One great beauty of diction exists only for those who have some degree of scholarship or critical skill.  This is what depends on the exquisite propriety of the words employed, and the delicacy with which they are adapted to the meaning which is to be expressed.  Many of the finest passages in Virgil and Pope derive their principal charm from the fine propriety of their diction.  Another source of beauty, which extends only to the more instructed class of readers, is that which consists in the judicious or happy application of expressions which have been sanctified by the use of famous writers, or which bear the stamp of a simple or venerable antiquity.  There are other beauties of diction, however, which are perceptible by all—­the beauties of sweet sounds and pleasant associations.  The melody of words and verses is indifferent to no reader of poetry; but the chief recommendation of poetical language is certainly derived from those general associations, which give it a character of dignity or elegance, sublimity or tenderness.  Everyone knows that there are low and mean expressions, as well as lofty and grave ones; and that some words bear the impression of coarseness and vulgarity, as clearly as others do of refinement and affection.  We do not mean, of course, to say anything in defiance of the hackneyed commonplace of ordinary versemen.  Whatever might have been the original character of these unlucky phrases, they are now associated with nothing but ideas of schoolboy imbecility and vulgar affectation.  But what we do maintain is, that much of the most popular poetry in the world owes its celebrity chiefly to the beauty of its diction; and that no poetry can be long or generally acceptable, the language of which is coarse, inelegant, or infantine.

From this great source of pleasure, we think the readers of Mr. Wordsworth are in great measure cut off.  His diction has nowhere any pretensions to elegance or dignity; and he has scarcely ever condescended to give the grace of correctness or melody to his versification.  If it were merely slovenly or neglected, however, all this might be endured.  Strong sense and powerful feeling will ennoble any expressions; or, at least, no one who is capable of estimating these higher merits, will be disposed to mark these little defects.  But, in good truth, no man, now-a-days, composes verses for publication, with a slovenly neglect of their language.  It is a fine and laborious manufacture, which can scarcely ever be made in a hurry; and the faults which it has, may, for the most part, be set down to bad taste or incapacity, rather than to carelessness or oversight.  With Mr. Wordsworth and his friends it is plain that their peculiarities of diction are things of choice, and not of accident.  They write as they do, upon principle and system; and it evidently costs them much pains to keep down to the standard which they have proffered themselves.  They are to the full as much mannerists, too, as the