a welcome proof
that the study of the [92] most philosophic of English poets is
increasing among us. Surely nothing could be better, hardly anything
more directly fitted than careful reading of Wordsworth, to counter the
faults and offences of our busy generation, in regard both to thought
and taste, and to remind people, amid the enormous expansion, at the
present time, of all that is material and mechanical in life, of the
essential value, the permanent ends, of life itself. In the collected
edition the poems are printed with the dates, so far as can be
ascertained, in the order of their composition--an arrangement which
has indisputable recommendations for the student of Wordsworth's
genius; though the former method of distributing his work into large
groups of subject had its value, as throwing light upon his poetic
motives, and more especially as coming from himself.

In his introductory essay Mr. Morley has dwelt strongly on the
circumstance of Wordsworth's remarkable personal happiness, as having
had much to do with the physiognomy of his poetic creation--a calm,
irresistible, well-being--almost mystic in character, and yet doubtless
[93] connected with physical conditions. Long ago De Quincey noted it
as a strongly determinant fact in Wordsworth's literary career,
pointing, at the same time, to his remarkable good luck also, on the
material side of life. The poet's own flawless temperament, his fine
mountain atmosphere of mind (so to express it), had no doubt a good
deal to do with that. What a store of good fortune, what a goodly
contribution to happiness, in the very best sense of that term, is
really involved in a cheerful, grateful, physical temperament;
especially, in the case of a poet--a great poet--who will, of course,
have to face the appropriate trials of a great poet.

Coleridge and other English critics at the beginning of the present
century had a great deal to say concerning a psychological distinction
of much importance (as it appeared to them) between the fancy and the
imagination. Stripped of a great deal of somewhat obscure metaphysical
theory, this distinction reduced itself to the certainly vital one,
with which all true criticism more or less directly has to do, between
the lower and higher degrees of intensity in the [94] poet's conception
of his subject, and his concentration of himself upon his work. It was
Wordsworth who made most of this distinction, assuming it as the basis
fo