ir
basis. But it is more than possible, that these errors of defect or
exaggeration, by kindling and feeding the controversy, may have
conduced not only to the wider propagation of the accompanying truths,
but that, by their frequent presentation to the mind in an excited
state, they may have won for them a more permanent and practical
result. A man will borrow a part from his opponent the more easily, if
he feels himself justified in continuing to reject a part. While there
remain important points in which he can still feel himself in the
right, in which he still finds firm footing for continued resistance,
he will gradually adopt those opinions, which were the least remote
from his own convictions, as not less congruous with his own theory
than with that which he reprobates. In like manner with a kind of
instinctive prudence, he will abandon by little and little his weakest
posts, till at length he seems to forget that they had ever belonged
to him, or affects to consider them at most as accidental and 'petty
annexments', the removal of which leaves the citadel unhurt and
unendangered.

My own differences from certain supposed parts of Mr. Wordsworth's
theory ground themselves on the assumption, that his words had been
rightly interpreted, as purporting that the proper diction for poetry
in general consists altogether in a language taken, with due
exceptions, from the mouths of men in real life, a language which
actually constitutes the natural conversation of men under the
influence of natural feelings. My objection is, first, that in any
sense this rule is applicable only to certain classes of poetry;
secondly, that even to these classes it is not applicable, except in
such a sense, as hath never by any one (as far as I know or have read)
been denied or doubted; and lastly, that as far as, and in that degree
in which it is practicable, yet as a rule it is useless, if not
injurious, and therefore either need not, or ought not to be
practised. The poet informs his reader that he had generally chosen
low and rustic life; but not _as_ low and rustic, or in order to
repeat that pleasure of doubtful moral effect, which persons of
elevated rank and of superior refinement oftentimes derive from a
happy imitation of the rude unpolished manners and discourse of their
inferiors. For the pleasure so derived may be traced to three exciting
causes. The first is the naturalness, in fact, of the things
represented. The second is