ch pains to
keep _down_ to the standard which they have proffered themselves. They
are to the full as much mannerists, too, as the poetasters who ring
changes on the commonplaces of magazine versification; and all the
difference between them is that they borrow their phrases from a
different and a scantier _gradus ad Parnassum_. If they were, indeed, to
discard all imitation and set phraseology, and bring in no words merely
for show or for metre,--as much, perhaps, might be gained in freedom and
originality, as would infallibly be lost in allusion and authority; but,
in point of fact, the new poets are just as much borrowers as the old;
only that, instead of borrowing from the more popular passages of their
illustrious predecessors, they have preferred furnishing themselves from
vulgar ballads and plebian nurseries.

Their peculiarities of diction alone, are enough, perhaps, to render
them ridiculous; but the author before us really seems anxious to court
this literary martyrdom by a device still more infallible,--we mean that
of connecting his most lofty, tender, or impassioned conceptions, with
objects and incidents which the greater part of his readers will
probably persist in thinking low, silly, or uninteresting. Whether this
is done from affectation and conceit alone, or whether it may not arise,
in some measure, from the self-illusion of a mind of extraordinary
sensibility, habituated to solitary meditation, we cannot undertake to
determine. It is possible enough, we allow, that the sights of a
friend's garden-spade, of a sparrow's-nest, or a man gathering leeches,
might really have suggested to such a mind a train of powerful
impressions and interesting reflections; but it is certain, that, to
most minds, such associations will always appear forced, strained, and
unnatural; and that the composition in which it is attempted to exhibit
them, will always have the air of parody, or ludicrous and affected
singularity. All the world laughs at Eligiac stanzas to a sucking pig--a
Hymn on Washing-day, Sonnets to one's grandmother--or Pindarics on
gooseberry-pie; and yet, we are afraid, it will not be quite easy to
persuade Mr. Wordsworth, that the same ridicule must infallibly attach
to most of the pathetic pieces in these volumes. To satisfy our readers,
however, as to the justice of this and our other anticipations, we shall
proceed without further preface, to lay before them a short view of
their contents.

The firs