e on the part of a poet an amount of egotism,
placing interest in himself above interest in the subjects treated by
him, which could not belong to a true poet caring for the elements of
poetry in their right proportion, and designing to bring to bear upon
the minds of his readers the best influences at his command in the way
best calculated to make them effectual. I felt that his ground of
objection made me revere him the more both as a man and as a poet; yet I
retained the opinion that much might be said on the reader's part in the
case of a great poet for such an arrangement of his poems as I had been
suggesting, and I welcomed in after-days the concession made by him in
consenting to put dates to the poems, while adhering to their
classification according to subject or predominant element.

_Verbal Criticism_.--Wordsworth not only sympathised with the feelings
expressed in Southey's touching lines upon The Dead, but admired very
much the easy flow of the verse and the perfect freedom from strain in
the expression by which they are marked. Yet in the first two stanzas he
noted three flaws, and suggested changes by which they might have been
easily avoided. I have underlined the words he took exception to:

'My days among the dead are past;
Around me I behold,

Where'er _these casual eyes_ are cast,
The mighty minds of old;
My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I _converse_ day by day.

With them I take delight in weal,
And seek relief in woe;
And while I understand and feel
How much to them I owe,
My cheeks have often been bedew'd
With tears of thoughtful gratitude.'

In the first stanza, for 'Where'er _these casual eyes_ are cast,' which
he objected to as not simple and natural, and as scarcely correct, he
suggested 'Where'er _a casual look I cast_;' and for '_converse_,' the
accent of which he condemned as belonging to the noun and not to the
verb, he suggested '_commune_.' In the second stanza he pointed out the
improper sequence of tenses in the third and fifth lines, which he
corrected by reading in the latter '_My cheeks are oftentimes bedew'd_.'
Of the narrative poems of his friend, well executed as he considered
them, and of the mainly external action of imagination or fancy in which
they deal, I have certainly heard him pronounce a very depreciatory
opinion; whether I ever heard him use the hard words attributed to him,
'I would not g