tial, an action with a grand or sublime train of consequences; it
next requires the intervention and guidance of beings superior to man,
what the critics I believe call _machinery_; and, lastly, I think with
Dennis, that no subject but a religious one can answer the demand of the
soul in the highest class of this species of poetry. Now Tasso's is a
religious subject, and in my opinion, a most happy one; but I am
confidently of opinion that the _movement_ of Tasso's poem rarely
corresponds with the essential character of the subject; nor do I think
it possible that written in _stanzas_ it should. The celestial movement
cannot, I think, be kept up, if the sense is to be broken in that
despotic manner at the close of every eight lines. Spenser's stanza is
infinitely finer than the _ottaca rhima_, but even Spenser's will not
allow the epic movement as exhibited by Homer, Virgil, and Milton. How
noble is the first paragraph of the _Aeneid_ in point of sound, compared
with the first stanza of the _Jerusalem Delivered_! The one winds with
the majesty of the Conscript Fathers entering the Senate House in solemn
procession; and the other has the pace of a set of recruits shuffling on
the drill-ground, and receiving from the adjutant or drill-serjeant the
commands to halt at every ten or twenty steps. Farewell.

Affectionately yours,
W. WORDSWORTH.[79]

[79] _Memoirs_, ii. 62-3.

48. _The Classics: Translation of Aeneid, &c._

[Laodamia, Dion, &c.] These poems were written in 1814-16. About this
time Wordsworth's attention was given to the education of his eldest
son: this occupation appears to have been the occasion of their
composition. In preparing his son for his university career, he
reperused the principal Latin poets; and doubtless the careful study of
their works was not without a beneficial influence on his own. It
imparted variety and richness to his conceptions, and shed new graces on
his style, and rescued his poems from the charge of mannerism.

Among the fruits of this course of reading, was a translation of some of
the earlier books of VIRGIL'S AENEID. Three books were finished. This
version was not executed in blank verse, but in rhyme; not, however, in
the style of Pope, but with greater freedom and vigour. A specimen of
this translation was contributed by Wordsworth to the _Philological
Museum_, printed at Cambridge in 1832.[80] It was accompanied with the
followi