so, but was 
 frequently tinged with affectation ; since their day I hardly 
 know" a celebrated winter who deserves the character.' At 
 another time, in words which anticipate Coleridge's defini- 
 tion of Wordsworth's ideal, he writes-: 'To make verse 
 speak the language of prose without being prosaic — to 
 marshal the words of it in such an order as they might 
 
 ^ Cowper, Letters 4. z^2>- 
 'Ibid. 4. 176. 
 
40 WORDSWORTH S THEORY OF POETIC DICTION 
 
 naturally take in falling from the lips of an extemporary 
 speaker, yet without meanness, harmoniously, elegantly, 
 and without seeming to displace a syllable for the sake of 
 rhyme, is one of the most arduous tasks a poet can under- 
 take. He that could accomplish this task was Prior.' 
 Where could we turn for better examples of verse which 
 speaks the language of prose without losing its own proper 
 charm, than to the beginning of the eighteenth century — 
 to the sparkling hons mots of Pope, the colloquial negligence 
 of Prior, the naivete and occasional tenderness of Gay, and 
 even the 'close, naked, natural way of speaking' that Swift 
 carried into rhyme from his prose? But beyond their own 
 limited field their taste and imagination become less sure, 
 and various elements corrupt the bright simplicity. 
 
 In the first place, there is the universal ignorance of or 
 indifference to natural phenomena, combined with the artistic 
 ambition to do what other poets had done before them, and 
 do it better. The beauty of the external world has always 
 held an important place in poetry, because men in general 
 are interested in it. Storm and sunshine, the clouds and 
 the stars above our heads, and the familiar flowers at our 
 feet, have been the universal and permanent background of 
 all human experience, and are inevitably associated with 
 the memory and expression of it. Poets sing the 'glories 
 of the rolling year' as naturally as we all begin a social 
 conversation with a remark about the weather. Hence a 
 generation which was interested in writing good and effec- 
 tive verse, but whose own experience was mainly associated 
 with the streets of London, naturally made use of this 
 traditional matter of poetry; but, since it was used as a 
 traditional element for the sake of an artistic effect, and was 
 not brought to the test of experience by either the writer 
 or the reader, the consequence was that the style in 
 which these things were described was usually affected by 
 the lack of genuine knowledge and feeling behind the style. 
 Sometimes, when Wordsworth condemns the language of 
 
POETIC DICTION IN 'MODERN TIMES* 41 
 
 his predecessors, he is referring only to the falsity of the 
 substance. It is as easy to tell a lie in the language of the 
 lower and middle classes as in the language of the court. 
 Bad descriptions of nature were not always written in 
 phraseology in itself gaudy and inane. 
 
 This, perhaps, is true of the famous description by 
 Dryden w^hich Wordsworth particularly condemns^ : 
 
 All things are hushed as Nature's self lay dead ; 
 The mountains seem to nod the drowsy head. 
 The little birds in dreams their songs repeat, 
 And sleeping flowers beneath the night dews sweat. 
 Even Lust and Envy sleep ; yet Love denies 
 Rest to my soul, and slumber to my eyes." 
 
 Here is no poetic diction. The language is simple, con- 
 crete, and touching. The only trouble is that it does not 
 tell the truth. No one who ever really saw the solemn 
 outlines of the mountains at night could write or enjoy the 
 second verse. Yet the lines are, in some respects, so 
 artistic that it is not difficult to see how such writing as 
 this could lull not exceedingly vigilant powers of observation 
 to sleep along with the drowsy mountains, and could 
 encourage lesser mortals to imitate the falsehood, where 
 they could not rival the art. Just as the moonlight on our 
 gaudy modern stage, flooding trees and flowers that are 
 like no trees and flowers that ever grew, somehow produces 
 an effect analogous to that produced by the peace and sil- 
 very beauty of actual moonlight, so these words suggest 
 the quiet and loneliness of the sleeping w^orld. The effect 
 of any given passage depends on much besides the truth 
 of the separate details. The cadence, the associations of 
 the words, the various arts of repetition and emphasis, have 
 all their own share in the general impression. In this case, 
 for instance, the mind under the spell of the soft flow of 
 the metre and the refrain-like recurrence of the word sleep 
 
 ^ Essay Supplementary to the Preface. 
 
 ^ The Indian Emperor 3. 2 {Works i. 360). 
 
42 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 and its synonyms, is as little inclined to question the 
 drowsiness of the mountains as it is to inquire how these 
 plural mountains came to be provided with only one head. 
 It is only a counterfeit poetry, cheating the unwary ; but it 
 has an artful appearance of 'nature and simplicity.' 
 
 But Dryden himself seems to have been unable to dis- 
 tinguish the genuine metal of poetry from the gilded sub- 
 stitute, at least in his own productions — as a glance at the 
 example of imaginative boldness that he cites in the Pre- 
 face to the Fall of Man will show.^ His critical instinct 
 was right, but his imaginative feeling was not. *I admire 
 his talents and genius highly,' wrote Wordsworth to Scott,^ 
 when Scott was getting out his edition of Dryden, 'but 
 his is not a poetical genius.^ The only qualities I can find 
 in Dryden that are essentially poetical are a certain ardor 
 and impetuosity of mind with an excellent ear. It may 
 seem strange that I do not add to this great command of 
 language; that he certainly has, and of such language too, 
 as it is most desirable that a poet should possess, or rather 
 that he should not be without. But it is not language that 
 is, in the highest sense of the word, poetical, being neither 
 of the imagination nor of the passions — I mean of the 
 amiable, the ennobling, or the intense passions. I do not 
 mean to say that there is nothing of this in Dryden, but as 
 little, I think, as is possible considering how much he has 
 
 ^ He cites the following as his o.wn most successful attempt to 
 imitate the imaginative boldness of Milton : 
 
 Seraph and cherub, careless of their charge, 
 And wanton, in full ease now live at large : 
 Unguarded leave the passes of the sky, 
 And all dissolved in hallelujahs lie. 
 This, he says, is imitated from Virgil : Invadunt iirheni, somno 
 vinoque sepultam. 'A city's being buried is just as proper an occa- 
 sion as an angel's being dissolved in ease and songs of triumph!' — 
 Ker I. i88. 
 'L. W. F. I. 208-210. 
 
 ^ Wordsworth agrees with Milton, who said Dryden was a good 
 rhymist, but no poet. — Preface to Newton's Milton, p. 8. 
 
POETIC DICTION IN ^MODERN TIMES' 43 
 
 written. You will easily understand my meaning when I 
 refer to his versification of Palamon and Arcite,^ as com- 
 pared with the language of Chaucer. Dryden has neither 
 a tender heart nor a lofty sense of moral dignity. When- 
 ever his language is poetically impassioned, it is mostly on 
 unpleasing subjects, such as the follies, vices, and crimes 
 of men or of individuals. That his cannot be the language 
 of imagination must have necessarily followed from this : 
 that there is not a single image from nature in the whole 
 body of his works; and in his translation from Virgil, 
 whenever Virgil can be fairly said to have his eye on the 
 object, Dryden always spoils the passage.'^ Although 
 Dryden was not essentially a poet, his energy and even 
 grandeur of mind, the natural swiftness and fire which 
 wxre really intellectual qualities, but which often simulated 
 the glow of real passion, together with a remarkable facil- 
 ity, enabled him to produce an excellent substitute for 
 poetry. This seemed to be quite satisfactory to an age 
 
 ^ Wordsworth's statement may be illustrated by comparing the 
 lines, 
 
 Arcite, false traytour wikke ! 
 Now arto.w hent, that lovest my lady so, 
 For whom that I have al this peyne and wo, 
 And art my blood, and to my counseil sworn, 
 ****** 
 I wol be deed, or elles thou shalt dye, 
 Thou shalt not love my lady Emelye, 
 
 with Dryden's version, where struggling tenderness has wholly given 
 
 way to self-complacent and oratorical wrath : 
 
 False traitor, Arcite, traitor to thy blood. 
 
 Bound by thy sacred oath to seek my good. 
 
 Now art thou found forsworn for Emily, 
 
 And darest attempt her love for whom I die. 
 ****** 
 
 Hope not, base man. unquestioned hence to go, 
 For I am Palamon, thy mortal foe. 
 "As an illustration of this compare Aineid 4. 522-527 with Dry- 
 den's version. 
 
44 WORDSWORTH S THEORY OF POETIC DICTION 
 
 which had lost the old gift of song, and was cutting itself 
 off from the springs of imaginative feeling in nature and 
 common life. 
 
 It was due to this natural lack of at least one type of 
 imaginative feeling, rather than to any theory of poetic 
 diction, that Dryden became the creator of the elegances 
 and flowers of speech so dear to the heart of the eigh- 
 teenth century, so obnoxious to the taste of the nineteenth. 
 As far as can be discovered from his numerous prefaces, 
 his only purpose with respect to language was to give as 
 clear and correct and melodious a reproduction of the cur- 
 rent speech as possible. If his ambition occasionally soared 
 higher, it showed itself only in the wistful effort to write 
 with some of the splendor and spirit of his less refined 
 predecessors. Hence the falsity of such a description as 
 that just quoted seems to be due to some unconscious blind- 
 ness, rather than to deliberate intention. The same is true 
 of the elegant phrases which Dr. Johnson takes to represent 
 a new achievement in verse. Most of them are singularly 
 uninteresting; but, for some reason, they took hold of the 
 poetical imagination of his successors. For instance, there 
 is the adjective 'watery.' 'To him the ocean is a "watery 
 desert," a "watery deep," a "watery plain," a "watery 
 way," a "watery reign." The shore is a "watery brink," 
 or a "watery strand." Fish are a "watery line," or a 
 "watery race." Sea-birds are a "watery fowl." The 
 launching of ships is a "watery war." Streams are 
 "watery floods." Waves are "watery ranks." The word 
 occurs with wearisome iteration in succeeding poets.'^ 
 Such mannerisms seem to be due to the heedlessness of 
 a man writing with great facility, but ignorant of, or indif- 
 ferent to, the phenomena he mentions. He seizes upon the 
 most obvious, and, at the same time, the most matter-of-fact 
 and uninteresting detail, and then, when he perceives the 
 
 ^Myra Reynolds, The Treatment of Nature in English Poetry, 
 P- 39. 
 
POETIC DICTION IN 'MODERN TIMES' 45 
 
 necessity for varying his expression, he acts hke the clever 
 writer that he is rather than the sympathetic observer that 
 he is not: instead of mentioning a new detail, he merely 
 thinks of a synonym for the expression that he has already 
 used. In this way all the tiresome array of stock phrases 
 that mean nothing came into being. Most of them ring 
 monotonous changes upon the most obvious features of 
 things, such as the fact that the ocean is composed of 
 water, that birds have feathers and fish have fins. To call 
 fish the 'finny race' is not to say anything new or interest- 
 ing about them ; to vary the expression to the 'scaly tribe' 
 is only to make matters worse. Yet it is easy to see that 
 all these atrocities might be produced, with no intention of 
 thus distinguishing poetry from prose, by any man who was 
 trying to write well without knowing what he was talking 
 about. In fact, the same kind of diction occurs in prose 
 which attempts to deal with the same kind of subject- 
 matter. 
 
 These two characteristics of Dryden's treatment of 
 natural phenomena — the perversion of the facts for the 
 sake of heightening a single impression, and the use of set 
 phrases indicating, as Wordsworth said, nothing more than 
 the knowledge that a blind man could pick up concerning 
 the familiar but ever-changing aspects of Nature — these 
 vicious tendencies were also strengthened by the gallantry 
 of Waller and his imitators, who made all the mighty 
 powers of earth and sky subservient to the glory of some 
 fair lady or some all-powerful nobleman. 
 
 In praising Chloris, moons, and stars, and skies, 
 
 Are quickly made to match her face and eyes — 
 
 And gold and rubies, with as little care, 
 
 To fit the color of her lips and hair; 
 
 And, mixing suns, and flowers, and pearl, and stones, 
 
 Make them serve all complexions at once.^ 
 
 'At the death of any illustrious man or fair lady all nature 
 was convulsed with grief. When Cselestia died the rivu- 
 
 ' Butler, Satire on a Bad Poet; quoted by Miss Reynolds, p. 31. 
 
46 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 lets were flooded by the tears of the water-gods, the brows 
 of the hills were furrowed by new streams, the heavens 
 wept, sudden damps overspread the plains, the lily hung its 
 head, and birds drooped their wings. When Amaryllis had 
 informed nature of the death of Amyntas, all creation 
 "began to roar and howl with horrid yell." When Thomas 
 Gunston died just before he had finished his seat at New- 
 ington, Watts declared that the curling vines would in grief 
 untwine their amorous arms, the stately elms would drop 
 leaves for tears, and that even the unfinished gates and 
 buildings would weep. In love-poetry nature is frequently 
 represented as abashed and discomfited before the superior 
 charms of some fair nymph. Aurora blushes when she sees 
 cheeks more beauteous than her own. Lilies wax pale with 
 envy at a maiden's fairness. When bright Ophelia comes, 
 liUes droop and roses die before their lofty rival. So the 
 sun, when he sees the beautiful ladies in Hyde Park, 
 
 Sets in blushes and conveys his fires 
 To distant lands. 
 
 And when that modest luminary is aware of the presence 
 of the fair Maria, he 
 
 Seems to descend with greater care ; 
 
 And, lest she see him go to bed, 
 
 In blushing clouds conceals his head. 
 
 Nature is thus constantly compelled into admiring submis- 
 sion to some Delia or Phyllis or Chloris. Even further 
 than this do the poets go. They make all the beauty of 
 nature a direct outcome of the lady's charms. In the gar- 
 dens at Penshurst the peace and glory of the alleys was 
 given by Dorothea's more than human grace. No spot 
 could resist the civilizing effect of her beauty. 
 The extravagance of speech stood as the sign of an inten- 
 sity of feeling that did not exist. The poet was not swept 
 away by overwhelming passion. He worked out his verses 
 with conscious deliberation. A lady-love was one of the 
 
POETIC DICTION IN MODERN TIMES 47 
 
 necessary poetical stage-properties, so the poet cast about 
 him for a PhylHs or an Amoret, and then cast about him 
 for sometliing to say to her. Such Hnes as Waller's on 
 Dorothea, who is so much admired by the plants that 
 
 If she sit down, with tops all tow'rds her bow'd, 
 They round about her into arbours crowd : 
 Or if she walks in even ranks they stand, 
 Like some well marshalled and obsequious band, 
 
 are at once felt to be merely cold, tasteless hyperbole. The 
 lines do not win a second's suspension of disbelief. Modes 
 of speech, a conception of nature, such that high-wrought 
 emotion might justify it, or that might be natural and 
 inevitable when the poet's thought was ruled by a living 
 mythology, became mere frigid conventionalities when 
 there was no passion, and when the spirits of stream and 
 wood no longer won even poetic faith. '^ This easy method 
 of praising a mistress is also humorously described by 
 Ambrose Philips : 
 
 To blooming Phyllis I a song compose, 
 And, for a rhyme, compare her to a Rose ; 
 Then, while my fancy works, I write down Morn, 
 To paint the blush that doth her cheek adorn, 
 And, when the whiteness of her skin I show, 
 With extasy bethink myself of Snow. 
 Thus, without pains, I tinkle in the close. 
 And sweeten into verse insipid prose." 
 
 As long as these exaggerations were confined to the 
 celebration of fair ladies they had perhaps some artistic 
 justification. No doubt the poet knew that he was not 
 telling the truth; and most certainly the lady knew it. 
 Even the reader was in the secret. It was all a poetic fic- 
 tion, a graceful convention, and imposed on no one. As 
 such, the poet was entitled to vary and elaborate it as 
 
 ^ Myra Reynolds, The Treatment of Nature in English Poetry, 
 PP- 33-35- 
 ^ Ambrose Philips, quoted by Miss Reynolds, p. 32. 
 
48 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 cleverly as he could. But this easy manipulation of all the 
 mighty frame of Heaven and earth, of the changeless stars 
 and the wayward winds, to suit the purposes of every 
 gallant poetaster, served, like Dryden's rhetoric about the 
 'drowsy mountains,' to cultivate an indifference to the 
 facts. Scribblers soon fell into the way of telling the same 
 kind of falsehoods when there was no reason for so doing, 
 and this despite their inability to do it as cleverly as their 
 unscrupulous masters — though perhaps they did not know 
 that. We shall have an example of the ridiculous results 
 of this habit later. 
 
 But meanwhile it is obvious that, in all this fine writing, 
 dulness of vision is often matched by deadness of heart. 
 And this brings us to Wordsworth's second indictment 
 against the language of the period. It is heartless, he 
 says. Here again the real fault is something greater and 
 deeper than the choice of a certain type of vocabulary ; but 
 it resulted, almost unconsciously, or at least unintentionally, 
 in the habits of speech that became poetic diction. 
 Uncontrolled by a true sensitiveness of heart, the language 
 of passion (which is the language of poetry) suffered the 
 same fate that attended the natural imagery. As the clever 
 writer varied his descriptions, not by adding a new detail, 
 but by finding a new synonym, so he varied the metaphor- 
 ical delineation of feeling, not by recurring to the original 
 emotion, but by finding parallel and analogous expressions 
 for what had already been said by himself or some other 
 poet. It was a process of building bricks without straw. 
 When he did go abroad for his material, he naturally went 
 to the writers that preceded him, especially to the Latin 
 writers. There he could find the best material from 
 Nature already selected and arranged — poetically pre- 
 digested, as it were. Why should he confuse himself, and 
 waste time and energy, re-examining the original crude 
 and unmethodized source, when poets that he could trust 
 had already done so, and had reported upon what they had 
 
POETIC DICTION IN 'MODERN TIMES* 49 
 
 seen? Why should he not devote his talents to improving 
 the use of what they had chosen ? To us Blair's statement^ 
 that Milton's U Allegro and // Penseroso were storehouses 
 of natural imagery from which all later poets had drawn, 
 immediately suggests the question: But why did they not 
 go to the greater storehouse that lay at their very doors? 
 Why did they not merely do as Milton had done — take a 
 walk some fine morning, and tell what they saw? How 
 could they dream of assuming the dignity of poets merely 
 by 'descriptions copied from descriptions, by imitations 
 borrowed from imitations, by traditions, imagery and 
 hereditary similes, by readiness of rhyme and volubility 
 of syllables.' But, after all, the fault lay neither with the 
 habit of "imitation, nor with the laudable ambition to write 
 well from which this habit proceeded. Pope's Imitations of 
 Horace are not lacking in originality or appropriate sim- 
 plicity of language. Within their own proper field all these 
 ideals of expression, which we are so ready to condemn, 
 worked excellently. The fact that the poets of the age 
 were less successful in tlie wider fields beyond was partly 
 their fault, but partly also their misfortune. When they 
 ventured away from the familiar streets and polite circles 
 of London, they left behind them 'the hearing ear and the 
 seeing eye,' and the feeling heart also. And without these 
 even the standards of Wordsworth would be useless. 
 
 To the type of diction that inevitably developed where 
 poets lacked the touchstone of personal observation and 
 genuine feeling. Pope made some special contributions of 
 his own. Since he really had a better eye for natural 
 beauty, and more romantic tenderness of feeling, than some 
 of his predecessors, his imagery is often more exact, and his 
 language of passion less frigid than theirs. In him we 
 rarely find the shameless and absolute prevarications of 
 which Dr}^den and Waller were capable. Yet his sins in 
 this respect were bad enough. His motto — which, to fit his 
 
 ^ Blair, Essays on Rhetoric, p. 319. 
 
50 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 case, may be varied to 'What oft was tried, but ne'er so 
 well performed' — often led him to commit all the sins of 
 his age. The result is a singular unevenness. In one line 
 of the Pastorals he remarks, quite gracefully and simply,^ 
 'Now hawthorns blossom and now daisies spring'; in 
 another he inanely announces^: 
 
 The turf with rural dainties shall be crown'd, 
 While opening blooms diffuse their sweets around. 
 
 In Windsor Forest we find such couplets as these^ : 
 
 See Pan with flocks, with fruit Pomona crown'd, 
 Here blushing Flora paints the enamell'd ground. 
 Here Ceres' gifts in waving prospect stand, 
 And nodding tempt the joyful reaper's hand. 
 
 But these are shortly followed by descriptions of tolerable 
 concreteness :* 
 
 See! from the brake the whirring pheasant springs, 
 
 And mounts exulting on triumphant wings : 
 
 Short is his joy; he feels the fiery wound. 
 
 Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground. 
 
 Ah ! what avail his glossy varying dyes. 
 
 His purple crest, and scarlet-circled eyes. 
 
 The vivid green his shining plumes unfold. 
 
 His painted wings, and breast that flames with gold? 
 
 But, even in the passage where he is employing this more 
 concrete language, we notice an artificiality in the style, 
 which proves, upon closer analysis, to consist mainly in 
 the habit of balancing one half of the line against the 
 other. 'Now hawthorns blossom' exactly balances 'now 
 daisies spring' ; 'See Pan with flocks' is paralleled by 'with 
 fruit Pomona crown'd'; and 'his purple crest' is paired 
 with 'scarlet-circled eyes.' This antithesis is often 
 achieved at the expense of triith and grammar. 'I could 
 
 ^ Spring 42. 
 
 "" Ihid. 99-100. 
 
 ^ Windsor Forest 37-40. 
 
 * Ibid. 111-118. 
 
POETIC DICTION IN MODERN TIMES 5 1 
 
 never get the blockhead to study his grammar/ said Swift. 
 In tlie Hne, 'See Pan with flocks, with fruit Pomona 
 crown'd', he suggests that Pan is crowned with flocks. 
 
 Even Eloisa has enough self-possession for a few neat 
 antitheses. *I mourn the lover, not lament his fault,* she 
 says, adding very shortly:^ 
 
 How happy is the blameless Vestal's lot ! 
 The world forgetting, by the world forgot: 
 Eternal sunshine on the spotless mind ! 
 Each prayer accepted, and each wish resign d; 
 Labor and rest that equal periods keep ; 
 Obedient slumbers that can wake and weep ; 
 Desires composed, affections ever even; 
 ■ Tears that delight, and sighs that waft to heaven. 
 
 This mannerism was emphatically condemned by Words- 
 worth as one of the worst features of the style of Pope: 
 'These intellectual operations (while they can be conceived 
 of as operations of the intellect at all, for in fact one half of 
 the process is mechanical, words doing their own work and 
 one half of the line manufacturing the rest) remind me of 
 the motions of a posture master, or of a man balancing a 
 sword upon his finger which must be kept from falling at 
 all hazards. . . . Why was not this simply expressed 
 without playing with tlie reader's fancy, to the delusion and 
 dishonour of his understanding, by a trifling epigrammatic 
 point ?'- 
 
 When to the regular antitheses and epigrammatic points 
 of Pope were added the flowers and elegances of speech 
 already invented by Dryden and Waller, and when the 
 unscrupulous falsification of the obvious facts of nature 
 was encouraged by a popular objection to everything 'vul- 
 gar,' the poetic diction which Wordsworth was later to 
 
 "^ Eloisa to Abelard 207-212, 
 
 '"^ See Wordsworth's detailed analysis of an epitaph by Pope, 
 in Upon Epitaphs, Part 2, Wordsworth's Literary Criticism, pp. 
 1 18-122. 
 
52 WORDSWORTH S THEORY OF POETIC DICTION 
 
 abolish was already fairly well developed. But the theory 
 of it was not. While it was everywhere stated that poetry 
 must be refined, there is, with the single exception of a 
 notable utterance by Addison, to be quoted later, virtually 
 no evidence for belief that verse should be distinguished 
 from prose, or from cultivated conversation of the same 
 'refined' type, by a special vocabulary or licenses of gram- 
 mar and syntax. In 1700 Wordsworth's declaration that 
 there neither is nor ever can be any essential difference 
 between the language of prose and the language of verse 
 would probably have seemed less strange than it seemed 
 in 1800. 
 
 As far as difference was recognized, it is the difference 
 that Wordsworth himself was willing to concede. Poetry, 
 being the language of passion, naturally reproduces the 
 peculiarities of emotional speech in a freer syntax and 
 order of words, and in a more highly figurative expression, 
 than is necessary in prose. This was especially emphasized, 
 though not happily illustrated, by Dryden,^ who derived his 
 ideas from Longinus, and by John Dennis, who, more than 
 any other critic of the time, often anticipates Wordsworth's 
 point of view. 
 
 One other distinction was commonly made : poetry, even 
 more than prose, must speak a general language, a lan- 
 guage intelligible to all. A failure to perceive in what 
 the universality of language consists led to the monstrous 
 doctrine that poetry must employ only general terms. 
 This principle, so unhappily applied in the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, was later adopted by Wordsworth and Coleridge, 
 with very different results, as we shall see. 
 
 Moreover, criticism in the early eighteenth century was 
 not wholly blind to the merits of a simplicity that was 
 not also refined. Steele liked the directness and concrete- 
 ness of unlearned colloquial speech^ ; Addison remarks that 
 
 'Ker I. 185-186. 
 
 ~ Guardian 23. Cf. Hamelius, Die Kritik in der Englischen 
 Literatitr des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, p. 99. 
 
POETIC DICTION IN MODERN TIMES 53 
 
 there is more in common between the plain language of the 
 popular ballads and the majestic simplicity of Virgil, than 
 between the style of Virgil and that of such fanciful writers 
 as Cowley^ ; Pope thinks that he would like even the style 
 of an infant if it could write down its thoughts with all 
 their innocent redundancies just as they come-; Swift 
 doubts the wisdom of the boasted reform of the language 
 after the Restoration, and thinks that only the influence of 
 the Bible and the Prayer Book upon the speech of the simple 
 people keeps the English tongue from utter degeneracy.^ 
 These are only temporary reactions, perhaps, but they are 
 not without significance. 
 
 Hence it may be seen that the criticism of the period 
 was not the source of the false ideals which Wordsworth 
 and Coleridge were later to combat. The age of Pope did 
 not develop the conception of a special language for poetry, 
 although it almost unconsciously produced such a language. 
 For the theory of a special diction for poetry we must 
 search among the confused and various utterances of the 
 generation succeeding Pope, and almost unconsciously 
 beginning to react against him. 
 
 2. The Reaction Against Pope. 
 
 In the period between the publication of Paradise Lost 
 and the appearance of the Seasons, the criticism and the 
 practice of poetry had been of a definite and self-consistent 
 character. To draw positive conclusions concerning it is 
 not difficult. But this can hardly be said of the rest of 
 the century. There is a breaking up of the old criticism, 
 v.'ithout a very definite formulation of a new. The only 
 notable exception to this statement is Joseph Warton's Essay 
 on the Genius and Writings of Pope. Warton stands 
 
 ^ Spectator 70. 
 ^Letters i. 190. 
 
 ^A Proposal for Correcting, Improving, and Ascertaining the 
 English Tongue {The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift 2. 15). 
 
54 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 fairly and squarely for an ideal of poetic expression in all 
 essential respects different from the practice, if not from 
 the criticism, of the early eighteenth century; and his 
 brave rebellious remarks in 1756 become the source of the 
 most vital discussion of poetic style for the next fifty years, 
 and lead directly to the reform of Wordsworth. But the 
 opinions of the other critics are more difficult to classify. 
 Doctor Johnson, the great exponent of the so-called classical 
 ideal, is as loud in his objection to the 'exploded deities' 
 of Greece and Rome as he is Latinized in vocabulary ; and 
 he insists upon a respect for the usual grammar and forms 
 of spoken discourse in verse as warmly as he defends the 
 use of general terms, and the elegances and flowers of 
 speech. Johnson's disciple. Goldsmith, recommends the 
 heroic couplet and the device of personification,^ while all 
 his own natural sympathies and his own practice are in 
 favor of a pathetic and even homely simplicity unknown to 
 the polished generation of Pope, to which he looks back 
 with some regret. On the other hand. Gray, 'who was at 
 the head of those who, by their reasonings have attempted 
 to widen the space of separation betwixt prose and metrical 
 composition,'^ was also the centre of a new and regenera- 
 tive influence which revealed itself in a more picturesque 
 imagery, and a free and beautiful cadence; in the later 
 poetry of the century. 
 
 Since this is so, it will be well simply to quote the notable 
 individual utterances on poetic diction, and then proceed 
 to examine the result of the rather chaotic ideals of the 
 century as revealed in the average verse of Wordsworth's 
 own time — the sort of verse that was appearing in the 
 magazines of 1796. 
 
 Since the 'poetic diction' of the English Augustan age 
 was the outcome of the practice, rather than the deliberate 
 theories, of Dryden and his followers, the expression of the 
 
 ^ On Metaphors (Works i. 373). 
 ^ Preface to the Lyrical Ballads. 
 
POETIC DICTION IN 'MODERN TIMES 55 
 
 new ideal consisted mainly in an attack upon the verse of 
 Pope, and the formulation of principle opposed to his prac- 
 tice — in Warton's Essay on the Genius and Writings of 
 Pope. This essay is the immediate source of some of 
 Wordsworth's most famous remarks. Warton goes to the 
 heart of the matter at once^ : 'All I plead for is ... to 
 impress on the reader that a clear head and acute under- 
 standing are not sufficient alone to make a poet; that the 
 most solid observations on human life, expressed w^ith the 
 utmost elegance and brevity, are morality, and not poetry; 
 that the epistles of Boileau in rhyme are no more poetical 
 than the character of La Bruyere in prose; and that it is 
 the creative and glowing imagination, acer spiritus ac vis, 
 and that alone, that can stamp a writer with this exalted 
 and very uncommon character which so few possess, and of 
 which so few can properly judge.' 
 
 Having thus suggested where Pope belongs, Warton 
 proceeds to point out the falsity of most of the contem- 
 porary descriptions of external nature. It is strange that 
 in the pastorals of a young poet there should not be 'one 
 rural image that is new,'^ but this, he fears, must be said of 
 Pope.^ With Pope's treatment of the seasons he compares 
 that of Thomson^: 'Thomson was blessed with a strong 
 and copious fancy ; he hath enriched poetry with a variety 
 of new and original images, which he painted from nature 
 itself, and from his own actual observations; his descrip- 
 tions have, therefore, a distinctness and truth, w^hich are 
 utterly wanting to those of poets who have only copied 
 from each other, and have never looked abroad on the 
 
 ^ Essay i. iv-v. 
 
 ^Cf. Wordsworth, Essay Supplementary to the Preface: 'Now it 
 is remarkable that, excepting the Nocturnal Reverie of Lady Win- 
 chelsea, and a passage in the Windsor Forest of Pope, the poetry of 
 the period between the publication of Paradise Lost and the Seasons 
 does not contain a single new image from external nature.' 
 
 ^ Essay i. 2. 
 
 * Ibid. I. 41-47- 
 
56 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 objects themselves. Thomson was accustomed to wander 
 away into the country for days and for weeks, attentive to 
 "each rural sight, each rural sound," while many a poet who 
 has dwelt for years on the Strand has attempted to describe 
 fields and rivers, and generally succeeded accordingly. 
 Hence that nauseous repetition of the same circumstances ; 
 hence that disgusting impropriety of introducing what may 
 be called a set of hereditary images, without proper regard 
 to the age, or climate, or occasion in which they were 
 formerly used. ... If our poets would accustom 
 themselves to contemplate fully every object before they 
 attempted to describe it, they would not fail of giving their 
 readers more new images than they generally do.'^ 
 
 Not only does he object to the falsity and vagueness of 
 imagery in the poetry of the eighteenth century ; he is also 
 disposed to scoff at stilted refinement, and to recommend 
 language more natural and touching. He praises as 
 'pathetic to the last degree' the lines from Jane Shore: 
 
 Why dost thou fix thy dying eyes upon me 
 With such an earnest, such a piteous look, 
 As if thy heart were full of some sad meaning 
 Thou couldst not speak, 
 
 adding that the few words, 'Forgive me, hut forgive me' 
 in this play exceed the most pompous declamation of Cato.^ 
 Of course Warton's criticism was not only the cause but 
 the effect of a change in taste. Everywhere there were 
 indications of this change — of an increasing interest in 
 nature and common life and the romantic past beyond the 
 age of refinement. Almost all the poetry of note in the 
 generation preceding Wordsworth heralded his coming, and 
 gave the impulse to his genius. But Joseph Warton is 
 especially noteworthy, as clearly and distinctly formulating 
 
 ^ Cf. Wordsworth, Preface to the Lyrical Ballads: 'I have at all 
 times endeavored to look steadily at my subject; consequently 
 there is, I hope, in these poems little falsehood of description.' 
 
 ^ Essay i. 273-274. 
 
POETIC DICTION IN MODERN TIMES 57 
 
 the new ideal which was variously illustrated in the poems 
 of Thomson, Goldsmith, Cowper, and even Gray. 
 
 Warton's good work was carried on by a much less intel- 
 ligent person — John Scott of Amwell, who is of interest 
 to us because his Essays were read by Wordsworth in his 
 youth. Although his remarks are vitiated by a rather 
 undiscriminating emphasis on what he believes to be 'cor- 
 rectness,' he insists, even more earnestly than Warton, on 
 clear and characteristic imagery; and he has no mercy on 
 the old periphrastic diction. 'Blushing Flora,' he says,^ 
 'is the quaint and indistinct language of a schoolboy; for 
 why Flora should blush no good reason has ever been 
 discovered.' 
 
 But while the criticism was thus undermining the influ- 
 ence of the poetic diction, the conception of a special 
 usage for poetry, v/hich had been incidentally suggested 
 by Addison, began to become widespread. 
 
 J. Theories of Poetic Diction. 
 
 The theory of a special diction for poetry was the result 
 of the emphasis placed by Dryden and Pope upon the selec- 
 tive power of the poet, and upon the value of imitation. 
 The poet must employ the current speech, but he must also 
 avoid everything vulgar or unintelligibly specific. More- 
 over, he was permitted, even advised, to incorporate into his 
 verse the happiest inspirations of his predecessors. The 
 result was the development of the notion that there is a 
 special language of poetry — a treasure of fine phrases 
 descending from bard to bard, and especially consecrated 
 to the uses of the imagination. In general, the term poetic 
 diction was applied only to these 'happy combinations' of 
 words. Transpositions of words from the order of prose, 
 the coining of new words, the use of strange forms, etc., 
 
 ^ Essays on the Writings of Several English Poets, p. 72. 
 
58 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 were all condemned by men like Dr. Johnson and Gold- 
 smith, who represent the purest classical ideal in this 
 respect, and whose criticism is echoed in the reviews of 
 Wordsworth's day. 
 
