ch shows
itself in his dramatic feebleness, and the austerity of character which
caused him to lose his special gifts too early and become a rather
commonplace defender of conservatism; and that curious diffidence (he
assures us that it was 'diffidence') which induced him to write many
thousand lines of blank verse entirely about himself. But the task would
be superfluous as well as ungrateful. It was his aim, he tells us, 'to
console the afflicted; to add sunshine to daylight by making the happy
happier; to teach the young and the gracious of every age to see, to
think, and therefore to become more actively and securely virtuous;'
and, high as was the aim he did much towards its accomplishment.

FOOTNOTES:

[24] J. S. Mill and Whewell were, for their generation, the ablest
exponents of two opposite systems of thought upon such matters. Mill has
expressed his obligations to Wordsworth in his 'Autobiography,' and
Whewell dedicated to Wordsworth his 'Elements of Morality' in
acknowledgment of his influence as a moralist.

[25] The poem of Henry Vaughan, to which reference is often made in this
connection, scarcely contains more than a pregnant hint.

[26] As, for example, in the _Lines on Tintern Abbey_: 'If this be but a
vain belief.'

[27] See Wordsworth's reference to the _Wealth of Nations_, in the
_Prelude_, book xiii.

[28] So, too, in the _Prelude_:--

Then was the truth received into my heart,
That, under heaviest sorrow earth can bring,
If from the affliction somewhere do not grow
Honour which could not else have been, a faith,
An elevation, and a sanctity;
If new strength be not given, nor old restored,
The fault is ours, not Nature's.

_LANDOR'S IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS_

When Mr. Forster brought out the collected edition of Landor's works,
the critics were generally embarrassed. They evaded for the most part
any committal of themselves to an estimate of their author's merits, and
were generally content to say that we might now look forward to a
definitive judgment in the ultimate court of literary appeal. Such an
attitude of suspense was natural enough. Landor is perhaps the most
striking instance in modern literature of a radical divergence of
opinion between the connoisseurs and the mass of readers. The general
public have never been induced to read him, in spite of the lavish
applauses of some self-constituted authorities. One may go further. It
is doubtful w