, the ancient mountains, with all their terrors and all
their glories, are pictures to the blind, and music to the deaf.

I should not have entered so much into detail upon this passage, but
here seems to be the point, to which all the lines of difference
converge as to their source and centre;--I mean, as far as, and in
whatever respect, my poetic creed does differ from the doctrines
promulgated in this preface. I adopt with full faith the principle of
Aristotle, that poetry, as poetry, is essentially ideal, that it
avoids and excludes all accident; that its apparent individualities
of rank, character, or occupation must be representative of a class;
and that the persons of poetry must be clothed with generic
attributes, with the common attributes of the class: not with such as
one gifted individual might possibly possess, but such as from his
situation it is most probable beforehand that he would possess. If my
premises are right and my deductions legitimate, it follows that there
can be no poetic medium between the swains of Theocritus and those of
an imaginary golden age.

The characters of the vicar and the shepherd-mariner in the poem of
_The Brothers_, that of the shepherd of Green-head Ghyll in the
_Michael_, have all the verisimilitude and representative quality,
that the purposes of poetry can require. They are persons of a known
and abiding class, and their manners and sentiments the natural
product of circumstances common to the class. Take Michael for
instance:

An old man stout of heart, and strong of limb:
His bodily frame had been from youth to age
Of an unusual strength: his mind was keen,
Intense, and frugal, apt for all affairs,
And in his shepherd's calling he was prompt
And watchful more than ordinary men.
Hence he had learned the meaning of all winds,
Of blasts of every tone; and oftentimes
When others heeded not, he heard the South
Make subterraneous music, like the noise
Of bagpipers on distant Highland hills.
The shepherd, at such warning, of his flock
Bethought him, and he to himself would say,
The winds are now devising work for me!
And truly at all times the storm, that drives
The traveller to a shelter, summon'd him
Up to the mountains. He had been alone
Amid the heart of many thousand mists,
That came to him and left him on the heights.
So liv'd he, until his eightieth year was pass'd.
And grossly