Should it, however, prove true,
that the author has been taken under the patronage of a great lady in
Scotland, and that a celebrated professor has interested himself in the
cultivation of his talents, there is reason to hope, that his
distinguished genius may yet be exerted in such a manner as to afford
more general delight. In the meantime, we must admire the generous
enthusiasm of his untutored muse; and bestow the tribute of just
applause on one whose name will be transmitted to posterity with
honour.--_The Critical Review_.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
_Descriptive Sketches_, in Verse. Taken during a Pedestrian Tour in the
Italian, Grison, Swiss and Savoyard Alps. By W. WORDSWORTH, B.A. of St.
John's, Cambridge. 4to. pp. 55. 3s. Johnson. 1793.
More descriptive poetry! (See page 166, &c.) Have we not yet enough?
Must eternal changes be rung on uplands and lowlands, and nodding
forests, and brooding clouds, and cells, and dells, and dingles? Yes;
more, and yet more: so it is decreed.
Mr. Wordsworth begins his descriptive sketches with the following
exordium:
'Were there, below, a spot of holy ground,
By Pain and her sad family _un_found,
Sure, Nature's God that spot to man had giv'n,
Where murmuring _rivers join_ the song of _ev'n_!
Where _falls_ the purple morning far and wide
_In flakes_ of light upon the mountain side;
Where summer suns in ocean sink to rest,
Or moonlight upland lifts her hoary breast;
Where Silence, on her night of wing, o'er-broods
Unfathom'd dells and undiscover'd woods;
Where rocks and groves the _power_ of waters _shakes_
In cataracts, or sleeps in quiet lakes.
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