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metrical form into which he casts his language delights the reader 

 or hearer, by ' the succession of pleasurable surprises ' M'hich it 

 gives, and rhyme adds an additional delight. 



Now, it is doubtless true that, if we remove all the crude 

 phrases used by men in a state of vivid emotion, the natural 

 language they then employ is sometimes the choicest. But, this 

 ' natural language ' before it is fitted • for the purposes of poetic 

 expression, must pass through a further process of refining, in the 

 alembic of the poet's own soul. The language of real life, if it be 

 natural, spontaneous, and unconscious, very often assumes a poetic 

 form ; but the conversational style of speech, however simple and 

 natural, could never become the sole, or the highest style for 

 literary or artistic expression. The most animated and brilliant 

 conversational style does not make the best literary style ; and the 

 choicest language of real life must come forth from the poetic mint 

 — not in the hard, realistic shape in which it entered in, nor, on the 

 other hand, artificialised by its presence there — but recast in a form 

 of ideal grace, the ' naturalness ' of its original form preserved, and 

 a new adequacy imparted to it. This much may fairly be said in 

 in criticism of Wordsworth's theory, as to the language of which the 

 poet should make use. 



In the preface to the first edition of the Lyrical Ballads he 

 says that his aim was ''to ascertain how far the language and 

 conversation of men in the middle and lower classes of society is 

 adapted to the purposes of poetic pleasure;" and, in the second 

 edition, he describes it as " an experiment." His own practice 

 was better than his theory, and in part disproved it. No doubt, he 

 frequently carried out the latter consistently, to the verge of a bald 

 literalism ; and it was easy for the critics to hold up to ridicule the 

 " tub" of the Wind boy, and the "swollen ancles" of Simon Lee. 

 But on the other hand, had Wordsworth not carried the realistic 

 tendency at times too far, it may be doubted if the literary world, 

 in his own and the next generation, would have learned to 

 appraise it truly. It is to be fiirther observed, that what his 

 theory sanctions, and tends to, is the use, not of the language of 

 common life, but that of simple, natural, unaffected life. 