 But there was a less popular conception of the special 
 language of poetry which permitted a slight departure from 
 the strictness of prose in the matter of vocabulary and 
 syntax, provided this did not obscure the intelligibility of 
 the verse. Of this conception Addison's analysis of the 
 style of Milton, according to the standards of Aristotle, is 
 perhaps the best example. 
 
 Hence there arose two types of poetic diction, represent- 
 ing the classic and the romantic traditions — if we may em- 
 ploy those vague but convenient terms. The one, imitat- 
 ing the example of Dryden and Pope, retained the grammar 
 and syntax, and, for the most part, the vocabulary of prose, 
 but employed the happy combinations of words recom- 
 mended by Dr. Johnson ; the other, imitating Milton and 
 Spenser, the poetic models in the reaction against Pope, 
 rejected the phrases and versification of the heroic couplet, 
 but made use of the old words and 'licentious transposi- 
 tions' so emphatically condemned by Dr. Johnson and 
 the reviewers. The various modifications of this ideal of 
 a special language for poetry may be seen in the following 
 typical quotations: 
 
 I. Addison^: If clearness and perspicuity were only to be con- 
 sulted, the poet would have nothing else to do but to clothe his 
 thoughts in the most plain and natural expressions. But since it 
 often happens that the most obvious phrases, and those which are 
 used in ordinary conversation, become too familiar to the ear, 
 and contract a kind of meanness by passing through the mouths of 
 the vulgar, a poet should take particular care to guard himself 
 against idiomatic ways of speaking. . . . Milton has but few fail- 
 ings in this kind, of which, however, you may meet with some 
 instances, as in the following passages : 
 
 ^ Criticisms of Paradise Lost, ed. Cook, pp. 21-23. 
 
POETIC DICTION IN 'MODERN TIMES 59 
 
 Embryos and idiots, idiots and friars, 
 
 White, black, and gray, with all their trumpery 
 
 Here pilgrims roam. 
 
 A while discourse they hold, 
 
 No fear lest dinner coo/— when thus began 
 
 Our author. 
 
 Who of all ages to succeed, but feeling 
 The evil on him brought by me, will curse 
 My head? Ill fare our ancestor impure, 
 For this we may thank Adam. 
 The great masters in composition know very well that many an 
 elegant phrase becomes improper for a poet or an orator when it 
 
 has been debased by common use The judgment of a poet 
 
 very much discovers itself in shunning the common roads of expres- 
 sion, without falling into such ways of speech as may seem stiff 
 and unnatural; he must not swell into the false sublime by en- 
 deavoring to avoid the other extreme. 
 
 Addison then proceeds to enumerate the ways by which, 
 according to Aristotle, the language of verse may be dis- 
 tinguished from that of prose, and illustrates them by 
 reference to Paradise Lost. They are: 
 
 1. The use of metaphor. (But the poet is not to have 
 recourse to this when the proper and natural words will do 
 as well.) 
 
 2. The use of idioms of other tongues. 'Under this 
 head may be reckoned the placing the adjective after the 
 substantive, the transposition of words, the turning the 
 adjective into a substantive, with several foreign modes of 
 speech which this poet has naturalized to give his verse 
 the greater sound, and throw it out of prose.' 
 
 3. Use of several old words or words newly coined 
 (miscreated, hell-doomed, etc.). 
 
 However, Addison believes that Milton has taken these 
 liberties rather too frequently, and has thereby stiffened 
 and obscured his style. But he admits that this license is 
 perhaps more necessary in blank verse than in rime. 'Rime, 
 
6o Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 without any other assistance, throws the language off from 
 prose/ 
 
 2. Gray^: The language of the age is never the language of 
 poetry; except among the French, whose verse, where the thought 
 and image does not support it, differs in nothing from prose. Our 
 poetry, on the contrary, has a language peculiar to itself, to which 
 almost every one that has written has added something by enriching 
 it with foreign idioms and derivations : nay, sometimes words of 
 their own composition or invention. Shakespeare and Milton have 
 been great creators this way ; and no one more licentious than 
 Pope or Dryden, who perpetually borrow expressions from the 
 former. Let me give you some instances from Dryden, whom 
 every one reckons a great master of our poetical tongue: — full of 
 museful mopings, unlike the trim of love, a pleasant beverage, a 
 roundelay of love, stood silent in his mood, with knots and knares 
 
 deformed But they are infinite ; and our language not being 
 
 a settled thing (like the French) has an undoubted right to words 
 of a hundred years old, provided antiquity have not rendered them 
 unintelligible. In truth, Shakespeare's language is one of his prin- 
 ciple beauties Every word in him is a picture. 
 
 3. Johnson^ : Language is the dress of thought ; and as the 
 noblest action or the most graceful action would be degraded and 
 obscured by a garb appropriated to the gross employments of 
 rustics or mechanics, so the most heroic sentiments would lose their 
 efficacy, and the most splendid ideas drop their magnificence, if 
 they are conveyed by words used only upon low and trivial occa- 
 sions, debased by vulgar mouths, and contaminated by inelegant 
 applications. Truth is indeed always truth, and reason is always 
 reason ; they have an intrinsic and unalterable value, and constitute 
 that intellectual gold which defies destruction : but gold may be so 
 concealed in baser matter that only a chemist can recover it; sense 
 may be so hidden in unrefined and plebeian words that none but 
 philosophers can distinguish it. 
 
 There was therefore before the time of Dryden no poetical dic- 
 tion: no system of words at once refined from the grossness of 
 domestic use, and free from the harshness of terms appropriated to 
 particular arts. Words too familiar or too remote defeat the pur- 
 pose of the poet. From those sounds which we hear on small or 
 on coarse occasions we do not easily receive strong impressions or 
 delightful images; and words to which we are nearly strangers, 
 
 ^Letter to Richard West, April 4, 1742 (Letters i. 98). 
 
 'Life of Cowley (Lives i. 58) ; Life of Dryden (Lives i. 420), 
 
POETIC DICTION IN 'MODERN TIMES' 6 1 
 
 whenever they occur, draw that attention to themselves which they 
 should transmit to things. Those happy combinations of words 
 which distinguish poetry from prose had been rarely attempted ; we 
 had few elegances or flowers of speech. 
 
 4. Goldsmith^ : It is indeed amazing, after what has been done 
 by Dryden, Addison, and Pope, to improve and harmonize our native 
 tongue, that their successors should have taken so much pains to 
 involve it into pristine barbarity. These misguided innovators have 
 not been content with restoring antiquated words and phrases, but 
 have indulged themselves in the most licentious transpositions, and 
 the harshest constructions, vainly imagining that the more their 
 writings are unlike prose, the more they resemble poetry ; they have 
 adopted a language of their own, and call upon mankind for admira- 
 tion. All those who do not understand them are silent, and those 
 who make out their meaning are willing to praise to show they 
 understand. From these follies and affectations the poems of 
 Parnell are entirely free ; he has considered the language of poetry 
 as the language of life, and conveys the warmest thoughts in the 
 simplest expression. 
 
 The various opinions here so strongly expressed were 
 weakly echoed in the average criticisms of the last 
 decades of the century — in Blair's Essays on Rhetoric, for 
 example, and in the Critical Review. It became a truism 
 that 'our language has a special diction for poetry' ; but 
 this special diction was usually definitely limited by the taste 
 of the critic, and of the particular poets whom he chose 
 to regard as models. The followers of Spenser and the 
 followers of Pope each regarded the poetic diction of the 
 other as entirely without justification, and were inclined to 
 appeal to the standard of spoken language to reenforce 
 their arguments. But meanwhile Burns and Cowper had v 
 been silently preparing the way for another ideal — the one 
 by employing the language of the lower and middle classes 
 in his own land, and the other by illustrating his own ideal 
 of expression — 'to make verse speak the language of prose 
 without being prosaic, to marshal the words of it in such 
 an order as they might naturally take in falling from the 
 
 ^ Life of Thomas ParncU {Works 4. 173). 
 
62 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 lips of an extemporary speaker, yet without meanness, 
 harmoniously, elegantly, and without seeming to displace a 
 syllable for the sake of rhyme.' 
 
 4. Poetic Diction in i/()6-i'/Q'/'. 
 
 But, as Coleridge says, in order to understand the reform 
 of Wordsworth, we must also make ourselves acquainted 
 with the sort of verse that was appearing when he began 
 to write. It happens that some of the most typical examples 
 of such verse are to be found in the Monthly Magazine, 
 which was also publishing the revolutionary efforts of Cole- 
 ridge and his friends. Apart from the productions of 
 these young innovators, and apart also from a few deliber- 
 ate imitations of Cowper and Collins and Gray, this verse 
 divides itself into two types, or two variations upon one 
 type. The difference consists in the versification rather 
 than the language. 
 
 On the one hand, we find examples of the heroic couplet 
 and all the periphrastic elegances associated therewith. Of 
 this type the following translation from Lucretious is a 
 good example: 
 
 For thee the fields their flowery carpet spread, 
 And smiling Ocean smooths his wavy bed; 
 A purer glow the kindling poles display, 
 Robed in bright effluence of ethereal day, 
 When through her portals bursts the gaudy Spring, 
 And genial Zephyr waves his balmy wing. 
 First the gay songsters of the feather'd train 
 Feel thy keen arrows thrill in every vein.^ 
 
 On the other hand, we find a large number of effusions 
 in verse which, without materially differing from this speci- 
 men in language, reveal the influence of Collins, Gray, and 
 the Wartons in a sweeter and freer versification borrowed 
 chiefly from Milton's minor poems. These poems (if 
 poems they may be called) are characterized by a slightly 
 simplified, though hardly more specific, diction, and by a 
 
 ^February, 1797. 
 
POETIC DICTION IN ^MODERN TIMES' 63 
 
 rather unconvincing tone of melancholy and love of natural 
 scenery. However, this love does not lead the authors to 
 a very careful or intimate observation of the objects of 
 their affection. For the most part, they, too, are content 
 v\^ith the old inanities about balmy spring and all her monot- 
 onous zephyrs. The following are specimens of this ameli- 
 orated verse. The first is a rather favorable example of 
 the results of the new^ interest in Milton's minor poems : 
 
 Oh, far removed from my retreat 
 Be Av'rice and Ambition's feet! 
 Give me, unconscious of their power, 
 To taste the peaceful, social hour. 
 Give me, beneath the branching vine, 
 The woodbine sweet, or eglantine, 
 When evening sheds its balmy dews, 
 To court the chaste, inspiring Muse.^ 
 
 Here there is a complete absence of the periphrastic diction 
 of the first example, though the imagery is still a little 
 conventional. But such echoes of Dyer and other imitators 
 of // Penseroso are less frequent than verses like the fol- 
 lowing, in which the old words are fitted to new tunes : 
 
 See, fairest of the nymphs that play 
 In vernal meadows, blooming May 
 
 Comes tripping o'er the plain. 
 Lo ! All the gay, the genial powers 
 That deck the woods or tend the flowers 
 
 Compose her smiling train.^ 
 
 To a Primrose. 
 Pale visitant of balmy spring, 
 
 Joy of the new-born year, 
 Thou bidst young hope new plume his wing 
 
 Soon as thy buds appear. 
 While o'er the incense-breathing sky 
 The tepid hours just dare to fly. 
 And vainly woo the chilling breeze,^ etc. 
 
 ^February, 1797. 
 ''April, 1797. 
 
64 WORDSWORTH'S THEORY OF POETIC DICTION 
 
 Now and then we find examples of natural imagery that 
 is not only hopelessly general but absolutely false — the false- 
 ness consisting in the unnatural personification displayed 
 most conspicuously in those eighteenth-century verses in 
 honor of 'nymphs' before whom lofty trees bow in rever- 
 ence, and roses blush to find their beauties rivaled by the 
 'lovely fair.' The bad habits inculcated by this extravagant 
 gallantry lead poetasters into the most ridiculous falsifica- 
 tions — even when they are celebrating a Nature that does 
 not suffer from competition with these distracting goddesses. 
 In the following effusion the coming of the sun (Apollo) is 
 described in the terms formerly used of the advent of some 
 lovely lady or dazzling lord : 
 
 See ! As he comes, with general voice, 
 All nature's living tribes rejoice, 
 
 And own him as their king ; 
 Ev'n rugged rocks their heads advance, 
 And forests on the mountains dance. 
 
 And hills and valleys sing} 
 
 Such verse in a magazine of good character gives point to 
 Wordsworth's rather sarcastic reference to the school of 
 good sense : 'I have at all times endeavored to look steadily 
 at my subject; consequently there is, I hope, in these poems 
 little falsehood of description, and my ideas are expressed 
 in language fitted to their respective importance. Some- 
 thing must have been gained by this practice, as it is friendly 
 to one property of good poetry, namely, good sense.' 
 
 This latter type has been quoted at some length to show 
 that M. Legouis is hardly correct in saying^ that the influ- 
 ence of the landscape school was responsible for the poetic 
 diction against which AVordsworth's efforts were directed. 
 This poetic diction he describes as consisting in those devia- 
 tions from the order and syntax of prose which he finds in 
 Wordsworth's own early work. But, obviously, the one 
 
 ^June, 1797. 
 
 ^ The Early Life of William Wordsworth, pp. 127-134. 
 
POETIC DICTION IN 'MODERN TIMES' 65 
 
 thing that is not characteristic of contemporary verse is this 
 departure from the ordinary usage of spoken language, 
 either with respect to grammar or choice of words, if we 
 regard the words separately, and not in combination. Of 
 course there are a few examples of harsh constructions, 
 such as the imitation of the ablative absolute, rather com- 
 mon in the poetry of the later eighteenth century, and never 
 wholly discarded by Wordsworth. But, for the most part, 
 the grammar and syntax are correct and easy — as may be 
 seen by looking back at the examples already quoted. In 
 the first example there is a slight departure in the first, 
 third, and fifth lines from the strict order of prose ; but we 
 do not feel the inversion to be so awkward as it is in the 
 lines from Wordsworth cited by M. Legouis. Moreover, 
 the grammatical construction is quite simple and regular. 
 In the second extract only the clause, 'Give me to 
 taste,' seems rather unusual in the spoken language. In the 
 next two poems, however, the order is strictly that of 
 prose, and, apaft from the word 'incense-breathing,' there 
 is not a word which might not be heard in fairly cultivated 
 conversation. This, with one or two exceptions, is true 
 of the other verses. On the whole, one could hardly 
 expect in any age to find verse of the average character 
 which w^as less unmusical, or more simple and clear in 
 construction, or which employed fewer words not heard in 
 ordinary speech. That these characteristics are typical 
 may be seen by any reader who takes the trouble to examine 
 the miscellanies and magazines of the day. The boast 
 of the eighteenth century that it had at last made English 
 verse metrically and grammatically correct is borne out by 
 such an examination. 
 
 What then is it that removes the language of this verse 
 so far from nature and truth — for obviously this is not 
 the way in which sensible men express themselves? While 
 sensible men use these words separately, they do not use 
 these combinations of them. They may employ the words 
 genial, waves, balmy, and wing, at different times and for 
 
66 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 different purposes, but, in order to indicate that a soft and 
 gentle breeze is blowing, they do not say that 'genial Zephyr 
 waves his balmy wings/ In other words, the poetic diction 
 consists, not in the separate words, but in those 'happy 
 combinations' which, as Dr. Johnson says, distinguish 
 poetry from prose. The peculiarity of these elegances of 
 speech is that they suggest an image, not by using the word 
 or words associated with it in everyday experience, but by 
 using, in its stead, another image associated with it only in 
 verse — a kind of accepted symbol for the image. Hence, 
 instead of the clear and coherent pictures suggested simply 
 by a list of the common names of the phenomena that actu- 
 ally occur together in nature — green grass, sunshine, and 
 violets, for instance, — we are given a heterogeneous mass 
 of substitute images, which cannot be actually visualized 
 without somewhat ridiculous results. To such an end had 
 one attempt to make the language of verse approximate to 
 the language of typical conversation arrived ! Yet it must 
 not be forgotten that there had been such an attempt, even 
 at the basis of this monstrous development. 
 
 From this long review it may be seen that, on the whole, 
 the authors of the Lyrical Ballads were justified in believ- 
 ing that their theory and practice were in accordance w^th 
 the best traditions of English poetry. It may also be seen 
 that the question of poetic diction was exceedingly com- 
 plicated, because it involved not only matters of vocabulary 
 and grammar, but the far more difficult problems of rhet- 
 oric, and the ultimate basis of rhetoric in human psychology. 
 The special contribution of Wordsworth and Coleridge con- 
 sisted in their recognition of these problems of psychology, 
 and the insight and personal experience which they brought 
 to bear upon them. The bold young poets of the Lyrical 
 Ballads were merely restating an old proposition ; but the 
 terms of the restatement were so striking, and the illustra- 
 tions so original, that the old ideal seemed like a discovery 
 of their own. But how they themselves happened to make 
 the rediscovery we have yet to learn. 
 
CHAPTER 3. 
 
 WORDSWORTH^S POETIC DEVELOPMENT PREVIOUS TO THE 
 MEETING WITH COLERIDGE. 
 
 To trace the different paths by which the vigorous and 
 independent mountain-lad, and the dreamy but sociable 
 young philosopher of Christ's Hospital, arrived at the same 
 ideal of simplicity is not one of the least interesting of 
 literary inquiries. It is the more interesting because 
 simplicity was as little characteristic of the natural genius 
 of the one as of the other. The only poet of the age who 
 was normally as self-conscious and elaborate as S. T. 
 Coleridge was William Wordsworth. And yet, as Words- 
 worth said. 
 
 Though mutually unknown, yea, nursed and reared 
 
 As if in several elements, we were framed 
 
 To bend at last to the same discipline. 
 
 Predestined, if two beings ever were. 
 
 To seek the same delights, and have one health, 
 
 One happiness.' 
 
 The final character of this discipline was determined as 
 much by the youthful development of Coleridge as by that 
 of Wordsworth; but since Wordsworth is, as it were, the 
 hero of this tale, we must begin with his early experiments 
 in poetry and criticism, and use those of Coleridge only 
 as supplementary and illustrative material. 
 
 Wordsworth's literary career was rather precocious. He 
 was something of a critic before he was ten, and a really 
 skilful maker of verses at the age of fourteen.- But even 
 before this he had unconsciously begun to lay the founda- 
 
 ^ Prelude 6. 254-259. 
 
 ' The Idiot Boy 337-33^. 
 
68 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 tion of his future theory of poetry in those curious 
 imaginative experiences described in the Prelude. No one 
 who hves among the grand and lonely forms of nature 
 is free from a touch of primitive superstition — from a 
 tendency to start at the sudden rustling of leaves in a forest, 
 or to feel a strangeness in the blovv^ing of the wind, or the 
 motion of the sky above some unfrequented mountain- 
 height. The facing of these inexplicable but unconquerable 
 fears was the grand adventure of Wordsworth's boyhood. 
 Sometimes he was ignominiously vanquished by them, as in 
 that nocturnal experience when he seemed to feel the dark 
 shape of the mountain at night stride after him 'with 
 measured motion like a living thing,' and 'with trembling 
 oars' rowed back to the safe covert of the willow.^ More 
 often they entered suddenly into his consciousness in the 
 midst of the excitement of some physical exploit : 
 
 Oh! when I have hung 
 Above the raven's nest, by knots of grass 
 And half-inch fissures in the slippery rock 
 But ill sustained, and almost (so it seemed) 
 Suspended by the blast that blew amain, 
 Shouldering the naked crag, oh, at that time 
 While on the perilous ridge I hung alone. 
 With what strange utterance did the loud dry wind 
 Blow through my ear ! the sky seemed not a sky 
 Of earth — and with what motion moved the clouds !" 
 
 To the haunting sense of strangeness in his contact with 
 nature were added many other dim and undetermined 
 feelings. Long afterwards, in his talks with Coleridge 
 among the Quantock Hills, the memory of these threw a 
 sudden light upon the old question of the character and 
 source of poetic pleasure, showing him that the poet might 
 be, as nature had been to him, the 'teacher of truth through 
 joy and through gladness' — a creator of 'the faculties by 
 
 ^Prelude i. 357-400. 
 "Prelude i. 330-339- 
 
Wordsworth's poetic development 69 
 
 a process of smoothness and delight.'^ This early delight 
 had been manifold in its character. Sometimes it was only 
 an eager and inquisitive interest in the actual forms and 
 appearances of things, a physical dehght almost as pure as 
 it was violent. Sometimes it was a dim, half-pagan 
 sympathy with life in all things — 
 
 a sense sublime 
 Of something far more deeply interfused, 
 Whose dwelling is the Hght of setting suns, 
 And the round ocean and the living air, 
 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man," 
 
 rising at times into a still contemplative consciousness of 
 a world beyond the world of sense — of something which 
 had power to make our 'noisy years seem moments in the 
 being of the eternal Silence'^ — in the light of which all the 
 solid material universe seemed to become a dream, a pros- 
 pect in the mind. He was familiar, too, with the magical 
 works of light and storm and mist and darkness among the 
 hills. He says of the mountain shepherd: 
 
 When up the lonely brooks on rainy days 
 
 Angling I went, or trod the trackless hills 
 
 By mists bewildered, suddenly mine eyes 
 
 Have glanced upon him distant a few steps, 
 
 In size a giant, stalking through thick fog, 
 
 His sheep like Greenland bears ; or, as he stepped 
 
 Beyond the boundary line of some hill-shadow, 
 
 His form hath flashed upon me, glorified 
 
 By the deep radiance of the setting sun: 
 
 Or him have I descried in distant sky, 
 
 A solitary object and sublime. 
 
 Above all height! like an aerial cross 
 
 Stationed alone upon a spiry rock 
 
 Of the Chartreuse, for worship.* 
 
 ^ Letter to the Friend, Wordsworth's Literary Criticism, p. 68. 
 '^ Lines composed a Few Miles Above Tintcrn Abbey, 95-99. 
 ^Intimations of Imwortality 159-160. 
 * Prelude 8. 262-275. 
 
70 WORDSWORTH'S THEORY OF POETIC DICTION 
 
 And such phenomena, produced by natural causes, had all 
 the power of a supernatural experience over the heart of 
 the imaginative boy, glorifying and transfiguring the com- 
 monest things of every day with the light of visions and 
 strange dreams. Later, the transfiguration was a conscious 
 act of his own imagination, stimulated as it was by much 
 reading among fairy tales and 'old romances.'^ A 'diamond 
 light,' shed by the setting sun upon a wet rock in front of 
 the cottage, would make the boy's fancy as restless as itself : 
 
 'T was now for me a burnished silver shield 
 Suspended over a knight's tomb, who lay 
 Inglorious, buried in the dusky wood : 
 An entrance now into some magic cave 
 Or palace built by fairies of the rock/ 
 
 These transports and pure delights of his boyhood, and 
 the renovation of spirit due to his memory of them and 
 return to them, must have been recalled in the memorable 
 conversations which gave rise to the Lyrical Ballads. It 
 then occurred to the two friends that the effect of poetry 
 was quite analogous to the effect of these visionary appear- 
 ances of nature — that it was the function of the poet to fix 
 and retain for ever these momentary exaltations which 
 were as fleeting as the phenomena which occasioned them. 
 Thus poetry — such an enshrining of these experiences as 
 The Daffodils, The Solitary Reaper, or Stepping West- 
 \ward — might become what these memories were to Words- 
 iworth, a fountain of refreshment to which he returned 
 again and again : 
 
 There are in our existence spots of time, 
 That with a distinct pre-eminence retain 
 A renovating virtue, whence, depressed 
 By false opinion and contentious thought. 
 Or aught of heavier or more deadly weight, 
 
 ^ Cf . Prelude 8. 406-420. 
 
Wordsworth's poetic development 71 
 
 In trivial occupations, and the round 
 
 Of ordinary intercourse, our minds 
 
 Are nourished and invisibly repaired ; 
 
 A virtue, by which pleasure is enhanced, 
 
 That penetrates, enables us to mount, 
 
 When high, more high, and lifts us up when fallen. 
 
 This efficacious spirit chiefly lurks 
 
 Among those passages of life that give 
 
 Profoundest knowledge to what point, and how. 
 
 The mind is lord and master — outward sense 
 
 The obedient servant of her will/ 
 
 But this noble theory of imagination, which was the basis 
 of the new style of the Lyrical Ballads, was also the fruit 
 of conscious experiment during the fourteen years of lit- 
 erary apprenticeship, and of a still longer period of critical 
 reading. Every reader of Wordsworth's own account of 
 himself as one of a band of active, noisy lads, whose year 
 span through a giddy round of hunting, fishing, skating, 
 and all the amusements of country schoolboys, must feel 
 his early achievements of this sort to be rather remarkable. 
 But his father 'Jiad cultivated his ear for verse, while he 
 was a little child,'' by making him learn passages from 
 Shakespeare, Spenser, and Milton,^ and had furnished him 
 with a 'golden store of books, '^ to which he always returned, 
 in his vacations from school, with tempestuous delight. 
 His love of reading even rivaled his love of fishing — rob- 
 bing him of some brief holiday sport, and leading him to 
 waste the precious hours, every minute of which he prob- 
 ably had planned with all the foresight and economy of a 
 boy home for a vacation: 
 
 How often in the course 
 
 Of those glad respites, though a soft west wind 
 
 Ruffled the water to the angler's wish. 
 
 For a whole day together, have I lain 
 
 ^Prelude 12. 208-223. 
 "^Memoirs i. 34. 
 ^Prelude 5. 479. 
 
72 WORDSWORTH S THEORY OF POETIC DICTION 
 
 Down by thy side, O Derwent ! murmuring stream, 
 
 On the hot stones, and in the glaring sun, 
 
 And there have read, devouring as I read, 
 
 Defrauding the day's glory, desperate ! 
 
 Till with a sudden bound of smart reproach, 
 
 Such as an idler deals with in his shame, 
 
 I to the sport betook myself again/ 
 
 When he was scarcely ten years old, this joy in reading 
 began to develop into a conscious delight in metrical lan- 
 guage, and he had learned to select from the passages his 
 father taught him, and the possibly more gaudy verse he 
 chose for himself, the lines and phrases that pleased him 
 for their loveliness or pomp. He draws a charming picture 
 of himself and a 'dear friend' circling the lake in a dewy 
 early morning before any one was abroad, and repeating 
 their favorite verses aloud with one voice, as happy, he 
 says, as the birds whose songs accompanied them. This 
 performance would often last 'for the better part of two 
 dehghtful hours.' One is tempted to inquire whether the 
 ten-year-old Wordsworth had already memorized enough 
 verse to last through a two-hour recitation, or whether he 
 said his favorites over and over.^ 
 
 However this may be, his favorites were not such as his 
 maturer taste approved : 
 
 And, though full oft the objects of our love 
 
 Were false, and in their splendour overwrought. 
 
 Yet was there surely then no vulgar power 
 
 Working within us, — nothing less, in truth, 
 
 Than that most noble attribute of man, 
 
 Though yet untutored and inordinate. 
 
 That wish for something loftier, more adorned, 
 
 Than in the common aspect, daily garb. 
 
 Of human life. What wonder, then, if sounds 
 
 Of exaltation echoed through the groves ! 
 
 For, images, and sentiments, and words, 
 
 ^Prelude 5. 480-490. 
 'Ihid. 5. 552 ff. 
 
WORDSWORTH S POETIC DEVELOPMENT 73 
 
 And everything encountered or pursued 
 In that delicious world of poesy, 
 Kept holiday, a never-ending show, 
 With music, incense, festival, and flowers!^ 
 
 There could be no nobler tribute than this to the false ideals 
 of poetic ornament which he was later to combat! But 
 all the poetic ideals of the eighteenth century seem to have 
 influenced Wordsworth in succession. One reason why his 
 development is so interesting is that, unlike Coleridge and 
 Lamb, he found his poetic inspiration, and the seeds of a 
 progressive growth toward the ideal he was eventually to 
 adopt, chiefly in the literature that was popular in the age 
 preceding him. Beginning as a disciple of Pope, he pro- 
 ceeds, through an interest in the landscape-poets, to all the 
 sins of the revolutionary young writers of his own day. He 
 therefore seems to represent in himself a whole period of 
 literary development. 
 
 I. A Disciple of Pope. 
 
 Perhaps some of the 'several thousand' lines from Pope 
 which Wordsworth could repeat long after his attack on 
 Pope's language had begun to prove successful,- helped to 
 swell his youthful recitations ; for in his first attempt at verse 
 at the age of fourteen he shows himself to be a very clever 
 pupil of the school of the heroic couplet. 'I was called 
 upon, among other scholars,' he said, 'to write verses upon 
 the completion of the second centenary from the founda- 
 tion of the school [at Hawkshead] in 1585, by Archbishop 
 Sandys. The verses were much admired, far more than 
 they deserved, for they were but a tame imitation of Pope's 
 versification, and a little in his style. This exercise, how- 
 ever, put it into my head to compose verses from the 
 impulse of my own mind, and I wrote, while yet a school- 
 
 ^ Prelude 5. 569-583- 
 "'L. W. F. 3. 122. 
 
74 WORDSWORTH S THEORY OF POETIC DICTION 
 
 boy, a long poem running upon my own adventures, and 
 the scenery of the country in which I was brought up. 
 The only part of that poem which has been preserved is the 
 conclusion of it, which stands at the beginning of my col- 
 lected Poems. '^ Although, as far as poetic substance and 
 originality are concerned, the Lines written as a School 
 Exercise at Hawkshead^ deserve Wordsworth's disparaging 
 remarks, the apparent ease with which he manipulates the 
 metre, without transgressing the numerous rules laid down 
 by the critics of the eighteenth century, is remarkable. 
 Few passages of verse produced in the palmy days of the 
 couplet show so very little variation from the ideal stand- 
 ard, already described in these pages, as this effort of the 
 country schoolboy. There is no unnecessary expletive in 
 the whole production, and hardly a single example of 
 hiatus^; no wrenching of the accent, no unusual form of 
 a word. The rhymes are all exact, with the exception of 
 'driven' and 'heaven,' and 'grove' and 'move,'* which are 
 usual in the heroic couplet. There are only two alexan- 
 drines,^ and no triplets. Moreover, the construction of the 
 sentences is clear, and shows less departure from the normal 
 order of prose than is common in this type of verse; for, 
 despite Dryden's strictures, there was always a tendency 
 to invert the order in a line, in such a way that the rhyme 
 fell on the verb — a mannerism which was considered by 
 some an elegant improvement. There is a natural break 
 
 ^Memoirs i. 10-13. 
 
 " Reprinted in the Oxford edition, pp. 618-619. 
 
 ^ 86 : 'And learn from thence thy own defects to scan' is an 
 exception. Wordsworth was always careful to avoid hiatus — more 
 careful than most poets of the nineteenth century, to whose ears it 
 was less offensive than the poets of the preceding century felt it 
 to be 
 
 ' 1-2, 13-14. 
 
 ® 40, 62. In both cases the alexandrine is used with some climactic 
 effect at the end of a period. 
 
Wordsworth's poetic development 75 
 
 at the end of every couplet. This easy, though somewhat 
 oratorical, style may be illustrated by the following extract^ : 
 
 No jarring monks, to gloomy cell confined, 
 With mazy rules perplex the weary mind ; 
 No shadowy forms entice the soul aside, 
 Secure she walks, Philosophy her guide. 
 Britain, who long her warriors had adored, 
 And deemed all merit centred in the sword; 
 Britain, who thought to stain the field was fame, 
 Now honour'd Edward's less than Bacon's name. 
 Her sons no more in listed fields advance 
 To ride the ring, or toss the beamy lance; 
 No longer steel their indurated hearts 
 - To the mild influence of the finer arts ; 
 Quick to the secret grotto they retire 
 To court majestic truth, or wake the golden lyre. 
 
 2. A Disciple of the Landscape-School 
 
 About this time Wordsworth's newly awakened poetic 
 ambition received an impulse which resulted in something 
 better than this facile reproduction of the conventionalities 
 of the heroic couplet, and the empty and gaudy imagery 
 associated with it. On the way between Hawkshead and 
 Ambleside, he happened to notice the darkening boughs and 
 leaves of an oak-tree, outlined clearly and strongly against 
 the sunset sky. like so many of the things that he hap- 
 pened to see for himself, the discovery of this change in the 
 famiUar appearance of things, wrought by the evening 
 light, came to him with the freshness and power of a great 
 revelation. The moment was important in my poetical 
 history ; for I date from it my consciousness of the infinite 
 variety of natural appearances which had been unnoticed 
 by poets of any age or country, so far as I was acquainted 
 with them; and I made a resolution to supply, in some 
 degree, the deficiency. I could not have been at that time 
 
 '49-62. 
 
76 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 above fourteen years of age.'^ The direction thus given to 
 his imaginative energies seems to have determined his 
 choice of reading, and the nature of his experiments in 
 verse, until the end of his schooldays. Then the 'still, sad 
 music of humanity' entered his poetry as an even deeper 
 and more powerful impulse than this first vision of the 
 marvels of the external world. 
 
 The first result of this discovery of his own powers seems 
 to have been a style of much grace and simplicity, which 
 gradually developed into a morbid peculiarity of expres- 
 sion, and was regained only by a deliberate effort. The 
 only examples of this earlier purity of diction that we 
 have are the extract, 'Dear Native Regions,' mentioned 
 by Wordsworth in the remark just quoted apropos of the 
 School Exercise; the sonnet Written in very Early Youth; 
 and the Lines written while sailing in a Boat, which with 
 the Remembrance of Collins originally formed one piece. 
 None of these survives in its original form. For this reason 
 M. Legouis,- comparing them with the 'genuine samples' 
 of Wordsworth's early work, supposes their simplicity to 
 be entirely the result of later correction. They are 'early 
 poems only in respect of their subject-matter,' he says. 
 This might seem probable — on the supposition that Words- 
 worth had but one early style — if it were not for two 
 important circumstances. 
 
 In the first place, Wordsworth prints the first two as 
 Juvenile Poems, along with the Evening Walk and the 
 Descriptive Sketches; and, with his usual scrupulous 
 honesty, prefixes to the group the following note^: 'Of 
 the Poems in this class, the Evening Walk and Descriptive 
 Sketches were first published in 1793. They are reprinted 
 with some alterations that were chiefly made very soon after 
 their publication. It would have been easy to amend them, 
 
 ^Memoirs i. 67-68. 
 
 ■ The Early Life of William Wordsworth, p. 121. 
 
