The measure of themselves, &c.

Wordsworth's _Excursion_, B. i.

This admired passage has its prototype in the following from the
_Lettere di Battista Guarini_, who points to a thought of similar kind
in Dante:--

"O quante nolili ingegni si perdono che riuscerebbe mirabili [in poesia]
se dal seguir le inchinazione loro non fossero, ò dà loro appetiti ò da
i Padri loro sviati."

Coleridge, in his _Bibliographia Literaria_, 1st ed., vol. i. p. 28.,
relates a story of some one who desired {83} to be introduced to him,
but hesitated because he asserted that he had written an epigram on "The
Ancient Mariner," which Coleridge had himself written and inserted in
_The Morning Post_, to this effect:--

"Your poem must eternal be
Dear Sir! it cannot fail;
For 'tis incomprehensible,
And without head or tail."

This was, however, only a Gadshill robbery,--stealing stolen goods. The
following epigram is said to be by Mr. Hole, in a MS. collection made by
Spence (penes me), and it appeared first in print in _Terræ Filius_,
from whence Dr. Salter copied it in his _Confusion worse Confounded_, p.
88:--

"Thy verses are eternal, O my friend!