4to. pp. 27. 2s. Johnson. 1793.
In this Epistle, the subject and the manner of treating it vary but
little from the former poem. We will quote four lines from a passage
which the author very sorrowfully apologizes for having omitted:
'Return delights! with whom my road beg_un_,
When _Life-rear'd_ laughing _up her_ morning _sun_;
When Transport kiss'd away my April tear,
"Rocking as in a dream the tedious year."
Life _rearing_ up the sun! Transport kissing away an _April_ tear and
_rocking_ the year as in a dream! Would the cradle had been specified!
Seriously, these are figures which no poetical license can justify. If
they can possibly give pleasure, it must be to readers whose habits of
thinking are totally different from ours. Mr. Wordsworth is a scholar,
and, no doubt, when reading the works of others, a critic. There are
passages in his poems which display imagination, and which afford hope
for the future: but, if he can divest himself of all partiality, and
will critically question every line that he has written, he will find
many which, he must allow, call loudly for amendment.
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