[336] Cottle says, "The sale was so slow and the severity of most of
the reviews so great that its progress to oblivion seemed to be
certain." But the notices in the Monthly and Critical Reviews (then
the most influential) were fair, and indeed favorable, especially to
Wordsworth's share in the volume. The Monthly says, "So much genius
and originality are discovered in this publication that we wish to
see another from the same hand." The Critical, after saying that "in
the whole range of English, poetry we scarcely recollect anything
superior to a passage in Lines written near Tintern Abbey," sums up
thus: "Yet every piece discovers genius; and ill as the author has
frequently employed his talents, they certainly rank him with the
best of living poets." Such treatment cannot surely be called
discouraging.
[337] A very improbable story of Coleridge's in the Biographia
Literaria represents the two friends as having incurred a suspicion
of treasonable dealings with the French enemy by their constant
references to a certain "Spy Nosey." The story at least seems to show
how they pronounced the name, which was exactly in accordance with
the usage of the last generation in New England.
[338] Wordsworth found (as other original minds have since done) a
hearing in America sooner than in England.
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