 ^The Miscellaneous Poems of William Wordsworth [1820] i. 64. 
 
WORDSWORTPI S POETIC DEVELOPMENT 77 
 
 in many passages, both as to sentiment and expression, 
 and I have not been altogether able to resist the tempta- 
 tion, as will be obvious to the attentive reader, in some 
 instances; these are few, for I am aware tliat attempts 
 of this kind are made at the risk of injuring those char- 
 acteristic features which, after all, will be regarded as the 
 principal recommendations of juvenile poems/ When he 
 is tempted into further alterations he adds to this comment 
 a further qualification^ : 'This notice, which was written 
 some time ago, scarcely applies to the Poem ''Descriptive 
 Sketches," as it now stands. The corrections, though 
 numerous, are not, however, such as to prevent its retain- 
 ing with propriety a place in the class of Juvenile Pieces/ 
 But in neither of these notes does he mention the poems 
 which M. Legouis considers early only in respect to sub- 
 ject-matter. Hence he must have considered his corrections 
 so slight and unimportant as not to detract in the least from 
 their original character. It is inconceivable that a man who 
 applies the term 'Juvenile Poems' with such scrupulous 
 accurac}' should have silently included under that title pieces 
 that were early In substance only, not in style. 
 
 Moreover, it is not difficult to determine approximately 
 the degree of alteration in the case of these poems. At 
 least, a detailed study of the nine different versions can 
 leave very little doubt in the mind of the one who makes 
 the examination, though it is not very easy to condense the 
 results into a convincing proof. 
 
 In the first place, these nine versions may be classified 
 as follows : 
 
 I. A poem of fourteen lines in octosyllabic couplets, 
 preserved in: 
 
 (a) The group of juvenile pieces, printed in the edition 
 of 1815, and reprinted with alterations in the editions of 
 1820, 1827, 1832, 1836, 1841, and 1845. 
 
 ^The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth [1836] i. 46. 
 
78 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 (b) A manuscript version reprinted by Knight from a 
 notebook containing parts of Laodamia, Artegal and Eli- 
 dure, Black Comb, the Dedication of The White Doe, etc. 
 (Wordsworth's Poetical Works 6. 365). 
 
 2. The paraphrase in blank verse of the original poem 
 in Prelude 8. 467-475. 
 
 So many different versions, all purporting to represent the 
 original production, do suggest that the only permanent 
 element in the poem is the subject-matter. But a closer 
 examination simplifies the matter. The variations are then 
 discovered to affect less than half the poem, and to be lim- 
 ited, for the most part, to a wavering choice between two 
 possibilities. One source of the two possibilities then 
 becomes obvious. An original poem in octosyllabic couplets 
 was paraphrased in blank verse for the Prelude; and the 
 alterations suggested by the attempt to avoid rhyme, and 
 to expand tetrameters into pentameters, were then experi- 
 mentally transferred to the original, and, in some cases, 
 finally rejected. The result is that the latest version, which 
 now stands at the beginning of Wordsworth's collected 
 works in the Oxford edition, probably represents the 
 earliest form as well as any except the first printed version 
 (1815). The doubtful lines in it may be easily indicated, 
 and the extent of the doubt determined, by a comparison of 
 this with the paraphrase in the Prelude, and with the other 
 versions. 
 
 I. The Final Version (that of 1845). (The doubtful 
 words or phrases are printed in italics.) 
 
 Dear native regions, I foretell, 
 
 From what I feel at this farewell, 
 
 That, whereso'er my steps may tend. 
 
 And whenso'er by course shall end. 
 
 If in that hour a single tie 
 
 Survive of local sympathy. 
 
 My soul will cast the backward view, 
 
 The longing look alone on you. ♦ 
 
WORDSWORTH S POETIC DEVELOPMENT 79 
 
 Thus, while the Sun sinks down to rest 
 Fa?' in the regions of the west, 
 Though to the vale no parting beam 
 Be given, not one memorial gleam, 
 A lingering light he fondly throws 
 On the dear hills where first he rose. 
 
 2. The Prelude 8. 468-475. 
 
 Dear native Regions, wheresoe'er shall close 
 My mortal course, there will I think on you ; 
 Dying, will cast on you a backward look ; 
 Even as this setting sun (albeit the Vale 
 Is nowhere touched by one memorial gleam) 
 Doth with the fond remains of his last power 
 Still linger, and a farewell lustre sheds 
 On the dear mountain-tops where first he rose. 
 
 A glance at these two versions shows that the greater 
 part of the poem seems to be quite stable. It remains 
 unaltered in all the various editions, and is reproduced in 
 the Prelude as exactly as the metre will permit. This 
 imchanging portion may be taken to represent the part of 
 the original that clearly survives. If it did differ from the 
 original, Wordsworth could have hardly concealed the fact 
 through so many editions. A nervous uncertainty about 
 the wisdom of his own alterations often led him to keep 
 recurring to the earlier form of a poem in later versions; 
 and, in the case of a juvenile poem, this tendency would 
 be increased by a scrupulous fear of dishonestly departing 
 from the youthful style. Hence, where he contentedly 
 writes down the same words, with never a change or a 
 qualm of conscience, for seven different editions, it may be 
 assumed that no other form of these changeless lines is 
 present in his consciousness. Where he does alter, he is 
 likely to alter more than once, and the obvious fluctuation 
 generally reveals the existence of another form in his own 
 mind, and sometimes a character of that form also. 
 
8o Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 Since so much of the final version seems to represent the 
 original, we might be justified in taking it as characteristic 
 of Wordsworth's youthful style without further ado. But 
 if some of the lines in italics can be proved to be less doubt- 
 ful tlian they seem, this corroboration of our judgment will 
 be welcome. Perhaps the best way to decide this will be 
 to examine the questionable phrases one by one. 
 
 I. Line 3. The only reason for doubting this verse, and 
 the two other words in this stanza printed in italics, is fur- 
 nished by the manuscript version, in which lines 3 and 4 
 read: 
 
 That, when the close of life draws dear [sic],'^ 
 And I must quit this earthly sphere, 
 
 and in which tender tie occurs instead of single tie. In all 
 the printed versions, the first eight lines are as they stand 
 in the last edition. The relation of these two variants to 
 each other, and to the original, cannot be determined. Since 
 neither of the rhyme-words occurs in the blank verse, and 
 since the word close does occur there as well as in the manu- 
 script version, it is not unlikely that close originally stood 
 for end, and that the couplet had a different rhyme. This is 
 the more likely because there is nothing in the blank verse 
 which seems to stand for the line, whereso'er my steps may 
 tend. This might have been added to furnish a rhyme for 
 end, if the rhyme of the couplet was altered from an earlier 
 form upon which the passage in the Prelude was based. 
 Concerning the variants, tender and single, no conclusion 
 can be drawn. Tender looks like one of those experimental 
 and not very happy changes that Wordsworth often made 
 upon second thought, only to return at last to his original 
 inspiration. Whatever may be the truth concerning the 
 slight variations in the first eight lines, however, they do not 
 seriously affect the character and style of the poem. 
 
 ^ Is this a misprint for which Professor Knight, not Wordsworth, 
 is responsible? 
 
Wordsworth's poetic development 8i 
 
 2. Lines 9-12 underwent more change than any other 
 part of the Extract. In the edition of 181 5 they stood as 
 follows : 
 
 Thus when the Sun, prepared for rest, 
 Hath gained the precincts of the West, 
 Though his departing radiance fail 
 To illuminate the hollow Vale. 
 
 All the versions except the last present slight modifications 
 of this phraseology; but the instability of the various 
 grammatical relations in virtually the same group of words 
 seems to indicate that there was something in the construc- 
 tion of the original with which Wordsworth was not quite 
 satisfied. This opinion is strengthened by the fact that line 
 1 1 is incomplete in the manuscript version, where it is writ- 
 ten, Though no . . . can fail. Perhaps the truth is that 
 the original rhyme-words were fail and vale, and Words- 
 worth, after struggling in vain to remove some blemish 
 without altering the rhyme, finally imported the beautiful 
 phrase memorial gleam from the blank verse, and changed 
 the other line in the couplet to correspond with it. It is 
 very likely that the word precincts stood for the word 
 regions in line 10, since this occurs in all the other versions. 
 Perhaps, on the whole, the lines in the edition of 181 5 
 come as near the original as any. In any case, the same 
 idea and the same group of words seem to be present in all 
 the versions until, in the final edition, the puzzling twelfth 
 line is materially changed. 
 
 3. In lines 13-14, the variants represent the temporary 
 influence of the blank verse. In the editions 1820-1840 the 
 last line reads: On the dear mountain-tops zvhere first he 
 rose, and in 1832-1840 lustre is substituted for light. In 
 both cases the change in metre in the blank verse may have 
 made necessary the change from a monosyllabic word, 
 which was then transferred for a time to the original ver- 
 sion. The last line in the passage from the Prelude is 
 obviously the original tetrameter expanded to a pentameter 
 
82 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 by the easy substitution of mountain-tops for hills. When, 
 therefore, we find that the octosyllabic poem sometimes ends 
 with this decasyllabic line, we may consider it a temporary 
 intruder; and believe that the first printed version, the 
 manuscript version, and the last version, represent the 
 original when they read : 
 
 A lingering light he fondly throws 
 On the dear hills where first he rose, 
 
 as opposed to 
 
 A lingering lustre fondly throws 
 
 On the dear mountain-tops where first he rose, 
 
 which so obviously echoes the blank verse. Hence the more 
 simple and pathetic form, in this case, seems to be the 
 original. 
 
 The result of this examination seems to be: (i) that, 
 of the words in italics, light and hills, and probably single, 
 represent the original ; (2) that in two of the couplets there 
 may have been a different rhyme, and a corresponding dif- 
 ference in phraseology; and (3) that, while the rhymes in 
 lines 9-10 seem to be permanent, there is a slight variation 
 otherwise. If we are right in supposing that the part of 
 the poem which shows no fluctuation probably survives 
 substantially as it was first written, these changes really 
 affect its essential character very little. Of course it may 
 be said that the comparison of a poem of 1786, first printed 
 in 181 5, with a paraphrase probably written between 1799 
 and 1805, but not printed until 1850, does not give very 
 trustworthy evidence concerning the original style. For 
 aught we know, the passage in the Prelude may have been 
 remodeled in accordance with the printed version of 181 5. 
 But since, in all the public appearances of the production, 
 there is no trace whatever of a form essentially different 
 from the form printed by Wordsworth as a juvenile poem, 
 there seems to be no reason for doubting the word of so 
 
Wordsworth's poetic development 83 
 
 honest a man. The burden of proof certainly rests upon 
 those who presume to question the statement of the poet.^ 
 
 What has been said concerning the Extract apphes almost 
 equally to the Sonnet Written in Early Youth. The absence 
 of the fluctuation characteristic of the selections from the 
 descriptive poems which Wordswortli did correct,- and the 
 testimony of the poet himself, justify us in accepting it as 
 a genuine sample of the writing of the Hawkshead days, 
 at least until some proof to the contrary is adduced. Such 
 proof M. Legouis finds in the fact that the style of these 
 verses differs very much from that of the early poems of 
 which we possess the original text. Any conclusions con- 
 cerning Wordsworth's youthful tendencies drawn from the 
 latter are flatly contradicted by the former. It is reasonable 
 to deduce the characteristics of his early work from the 
 only authentic examples of it, and then to question the 
 authenticity of those which do not possess these charac- 
 teristics. It seems the more reasonable in this case because 
 the doubtful poems first appear in print long after they 
 purport to have been written. Yet there is a plausible 
 explanation of the difficulty. 
 
 The 'genuine samples' upon which M. Legouis bases his 
 very able and discriminating study of Wordsworth's youth- 
 ful style are indeed marked by an awkwardness in the use 
 of language, and a love of morbid conceits and curiously 
 elaborate phraseology. These are in noticeable contrast to 
 the easy manipulation of language and metre, and the 
 
 ^ Among other things it would be necessary to prove that Words- 
 worth ever succeeds in changing the essential style of a poem by 
 his numerous small alterations. Peter Bell has all the character- 
 istics of a lyrical ballad, though it was not published until 1819; 
 from the much corrected versions of The Thorn and Simon Lee, 
 we can still deduce in the final edition most of the characteristics 
 of the style of 1798. 
 
 ^ There are only two slight changes. In 1827 the line, 'Is up and 
 cropping yet his later meal,' is altered to 'Is cropping audibly his 
 later meal,' and 'comes to heal' is substituted for 'seems to heal.* 
 
84 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 simplicity of thought and feeHng in the Extract and the 
 Sonnet. But these latter poems seem to be productions of 
 Wordsworth's school-days at Hawkshead, while the earliest 
 date for the other poems is 1787, the year Wordsworth 
 entered the university. Of these poems, the Sonnet on 
 seeing Miss Helen Maria Williams weep,^ published 
 March, 1787, while curiously exaggerated in thought, shows 
 less departure from grammar and good usage than An 
 Evening Walk and the Descriptive Sketches; and, of these 
 two, the later and more powerful poem is also the most 
 faulty with respect to style. Hence, for a time, Words- 
 worth's sins seem to increase with his increase in vigor and 
 originality. 
 
 But, as we learn from the Prelude,^ 
 
 that first poetic faculty 
 Of plain Imagination and severe 
 
 was greatly impaired by the influx of new and alien expe- 
 riences between the time that Wordsworth left, or was pre- 
 paring to leave, his own native hills for the busy world, 
 and the time when he returned to them, and found peace 
 of mind, and the lost simplicity of life and style, among 
 the associations of his boyhood. This unwholesome period 
 of his life seems to correspond with the dates of the poems 
 on which M. Legouis bases his study of Wordsworth's 
 early style (1787-1794). It is distinguished from his 
 vigorous and healthy childhood by the same marks that 
 distinguish the verse written at this time from the pro- 
 ductions which we have taken to represent the work of his 
 school-days. 
 
 ^Of course it is not absolutely certain that Wordsworth wrote 
 this poem. The reasons for attributing it to him are well stated by 
 Professor Harper (William Wordsworth i. 148-149). Since the 
 authorship is uncertain, I do not think it can furnish much evidence 
 concerning Wordsworth's early style. 
 
 ^Prelude 12. 89-147. 
 
Wordsworth's poetic development 85 
 
 On the one hand, there is the loss of the simpUcity and 
 unity of imaginative feeling associated with his delight in 
 external nature, and his unquestioning acceptance of the 
 only type of experience that he knew\ The adaptation to 
 a new environment and to a new world of ideas meant a 
 temporary disorganizing of his whole intellectual life, and 
 the growth of a self-conscious and analytic habit of mind, 
 which also showed itself in a disorganization of an earlier 
 and simpler style. 
 
 On the other hand, there is a distinct increase in intel- 
 lectual power. From his graceful school-boy work we 
 should derive very little notion of the real magnitude and 
 strength of Wordsworth's genius. He seems to be only 
 another disciple of the // Penseroso landscape-school of Col- 
 lins, Warton, and Bowles, with a distinct vein of his own, 
 perhaps, and occasional felicity of melody or phrase, but not 
 essentially different or more powerful. With the Descrip- 
 tive Sketches it is otherwise. 'Seldom, if ever,' wrote 
 Coleridge,^ 'was the emergence of an original poetic genius 
 above the literary horizon more evidently announced. In 
 the form, style, and manner of the whole poem, and in the 
 structure of the particular lines and periods, there is a harsh- 
 ness and acerbity connected and combined with words and 
 images all aglow, which might recall those products of the 
 vegetable world, where gorgeous blossoms rise out of the 
 hard and thorny rind and shell, within which the rich fruit 
 w^as elaborating. The language was not only peculiar and 
 strong, but at times knotty and contorted, as by its own 
 im.patient strength ; while the novelty and struggling crowds 
 of images, acting in conjunction with the difficulties of the 
 st}4e, demanded always a greater closeness of attention, than 
 poetry, (at all events than descriptive poetry) has a right 
 to claim.' 
 
 This correspondence of the known dates of one group 
 of early poems with a period of unrest and unequal develop- 
 
 ^B. L.^i. 56. 
 
86 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 ment of new energies, described in the Prelude, explains 
 the immense difference between this verse and that which 
 seems to have been produced before his disturbing sally 
 into the world beyond his northern hills. 'The poetic 
 Psyche/ says Coleridge/ 'in its process to full develop- 
 ment, undergoes as many changes as its Greek name-sake, 
 the butterfly/ It is not remarkable, therefore, that the 
 young Wordsworth should have had more than one early 
 style. His development in this respect is not unique. 'Per- 
 haps a similar process has happened to others,' writes 
 Coleridge,^ 'but my earliest poems were marked by an ease 
 and simplicity, which I have studied, perhaps with inferior 
 success, to impress on my later compositions.' The words 
 in which he describes his later efforts to prune the luxuriance 
 and peculiarity of phrase which succeeded this earlier 
 simplicity might be applied without change to Wordsworth's 
 ineffectual attempts to aXterihe Descriptive Sketches^: 'In 
 the after editions, I pruned the double epithets with no spar- 
 ing hand, and used my best efforts to tame the swell and 
 glitter both of thought and diction; though in truth, these 
 parasite plants of youthful poetry had insinuated themselves 
 into my longer poems with such intricacy of union, that I 
 was often obliged to omit disentangling the weed, from the 
 fear of snapping the flower.' The apologetic description of 
 this unwholesome stage in a young poet's development pre- 
 fixed by Keats to Endymion is well known : 'The imagina- 
 tion of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a 
 man is healthy ; but there is a space of life between, in which 
 the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of 
 life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted: thence proceeds 
 mawkishness, and all the thousand bitters which those men 
 I speak of must necessarily taste in going over the following 
 pages.' It is in this space of Hfe between boyhood and man- 
 
 'B. L. 
 
 I. 57. 
 
 ^Ibid. 
 
 I. 4. 
 
 'Ibid. 
 
 I. 3. 
 
Wordsworth's poetic development 87 
 
 hood that Wordsworth's early poems cease to be simple and 
 clear. 
 
 Accordingly, before we turn to the more particular con- 
 sideration of this second early style, we seem to be justified 
 in summing up the results of our study of Wordsworth's 
 earhest poems as follows: When, at fourteen, Words- 
 worth's discovery of his own power to produce the music 
 of 'words in tuneful order' happened to coincide with the 
 sudden recognition of the novelty of his own observations 
 and adventures among his own hills, he was naturally led to 
 write of these marvels. This caused him to turn away from 
 the school of Pope, which could furnish him few models 
 of such descriptive writing, to the landscape-school of the 
 later part of the century, which derived so much of its 
 inspiration from Milton's minor poems. Instead of the 
 heroic couplet, he employs the octosyllabic verse of // Pen- 
 serosa, which was the mark of the school, and had been 
 skilfully used by Collins, Dyer, and Warton. This inev- 
 itably led the clever and imitative boy to reproduce the 
 easy and unfettered melody, the direct and simple expres- 
 sion, the clear natural imagery, and the general tone of 
 pathos, which were characteristic of the reaction against 
 Pope. The literary reminiscences in this verse all reflect 
 reading of this type. The Extract is in the metre of // 
 Penseroso,^ and in one case seems to reflect the plaintive 
 Bowles.^ The plaintiveness of Bowles, however, is so 
 seldom original in its expression that almost anything 
 apparently borrowed from him might have been borrowed 
 from his masters. The sonnet is variously suggestive of 
 
 ^ This metre was also a favorite with Lady Winchelsea, who gave 
 it some of the music of Marvel's tetrameters. 
 
 -7-8. Cf. Bowles, Sonnet XV, lo-ii. Of course, since the first 
 sonnets of Bowles did not appear until 1789, lines borrowed from 
 Bowles must have been added later. I do not deny the possibility 
 of such corrections and additions ; I merely believe that in this case, 
 as in his later poems, Wordsworth did not succeed in altering the 
 essential character and style of the verse. 
 
88 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 Cowper/ Lady Winchelsea,^ and Bowles. A later recur- 
 rence to the same style, in the Lines written on the Thames 
 in 1789, is frankly imitative of Collins. This reveals the 
 source of the simplicity. It is not the simplicity of Words- 
 worth's later style, transferred thither by a judicious cor- 
 recting hand. It is as clearly the result of imitation as the 
 more oratorical and conventional ease of the School Exercise 
 in the manner of Pope. 
 
 But the poetic development of these years cannot be 
 measured by the finished achievements alone. Much of the 
 verse composed at Hawkshead never saw the light in its 
 original form ; but it became the foundation of many of the 
 poems of Wordsworth's later years. From this early time 
 dates the substance of the Lines left upon a Seat in a Yew- 
 Tree, and part of the expression. It is not usually recog- 
 nized that these lines are a kind of preliminary sketch of 
 the Solitary in the Excursion; and that one of Words- 
 worth's most mature and subtle studies of character has 
 thus a certain basis in the writing and observation of his 
 school-days. The Prelude may have a similar foundation in 
 his first autobiographical effort — a 'long poem running on 
 my own adventures, and the scenery of the country in which 
 I was brought up,' and containing 'thoughts and images, 
 most of which have been dispersed through my other 
 writings.' Since Wordsworth paraphrases the conclusion 
 of this poem for the Prelude, he may also have used descrip- 
 tions of his 'adventures' in his curiously vivid reproduction 
 of the fears and spiritual dramas of childhood. His 
 account of the black crag that seemed to stride after him,^ 
 
 ^ With the line, 'Calm is all Nature as a resting wheel,' cf. Cow- 
 per, The Task i. 367 ff., and Fragment 14-17 by Lady Anne Win- 
 chelsea {Poems and Extracts, chosen by Wordsworth, pp. 13-14), 
 See a similar figure in the sonnets beginning, // these brief Rec- 
 ords 9-1 1. {The Poetical Works of Wordsworth, Oxford edition, 
 p. 270.) 
 
 ^ Wordsworthiana, p. 330. 
 
 ^Prelude 2. 357-400. 
 
Wordsworth's poetic development 89 
 
 and of his impatient waiting on the windy height for the 
 'palfreys that should bear us honie/^ suggest an experience 
 consciously heightened by a youthful poet, and a supersti- 
 tious compunction which originally may have had a more 
 conventionally religious coloring.- Several youthful poems 
 also seem to be reproduced in the eighth book of the 
 Prelude,^ in the lines ending with the paraphrase of Dear 
 native Regions. If only he had preserved the original, 
 describing the wet rock sparkling in the evening radiance 
 like the burnished shield of some dead knight, or the ghtter- 
 ing entrance to a fairy cave! It might have been an 
 interesting contrast to some of the Lyrical Ballads. 
 
 Although the romantic substance of most of the verses 
 did not please Wordsworth's mature taste, he himself 
 declares that all of them had a basis in truthful observa- 
 tion — that his most airy fancies revolved around a sub- 
 stantial center. This is certainly true of the only specimens 
 of his work at Hawkshead that he preserved. Imitations 
 as they are, they are at the same time genuine expressions 
 of unified knowledge and feeling; and hence they have a 
 charm and an artistic completeness that are lacking in his 
 more powerful Descriptive Sketches. The Sonnet, espe- 
 cially, does not suffer by its position in the edition of 1807, 
 side by side with some of Wordsworth's finest efforts in 
 this type of verse.* It is so clear-cut, so unique in its own 
 felicity of observation and phrase, that it seems to preclude 
 comparison with its more powerful neighbors. This charm 
 
 ^ Ibid. 12. 287-316. 
 " Note especially 314-316. 
 ^ Prelude 8. 365-475. 
 
 " Wordsworth himself says that, in his schooldays at Hawkshead, 
 Fancy 
 
 could feed at Nature's call 
 Some pensive musings which might well beseem 
 Maturer years. 
 
 Prelude 8. 456-458. 
 
90 WORDSWORTH S THEORY OF POETIC DICTION 
 
 of Wordsworth's juvenile efforts was recognized by the 
 critic of the volumes of 1815/ who, in the tone of pious 
 exhortation made fashionable by Jeffrey, remarks that they 
 show what Wordsworth might have done, had he not been 
 led astray by his lamentable theories. But Wordsworth 
 had gone astray long before he gave any public expression 
 to his theories. He was not born to stop with the develop- 
 ment of sixteen, even if this did make him a pensive land- 
 scape-poet of the first order. The energy so characteristic 
 of his childhood had to shape for itself new and greater 
 forms, even at the expense of harshness, and crudity, and 
 failure. 
 
 J. The Cambridge Period. 
 
 Between 1787 and 1793 Wordsworth's boyish interest in 
 the poetic expression of what was novel and wonderful in 
 his own experience took a more ambitious form. 
 
 Those were the days 
 Which also first emboldened me to trust 
 With firmness, hitherto but slightly touched 
 By such a daring thought, that I might leave 
 Some monument behind me which pure hearts 
 Should reverence. The instinctive humbleness, 
 Maintained even by the very name and thought 
 Of printed books and authorship, began 
 To melt away ; and further, the dread awe 
 Of mighty names was softened down and seemed 
 Approachable, admitting fellowship 
 Of modest sympathy. Such aspect now, 
 Though not familiarly, my mind put on, 
 Content to observe, to achieve, and to enjoy.^ 
 
 But with growing power came a temporary difficulty in the 
 manipulation of language, which was in notable contrast 
 with his earlier facility, and a wilfulness of fancy and con- 
 
 ^ Monthly Review 78. 2^^. 
 ^Prelude 6. 52-65. 
 
WORDSWORTH S POETIC DEVELOPMENT 9 1 
 
 ceit, which was the result of a new self-consciousness, and 
 of rapidly developing intellectual energies. 
 
 The difficulty with language Wordsworth himself ascribes 
 partly to an inexperienced attempt to conform to 'book- 
 notions and to rules of art,' and partly to the practice of 
 composing Latin verse at school.^ 
 
 The dangerous craft of culling term and phrase 
 From languages that want the living voice 
 To carry meaning to the natural heart. 
 
 The first led him to incorporate into his own verse any 
 word or phrase that had pleased him in his desultory read- 
 ing, usually with some modification or exaggeration that 
 was not always for the best. The second resulted in some 
 eccentricities of grammar and syntax more suitable to a 
 highly inflected language, with a variable order and a com- 
 plex structure, than to an uninflected language like Eng- 
 lish, which is so largely dependent upon the order of words. 
 However, tlie book-notions and rules of art did not pre- 
 vent Wordsworth from being catholic and enterprising in 
 his choice of a vocabulary. He does not elevate his style, 
 or confine himself to a certain type of words, or even 
 indulge in refined periphrasis, in accordance with the tradi- 
 tions of the eighteenth century. He takes a good word 
 wherever he finds it. Accordingly terms from the northern 
 dialects — such as gill/ intake,^ sugh,'^ etc. — stand side by 
 side with unusual Latin forms borrowed from Milton. He 
 is especially interested in words denoting color and sound. 
 He speaks of the 'sullen dark-brown mere,'^ of the 'tawny 
 earth,'^ 'pale-blue rocks,'^ etc., seeking to differentiate color 
 
 Ubid. 6. 110-112. Cf. B. L. i. 13. 
 
 'E. W. 72. 
 
 'E. W. 65. 
 
 *E. W. 317; D. S. 437. 
 
 'E. W. 371. 
 
 'E. W. 170. 
 
 'E. W. 149. 
 
92 WORDSWORTH S THEORY OF POETIC DICTION 
 
 from color, and shade from shade, as well as the English 
 language will permit. Similarly, he takes onomatopoeic 
 words expressing sound from every source — colloquial or 
 literary. He speaks of the chisel's clinking sound. '^ 
 'Each clanking mill, that broke the murmuring streams, '- 
 'The distant forge's swinging thump profound'^ ; and makes 
 liberal use of the suggestions that he finds in the poetry of 
 Gray or Milton — such as the phrase 'drowsy tinklings,'* 
 the word 'complain'^ as applied to the note of the owl, the 
 'droning flight' of the beetle,^ and the curfew 'swinging 
 low with sullen roar.'^ The same desire to add to his 
 vocabulary leads him to adopt any unusual epithet which he 
 discovers in reading. Like Warton, he speaks of the 
 'embattled clouds.'^ Like Cowper, and unlike his own later 
 self, he finds the note of the owl 'boding.'^ Where Milton 
 had spoken of 'rocking winds,' he speaks of 'rocking 
 shades'^^; in imitation of the line, 'minute drops from off 
 the eaves,' he creates the compound, 'minute-steps'^^ ; the 
 expression 'huddling brook' becomes 'huddling rill'^^ ; 'dim 
 reUgious light' is copied in the phrase 'dim religious 
 groves,'^^ etc. 
 
 'E. W. 145. 
 
 ' D. S. 766. 
 
 'E. W.4AS- 
 
 *Gray, Elegy 8. D. S. 435, 508; E. W. 354; cf. Waggoner i. 26. 
 'That far-oif tinkling's drowsy cheer.' 
 
 'E. IV. 443. Cf. Elegy 10. 
 
 ^ E. W. 314. A reminiscence of Elegy 7 and Lycidas 28 combined. 
 Cf. a similar union of suggestions from Milton and Gray in the 
 line {E. IV. 315), 'The whistling swain that plods his ringing way,' 
 
 ^ // Penseroso 76. Cf. E. W. 318 : 'The solemn curfew swinging 
 long and deep.' 
 
 ® E. W. 55. Cf . Warton, Pleasures of Melancholy 294. 
 
 '£. W. 392. Cf. The Task i. 205. 
 
 '" E. W. 238. Cf . // Penseroso 126. 
 
 " // Penseroso 130. 
 
 "£. W. 71. Cf. Comus 496. 
 
 '' D. S. 604. Cf . // Penseroso 160. 
 
Wordsworth's poetic development 93 
 
 This practice is well described by M. Legouis^ : 'Lady 
 Winchelsea said that children's tears are merely "April 
 drops," but Wordsworth, speaking of his own childhood, 
 writes, 
 
 When Transport kissed away my April tear. 
 
 Thompson invoked inspiration from her "hermit seat," 
 (Summer 15), but Wordsworth, to whom the epithet appears 
 an ingenious one, boldly applies it to the wave of a solitary 
 lake ("hermit waves"), or to the door of a humble Swiss 
 cottage hidden among the mountains ("hermit doors"). 
 . . . Whereas Gray spoke of the "cock's shrill clarion," 
 Wordsworth speaks of his "clarion throat." Gray repre- 
 sented the Nile as brooding "o'er Egypt with his watery 
 wing" ; Wordsworth pictures the wave of Liberty as brood- 
 ing "the nations o'er with Nile-like wings." . . . Pope 
 calls the second son of William the Conqueror his "second 
 hope" ; W^ordsworth describes the eldest son of a poor vag- 
 rant as her "elder grief." With Pope the repose of death is 
 the "Sabbath of the tomb" ; for Wordsworth the canton of 
 Unterwalden, with its silent summits, is a "Sabbath region." 
 But the occasions on which Wordsworth has borrowed are 
 so numerous that a special edition would be required to 
 exhaust the list. Suffice it to say that, besides the poets 
 already mentioned, many others of the eighteenth century 
 are laid under contribution by him, whether the fact is 
 acknowledged in his notes, and by quotation marks, or not, 
 such as Young, Home, Smollett, Beattie. To these might be 
 added two French names, Delille and Rosset, the author of 
 U Agriculture ou les Georgiques Frangaises, the most av/k- 
 wardly periphrastic of our descriptive poets. Of course 
 Wordsworth's imitations are not strictly limited to eigh- 
 teenth century bards; some incrustations from Spenser, 
 Shakespeare, and especially Milton, are to be discovered in 
 his mosaic-work; he even makes use of passages from the 
 
 ' The Early Life of IVilliaju Wordsworth, p. 140 ff. 
 
94 WORDSWORTH S THEORY OF POETIC DICTION 
 
 Bible, which look very strange in the form of his elaborate 
 couplet. To contemporary poets he seems to owe very little ; 
 only a Scotch word to Burns, whom he names, a touch to 
 Langhorne, more perhaps to Cowper's Task, and most to 
 Samuel Rogers' Pleasures of Memory, of which he makes 
 no mention.' 
 
 Not only does he make use of all words and phrases that 
 he can acquire in reading; he also attempts to widen the 
 application of familiar words by a daring metaphorical 
 use : — 'He tastes the meanest note that swells the gale.'^ 
 
 the crashing wood 
 Gives way, and half its pines torment the flood.^ 
 
 His compounds are equally bold : *lip-dewing Song,'^ 'ring- 
 let-tossing Dance,'* *oar- forgotten floods,'^ day-deserted 
 home,'^ etc. 
 
 Many of these expressions are exaggerated enough, as 
 Wordsworth soon discovered; but the imaginative enter- 
 prise that they display is remarkable. This is not the 
 remnant of an old style ; it is the crude but vigorous begin- 
 ning of the new. To say that these poems are in the 'poetic 
 diction' of the eighteenth century is to speak, apparently, 
 without having undergone the sad experience of reading the 
 miscellanies of that period. Wordsworth does not juggle 
 the old familiar expressions — 'balmy zephyrs,' 'blushing 
 Flora,' 'paint the dewy meads,' etc. — into a slightly differ- 
 ent position, and imagine he has made a new poem. He 
 finds a new expression for a new image — even at the cost 
 of being ridiculous; and in this lay the hope and the 
 beginning of a new poetry. 
 
 ^ D. S. 20. 
 
 'D. S. 212. 
 
 'D. S. 99. 
 'D. S. 99- 
 'D. S. 135. 
 'D. S. 167. 
 
Wordsworth's poetic development 95 
 
 But it is in syntax, rather than in vocabulary, that 
 Wordsworth is most original. His peculiarities in this 
 respect are enumerated by M. Legouis: 'We find archa- 
 isms in the forms of certain verbs^ ; verbs now neuter 
 employed in an archaic sense as active- ; irregular suppres- 
 sion of the article^; violent suppression of an auxiliary,* 
 or of a verb^ ; employment of obsolete words,^ or of words 
 
 ^ As examples of such archaisms, M. Legouis cites the use of 
 forgot for forgotten, broke for broken, ope for open, etc. Strictly 
 speaking, these could hardly be called archaic forms in Wordsworth's 
 time; both forms had existed side by side in poetry from the 
 first, and had been used interchangeably by representative writers 
 like Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, and Cowper. Indeed broke seems 
 actually to be a later form than broken (see A^. E. D.), and forgot 
 is the favorite form in Milton, Pope, and Cowper. Since Words- 
 worth rejected the forms ope and broke (as a past participle) in 
 all his poetry written after 1797, we may assume i-Vip^- he felt these 
 forms to be, if not archaic, at least merely poetic. But this is not 
 true of forgot (as a past participle), which he continues to use to 
 the end. 
 
