We mean to publish the "Christabel",
therefore, with a long blank-verse poem of Wordsworth's, entitled "The
Pedlar".[3] I assure you I think very differently of "Christabel". I
would rather have written "Ruth", and "Nature's Lady",[4] than a million
such poems. But why do I calumniate my own spirit by saying I would
rather? God knows it is as delightful to me that they "are" written. I
"know" that at present, and I "hope" that it "will" be so; my mind has
"disciplined" itself into a willing exertion of its powers, without any
reference to their comparative value.
I cannot speak favourably of W.'s health, but indeed he has not done
common justice to Dr. Beddoes's kind prescriptions. I saw his
countenance darken, and all his hopes vanish, when he saw the
"prescriptions"--his "scepticism" concerning medicines! nay, it is not
enough "scepticism"! Yet, now that peas and beans are over, I have hopes
that he will in good earnest make a fair and full trial. I rejoice with
sincere joy at Beddoes's recovery.
Wordsworth is fearful you have been much teazed by the printers on his
account, but you can sympathise with him. The works which I gird myself
up to attack as soon as money concerns will permit me, are the "Life of
Lessing", and the "Essay on Poetry". The latter is still more at my
heart than the former: its title would be an essay on the elements of
poetry--it would in reality be a "disguised" system of morals and
politics.
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