It may be remembered
that his admiration for Wordsworth was already of long standing, his
boyish enthusiasm having led him, when at Glasgow, to send his tribute
of praise to the author of the "Lyrical Ballads." Some fifteen to twenty
years later,--in one of the numbers of the "Noctes,"--his admiration for
the poet had temporarily cooled somewhat. Then was its aphelion, and
soon it began to return once more toward its central sun. It must have
been transient spleen which dictated such sentences as these:--
"_Tickler_. Wordsworth says that a great poet must be great in all
things.
"_North_. Wordsworth often writes like an idiot; and never more so than
when he said of Milton, 'His soul was like a star, and dwelt apart!' For
it dwelt in tumult, and mischief, and rebellion. Wordsworth is, in all
things, the reverse of Milton,--a good man, and a bad poet.
"_Tickler_. What! that Wordsworth whom Maga cries up as the Prince of
Poets?
"_North_. Be it so: I must humor the fancies of some of my friends.
But had that man been a great poet, he would have produced a deep and
lasting impression on the mind of England; whereas his verses are
becoming less and less known every day, and he is, in good truth,
already one of the illustrious obscure ...
"And yet, with his creed, what might not a great poet have done? That
the language of poetry is but the language of strong human passion! .
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