, that it is not worth repeating. If the poem had ended more
originally, in short, but for the last stanza, I will venture to affirm
that there were never so many lines which so uninterruptedly combined
natural and beautiful words with strict philosophic truths, "i.e.",
scientifically philosophic. Of the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth,
and seventh stanzas, I am doubtful which is the most beautiful. Do not
imagine that I cling to a fond love of future identity, but the thought
which you have expressed in the last stanzas might be more grandly, and
therefore more consolingly exemplified. I had forgot to say that
sameness and identity are words too etymologically the same to be placed
so close to each other.
As to myself, I am doing little worthy the relation. I write for Stuart
in the "Morning Post", and I am compelled by the god Pecunia, which was
one name of the supreme Jupiter, to give a volume of letters from
Germany, which will be a decent "lounge" book, and not an atom more. The
"Christabel" was running up to 1,300 lines, and was so much admired by
Wordsworth, that he thought it indelicate to print two volumes with his
name, in which so much of another man's was included; and which was of
more consequence, the poem was in direct opposition to the very purpose
for which the lyrical ballads were published, viz., an experiment to see
how far those passions which alone give any value to extraordinary
incidents were capable of interesting in and for themselves in the
incidents of common life.
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