Thirdly--Mr. Landor
leaves it doubtful what verses those are of Wordsworth's which celebrate
the power 'of the Pagan creed;' whether that sonnet in which Wordsworth
wishes to exchange for glimpses of human life, _then and in those
circumstances_, 'forlorn,' the sight
'----Of Proteus coming from the sea,
And hear old Triton wind his wreathed horn;'
whether this, or the passage on the Greek mythology in 'The Excursion.'
Whichever he means, I am the last man to deny that it is beautiful, and
especially if he means the latter. But it is no presumption to deny firmly
Mr. Landor's assertion, that these are 'the best verses Wordsworth ever
wrote.' Bless the man!
'There are a thousand such elsewhere,
As worthy of your wonder:'--
Elsewhere, I mean, in Wordsworth's poems. In reality it is
_impossible_ that these should be the best; for even if, in the
executive part, they were so, which is not the case, the very nature of
the thought, of the feeling, and of the relation, which binds it to the
general theme, and the nature of that theme itself, forbid the possibility
of merits so high. The whole movement of the feeling is fanciful: it
neither appeals to what is deepest in human sensibilities, nor is meant to
do so. The result, indeed, serves only to show Mr. Landor's slender
acquaintance with Wordsworth. And what is worse than being slenderly
acquainted, he is erroneously acquainted even with these two short
breathings from the Wordsworthian shell.
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