idle fireside--but, that man or child should think
them worth writing down in blank verse, and printing in magnificent
quarto, we should certainly have supposed altogether impossible, had it
not been for the ample proofs which Mr. Wordsworth has afforded to the
contrary.

Sometimes their silliness is enhanced by a paltry attempt at effect and
emphasis:--as in the following account of that very touching and
extraordinary occurrence of a lamb bleating among the mountains. The
poet would actually persuade us that he thought the mountains themselves
were bleating;--and that nothing could be so grand or impressive.
"List!" cries the old Pedlar, suddenly breaking off in the middle of one
of his daintiest ravings--

--"List!--I heard,
From yon huge breast of rock, a solemn bleat;
Sent forth as if it were the Mountain's voice!
As if the visible Mountain made the cry!
Again!"--The effect upon the soul was such
As he expressed; for, from the Mountain's heart
The solemn bleat appeared to come; there was
No other--and the region all around
Stood silent, empty of all shape of life.
--It was a lamb--left somewhere to itself!

What we have now quoted will give the reader a notion of the taste and
spirit in which this volume is composed; and yet, if it had not
contained something a good deal better, we do not know how we should
have been justified in troubling him with any account of it. But the
truth is, that Mr. Wordsworth, with all his perversities, is a person of
great powers; and has frequently a force in his moral declamations, and
a tenderness in his pathetic narratives, which neither his prolixity nor
his affectation can altogether deprive of their effect.

* * * * *

Besides those more extended passages of interest or beauty, which we
have quoted, and omitted to quote, there are scattered up and down the
book, and in the midst of its most repulsive portions, a very great
number of single lines and images, that sparkle like gems in the desart,
and startle us with an intimation of the great poetic powers that lie
buried in the rubbish that has been heaped around them. It is difficult
to pick up these, after we have once passed them by; but we shall
endeavour to light upon one or two. The beneficial effect of intervals
of relaxation and pastime on youthful minds, is finely expressed, we
think, in a single line, when it is said to be--

Like vernal ground to S