_This neighbor’s own opinion has, in like manner, been adopted from one
      above him, and so, ascendingly, to a few gifted individuals who kneel
      around the summit, beholding, face to face, the master spirit who stands
      upon the pinnacle. “You are aware of the great barrier in the path of an American writer. He
      is read, if at all, in preference to the combined and established wit of
      the world. I say established; for it is with literature as with law or
      empire-an established name is an estate in tenure, or a throne in
      possession. Besides, one might suppose that books, like their authors,
      improve by travel-their having crossed the sea is, with us, so great a
      distinction. Our antiquaries abandon time for distance; our very fops
      glance from the binding to the bottom of the title-page, where the mystic
      characters which spell London, Paris, or Genoa, are precisely so many
      letters of recommendation. “I mentioned just now a vulgar error as regards criticism. I think the
      notion that no poet can form a correct estimate of his own writings is
      another. I remarked before that in proportion to the poetical talent would
      be the justice of a critique upon poetry. Therefore a bad poet would, I
      grant, make a false critique, and his self-love would infallibly bias his
      little judgment in his favor; but a poet, who is indeed a poet, could not,
      I think, fail of making-a just critique; whatever should be deducted on
      the score of self-love might be replaced on account of his intimate
      acquaintance with the subject; in short, we have more instances of false
      criticism than of just where one’s own writings are the test, simply
      because we have more bad poets than good. There are, of course, many
      objections to what I say: Milton is a great example of the contrary; but
      his opinion with respect to the ‘Paradise Regained’ is by no means fairly
      ascertained. By what trivial circumstances men are often led to assert
      what they do not really believe! Perhaps an inadvertent word has descended
      to posterity. But, in fact, the ‘Paradise Regained’ is little, if at all,
      inferior to the ‘Paradise Lost,’ and is only supposed so to be because men
      do not like epics, whatever they may say to the contrary, and, reading
      those of Milton in their natural order, are too much wearied with the
      first to derive any pleasure from the second. “I dare say Milton preferred ‘Comus’ to either-. if so-justly. “As I am speaking of poetry, it will not be amiss to touch slightly upon
      the most singular heresy in its modern history-the heresy of what is
      called, very foolishly, the Lake School. Some years ago I might have been
      induced, by an occasion like the present, to attempt a formal refutation
      of their doctrine; at present it would be a work of supererogation. The
      wise must bow to the wisdom of such men as Coleridge and Southey, but,
      being wise, have laughed at poetical theories so prosaically exemplifled. “Aristotle, with singular assurance, has declared poetry the most
      philosophical of all writings*-but it required a Wordsworth to pronounce
      it the most metaphysical. He seems to think that the end of poetry is, or
      should be, instruction; yet it is a truism that the end of our existence
      is happiness; if so, the end of every separate part of our existence,
      everything connected with our existence, should be still happiness. Therefore the end of instruction should be happiness; and happiness is
      another name for pleasure;-therefore the end of instruction should be
      pleasure: yet we see the above-mentioned opinion implies precisely the
      reverse. “To proceed: _ceteris paribus_, he who pleases is of more importance
      to his fellow-men than he who instructs, since utility is happiness, and
      pleasure is the end already obtained which instruction is merely the means
      of obtaining. “I see no reason, then, why our metaphysical poets should plume themselves
      so much on the utility of their works, unless indeed they refer to
      instruction with eternity in view; in which case, sincere respect for
      their piety would not allow me to express my contempt for their judgment;
      contempt which it would be difficult to conceal, since their writings are
      professedly to be understood by the few, and it is the many who stand in
      need of salvation. In such case I should no doubt be tempted to think of
      the devil in ‘Melmoth.’ who labors indefatigably, through three octavo
      volumes, to accomplish the destruction of one or two souls, while any
      common devil would have demolished one or two thousand. “Against the subtleties which would make poetry a study-not a passion-it
becomes the metaphysician to reason-but the poet to protest. Yet Wordsworth and Coleridge are men in years; the one imbued in
contemplation from his childhood; the other a giant in intellect and
learning. The diffidence, then, with which I venture to dispute their
authority would be overwhelming did I not feel, from the bottom of my
heart, that learning has little to do with the imagination-intellect
with the passions-or age with poetry. “‘Trifles, like straws, upon the surface flow;
     He who would search for pearls must dive below,’

      are lines which have done much mischief. As regards the greater truths,
      men oftener err by seeking them at the bottom than at the top; Truth lies
      in the huge abysses where wisdom is sought-not in the palpable palaces
      where she is found. The ancients were not always right in hiding—the
      goddess in a well; witness the light which Bacon has thrown upon
      philosophy; witness the principles of our divine faith—that moral
      mechanism by which the simplicity of a child may overbalance the wisdom of
      a man. “We see an instance of Coleridge’s liability to err, in his ‘Biographia
      Literaria’—professedly his literary life and opinions, but, in fact,
      a treatise _de omni scibili et quibusdam aliis. _He goes wrong by
      reason of his very profundity, and of his error we have a natural type in
      the contemplation of a star. He who regards it directly and intensely
      sees, it is true, the star, but it is the star without a ray-while he who
      surveys it less inquisitively is conscious of all for which the star is
      useful to us below-its brilliancy and its beauty. “As to Wordsworth, I have no faith in him.