der why
They keep them on the ground?

And this, Jeffrey declares, is a flattering imitation of Wordsworth's
style.

The day for depreciating Wordsworth has gone by; but calmer critics must
still object to his poetical views in their entireness. In binding all
poetry to his _dicta_, he ignores that _mythus_ in every human mind, that
longing after the heroic, which will not be satisfied with the simple and
commonplace. One realm in which Poetry rules with an enchanted sceptre is
the land of reverie and day-dream,--a land of fancy, in which genius
builds for itself castles at once radiant and, for the time, real; in
which the beggar is a king, the poor man a Croesus, the timid man a hero:
this is the fairy-land of the imagination. Among Wordsworth's poems are a
number called _Poems of the Imagination_. He wrote learnedly about the
imagination and fancy; but the truth is, that of all the great
poets,--and, in spite of his faults, he is a great poet,--there is none so
entirely devoid of imagination. What has been said of the heroic may be
applied to wit, so important an element in many kinds of poetry; he
ignores it because he was without it totally. If only humble life and
commonplace incidents and unfigured rhetoric and bald language are the
proper materials for the poetry, what shall be said of all literature,
ancient and modern, until Wordsworth's day?

THE EXCURSION AND SONNETS.--With his growing fame and riper powers, he had
deviated from his own principles, especially of language; and his peaceful
epic, _The Excursion_, is full of difficult theology, exalted philosophy,
and glowing rhetoric. His only attempt to adhere to his system presents
the incongruity of putting these subjects into the lips of men, some of
whom, the Scotch pedler for example, are not supposed to be equal to their
discussion. In his language, too, he became far more polished and
melodious. The young writer of the _Lyrical Ballads_ would have been
shocked to know that the more famous Wordsworth could write

A golden lustre slept upon the hills;

or speak of

A pupil in the many-chambered school,
Where superstition weaves her airy dreams.

_The Excursion_, although long, is unfinished, and is only a portion of
what was meant to be his great poem--_The Recluse_. It contains poetry of
the highest order, apart from its mannerism and its improbable narrative;
but the author is to all intents a different man from that of the