“Wordsworth’s pamphlet will fail of producing any general
effect, because the sentences are long and involved; and his friend, De Quincey, who corrected the press, has
rendered them more obscure by an unusual system of punctuation. This fault will
outweigh all its merits. The public never can like any thing which they feel it
difficult to understand. They will affect to like it, as in the case of
Burke, if the reputation of the
writer be such that not to admire him is a confession of ignorance; but even in
Burke’s case, the public admiration was merely
affected: his finer beauties were not remarked, and it was only his party
politics that were generally understood, while the philosophy which he brought
to their aid was heathen Greek to the multitude of his readers. I impute
Wordsworth’s want of perspicuity to two
causes,—his admiration of Milton’s prose, and his habit of dictating instead of
writing: if he were his own scribe his eye would tell him
| Ætat. 35. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 247 |
“A villanous cold, which makes me sleep as late as I possibly can in the morning, because the moment I wake it wakes with me, has prevented me finishing Kehama: it would else, ere this, have been completed. I think of publishing it on my own account, in a pocket volume, of about 350 pages; but this is not yet determined. One of the pleasures which I had promised myself in seeing you was, that of showing you this wildest of all wild poems, believing that you will be one of the few persons who will relish it. The rhymes are as irregular as your own, but in a different key, and I expect to be abused for having given the language the freedom and strength of blank verse, though I pride myself upon the manner in which this is combined with rhyme.
“The Eclogue* which I have sent Ballantyne has—suffered a little by having all its local allusions cut out. This was done lest what was intended as a general character should have been interpreted into individual satire. The thing was suggested by my accidentally crossing such a funeral some years ago at Bristol; and had I been disposed to personal satire, the hero of the procession would have afforded ample scope for it. As soon as he knew his case was des-
| 248 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 35. |
“If Queen Orraca is not too long for the English Minstrelsy, I will with great pleasure send off a corrected copy for it.
