Critical and Miscellaneous Essays - v. 2 Author:John Wilson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: rc AN ESSAY ON THE THEORY AND THE WRITINGS OF WORDSWORTH. (Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 1829.) PART I. It appears to me that the poetry of Wordswor... more »th, always estimated too rapturously, or too virulently depreciated, has never been placed on its proper level. " Then, of course," cries the critic, " you imagine yourself competent to fix it in its appropriate station." If I were to say no, you would not believe me ; and if I say yes, I go beyond the truth. A man, when he professes to treat of a subject, is always supposed, by courtesy, to be master of that subject. He is obliged to place himself in the situation of a teacher, and to regard those whom he addresses as his pupils, although he may be conscious that his powers are below those of some who grant him their attention. This compelled tone of superiority, this involuntary dictatorship, must, more especially, be admitted as an excuse for laying down the law in matters of taste. Subjects oT science, indeed, may be handled with precision ; and any one, after going through a certain course of study and experiment may, without arrogance, assert, " These things are so." Moral and sacred subjects again may appeal to a fixed standard. But subjects that relate to taste and feeling;- admit not of such exactness. In these every man is a law ifn'fo himself, and "he"whose"fs Kmself up for a lecturer on taste can, after all, only give his own opinion", and leave others to adopt it or not, according to their several notion?" of right jand wrong, beauty and deformity. One qualification, at least,.! possess for the task I have undertaken. I have read, as I believe, every line that Wordsworth ever published. Critic, canst thou say as much? My first endeavour will be to show that Wordsworth's genius is overrated by his partisans;...« less