ma. It was that which forced him to be
sufficiently human. His poems would otherwise, from the extraordinarily
metaphysical character of his genius, have been too recondite to be
understood. His youthful poems, in spite of their unfortunate and
unworthy subjects, and his sonnets also, reveal this tendency. Nothing
can surpass the greatness of Shakspeare where he is at his greatest; but
it is wrong to speak of him as if even he were perfect. He had serious
defects, and not those only proceeding from carelessness. For instance,
in his delineations of character he does not assign as large a place to
religious sentiment as enters into the constitution of human nature
under normal circumstances. If his dramas had more religion in them,
they would be truer representations of man, as well as more elevated,
and of a more searching interest.' Wordsworth used to warn young poets
against writing poetry remote from human interest. Dante he admitted to
be an exception; but he considered that Shelley, and almost all others
who had endeavoured to out-soar the humanities, had suffered deplorably
from the attempt. I once heard him say, 'I have often been asked for
advice by young poets. All the advice I can give may be expressed in two
counsels. First, let Nature be your habitual and pleasurable study,
human nature and material nature; secondly, study carefully those
first-class poets whose fame is universal, not local, and learn from
them: learn from them especially how to observe and how to interpret
Nature.'

Those who knew Wordsworth only from his poetry might have supposed that
he dwelt ever in a region too serene to admit of human agitations. This
was not the fact. There was in his being a region of tumult as well as a
higher region of calm, though it was almost wholly in the latter that
his poetry lived. It turned aside from mere _personal_ excitements; and
for that reason, doubtless, it developed more deeply those special
ardours which belong at once to the higher imagination and to the moral
being. The passion which was suppressed elsewhere burned in his 'Sonnets
to Liberty,' and added a deeper sadness to the 'Yew-trees of
Borrowdale.' But his heart, as well as his imagination, was ardent. When
it spoke most powerfully in his poetry it spoke with a stern brevity
unusual in that poetry, as in the poem 'There is a change and I am
poor,' and the still more remarkable one, 'A slumber did my spirit
seal,' a poem impassioned beyond t