Though it fairly fills four hundred and twenty good quarto pages,
without note, vignette, or any sort of extraneous assistance, it is
stated in the title--with something of an imprudent candour--to be but
"a portion" of a larger work; and in the preface, where an attempt is
rather unsuccessfully made to explain the whole design, it is still more
rashly disclosed, that it is but "a part of the second part of a _long_
and laborious work"--which is to consist of three parts.

What Mr. Wordsworth's ideas of length are, we have no means of
accurately judging; but we cannot help suspecting that they are liberal,
to a degree that will alarm the weakness of most modern readers. As far
as we can gather from the preface, the entire poem--or one of them, for
we really are not sure whether there is to be one or two--is of a
biographical nature; and is to contain the history of the author's mind,
and of the origin and progress of his poetical powers, up to the period
when they were sufficiently matured to qualify him for the great work on
which he has been so long employed. Now, the quarto before us contains
an account of one of his youthful rambles in the vales of Cumberland,
and occupies precisely the period of three days; so that, by the use of
a very powerful _calculus_, some estimate may be formed of the probable
extent of the entire biography.

This small specimen, however, and the statements with which it is
prefaced, have been sufficient to set our minds at rest in one
particular. The case of Mr. Wordsworth, we perceive, is now manifestly
hopeless; and we give him up as altogether incurable, and beyond the
power of criticism. We cannot indeed altogether omit taking precautions
now and then against the spreading of the malady;--but for himself,
though we shall watch the progress of his symptoms as a matter of
professional curiosity and instruction, we really think it right not to