and capricious habits of expression,
in order to furnish food for fickle tastes, and fickle appetites, of
their own creation.[8]

I cannot, however, be insensible to the present outcry against the
triviality and meanness, both of thought and language, which some of my
contemporaries have occasionally introduced into their metrical
compositions; and I acknowledge that this defect, where it exists, is
more dishonourable to the Writer's own character than false refinement
or arbitrary innovation, though I should contend at the same time, that
it is far less pernicious in the sum of its consequences. From such
verses the Poems in these volumes will be found distinguished at least
by one mark of difference, that each of them has a worthy _purpose_. Not
that I always began to write with a distinct purpose formally conceived;
but habits of meditation have, I trust, so prompted and regulated my
feelings, that my descriptions of such objects as strongly excite those
feelings, will be found to carry along with them a _purpose_. If this
opinion be erroneous, I can have little right to name of a Poet. For all
good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: and though
this be true, Poems to which any value can be attached were never
produced on any variety of subjects but by a man who, being possessed of
more than usual organic sensibility, had also thought long and deeply.
For our continued influxes of feeling are modified and directed by our
thoughts, which are indeed the representatives of all our past feelings;
and, as by contemplating the relation of these general representatives
to each other, we discover what is really important to men, so, by the
repetition and continuance of this act, our feelings will be connected
with important subjects, till at length, if we be originally possessed
of much sensibility, such habits of mind will be produced, that, by
obeying blindly and mechanically the impulses of those habits, we shall
describe objects, and utter sentiments, of such a nature, and in such
connection with each other, that the understanding of the Reader must
necessarily be in some degree enlightened, and his affections
strengthened and purified.

[8] It is worth while here to observe, that the affecting parts of
Chaucer are almost always expressed in language pure and universally
intelligible even to this day.

It has been said that each of these poems has a purpose. Another
circumstance must be mentioned