No More Learning

No other sheep was near,--the lamb was all alone,
And by a slender cord was-tether'd to a stone. '

"Now, we have no doubt this is all true: we will believe it, indeed we
will, Mr. W. Is it sympathy for the sheep you wish to excite? I love a
sheep from the bottom of my heart.

"But there are occasions, dear B-, there are occasions when even
Wordsworth is reasonable. Even Stamboul, it is said, shall have an end,
and the most unlucky blunders must come to a conclusion. Here is an
extract from his preface:-

"'Those who have been accustomed to the phraseology of modem writers, if
they persist in reading this book to a conclusion _(impossible! ) will,
_no doubt, have to struggle with feelings of awkwardness; (ha! ha! ha! )
they will look round for poetry (ha! ha! ha! ha!
), and will be induced
to inquire by what species of courtesy these attempts have been
permitted to assume that title. ' Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

"Yet, let not Mr. W. despair; he has given immortality to a wagon, and
the bee Sophocles has transmitted to eternity a sore toe, and dignified
a tragedy with a chorus of turkeys.

"Of Coleridge, I can not speak but with reverence. His towering
intellect! his gigantic power! To use an author quoted by himself,
_'Tai trouve souvent que la plupart des sectes ont raison dans une bonne
partie de ce qu'elles avancent, mais non pas en ce qu'elles nient,' and
_to employ his own language, he has imprisoned his own conceptions by
the barrier he has erected against those of others. It is lamentable to
think that such a mind should be buried in metaphysics, and, like the
Nyctanthes, waste its perfume upon the night alone. In reading that
man's poetry, I tremble like one who stands upon a volcano, conscious
from the very darkness bursting from the crater, of the fire and the
light that are weltering below.

"What is poetry?