The meeting of the Wordsworth Society on Thursday was distinguished
by a very thoughtful address from the President for the year, Mr. J. Russell Lowell, the Minister of the United States, who, sticking to his constant rule, indulged in no eulogy of Wordsworth, and gave him what some. Words- worthians may have thought a somewhat scant appreciation. However, it is clear enough that Mr. Lowell can feel the magic of many of Wordsworth's poems. He admitted, considering who the devotees of Wordsworth are and have been, that they are themselves sufficient witnesses to the rare power of the poet ; and then he went on :—" If Wordsworth was to be judged by passages or single poems, no one capable of forming an opinion would hesitate to pronounce him a great poet, convinced in one case by the style, in the other by the force that radiated from him. He seemed to produce fire by rubbing the dry sticks of his verse together while we stood shivering. On the other hand, even as a teacher, he was often too much a pedagogue. Words- worth had no dramatic power, and narrative power next to none.. For example, when be undertook to tell a story his per- sonages were apt to be lost in the landscape, or kept waiting while the poet mused on its suggestions. He had no sense of proportion, no instinct of discrimination or of subordination ; all his thoughts, emotions, and sensations were of equal' value in his eyes." That is stinted praise, but the blame is true, and the truth of a true critic.
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