ely expression of the rest of his
face. Chantrey's bust wants the marking traits; but he was teased into
making it regular and heavy: Haydon's head of him, introduced into the
_Entrance of Christ into Jerusalem_, is the most like his drooping
weight of thought and expression. He sat down and talked very
naturally and freely, with a mixture of clear gushing accents in his
voice, a deep guttural intonation, and a strong tincture of the
northern _burr_, like the crust on wine. He instantly began to make
havoc of the half of a Cheshire cheese on the table, and said
triumphantly that 'his marriage with experience had not been so
productive as Mr. Southey's in teaching him a knowledge of the good
things of this life.' He had been to see the _Castle Spectre_ by Monk
Lewis, while at Bristol, and described it very well. He said 'it
fitted the taste of the audience like a glove.' This _ad captandum_
merit was, however, by no means a recommendation of it, according to
the severe principles of the new school, which reject rather than
court popular effect. Wordsworth, looking out of the low, latticed
window, said, 'How beautifully the sun sets on that yellow bank!' I
thought within myself, 'With what eyes these poets see nature!' and
ever after, when I saw the sunset stream upon the objects facing it,
conceived I had made a discovery, or thanked Mr. Wordsworth for
having made one for me! We went over to All-Foxden again the day
following, and Wordsworth read us the story of Peter Bell in the open
air; and the comment made upon it by his face and voice was very
different from that of some later critics! Whatever might be thought
of the poem, 'his face was as a book where men might read strange
matters,' and he announced the fate of his hero in prophetic tones.
There is a _chaunt_ in the recitation both of Coleridge and
Wordsworth, which acts as a spell upon the hearer, and disarms the
judgement. Perhaps they have deceived themselves by making habitual
use of this ambiguous accompaniment. Coleridge's manner is more full,
animated, and varied; Wordsworth's more equable, sustained, and
internal. The one might be termed more _dramatic_, the other more
_lyrical_. Coleridge has told me that he himself liked to compose in
walking over uneven ground, or breaking through the straggling
branches of a copse wood; whereas Wordsworth always wrote (if he
could) walking up and down a straight gravel-walk, or in some spot
where the continuity of his