It was natural in the early days of Wordsworth's career to dwell most
fondly on those profounder qualities to appreciate which settled in some
sort the measure of a man's right to judge of poetry at all. But now we
must admit the shortcomings, the failures, the defects, as no less
essential elements in forming a sound judgment as to whether the seer and
artist were so united in him as to justify the claim first put in by
himself and afterwards maintained by his sect to a place beside the few
great poets who exalt men's minds, and give a right direction and safe
outlet to their passions through the imagination, while insensibly
helping them toward balance of character and serenity of judgment by
stimulating their sense of proportion, form, and the nice adjustment of
means to ends. In none of our poets has the constant propulsion of an
unbending will, and the concentration of exclusive, if I must not say
somewhat narrow, sympathies done so much to make the original endowment
of nature effective, and in none accordingly does the biography throw so
much light on the works, nor enter so largely into their composition as
an element whether of power or of weakness. Wordsworth never saw, and I
think never wished to see, beyond the limits of his own consciousness and
experience.
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