ellifluous
extravagance, without giving the unfortunate author the slightest
intimation of his danger. His laudable zeal for the efficacy of his
preachments, he very naturally mistakes for the ardour of poetical
inspiration;--and, while dealing out the high words and glowing phrases
which are so readily supplied by themes of this description, can
scarcely avoid believing that he is eminently original and impressive:--
All sorts of commonplace notions and expressions are sanctified in his
eyes, by the sublime ends for which they are employed; and the mystical
verbiage of the methodist pulpit is repeated, till the speaker
entertains no doubt that he is the elected organ of divine truth and
persuasion. But if such be the common hazards of seeking inspiration
from those potent fountains, it may easily be conceived what chance Mr.
Wordsworth had of escaping their enchantment,--with his natural
propensities to wordiness, and his unlucky habit of debasing pathos with
vulgarity. The fact accordingly is, that in this production he is more
obscure than a Pindaric poet of the seventeenth century; and more
verbose "than even himself of yore"; while the wilfulness with which he
persists in choosing his examples of intellectual dignity and tenderness
exclusively from the lowest ranks of society, will be sufficiently
apparent, from the circumstance of his having thought fit to make his
chief prolocutor in this poetical dialogue, and chief advocate of
Providence and Virtue, _an old Scotch Pedlar_--retired indeed from
business--but still rambling about in his former haunts, and gossiping
among his old customers, without his pack on his shoulders. The other
persons of the drama are, a retired military chaplain, who has grown
half an atheist and half a misanthrope--the wife of an unprosperous
weaver--a servant girl with her infant--a parish pauper, and one or two
other personages of equal rank and dignity.

The character of the work is decidedly didactic; and more than nine-tenths
of it are occupied with a species of dialogue, or rather a series
of long sermons or harangues which pass between the pedlar, the author,
the old chaplain, and a worthy vicar, who entertains the whole party at
dinner on the last day of their excursion. The incidents which occur in
the course of it are as few and trifling as can be imagined;--and those
which the different speakers narrate in the course of their discourses,
are introduced rather to illustrate thei