th of the little peasant-girl in the Fairy tale, or like those that
fall from the great preacher in the Caledonian Chapel! I drank of the
stream of knowledge that tempted, but did not mock my lips, as of the
river of life, freely. How eagerly I slaked my thirst of German sentiment,
"as the hart that panteth for the water-springs;" how I bathed and
revelled, and added my floods of tears to Goethe's Sorrows of Werter, and
to Schiller's Robbers--

Giving my stock of more to that which had too much!

I read and assented with all my soul to Coleridge's fine Sonnet,
beginning--

Schiller! that hour I would have wish'd to die,
If through the shuddering midnight I had sent,
From the dark dungeon of the tow'r time rent,
That fearful voice, a famish'd father's cry!

I believe I may date my insight into the mysteries of poetry from the
commencement of my acquaintance with the authors of the Lyrical Ballads;
at least, my discrimination of the higher sorts--not my predilection for
such writers as Goldsmith or Pope: nor do I imagine they will say I got my
liking for the Novelists, or the comic writers,--for the characters of
Valentine, Tattle, or Miss Prue, from them. If so, I must have got from
them what they never had themselves. In points where poetic diction and
conception are concerned, I may be at a loss, and liable to be imposed
upon: but in forming an estimate of passages relating to common life and
manners, I cannot think I am a plagiarist from any man. I there "know my
cue without a prompter." I may say of such studies--_Intus et in cute_. I
am just able to admire those literal touches of observation and
description, which persons of loftier pretensions overlook and despise. I
think I comprehend something of the characteristic part of Shakspeare; and
in him indeed all is characteristic, even the nonsense and poetry. I
believe it was the celebrated Sir Humphry Davy who used to say, that
Shakspeare was rather a metaphysician than a poet. At any rate, it was not
ill said. I wish that I had sooner known the dramatic writers contemporary
with Shakspeare; for in looking them over about a year ago, I almost
revived my old passion for reading, and my old delight in books, though
they were very nearly new to me. The Periodical Essayists I read long ago.
The Spectator I liked extremely: but the Tatler took my fancy most. I read
the others soon after, the Rambler, the Adventurer, the World, the
Connoisseur: I was not