plings served up. It was not
even _toujours perdrix_!

Mr. Wordsworth, in his person, is above the middle size, with marked
features, and an air somewhat stately and Quixotic. He reminds one of
some of Holbein's heads, grave, saturnine, with a slight indication of
sly humour, kept under by the manners of the age or by the pretensions
of the person. He has a peculiar sweetness in his smile, and great depth
and manliness and a rugged harmony, in the tones of his voice. His
manner of reading his own poetry is particularly imposing; and in his
favourite passages his eye beams with preternatural lustre, and the
meaning labours slowly up from his swelling breast. No one who has seen
him at these moments could go away with an impression that he was a "man
of no mark or likelihood." Perhaps the comment of his face and voice is
necessary to convey a full idea of his poetry. His language may not be
intelligible, but his manner is not to be mistaken. It is clear that
he is either mad or inspired. In company, even in a _tete-a-tete_, Mr.
Wordsworth is often silent, indolent, and reserved. If he is become
verbose and oracular of late years, he was not so in his better days.
He threw out a bold or an indifferent remark without either effort or
pretension, and relapsed into musing again. He shone most (because he
seemed most roused and animated) in reciting his own poetry, or in
talking about it. He sometimes gave striking views of his feelings and
trains of association in composing certain passages; or if one did
not always understand his distinctions, still there was no want of
interest--there was a latent meaning worth inquiring into, like a vein
of ore that one Cannot exactly hit upon at the moment, but of which
there are sure indications. His standard of poetry is high and severe,
almost to exclusiveness. He admits of nothing below, scarcely of any
thing above himself. It is fine to hear him talk of the way in which
certain subjects should have been treated by eminent poets, according to
his notions of the art. Thus he finds fault with Dryden's description of
Bacchus in the _Alexander's Feast_, as if he were a mere good-looking
youth, or boon companion--

"Flushed with a purple grace,
He shews his honest face"--

instead of representing the God returning from the conquest of India,
crowned with vine-leaves, and drawn by panthers, and followed by troops
of satyrs, of wild men and animals that he had tamed. You would thank,