outh begin in gladness;
But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness. I, p. 92.

In the midst of his meditations--

I saw a man before me unawares,
The oldest man he seemed that ever wore grey hairs....

The very interesting account, which he is lucky enough at last to
comprehend, fills the poet with comfort and admiration; and, quite glad
to find the old man so cheerful, he resolves to take a lesson of
contentedness from him; and the poem ends with this pious ejaculation--

"God," said I, "be my help and stay secure;
I'll think of the leech-gatherer on the lonely moor." I, p. 97.

We defy the bitterest enemy of Mr. Wordsworth to produce anything at all
parallel to this from any collection of English poetry, or even from the
specimens of his friend Mr. Southey....

The first poems in the second volume were written during a tour in
Scotland. The first is a very dull one about Rob Roy, but the title that
attracted us most was "An Address to the Sons of Burns," after visiting
their father's grave. Never was anything, however, more miserable....
The next is a very tedious, affected performance, called "The Yarrow
Unvisited." ... After this we come to some ineffable compositions, which
the poet has entitled, "Moods of my own Mind." ... We have then a
rapturous mystical ode to the Cuckoo; in which the author, striving
after force and originality, produces nothing but absurdity ... after
this there is an address to a butterfly.... We come next to a long story
of a "Blind Highland Boy," who lived near an arm of the sea, and had
taken a most unnatural desire to venture on that perilous element. His
mother did all she could to prevent him; but one morning, when the good
woman was out of the way, he got into a vessel of his own, and pushed
out from the shore.

In such a vessel ne'er before
Did human creature leave the shore. II, p. 72.

And then we are told, that if the sea should get rough, "a beehive would
be ship as safe." "But say, what was it?" a poetical interlocutor is
made to exclaim most naturally; and here followeth the answer, upon
which all the pathos and interest of the story depend.

A HOUSEHOLD TUB, like one of those
Which women use to wash their clothes!! II, p. 72.

This, it will be admitted, is carrying the matter as far as it will go;
nor is there anything,--down to the wiping of shoes or the evisceration
of chickens, which may not be introduced in poetry, if this is
tolera