eness of the inspired poems.
You must be able to be interested in the description of Simon Lee's
personal appearance, and not mind his wife, an aged woman, being made to
rhyme with the Village Common. Even the Idiot Boy should not be a
stumbling-block to you; and your having learned The Pet Lamb in the
nursery is no reason why you should dislike it now. They all have their
beauties; there is always some gem, more or less bright, to be found in
them; and the pages of _The Prelude_ are strewn with precious jewels. I
have had it with me so often in happy country places that merely to open
it and read that first cry of relief and delight--'Oh there is blessing
in this gentle breeze!'--brings back the dearest remembrances of fresh
and joyous hours. And how wholesome to be reminded when the days are
rainy and things look blank of the many joyous hours one has had. Every
instant of happiness is a priceless possession for ever.

That morning my _Prelude_ fell open at the Residence in London, a part
where the gems are not very thick, and the satisfying properties
extremely developed. My eye lighted on the bit where he goes for a walk
in the London streets, and besides a Nurse, a Bachelor, a Military
Idler, and a Dame with Decent Steps--figures with which I too am
familiar--he sees--

... with basket at his breast
The Jew; the stately and slow-moving Turk
With freight of slipper piled beneath his arm....
The Swede, the Russian; from the genial south
The Frenchman and the Spaniard; from remote
America, the Hunter-Indian; Moors,
Malays, Lascars, the Tartar, the Chinese,
And Negro Ladies in white muslin gowns

--figures which are not, at any rate, to be met in the streets of
Berlin. I am afraid to say that this is not poetry, for perhaps it is
only I do not know it; but after all one can only judge according to
one's lights, and no degree of faintness and imperfection in the lights
will ever stop any one from judging; therefore I will have the courage
of my opinions, and express my firm conviction that it is not poetry at
all. But the passage set me off musing. That is the pleasant property of
_The Prelude_, it makes one at the end of every few lines pause and
muse. And presently the image of the Negro Ladies in their white muslin
gowns faded, and those other lines, children of the self-same spirit but
conceived in the mood when it was divine, stood out in shining letters--