A CEITICISM OF LIFE? 323 



worth, Dryden, Voltaire, Leopardi, Klopstock, and all the 

 rest of them for the stakes of poetical primacy, and to 

 announce with a flourish of critical trumpets that Wordsworth 

 is the winner, as to run the moss-rose against the jessamine, 

 carnation, clematis, crown imperial, double daisy, and other 

 favourites of the flower-garden. Lovers of poets and of 

 flowers will have their partialities ; and those who have best 

 cultivated powers of reflection and expression will most 

 plausibly support their preference with arguments. There 

 the matter ends ; for, both in the case of the poets and the 

 flowers, the qualities which stimulate our several admirations 

 are too various in kind to be compared. Mr. Arnold has 

 undoubtedly given excellent reasons for the place he assigns 

 to Wordsworth. But it is dangerous for Wordsworth's 

 advocate to prove too much. He has already gained a firm, 

 a permanent, an honourable place upon the muster-roll of 

 English poets. Why undertake the task of proving him the 

 greatest ? Parnassus is a sort of heaven, and we know what 

 answer was given to the sons of Zebedee. 



The final test of greatness in a poet is his adequacy to 

 human nature at its best ; his feeling for the balance of sense, 

 emotion, will, intellect in moral harmony ; his faculty for 

 regarding the whole of life, and representing it in all its 

 largeness. If this be true, dramatic and epical poetry must 

 be the most enduring, the most instructive monuments of 

 creative genius in verse. These forms bring into quickest 

 play and present in fullest activity the many-sided motives 

 of our life on earth. Yet the lyrist has a sphere scarcely 

 second in importance to that of the epic and dramatic poets. 

 The thought and feeling he expresses may, if his nature be 

 adequate, embrace the whole gamut of humanity ; and if his 

 expression be sufficient, he may give the form of universality 

 to his experience, creating magic mirrors wherein all men 

 shall see their own hearts reflected and glorified without 

 violation of reality or truth. Wordsworth's fame will rest 

 upon his lyrics, if we extend the term to include his odes, 

 sonnets, and some narrative poems in stanzas on these, and 

 on a few of his meditative pieces in blank verse. His long 



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