 ^ M. Legouis cites as examples the use of gase for gaae on (E. W. 
 17-18, 57, 130), and to listen for listen to (E. W. 436). In these 
 forms, Wordsworth is following the usage of Milton, as opposed 
 to that of earlier poets like Shakespeare and Spenser (cf. P. L. 
 8. 258, P. R. I. 414, Conius 551. The transitive use of ga:::e seems to 
 be later than the intransitive form (see N. E. D.). M. Legouis adds : 
 'Observe also the strained use, in an active sense, of to course 
 (E. W. 31), to roam (E. W. 219), to rove (D.S. 80).' 
 
 ^As examples M. Legouis cites E. W. 121, 446; D. S. 228. 
 
 ^ As an example M. Legouis cites E. W. 226. Cf. Lines left upon 
 a Seat in a Yew-tree 4. 'What if these barren boughs the bee not 
 loves.' 
 
 " The example given by M. Legouis, 'Spur-clad his nervous feet, 
 and firm his tread' (£. W. 131) may not be felt by most English 
 readers to be unusual. It is a construction common, not only in 
 verse, but even in prose, though the usual order in prose would be 
 'his nervous feet spur-clad,' etc. 
 
 "" M. Legouis cites illume, for illumine, as an example of such obso- 
 lete words. Like some of the other forms which M. Legouis calls 
 archaic, illume is not a survival of an earlier word, but was a 
 poetic form from the first, introduced later than the word which 
 
96 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 used in an obsolete sense, at times with a somewhat pedantic 
 regard for etymology/ or of words exceedingly rare,^ if 
 not newly coined^; abnormal constructions, for instance, 
 the imitation of the ablative absolute, to which Milton was 
 very partial*; misuse of the inversion which consists in 
 making the subject follow the verb, by employing it without 
 beginning the sentence with any of the adverbs that justify 
 its use^ ; separation of relative and antecedent for the sake 
 of elegance^; nouns in oblique cases placed before those 
 
 M. Legouis believes to be its modern representative. *A poetical 
 shortening of illumine,' says the A^. E. D. Like other poetic 
 forms, this was later abandoned by Wordsworth. Outside of the 
 poems of 1793, there is but one example of its use — in the line 
 'An aspect tenderly illumined/ in the poem beginning 'Departing 
 summer,' Oxford edition, p. 498. 
 
 ' M. Legouis cites, as examples, ruining for falling down (D. S. 
 203), haply for perhaps {D. S. 410), hapless for unhappy (E. W. 
 239), aspires for ascends (D. S. 732)- The use of ruining is prob- 
 ably a reminiscence of P. L. 6. 868. Of haply the N. E. D. says, 
 'Now archaic or poetic' But the word hapless is not so designated ; 
 it is not infrequent in modern prose. 
 
 ^As examples M. Legouis cites viewless for invisible (E. W. 148; 
 D. S. 36, 92, 227, 548, 648) ; moveless for jitotionless (E. W. 104, 206, 
 D. S. 226, etc.) ; somhrous for dark (E. W. 72). Viewless and 
 moveless are words to which Dorothy Wordsworth especially 
 objected in her criticisms of the poems of 1793 (L. W. F. i. 50). 
 Viewless immediately suggests Shakespeare's line, 'To be imprisoned 
 in the viewless winds' (Meas. for Meas. 3. i. 124). It also occurs 
 in the poetry of Milton (P. L. 3. 518; Comus 92, etc.). The cita- 
 tions in the A^. E. D. illustrating the use of somhrous do not 
 suggest that it is an obsolete word, or a word confined to verse. 
 In Wordsworth's poetry it is used only in the Evening Walk. 
 
 ^As examples, M. Legouis cites unbreathing (D. S. 787), and 
 unpathway'd for pathless (D. S. 285). 
 
 ^E. IV. 145. For the use of the ablative absolute in English, 
 see Ross, 'The Absolute Participle in Middle and Modern English,' 
 Pub. Mod. Lang. Ass. 8. 245 f¥. 
 
 ^M. Legouis cites E. W. 44, 70, 123, 230, 280, 365, 2>77, 428; D. S. 
 18, 62, 65, 146-147, 217, 229, 287, 555, 566, 701. 
 
 'E. W. 189. 
 
WORDSWORTH S POETIC DEVELOPMENT 97 
 
 which govern them, a construction which Wordsworth man- 
 ages with especial awkwardness, and never entirely dis- 
 cards^; violent displacement of the direct complement, 
 which is too short for the purpose, to make it precede the 
 verb^; inversion of the direct pronominal object, with all the 
 characteristics of one of Milton's Latin constructions,^ vari- 
 ous uncommon elliptical constructions,* or odd inversions of 
 different kinds^; adjectives arbitrarily made to do duty as 
 adverbs®; substantives used as adjectives^; and compound 
 words either very rare or of the poet's own invention.^ 
 
 This curious style may be illustrated by the following 
 passage^ : 
 
 An idle voice the sabbath region fills 
 
 Of Deep that calls to Deep across the hills, 
 
 Broke only by the melancholy sound 
 
 Of drowsy bells for ever tinkling round; 
 
 Faint wail of eagle melting into blue 
 
 Beneath the cliffs, and pine-woods steady sugh ; 
 
 The solitary heifer's deepen'd low ; 
 
 Or rumbling heard remote of falling snow. ^ 
 
 '£. W. 321, D. S. 268, 390-391, 502. 
 'D. S. 122, 255. 
 
 'D.S. 45-47. ^ 
 
 * E. IV. 94-95. 
 
 ^Z7. S. II-I2, 794. 
 
 ^E. W. 149, D. S. 2>77' Cf. Wordsworth's objection to fruitless 
 for fruitlessly — Appendix on Poetic Diction. 
 
 '£. W. 137, 153; D. S. 177, 299, 432, 558, 581, 697, 718, 720, 775, 
 cited by M. Legouis. Cf. Wordsworth's later objection to this 
 habit (Oxford edition, p. viii). 
 
 ® Cf . The Early Life of William Wordsworth, p. 135, foot note: 
 'Every writer, whether of prose or of poetry, has a right to form 
 new compound words, and it is needless to point out any but those 
 which are somewhat obscure, or demand some investigation if they 
 are to be understood. For example; 'ho Flow-parting oar,' i. e, 
 forming a hollow in the water as well as dividing it (£. W. 439) ; 
 'hollow-blustering coast,' i. e. sounding hollow beneath the sudden 
 squall. Thomson had applied the same epithet to the mind 
 {Winter 987).' 
 
 "> D. S. 432-445- 
 
98 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 Save that, the stranger seen below, the boy 
 Shouts from the echoing hills with savage joy. 
 When warm from myrtle bays and tranquil seas, 
 Comes on, to whisper hope, the vernal breeze, 
 When hums the mountain bee in May's glad ear, 
 And emerald isles to spot the heights appear. 
 
 Here, as may be seen at once, the fault lies, not in the 
 choice of words, but in the syntax. The young poet is try- 
 ing to employ in English the less restricted order of Latin 
 verse. The awkward use of the participle in lines 434, 439, 
 and 440 of this passage ; the separation of a word from its 
 modifier in lines 432 and 433 ; and the placing of the verb 
 before the subject, and the adverbial phrase before the verb 
 which it completes, in lines 444 and 445 — these are all the 
 result of disregarding the familiar conventions of the spoken 
 English sentence, on which the intelligibility of our unin- 
 flected speech is so largely dependent. Most of them may 
 be paralleled in the poetry of Milton, from whom, indeed, a 
 very large number of peculiar words and forms in these 
 poems are directly borrowed. Milton, rather than the land- 
 scape-school which M. Legouis assigns as the model of 
 these poems, seems to be directly responsible for most of 
 the vagaries of language in them. Despite Wordsworth's 
 obvious indebtedness to his predecessors in the latter part 
 of the eighteenth century, neither the faults nor the virtues 
 of these descriptive poems are really representative of the 
 type of poetic diction prevalent before him. As we have 
 pointed out, the best achievement of the eighteenth century 
 was a clear and natural order and syntax ; its worst achieve- 
 ment was a set of periphrastic phrases, which did duty for 
 simple words and original observations. Neither of these 
 are characteristic of Wordsworth's Cambridge poems. A 
 comparison of the verses already given as a specimen of the 
 *gaudiness and inane phraseology' of Wordsworth's time 
 with the passage from the Descriptive Sketches just quoted 
 will establish the truth of this statement. The former is as 
 
WORDSWORTH S POETIC DEVELOPMENT 99 
 
 superior in grammatical clearness and metrical ease as it is 
 inferior in freshness and originality of substance and 
 phrase. As far as the landscape-poets escaped from the 
 style of the Augustan age, they attained to the clean-cut, 
 though, for the most part, unambitious imagery, the sincere 
 but gentle imaginative feeling, and the quiet melody, that 
 are more characteristic of Wordsworth's school-boy work 
 than of the Descriptive Sketches, which Coleridge likened 
 to some gorgeous and knotty tropical growth. But, save 
 for an occasional liberty borrowed from Milton or Spenser, 
 the landscape-poets tended to preserve the grammatical 
 structure which Dryden and his age had succeeded in 
 establishing. 
 
 Perhaps the use of absolute constructions in Pope's trans- 
 lation of Homer, or Young's Night Thoughts, or the poetry 
 of Thomson and Bowles, or a lapse from 'correctness' in 
 the descriptive verse of Dyer, had encouraged Wordsworth 
 in his reproduction of Milton's eccentricities ; but, for the 
 most part, he seems to go back to the great original of these 
 faults, and to copy him directly. As an example of this 
 Miltonic influence, we may cite the use of gaze^ and listen^ 
 as transitive verbs, contrary to the usage of Spenser and 
 Shakespeare; of ruin as an intransitive verb — 
 
 And, ruining from the cliffs, their deafening load 
 Tumbles,^ 
 
 with which we may compare Milton's line. 
 
 Hell saw 
 Heaven ruining from Heaven*; 
 
 the quasi-adverbial use of remote in the line, 'Or rumbling 
 heard remote of falling snow,'^ which echoes the lines in 
 Paradise Lost: 
 
 'E. IV. 57, 130; D. S. 556-557. 
 'E. W. 436. 
 'D. S. 203. 
 'P. L. 6. 868. 
 'D.S. 439. 
 
loo Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 Their rising all at once was as the sound 
 Of thunder heard remote^; 
 
 the frequent use of the phrase, 'bosom'd deep/^ in imitation 
 of Milton's 'bosom'd high in tufted trees,' etc.^ 
 
 Although the influence of Milton, and the practice of 
 writing in Latin, seem to be responsible for the mannerisms 
 of the descriptive poems, this early difficulty with syntax 
 is characteristic of Wordsworth. It is due to the same 
 tendency that makes his critical utterances obscure — the 
 tendency of his intellectual ideas to become involved with 
 intense emotional and imaginative associations, which his 
 readers do not always share. Sometimes, in his later blank 
 verse, it was as difficult for Wordsworth to go straight to 
 the point in a sentence as it was for him to go straight to 
 the climax in a narrative. The thought was sufficiently 
 clear and energetic ; it did not lose sight of the final goal ; 
 but it carried so much weight that the movement was some- 
 what impeded. It is necessary to recognize this difficulty 
 in making use of the clear but limited sentence-structure 
 of the eighteenth century, when it first appears in Words- 
 worth's poetry, because it explains some of his later experi- 
 ments. Dryden and his followers had rendered an essential 
 service, by making the written language correspond more 
 nearly to the structure of the spoken language; but their 
 syntax was too impassioned, too inexpressive, for Words- 
 worth's freer and bolder genius. He needed a more flexible 
 instrument, and, in the end, he found it. 
 
 But if Wordworth's syntax is peculiar, his figures of 
 speech are more so. ^Instances of personification, which in 
 Collins and Gray are already plentiful, swarm in the Eve- 
 ning Walk and the Descriptive Sketches. Impatience, "pant- 
 ing upward," climbs mountains* ; obsequious Grace pursues 
 
 ^P. L. 2. 477. 
 
 '£. W. 13; D. S. 81; cf. U Allegro 78. 
 
 ^ The use of erroneous, D. S. 689, suggests Milton, P. L. 7. 20. 
 
 '£.^.35. 
 
WORDSWORTH S POETIC DEVELOPMENT lOI 
 
 the male swan on the lake, while tender Cares and domestic 
 Loves swim in pursuit of the female^; Pain has a sad 
 family- ; Independence is the child of Disdain^ ; Hope leans 
 ceaselessly on Pleasure's funereal urn*; Consumption, 
 "with cheeks o'erspread by smiles of baleful glow," passes 
 through the villages of France on a pale horse^ ; "Oppres- 
 sion builds her thick-ribb'd tow'rs" ; Machination flees 
 "panting to the centre of her mines"; Persecution decks 
 her bed (of torture) with ghastly smiles; Ambition piles 
 up mountains, etc.^ . . . The poet's fancy becomes still 
 more whimsical when he attributes human or animal charac- 
 teristics, not to abstractions which he can endow with any 
 form he pleases, but to objects or phenomena so familiar to 
 us that our knowledge of their nature protests against 
 such a travesty. The blood which flows from the wounded 
 feet of the chamois-hunter is "Lapp'd by the panting tongue 
 of thirsty skies."^ The mountain-shadow creeps toward the 
 crest of the hill "with tortoise foot."^ "Silent stands th' 
 admiring vale" (i. e. the villagers).^ Frequently false 
 pathos is mingled with these effects. An old man's lyre is 
 itself not old, but aged}^ The Grand Chartreuse, hoary with 
 snow, weeps "beneath his chill of mountain gloom. "^^ And 
 these constantly recurring personifications extend even to 
 the grammar. The neuter gender tends to disappear,^- and 
 
 ^ E. W. 200, 206-207. 
 
 ^ D. S. 2. (taken from Pope, Essay on Man 2. no). 
 'D. S. 323-324. 
 *D. S. 518. 
 ^D. S. 788-791. 
 ^D. S. 792-804. 
 'D. S. 397. 
 'D. S. 105. 
 'E. W. 188. 
 ^'D. S. 171. 
 "£>. 6". 54. 
 
 "^ Beacon (E. W. 189); steep (E. W. 156); mountain (£. W. 
 336-339), etc., are masculine. 
 
I02 WORDSWORTH S THEORY OF POETIC DICTION 
 
 the genitive case/ commonly used only in reference to liv- 
 ing beings, is curiously applied to words of every sort.' 
 
 This attempt to present everything by an image M. 
 Legouis ascribes to the influence of Darwin. This may be 
 true; but it is doubtful whether the passage in the Bio- 
 graphia Liferaria on which M. Legouis bases this conclusion 
 can refer to Wordsworth. Coleridge is speaking of 
 admirers of Darwin with whom he used to dispute in his 
 early Cambridge days.^ At this time he did not know 
 Wordsworth; and when the two young men met, Words- 
 worth had already recovered from any infatuation for verse 
 of the type of the Botanic Garden — if he ever felt it. 
 Besides, in the note to the Descriptive Sketches, which is 
 his only critical utterance before the time of the Lyrical 
 Ballads, he protests against Darwin's favorite term, pic- 
 turesque, with considerable energy. 
 
 But whether Wordsworth is influenced by Darwin or not, 
 his personifications are very different from most con- 
 temporary figures of this sort, including those of the 
 Botanic Garden. To find anything really parallel to them 
 we must go back to the metaphysical poets. As Coleridge 
 noticed, the chief difficulty with the personifications of the 
 eighteenth century is that they remain abstractions. The 
 only sign of the supposed humanity (or divinity in the 
 shape of humanity) of all these figures — Floras, Cynthias, 
 Hopes, and Loves — of the period is the conventional symbol 
 of the capital letter and some equally conventional adjec- 
 tive — pale Cynthia, blushing Flora, etc. Though Darwin 
 makes a special effort to give human personalities to all 
 his vegetable lovers, he does so mainly by a more liberal 
 
 ^ E. W. 76, 51; D. S. 274, 153, 225. Wordsworth never did share 
 Coleridge's objection to this use of the genitive. See the many 
 awkward examples of it under with words like edge {'lake's edge,' 
 etc.) in the Concordance. 
 
 ^B.L. I. 12. 
 
Wordsworth's poetic development 103 
 
 use of general periphrastic terms, rather than by clearly 
 individualizing the image: 
 
 How the young rose, in beauty's damask pride. 
 Drinks the warm blushes of his bashful bride.' 
 
 With Wordsworth it is quite different. In the first 
 place, his personifications are distinguished from similar 
 figures in most contemporary verse by the fact that he gives 
 abstractions and inanimate things the personalities of the 
 lower animals, rather than of divine beings. Peace is a red- 
 breast^; Hope is a lark^ ; Reason may be a dog*; the 
 evening shadows come down the vale on the wings of 
 Beattie's owP; etc. No doubt he felt better acquainted 
 with animals than with 'heavenly maids.' The result of 
 this is sometimes rather strange ; but it is certainly a sign 
 of the almost unconscious originality of the youthful poet. 
 Moreover, he realizes his images intensely, even at the risk 
 of being somewhat ridiculous. He is not content to speak 
 vaguely of 'pale Cynthia.' When the image of the pale lady 
 is suggested to his mind, it immediately becomes a separate 
 and living entity. For example, he writes of the moon : 
 
 By the deep quiet gloom appall'd, she sighs, 
 Stoops her sick head, and shuts her weary eyes.^ 
 
 Though the propriety of the image may certainly be ques- 
 tioned, there is no doubt that 'pale Cynthia' is a distinct 
 person in the poet's imagination. Sometimes the reference 
 
 ^ Darwin, Loves of the Plants i. 17-18. 
 
 'D. S. 169. 
 
 'D. S. 632. 
 
 *D. S. 56. 
 
 '£. W. 191-192. Cf. the stanza quoted from Beattie's poem. 
 Retirement, in A Cento made by Wordsworth (Oxford edition, 
 p. 626). 
 
 "^D. S. 221-222. 
 
I04 WORDSWORTH S THEORY OF POETIC DICTION 
 
 to the lady is more happy — as in that beautiful passage 
 from the Evening Walk, which may be quoted in full, 
 because in it are concentrated many of the finest character- 
 istics of these poems : 
 
 The bird, with fading light who ceas'd to thread 
 
 Silent the hedge or steaming rivulet's bed, 
 
 From his grey re-appearing tower shall soon 
 
 Salute with boding note the rising moon. 
 
 Frosting with hoary light the pearly ground, 
 
 And pouring deeper blue to Other's bound ; 
 
 Rejoic'd her solemn pomp of clouds to fold 
 
 In robes of azure, fleecy white, and gold. 
 
 While rose and poppy, as the glow-worm fades, 
 
 Checquer with paler red the thicket shades. 
 
 Now o'er the eastern hills, where Darkness broods 
 
 O'er all its vanish'd dells, and lawns, and woods 
 
 Where but a mass of shade the sight can trace. 
 
 She lifts in silence up her lovely face; 
 
 Above the gloomy valley flings her light. 
 
 Far to the western slopes with hamlets white; 
 
 And gives, where woods the checquer'd upland strew, 
 
 To the green corn of summer autumn's hue. 
 
 But the artistic originality of this early work is not to 
 be measured by its quaint exaggerations. In the passage 
 just quoted (and this is thoroughly typical) there is some- 
 thing that at once explains the passionate enthusiasm with 
 which Coleridge hailed the new genius. In the first place 
 there is the accurate observation of the natural features, 
 not as dead or static, but in their living and changing rela- 
 tions to each other — in the image of the grey re-appear- 
 ing tower, the fading of the glow-worm, the appearance 
 of the pale-red roses and poppies in the thicket, etc. 
 His first poetic impulse had come to him when he noticed 
 how the sunset radiance changed and glorified the familiar 
 face of common things. The artistic motive thus suggested 
 to him at fourteen is everywhere present in these early 
 
 'E. W. 389-406. 
 
Wordsworth's poetic development 105 
 
 poems, not only in the subtle observations of the Evening 
 Walk, but in the splendid climaxes of light and color in the 
 Descriptive Sketches. 
 
 Perhaps it was this same experience that first stimulated 
 Wordsworth's special interest in color, characteristic of the 
 time when he was 
 
 Bent over much on superficial things, 
 Pampering myself with meagre novelties 
 Of color and proportion. 
 
 Later, as Miss Pratt says of Wordsworth's mature poetry,' 
 'in contrast with the voice of wind and stream, forms and 
 colors were to him external quahties, Nature's dress rather 
 than the utterance of her life ; and for this reason, though 
 they appealed to Wordsworth's eye and were mingled with 
 happy memories, they meant less and less to him as his 
 mind became m.ore mature and more watchful for 'the 
 latent qualities and essences of things." ' 
 
 This is true; but it becomes still more significant when 
 we note, as Miss Pratt has failed to do,^ the remarkable 
 splendor and variety of color in these poems, whose lavish- 
 ness in this respect can be paralleled only in the early work 
 of Keats. Purity and self-restraint are the more notable 
 where the energies are warm and powerful; and Words- 
 worth's later preference for the quiet green tints of field 
 and wood is the more interesting when we perceive how his 
 early poems flame with scarlet and gold — how he loves the 
 light and fire of the setting sun more than all the secret 
 and shadowy beauties of nature. 
 
 ^ Color in English Romantic Poetry, pp. 55-56. 
 
 - She notes that the early poems of Wordsworth employ color 
 as lavishly as do the early poems of Keats (p. 57), who 'in wealth 
 of color stands without a peer' (p. 88) ; but she fails to note the 
 effectiveness and the originality of the color. The color of the 
 young Wordsworth is imaginative, where that of the young Keats 
 is merely decorative. 
 
io6 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 This interest in color is paralleled by an interest in 
 sound — visible not only in successful attempts to differ- 
 entiate the various notes and voices, but in an effort to 
 make the sound an echo to the sense. In later years, 
 although Wordsworth always tried to give melody and 
 harmony to his verse, and was almost painfully conscious 
 of an unpleasant jarring of sounds, he was not inclined to 
 use the device of onomatopoeia. In these early poems, how- 
 ever, there are many interesting examples of it. One of the 
 most original of these is the line : 'Glad in their airy baskets, 
 hang and sing'^ ; but there are many more obvious efforts : — 
 
 the silver'd kite 
 In many a whistling circle wheels her flight^ 
 With pensive step to measure my slow way^ 
 Sound of clos'd gate across the water borne/ 
 Hurrying the feeding hare through rustling corn.^ 
 The distant forge's swinging thump profound.* 
 
 To achieve such effects in the metre of the heroic couplet 
 was something of a triumph. Like everything else in the 
 poems, they are not so much an imitation of an old form 
 as the promise of a new, and point to the emergence above 
 the horizon, not only of a new and vital genius, but of a 
 very self-conscious artist. 
 
 4. Study and Self -Criticism. 
 
 No sooner had these efforts appeared than Wordsworth 
 began to see their defects. In this he was greatly assisted 
 by the candor of his family — not only of Dorothy, but of 
 Christopher — then an undergraduate at Cambridge, who 
 
 'E. W. 150. 
 'E. W. 90. 
 'D. S. 165. 
 *E. W. 441. 
 '£. W. 442. 
 'E. W. 445- 
 
Wordsworth's poetic development 107 
 
 here exercises for the first and last time, a vital influence 
 on his brother's work. Dorothy and 'Kit' went through 
 the poem, analyzing it line by line, and embodying their 
 opinions in a bulky criticism which Christopher withheld 
 until he could add the remarks of a friend at Cambridge.^ 
 This friend was very likely Coleridge. He and Christopher 
 belonged to the same literary society, which discussed Wil- 
 liam's poems among other things; and in Christopher's 
 diary he is the one member of the society whose opinions 
 are especially quoted." 
 
 Christopher also seems to have noticed the criticism of 
 his brother's verse in the Monthly Review} The Monthly 
 Reviewer was a stupid person, who probably did not take 
 the trouble to read the poems through; but he made one 
 remark which seems to have sunk deep into Wordsworth's 
 consciousness. He advised him and every other young 
 maker of verses to look at his own thoughts until he was 
 sure he imderstood them. No one could be a poet until 
 'his mind is strong enough to sustain this labor.' Long 
 afterward W^ordsworth gave to young William Rowan 
 Hamilton the advice which he himself had received from 
 this otherv,ase rather undiscerning critic* 
 
 As a result of all these candid opinions, Wordsworth at 
 once set to work to alter the poems. In 1794 he writes to 
 Mathews that he has been correcting and adding to the 
 verse published the preceding year, and remarks that he is 
 sorry that he huddled the pieces into the world in so imper- 
 fect a form. 'But as I had done nothing by which to dis- 
 
 ^L. W.F. I. 51-52. 
 
 ^Social Life at the English Universities in the Eighteenth Cen- 
 tury. See the reprint of Christopher's diary in the Appendix. 
 
 ^Monthly Review 12. 216-218. 
 
 * L. IV. F. 2. 313. After analyzing Hamilton's verses as the critic 
 in the Monthly Review had analyzed the Descriptive Sketches, 
 Wordsworth remarks : The logical faculty has infinitely more to do 
 with poetry than the young and inexperienced, whether writer or 
 critic, ever dreams of.' 
 
io8 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 tinguish myself at the university/ he says/ *I thought these 
 Httle things might show that I could do something. They 
 have been treated with unmerited contempt by some of the 
 periodical publications, and others have spoken of them in 
 higher terms than they deserve/ 
 
 According to Wordsworth's own statement, the result of 
 these corrections is embodied in the version printed in 1820. 
 Because of the poet's tendency to be a little inaccurate with 
 regard to dates, and to keep retouching all his work even 
 while it was going through the press, it is the custom to 
 doubt his word in such matters. But it happens that the 
 faults corrected in the version of 1820 are exactly the faults 
 which he carefully avoids in his next effort — Guilt and 
 Sorrow; and for the original form of this latter poem we 
 have the testimony of Coleridge. Hence we seem to be 
 justified in accepting Wordsworth's own statement. In the 
 version of 1820 the structure of the language is somewhat 
 improved; a few objectionable words or forms (such as 
 gase used as a transitive verb) are omitted; and some 
 excellent lines are added. But the really notable feature 
 is the uncompromising ejection of almost everything in the 
 nature of a personification. In the first seventy lines of 
 the Evening Walk, for instance, Mirth, Memory, soft Affec- 
 tion, and Quiet all disappear. Sometimes several lines are 
 forced to disappear with them. Sometimes the change is 
 more easily effected. Instead of 'soft Affection's ear' 
 Wordsworth merely says 'unreluctant ear'; for the line 
 'Then Quiet led me up the huddling rill,' he writes 'Then, 
 while I wandered up the huddling rill,' etc. 
 
 But while he was thus improving his technique, Words- 
 worth was also developing a theory of fine art. To the 
 Monthly Miscellany, which he and Mathews were planning 
 to edit, he was willing to contribute 'critical remarks upon 
 Poetry, etc., etc. ; upon the arts of Painting, Gardening, and 
 
 'L. W.F. I. 67. 
 
WORDSWORTH S POETIC DEVELOPMENT 1 09 
 
 other subjects of amusement.'^ If only these remarks had 
 been written ! We have almost no means of knowing what 
 the substance of them would have been. Wordsworth's few 
 early letters are notably lacking in literary criticism. All 
 that is known is that he read John Scott of Amwell, whose 
 emphasis upon clear and distinct imagery and desire 
 to enrich poetry with new rural images must have coin- 
 cided with Wordsworth's own boyish ambition. Besides 
 the reference to Scott in the notes to the Evening Walk,^ 
 there is only one other indication that Wordsworth had 
 been reflecting on the nature of fine art. In a note to the 
 Descriptive Sketches he makes an emphatic protest against 
 the Darwinian theory that poetry is painting in words, of 
 which M. Legouis seems to consider him an adherent at this 
 time : *I had once given to these sketches the title of Pictur- 
 esque; but the Alps are insulted in applying to them that 
 term. Whoever, in attempting to describe their sublime 
 features, should confine himself to the cold rules of paint- 
 ing would give his reader but a very imperfect idea of 
 those emotions which they have the irresistible power of 
 communicating to the most impassive imaginations. The 
 fact is, that controuling influence, which distinguishes the 
 Alps from all other scenery, is derived from images which 
 disdain the pencil. Had I wished to make a picture of this 
 scene I had thrown much less light into it. But I con- 
 sulted nature and my own feelings. The ideas excited by 
 the stormy sunset I am here describing owe their sublimity 
 to that deluge of light, or rather of fire, in which nature had 
 wrapped the immense forms around me; any intrusion 
 of shade, by destroying the unity of the impression, had 
 necessarily diminished its grandeur.'^ 
 
 Perhaps this is the beginning of the theory of imagina- 
 tion which he and Coleridge later developed together. He 
 
 'L. W.F. 1.66. 
 
 ^ Oxford edition, p. 595. 
 
 ' Ibid. p. 608. 
 
no WORDSWORTH S THEORY OF POETIC DICTION 
 
 had already begun to assert the right and power of the 
 imagination to modify and combine visual images in 
 accordance with the dictates of impassioned feeling. 
 
 But, whatever Wordsworth's theories may have been at 
 this time, the result of all this critical effort is visible in 
 his next poem, which may best be described in Coleridge's 
 glowing words^ : 'I was in my twenty-fourth year, when I 
 had the happiness of knowing Mr. Wordsworth personally, 
 and while memory lasts, I shall hardly forget the sudden 
 effect produced on my mind by his recitation of a manu- 
 script poem, which still remains unpublished, but of which 
 the stanza, and tone of the style, were the same as those 
 of the "Female Vagrant," as originally printed in the first 
 volume of the "Lyrical Ballads." There was here no mark 
 of strained thought, or forced diction, no crowd or turbu- 
 lence of imagery; and, as the poet hath himself well 
 described in his lines "on revisiting the Wye," manly reflec- 
 tion, and human associations had given both variety and 
 additional interest to natural objects, which in the passion 
 and appetite of the first love they had seemed to him neither 
 to needN or permit. The occasional obscurities, which had 
 arisen from an imperfect controul over the resources of 
 his native language, had almost wholly disappeared, 
 together with that worst defect of arbitrary and illogical 
 phrases at once hackneyed and fantastic, which hold so 
 distinguished a place in the technique of ordinary poetry, 
 and will, more or less, alloy the earlier poems of the truest 
 genius, unless the attention has been specifically directed to 
 the worthlessness and incongruity. I did not perceive any- 
 thing particular in the mere style of the poem alluded to 
 during its recitation, except indeed such difference as was 
 not separable from the thought and manner; and the 
 Spenserian stanza, which always, more or less, recalls to 
 the reader's mind Spenser's own style, would doubtless 
 
 'B.L. I. 59. 
 
Wordsworth's poetic development in 
 
 have authorized, in my then opinion, a more frequent 
 descent to the phrases of ordinary hfe, than could without 
 an ill effect have been hazarded in the heroic couplet. It 
 was not however the freedom from false taste, whether as 
 to common defects, or to those more properly his own, 
 which made so unusual an impression on my feelings imme- 
 diately, and subsequently on my judgment. It was the 
 union of deep feeling with profound thought; the fine 
 balance of truth in observing with imaginative faculty in 
 modifying the objects observed; and above all the original 
 gift of spreading the tone, the atmosphere, and with it all the 
 depth and height of the ideal world around forms, incidents, 
 and situations, of which, for the common view, custom had 
 bedimmed all the lustre, had dried up the sparkle and the 
 dew drops. ^ 
 
 Thus, as early as 1796, Wordsworth had attained to an 
 austere and imaginative simplicity of style. A slight 
 awkwardness of language was still visible, but the extrane- 
 ous and exaggerated ornaments were gone. As far as 
 can be determined, this improvement was solely on the 
 basis of reading confined, in the field of EngHsh literature, 
 to the poets of the eighteenth century and the three great 
 elder bards — Milton, Spenser, and Shakespeare. Apart 
 from these, he had been especially interested in Italian and 
 Latin poetry. During his Cambridge days he had read 
 Ariosto and Tasso with such enthusiasm that, when he first 
 went to France, his mind was more often preoccupied with 
 thoughts of Erminia and Angelica than with the philosoph- 
 ical dialogues of Beaupuy." In the years between the pub- 
 
 'The language is still a little unidiomatic. The inversions are 
 numerous, as in 100, 159, 170, 185, 278, 330, z^7, 547, etc. The 
 article is frequently omitted, as in 99, 135, 136, 140, 142, 144, 187, 
 etc. The auxiliary is omitted now and then, as in 3, 48, etc. There 
 is also a large number of places in which a participle or noun in 
 apposition is awkwardly used, as in 10, 66, 72, 148, etc. 
 
 ^Prelude 9. 437-453. Concerning Wordsworth's Italian studies, 
 see also Memoirs i. 14. 
 
112 WORDSWORTH S THEORY OF POETIC DICTION 
 
 lication of the descriptive poems and the meeting with 
 Coleridge he had apparently turned back to the Latin 
 authors, especially Horace and Juvenal. One of the pas- 
 sages added to the Evening Walk^ is based on Horace ; and 
 the special literary enterprise of this period was a transla- 
 tion of Juvenal which he and Wrangham were making 
 together.^ Perhaps Mathews also took some interest in 
 this; at least a copy of Juvenal was presented to Words- 
 worth by Mathews.^ But of the special literary models of 
 the Lyrical Ballads — the poetry of Chaucer, the Reliques 
 of Ancient Poetry, and the literature before Dryden — we 
 hear not a word. However, the source of this new influence 
 at once becomes clear when we consider what Lamb and 
 Coleridge had been doing up to this time. 
 
 ^ See the final version of the Evening Walk, 72-85 (Oxford edi- 
 tion, p. 3). This appears in the edition of 1820 as it is here written. 
 It was probably one of those additions 'made shortly after publi- 
 cation' in 1793. 
 
 ^L.W.F.i. 87-89, 92-98. 
 
 ^ This is now in the library of Mrs. Henry St, John, Ithaca, N. Y. 
 
CHAPTER 4. 
 
 COLERIDGE AND HIS CIRCLE. 
 
