By and by, we have a piece of namby-pamby “to the Small Celandine,” which we should almost have taken for a professed imitation of one of Mr. Phillips’s prettyisms....

Further on, we find an “Ode to Duty,” in which the lofty vein is very unsuccessfully attempted.  This is the concluding stanza.

    Stern lawgiver! yet thou dost wear
      The Godhead’s most benignant grace;
    Nor know we anything so fair
      As is the smile upon thy face;
    Flowers laugh before thee on their beds;
    And fragrance in thy footing treads;
    Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;
  And the most ancient heavens through thee are fresh and strong.  I. 73.

The two last lines seem to be utterly without meaning; at least we have no sort of conception in what sense Duty can be said to keep the old skies fresh, and the stars from wrong.

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