Scott superfluous and
unnecessary, though he was never, so far as we can judge, especially
irritated by it.[267] Of Wordsworth and Southey he wrote to Miss Seward:
"Were it not for the unfortunate idea of forming a new school of poetry,
these men are calculated to give it a new impulse; but I think they
sometimes lose their energy in trying to find not a better but a
different path from what has been travelled by their predecessors."[268]
Scott paid tribute in the introduction to _The Antiquary_ to as much of
Wordsworth's poetical creed as he could acquiesce in when he said, "The
lower orders are less restrained by the habit of suppressing their
feelings, and ... I agree with my friend Wordsworth that they seldom
fail to express them in the strongest and most powerful language." In a
letter to Southey Scott calls Wordsworth "a great master of the
passions,"[269] and in his _Journal_ he said: His imagination "is
naturally exquisite, and highly cultivated by constant exercise."[270]
At another time he compared Wordsworth and Southey as scholars and
commented on the "freshness, vivacity, and spring" of Wordsworth's
mind.[271]

The personal relations between Scott and Wordsworth were, as Wordsworth's
tribute in _Yarrow Revisited_ would indicate, those of affectionate
intimacy. And if Scott took exception to Wordsworth's choice of subjects
and manner, Wordsworth used the same freedom in disagreeing with Scott's
poetical ideals. "Thank you," he wrote in 1808, "for _Marmion_, which I
have read with lively pleasure. I think your end has been attained. That
it is not in every respect the end which I should wish you to purpose to
yourself, you will be well aware, from what you know of my notions of
composition, both as to matter and manner."[272] When, in 1821, Chantrey
was about to exhibit together his busts of the two poets, Scott wrote:
"I am happy my effigy is to go with that of Wordsworth, for (differing
from him in very many points of taste) I do not know a man more to be
venerated for uprightness of heart and loftiness of genius. Why he will
sometimes choose to crawl upon all fours, when God has given him so
noble a countenance to lift to heaven, I am as little able to account
for as for his quarrelling (as you tell me) with the wrinkles which time
and meditation have stamped his brow withal."[273]

These remarks upon Wordsworth and Coleridge touch merely the fringe of
the subject, and indeed we do not find that Scott ex