 While Wordsworth was thus attaining to the practice of 
 simpUcity, Coleridge and Lamb had been developing the 
 theory of it; and were reUgiously seeking out literary 
 models of a style more pure and plain. The beginnings of 
 this effort, which ended in the Lyrical Ballads, are to be 
 found in the teaching of their doughty old schoolmaster 
 at Christ's Hospital— the Rev. James Boyer.^ *He early 
 moulded my taste to the preference of Demosthenes to 
 Cicero, of Homer and Theocrites to Virgil, and again of 
 Virgil to Ovid,' writes Coleridge.^ 'He habituated me to 
 compare Lucretius (in such extracts as I then read), 
 Terence, and above all the chaster poems of Catullus, not 
 only with the Roman poets of the, so called, silver and 
 brazen ages; but with even those of the Augustan era; 
 and on grounds of plain sense and universal logic to see 
 and assert the superiority of the former in the truth and 
 nativeness, both of their thoughts and diction. ... In 
 our own English compositions, (at least for the last three 
 years of our school education,) he showed no mercy to 
 phrase, metaphor, or image, unsupported by a sound sense, 
 or where the same sense might have been conveyed with 
 equal force and dignity in plainer words. Lute, harp, and 
 lyre. Muse, Muses, and inspirations, Pegasus, Parnassus, 
 and Hippocrene, were all an abomination to him. In fancy 
 I can almost hear him now, exclaiming ''Harp? Harpf 
 Lyre? Pen and ink, hoy, you mean! Muse, boy, Musef 
 
 ' 'Lamb speaks of himself as only a Deputy Grecian, and yet there 
 is no doubt that he enjoyed the advantage of Boyer's tuition, even 
 although that masterful instructor reserved his highest enthusiasm 
 for Grecians absolute.'— Lucas, The Life of Charles Lamb i. 74- 
 
 'B.L. 1.4-5. 
 
114 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 Your nurse's daughter, you mean! Pierian spring f Oh 
 aye! the cloister-pump, I suppose!" ' 
 
 Although for a time the youthful Coleridge neglected 
 literature for philosophy, he did not forget the teaching of 
 these early days. When the sonnets of Bowles appeared, he 
 at once hailed them as models of simplicity and tenderness, 
 and quite forgot the mysteries of Neoplatonism in his 
 proselyting enthusisam for what seemed to him a new type 
 of poetry.^ As a matter of fact, Bowles was not very new. 
 His verse alternately echoes Milton's minor poems and the 
 sweeter cadences of Shakespeare — not to mention his 
 master, Warton. But his pure and slender melodies fell 
 gratefully upon the ear after the couplets of Pope and 
 Erasmus Darwin. 
 
 Naturally Coleridge, with the conversational zeal for dis- 
 seminating knowledge which marked him even then, enthu- 
 siastically recommended Bowles upon all occasions. In so 
 doing he developed a whole theory of criticism, in which 
 we already find dim intimations of the Preface to the 
 Lyrical Ballads. The lively discussions begun then, and 
 continued with renewed vigor after he met Wordsworth, 
 are best described in his own words^ : 'Among those with 
 whom I conversed, there were, of course, very many who 
 had formed their taste and their notions of poetry, from 
 the writings of Pope and his followers; or to speak more 
 generally, in that school of French poetry, condensed and 
 invigorated by English understanding, which had pre- 
 dominated from the last century. I was not blind to the 
 merits of this school, yet, as from inexperience of the 
 world, and consequent want of sympathy with the general 
 subjects of these poems, they gave me little pleasure, I 
 doubtless undervalued the kind, and with the presumption 
 of youth withheld from its masters the legitimate name of 
 poets. I saw that the excellence of this kind consisted in 
 
 ^B. L. I. 7-10. 
 'Ibid. I. 1 1 -14. 
 
COLERIDGE AND HIS CIRCLE II5 
 
 just and acute observations on men and manners in an 
 artificial state of society, as its matter and substance; and 
 in the logic of wit, conveyed in smooth and strong epi- 
 grammatic couplets, as its form. Even when the subject 
 was addressed to the fancy, or the intellect, as in the Rape 
 of the Lock, or the Essay on Man; nay, when it was a 
 consecutive narration, as in that astonishing product of 
 matchless talent and ingenuity. Pope's translation of the 
 Iliad ; still a point was looked for at the end of each second 
 line, and the whole was, as it were, a sorites, or, if I may 
 exchange a logical for a grammatical metaphor, a conjunc- 
 tion disjunctive, of epigram.s. Meantime the matter and 
 diction seemed to me characterized not so much by poetic 
 thoughts, as by thoughts translated into the language of 
 poetry. On this last point, I had occasion to render my own 
 thoughts gradually more and more plain to myself, by 
 frequent amicable disputes concerning Darwin's Botanic 
 Garden, which, for some years, was greatly extolled, not 
 only by the reading public in general, but even by those, 
 whose genius and natural robustness of understanding 
 enabled them afterwards to act foremost in dissipating 
 these "painted mists" tliat occasionally rise from the 
 marshes at the foot of Parnassus. During my first Cam- 
 bridge vacation, I assisted a friend in a contribution for a 
 literary society in Devonshire: and in this I remember to 
 have compared Darwin's work to the Russian palace of 
 ice, glittering, cold, and transitory. In the same essay, too, 
 I assigned sundry reasons, chiefly drawn from a com- 
 parison of passages in the Latin poets with the original 
 Greek, from which they were borrowed, for the preference 
 of CoUins's odes to those of Gray; and of the simile in 
 Shakespeare 
 
 How like a younker or a prodigal, 
 The scarfed bark puts from her native bay, 
 Hugg'd and embraced by the strumpet wind ! 
 How like the prodigal doth she return, 
 
Il6 WORDSWORTH S THEORY OF POETIC DICTION 
 
 With over-weather'd ribs and ragged sails, 
 Lean, rent, and beggar'd by the strumpet wind !^ 
 
 SO the imitation in The Bard ; 
 
 Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows 
 While proudly riding o'er the azure realm 
 In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes, 
 Youth at the prow and Pleasure at the helm; 
 Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway, 
 That hush'd in grim repose, expects its evening 
 prey.- 
 
 (in which, by the by, the words ''realm" and "sway" are 
 rhymes dearly purchased). I preferred the original on the 
 ground, that in the imitation it depended wholly on the 
 compositor's putting, or not putting, a small Capital, both 
 in this, and in many other passages of the same poet, 
 whether the words should be personifications, or mere 
 abstractions. I mention this, because, in referring various 
 lines in Gray to their original in Shakespeare and Milton, 
 and in the clear perception how completely all the propriety 
 was lost in the transfer; I was, at that early period, led 
 to a conjecture, which, many years afterwards, was 
 recalled to me from the same thought having been started 
 in conversation, but far more ably, and developed more 
 fully, by Mr. Wordsworth; — namely, that this style of 
 poetry, which I have characterized above, as translations 
 of prose thoughts into poetic language, had been kept up 
 by, if it did not wholly arise from, the custom of writing 
 Latin verses, and the great importance attached to these 
 exercises in our public schools. Whatever might have been 
 the case in the fifteenth century, when the use of the Latin 
 tongue was so general among learned men, that Erasmus 
 is said to have forgotten his native language; yet, in the 
 present day it is not to be supposed that a youth can think 
 
 ^Merchant of Venice 2. 6. 14-19. 
 ' The Bard 70-75. 
 
COLERIDGE AND HIS CIRCLE II7 
 
 in Latin, or that he can have any other rehance on the force 
 or fitness of his phrases, but the authority of the writer 
 from whence he has adopted them.^ Consequently he must 
 first prepare his thoughts, and then pick out, from Virgil, 
 Horace, Ovid, or perhaps more compendiously from his 
 Gradus, halves and quarters of lines, in which to embody 
 them. 
 
 'I never object to a certain degree of disputatiousness in 
 a young man from the age of seventeen to that of four or 
 five and twenty, provided I find him always arguing on one 
 side of the question. The controversies, occasioned by my 
 unfeigned zeal for the honor of a favorite contemporary, 
 then known to me only by his works, were of great advan- 
 tage, in the formation and establishment of my taste and 
 critical opinions. In my defence of the lines running into 
 each other, instead of closing at each couplet, and of 
 natural language, neither bookish, nor vulgar, neither 
 redolent of the lamp, nor of the kennel, such as / zvill 
 remember thee; instead of the same thought tricked up in 
 the rag-fair finery of, 
 
 thy image on her wing 
 Before my Fancy's eye shall Memory bring, 
 
 I had continually to adduce the metre and diction of the 
 Greek poets from Homer to Theocritus inclusive ; and still 
 more of our elder English poets from Chaucer to Milton. 
 Nor was this all. But as it was my constant reply to 
 authorities brought against me from later poets of great 
 name, that no authority could avail in opposition to Truth, 
 Nature, Logic, and the Laws of Universal Grammar; 
 actuated too by my former passion for metaphysical inves- 
 tigations; I labored at a solid foundation, in which 
 permanently to ground my opinions, in the component 
 faculties of the human mind itself, and their comparative 
 dignity of importance.' 
 
 'Cf. Prelude 6. 105-115. 
 
ii8 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 We might be tempted to think that Coleridge was trans- 
 ferring his later opinions to these earlier days were it not 
 for an abundance of contemporary testimony concerning 
 these enthusiastic conversations. 'Coleridge talked Greek/ 
 remarks Christopher Wordsworth^ (in describing a meet- 
 ing at which *Dr. Darwin, Miss Seward, Mrs. Smith, 
 Bowles, and my Brother' were discussed), 'and spouted out 
 of Bowles.' 'My poetical taste was much mehorated by 
 Bowles,' writes Southey in 1795,^ 'and the constant com- 
 pany of Coleridge,' who probably 'spouted out of Bowles' 
 in Southey's presence also. But it is in the letters of Lamb 
 to Coleridge, just before the close association between 
 Wordsworth and Coleridge began, and in the new Monthly 
 Magazine, for which this group of ambitious young poets 
 were writing, that we find the clearest indications of the 
 theories of the Lyrical Ballads. 
 
 'Cultivate simplicity, Coleridge,' is the burden of Lamb's 
 letters. 'Banish elaborateness; for simplicity springs 
 spontaneous from the heart and carries into daylight its 
 own modest buds, and genuine, sweet, and clear flowers 
 of expression. I allow no hot-beds in the garden of 
 Parnassus.'^ The simplicity which he so much admired in 
 Bowles, Lamb found also in Burns and Cowper, and in the 
 genuinely imaginative figures and personifications of 'our 
 elder bards,' whom he wished Coleridge to strive to bring 
 'into more general fame.'* The simplicity he loves is not 
 the elegant simplicity of Pope; it is naive and quaint and 
 homely. At one time he remarks, apropos of a sonnet of 
 his own: 'Your ears are not so very fastidious; many 
 people would not like words so prosaic and familiar in a 
 sonnet as Islington and Hertfordshire.'^ But Coleridge 
 
 ^ See the diary of Christopher Wordsworth, in the Appendix to 
 Social Life at the English Universities. 
 ^ Life and Correspondence i. 247. 
 ^Letters, i. 48. 
 * Ibid. I. 4. 24-26, 28. 
 'Ibid. I. 4. 
 
COLERIDGE AND HIS CIRCLE II9 
 
 had already expressed his Hking for the real names of real 
 things and people in more violent terms. 'For God's sake,' 
 he writes to South ey in 1794/ 'let us have no more Bions 
 or Gracchus's I abominate them ! Southey is a name much 
 more proper and handsome, and, I venture to prophecy, 
 will be more famous/ Lamb's remarks on simplicity he 
 seemis to have received with humility. *As to my own 
 poetry,' he wrote to Thelwell, 'I do confess that it fre- 
 quently, both in thought and language, deviates from 
 "nature and simplicity," ' adding, characteristically, that 
 Bowles is, with the exception of Burns, the only 'always 
 natural poet' in our language.^ 
 
 But meanwhile this new criticism was not modestly con- 
 cealing itself from the public eye. Southey displayed the 
 taste which had been 'meliorated' by Coleridge in some 
 poetry that brought down on the head of him and his 
 revolutionary friend the rather paternal admonitions of the 
 Critical Review.^ The Critical Review exactly represents 
 the conventional attitude with regard to poetic diction. It 
 is willing to grant that 'poetry has a language peculiar to 
 itself which excuses a very few deviations from the normal 
 structure of prose; but this must not be carried too far. 
 'An occasional transposition creates variety and beauty. 
 Mr. Southey gives frequent examples of this, by transpos- 
 ing the usual order of the verb and the nominative case. 
 But we would advise him and Mr. Coleridge to introduce 
 this practice with prudence, and but sparingly; otherwise 
 they will rather obscure than illumine their verse and lose 
 the charm of variety.' Having censured Southey for being 
 too poetical in his syntax, the critic proceeds to remark 
 that he is too prosaic in his tone. 'One leading rule for the 
 style of poetry is that it should rise above the mere narrative 
 of prose. Mr. Southey's lines are frequently prosaic, and 
 
 ^ The Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge i. no. 
 
 ^ Ibid. I. 196. 
 
 ' 17. 187 — a review of Southey's Joan of Arc. 
 
I20 WORDSWORTH S THEORY OF POETIC DICTION 
 
 sometimes cannot even be read as verse.' This is exactly 
 the attitude of the eighteenth century — ^no Uberties with 
 order, grammar, and syntax ; but a vocabulary raised above 
 prose, and verse that always scans in the one approved 
 fashion. The critic also doubts whether Southey and 
 Coleridge are justified in seeking variety of metre, citing 
 for disapproval the lines; 
 
 Now was the noon of night, and all was still, 
 Save where the sentinel paced on his watch 
 Humming a broken tune. 
 
 Such liberties, says the critic, 'grate on a correct ear.' He 
 hopes Mr. Southey and Mr. Coleridge will be more careful 
 in the future. 
 
 To such criticism as this Coleridge made a saucy 
 reply. In the Monthly Magazine, whose aim was to print 
 good articles that no other periodical would take, and to 
 improve the quality of verse, he prints a rather charming 
 little idyll, and entitles it: Reflections on entering Active 
 Life, A Poem which affects not to he Poetry} Though 
 affecting not to be poetry, the poem is certainly worthy of 
 quotation in full. But only the first few lines of it can be 
 given here : 
 
 Low was our pretty cot ; the tallest rose 
 Peep'd at our chamber-window. We could hear 
 (At silent noon, and eve, and early morn) 
 The sea's faint murmur ; in the open air 
 Our myrtles blossom'd, and across the porch 
 Thick jasmines twin'd: the little landscape round 
 Was green and woody, and refreshed the eye. 
 
 Here is the simplicity of style that Wordsworth was later 
 to make famous ! 
 
 About the same time there appeared in the Monthly 
 Magazine a brief but very able article,- in which the sub- 
 
 ^ The Monthly Magazine 2. 732, 
 
 ^'Is Verse Essential to Poetry'? (2. 452). 
 
COLERIDGE AND HIS CIRCLE * T2I 
 
 stance of the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads and the 
 Appendix on Poetic Diction is plainly anticipated. 
 Whether Coleridge was responsible for it or not, it cer- 
 tainly reflects his opinions at this time. Verse, the writer 
 decides, is not essential to poetry. The arguments with 
 which he supports this thesis must be quoted at some length : 
 'Those writers appear to have approached nearest to a true 
 definition of poetry, who have understood it to be the imme- 
 diate offspring of a vigorous imagination and quick sensi- 
 bility, and have called it the language of fancy and 
 passion.^ ... In a rude state of nature, before the art 
 of versification was known, men felt strong passions and 
 expressed them strongly.- Their language would be bold 
 and figurative; it would be vehement and abrupt; some- 
 times under the impulse of the gentle and the tender, or 
 the gay and joyous passions, it w^ould flow in a kind of wild 
 and unfettered melody, for under such impressions, melody 
 is natural to man. . . . The character of poetry, which 
 may seem most to require that it be limited to verse is its 
 appropriate diction. It will be admitted that metaphorical 
 language, being more impressive than general terms, is best 
 suited to poetry. That excited state of mind, which poetry 
 supposes, naturally prompts a figurative style. But the 
 language of fancy, sentiment, and passion is not peculiar 
 to verse. Whatever is the natural and proper expression 
 of any conception or feeling in metre is its natural and 
 proper expression in prose.^ All beyond this is a departure 
 
 ^ 'For all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful 
 feeling.' — Preface to the Lyrical Ballads. 
 
 ' The earliest poets of all nations generally wrote from passion 
 excited by real events. . . . Feeling powerfully as they did, their 
 language was daring and figurative.' — Appendix to the Lyrical 
 Ballads, 1802. 
 
 ' 'A large portion of every good poem can in no respect dififer 
 from that of prose. ... It may be safely affirmed that there 
 neither is nor can be any essential difference between the language 
 of prose and metrical composition.' — Ibid. 1802. 
 
122 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 from the true principles of taste. If the artificial diction 
 of modern poetry would be improper on similar occasions 
 in prose, it is equally improper in verse. In support of this 
 opinion, the appeal may be made, not only to the general 
 sense of impropriety, but to those most perfect models of 
 fine writing, the Greek poets. The language of these great 
 masters is always so consonant to nature, that, thrown out 
 of rhythm, it would become the proper expression of the 
 same sentiment in prose. If modern poetry will seldom bear 
 to be brought to the same taste [test?], it is because the taste 
 of the modern has been refined to a degree of fastidious- 
 ness which leads them to prefer the meretricious ornaments 
 of art to the genuine simplicity of nature. ... It 
 obviously follows from the point established in this paper 
 that the terms poetry and prose are incorrectly opposed to 
 each other. Verse is properly the contrary of prose; and 
 because poetry speaks the language of passion and senti- 
 ment, and philosophy speaks the language of reason, these 
 two terms should be considered as contraries, and writing 
 should be divided, not into poetry and prose, but into poetry 
 and philosophy.'^ 
 
 This is obviously the germ of the Preface to the Lyrical 
 Ballads. But there is another interesting connection 
 between the Monthly Magazine of 1796 and the Lyrical 
 Ballads. In March of this year appeared William Taylor's 
 translation of Biirger's Lenore into the language of Percy's 
 Reliques. Lamb, always on the lookout for poetry that met 
 his ideal of imaginative simplicity, eagerly called Coleridge's 
 attention to it : 'Have you seen the ballad called "Leonore" 
 in the second number of the Monthly Magazine f he 
 
 ^ 'I here use the word Poetry (though against my own judg- 
 ment) as opposed to the word Prose, and synonymous with metrical 
 composition. But much confusion has been introduced into criti- 
 cism by this contradistinction of Poetry and Prose, instead of the 
 more philosophical one of Poetry and Matter of Fact, or Science. 
 The only strict antithesis to Prose is Metre.' — Note to the Preface 
 to the Lyrical Ballads. 
 
COLERIDGE AND HIS CIRCLE 1 23 
 
 writes.^ 'If you have !!!!!!!! There is another fine 
 song, from the same author (Berger) in the 3'^ No., of 
 scarce inferior merit.' This translation made me a poet, said 
 Scott. It is very likely that it made Wordsworth and 
 Coleridge the poets of the Lyrical Ballads. If so, we have 
 a very interesting connection between the quaint readings 
 of Lamb, the theories of Coleridge, and the natural artistic 
 instincts of Wordsworth. Certainly the name Biirger seems 
 to have been coupled with that of Percy in the minds of 
 Wordsworth and Coleridge from the beginning. The 
 Ancient Mariner, the first of the Lyrical Ballads, and the 
 one which suggested the writing of the others, is 
 obviously influenced by the cadence and the style of Taylor's 
 translation, and w^as to be published in the Monthly Maga- 
 zine where Leonora had appeared. The decision of Words- 
 worth and Coleridge to study in Germany, the fact that one 
 of the first things that Wordsworth did there was to buy 
 a copy, not only of Percy's Reliques, but of Biirger's 
 ballads,^ added to the fact that one of the authors espe- 
 cially discussed by Wordsworth with Klopstock was 
 Biirger^ — all suggest that the German poet may have been 
 responsible for the interest of the young poets in his English 
 original. This evidence is strengthened by Wordsworth's 
 remarks in the Essay Supplementary to the Preface con- 
 cerning Percy's collection, 'This work did not steal silently 
 into the world, as is evident from the number of legendary 
 tales that appeared not long after its publication, and had 
 been modeled, as the authors persuaded themselves, after 
 the old Ballad. The compilation was, however, ill suited 
 to the then existing state of city society; and Dr. Johnson, 
 *mid the little senate to which he gave laws, was not spar- 
 ing in his exertions to make it an object of contempt. The 
 
 ^ Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, ed. Lucas (1802) 6. 38. 
 
 ^ Knight, Life of Wordsworth i. 170. 
 
 ^ See Wordsworth's account of the conversation with Klopstock, 
 quoted by Coleridge in Satyrane's Letters. — Biographia Literaria, 
 ed. Shawcross, 2. 177. 
 
124 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 critic triumphed, the legendary imitators were deservedly 
 disregarded, and, as undeservedly, their ill-imitated models 
 sank, in this country, into temporary neglect ; while Burger, 
 and other able writers of Germany, were composing with 
 the aid of inspiration thence derived, poems which were 
 the delight of the German nation.' Then follows a com- 
 parison between the style of Burger and that of Percy's 
 collection. 
 
 But whether Lamb, acting through Coleridge, gave the 
 first impulse to Wordsworth's interest in the popular ballads 
 or not, the influence upon the new ideals of his dehcate 
 instinct and out-of-the-way readings must not be ignored. 
 His interests at this time were much more exclusively 
 literary than those of Coleridge, who could not help devi- 
 ating into politics and philosophy. He was always ready 
 to bring his adventurous friend down from the cloud- 
 v/rapped heights of Neoplatonism to a practical question 
 of style, and to point out, not the courses of the stars, but 
 delightful little bypaths among old and forgotten books. 
 Thus, while he did not provide a theory of style, he con- 
 tinually furnished the materials and the standard for it. 
 He would flit from poem to poem, choosing with almost 
 unerring tact the 'genuine, sweet, and clear flowers of 
 expression,' and avoiding by instinct the blooms of the 
 hot-house. Being thus sensitive, he possessed a nature 
 peculiarly 'capable of excitement without the application 
 of gross and violent stimulants,' and loved what was simple 
 and natural with the immediate response of a fine tempera- 
 ment. Hence he scarcely needed to look beyond himself 
 for the principles of criticism. What shocked or displeased 
 him or left him cold was probably bad or false; what 
 delighted him was probably good and genuine. In all his 
 remarks there is this delicate egotism — this consciousness 
 that he carries the touchstone within himself. The ideal 
 of simplicity in accordance with which he criticised Coler- 
 idge's early poems was a matter of taste, not the result of 
 
COLERIDGE AND HIS CIRCLE 1 25 
 
 philosophical thought. Such an ideal could make no 
 permanent appeal either to Coleridge or to Wordsworth; 
 but it furnished a guide and a check to their bolder and 
 more philosophical genius. The interest in the elder poets, 
 especially, seems to have been Lamb's contribution to 
 the cause. It was he who furnished Wordsworth with the 
 library of old poems and plays which was, perhaps, the 
 strongest and purest influence upon his work between 1800 
 and 1807.^ To the simplicity of Coleridge and Southey, 
 which was beginning to disturb the periodicals of the day, 
 he added his own modest contributions, in the form of 
 sonnets after the manner of Bowles. Some of these were 
 appearing in the Monthly Magazine about the time Words- 
 worth went to Bristol" to meet those 'two remarkable 
 youths, Southey and Coleridge.' 
 
 Thus it may be seen that, from the stimulating centre 
 furnished by Coleridge's argumentative and contagious 
 speech and manner, there were radiating lines of influence, 
 in Southey, in Lamb, in the Monthly Magazine — not to 
 mention minor disciples like Thelwell and Lloyd — which 
 all tended to spread the ideal of a more simple and truly 
 poetical expression. Poetry must no longer be distinguished 
 from prose by external marks of language ; its beauty must 
 be something higher — not dress and jewelry adorning it 
 from without, but a spirit illuminating and transfiguring 
 it from within. This spirit had as yet no name. Coleridge 
 and Lamb called it passion, or imagination, or fancy, but 
 without being quite sure of the term that most clearly 
 expressed it. However, they both thought they could dis- 
 tinguish it when they found it, and sought for it always 
 in their enterprising reading. But when Coleridge met 
 Wordsworth, he at once recognized in him the quality which 
 he considered the nameless essential of poetry; and then 
 and there began the second stage in this noble discussion. 
 
 ^Letters of Charles Lamb i. 160. 
 
 ^ The Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 
 
CHAPTER 5. 
 
 COLERIDGE AND WORDSWORTH. 
 
 What Wordsworth brought to the discussion already so 
 well begun we can only guess from the character that it 
 immediately assumed. He seems to have interpreted the 
 more abstract reasoning of Coleridge in the light of his 
 old imaginative love of nature, and his more recent interest 
 in the psychology and the sorrows of the poor and lowly. 
 
 Of this 'still, sad music of humanity' there are many 
 echoes in the verse written after he left Cambridge. Indeed 
 there is already a hint of it in the Evening Walk and the 
 Descriptive Sketches — a hint more fully developed in the 
 two poems, The Female Vagrant and Salisbury Plain, 
 which were later combined in Guilt and Sorrow. The Old 
 Man Travelling^ and the narrative of the Ruined Cottage- 
 have a similar motive. In the Borderers, composed as 
 Vv^ordsworth tells us in 1 795-1 796, he had also explored 
 the more strange and curious processes in the mind which 
 lead to the sorrows that so troubled him; and had, for the 
 first time, endeavored to make his syntax reflect the move- 
 ments of impassioned thought. The best thing in the 
 Borderers is the language ; it is a fine, clear, flexible imita- 
 tion of actual speech, and, as such, anticipates the more 
 special effort of the Lyrical Ballads. In this 'selection of 
 the real language of men,' and, incidentally, of the language 
 of Shakespeare, he seems to have attained, for the first 
 time,^ a perfect command of the English idiom. The 
 
 ^ Printed as Animal Tranquillity and Decay in the Oxford edition, 
 which follows the last edition printed in Wordsworth's lifetime. 
 
 ^ Incorporated in the first book of the Excursion. 
 
 ^The translation of Juvenal (reprinted in Letters of the Words- 
 worth Family i. 94-98) is more idiomatic than anything Words- 
 worth had written hitherto. No doubt this imitation of the 'real 
 language of men/ as employed by the satirists, also helped him to 
 attain a command of English phrase and syntax. 
 
COLERIDGE AND WORDSWORTH 1 27 
 
 language of the poetic drama had always tended to bridge 
 the gap between the formal written language and col- 
 loquial speech. In Wordsworth's development it seems to 
 have prepared the way for the experiment of 1798. 
 
 Hence, when the frequent intercourse between the two 
 poets began in 1797, Wordsworth was prepared to vitalize 
 and illustrate the theories of Coleridge by his more intense 
 and imaginative interest in the concrete facts of nature and 
 human life. The two young men were alike in their natural 
 bent toward philosophical criticism. Possessing at first a 
 less unerring instinct for style than Lamb, they also pos- 
 sessed active and powerful intellects, which continually 
 brought their personal tastes to the bar of judgment, and 
 sought to find a basis for their own preferences in the 
 fundamental characteristics of human nature. Accord- 
 ingly, Coleridge's tendency to philosophical speculation, 
 sportively or seriously rebuked by Lamb when it took a 
 religious turn, and blithely disregarded under other circum- 
 stances, coincided with something in Wordsworth's own 
 mind, and became the most vital element in their mutual 
 discussion of the ideal of poetic expression towards which 
 they had both been blindly groping. The scope of this 
 new discussion is suggested in two incidental remarks by 
 Coleridge and Wordsworth. Upon hearing Wordsworth 
 recite his poem, Salisbury Plain, Coleridge was immediately 
 impressed with Wordsworth's peculiar gift of making 'the 
 familiar be as though it were not familiar,' of suggesting 
 'the depth and height of the ideal world' through the most 
 common incidents of daily life. This seemed to him the 
 diviner spirit of poetry which he had been seeking — the 
 inward transfiguring grace. 
 
 'This excellence, which in all Mr. Wordsworth's writings 
 is more or less predominant, and which constitutes the 
 character of his mind, I no sooner felt, than I sought to 
 understand. Repeated meditations led me first to suspect 
 (and a more intimate analysis of the human faculties, their 
 
128 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 appropriate marks, functions, and effects, matured my con- 
 jecture into full conviction) that fancy and imagination 
 were two distinct and widely differing faculties,' writes 
 Coleridge.^ This presupposes a whole theory of psychology 
 as a basis for a theory of poetry — a theory which Words- 
 worth developed and utilized in his classification of his 
 poems in accordance with the human faculties, and their 
 'appropriate marks, functions, and effects' therein illus- 
 trated. But Wordsworth's own indications of the scope 
 of the talk that inspired the Lyrical Ballads go even further. 
 He presupposes a historical survey of social psychology, 
 as well as a thorough investigation of the development of 
 language and literature. 'For to treat of the subject with 
 the clearness and coherence of which I believe it sus- 
 ceptible,' he says, *it would be necessary to give a full 
 account of the present state of public taste in this country, 
 and to determine how far this taste is healthy or depraved ; 
 which again could not be determined without pointing out 
 in what manner language and the human mind act and react 
 on each other, and without retracing the revolutions not 
 of literature alone but likewise of society itself.'^ This 
 ambitious outHne must always be borne in mind in criticiz- 
 ing any single statement concerning the language of poetry 
 made by Coleridge or Wordsworth. Their utterances were 
 not casual or arbitrary. They were part of a great, and, in 
 general, a self-consistent whole, which was never completed 
 in detail, but which always formed the background for any 
 individual remark. The separate fragments of Words- 
 worth's literary criticism bear much the same relation to 
 each other, and to an unwritten whole, as the shorter poems, 
 the Prelude, and the Excursion bear to the projected 
 Recluse. 
 
 This unwritten inquiry certainly included: 
 
 ' B. L. I. 60. 
 
 ' Preface to the Lyrical Ballads. 
 
COLERIDGE AND WORDSWORTH 1 29 
 
 1. An analysis of the poetic faculty in all its manifesta- 
 tions, with some inquiry not only into the nature of the 
 feeling induced by poetry, but into the character of all 
 natural phenomena which accidentally, as it were, produce 
 a spiritual reaction analogous to that which the poet aims 
 to produce or to reproduce. 
 
 2. The observation of the manner in which the poetic 
 faculty expresses itself in unpremeditated speech — in those 
 spontaneous associations of images, and deviations from the 
 normal order and structure of language, for the sake of a 
 special emphasis, which are called figures of speech. 
 
 3. The determination of the kind of words and phrases 
 that have been the most universal and permanent expression 
 of this faculty in English. 
 
 These three elements in the discussion are all suggested 
 in the definition of the purpose of the Lyrical Ballads which 
 Wordswortli gave in 1802 — *to choose incidents and situa- 
 tions from common life, and to relate or describe them, 
 throughout, as far as was possible in a selection of language 
 really used by men, and, at the same time, to throw over 
 them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary 
 things should be presented to the mind in an unusual 
 aspect; and, further, and above all, to make these inci- 
 dents and situations interesting by tracing in them truely 
 though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our 
 nature: chiefly as far as regards the manner in which 
 we associate ideas in a state of excitement.' This is far 
 from being a narrow definition of poetic style. Whether 
 we say with Dryden, or Dryden's master, Longinus, or 
 with John Dennis, that the language of poetry is the lan- 
 guage of passion ; or whether, with Aristotle, or Shelley, 
 or Walter Pater, we emphasize the 'strangeness added to 
 beauty' in the poet's style; or whether, with Horace, and 
 the whole school of Latin-French criticism represented by 
 Pope, we especially insist on the selective power of the 
 poet, we can still find our definition included in that of 
 
130 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 Wordsworth. But, while these three elements were all 
 suggested in his criticism from the first, and implied in it 
 to the last, there was a distinct shift of emphasis. The 
 poetic development that began in 1798 with a defense of 
 the language of the lower and middle classes of society ends 
 with the preface on the language of imagination and fancy 
 in 181 5; and it is the last which is allowed to stand as an 
 introduction to the poet's complete works for the rest of his 
 life. The language of the Lyrical Ballads will not be 
 entirely understood until we follow it to its maturity in 
 Laodamia and the Primrose of the Rock. 
 
 This, unfortunately, we cannot do within the narrow 
 limits of these pages. Nor can we trace the indebtedness 
 of Wordsworth to the formal psychology and philosophy 
 to which Coleridge introduced him — the theory of the asso- 
 ciation of ideas and the physiological origin of them in 
 Hartley's Observations on Man and Darwin's Zoonomia, 
 and the discussions of Spinoza which so troubled the 
 inquisitive spy. The effect of this new reading on Words- 
 worth's diction alone was so extensive and remarkable that 
 it demands an entirely separate treatment in connection 
 with the Prelude, where the style so brilliantly exemplified 
 in the Lines written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey is 
 carried to its height.^ It is one of the miracles of poetry 
 that lines which have taken such a hold on the popular 
 imagination as these should be merely the result of setting 
 to music the semi-technical vocabulary of treatises on 
 physiology and psychology. But while it must not be for- 
 gotten that Tintern Abbey, no less than the true Lyrical 
 Ballads, is an offshoot of the new effort and criticism, 
 and that the style there displayed was developing side by 
 side with the style of The Thorn, nevertheless we must 
 confine ourselves, for the present, to the theories illustrated 
 in the latter. 
 
 ^ See Beatty, 'Wordsworth and Hartley' — The Nation 97. 51 ff. 
 
COLERIDGE AND WORDSWORTH 331 
 
 However, since all three elements which we have dis- 
 tinguished in the theory of Wordsworth and Coleridge at 
 this time affected the imitation of the language of the 
 middle and lower classes, it is necessary to consider the 
 various hints of the part that each of them played in the con- 
 versations of that time. They are all an effort to rein- 
 terpret and vitalize the familiar ideas of the eighteenth 
 century. The old search for a universal language of poetry 
 was begun anew, with a deeper faith that poetry is passion — 
 that in the actual psychology of emotion is to be found the 
 source and the standard of every legitimate poetical device. 
 
 I. The Poetic Faculty — Imagination and Fancy. 
 
 The discussion of imagination began, says Coleridge, 
 with his attempt to analyze the peculiar quality in Words- 
 worth's poetic association of ideas, as compared with that 
 of verse which might seem more clever and striking. 
 The distinction which he and Wordsworth were elaborating 
 and illustrating for the next twenty years is expressed by 
 Wordsworth in his note to The Thorn in 1800: 'Super- 
 stitious men are almost always men of slow faculties and 
 deep feelings ; their minds are not loose, but adhesive ; they 
 have a reasonable share of imagination, by which I mean 
 the faculty which produces impressive effects out of simple 
 elements ; but they are utterly destitute of fancy, the power 
 by which pleasure and surprise are excited by sudden 
 varieties of situation and by accumulated imagery.' 
 
