with riches fineless.' He would in the other case be 'poor as winter,'
if he had nothing but general capacity to trust to. He is the greatest,
that is, the most original poet of the present day, only because he is
the greatest egotist. He is 'self-involved, not dark.' He sits in the
centre of his own being, and there 'enjoys bright day.' He does not
waste a thought on others. Whatever does not relate exclusively and
wholly to himself is foreign to his views. He contemplates a
whole-length figure of himself, he looks along the unbroken line of his
personal identity. He thrusts aside all other objects, all other
interests, with scorn and impatience, that he may repose on his own
being, that he may dig out the treasures of thought contained in it,
that he may unfold the precious stores of a mind for ever brooding over
itself. His genius is the effect of his individual character. He
stamps that character, that deep individual interest, on whatever he
meets. The object is nothing but as it furnishes food for internal
meditation, for old associations. If there had been no other being in
the universe, Mr. Wordsworth's poetry would have been just what it is.
If there had been neither love nor friendship, neither ambition nor
pleasure nor business in the World, the author of the _Lyrical Ballads_
need not have been greatly changed from what he is--might still have
'kept the noiseless tenour of his way,' retired in the sanctuary of his
own heart, hallowing the Sabbath of his own thoughts. With the
passions, the pursuits, and imaginations of other men he does not
profess to sympathise, but 'finds tongues in the trees, books in the
running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.' With a mind
averse from outward objects, but ever intent upon its own workings, he
hangs a weight of thought and feeling upon every trifling circumstance
connected with his past history. The note of the cuckoo sounds in his
ear like the voice of other years; the daisy spreads its leaves in the
rays of boyish delight that stream from his thoughtful eyes; the rainbow