. In the one case the reader is
utterly at the mercy of the poet respecting what imagery or diction he
may choose to connect with the passion.' But is this a poet, of whom a
poet is speaking? No surely! rather of a fool or madman: or at best of
a vain or ignorant phantast! And might not brains so wild and so
deficient make just the same havoc with rhymes and metres, as they are
supposed to effect with modes and figures of speech? How is the reader
at the mercy of such men? If he continue to read their nonsense, is it
not his own fault? The ultimate end of criticism is much more to
establish the principles of writing, than to furnish rules how to pass
judgement on what has been written by others; if indeed it were
possible that the two could be separated. But if it be asked, by what
principles the poet is to regulate his own style, if he do not adhere
closely to the sort and order of words which he hears in the market,
wake, high-road, or plough-field? I reply; by principles, the
ignorance or neglect of which would convict him of being no poet, but
a silly or presumptuous usurper of the name! By the principles of
grammar, logic, psychology! In one word, by such a knowledge of the
facts, material and spiritual, that most appertain to his art, as, if
it have been governed and applied by good sense, and rendered
instinctive by habit, becomes the representative and reward of our
past conscious reasonings, insights, and conclusions, and acquires the
name of TASTE. By what rule that does not leave the reader at the
poet's mercy, and the poet at his own, is the latter to distinguish
between the language suitable to suppressed, and the language, which
is characteristic of indulged, anger? Or between that of rage and that
of jealousy? Is it obtained by wandering about in search of angry or
jealous people in uncultivated society, in order to copy their words?
Or not far rather by the power of imagination proceeding upon the all
in each of human nature? By meditation, rather than by observation?
And by the latter in consequence only of the former? As eyes, for
which the former has pre-determined their field of vision, and to
which, as to its organ, it communicates a microscopic power? There is
not, I firmly believe, a man now living, who has, from his own inward
experience, a clearer intuition than Mr. Wordsworth himself, that the
last mentioned are the true sources of genial discrimination. Through
the same process and by the same