 As Wordsworth illustrates the distinction by observing 
 the minds of his humble neighbors, so Coleridge illustrates 
 it by observing the mind of Wordsworth^ : *A poet's heart 
 and intellect should be combined, intimately combined and 
 unified with the great appearance of nature, and not merely 
 held in solution and loose mixture with them, in the shape 
 of formal similes. ... It must occur to every reader 
 
 ^Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge i. 404-406. 
 
132 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 that the Greeks in their reHgious poems address always the 
 Numina Loci, the Genii, the Dryads, the Naiads, etc., etc. 
 All natural objects were dead, mere hollow statues, but 
 there was a Godkin or Goddessling included in each. In 
 the Hebrew poetry you find nothing of this poor stuff, as 
 poor in genuine imagination as it is mean in intellect. At 
 best it is but fancy, or the aggregating faculty of the mind, 
 not imagination, or the modifying and coadunating faculty. 
 This the Hebrew poets appear to me to have possessed 
 beyond all others, and next to them the English. In the 
 Hebrew poets each thing has a life of its own, and yet they 
 are all our life.' 
 
 These distinctions are undoubtedly Coleridge's; but the 
 illustration of the effect of imagination could only have 
 originated with Wordsworth. 'During the first year that 
 Mr. Wordsworth and I were neighbours,' writes Coleridge,^ 
 'our conversations turned frequently on the two cardinal 
 points of poetry, the power of exciting the sympathy of the 
 reader by faithful adherence to the truth of nature, and the 
 power of giving the interest of novelty by the modifying 
 colors of the imagination. The sudden charm, which acci- 
 dents of light and shade, which moon-light or sun-set, 
 diffused over a known and familiar landscape, appeared to 
 represent the practicability of combining both.' This at 
 once recalls the recognition of the transfiguring power of 
 the light of sunset which had been Wordsworth's first 
 poetic inspiration at fourteen, as well as the theme of much 
 of his descriptive writing, and the subject of his only piece 
 of literary criticism' 'hitherto. No doubt, as he spoke to 
 Coleridge of these things, he remembered the curious expe- 
 riences of his boyhood — how the lonely figure of the 
 shepherd on the hilltop, ennobled by mist and light, had 
 flashed upon his eye, a strange and godlike form ; how the 
 unexpected sight of the black crag had stirred and troubled 
 
 ^ B. L. 2. 5. The italics are mine. 
 
COLERIDGE AND WORDSWORTH 1 33 
 
 him for days with thoughts of huge and mighty forms that 
 do not move like Hving men. He knew that the shepherd 
 was but a poor, inglorious creature, and that the black crag 
 was only a 'rocky protuberance,' as Dr. Johnson would 
 say; but such experiences were like the waking of old 
 memories, or the sudden vision of strange spiritual worlds 
 beyond the veil of sense. These shadowy exaltations were 
 moments of fear and joy and astonished self -revelation. 
 If his poetry could produce on other minds the effect that 
 the 'poetry of nature' produced on his — then the great 
 problem of the source and end of imaginative art was 
 solved. This new interpretation of the boyhood experience 
 that first made him a poet is the theme of the Prelude, which 
 was begun shortly after this time, and is throughout an 
 illustration of the new conception of imagination. Much 
 that he there writes down for Coleridge he must already 
 have said in the autobiographical outpourings natural in the 
 beginning of an enthusiastic friendship. 
 
 The different phases of the new theory of imagination 
 are illustrated in The Thorn. 'This,' Wordsworth said,^ 
 'grew out of my observing on the ridge of Quantock Hill, 
 on a stormy day, a thorn which I had often passed, in calm 
 and bright weather, without noticing it. I said to myself, 
 "Cannot I by some invention do as much to make this Thorn 
 permanently an impressive object as the storm has made it 
 to my eyes this moment ?" ' In attempting to do this he 
 chose, as a medium of communication to the reader, the 
 simple mind that he describes as imaginative rather than 
 fanciful — a mind in which a single overwhelming emotion, 
 uniting with all the dim sense of wonder characteristic of 
 children and unlearned men, gives unity and intensity to its 
 impressions, as the storm seems to unify and transfigure 
 the outstanding features of a landscape. This single emo- 
 tion expresses itself in a tendency to recur to the one absorb- 
 
 ^ See Memoirs i. no. 
 
134 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 ing idea, and to bring everything else into relation with it; 
 hence the elaborate repetitions in the poem. 
 
 To heighten the coloring of imagination, Wordsworth 
 does not hesitate to make use of distinctly romantic sug- 
 gestions — such as the stirring of the moss on the child's 
 grave beneath the spade, and the haunting vision of the 
 baby's face. Such associated ideas, borrowed from litera- 
 ture very different from that which he essayed to write, 
 are also used in The Idiot Boy and Peter Bell, where all the 
 artistic effects of moonlight, well known to cheap romancers, 
 and images of horseman ghosts and blooming wood-boys 
 and 'spires and mosques and abbey windows' are made to 
 attend on the lowly figures of the poor idiot boy and the 
 disreputable potter. 
 
 2. Figures of Speech. 
 
 On the subject of imagination, Wordsworth and Cole- 
 ridge seemed to be in agreement from the first. With 
 language it was not so. As early as 1802 Coleridge began 
 to suspect that 'somewhere or other there is a radical dif- 
 ference in our theoretical opinions concerning poetry.'^ 
 This radical difference seems to consist in their respective 
 use of the term language. To Coleridge language meant 
 words considered in themselves, and especially in their 
 syntactical relations^ ; to Wordsworth it meant the whole 
 imaginative expression of the thought — which, in most 
 cases, meant figures of speech. This he probably did not 
 at first realize. Before 1802 his use of the terms language, 
 phraseology, diction, etc., seems to be rather loose. No 
 doubt he was continually influenced by Coleridge's more 
 distinct interpretation of these words. 
 
 But when, in the Appendix on Poetic Diction, he really 
 undertakes to define his terms, several difficulties in the 
 
 ^ Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge 2. 386-387. 
 ' B. L. 2. 39-49. 
 
COLERIDGE AND WORDSWORTH 135 
 
 Preface of 1800 are at once cleared. Obviously he is not 
 talking about vocabulary and syntax. Primarily he is talk- 
 ing about figures of speech and rhetorical devices. When, 
 in 1802, he condemns the lines, 
 
 These valleys and rocks never heard, 
 Ne'er sighed at the sound of a knell, 
 Or smiled when the Sabbath appeared, 
 
 as 'vicious poetic diction,' we see that he cannot mean the 
 choice or arrangement of words. Valleys, rocks, sighed, 
 sound, smiled. Sabbath, appeared — what words could be 
 more homely or more specific ; what grammatical construc- 
 tion or what order of words could be more straightforward 
 or simple ? What he is actually condemning is the pathetic 
 fallacy, the false and frigid personification of valleys and 
 rocks as creatures that could sigh or smile. This he makes 
 plain enough. The two lines, 'Ne'er sighed at the sound,' 
 etc., he says, are an instance of the 'language of passion 
 wrested from its proper use, . . . and applied upon an 
 occasion which does not justify such violent expression.' 
 It is therefore 'vicious poetic diction.' 
 
 The meaning that Wordsworth here makes so explicit 
 seems to be more or less implicit in what he says concern- 
 ing language. 'Yet morning smiles the busy race to cheer' 
 is at least as sim.ple in vocabulary, and almost as direct in 
 construction, as the line, 'A different object do these eyes 
 require.' In both cases there is a slight departure from the 
 normal order of prose. Yet Wordsworth condemns the first, 
 and approves the second. What he apparently objects to 
 is not the words as such, but the frigid periphrasis of 'busy 
 race,' and the stale personification in 'morning smiles.' In 
 other words, his criticism, from first to last, concerns not 
 poetic diction, primarily, but poetic imagery. He is inter- 
 ested in words in so far as words are also metaphors. 
 
 When we make this mental transference, substituting 
 imagery for language, we begin to understand the statement 
 
T36 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 that the peasant daily communes with the best objects 
 from which the best part of language is usually derived, 
 and that 'the language arising out of repeated experience 
 and regular feelings is a more permanent and a far more 
 philosophical language than that frequently substituted for 
 it by poets/ As Hartley had taught him, the language of 
 men is vitally metaphorical. We continually express one 
 idea in terms of another, and explain images by other asso- 
 ciated images. In the figurative expressions and illustra- 
 tions that men daily use — especially when strong feeling 
 puts a strain on the ordinary resources of language — are 
 found the germs of poetic art. 
 
 'Similes, fables, parables, allegories, etc.,' writes Hartley,^ 
 'are all instances of natural analogies improved and set off 
 by art. And they have this common to them all, that the 
 properties, beauties, perfections, desires, or defects and 
 aversions, which adhere by association to the simile, 
 parable, or emblem of any kind, are insensibly, as it were, 
 transferred upon the thing represented. Hence the passions 
 are moved to good or evil, speculation is turned into prac- 
 tice, and either some important truth felt and realized, or 
 some error and vice gilded over and recommended.' We 
 cannot speak of a 'rosy face,' or a 'friendly greeting,' or 
 a 'cool manner' without speaking metaphorically ; and the 
 most permanent and expressive metaphors are those which 
 are founded upon the most universal phenomena — upon 
 those which are connected with 'our moral sentiments and 
 animal sensations, with the operations of the elements, and 
 the appearance of the visible universe ; with storm and sun- 
 shine, with the revolutions of the seasons, with cold and 
 heat, with loss of friends and kindred, with injuries and 
 resentments, gratitude and hope, fear and sorrow.'^ 
 
 When Wordsworth's term, language, is interpreted to 
 mean metaphor, primarily — the expression of one experi- 
 
 ^ On Man i. 297. 
 
 ^ Preface to the Lyrical Ballads 1802. 
 
COLERIDGE AND WORDSWORTH 1 37 
 
 ence in terms of another — we begin to understand wherein 
 the language of the present has the advantage over that of 
 the cheap poet. The poet talks about the 'flames' of love and 
 the 'lightnings' of the fair lady's eyes ; but both the popular 
 poet and his readers, according to Wordsworth in his early 
 republicanism, are too busy with 'routs, dinners, morning 
 calls, hurry from door to door, from street to street, on 
 foot or in carriage,'^ to give more than a passing glance to 
 any actual flame or lightning. They take these phenomena 
 on faith ; the images are handed down from poet to poet, 
 growing a little more general and more faded with each 
 transmission. But the peasant, even the peasant of little 
 imagination, living in the presence of storms and lightnings, 
 sitting without emotion, hope, or aim, in the loved presence 
 of his cottage fire, receives into his heart a clear image of 
 these things through long observation and association ; and 
 hence, if he compares a feeling to a flame, he associates a 
 distinct image with the idea of flame, and the metaphor is 
 true and vital, f^t was this clearness and reality of imagery 
 that Wordsworth was trying to bring back into poetryJ 
 T do not know how to give my reader a more exact notion 
 of the style in which it was my wish and intention to write,' 
 he says,- 'than by informing him that I have at all times 
 endeavored to look steadily at my subject.' 
 
 Of course the poet's choice of words is vitally affected 
 by the choice of metaphors, and by the rigorous exclusion 
 of figures of speech which do not really represent the object 
 described, or the nature of the feeling which, in moments of 
 excitement, colors and even distorts the perception of the 
 object. And when the poet is speaking in the character of 
 an excited peasant, dramatic fitness also limits the vocabu- 
 lary. The observation of the speech of simple men certainly 
 affects the words, and especially the syntax, of the Lyrical 
 Ballads, as we shall see. Nevertheless, so little has Words- 
 
 ^ Letter to Lady Beaumont, May 21, 1807 (L. W. F. i. 302). 
 " Preface to the Lyrical Ballads. 
 
138 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 worth's famous theory to do with words in themselves that 
 it may be questioned whether it fairly excludes the use of 
 such a word as incommunicable in Margaret's lament/ so 
 often cited as an example of the inconsistency of his theory 
 with his practice: 
 
 Perhaps some dungeon hears thee groan, 
 Maimed, mangled by inhuman men ; 
 Or thou upon the desert thrown 
 Inheritest the lion's den ; 
 Or hast been summoned to the deep. 
 Thou, thou and all thy mates to keep 
 An incommunicable sleep. 
 
 This is not Margaret's language, the critics point out with 
 glee, 'incommunicable' not being in that simple woman's 
 vocabulary. But if the association of ideas is true and 
 vital — if the words are a real expression of the mother's 
 wistful thought: 'They are asleep; but they cannot give 
 their sleep to me or to any one' — then the jcuriosa felicitas 
 of the adjective in this connection, its mournful sonority, 
 its vague Shakespearean suggestions, have nothing to do 
 with the matter. There is nothing implying vv^ide experience 
 or intellectual culture in Margaret's thought; it is one of 
 those strange intuitive associations of ideas that come to 
 children and poets and the simplest hearts. It is truly her 
 method of expression, although the poet's vocabulary sup- 
 plies the word. 
 
 While this extension of the word language undoubtedly 
 explains much of Wordsworth's criticism and practice, it 
 cannot be asserted that he always used the term in this 
 sense. In the Lyrical Ballads of 1798, in particular, he was 
 deliberately imitating the speech of the lower classes, with 
 all its peculiarities of vocabulary and syntax, as we shall 
 see. He never could define his terms to the satisfaction of 
 his friends. Coleridge did not know what he meant by 
 
 ^ The Affliction of Margaret 50-56 (Oxford edition, p. 117). 
 
COLERIDGE AND WORDSWORTH 1 39 
 
 language; nor Crabb Robinson what he understood by 
 imagination. Perhaps it was this conscious difficulty in 
 translating his own rather emotional and poetical thinking 
 into the terms of the intellect that prevented him from writ- 
 ing more criticism. But in his use of the term language he 
 w^as undoubtedly influenced also by a very interesting theory 
 of Coleridge's. 
 
 J. The Universal Language of Poetry. 
 
 This notion, which is mentioned in the Advertisement of 
 1798^ as the opinion of the author of the Ancient Mariner, 
 and is suggested in a footnote added in Coleridge's hand- 
 writing to the Preface of 1800, was probably the result of 
 the reading of the ballads. Observing, with the possible 
 help of Wordsworth, that the most ancient of these poems 
 more nearly resembled the actual colloquial speech of 1797 
 than did the average verse of that year/Coleridge was led 
 to the opinion that there is a permanent body of English 
 words and idioms, denoting universal phenomena and expe- 
 riences, which have remained comparatively unchanged 
 since the time of Chaucer.- This is the universal language 
 of poetry, for it represents the permanent and changeless 
 elements in human life.^ If we free the rustic speech from 
 a few merely local elements, and the popular ballads from 
 a very few archaisms, there remains much the same resid- 
 uum ; and the residuum proves, on examination, to be a 
 
 ^ 'The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere was professedly written in 
 imitation of the style, as well as the spirit of the elder poets, but 
 with a few exceptions, the Author believes that the language adopted 
 there has been equally inteMigible for three centuries.' — Advertise- 
 ment to the Lyrical Ballads. 
 
 " 'It is worth while to observe that the affecting parts of Chaucer 
 are almost always expressed in language pure and universally intelli- 
 gible to this day.' — A Description of the Wordsworth and Coleridge 
 MSS. in the Possession of Mr. T. Norton Longman, p. 19. 
 
 See also Hazlitt, My First Acquaintance with the Poets (Literary 
 Remains 2. 392). 
 
14© WORDSWORTH S THEORY OF POETIC DICTION 
 
 body of words common to Chaucer and to almost any 
 Englishman of the year 1797. He who can use this con- 
 crete, emotional, and idiomatic speech with all the power 
 of which it is capable has found the true and lasting basis 
 of poetic diction. 
 
 This theory both Wordsworth and Coleridge tried to 
 illustrate, but with one characteristic difference; for in 
 the Ancient Mariner Coleridge contrives to retain a few 
 romantic archaisms, and Wordsworth, in the Lyrical Bal- 
 lads, keeps some special realistic features of the speech of 
 the lower and middle classes of society. With The Ancient 
 Mariner we are not here concerned. But Wordsworth's 
 effort must be carefully analyzed. 
 
CHAPTER 6. 
 
 THE LYRICAL BALLADS. 
 
 Although Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction had a 
 sounder basis in hterary tradition and in psychology than 
 an ignorant world of letters was prepared to admit, his own 
 application of it, in its first extreme form, was very limited 
 in time and in extent. Only in the Advertisement to the 
 Lyrical Ballads of 1798 does he say that he means to employ 
 the 'language of conversation in the middle and lower 
 classes of society' ; and only in this volume does he actually 
 succeed. in doing so. But even here he makes use of this 
 language simply as an 'experiment,' and clearly indicates 
 that the experiment applies only to a part — though a major 
 part — of the collection. 
 
 The poems composing the minority, not included under 
 Wordsworth's definition of his purpose, are easily deter- 
 mined. Apart from the contributions of Coleridge, and 
 apart from Tintern Abbey, which, as Wordsworth himself 
 indicates, was composed in the loftier and more impassioned 
 strain of the ode,^ they prove to be the poems written before 
 1797 — the Lines left upon a Seat in a Yew-Tree, The Female 
 Vagrant, the Lines written near Richmond, and the Con- 
 vict — none of which show any trace of the ballad-literature. 
 One other poem in the volume shows virtually nothing of 
 this influence. This is the Old Man Travelling, which 
 occupies a unique place in the first edition. It is the only 
 representative of a type of delineation of rustic life in 
 blank verse which developed side by side with the Lyrical 
 Ballads, but which does not otherwise appear in print till 
 the volumes of i8(X). The remaining poems in the first edi- 
 tion form a homogeneous group, clearly reflecting the 
 
 ^ See note on Tintern Abbey in the Lyrical Ballads, 1802-1805, 
 reprinted by Hutchinson in the Oxford edition, p. 901. 
 
142 WORDSWORTH S THEORY OF POETIC DICTION 
 
 literary influence suggested in the title, and the theory of 
 poetic diction suggested in the Advertisement. They are 
 the real experiment — the attempt to co-ordinate the artless 
 art of the ballads with Wordsworth's own observation of 
 the psychological processes underlying the speech of simple 
 men; the rest are merely poems written in various moods 
 and in various styles. 
 
 This group of the true Lyrical Ballads falls into four 
 main divisions: 
 
 1. Philosophical and narrative poems in the metre, and, 
 to a certain extent, the style of the ballads, but wholly 
 differing from them in substance. 
 
 (a) Philosophical and reflective poems, in which the 
 narrative element is at a minimum : 
 
 Lines written in Early Spring 
 
 Lines written at a Small Distance from my House 
 
 Expostulation and Reply 
 
 The Tables Turned. 
 
 (b) Narrative poems in the nature of simple anec- 
 dotes designed to illustrate a philosophical truth that 
 is far less simple : 
 
 We are Seven 
 Anecdote for Fathers 
 Simon Lee. 
 
 2. Narrative and lyrical poems, less recondite in thought, 
 but written in a 'more impressive metre than is usual in 
 the Ballads'^ : 
 
 (a) Poems more narrative than lyrical: 
 Goody Blake and Harry Gill 
 
 The Idiot Boy 
 (Peter Bell), 
 
 (b) Poems in which the lyrical element tends to pre- 
 ^ Preface, 1800, p. xxxv. 
 
THE LYRICAL BALLADS 143 
 
 dominate, or does wholly predominate (characterized 
 by the use of the refrain) : 
 
 The Thorn 
 
 The Last of the Flock 
 
 The Mad Mother 
 
 The Complaint of the Forsaken Indian Woman. 
 
 The last group most obviously illustrate Wordsworth's sug- 
 gested definition of a lyrical ballad, as a narrative poem in 
 which the 'feeling therein developed gives importance to 
 the action and situation, and not the action and situation 
 to the feeling,'^ though this description applies to all the 
 poems. 
 
 In these several groups of poems, there are some distinct 
 peculiarities of language w^hich are directly traceable to the 
 combined influence of the Reliques and the speech of rustics, 
 and which, for better or for worse, had a far-reaching 
 influence upon Wordsworth's poetic diction. 
 
 As we have already said, by language Wordsworth appar- 
 ently meant, not vocabulary alone, but the whole body and 
 dress of thought — all that appears to the eye and ear when 
 (if we may say this without irreverence) the word becomes 
 flesh, and takes its place among things that have a material, 
 as well as a spiritual existence. But the unit of expression, 
 for all practical purposes, is generally the individual term — 
 words, in the usual sense; and hence any influence affect- 
 ing language does first of all affect the vocabulary. 
 Accordingly, we will begin with the vocabulary of these 
 Lyrical Ballads, and proceed thence to the more important 
 matters of syntax, and of narrative and lyrical technique. 
 
 I. Vocabulary. 
 
 At first glance, the vocabulary of the Lyrical Ballads 
 does not seem to be notable. Apart from a number of 
 colloquial expressions, it is a pure, clear vocabulary of con- 
 
 ^ Preface, 1800, p. xvii. 
 
144 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 Crete words, neither more nor less simple than the language 
 of the majority of poems in the Oxford Book of English 
 Verse. But when we examine it in the light of the discus- 
 sions of Wordsworth and Coleridge, even this fact becomes 
 interesting. 
 
 As has already been said, the two poets had some notion 
 that there was a permanent body of English words — the 
 names of common things and universal emotions — which 
 had remained comparatively unaltered since the days of 
 Chaucer. This was the generally intelligible language of 
 poetry which the eighteenth century had always endeavored 
 to discover — a language 'simple, sensuous, and passionate.' 
 This contention is fully justified by the Lyrical Ballads. 
 Although Wordsworth's avowed effort is to imitate the 
 language that he daily hears on the lips of unlearned men, 
 stanza after stanza of the most typical Wordsworthian 
 verse in this volume contain only words that may be found 
 in Skeat's glossary to Chaucer. This is true, for instance, 
 of the description of the little cottage girl : 
 
 I met a little cottage girl, 
 
 She was eight years old, she said ; 
 
 Her hair was thick with many a curl"^ 
 That clustered round her head,^ 
 
 and of 'the wonderful lines — quam nihil ad genium 
 naucleri' which Hutchinson chooses as the supreme example 
 of a case in which the 'lineaments of the poet peep out 
 through his clumsy disguise'^ : 
 
 At all times of the day or night 
 This wretched woman thither goes, 
 And she is known to every .star. 
 And every wind that blows. ^ 
 
 ^Occurs in Chaucer's poetry as crul, crulle, meaning curly.' 
 
 ^ We are Seven 5-8. 
 
 ^Lyrical Ballads, ed. Hutchinson, p. 240. 
 
 * The Thorn 67-70. 
 
THE LYRICAL BALLADS 1 45 
 
 Even when the poet is writing more philosophically, he 
 still seems to find the vocabulary of Chaucer not inadequate. 
 In the stanza, 
 
 Sweet is the lore which Nature brings ; 
 
 Our meddling intellect 
 Misshapes the beauteous forms of things ; 
 
 — We murder to dissect/ 
 
 only the word 'dissect'^ is entirely unknown to his master. 
 Of course there are many cases in which this is not so. 
 Rustic^ in the line, 'She had a rustic woodland air,' and 
 intermitted^ in the line, 'And held such intermitted talk,' 
 are not Chaucerian. The remarkable thing is that he should 
 have come so near the vocabulary of the 'first finder of our 
 fair language,' when he was writing in accordance with a 
 theory in which the imitation of Chaucer was merely an 
 incidental suggestion by Coleridge. It is certainly a proof 
 of the essential soundness of this new conception of the 
 universal language of poetry that, after so many centuries, 
 some of the most characteristic expressions of an imagina- 
 tion so individual as that of Wordsworth should be strictly 
 in the vocabulary of Chaucer.^ 
 
 While this attempt to find the really permanent element in 
 the English language was undoubtedly the most valuable 
 
 ^ The Tables Turned 25-28. 
 
 " The earliest occurrence of this word noted in the N. E. D. is in 
 Topsell, Serpents 621 (1607). 
 
 ^ The earliest occurrence of this word noted in the A''. E, D. is 
 in Palladadius On Husbandry i. 1027 (c. 1440). 
 
 *The earliest occurrence of the word in this sense noted in the 
 A^. E. D. is in Wyatt, Death of the Countess Pembroke 421-/^2 
 (1542). 
 
 * Of the words in the Concordance to the poems of Wordsworth, 
 I estimate that about 60 per cent occur, in some form, in the poetry 
 of Chaucer ; about 68 per cent, in the poetry of Milton ; about 80 
 per cent in the poetry of Spenser; and 90 per cent in the poetry 
 of Shakespeare. 
 
146 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 feature of the new theory, there is abundant evidence that 
 Wordsworth himself was more especially interested in the 
 artistic possibilities of exclusively colloquial turns of expres- 
 sion. These occur chiefly in the poems in which there is a 
 somewhat dramatic attempt to imitate the manners, as well 
 as the emotions, of humble characters, s By far the largest 
 proportion of them is found in Goody Blake and Harry 
 Gill and The Idiot Boy, as well as in the later, unpublished 
 poem of The Tinker, which belongs to the same type, and 
 in the first edition of Peter Bell, which, though not printed 
 until 1819, is a true lyrical ballad. Where the emotional and 
 lyrical element begins to predominate, these colloquialisms 
 tend to disappear, as in The Thorn and The Last of the 
 Flock. This is a rather interesting fact — a possibly unin- 
 tentional illustration of Wordsworth's own belief that the 
 universal language is the language of the heart. One would 
 naturally expect to find colloquialisms in a dramatic lyric, 
 where the poet is speaking through the mouth of a humble 
 character, rather than in a narrative, where he speaks in 
 his own person. But the half-humorous observation of 
 external manners lowers the style, while emotion raises and 
 universalizes it. This is especially true in the case of The 
 Mad Mother, whose pathetic song is not sullied by any of 
 the curious importations from vulgar speech that are so 
 frequent in The Idiot Boy. 
 
 The colloquialisms are of two sorts. There are words 
 which are chiefly confined to speech; and there are words 
 which, though frequent in literature and capable of beauti- 
 ful and noble uses, are employed in the Lyrical Ballads in a 
 manner not common outside of conversation. The col- 
 loquialisms of the first type have generally an onomatopoetic 
 value. In the earlier descriptive poems, Wordsworth had 
 already showed a special interest in words expressive of 
 sound. To those which he there employed he has now 
 added a choice collection of more homely creations of this 
 kind: 
 
THE LYRICAL BALLADS 147 
 
 Said Peter to the groaning Ass, 
 But I will bang your bones.^ 
 
 With his visage grim and sooty, 
 Bumming, bumming, bumming.^ 
 
 Burr, burr, now Johnny's Hps they burr^ 
 
 The owlets hoot, the owlets curr.^ 
 
 In such cases, as will be noticed, he often increases the 
 effect of the word by repetition : 
 
 She lifts the knocker — rap, rap, rap^ 
 
 Then his hammer he rouzes. 
 Batter! batter! batter!^ 
 
 His teeth they chatter, chatter si\\V 
 
 In addition to the words thus definitely expressing sound, 
 there is a large number of words more vaguely onomato- 
 poetic in character, all of which have the same homely 
 rhythm, dimly suggestive of Mother Goose — fiddle-faddle, 
 hob-nob, hurly-burly, flurry, bowses, pother, etc. In such 
 lines as 
 
 Fond lovers, yet not quite hob nob^ ; 
 
 It dried her body like a cinder, 
 
 And almost turned her brain to tinder,* 
 
 ^ Peter Bell 199-200. Reprinted from the edition of 1819 in 
 Lyrical Ballads, ed. Hutchinson, pp. 137 fif. 
 ^ The Tinker 37. 
 ^ The Idiot Boy 107. 
 
 * Ibid. 114. 
 ' Ibid. 258. 
 
 ® The Tinker 12. 
 
 '^ Goody Blake and Harry Gill 12. 
 
 * The Idiot Boy 299-300. 
 
 ^ The Thorn 131-132. Altered in 1815 to : 
 
 A fire was kindled in her breast, 
 Which might not burn itself to rest. 
 
148 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 there is a touch of honest vulgarity which is characteristic 
 of The Tinker throughout. Nothing in his pubHshed work 
 so completely reveals the strain of rustic good nature in 
 Wordsworth, unmodified by any higher touches of poetry, 
 as this piece, with its cheerful rude metre and unpolished 
 phrases^ : 
 
 Who leads a happy life 
 
 If it's not the merry Tinker? 
 
 Not too old to have a wife ; 
 
 Not too much a thinker. 
 
 Right before the Farmer's door 
 Down he sits; his brows he knits; 
 Then his hammer he rouzes ; 
 
 Batter! batter! batter! 
 He begins to clatter; 
 And while the work is going on 
 
 Right good ale he bowzes.^ 
 
 But this poem was withheld from print, and the style 
 employed in it was seldom allowed to appear in Words- 
 worth's poetry after the Lyrical Ballads. In Benjamin the 
 Waggoner, his most successful attempt at humor, some- 
 thing of a broadly, rudely playful sympathy with the foibles 
 of a humble sinner is retained; but it is expressed in 
 language so pure and limpid that it would not disgrace 
 Chaucer's own well of English undefiled. Many of the 
 colloquial words just listed were omitted in correction,^ and 
 do not appear in the Concordance at all. Others were never 
 used after the appearance of the Lyrical Ballads^ W^ords- 
 
 ^ Reprinted in A Description of the Wordsworth and Coleridge 
 Manuscripts in the Possession of Mr. T. Norton Longman, pp. 67- 
 68; cf. Knight, Life of Wordsworth i. 310. 
 
 ^ The Tinker 1-15. 
 
 ^ Bang, fiddle-faddle, tinder, etc., were omitted in revision, and 
 never employed again. 
 
 * Burr, curr, hob-nob, hurly-burly, flurry (in the phrase in a 
 flurry), etc., are employed only in the Lyrical Ballads. Bowses, 
 batter, bumming, etc., occur only in the unpublished poem, The 
 Tinker. 
 
THE LYRICAL BALLADS 149 
 
 worth eliminated the over-colloquial elements from his 
 vocabulary, as carefully as he removed the pedantic or 
 bookish expressions from the early descriptive poems. The 
 former are as little characteristic of his mature style as 
 the latter. 
 
 Most of the colloquial words had some artistic justifica- 
 tion in their onomatopoetic value; but this can hardly be 
 said of many phrases of the same type — 'not a whit the 
 better he/ 'I fear you're in a dreadful zvay/ *in a mighty 
 fret,' 'in a mighty flurry/ 
 
 Sad case, as you may think, 
 For very cold to go to bed, 
 And then for cold not sleep a wink, 
 
 etc. Most of these also were rejected by Wordsworth's 
 mature taste.^ Nothing could give a better idea of the 
 almost uniform nobility of his style than to look up words 
 like dreadful, fret, mighty, etc., in the Concordance, and to 
 find the quotation from the Lyrical Ballads standing out in 
 lonely contrast to such lines as 
 
 Implores the dreadful untried sleep of death.' 
 Dim dreadful faces through the gloom appear.' 
 I love the brooks which down their channels fret.* 
 
 And see the children sport upon the shore 
 And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.^ 
 
 And these perennial bowers and murmuring pines 
 Be gracious as the music and the bloom 
 And all the mighty ravishment of spring.® 
 
 ^ None of the expressions here mentioned occurs in Wordsworth's 
 poetry outside of the Lyrical Ballads. 
 ' D. S. Quarto 643. 
 ^ Ibid. 650. 
 * Immortality 196. 
 '"Ibid. 1 70- 1 71. 
 ^ Lady! the songs of Spring were in the grove 12-14. 
 
150 WORDSWORTH S THEORY OF POETIC DICTION 
 
 This fullness of content, this imaginative dignity, are the 
 really typical features of Wordsworth's style, whether he 
 is borrowing his actual words from a peasant or from 
 Shakespeare. This he himself realized more and more.^ 
 However, at the beginning, his interest in the poor and 
 lowly made him forget that he was using them as types, 
 and their language as a universal expression of universal 
 feelings, rather than as an external mark of a single class, 
 and a single stage of culture. When he takes a line of 
 genuine poetry — of pure and emotional English — directly 
 from the lips of a peasant,^ as he sometimes does, we are 
 grateful indeed for the gift; but where this essentially 
 poetical character is lacking, the language of the country 
 villager is not in itself preferable to that of the polite Lon- 
 doner. The real value of the language of the Lyrical 
 Ballads is not that it is the speech of 'the lower and middle 
 classes of society,' but that it is imiversal language of the 
 heart in permanent and imiversal English words. 
 
 2. Syntax. 
 
 When we turn from the study of words per se to their 
 logical relation to each other in the sentence — i. e., the 
 syntax, we find that the combined influence of the Reliques 
 and of Wordsworth's new principles had a much more 
 distinct, and possibly a deleterious, influence upon his poetic 
 
 ^ Cf. Memoirs i. 129. 
 
 ^Of Simon Lee Wordsworth says: 'The expression when the 
 hounds were out, "I dearly love their voices" [Simon Lee 48] was 
 word for word' from the lips of the old man who served as the 
 model for the superannuate^ huntsman [Memoirs i. iii]. The 
 beautiful lines in The Solitary Reaper, 
 
 The music in my heart I bore 
 Long after it was heard no more, 
 
 are almost word for word from the journal of Wordsworth's 
 Quaker friend, Thomas Wilkinson. See the passage from the 
 journal, quoted in Harper's William Wordsworth 2. 66. 
 
THE LYRICAL BALLADS 15 1 
 
 Style. He was indeed successful in discovering a vocabu- 
 lary common to the speech of the peasant and that of the 
 scholar — to elder poetry and modern conversation ; and this 
 vocabulary he used with precision. Accordingly, there was 
 comparatively little for him to reject in the words employed 
 in the Lyrical Ballads; they formed a nucleus for a larger 
 and richer and more expressive poetic diction. With syntax 
 it was not so. In endeavoring to imitate the intellectual 
 processes of the simple mind, he lost sight of the natural 
 and logical relations of thought to thought, usually 
 expressed by syntax, and the necessity of preserving these 
 relations in any adequate expression. 
 
