general tone in which the work was received. The judgment of the
reviewers influenced popular taste; and the book was as decided a
pecuniary failure as Wordsworth's previous ventures had been.

And here, perhaps, is a fit occasion to speak of that strangely
violent detraction and abuse which formed so large an ingredient in
Wordsworth's life,--or rather, of that which is the only element of
permanent interest in such a matter,--his manner of receiving and
replying to it. No writer, probably, who has afterwards achieved a
reputation at all like Wordsworth's, has been so long represented by
reviewers as purely ridiculous. And in Wordsworth's manner of
acceptance of this fact we may discern all the strength, and
something of the stiffness, of his nature; we may recognize an almost,
but not quite, ideal attitude under the shafts of unmerited obloquy.
For he who thus is arrogantly censured should remember both the
dignity and the frailty of man; he should wholly forgive, and almost
wholly forget; but, nevertheless, should retain such serviceable
hints as almost any criticism, however harsh or reckless, can afford,
and go on his way with no bitter broodings, but yet (to use
Wordsworth's expression in another context) "with a melancholy in
the soul, a sinking inward into ourselves from thought to thought, a
steady remonstrance, and a high resolve."

How far his own self-assertion may becomingly be carried in reply,
is another and a delicate question. There is almost necessarily
something distasteful to us not only in self-praise but even in a
thorough self-appreciation. We desire of the ideal character that
his faculties of admiration should be, as it were, absorbed in an
eager perception of the merits of others,--that a kind of shrinking
delicacy should prevent him from appraising his own achievements