by even shadowy spectres of beings outwardly resembling
himself. There is measureless grandeur and power in his moral
speculations. There is intense reality in his pictures of external
nature. But though his human characters are presented with great skill
of metaphysical analysis, they have rarely life or animation. He is
always the prominent, often the exclusive, object of his own song.

Upon a mind so constituted, with its psychological peculiarities so
cherished and confirmed, the fortunes and fates of others, and the
stirring events of his time, made vivid but very transient impressions.
The conversation and writings of contemporaries trained among books, and
with the faculty of speech more fully developed than that of thought,
seemed colorless and empty to one with whom natural objects and
grandeurs were always present in such overpowering force. Excluded by
his social position from taking an active part in the public events of
the day, and repelled by the emptiness of the then fashionable
literature, he turned to private and humble life as possessing at least
a reality. But he thus withheld himself from the contemplation of those
great mental excitements which only great public struggles can awaken.
He contracted a habit of exaggerating the importance of every-day
incidents and emotions. He accustomed himself to see in men and in
social relations only what he was predetermined to see there, and to
impute to them a value and importance derived mainly from his own
self-will. Even his natural good taste contributed to confirm him in his
error. The two prevailing schools of literature in England, at that
time, were the trashy and mouthing writers who adopted the sounding
language of Johnson and Darwin, unenlivened by the vigorous thought of
either; and the "dead-sea apes" of that inflated, sentimental,
revolutionary style which Diderot had unconsciously originated, and
Kotzebue carried beyond the verge of caricature. The right feeling and
manly thought of Wordsworth were disgusted by these shallow
word-mongers, and he flew to the other extreme. Under the
influences--repulsive and attractive--we have thus attempted to
indicate, he adopted the theory that as much of grandeur and profound
emotion was to be found in mere domestic incidents and feelings, as on
the more conspicuous stage of public life; and that a bald and naked
simplicity of language was the perfection of style. Singularly enough,
he was confirmed in these