 As Coleridge said^ : 'We do not adopt the language of a 
 class by the mere adoption of such words exclusively, as 
 that class would use, or at least understand; but likewise 
 by following the order, in which the words of such men are 
 wont to succeed each other. Now this order, in the inter- 
 course of uneducated men, is distinguished from the diction 
 of their superiors in knowledge and power, by the greater 
 disjunction and separation in the component parts of that, 
 whatever it may be, which they wish to communicate. 
 There is a want of that prospectiveness of mind, that siir- 
 view, which enables a man to foresee the whole of what he 
 is to convey, appertaining to any one point; and by this 
 means so to subordinate and arrange the different parts 
 according to their relative importance, as to convey it 
 at once, and as an organized whole.' The uneducated man 
 does not look forward, and see the end of his speech beyond 
 the beginning. He goes on adding thought to thought 
 as they come, and connecting subordinate and co-ordinate 
 ideas indifferently by 'and,' or leaving them wholly dis- 
 connected.^ His emphasis is the emphasis of feeling alone, 
 
 ^B. L. 2. 43-44. 
 
 " There is a good specimen of rustic syntax in the letter from an 
 old servant quoted in Southey's Lives of Uneducated Poets, p. 2, in 
 the passage: The last of my humble attempts . . . subscribe 
 myself.' 
 
152 WORDSWORTH S THEORY OF POETIC DICTION 
 
 and, as Wordsworth noticed, he expresses this emphasis 
 simply by repeating the important idea again and again — 
 not by any attempt to subordinate the less important things 
 to it. The result is that his speech has exactly the qualities 
 that Coleridge discovered in too much of Wordsworth's 
 poetry — 'prolixity, repetition, and an eddying instead of a 
 progression of thought.'^ Yet this emotional rather than 
 intellectual syntax has its worth for the poet; and for one 
 who had sought a greater flexibility in the imitation of 
 classical Latin, the discovery of the possibilities of variety 
 and expressiveness in his own native idiom was invaluable. 
 The result of reproducing the syntax of the unlearned 
 was not unlike the result of imitating their vocabulary. 
 As the words that Wordsworth uses are the words of 
 Chaucer, so his syntax is the syntax of a still earlier period. 
 What Kellner says^ of the prose of Alfred exactly describes 
 the construction of sentences in the Lyrical Ballads: 'Alfred 
 changes his construction in consequence of every change 
 going on in his mind, while in a modern author the flow 
 of the ideas is checked by the ready pattern of the syn- 
 tactical construction. . . . The syntax of older periods 
 is natural, natf — that is, it follows much more closely the 
 drift of the ideas, of mental images ; the diction, therefore, 
 looks as if it were extemporised, as if written on the spur 
 of the moment, while modern syntax, fettered by logic, 
 is artificial, the result of literary tradition, and therefore, 
 far from being a true mirror of what is going on in the 
 mind.'^ To follow more closely 'the drift of ideas, of 
 mental images,' to make his language a true mirror of what 
 is going on in the mind, especially of the manner in which 
 we associate ideas in a state of excitement — this was the 
 object of Wordsworth in some of the much derided man- 
 nerisms in the Lyrical Ballads. As he himself said, he 
 always had 'a worthy purpose.' 
 
 ^B. L. 2. 109. 
 
 ^ Historical Outlines of English Syntax, p. 9. 
 
THE LYRICAL BALLADS 153 
 
 The effect of emotion (or lack of thought) on syntax is 
 manifest in various types of sentences in the Lyrical 
 Ballads, from the struggHng attempt to relate subject to 
 predicate to the imavailing effort to create structures at 
 once complex and unified. Even the most simple sentence 
 is an intellectual achievement. The fusing of the ideas of 
 subject and predicate in one organic whole often presents 
 an almost insuperable difficulty to the uncultivated or 
 excited mind. This is illustrated in one of the most fre- 
 quent mannerisms of uneducated speech, which is also a 
 special feature of the style of the popular ballads. When 
 it occurs in literature, it is often copied from them. 
 
 The dynt yt was both sad and sar.^ 
 
 The yerlle of Fyffe, withowghten stryffe 
 He bowynd hym over Sulway.' 
 
 Then forthe Syr Cauline he was ledde.^ 
 
 And Scarlette he was flyinge afoote.* 
 
 The mind, in its interest in the subject, tends to lose sight 
 of the predicate, and to cling to the image suggested by the 
 substantive. In order to proceed, it has to take a fresh 
 start, so to speak, with the pronoun representing the sub- 
 stantive, and so quickly pass to the verb. Examples of this 
 syntactical peculiarity are very frequent in the Lyrical 
 Ballads,^ where it appears for the first time in Wordsworth's 
 poetry. 
 
 The eye it cannot chuse but see.® 
 
 But the least motion which they made, 
 It seemed a thrill of pleasure.'^ 
 
 ^ Chevy Chase 85. 
 ^ The Battle of Otterbourne 5-6. 
 ^ Sir Cauline, Part II 17. 
 * Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne 57. 
 
 ^ There are thirty-two examples of it in the thirteen Lyrical 
 Ballads. 
 "^ Expostulation and Reply 17. 
 'Lines Written in Early Spring 15-16. 
 
154 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 Your limbs they are alive.^ 
 
 The pony he is mild and good.^ 
 
 Shame on me, Sir! this lusty lamb, 
 He makes my tears to flow.^ 
 
 The owlet in the moonlight air, 
 
 He shouts from nobody knows where.* 
 
 The doctor he has made him wait" 
 
 The babe I carry on my arm. 
 
 He saves for me my precious soul.* 
 
 Alas ! alas ! that look so wild, 
 It never, never came from me.' 
 
 The peculiar mannerism of style here illustrated was one 
 that Wordsworth took few pains to correct in the later 
 editions of these poems. The lines 'His ancles, they are 
 swoln and thick/^ become: 
 
 His body, dwindled and awry, 
 Rests upon ankles swoln and thick. 
 
 The owlet in the moonlight air 
 
 He shouts from nobody knows where,® 
 
 In the lines 
 
 he is omitted ; and the line, 'And Susan she begins to f ear,'^" 
 is changed to 'And Susan now begins to fear.' The line, 
 'Her face it was enough for me,'^^ is altered by punctua- 
 
 ^ We Are Seven 34. 
 
 ^ The Idiot Boy 313. 
 
 ' The Last of the Flock 17-18. 
 
 * The Idiot Boy 3-4. 
 
 ' Ihid. 175. 
 
 "" The Mad Mother 47-48. 
 
 ' Ihid. 87-88. 
 
 ^ Simon Lee 35. 
 
 ® The Idiot Boy 4-5. 
 
 ''Ihid. 187. 
 
 " The Thorn 200. 
 
THE LYRICAL BALLADS 1 55 
 
 tion — 'Her face! it was enough for me.' But otherwise 
 these lines remain as they first stood through all Words- 
 worth's attempts to correct his poems. 
 
 In Wordsworth's conversion of the line, 'Her face it 
 was enough for me/ to 'Her face ! it was enough for me,' 
 by simply changing the punctuation, another type of syntax 
 closely related to the one just mentioned is illustrated. Here 
 the substantive stands by itself, or is connected with the 
 preceding statement, and the pronominal subject and its 
 predicate follow as a kind of explanation of the emotion 
 impHed in the single word and the mark of exclamation. 
 Though this type is sometimes distinguished from the other 
 only by punctuation, it represents a somewhat different psy- 
 chological procesSo The intense concentration of the mind 
 on the subject and all it suggests is more frankly repre- 
 sented, and the break between this and what follows is 
 complete. This type of syntax occurs much less frequently 
 than the other in the Lyrical Ballads. The following are 
 examples of it : 
 
 All day she spun in her poor dwelling, 
 And then her three hours work at night ! 
 Alas ! 'twas hardly worth the telling.^ 
 
 And then the wind ! in faith, it was 
 A wind full ten times over.^ 
 
 But when the pony moved his legs, 
 Oh! then for the poor idiot boy! 
 For joy he cannot hold the bridle." 
 
 The difficulty in joining the two members of the sentence, 
 resulting, in these cases, from the interest that the mind 
 takes in the subject to the exclusion of the predicate, may 
 also be caused by a special interest in the predicate. In this 
 case, also, there is an attempt to strengtlien the relation 
 
 ^ Goody Blake and Harry Gill 2^-2y. 
 "■ The Thorn 190- 191. 
 ' The Idiot Boy 82-84. 
 
156 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 between the two by reduplicating the subject. These two 
 types of reduplication are thus illustrated and described by 
 Kellner : 
 
 Your husband he is gone to save far off, 
 Whilst others come to make him lose at home. 
 
 — Shakespeare. 
 She early left her sleepless bed, 
 The fairest maid of Teviotdale. 
 
 — Scott. 
 
 'These instances illustrate two different psychological pro- 
 cesses, and accordingly two different constructions. In the 
 first case, the subject is foremost in the consciousness of 
 the speaker, and the other idea connected with it, viz., the 
 predicate, is dimmed for a moment, so that it takes the 
 speaker some time to catch hold of it again. In the second 
 case, the speaker is so much under the impression of what 
 he is going to predicate, that he forgets for a moment to 
 tell the person addressed what he is predicating about, and 
 it takes some time until he finds out his mistake. In both 
 cases there is a distinct pause between the two expressions 
 for the same subject; in both cases the hearer has the 
 impression that there is some emotion at work in the mind 
 of the speaker. Both these circumstances make the expres- 
 sion a favorite figure of speech.'^ 
 
 This second type of reduplication is also not uncommon in 
 the Lyrical Ballads^ : 
 
 ^ Historical Outlines of English Syntax, p. 40. 
 
 ^ Cf. the parody of Peter Bell by John Hamilton Reynolds which 
 appeared in 1819, just before Wordsworth's own poem of that name. 
 (It is one of the few parodies of Wordsworth which really repro- 
 duce the poet's mannerisms of syntax. The oft quoted parody by 
 Horace Smith in Rejected Addresses, for instance, has not caught 
 the poet's style at all.) 
 
 Now I arise, and away we go, 
 My little hobby-horse and me. 
 
THE LYRICAL BALLADS 157 
 
 Not higher than a two years' child, 
 It stands erect, this aged thorn.^ 
 
 Oh me! ten thousand times I'd rather 
 That he had died, that cruel father!'' 
 
 Alas! 'tis very little, all 
 
 Which they can do between them.^ 
 
 A reduplication whose psychological cause is very similar 
 occurs when the interest in the predicate temporarily 
 obscures the object: 
 
 Alas ! I should have had him still. 
 My Johnny, till my dying day.^ 
 
 Sometimes, however, the reduplication is really due to a 
 quick mental conversion of the subject into the object. 
 
 Thy lips, I feel them, baby.° 
 
 And this poor thorn they clasp it round.^ 
 
 But these are only simple examples of constructions that 
 occur in more complicated forms — forms which often come 
 very near the line where the broken emotional syntax passes 
 over into a more sustained intellectual structure. The sug- 
 gestion of sustained thought immediately converts an 
 apparent reduplication into a familiar literary device : 
 
 Fond lovers, yet not quite hob rob, 
 They lengthen out the tremulous sob.^ 
 
 ^ The Thorn 5-6. 
 
 - Ihid. 142-143. 
 
 ^ Simon Lee 55-56. 
 
 * The Idiot Boy 245-246. Cf. Reynolds' Peter Bell: 
 
 And gathered leeches are to him, 
 
 To Peter Bell, like gathered flowers. 
 ^ The Mad Mother ZZ- 
 " The Thorn 17. 
 ' The Idiot Boy 299-300. 
 
158 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 Even he, of cattle the most mild, 
 The pony had his share.^ 
 
 Him whom she loves, her Idiot Boy.^ 
 
 In these cases the pronoun seems to be used, not in a some- 
 what helpless and impulsive effort to keep hold of the sub- 
 ject, but with deliberate forethought. In the first quotation, 
 'fond lovers' is in intentional apposition with 'they'; in 
 the two others, the pronoun seems to be used to point for- 
 ward to the substantive, which is purposely withheld for a 
 moment, instead of being parenthetically inserted on second 
 thought. Such nice gradations suggest the more intellectual 
 uses to which Wordsworth's practice in imitating the 
 untaught cadence of extemporaneous speech could be put. 
 In the end it gave him a fine and flexible instrument. 
 
 But if the mind in which feeling triumphs over thought 
 has some difficulty in fusing the primary elements of a 
 sentence into an organic whole, it waxes increasingly help- 
 less as it attempts to relate the larger units thus formed. 
 Often there is no such attempt. The simple units are merely 
 placed side by side, as in a child's first reader: T have a 
 cat. My cat is white. My cat eats rats.' This is a favorite 
 method in the Lyrical Ballads: 
 
 Her eyes are wild, her head is bare, 
 The sun had burnt her coal-black hair; 
 Her eyebrows have a rusty stain, 
 And she came far from over the main. 
 She has a baby on her arm.^ 
 
 I met a little cottage girl. 
 
 She was eight years old, she said.* 
 
 I have a boy of five years old. 
 His face is fair and fresh to see; 
 
 ^ The Idiot Boy 250-251. 
 Uhid. 16. 
 
 ' The Mad Mother 1-5. 
 * We Are Seven 5-6. 
 
THE LYRICAL BALLADS 1 59 
 
 His limbs are cast in beauty's mould, 
 And dearly he loves me/ 
 
 When the conjunctive and is used, it is inserted rather 
 casually, as in ordinary speech, and does not connect the 
 ideas in the series that are most closely related to each other. 
 Where every statement has exactly the same structure, 
 there is, of course, no emphasis, no indication of proportion 
 and relation. But this is generally expressed by the con- 
 tinual repetition, with changes and augmentations, of the 
 fact uppermost in the mind of the speaker. Apart from 
 the first group of philosophical poems, most of the Lyrical 
 Ballads are wonderful complexes of such repetitions; the 
 thoughts, seem to be woven together, appearing and dis- 
 appearing like the different colored threads in a carpet. 
 Of this type of structure. The Thorn is the best example. 
 In the first stanza, for instance, note how the two principal 
 features of the thorn — its age and its erectness — are inter- 
 twined with a continually increasing number of illustrative 
 details. 
 
 There is a thorn; it looks so old, 
 
 In truth you'd find it hard to say. 
 
 How it could ever have been young, 
 
 It looks so old and grey. 
 
 Not higher than a two years' child. 
 
 It stands erect this aged thorn; 
 
 No leaves it has, no thorny points ; 
 
 It is a mass of knotted joints, 
 
 A wretched thing forlorn. 
 
 It stands erect, and like a stone 
 
 With lichens it is overgrown." 
 
 ^ Anecdote for Fathers 1-4. Cf. the use of an independent clause 
 where we should expect a relative clause in the ballads, for example, 
 Edom O'Gordon 85-86: 
 
 Then bespake his dochter dear. 
 She was baith jimp and sma. 
 
 ^ The Thorn i-ii. 
 
i6o Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 A closer relation between the independent assertions is 
 attempted in the parenthetical structure so frequent in con- 
 versation. Instead of employing subordinate clauses and 
 modifying phrases, the details are inserted into the midst of 
 other statements, just as they occur to the mind, each in 
 the form of a complete little sentence: 
 
 His head he raised — there was in sight, 
 It caught his eye, he saw it plain — 
 Upon the house-top, glittering bright, 
 A broad and gilded vane/ 
 
 Tis now some two and twenty years, 
 Since she (her name is Martha Ray) 
 Gave with a maiden's true good-will 
 Her company to Stephen Hill.^ 
 
 Sometimes, when a complex sentence is almost achieved, 
 the subordinate clause has a tendency to detach itself and 
 become independent, as in the following case : 
 
 There's not a mother, no not one. 
 
 But when she hears what you have done, 
 
 Oh ! Betty she'll be in a fright.^ 
 
 In this sentence the logical relation of the separate parts 
 might be expressed thus : 'There is not a mother who will 
 not be in a fright when she hears what you have done/ 
 But in his excitement, the speaker loses track of the rela- 
 tion of the last clause to the first, and lets it emerge into 
 greater independence. The disposition to make each idea a 
 separate assertion is also visible in the line. 
 
 In Johnny's left-hand you may see 
 
 The green bough's motionless and dead,* 
 
 ^Anecdote for Fathers 49-52. 
 
 ^The Thorn 115-118, Cf. Chevy Chase 89-90: 
 
 'Then bespake a squyar off Northombarlonde, 
 
 Ric. Wytharynton was his nam,' etc. 
 ^ The Idiot Boy 24-26. 
 'Ibid. 88-89. 
 
THE LYRICAL BALLADS l6l 
 
 as compared with the more intellectual and literary con- 
 struction to which Wordsworth altered it: 
 
 In Johnny's left-hand you may see 
 The green bough motionless and dead. 
 
 Sometimes, too, there is a connecting word used loosely 
 to refer to an idea in the mind of the speaker not expUcitly 
 expressed : 
 
 She talked and sung the woods among, 
 
 And it was in the English tongue/ 
 
 Often relation is merely suggested rather than clearly 
 indicated : 
 
 Proud of herself, and proud of him, 
 
 She sees him in his travelling trim ; 
 
 How quietly her Johnny goes." 
 
 Even when a complex sentence is actually constructed, 
 it is somAimes necessary to bind the parts together by a 
 reduplication not unlike that employed in the joining of 
 subject and predicate. As in the one case a pronoun was 
 used to refer to the substantive, so in this an adverb, point- 
 ing back to the subordinate conjunction, is inserted in the 
 principal clause: 
 
 But when the ice our streams did fetter. 
 Oh then how her old bones would shake.^ 
 
 Now, though he knows poor Johnny well. 
 Yet for his life he cannot tell 
 What he has got upon his back.* 
 
 But to list ail the peculiarities of impulsive speech to be 
 found in the Lyrical Ballads is impossible. We might speak 
 of the flexible order of words — of inversions, not arbitrary 
 
 ^ The Mad Mother 9-10. 
 
 ^ The Idiot Boy 99-101. 
 
 ^ Goody Blake and Harry Gill 41-42, 
 
 * The Idiot Boy 124-126. 
 
i62 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 and unidiomatic, as in the descriptive poems, but natural 
 and expressive; of the trick of repeating adjectives or 
 adverbs^; or of repeating the noun with some added 
 modifier^; of the use of a noun for an adjective ('His face 
 was gloom; his heart was sorrow'),^ etc.; but this would 
 swell our study to unwieldy dimensions. Just because 
 Wordsworth is trying to write as men talk — to register in 
 the syntax all the shifting ideas and currents of emotion — 
 it is very difficult to classify his constructions. They con- 
 form to no system. Each sentence is a living organism, as 
 wayward and individual as other organisms in their 
 undisciplined natural state. 
 
 In many cases the reader may wax impatient, and say 
 with Coleridge*: It is indeed very possible to adopt in a 
 poem the immeaning repetitions, habitual phrases, and 
 other blank counters, which an unfurnished or confused 
 understanding interposes at short intervals, in order to keep 
 hold of his subject, which is still slipping fronf him, and 
 to give him time for recollection; or, in mere aid of 
 vacancy, as in the scanty companies of a country stage the 
 same player pops backwards and forwards, in order to pre- 
 vent the appearance of empty spaces, in the procession of 
 Macbeth, or Henry VHI. But what assistance to the poet, 
 or ornament to the poem, these can supply, I am at a loss to 
 conjecture.' 
 
 But this is one of the instances in which Coleridge's 
 criticism is decidedly peevish. Whatever might have been 
 the absolute value of these tricks of speech, as a prehminary 
 inquiry into the sources of literary style, an experiment 
 
 ^ Goody Blake and Harry Gill loi ; Anecdote for Fathers 12 57; 
 The Thorn 5. 4; The Idiot Boy 96; etc. Such repetition is charac- 
 teristic of the ballads; cf. Sir Aldingar 147: 'Then woeful, woe- 
 ful was her hart.' 
 
 -The Mad Mother .27-28; The Idiot Boy 28-29; The Complaint 
 of the Forsaken Indian Woman 36, etc. 
 
 ^ Cf . The Idiot Boy 254: 'Tis silence all on every side.' 
 
 'B.L. 2. 43- 
 
THE LYRICAL BALLADS 163 
 
 in basing literary form upon the actual psychology of 
 speech, they were far from worthless. The thoroughness 
 and honesty of the experiment were sufficient to make it 
 of value, merely as a scientific study ; the fact that some of 
 the Lyrical Ballads were never superseded in popular 
 affection by the poet's greater and more elaborate efforts 
 shows that it was also an artistic achievement — that the 
 language was not the language of a class alone, but of the 
 general heart of man. 
 
 J. Narrative and Lyrical Technique. 
 
 In attempting to make the language of the lower and 
 middle classes the medium of poetry, Wordsworth rejected 
 the devices usually employed in the eighteenth century to 
 raise poetry above prose. Personification and periphrasis ' 
 do not occur in the Lyrical Ballads. But, for the outworn * 
 arts of heroic poetry, he substituted the no less obvious arts 
 of the popular ballad, interpreting and modifying them in 
 the light of his own observations of rustic psychology^ The 
 two devices most frequently em.ployed are the personal (*' 
 appeal to the reader — sometimes by the use of the second 
 person, more often by an assertion of the writer's veracity, 
 or a statement of the source of his information — and the.^i.^ 
 use of repetition, sometimes in the form of a refrain. 
 
 In employing the first device, Wordsworth went far 
 beyond his models, and thereby developed one of the most 
 clumsy and ineffective mannerisms of his style — a man- 
 nerism v/hich clung to him long after his experiments in 
 rustic syntax had developed into a flexible and elaborate 
 medium of thought, as well as feehng. The exchange of 
 the impersonal tone of his poems hitherto for these gar-i 
 rulous intrusions of the speaker into the course of the? 
 story was a disadvantage rather than an advantage. How- \ 
 ever, these numerous tags are not unsuitable in the highly 
 colloquial language of the ballads: 
 
164 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 Two poor old dames, as I have known} 
 
 There's no one knows, as / have said} 
 
 His hunting feats have him bereft 
 Of his right eye, as you may see} 
 
 Yet never had she, well or sick. 
 As every man who knew her says, 
 A pile beforehand, wood or stick.* 
 
 These and the like are obviously paralleled, not only in the 
 habits of rustic story-tellers, but by the narrative devices 
 of the ballads : 
 
 The sworde was scharpe and sore can byte, 
 I tell you in sertayne} 
 
 I wis, if you the trouthe would know. 
 There was many a weeping eye.'' 
 
 But it is in the use of the ballad-repetition that Words- 
 worth sometimes fails most signally, but more often achieves 
 his most original artistic success. This device of style is elo- 
 quently defended in a note to The Thorn in the volume of 
 1800' : 'There is a numerous class of readers who imagine 
 that the same words cannot be repeated without tautology; 
 This is a great error: virtual tautology is much oftener 
 produced by different words when the meaning is exactly 
 the same. Words, a Poet's words more particularly, ought 
 to be weighed in the balance of feeling, and not measured 
 by the space which they occupy upon paper. For the Reader 
 cannot be too often reminded that Poetry is passion: it is 
 the history or science of feelings. Now every man must 
 
 ^ Goody Blake and Harry Gill 34. 
 ' The Thorn 162. 
 ^ Simon Lee 26. 
 
 * Goody Blake and Harry Gill 53-55. 
 ^^ The Battle of Otterbourne 109-110. 
 
 * The Rising in the North 51-52. 
 'Reprinted in the Oxford edition, pp. 899-900. 
 
THE LYRICAL BALLADS 1 65 
 
 know that an attempt is rarely made to communicate impas- 
 sioned feelings without something of an accompanying 
 consciousness of the inadequateness of our own powers, 
 or the deficiencies of language. During such efforts there 
 will be a craving in the mind, and as long as it is unsatisfied 
 the Speaker will cling to the same words, or words of the 
 same character. There are also various other reasons why 
 repetition and apparent tautology are frequently beauties of 
 the highest kind. Among the chief of these reasons is the 
 interest which the mind attaches to words, not only as 
 symbols of the passion, but as things, active and efficient, 
 which are of themselves part of the passion. And further, 
 from a. spirit of fondness, exultation, and gratitude, the 
 mind luxuriates in the repetition of words which appear 
 successfully to communicate its feelings.' 
 
 The strength and the weakness of this position are both 
 illustrated in the Lyrical Ballads. Wordsworth did not 
 accurately distinguish between the cases where language 
 is really inadequate to express feeling — where a normal 
 human mind is helpless under an abnormal emotion — and 
 the cases in which the inadequacy is due only to the very 
 elementary powers of sustained thought or expression in 
 the persons whose psychological processes he chose to 
 imitate. In this instance, he forgot to apply the principle 
 that he himself found so fruitful — the principle that all 
 figures of speech must be justified by passion. In such 
 poems as The Last of the Flock, The Mad Mother, and The 
 Complaint of the Forsaken Indian Woman, there is the 
 justifying passion; and the recurring refrains are felt to 
 be as artistically effective as they are true to the feeling 
 to be expressed. But too often the outward form exists 
 without a sufficient emotional or artistic reason for it, as 
 will be seen. But even where the repetition does not have 
 its source in emotion, it is a legitimate mode of emphasis, 
 provided that it supplements, instead of supplanting, the 
 emphasis that a proper selection and subordination of 
 
1 66 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 details can give. Such an emphasis really exists in the 
 Reliques. The theme of the story is generally so momen- 
 tous, so melodramatic (being usually the danger of violent 
 death to some person or group of persons), and the out- 
 standing circumstances so important, that the poet must 
 necessarily omit minor details. In the naive and rapid 
 narrative, the repetition gives a reality to details that the 
 hurried feelings of the reader would neglect, or serves to 
 emphasize some really important situation. But in the 
 majority of Wordsworth's ballads the swiftness of move- 
 ment is lacking, and the slow and thoughtful reading that 
 he demands often makes the repetition unnecessary as a 
 matter of narrative technique. An analysis of the various 
 uses to which Wordsworth has put the ballad-repetition 
 will make this clearer. 
 
 In the group of the philosophical poems, this device is 
 almost the only feature that Wordsworth's thoughtful verse 
 has in common with his naive models. The original pattern 
 of such stanzas as the following is obvious : 
 
 Why, William, on that old grey stone, 
 Thus for the length of half a day, 
 Why, William, sit you thus alone, 
 And dream your time away?^ 
 
 Up ! up ! my friend and clear your looks, 
 Why all this toil and trouble? 
 Up ! up ! my friend, and quit your books, 
 Or surely you'll grow double." 
 
 These at once recall the familiar structure of the ballads : 
 
 Here take her, Child of Elle, he sayd, 
 
 And gave her lillye white hand ; 
 Here take my dear and only child, 
 
 And with her half my land.^ 
 
 ^ Expostulation and Reply 1-4. 
 ^ The Tables Turned 1-4. 
 ^ The Child of Elle 189-192. 
 
THE LYRICAL BALLADS 1 67 
 
 In the philosophical poems the repetition of a stanza with 
 slight variation, so familiar in the ballads, is skilfully 
 employed to round out the thought, and point the moral. 
 In Expostulation and Reply the poem ends with a reference 
 to the words with which it began : 
 
 Then ask not wherefore, here, alone, 
 
 Conversing as I may, 
 I sit upon this old grey stone, 
 
 And dream my time away. 
 
 In the Tables Turned the thought rather than the words 
 is repeated : 
 
 Enough of science and of art; 
 
 Close up those barren leaves ; 
 Come forth and bring with you a heart 
 
 That watches and receives. 
 
 In the other philosophical poems there is a similar repeti- 
 tion : 
 
 Edward will come with you, and pray 
 
 Put on with speed your woodland dress. 
 And bring no book, for this one day 
 We'll give to idleness,^ 
 
 is echoed in the lines, 
 
 Then come, my sister! come, I pray, 
 V/ith speed put on your woodland dress. 
 
 And bring no book ; for this one day 
 We'll give to idleness.* 
 
 The words, 
 
 To her fair works did nature link 
 The human soul that through me ran; 
 
 And much it griev'd my heart to think 
 What man has made of man,^ 
 
 ^ To my Sister 13-16. 
 
 "" Ibid. 37-40- 
 
 ^ Lines Written in Early Spring 5-8. 
 
i68 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 are recalled in the stanza, 
 
 If I these thoughts may not prevent, 
 
 If such be of my creed the plan, 
 Have I not reason to lament 
 
 What man has made of man?^ 
 
 Here it will be seen that the closing of the poem with a 
 recurrence to the thought with which it began, or which 
 forms the centre of it, is an effective means of securing 
 unity, and of emphasizing the theme. 
 
 In the narrative poems the repetition is more frequent, 
 and possibly less justifiable. In We are Seven the repeti- 
 tion of the words which form the title, with various modifi- 
 cations — 'Seven in all,' 'Seven are we,' 'Yet you are seven,' 
 'Seven boys and girls are we,' 'O Master, we are seven,' 
 'Nay, we are seven' — is the repetition of the one essential 
 thought in the poem, and represents the obstinate clinging 
 of the child's mind to one idea; and hence it is effective. 
 In Goody Blake and Harry Gill there is a similar effort to 
 emphasize the theme, or rather the climax of the story by 
 repetition : 
 
 That evermore his teeth they chatter, 
 Chatter, chatter, chatter, still. 
 
 In The Anecdote for Fathers this is hardly the case. Here, 
 where the poet is speaking in his own person, and is not 
 reiterating an important idea, the repetitious character of 
 the narrative portion simply shows a difficulty in getting 
 on — an unnecessary eddying of thought about something 
 that should not hold it so long : 
 
 'My little boy, which like you more,' 
 I said, and took him by the arm — 
 'Our home by Kilve's delightful shore, 
 Or here at Liswyn farm?' 
 
 ^ Lines Written in Early Spring 21-24. 
 
THE LYRICAL BALLADS 169 
 
 'And tell me, had you rather be,' 
 
 I said, and held him by the arm, 
 
 'At Kilve's smooth shore by the green sea, 
 
 Or here at Liswyn farm?'^ 
 
 Here it is obvious that the second stanza really adds nothing 
 to the first — as Wordsworth recognized after Coleridge had 
 used this passage as an example of the tendency to eddy 
 rather than to progress. In later editions he omitted the 
 first stanza, to the great improvement of the poem. 
 
 But it is in the lyrical poems, where the repetition becomes 
 a refrain, that Wordsworth's attempt to make literary 
 artifice an accurate reflection of psychological processes is 
 most successful. Like other poetical devices, the refrain 
 has its origin in a characteristic of impassioned feeling. 
 The mind under the influence of a great emotion is intensely 
 preoccupied with a single idea, or group of associated ideas. 
 Around these all other ideas tend to circle; in this every 
 train of thought begins and ends. When a new and alien 
 series of images is suggested, the mind follows it but a 
 little way, and then finds some means of linking it with 
 the single overwhelming feeling. Generally, as Words- 
 worth noticed, the idea is repeated again and again in the 
 same or very similar words. But in many songs there is 
 no effort w^hatever to trace the process by which the mind 
 returns to the refrain. It is merely added every time at 
 the end of a stanza or set number of verses, whether it has 
 any real connection with them or not. 
 
 To make a natural, rather than an artificial, use of this 
 device is the aim of Wordsworth in all the poems we have 
 grouped as lyrics. Of these, The Thorn seems the least 
 effective. This is partly due to the intrusion of the shadowy 
 speaker, who is neither an old skipper nor the poet himself, 
 but something between, and who, moreover, is not telling 
 his own story. The lyrical element is thus partly dissipated 
 
 ^Anecdote for Fathers 29-36. 
 
lyo WORDSWORTH S THEORY OF POETIC DICTION 
 
 before it pierces through the somewhat alien medium to 
 the imagination of the reader. Nevertheless, in introducing 
 the refrain, 
 
 Oh misery ! Oh misery ! 
 
 Oh woe to me ! O misery ! 
 
 Wordsworth has represented it as a natural result of the 
 tendency of the adhesive mind of the old seaman to 
 cling to the idea that has impressed him, and to repeat it 
 in the same words — as well as an expression of the feeling 
 of the poor woman. 
 
 In The Last of the Flock there is a double refrain which 
 is much more skilfully used. The speaker naturally begins 
 with the explanation, 
 
 Shame on me, Sir ! this lusty lamb, 
 
 He makes my tears to flow. 
 To-day I fetched him from the rock ; 
 
 He is the last of all my flock, 
 
 which suggests the history of the flock. When he comes to 
 the account of his fifty comely sheep, the contrast between 
 the memory of these and the one last lamb in his arms 
 suddenly forces itself upon him, and he recurs to his first 
 thought, but expresses the thought in different words : 
 
 adding. 
 
 This lusty lamb of all my store 
 Is all that is alive: 
 
 And now I care not if we die 
 And perish all of poverty. 
 
 This last reflection immediately suggests the rest of his 
 story, and he begins again. He had to sell his flock one by 
 one to buy his little children bread, he says. As he speaks, 
 the woefulness of this takes possession of his mind; and, 
 accordingly, every added group of details naturally ends in 
 the reflection, 'For me it was a woeful day,' which becomes 
 the refrain: 
 
THE LYRICAL BALLADS 171 
 
 To see it melt like snow away, 
 For me it was a woeful day. 
 
 They dwindled one by one away ; 
 For me it was a woeful day. 
 
 And from the elaboration of this thought of the dwindling, 
 the mind is brought back to the original refrain, and the 
 poem ends in the thought with which it began : 
 
 They dwindled, Sir, sad sight to see! 
 
 From ten to five, from five to three, 
 
 A lamb, a weather, and a ewe; 
 
 And then at last, from three to two; 
 
 And of my fifty, yesterday 
 
 I had but only one, 
 
 And here it lies upon my arm, 
 
 Alas ! and I have none ; 
 
 To-day I fetched it from the rock; 
 
 It is the last of all my flock. 
 
 In the Complaint of the Forsaken Indian Woman, there 
 is a very lovely use of a double refrain. Each refrain seems 
 to suggest the other, and, as in The Last of the Flock, both 
 are imited at the end ; and the efifect is still further increased 
 by an echoing of the rhymes of the refrain through the rest 
 of the poem : 
 
 Before I see another day. 
 Oh let my body die away ! 
 
 Then here contented will I lie ; 
 Alone I could not fear to die; 
 
 both of which are again suggested in the words : 
 
 For strong and without pain I lay, 
 My friends, when ye were gone away. 
 
 Too soon, my friends, ye went away. 
 For I had many things to say. 
 
 All stiff with ice the ashes lie ; 
 And they are dead, and I will die. 
 
172 WORDSWORTH S THEORY OF POETIC DICTION 
 
 For-ever left alone am I, 
 
 Then wherefore should I fear to die? 
 
