public taste, we are afraid it cannot be insulted.

After this follows the longest and most elaborate poem in the volume,
under the title of "Resolution and Independence." The poet roving about
on a common one fine morning, falls into pensive musings on the fate of
the sons of song, which he sums up in this fine distich.

We poets in our youth begin in gladness;
But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness. I, p. 92.

In the midst of his meditations--

I saw a man before me unawares,
The oldest man he seemed that ever wore grey hairs....

The very interesting account, which he is lucky enough at last to
comprehend, fills the poet with comfort and admiration; and, quite glad
to find the old man so cheerful, he resolves to take a lesson of
contentedness from him; and the poem ends with this pious ejaculation--

"God," said I, "be my help and stay secure;
I'll think of the leech-gatherer on the lonely moor." I, p. 97.

We defy the bitterest enemy of Mr. Wordsworth to produce anything at all
parallel to this from any collection of English poetry, or even from the
specimens of his friend Mr. Southey....

The first poems in the second volume were written during a tour in
Scotland. The first is a very dull one about Rob Roy, but the title that
attracted us most was "An Address to the Sons of Burns," after visiting