The next piece, entitled "The Beggars," may be taken, in fancy, as a touchstone of Mr. Wordsworth's merit. There is something about it that convinces us it is a favourite of the author's; though to us, we will confess, it appears to be a very paragon of silliness and affectation…. "Alice Fell" is a performance of the same order…. If the printing of such trash as this be not felt as an insult on the public taste, we are afraid it cannot be insulted.
After this follows the longest and most elaborate poem in the volume, under the title of "Resolution and Independence." The poet roving about on a common one fine morning, falls into pensive musings on the fate of the sons of song, which he sums up in this fine distich.
We poets in our youth begin in gladness;
But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness. I, p. 92.
In the midst of his meditations—
I saw a man before me unawares,
The oldest man he seemed that ever wore grey hairs….
The very interesting account, which he is lucky enough at last to comprehend, fills the poet with comfort and admiration; and, quite glad to find the old man so cheerful, he resolves to take a lesson of contentedness from him; and the poem ends with this pious ejaculation—
"God," said I, "be my help and stay secure;
I'll think of the leech-gatherer on the lonely moor." I, p. 97.
We defy the bitterest enemy of Mr. Wordsworth to produce anything at all parallel to this from any collection of English poetry, or even from the specimens of his friend Mr. Southey….
The first poems in the second volume were written during a tour in Scotland. The first is a very dull one about Rob Roy, but the title that attracted us most was "An Address to the Sons of Burns," after visiting their father's grave. Never was anything, however, more miserable…. The next is a very tedious, affected performance, called "The Yarrow Unvisited." … After this we come to some ineffable compositions, which the poet has entitled, "Moods of my own Mind." … We have then a rapturous mystical ode to the Cuckoo; in which the author, striving after force and originality, produces nothing but absurdity … after this there is an address to a butterfly…. We come next to a long story of a "Blind Highland Boy," who lived near an arm of the sea, and had taken a most unnatural desire to venture on that perilous element. His mother did all she could to prevent him; but one morning, when the good woman was out of the way, he got into a vessel of his own, and pushed out from the shore.
In such a vessel ne'er before
Did human creature leave the shore. II, p. 72.