 In the last lines the two refrains unite : 
 
 My poor forsaken child ! if I 
 
 For once could have thee close to me, 
 
 With happy heart I then should die, 
 
 And my last thoughts would happy be. 
 
 I feel my body die away, 
 
 I shall not see another day. 
 
 Here certainly the eddying of thought is used with v/on- 
 derful artistic effect, as subtle as it is beautiful and pathetic. 
 
 In The Mad Mother the repetition is still more delicate. 
 It is used chiefly in a remarkable complex of rhymes, which 
 repeat and echo each other. The result is a curious haunt- 
 ing cadence. Every rhyme falls on the ear like a refrain, 
 though few are aware in what this refrain-like quality 
 consists. 
 
 To trace further Wordsworth's use of the real language 
 of men, and the psychological processes behind it, is per- 
 haps unnecessary. A large book could be written on his 
 use of repetition alone; but the discussion of each single 
 example of every different usage would be more laborious 
 than edifying. From the examples already cited it is evi- 
 dent that the language of the Lyrical Ballads is as much 
 the result of conscious art as the language of Paradise Lost. 
 It was a deliberate and thorough application of a theory 
 which seemed strange enough to 'indolent reviewers,' but 
 which has much in common with the theory at the basis of 
 the more scientific study of language for the last century.^ 
 
 ^ Cf. Kellner, Historical Outlines of English Syntax, p. 10. Tn 
 the study of English syntax, the vulgar talk cannot be overlooked, 
 nay — but for the difficulty of getting trustworthy materials — we 
 ought, in discussing the evolution of syntax, to start from the rustic 
 talk, just as a botanist, in dealing with the evolution of the straw- 
 berry, will not take the artificial fruit, but the wild strawberry of 
 the wood as the starting-point of his study.' 
 
THE LYRICAL BALLADS 173 
 
 Of course, in his experiment, Wordsworth made some 
 artistic mistakes, and fell into several bad habits. A man of 
 twenty-eight, 'not much used to composition,' is not likely 
 to produce poetry uniformly excellent in workmanship. He 
 is the less likely to do so when he has the misfortune to be 
 born in a bad age, and must rediscover poetic principles and 
 models for himself. 
 
 Among the evil results of the experiment was the 
 unnecessary use of the various tags — 'why should I fear to 
 say?' etc. — which occasionally fill half a line with nothing 
 at all ; and the loss of that energetic forward movement so 
 characteristic of his descriptive poems. The eddying repe- 
 titious narrative of the untrained speaker has its emotional 
 uses ; but it is not an ideal standard. The effect of a poem 
 should result, as far as possible, from its inner structure. 
 Where there is a continual necessity for external bolsters — 
 repetitions and appeals to the reader — art in its highest sense 
 does not exist. There is not a skilful adaptation of means to 
 the attainment of a desired end. 
 
 Of this high impersonal art, where the means are con- 
 cealed Hke the bony structure of a living organism, instead 
 of shamelessly flaunted, Wordsworth was to give many 
 examples. Indeed there are some examples of it in the 
 Lyrical Ballads — in The Complaint of the Forsaken Indian 
 Woman and The Mad Mother, for instance; generally the 
 art in this collection of poems is not so obvious as it seems. 
 But over against the triumphs we may place such a failure 
 in structure as the original Simon Lee, on which Words- 
 w^orth's own alterations were the best possible criticism. 
 
 In Simon Lee the poet is speaking in his own character, 
 not that of a peasant or the garrulous old skipper in The 
 Thorn; but he is nearly as helpless to mass details, and 
 entirely to finish one thought before he proceeds to the next. 
 The following is the order in which the details of Simon's 
 appearance were first given: — ancient hunting feats — one 
 eye left — a cheek like a cherry — loss of his master and 
 
174 WORDSWORTH S THEORY OF POETIC DICTION 
 
 friends — one eye left — disabled limbs — loss of kindred — 
 his wife — disabled limbs — present attempts at agriculture — 
 ancient hunting feats — his wife — his present attempts at 
 agriculture — his disabled limbs. Here it is apparent that 
 there is no control over the details, no attempt to group 
 them at all; the mind of the poet circles round and round 
 among them — advancing a little in the process, to be sure, 
 but not in the fashion of a well disciphned intellect. It will 
 also be seen that in the nature of the case there is nothing 
 to produce his apparent helplessness — no difficulty in the 
 simple facts, no passion to disorganize the mind. It was 
 simply a bad habit into which his attempt to imitate the 
 methods of untrained speakers had led him. This he 
 himself later realized. After numerous and perplexing 
 changes, the poem assumed its present form, in which 'the 
 traits and evidences of Simon's early vigour are concentred 
 within stanzas I-III, while those of his sad decline are 
 brought together in stanzas IV- VI I, the contrast being 
 marked by the phrase, "But oh, the heavy change !" '^ ; and 
 a reasonable order is substituted for the chaos of the first 
 edition. 
 
 Similar changes were introduced into The Thorn. Of 
 course in this poem there is more reason for the repetition, 
 because the writer is speaking in the character of a talkative 
 old seaman, whose mind is overwhelmed by a terrible, tragic 
 story. But even here Wordsworth later saw that he had 
 gone too far, and omitted several wholly unnecessary and 
 repetitious stanzas, without altering the impression which 
 he wished to convey. As they stand in the Oxford edi- 
 tion, Simon Lee and The Thorn are perhaps more really 
 typical of Wordsworth's best art in 1798 than they were 
 in the form which they first assumed. He has pruned the 
 excrescences without destroying the essential character. 
 
 But a still better criticism of the style of the Lyrical 
 Ballads is to be found in the second volume of poems added 
 
 '^Lyrical Ballads, ed. Hutchinson, note on Simon Lee. 
 
THE LYRICAL BALLADS 175 
 
 to the Lyrical Ballads in 1800 — the 'Other Poems' men- 
 tioned in the title. In the Preface the phrase 'language of 
 conversation in the lower and middle classes of society/ 
 has become the 'real language of men in a state of vivid 
 sensation/ And this more general application corresponds 
 to a distinct change in the style. It has become the real 
 language of men — of a typical man speaking — and not the 
 language of a class. The peculiarities noted in the earlier 
 poems have for the most part entirely disappeared. For 
 the repetition, the uneducated syntax, the extremely bald 
 vocabulary of the first ballads, there has been substituted 
 the tone of cultivated conversation, easy, flexible, straight- 
 forward, controlling the passion and the details, not con- 
 trolled by them. The medium of communication between 
 the poet and the reader is no longer the rustic, or a modern 
 imitation of an ancient minstrel; it is a quiet, intelligent, 
 sympathetic observer, who passes on what he has seen to 
 an equally intelligent and sympathetic reader, in language 
 unadorned, but perfectly adequate. 
 
 This conversational tone, with its self-control, and its 
 unconstrained and progressive structure of the sentences 
 and paragraphs, may be illustrated by endless comparisons. 
 The extremes of the two styles may be seen in the first 
 stanza of The Thorn, already quoted, as compared with 
 the beginning of Michael: 
 
 If from the public way you turn your steps 
 Up the tumultuous brook of Green-head Gill, 
 You will suppose that with an upright path 
 Your feet must struggle; in such bold ascent 
 The pastoral Mountains front you, face to face. 
 But, courage! for beside that boisterous Brook 
 The mountains have all open'd out themselves. 
 And made a hidden valley of their own. 
 No habitation there is seen ; but such 
 As journey thither find themselves alone 
 With a few sheep, with rocks and stones, and kites 
 That overhead are sailing in the sky. 
 
176 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 Here, despite a few polysyllabic words, like tumultuous, 
 habitation, etc., the vocabulary is not essentially changed; 
 but how different is what Coleridge calls the ordonnance 
 of the style — the various and expressive syntax! In the 
 first stanza of The Thorn there are practically no conjunc- 
 tions; no type of sentence is employed save the simplest 
 independent clauses set side by side. Where subordination 
 and relation are implied, they are not expressed, as in the 
 
 lines,^ 
 
 it looks so old, 
 In truth you'd find it hard to say 
 How it could ever have been young, 
 It looks so old and gray, 
 
 where the prose expression would be : It looks so old and 
 gray that in truth you would find it hard to tell how it 
 could ever have been young/ The omission of the con- 
 jtmction that, and the repetition of 'it looks so old and 
 gray,' give the characteristic eddying movement to the 
 verse, and a certain helplessness to the syntax. But in 
 Michael there is no such difficulty. All the necessary con- 
 necting tissue of conjunctions and demonstratives is here; 
 and there is a steady onward movement, with no repetition, 
 no picking up of dropped stitches — so to speak. The poet 
 still 'talks' to the reader; there is the tone, the manner, 
 of spoken language in the use of the second person, and 
 in such an expression as 'But courage !' etc. ; but the 
 speaker is no longer an excited rustic who finds his lan- 
 guage slightly inadequate to the occasion, and cannot 
 keep everything in his mind at once. He is the spectator 
 ab extra, calmly though sympathetically holding all the^ 
 details in his mind in their proper relation to each other, 
 and setting them before the hearer steadily, and without 
 haste. 
 
 A similar improvement in the character of the more 
 lyrical style is to be discovered in the beautiful fragment, 
 
 ^ The Thorn 1-4. 
 
THE LYRICAL BALLADS 177 
 
 The Danish Boy, which employs a stanza almost exactly 
 like that of The Thorn, and makes a similar attempt to give 
 a romantic association to a particular spot by connecting it 
 with a half visionary figure : 
 
 Between two sister moorland rills 
 
 There is a spot that seems to lie 
 
 Sacred to flowerets of the hills, 
 
 And sacred to the sky. 
 
 And in this smooth and open dell 
 
 There is a tempest-stricken tree ; 
 
 A corner-stone by lightning cut, 
 
 The last stone of a cottage-hut ; 
 
 And in this dell you see 
 
 A thing no storm can e'er destroy, 
 
 The shadow of a Danish Boy/ 
 
 But this does not mean that Wordsworth has abandoned 
 his first attempt to make syntax follow more accurately the 
 movement of thought. He has merely learned that the effect 
 of extemporaneous speech may be conveyed without an 
 absolutely literal imitation of all its repetitions and inepti- 
 tudes. In The Brothers, for instance, the characteristics of 
 the syntax of the Lyrical Ballads are retained, with further 
 improvements and variations; but at the same time there 
 is greater skill in the arrangement of details, and a real dis- 
 tinction of style. 
 
 The opening is a model of exposition : 
 
 These Tourists, Heaven preserve us ! needs must live 
 
 A profitable life: some glance along 
 
 Rapid and gay, as if the earth were air, 
 
 And they were butterflies to wheel about 
 
 Long as their summer lasted ; some, as wise 
 
 Upon the forehead of a jutting crag 
 
 Sit perch'd with book and pencil on their knee, 
 
 And look and scribble, scribble on and look, 
 
 Until a man might travel twelve stout miles, 
 
 Or reap an acre of his neighbor's corn. 
 
 But, for that moping son of Idleness 
 
 Why can he tarry yonder? 
 
 ^ The Danish Boy i-ii. 
 
178 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 Here the method of procedure from the general to the 
 particular could hardly be bettered. There is the statement 
 concerning the character of tourists in general ; the division 
 of the genus into species; and then the reference to the 
 particular individual who stands by himself. The sentence- 
 structure, too, is varied and flexible; yet the tone of con- 
 versation is maintained throughout, and the vocabulary is 
 strictly the vocabulary of ordinary speech. Of course, 
 when the old vicar begins to tell his story, he falls into 
 the peculiarities of speech which we are wont to call 
 ungrammatical ; but the progressive movement is not lost. 
 The expressiveness of the deviations from standard syntax, 
 marked by italics, will be noticed at once, as well as a fine 
 antique quality in the language, which reminded Lamb of 
 Shakespeare : 
 
 That's Walter Ewbank. 
 
 He had as white a head and fresh a cheek 
 
 As ever were produc'd by youth and age 
 
 Engendering in the blood of hale fourscore. 
 
 For five long generations had the heart 
 
 Of Walter's forefathers o'erflow'd the bounds 
 
 Of their inheritance, that single cottage, 
 
 You see it yonder, and those few green fields. 
 
 They toil'd and wrought, and still, from sire to son. 
 
 Each struggled, and each yielded as before 
 
 A little— yet a little— and old Walter, 
 
 They left to him the family heart, and land 
 
 With other burthens than the crop it bore. 
 
 Year after year the old man still preserv'd 
 
 A chearful mind, and buffeted with bond. 
 
 Interest and mortgages; at last he sank. 
 
 And went into his grave before his time. 
 
 Poor Walter! whether it was care that spurr'd him 
 
 God only knows, but to the very last. 
 
 He had the lightest foot in Ennerdale.^ 
 
 As The Brothers is the best example of the real language 
 of men attempted in the volume of 1798, so Ruth is a 
 
 ^ The Brothers 200-219, 
 
THE LYRICAL BALLADS 1 79 
 
 happier example of the use of the mannerisms adopted from 
 the ballads than anything in the first edition. Here all the 
 old tricks reappear; but they have become minor elements 
 in a far more elaborate and finished technique. 
 
 For the original simplicity of syntax there is substituted a 
 structure more complex and sustained. Now and then, to 
 be sure, Wordsworth retains the method of simply setting 
 more or less naturally related facts side by side, in the form 
 of independent statements, without an attempt to show their 
 natural relations, as in the stanza. 
 
 There came a Youth from Georgia's shore, 
 
 A military Casque he wore 
 
 With splendid feathers drest; 
 
 He brought them from the Cherokees ; 
 
 The feathers nodded in the breeze 
 
 And made a gallant crest,^ 
 
 where the relations of thought to thought might be 
 expressed in somewhat this fashion — 'There came a youth 
 from Georgia's shore, who wore a military casque dressed 
 with splendid feathers, which he brought from the 
 Cherokees. These feathers nodded in the breeze.' But for 
 the most part there is sufficient connecting tissue, and the 
 light and shade and emphasis are furnished by proper sub- 
 ordination. When this is lacking, the reader, perceiving 
 how well the poet knows his trade, is inclined to think that 
 there is some reason for the omission — a peculiar emphasis 
 to be gained thereby. But for one stanza of this type there 
 are a dozen in which all the resources of elaborate and varied 
 syntax seem to be at the writer's command. The greater 
 part of Ruth is a model of perspicuous sentence-structure. 
 Moreover, the various narrative-tags are no longer obtru- 
 sive, though they still occur : 
 
 ^ Ruth 12-18. (The references are to the first version of Ruth, in 
 the Lyrical Ballads of 1800.) 
 
i8o Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 But, as you have before been told 
 This Stripling, sportive, gay and bold, 
 
 Had roamed about with vagrant bands 
 Of Indians in the west^ 
 
 Even so they did ; and / may say 
 That to sweet Ruth that happy day 
 Was more than human life.^ 
 
 A Barn her winter bed supplies. 
 
 But till the warmth of summer skies 
 
 And summer days is gone, 
 
 (And in this tale we all agree) 
 
 She sleeps beneath the greenwood tree. 
 
 And other home hath none.® 
 
 They are merged in the general excellence of the style, 
 and seem a natural part of it. 
 
 Again, there is something peculiarly effective in the 
 occasional use of the ballad-repetition, 
 
 Ere she had wept, ere she had mourned, 
 A young and happy child,* 
 
 and the naive, ballad-like, ending is very beautiful : 
 
 Farewel ! and when thy days are told 
 
 Ill-fated Ruth! in hallowed mould 
 
 Thy corpse shall buried be. 
 
 For thee a funeral bell shall ring, 
 
 And all the congregation sing 
 
 A Christian psalm for thee.^ 
 
 '^ Ruth 109-110, 1 13-14. 
 
 ^ Ihid. 100-102. 
 
 ^ Ibid. 199-204. 
 
 *Ibid. 221-222. Cf. The Child of Elle 169-170: 
 
 Fair Emmeline sighed, fair Emmeline wept, 
 And all did trembling stand. 
 
 ' Ibid. 223-228. 
 
THE LYRICAL BALLADS l8l 
 
 Hence, as early as 1800, Wordsworth was already out- 
 growing the Advertisement to the Lyrical Ballads, and with 
 it the experimental period of his career. Some traces of 
 the original theory of course remain, both in the hard 
 bits of literal, matter-of-fact statement in poems like Alice 
 Fell, and in his occasional defense of so-called 'prosaic' 
 language. Certainly the original theory continued to inter- 
 est him until about 1805, the last reprinting of the Lyrical 
 Ballads of 1800 with their preface. But for the real source 
 of his poetic diction henceforth we must look mainly to 
 his reading. In the volumes of 1807 the influence of 
 Spenser and 'of the Elizabethan library furnished by Lamb 
 is everywhere evident, especially the pure and quiet 
 cadences of the later Elizabethans, Daniel, Drayton, and 
 Beaum.ont. The sonnets, which form so numerous and so 
 beautiful a part of his poetry after 1800, were written under 
 the immediate influence of Milton. The noble and unique 
 language of the Prelude is created out of the apparently 
 unpromising terminology of the philosophers, Hartley and 
 Darwin. No doubt the eloquent discourses of Coleridge 
 served as an intermediary step in this alchemic transmuta- 
 tion. The poetry of 1814-1816 was influenced by the 
 re-reading of Virgil and other Latin authors. There is a 
 pensive Virgilian graciousness of language in some of his 
 too much neglected later poems, such as the Egyptian Maid. 
 The language of the later poems also reflects the stiff, but 
 often deeply pathetic, Latin of early ecclesiastical litera- 
 ture. From sources like these, not from the speech of the 
 dalesmen, was the greater part of Wordsworth's phrase- 
 ology ultimately derived. 
 
 But, after all, it was the theory suggested in the Adver- 
 tisement which taught Wordsworth to make this use of 
 books. Through his apparent repudiation of the language 
 of books he entered into his literary inheritance. His 
 theory of poetic diction served as a test by which he might 
 seek out the genuine metal of poetry, and appropriate it 
 
1 82 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 to himself. He had already shown a disposition to test 
 and appropriate in his use of borrowed phrases in the 
 Descriptive Sketches. But the touchstone, while good as 
 far as it went, had not been sufficient. He had learned to 
 judge natural imagery used in poetry in accordance with 
 his own experience, and to include in his own work the 
 expressions which satisfied him. But he had not learned 
 to judge of language and the psychology of human expres- 
 sion. He merely took what pleased him, and what pleased 
 him was the strange, the original, the fantastic. He had 
 no social consciousness — no knowledge of the way in which 
 others might react to the words that he used. The theory 
 of the Lyrical Ballads awakened in him this social con- 
 sciousness. He wished to learn how living men spoke, how 
 they had always spoken. He learned to test his language 
 in accordance both with general usage and with actual psy- 
 chology. This gave him a control over the resources of 
 his own tongue such as only the scholarly poets may have. 
 After 1798 it is almost impossible to catch Wordsworth in 
 a questionable use of a word or a slip of grammar. His 
 vocabulary has a purity and precision which neither Milton 
 nor Tennyson, the self-conscious artists in language, can 
 equal — however they may surpass him in splendor and 
 sonorous music. His sentence-structure is remarkable alike 
 for its peculiar flexibility and for its strict observance of 
 grammar and idiom. He continues to read more and more 
 in the field of English literature, but with discrimination; 
 at any moment he is ready to give an account of the literary 
 faith that is in him. He had rediscovered the principles of 
 English poetry, and in so doing had discovered himself. 
 It is in this discovery, not in any experimental imitation 
 of the speech of Tom, Dick, or Harry, that the true sig- 
 nificance of Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction lies. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 The following bibliography contains onty the titles of books to which 
 a specific reference is made in the text : 
 
 Addison, Joseph. Criticisms of Paradise Lost (ed. Cook). Boston, 1892. 
 
 Bagehot, Walter. Literary Studies. London, 1879. 
 
 Blair, Hugh. Essays on Rhetoric. London, 1787. 
 
 Bowles, William L. Sonnets, written chiefly on Picturesque Spots, 
 
 during a Tour. Bath, 1789. 
 Cicero, Marcus Tullius. De Oratore (ed. Wilkins). Oxford, 1879-92. 
 Cicero, Marcus Tullius. Oratory and Orators (tr. Watson). London, 
 
 1889. • 
 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Biographia Epistolaris (ed. Turnbull). 
 
 London, 1911. 
 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Biographia Literaria (ed. Shawcross). 
 
 Oxford, 1907. 
 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Complete Poetical Works (ed. E. H. 
 
 Coleridge). Oxford, 1912. 
 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Letters (ed. E. H. Coleridge). Boston, 
 
 1895. 
 Coleridge, Sara. Memoir and Letters (ed. by her daughter). New 
 
 York, 1874. 
 Cook, Albert S. The Art of Poetry. Boston, 1892. 
 Cooper, Lane. A Concordance to the Poems of William Wordsworth. 
 
 London, 191 1. 
 CowPER, William. Works (ed. Southey). London, 1836-37. 
 Darwin, Erasmus. Zoonomia. London, 1801. 
 Darwin, Erasmus. The Botanic Garden. London, 1791. 
 Dennis, John. The Grounds of Criticism in Poetry. London, 1704. 
 De Vere, Aubrey. Essays, chiefly on Poetry. London, 1887. 
 De Vere, Aubrey. Essays, chiefly Literary and Ethical. London, 1889. 
 Dryden, John. Essays (ed. Ker). Oxford, 1900. 
 
 Dryden, John. Works (ed. Scott-Saintsbury). Edinburgh, 1882-93. 
 Goldsmith, Oliver. Works (ed. Gibbs). London, 1885. 
 Gray, Thomas. Letters (ed. Tovey). London, 1900. 
 Hamelius, Paul. Die Kritik in der Englischen Literatur des 17. und 18. 
 
 Jahrhunderts. Leipzig, 1897. 
 Harper, George MacLean. William Wordsworth. New York, 1916. 
 Hartley, David. Observations on Man. London, 1810. 
 
184 Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction 
 
 Hazlitt, William. Literary Remains. London, 1836. 
 
 Horace Quintus Flaccus. Ars Poetica. (Art of Poetry, ed. Cook.) 
 
 Boston, 1892. 
 HuTTON, Richard Holt. Essays, Theological and Literary. London, 
 
 1888. 
 Johnson, Samuel. Lives of the English Poets (ed. Hill). Oxford, 
 
 1905. 
 JoNSON, Ben. Timber (ed. Shelling). Boston, 1892. 
 Kellner, Leon. Historical Outlines of English Syntax. London and 
 
 New York, 1892. 
 Petit de Julleville. Histoire de la Langue et de la Litterature Frangaise 
 
 des Origines a 1900. Paris, 1897. 
 Lamb, Charles. Works (ed. Lucas). London, 1903-1905. 
 Lamb, Charles. Letters (ed. Macdonald). London, 1903. 
 Legouis, Emile. The Early Life of William Wordsworth. New York, 
 
 1897. 
 Lieneman, Kurt. Die Belesenheit von William Wordsworth. Weimar, 
 
 1908. 
 
 Lucas, E. V. The Life of Charles Lamb. New York and London, 1905. 
 
 MooRE, J. L. Tudor-Stuart Views on the Growth, Status, and Destiny 
 of the English Language. Halle, 1910. 
 
 Pope, Alexander. Works (ed. Courthope and Elwin). London, 1871-89. 
 
 Pratt, Alice E. The Use of Color in the Verse of the English Romantic 
 Poets. Chicago, 1898. 
 
 QuiNTiLiAN, Marcus Fabius. Institutes of Oratory (tr. Watson). Lon- 
 don, 1891-92. 
 
 Reynolds, Myra. The Treatment of Nature in English Poetry between 
 Pope and Wordsworth. Chicago, 1896. 
 
 Robinson, Henry Crabb. Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence 
 (ed. Sadler). Boston, 1869. 
 
 Scott, John. Critical Essays on Some of the Poems of Several English 
 Poets. London, 1785. 
 
 Shairp, John C. Aspects of Poetry. Boston and New York, 1892. 
 
 Smith, G. Gregory, Elizabethan Critical Essays. Oxford, 1904. 
 
 Spence, Joseph. Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters of Books and 
 Men. London, 1820. 
 
 Spingarn, Joel E. Critical Essays of the Sevententh Century. Oxford, 
 1908. 
 
 Warton, Joseph. An Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope. Lon- 
 don, 1782. 
 
 Wordsworth, Christopher. Memoirs of William Wordsworth (ed. 
 Reed). Boston, 1851. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 1 85 
 
 Wordsworth, Christopher. Social Life at the English Universities in 
 the Eighteenth Century, Cambridge, 1874. 
 
 Wordsworth, William. Lyrical Ballads. Bristol, 1798. (In the pos- 
 session of Mrs. Cynthia Morgan St. John.) 
 
 Wordsworth, William. Lyrical Ballads. London, 1798. 
 
 Wordsworth, William. Lyrical Ballads (ed. Hutchinson). London, 
 1798. 
 
 Wordsworth, William, Lyrical Ballads, with other Poems. London, 
 1800. 
 
 Wordsworth, William. Lyrical Ballads, with Pastoral and Other 
 Poems. London, 1802. 
 
 Wordsworth, William, Lyrical Ballads. Philadelphia, 1802. 
 
 Wordsworth, William. Lyrical Ballads, with Pastoral and Other 
 Poems. London, 1805. 
 
 Wordsworth, William. Poems. London, 1807. 
 
 Wordsworth, William. Poems including Lyrical Ballads and the Mis- 
 cellaneous Pieces of the Author, with additional Poems, a new 
 Preface and a Supplementary Essay. London, 1815. 
 
 Wordsworth, William. Miscellaneous Poems. London, 1820. 
 
 Wordsworth, William. Poetical Works. London, 1827. 
 
 Wordsworth, William. Poetical Works. London, 1836. 
 
 Wordsworth, William. Poetical Works. London, 1840-1. 
 
 Wordsworth, William. Poems. London, 1845. 
 
 Wordsworth, William. Poetical Works (ed. Knight), including a Life 
 of Wordsworth. Edinburgh, 1882-89. 
 
 Wordsworth, William. Poetical Works (ed. Dowden) with Memoir. 
 London, 1892-93. 
 
 Wordsworth, William. Poetical Works (ed. Hutchinson). London, 
 New York, 1907. 
 
 Prose Writings of Wordsworth (ed. Knight). London, 1893. 
 
 Letters of the Wordsworth Family from 1787 to 1855 (ed. Knight). 
 Boston and London, 1907. 
 
 Wordsworth's Prefaces and Essays on Poetry (ed. A. J. George). 
 Boston, 1892. 
 
 Wordsworth's Literary Criticism (ed. Nowell C. Smith). London, 1905. 
 
 Wordsworth, William. Poems and Extracts Chosen by William 
 Wordsworth for an Album presented to Lady Mary Lowther, Christ- 
 mas, 1819. London, 1905. 
 
 A Description of the Wordsworth and Coleridge Manuscripts in the 
 possession of Mr. T. Norton Longman (ed. W. Hale White). Lon- 
 don and New York, 1897. 
 
 Transactions of the Wordsworth Society. Edinburgh, 1882-87. 
 
INDEX OF PROPER NAMES 
 
 Addison, i6, 39, 57, 58, 59, 61. 
 Alfred, 152. 
 Ariosto, 17, III. 
 Aristotle, 7, 23, 58, 59, 129. 
 Arnold, Matthew, vii, 2, 6. 
 Ascham, 6, 7, 9. 
 
 Bagehot, xi, 2. 
 
 Beattie, 93. 
 
 Beaumont, John, 181. 
 
 Beaupuy, iii. 
 
 Bembo, 17. 
 
 Bernard of Clairveaux, 36. 
 
 Blair, 49. 
 
 Boileau, 22, 33, 34, 35, 55. 
 
 Boyer, 113. 
 
 Bowles, 85, 87, 88, 99, 114, 118, 119, 
 
 125. 
 Browne, Sir Thomas, 15, 22. 
 Burns, 3, 61, 94, 118, 119. 
 Biirger, 122, 123, 124. 
 Byron, 14. 
 
 Caesar, 7. 
 
 Campion, 15. 
 
 Catullus, 113. 
 
 Charles II, 4. 
 
 Chaucer, 2, 4, 10, 43, 112, 117, 139, 
 140, 144, 145, 148, 152. 
 
 Cheke, Sir John, 7. 
 
 Cicero, 7, 9, 11, 12, 113. 
 
 Coleridge, vii, viii, ix, x, xiv, 3, 4, 
 7, 13, 14, 16, 39, 52, 53, 62, 66, 67, 
 68, 85, 86, 99, 102, 104, 107, 108, 
 109, no, 112, 1 13-140, 141, 144, 
 148, 151, 152, 162, 169, 176, 181. 
 
 Coleridge, Sara, xiv. 
 
 Collins, (i2,, 85, 87, 100, 115. 
 
 Cooper, Lane, xi. 
 
 Corneille, 2.2,. 
 
 Cowley, 7, 16, 53. 
 
 Cowper, 3, 36, 39, 57, 61, 62, 88, 92, 
 94, 118. 
 
 Daniel, Samuel, 13, 15, 181. 
 Dante, 2. 
 
 Darwin, Erasmus, 102, 114, 115, 116, 
 118, 130, 181. 
 
 Delille, 93. 
 
 Demosthenes, 113. 
 
 Denham, 23. 
 
 Dennis, John, 52, 129. 
 
 DeQuincey, xiv. 
 
 DeVere, Aubrey, xi, xiv. 
 
 Donne, 7, 16. 
 
 Dowden, xi. 
 
 Drayton, 13, 14, 15, 181. 
 
 Dryden, xiv, 4, 6, 11, 13, 21-24, 26, 
 28-35, 39, 41, 42-45, 48, 49, 51, 52, 
 54, 57, 58, 60, 61, 74, 100, 112, 129. 
 
 Dyer, 63, 87, 99. 
 
 E. K., 5. 
 
 Elyot, Sir Thomas, 6. 
 
 Gardiner, Bishop, 6. 
 
 Gascoigne, 8, 20. 
 
 Gay, 40. 
 
 Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 5. 
 
 Goldsmith, 3, 38, 54, 57, 58, 61. 
 
 Gray, 3, 54, 57, 60, 62, 92, 93, 100, 
 
 115. 
 Gunston, 46. 
 
 Hamilton, William Rowan, 107. 
 
 Harper, William M., xi. 
 
 Hartley, 130, 136, 181. 
 
 Harvey, Gabriel, 6, 7, 8, 15. 
 
 Hazlitt, xiv. 
 
 Henry VIII, 162. 
 
 Home, 93. 
 
 Homer, 19, 113, 117. 
 
 Horace, 8, 9, 11, 22>, 28, 36, 112, 117, 
 
 129. 
 Hutchinson, Thomas, xi, 144. 
 Hutton, R. H., xi. 
 
 Jeffrey, 90. 
 
 Johnson, Samuel, 11, 23, 30, 31, 44, 
 
 54, 58, 60, 66, 123, 133. 
 Jonson, Ben, 13, 14, 16, 21, 22, 25. 
 Julleville, Petit de, 22, 2^. 
 
INDEX OF PROPER NAMES 
 
 187 
 
 Juvenal, 112. 
 
 Keats, 86, 105. 
 Kellner, 152, 156. 
 Klopstock, 123. 
 Knight, 78, 80. 
 
 LaBruyere, 55. 
 
 Lamb, vii, viii, x, xiv, T^-, II3, 118, 
 
 119, 122, 123, 124, 125, 127, 128, 
 
 181. 
 Landon, xiv. 
 Langhorne, 94. 
 Legouis, xi, 64, 65, ^(i, 77, 83, 84, 93, 
 
 95, 98, 102, 109. 
 Lloyd, 125. 
 Longinus, 52, 129. 
 Lucretius, 62, 113. 
 
 Malherbe, 22, 22,, 26, 27, 30, 23- 
 
 Matthews, 108, 112. 
 
 Milton, 4, 16-18, 10, 24, ^2, 49, 58, 
 
 59, 60, 62, 63, 71, 87, 91, 92, 93, 96, 
 97, 98. 99, 100, III, 114, 116, 117, 
 181, 182. 
 
 Nash, 8. 
 
 Ovid, 113, 117. 
 
 Parnell, 61. 
 
 Pater, 129. 
 
 Percy, 122, 123, 124. 
 
 Philips, Ambrose, 47. 
 
 Pleiade, 23. 
 
 Pope, 15, 22, 24, 26, 32-40, 49-57, 58, 
 
 60, 61, 72, 87, 88, 93, 114, 115, 118, 
 129. 
 
 Pratt, Alice, 105. 
 Prior, 40. 
 Puttenham, 10, 11, 20. 
 
 Quintilian, 9, 11. 
 
 Rogers, Samuel, 94. 
 Ronsard, 23. 
 Rosset, 93. 
 
 Seward, 118. 
 
 Scott, John, 57, 109. 
 
 Scott, Walter, xiv, 14, 42. 
 
 Shairp, xi. 
 
 Shakespeare, 4, 17, 19, 22, 32, 60, 71, 
 
 93, 99, III, 114, 115, 116, 126, 150, 
 
 178. 
 Shelley, 129. 
 Sidney, Sir Philip, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14, 
 
 15, 21. 
 Skeat, 144. 
 Smollett, 93. 
 Sophocles, 19. 
 
 Southey, xiv, 118, 119, 120, 125. 
 Spence, 27- 
 Spenser, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 17, 19, 
 
 58, 61, 71, 93, 99, no, III, 181. 
 Spinoza, 130. 
 Sprat, 27. 
 Steele, 52. 
 Swift, 39, 40, 51, 53. 
 
 Tasso, III. 
 
 Taylor, William, 122, 123. 
 Tennyson, 182. 
 Terence, 9, 113. 
 Thelwell, 119, 122. 
 Theocritus, 103, 117. 
 Thomson, 55-57, 93. 99- 
 
 Virgil, 43, 53, 113, 117, 181. 
 
 Waller, 16, 23, 26, 34, 45, 47, 49. 
 Warton, Joseph, 38, 53, 55-57, 62, 
 
 85, 87, 92, 114. 
 Walsh, zz. 
 Watts, 46. 
 Wilson, 10. 
 
 Winchelsea, Lady, 88, 93. 
 Wolsely, Robert, 28. 
 Wordsworth, Christopher, 106, 107, 
 
 168. 
 Wordsworth. Dorothy, 106, 107. 
 Wrangham, 112. 
 
 Young, 93, 99. 
 
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