the strict affinity of metrical language with that of prose, and
paves the way for other artificial distinctions which the mind
voluntarily admits, I answer that the language of such poetry as I
am recommending is, as far as is possible, a selection of the
language really spoken by men; that this selection, wherever it is
made with true taste and feeling, will of itself form a distinction
far greater than would at first be imagined, and will entirely
separate the composition from the vulgarity and meanness of ordinary
life; and if metre be superadded thereto, I believe that a
dissimilitude will be produced altogether sufficient for the
gratification of a rational mind. What other distinction would we
hare? Whence is it to come? And where is it to exist?"

There is a definiteness and simplicity about this description
of poetry which may well make us wonder why this precious thing
(producible, apparently, as easily as Pope's imitators supposed,
although by means different from theirs) is not offered to us by
more persons, and of better quality. And it will not be hard to show
that a good poetical style must possess certain characteristics,
which, although something like them must exist in a good prose style,
are carried in poetry to a pitch so much higher as virtually to need
a specific faculty for their successful production.

To illustrate the inadequacy of Wordsworth's theory to explain the
merits of his own poetry, I select a stanza from one of his simplest
and most characteristic poems--_The Affliction of Margaret_:--

Perhaps some dungeon hears thee groan,
Maimed, mangled by inhuman men,
Or thou upon a Desert thrown